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Forget it, Jake! It's [Star Wars].

1356799

Posts

  • CokebotleCokebotle 穴掘りの 電車内Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Man... this thread makes me hurt. RotJ is FAR better than RotS.

    That is, pre-Lucas's fuckmuppetry with changing the original Anakin to Hayden Christenson's "Yousa gon' get raped, bitches!" look.

    Cokebotle on
    工事中
  • HorseshoeHorseshoe Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    _J_ wrote: »
    InHuman wrote: »
    Can we all agree that the Clone Wars was above and beyond the biggest steam of shit from the series?

    I dunno...have you seen the Christmas special?

    I have the christmas special... my friends begged me to turn it off about halfway through. I believe Lucas said something akin to: "If I could, I would track down every single copy and smash it with a hammer."

    Also, yeah Clone Wars wasn't an amazing movie but there are parts of it that I quite enjoyed. Which is how I view the prequels, and the originals too (though yes I'd concede that the originals trilogy has fewer flaws). I guess I look at it as Star Wars... I'm not expecting something grand and deep, and I enjoy spaceships, costumes, explosions, lightsabers etc.

    I watched the first three movies as a kid and there was basically no other film that I loved more. I had the toys, acted out scenes with broomsticks countless times, and so on. When I watch them now I remember that kid and try not to be too cynical and pick it apart.

    When I went to see the Clone Wars movie, there was a kid dressed up as a Clone Trooper who won the little costume contest they had before the movie started. He was so stoked to be there, and he was talking excitedly to his parents about it afterward. When I was his age I was like that kid, and I envy the sense of wonder and joy that he gleans from the movies and try remind myself of that sort of thing when I start to roll my eyes at an actor's performance or a writer's dialogue in the later films.

    I'm not saying that Star Wars is kid stuff. I'm saying that it's not something that I wish to make an object of thorough analysis or critique... because once I start doing that I'm not enjoying it anymore.

    Horseshoe on
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  • HorseshoeHorseshoe Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Spectre wrote: »
    The animated Clone Wars miniseries by the Samurai Jack guy was pretty good...

    I really really like that series.

    Horseshoe on
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  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Before I re-engage in this, I wanna doublecheck something.

    Having both _J_ and HamHam arguing AGAINST your point is a good sign, right?

    Okay.

    As a piece of coherent, visually stimulating, filmic storytelling, Revenge of the Sith is more successful than Return of the Jedi. Divorced from nostalgia, rose-colored revisionism, and childhood ties, it is a better movie. Even adding in those handicaps (as someone who can say Return of the Jedi was the first movie he ever saw in a theater at the tender age of 6 years old) the filmmaking on display, the editing, the pacing, and the emotional heft (such as it is) on display in Revenge of the Sith betters Return of the Jedi. The music, the cinematography, and the editing are all easily more impressive.

    The acting is pretty similar: Hamill is mostly sleepwalking, Ford is utterly neutered, and Fisher is so coked out of her gourd she often doesn't even know what's happening from scene to scene, and it's obvious. With Sith, McGregor is still trying, Christensen is in his wheelhouse (wooden brooding) and Portman gets to cry, which is good.

    With Jedi, The comedy bits are largely infantile at best, and the tone of the piece is pandering and indulgent. Most jokes are in-jokes and call-backs, and the ones that aren't are simple 3rd grade level goofs with almost zero sophistication. Probably the best example of humor is Luke's deception of the moronic Ewoks with the floating robot trick. The opening sequence reuniting Han and Leia is forced, the Rancor attack is slow and silly, the barge fight is sloppy and slapstick.

    Where Jedi stands out? The Speeder Bike chase, which is pure kineticism, the Attack on the Death Star II, still a marvel of technical expertise, and nicely choreographed, and the attempts at operatic melodrama in the throne room itself.

    Jedi is a bland looking, mostly boring, largely goofy 90 minutes followed by a half hour of resolution that shortchanges the promise made by Empire Strikes Back.

    That's not enough. There's a consistency to Revenge of the Sith, an easy assuredness that plays better over it's 2:20 than Jedi's. Order 66 is some of Lucas' most effective filmmaking, wordless and yet communicating all the emotions it needs to all the same. The opening sequence isn't as kinetic as the end of Jedi, but it's more ambitious in it's scope. Obi Wan's visit to Grievous base is stretched out, but it's not as aggressively annoying and pointless as the Endor bits. McDiarmid does his best work in Episode III, especially in the scene where he seduces Anakin at the Opera House.

    Sith succeeds where Jedi fails because it finds a tone, and it sticks with it throughout the entire movie, and actually displays shading and some semblance of depth. Granted, depth in a Star Wars film is measured in degrees of inches. But Jedi is a sub-par action film with a half-hours worth of quality adventure. Sith is a decent little SFX extravaganza that does a pretty good job setting up Episode IV, to the point where Episodes I and II are pretty much rendered irrelevant.

    So far as the remake goes, it's gonna happen. There's no way it doesn't. Eventually, Star Wars will be completely re-envisioned. My hope is that it doesn't go into theaters. I'd like to see either

    a) An anime adaptation of the Manga
    b) A TV miniseries based off the Radio Dramas.

    Fatboy Roberts on
  • HorseshoeHorseshoe Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    a) An anime adaptation of the Manga

    oh please god no

    Horseshoe on
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  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    :)

    I think it'd be fun. Have you read the Manga? Also, Star Wars is pretty heavily eastern-influenced anyway. Having it translated into Anime shouldn't be that big of a leap, especially after how well recieved Tartovsky's ameri-anime flavored version of Clone Wars was.

