(no subject)
The movie that I'm most looking forward to this summer is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." And "Sin City." Oh yeah, and "Revenge of the Sith." I will whole-heartedly admit that I've liked all five movies so far. Of course, there's going to bad things that go with the good things, so I thought I'd try to jot down a quick defense/retort about them, particularly the prequels.
Defense first
Have you watched "A New Hope" recently? Without the blinders? It's a nice little story, but definitely one that we've seen before and have seen many times since. What it boils down to is a young kid achieves a great victory against impossible odds. What made it different was the setting. Crazy looking aliens abound, space ships, new strange worlds with two suns... it was so unique at the time that it made the story look fresh. That's makes Lucas, in my mind, a pretty damn good storyteller (more on that later...). Watching Ep IV now though can almost be painful at times. Several years back, I watched a friend's laser disc of the movie and you could see the damn strings on the X-Wings! I know that it was 1977 and it really was cutting edge, but compared to the glitz of the more recent movies, it now looks so bad. Kinda like watching those old clay-mation movies from when my dad was a kid. Better technology and a bigger budget helped enormously even by Ep VI. The space battle in that movie was almost beaufiful to behold and still is in many ways. To think that they were capable of that in the early 80s is amazing. I guess my point to something that many people can agree on... The prequels are pretty, especially when people are fighting. Yes, there are times, when the pace is slow, that there is too much reliance on computer generated effects, but CGI really is a great way to make Tunisia or a soundstage in London look like an alien planet. And at this point, it might even be cheaper then puppets or something considering that Lucas owns the production company.
Light saber battles are featured in every movie, with the mother of all light saber battles coming up in May. Here's in a nice, unfair comparison. Take Ep IV (an old man vs. a guy in a suit in which he can't lift his arms above his shoulders) against Ep I (an fast acrobatic Sith against two trained Jedi warriors). Sorry, but it's no contest. It might be a little unfair to beat up on an old man like Alec Guinness, so how about we take a look at Ep VI. Sorry, still no contest. Even there it looks like it was choreographed and executed by a couple of guys at a Renaissance Festival. The battle between Lone Star and Dark Helmet in "Spaceballs" was almost more rivoting. Did they not have stunt doubles back in 1983? Anyone that could do more with a light saber than hack-n-slash Mark Hamill? Technology and budget again helped with the later installments, I'm sure, but really! The battle scenes have been superb so far with the prequels even if the stuff leading up to them has been shall we say uneven. In particular, the light saber battles are far and away better than in the old movies.
People have come down on the prequel's Senate scenes. I'm here to defend them from a completely selfish point of view. I like political intrigue. The stuff in Star Wars is small potatoes compared to a lot of mainstream stuff, but it's also necessary to see how exactly the Emperor rose from the lowly Senator of Naboo to Chancellor to Emperor. Palpatine plays an enormous role in these movies, as he should since he is a big part of Anakin's fall. You can't just have him come out of nowhere, you have to see how everything fell into place. Some of the bits and pieces are a little heavy-handed and largely unnecessary (random Jedi master ordering clones for instance), but overall the politics is very necessary in the overall scheme of things.
Retort
Let's start at the beginning, shall we? One of the things that I loved about Eps IV-VI was the intermingling between between elements of the science fiction and fantasy. You've got aliens and spaceships with a little dab of what is basically wizardry in the form of the Jedi and and Force. It's mysterious. Not everybody can do it and it makes those that can special.
But then they went and created those damn midi-clorians and ruined the whole thing. It's not mystical; it's something you could probably get innoculated for if you really didn't want the stress of enhanced abilities. And that whole business of the midi-chlorians basically impregnating Anakin's mother. No. Just... No. And don't even get me started on Jake Lloyd. Kid couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. That fact is made all the more obvious by watching his peer in "The Sixth Sense".
