William Shatner and Star Wars
Believe it or not, I can sort of relate the two topics ;)
We watched the Roast of William Shatner tonight (I missed it last week so I downloaded a copy). It was disappointing. I'd never seen a roast before; I imagined it would be a bunch of clips of stupid/crazy things the person did and people telling jokes about him. But mostly it was people telling jokes about each other. Maybe one joke in ten was directed to Shatner. And most of them were pretty dirty jokes, which I can generally do without. So I was disappointed with it.
And admittedly, I was hoping there'd be a few references to Boston Legal. Why wasn't James Spader there? Or Candice Bergen? How come nobody mentioned Denny Crane? Obviously Shatner's famous for playing Captain Kirk. But he plays Denny now and has been rather successful doing so; he won supporting actor Emmys two years in a row. (And that's another thing; I wanted him to win tonight. And Candice. And why wasn't James Spader even nominated?) Wouldn't you think someone would want to plug the show he's on now, free advertising or something? The only other BL castmember there was Betty White.
So anyway, I was disappointed in the Roast. But when I turned it off I managed to catch the last three or four minutes of Attack of the Clones. Although I have numerous problems with AOTC, especially the Anakin/Padme bits, I have to admit I adore the last two minutes. All the stormtroopers marching into their Star Destroyer ships, still technically the "good guys." The Imperial March all militant and triumphant. Palpatine overseeing it all. Dramatic irony! The characters (except Palpatine, I guess) still think they're doing what's right. Their intentions are good. But this is the beginning of the end. We know what happens next, what the consequences of their actions will be. (If you haven't figured it out yet, I love dramatic irony. And inevitability.)
And then the music swells and turns into the A/P love theme, and the scene cuts to Naboo, where Anakin and Padme are getting married. And the dramatic irony feeling of the last scene seems to overshadow this one. Here are these two young stupid kids getting married, defying the Jedi code, desperately trying to stay together. To hell with the consequences. They think they're beginning their life together. They have hopes and dreams. They're so painfully naive. And there's this sick sense of inevitability. We know that this is the beginning of the end for Anakin and Padme, too. The beginning of Anakin's downward spiral into darkness and madness. And that's tragic, to me. I'm not explaining it very well, but in my head it's beautiful {g}.
And now I've complained about how Boston Legal always gets the shaft and waxed poetic about Star Wars. My work here is done.
We watched the Roast of William Shatner tonight (I missed it last week so I downloaded a copy). It was disappointing. I'd never seen a roast before; I imagined it would be a bunch of clips of stupid/crazy things the person did and people telling jokes about him. But mostly it was people telling jokes about each other. Maybe one joke in ten was directed to Shatner. And most of them were pretty dirty jokes, which I can generally do without. So I was disappointed with it.
And admittedly, I was hoping there'd be a few references to Boston Legal. Why wasn't James Spader there? Or Candice Bergen? How come nobody mentioned Denny Crane? Obviously Shatner's famous for playing Captain Kirk. But he plays Denny now and has been rather successful doing so; he won supporting actor Emmys two years in a row. (And that's another thing; I wanted him to win tonight. And Candice. And why wasn't James Spader even nominated?) Wouldn't you think someone would want to plug the show he's on now, free advertising or something? The only other BL castmember there was Betty White.
So anyway, I was disappointed in the Roast. But when I turned it off I managed to catch the last three or four minutes of Attack of the Clones. Although I have numerous problems with AOTC, especially the Anakin/Padme bits, I have to admit I adore the last two minutes. All the stormtroopers marching into their Star Destroyer ships, still technically the "good guys." The Imperial March all militant and triumphant. Palpatine overseeing it all. Dramatic irony! The characters (except Palpatine, I guess) still think they're doing what's right. Their intentions are good. But this is the beginning of the end. We know what happens next, what the consequences of their actions will be. (If you haven't figured it out yet, I love dramatic irony. And inevitability.)
And then the music swells and turns into the A/P love theme, and the scene cuts to Naboo, where Anakin and Padme are getting married. And the dramatic irony feeling of the last scene seems to overshadow this one. Here are these two young stupid kids getting married, defying the Jedi code, desperately trying to stay together. To hell with the consequences. They think they're beginning their life together. They have hopes and dreams. They're so painfully naive. And there's this sick sense of inevitability. We know that this is the beginning of the end for Anakin and Padme, too. The beginning of Anakin's downward spiral into darkness and madness. And that's tragic, to me. I'm not explaining it very well, but in my head it's beautiful {g}.
And now I've complained about how Boston Legal always gets the shaft and waxed poetic about Star Wars. My work here is done.