Reviews
Eric & I went and saw Star Wars: Episode 3 Monday night. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. After the complete crapiness of the first two films, this one was actually a good story and pretty gracefully got all the characters where they needed to be to set up the original trilogy. I still had some problems with it, but I'll hide the rest of my comments in case you haven't seen it yet.
My biggest complaint was that in this film, Padme went the way of so many other sci-fi/fantasy females and became totally helpless and wimpy and wound up being just a plot device in service of the masculine character's story. Personally, Laya (I obviously have no clue how these names are "officially" spelled, so bear with me.) was my very first "I wanna be like her when I grow up" hero when I was little. I had Underoo's and made my mother put my hair in buns on the sides of my head. Laya is no do-nothing-but-wait-to-be-rescued princess. For that matter, they had established Padme as someone who could handle herself in the first two films. I mean, come on, she's a former princess and current galactic senator. But somehow, some combination of being in love and being pregnant makes her brain and her courage turn to mush and all that matters to her all of a sudden is making gooey eyes at the hero. Grrrr.
My other issue was just that the dialog was weak in some points. The Anikin/Padme scenes were the worst, but there were some other awkward moments too. All that aside, it was much better than the first two. It's not as good as the original trilogy, but you can see the seeds of them in it, which is quite an achievement considering that I left the second film swearing there was no way it could be done. Ewan McGregor kind of steals the show, but overall everyone's performances were good and convincing as well (with the possible exception of Natalie Portman who I maintain was doing the best she could with a pretty pathetic character).
Tuesday, we watched the final three episodes of Angel, which means we've watched, start to finish, every single episode of both Buffy and Angel. The ending of Angel was not exactly what I expected, and I have to say, not as satisfying as the ending of Buffy. Everyone else in the world has probably already seen these, since I've been out of the cable loop for over five years, but just to be on the safe side, I'll cut my comments on this too.
At the end of Angel, our crew of intrepid heroes has killed every member of a secret society of demons who work together to bring about the apocalypse, the inter-dimensional demons in charge of the whole thing send a demon legion to defeat them. The series ends with Angel walking toward the demon horde and telling Iliriya, Spike, and a very wounded Gunn "Let's get to work." As he takes his first swing, the screen goes black and the credits roll. It was incredibly abrupt. I suspected that the show might end with everyone dying, but I had expected that there would at least be a dramatic battle in which our heroes fall one by one, while defeating the various members the Black Thorn. The only one that fit that pattern was Wesley, whose death I did find satisfying. In the commentaries, the writers explanation for this ending was that they wanted to show that heroes never stop fighting, which I get, but if they'd even faded out on a scene of the battle starting that would have been better than just cutting off the way they did. Also, I guess, I just like the ending of Buffy better because it was hopeful. Sure, Sunnydale was sucked into the Hellmouth, Anya was dead, and everyone else was beat to crap, but they stopped the evil, empowered women all over the world, and now Buffy can have a semi-normal life. The way Angel ended you're left with the idea that this demon horde is going to slaughter the heroes and overrun L.A. I know the theme of the whole show was the endless struggle for redemption, but I guess I feel like there wasn't much of a pay off. After all, one of the big themes in Buffy was the loneliness of being a hero, and the show ends with Buffy surrounded by her team of sidekicks and realizing, happily, that she's not the chosen one any more. So, the long term struggle is paid off. I would've liked Angel to have ended with something that made more of a statement about what is gained, individually and globally, through this endless struggle for good.
My biggest complaint was that in this film, Padme went the way of so many other sci-fi/fantasy females and became totally helpless and wimpy and wound up being just a plot device in service of the masculine character's story. Personally, Laya (I obviously have no clue how these names are "officially" spelled, so bear with me.) was my very first "I wanna be like her when I grow up" hero when I was little. I had Underoo's and made my mother put my hair in buns on the sides of my head. Laya is no do-nothing-but-wait-to-be-rescued princess. For that matter, they had established Padme as someone who could handle herself in the first two films. I mean, come on, she's a former princess and current galactic senator. But somehow, some combination of being in love and being pregnant makes her brain and her courage turn to mush and all that matters to her all of a sudden is making gooey eyes at the hero. Grrrr.
My other issue was just that the dialog was weak in some points. The Anikin/Padme scenes were the worst, but there were some other awkward moments too. All that aside, it was much better than the first two. It's not as good as the original trilogy, but you can see the seeds of them in it, which is quite an achievement considering that I left the second film swearing there was no way it could be done. Ewan McGregor kind of steals the show, but overall everyone's performances were good and convincing as well (with the possible exception of Natalie Portman who I maintain was doing the best she could with a pretty pathetic character).
Tuesday, we watched the final three episodes of Angel, which means we've watched, start to finish, every single episode of both Buffy and Angel. The ending of Angel was not exactly what I expected, and I have to say, not as satisfying as the ending of Buffy. Everyone else in the world has probably already seen these, since I've been out of the cable loop for over five years, but just to be on the safe side, I'll cut my comments on this too.
At the end of Angel, our crew of intrepid heroes has killed every member of a secret society of demons who work together to bring about the apocalypse, the inter-dimensional demons in charge of the whole thing send a demon legion to defeat them. The series ends with Angel walking toward the demon horde and telling Iliriya, Spike, and a very wounded Gunn "Let's get to work." As he takes his first swing, the screen goes black and the credits roll. It was incredibly abrupt. I suspected that the show might end with everyone dying, but I had expected that there would at least be a dramatic battle in which our heroes fall one by one, while defeating the various members the Black Thorn. The only one that fit that pattern was Wesley, whose death I did find satisfying. In the commentaries, the writers explanation for this ending was that they wanted to show that heroes never stop fighting, which I get, but if they'd even faded out on a scene of the battle starting that would have been better than just cutting off the way they did. Also, I guess, I just like the ending of Buffy better because it was hopeful. Sure, Sunnydale was sucked into the Hellmouth, Anya was dead, and everyone else was beat to crap, but they stopped the evil, empowered women all over the world, and now Buffy can have a semi-normal life. The way Angel ended you're left with the idea that this demon horde is going to slaughter the heroes and overrun L.A. I know the theme of the whole show was the endless struggle for redemption, but I guess I feel like there wasn't much of a pay off. After all, one of the big themes in Buffy was the loneliness of being a hero, and the show ends with Buffy surrounded by her team of sidekicks and realizing, happily, that she's not the chosen one any more. So, the long term struggle is paid off. I would've liked Angel to have ended with something that made more of a statement about what is gained, individually and globally, through this endless struggle for good.