I've heard Lucas quoted as saying that Eps III is going to be like "Titanic" in space. People might chuckle at that, but he's probably right on target. It is sort of a parallel really. In both cases, the audience is will be patiently waiting until ship hits the iceberg at the end of the movie and things get exciting. But that's really about where the comparison ends. In "Titanic," the romance between the Jack and Rose is, you know, believable. You've got the dashing, independent-minded boy with dreams coming out of his butt. You've got the midunderstood, young-hearted babe that's looking for a real connection with someone. Put those two together and you can get undeniable chemistry. Eps IV-VI certainly had a similar couple (Han and Leia). Eps I-III are not so lucky. Here you have the stoic, level-headed leader falling in love with... the whiny, bitchy, mass-murderer? Sorry, don't buy it. The whole problem is that the romance begins and flourishes in Ep II, which is just so unrealistic given who those characters are at the time. Ten years have passed and Padme hasn't given Anakin a second thought since he became a padawan. But over the course of the movie, we're expected to believe that she falls in love him?
All of this could have easily been remedied with one little edit to the story: make Anakin older in Ep I. Aging him a couple of years, making him twelve or fourteen instead of eight, you could have a little young love plot line in "The Phantom Menace" with little trouble. Having them in love at the end of Ep I would make all that happens in Ep II make more sense. Anakin's bickering with Obi-Wan wouldn't be seen by her as bitchy and petty, but as Obi-Wan not understanding the love of her life. His killing spree among the Tuskan Raider's would be forgiven because of the love that she feels (though putting in a touch of wariness and her pulling away would be even better and certainly more realistic). Four little years and you salvage the love story, just like that.
Which brings us to Lucas himself, since he's the gut that wrote it. Like I said before, he's a very good storyteller. The story in Star Wars has everything you could ever want in movie series. Notice I keep saying "story" and not "script." Because that is where Lucas starts to fall short. Compare Eps I-II with V-VI and you can see the difference. The prequels are stilted, loaded with Yippee's, bits of Jedi-worship coming from unlikely sources, and completely unnecessary dialogue as a whole. Anakin's mother holding out just long enough for her to die in Anakin's arms? Anything that anyone with the Trade Federation says? It's bad. Bad! As a director, I'm not sure Mr. George "Faster and more intense" Lucas fairs much better. As much as he and others might hate to hear such things, I must join in with the masses that question if he was necessarily the best choice in either department. As an innovator in Hollywood, he changed the way movies are made. As a storyteller, I have no qualms with him. Just keep him away from dialogue and out of the director's chair.
Nitpicks can abound for other plot points: the origin of the clones, Jango Fett's cheap death (though I loved it... Mace is a frickin' Jedi. One lone bounty hunter *shouldn't* cause him to break a sweat), that stupid pod race in Ep I, Jake Lloyd... some might like different parts and dislike others and I'm just another guy with his own opinion and wouldn't say anything to those that differ in those opinions. But there is one other thing that's missing from the prequels and that exists in spades in Eps IV-VI: a sense of fun. Sure, they're forboding intense pieces, but there are characters that are around to lighten things up a bit. The prequels have C-3PO and R2-D2, just like IV-VI, but I'm afraid they aren't enough, just as they wouldn't have been in IV-VI.
What the old movies had that the the new one's don't can be summed up in two words: "Han" and "Lando". No smirking smugglers constantly wondering how he got into this mess and no version of him if he had decided to settle down as a city administrator. They are the everyman in the stories. They aren't alien, they aren't magical, they aren't kings... they are simply common, everyday people that got caught up in things they would really rather not. And along the way, they have some of the best lines in the movies. There is no equivalent to these two in the first two prequels and they seem less of a movie as a result. The closest we get is Kit Fisto in Ep II. Who the hell is Kit Fisto? He's the green Jedi with the tentacles on his head and the big goofy smile. He's unnamed, doesn't have any lines of dialogue and only has that one scene, but I've seen people latch on to that character with more gusto than any other character this side of Boba Fett. Why? The way I see it is like this: we have a character in the middle of the fight of his life, enemies everywhere, the threat of the Dark Side of the Force looming menacingly, and standing at the precipice of the start of total galactic war... and he's smiling! He's clearly either off his rocker or he's the fun that everybody's been looking for in the prequels.
