(no subject)
So I'm not at work 'til next Thursday. It is likely my boss will ask co-workers once per day or more where I am.
In a meeting yesterday, he said 'blah blah blah...you can do that tomorrow...' to which I responded 'um, no...I'll be on leave, remember?'. Then when I was leaving for the day - a scant 5 hours later - he said 'oh, in the morning, I will be blah blah blah blah...'. I didn't bother telling him again I'd be away, I just smiled and walked off.
Today I slept in (not by much - stupid brain making me get up!) and bummed around online a bit. Then I went to the Gods at ANU and had lunch with drealle and joybon, which was faberific. I always enjoy spending time with both of them - they are always so chipper! A friend of joybon's from Germany turned up (and, friend, if you are reading, I didn't catch your name, then felt too embarrassed to ask a second time - sorry!).
drealle and I went shopping for a cocktail book for her impending birthdayness. I informed her that what I had been going to get her for her birthday didn't actually exist, and I'd have to think of something else. (and have, so...hope it's as good as the first idea!). Didn't get a cocktails book, as the ANU was surprisingly short of same. I guess they expect UNI students to drink cheaper booze.
Then came home, and hung around for a bit... and went to see Episode III.
Spoilers are coming a bit further down. I'll cut when they happen, because by 'spoilers' I mean 'a shitload of spoilers'
One of my friends had said 'oh, we should go at lunchtime, no-one will be there'. Then he decided that 4:30 was a good time.
Because, sure, it wasn't full of 13 year olds. No, never! Not at all!
sheesh.
Oh, and - hoyts, what are you thinking? There are special movie tie-in M+M's (Or M's, if you prefer) of dark chocolate. And none were for sale! Dumb bastards.
Ok, here we go. How do you do a cut again?
.
I'll start with the problems. This may take a while
Firstly, Hayden christian is still a dick. Less than in II, but a dick.
From the start, there are some cool but slightly rational things throughout the film. The little droid-things that get on Obi-wan's fighter and start to dismantle it are *cool* - but an explosive just works better!
The rest of the first chunk of film - up to where they fight general grievous (a stupid name, Mr Lucas.). General Grievous was one of the films problems, for me - the evil robot general with emphisema - who was just useless as hell. Oh no, not with the 4 lightsabers that you SUCK with! The fight with Douku was pretty cool. Anikin doesn't notice that palpatine is, um, hell evil, but he is a stupid son of a bitch, so whatever. R2 is cool.
Then they somehow land half a spacecruiser (also know as 'a rock') on corusant without killing 20 million people. Lucky that runway was there!
Most of the film up to the point where grievous dies is...adequate. It's a bit slower paced than it needs to be, but works fairly well. Oh, except: the Kyshyyyk shown in the film is nothing like shown in any of the games or books it is in. I know they aren't the films, but... Kyshyyyk has a rich history outside the films that I wouldn't have expected to be so quickly thrown away.
Then we get to the scene where mace and his boys go for the emperor. This starts really cool - the emperor smashing the first guys is fab- and then he slows down a fair amount to fight mace. And then their is one of the bits in the film which you can't help but laugh at - mace is about to kill palpatine and then palpatine channels cartman. "neeeeeeeeewooooo. Nnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooo' It is fully idiotic.
So, the emperor manages to melt half his own face off with the force lightning he uses (funny how it doesn't have this effect on anyone else. Perhaps he had had a whole lot of plastic surgery. I hear that sometimes melts and makes you face drop massively). Anikin joins him for - frankly - fairly flimsy reasons - and sets off to kill the rest of the Jedi. Wails on some little children. The rest are betrayed by the clone troops with them on various planets. This leads you to two conclusions
1) Most of the Jedi have really, really bad force senses and cannot fight for shit. I mean, most of them are attacked by maybe a dozen stormies. And surprised by them! These guys deserved a better death than this. At least a couple of them should have been at the academy and had fights with aniken - who, lets face it, across the six films kills exactly 1 decent Jedi in what could be called a real fight (Mace is surprised and already wounded by palpatine. Kenobi lets himself die. The Emperor he just throws in a pit. It's only really Douku at the start of this film). And he gets the crap beaten out of him really quite a lot! (By Luke in Jedi, by Obi wan, and by Douku in episode II). Sheesh, why is everyone afraid of this Vader guy? He is a freaking pansy!
2) There are only about 12 actual Jedi, and a bunch of trainees. Wooo! Man, who cares?
Plus, you could have just, you know, bombed the academy from orbit.
Anyway, then you get to the two interesting fights - vader and kenobi, and the emperor and Yoda. Both are pretty cool. E vY has some stupid moments, but it's cool. V v K is very cool, if incredibly stupid in parts (Hey, I think I'll walk out onto these pipes over some lava for no reason!)
Aside from some "continuity errors" (Padme shouldn't die in childbirth! Leia remembers here (and it seems clear from the script she doesn't mean her adoptive mother). Yes, she dies when Leia is very young. But unless Leia's memory is amazing, not 'within seconds of leia's birth) this film is pretty good. Good fights, non-terrible acting (Oh, actually, there is some - just after we get to the blessed 'vader is some guy in a suit with the voice of james earl jones, there is another 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!' which is utterly haggard), and it - nearly - fits the continuity. Plus, I only wanted to punch hayden christian maybe a dozen times, not a dozen times per minute. It is worth adding to the quadrilogy (those other films being declared to not exist, obviously) and is probably better than episode IV. Mostly 'cause it has cooler fight scenes. Plus, Jar-Jar has about 30 seconds of screen time and zero lines! can't be too bad. And it had much better music than episode II (more like episode I, including having duel of fates).
Read at your own risk!
Day ends.
your own spoilage; you have been warned.