Defense first
Have you watched "A New Hope" recently? Without the blinders? It's a nice little story, but definitely one that we've seen before and have seen many times since. What it boils down to is a young kid achieves a great victory against impossible odds. What made it different was the setting. Crazy looking aliens abound, space ships, new strange worlds with two suns... it was so unique at the time that it made the story look fresh. That's makes Lucas, in my mind, a pretty damn good storyteller (more on that later...). Watching Ep IV now though can almost be painful at times. Several years back, I watched a friend's laser disc of the movie and you could see the damn strings on the X-Wings! I know that it was 1977 and it really was cutting edge, but compared to the glitz of the more recent movies, it now looks so bad. Kinda like watching those old clay-mation movies from when my dad was a kid. Better technology and a bigger budget helped enormously even by Ep VI. The space battle in that movie was almost beaufiful to behold and still is in many ways. To think that they were capable of that in the early 80s is amazing. I guess my point to something that many people can agree on... The prequels are pretty, especially when people are fighting. Yes, there are times, when the pace is slow, that there is too much reliance on computer generated effects, but CGI really is a great way to make Tunisia or a soundstage in London look like an alien planet. And at this point, it might even be cheaper then puppets or something considering that Lucas owns the production company.
Light saber battles are featured in every movie, with the mother of all light saber battles coming up in May. Here's in a nice, unfair comparison. Take Ep IV (an old man vs. a guy in a suit in which he can't lift his arms above his shoulders) against Ep I (an fast acrobatic Sith against two trained Jedi warriors). Sorry, but it's no contest. It might be a little unfair to beat up on an old man like Alec Guinness, so how about we take a look at Ep VI. Sorry, still no contest. Even there it looks like it was choreographed and executed by a couple of guys at a Renaissance Festival. The battle between Lone Star and Dark Helmet in "Spaceballs" was almost more rivoting. Did they not have stunt doubles back in 1983? Anyone that could do more with a light saber than hack-n-slash Mark Hamill? Technology and budget again helped with the later installments, I'm sure, but really! The battle scenes have been superb so far with the prequels even if the stuff leading up to them has been shall we say uneven. In particular, the light saber battles are far and away better than in the old movies.
People have come down on the prequel's Senate scenes. I'm here to defend them from a completely selfish point of view. I like political intrigue. The stuff in Star Wars is small potatoes compared to a lot of mainstream stuff, but it's also necessary to see how exactly the Emperor rose from the lowly Senator of Naboo to Chancellor to Emperor. Palpatine plays an enormous role in these movies, as he should since he is a big part of Anakin's fall. You can't just have him come out of nowhere, you have to see how everything fell into place. Some of the bits and pieces are a little heavy-handed and largely unnecessary (random Jedi master ordering clones for instance), but overall the politics is very necessary in the overall scheme of things.
Retort
Let's start at the beginning, shall we? One of the things that I loved about Eps IV-VI was the intermingling between between elements of the science fiction and fantasy. You've got aliens and spaceships with a little dab of what is basically wizardry in the form of the Jedi and and Force. It's mysterious. Not everybody can do it and it makes those that can special.
But then they went and created those damn midi-clorians and ruined the whole thing. It's not mystical; it's something you could probably get innoculated for if you really didn't want the stress of enhanced abilities. And that whole business of the midi-chlorians basically impregnating Anakin's mother. No. Just... No. And don't even get me started on Jake Lloyd. Kid couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. That fact is made all the more obvious by watching his peer in "The Sixth Sense".
I've heard Lucas quoted as saying that Eps III is going to be like "Titanic" in space. People might chuckle at that, but he's probably right on target. It is sort of a parallel really. In both cases, the audience is will be patiently waiting until ship hits the iceberg at the end of the movie and things get exciting. But that's really about where the comparison ends. In "Titanic," the romance between the Jack and Rose is, you know, believable. You've got the dashing, independent-minded boy with dreams coming out of his butt. You've got the midunderstood, young-hearted babe that's looking for a real connection with someone. Put those two together and you can get undeniable chemistry. Eps IV-VI certainly had a similar couple (Han and Leia). Eps I-III are not so lucky. Here you have the stoic, level-headed leader falling in love with... the whiny, bitchy, mass-murderer? Sorry, don't buy it. The whole problem is that the romance begins and flourishes in Ep II, which is just so unrealistic given who those characters are at the time. Ten years have passed and Padme hasn't given Anakin a second thought since he became a padawan. But over the course of the movie, we're expected to believe that she falls in love him?
All of this could have easily been remedied with one little edit to the story: make Anakin older in Ep I. Aging him a couple of years, making him twelve or fourteen instead of eight, you could have a little young love plot line in "The Phantom Menace" with little trouble. Having them in love at the end of Ep I would make all that happens in Ep II make more sense. Anakin's bickering with Obi-Wan wouldn't be seen by her as bitchy and petty, but as Obi-Wan not understanding the love of her life. His killing spree among the Tuskan Raider's would be forgiven because of the love that she feels (though putting in a touch of wariness and her pulling away would be even better and certainly more realistic). Four little years and you salvage the love story, just like that.
Which brings us to Lucas himself, since he's the gut that wrote it. Like I said before, he's a very good storyteller. The story in Star Wars has everything you could ever want in movie series. Notice I keep saying "story" and not "script." Because that is where Lucas starts to fall short. Compare Eps I-II with V-VI and you can see the difference. The prequels are stilted, loaded with Yippee's, bits of Jedi-worship coming from unlikely sources, and completely unnecessary dialogue as a whole. Anakin's mother holding out just long enough for her to die in Anakin's arms? Anything that anyone with the Trade Federation says? It's bad. Bad! As a director, I'm not sure Mr. George "Faster and more intense" Lucas fairs much better. As much as he and others might hate to hear such things, I must join in with the masses that question if he was necessarily the best choice in either department. As an innovator in Hollywood, he changed the way movies are made. As a storyteller, I have no qualms with him. Just keep him away from dialogue and out of the director's chair.
Nitpicks can abound for other plot points: the origin of the clones, Jango Fett's cheap death (though I loved it... Mace is a frickin' Jedi. One lone bounty hunter *shouldn't* cause him to break a sweat), that stupid pod race in Ep I, Jake Lloyd... some might like different parts and dislike others and I'm just another guy with his own opinion and wouldn't say anything to those that differ in those opinions. But there is one other thing that's missing from the prequels and that exists in spades in Eps IV-VI: a sense of fun. Sure, they're forboding intense pieces, but there are characters that are around to lighten things up a bit. The prequels have C-3PO and R2-D2, just like IV-VI, but I'm afraid they aren't enough, just as they wouldn't have been in IV-VI.
What the old movies had that the the new one's don't can be summed up in two words: "Han" and "Lando". No smirking smugglers constantly wondering how he got into this mess and no version of him if he had decided to settle down as a city administrator. They are the everyman in the stories. They aren't alien, they aren't magical, they aren't kings... they are simply common, everyday people that got caught up in things they would really rather not. And along the way, they have some of the best lines in the movies. There is no equivalent to these two in the first two prequels and they seem less of a movie as a result. The closest we get is Kit Fisto in Ep II. Who the hell is Kit Fisto? He's the green Jedi with the tentacles on his head and the big goofy smile. He's unnamed, doesn't have any lines of dialogue and only has that one scene, but I've seen people latch on to that character with more gusto than any other character this side of Boba Fett. Why? The way I see it is like this: we have a character in the middle of the fight of his life, enemies everywhere, the threat of the Dark Side of the Force looming menacingly, and standing at the precipice of the start of total galactic war... and he's smiling! He's clearly either off his rocker or he's the fun that everybody's been looking for in the prequels.