    Fatboy Roberts on
  • HorseshoeHorseshoe Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    I've picked up a copy of the manga at a bookstore and read enough not to buy it.

    This is coming from a guy who owns a ridiculous amount of star wars comics.

    It just wasn't my cup of tea at all.

    Horseshoe on
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  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    The Episode IV manga is probably the best one. I didn't finish the Jedi one. The art style and script adaptation was lacking.

    Fatboy Roberts on
  • mightyspacepopemightyspacepope Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    If the entire prequel trilogy would've been more like the first 15 minutes of RotS, the world would be a much brighter place.

    mightyspacepope on
  • HorseshoeHorseshoe Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    If the entire prequel trilogy would've been more like the first 15 minutes of RotS, the world would be a much brighter place.

    Sometimes when I watch RotS

    After the part where Anakin crash-lands the Invisible Hand

    I just rewind back to the beginning.

    Horseshoe on
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  • SliverSliver Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    George actually had a talent for dialogue and characters when he was younger. The entire trilogy could have been 6 hours of Han and Leia insulting each other and it'd have still been a halfway decent movie.

    as far as the dialogue in revenge of the sith I have only one thing to say:
    younglings

    also, midichlorians.

    Sliver on
  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Last time I watched Sith, I watched the opening, chapter skipped to the Godfather Meeting with Anakin and Yoda, chapter skipped to Opera House, chapter skipped to The turn, and watched from Order 66 to the end.

    Last time I watched Jedi, I skipped to the Barge, skipped to the gathering/meeting (I really like the music in that sequence) skipped to the speeder bike sequence, and then skipped to "It's a Trap" and ejected the disk after "Tell your sister -- you were right."

    Last time I watched Empire we showed it at the Bagdad Theater for a children's charity and were escorted onstage by the 501st Cloud City Garrison of PDX and I watched it on 35mm the whole way through with 600 utterly enthralled geeks. :)

    It was the 97 SE's, but Empire SE is probably the least offensive of the Special Editions.
    George actually had a talent for dialogue and characters when he was younger.

    Almost the entirety of the Han/Leia interplay in Star Wars was written by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz. Empire was, of course, Lawrence Kasdan. Lucas has always sucked at dialog. Huyck and Katz did a dialog polish on American Graffiti, too.

    Fatboy Roberts on
  • SliverSliver Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    George actually had a talent for dialogue and characters when he was younger.

    Almost the entirety of the Han/Leia interplay in Star Wars was written by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz. Empire was, of course, Lawrence Kasdan. Lucas has always sucked at dialog. Huyck and Katz did a dialog polish on American Graffiti, too.

    Then I take that back.

    also, on the conversation of who'd be the best director for a star wars film, Christopher Nolan. (Ridley Scott would be a close second.)

    Sliver on
  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    You guys have heard this story, right?

    That when Lucas started seriously considering doing the prequels, back in 95/96, he was NOT planning on writing and directing, he was just going to produce and oversee, as he did with Empire and Jedi. He went so far as to begin preliminary talks with directors, and around 96/97, had decided that

    Episode I would be directed by Joe Johnston
    Episode II would be directed by Frank Darabont
    Episode III would be directed by David Fincher

    of course, he decided to direct Episode I, and then once he decided that, McCallum convinced him he should just do the whole shebang, and he started writing the screenplay and we got what we got. But apparently, at one point, the Prequel Trilogy were going to be essentially graduation presents for directors who came up in the LFL system.

    I remember hearing that story via folks bullshitting on usenet back then, maybe in a spinoff IRC room or AOL chatroom that sprung from a particular thread. Never been confirmed or denied. But I like it a lot.

    Fatboy Roberts on
  • JacobkoshJacobkosh Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
    edited September 2009
    I can't get behind the "Jedi is bland looking" thing at all. The movie has this incredible visual crispness to it and the colors pop in a way they don't in the first one. The space shots are not just black but velvety, the planets seem to glow from within, and the models and puppets do things that still amaze me nearly thirty years later. There were a lot of sci-fi films in the eighties and I think Jedi is still, with Blade Runner, one of the two or three best-looking ones.

    Jacobkosh on
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  • Toxic ToysToxic Toys Are you really taking my advice? Really?Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Really Fatboy? Really?

    Order 66 was better then Luke warning Jabba he was going to fuck him up?

    The first part of RotJ was Luke telling Jabba that if he gives up Solo, he will live. It escalated to the point where Jabba was killed.

    Order 66 was came out of no where and killed all the Jedi. A massive conspiracy that no Jedi felt.

    Toxic Toys on
    3DS code: 2938-6074-2306, Nintendo Network ID: ToxicToys, PSN: zutto
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Sliver wrote: »
    also, on the conversation of who'd be the best director for a star wars film, Christopher Nolan. (Ridley Scott would be a close second.)

    Star Wars, at its heart, is an action fantasy. Nolan makes bleak street-level post-noir crime dramas.

    Saying Nolan is best suited for this series because of TDK is about as appropriate as saying Scorsese is suited for rom-coms because people liked Goodfellas.

    Atomika on
  • Bloods EndBloods End Blade of Tyshalle Punch dimensionRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Revenge of the Sith had an awesome story and when in a good writers hands (Matthew Stovers) it could have been amazing.

    Bloods End on
  • WashWash Sweet Christmas Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Fallingman wrote: »
    I'm throwing my hat in for Jedi beating Sith hands down.

    Jedi had character... I enjoy Sith as the best of the prequels, but all it did was not fuck things up too bad. And maybe it was my age when I first watched them, but the ewoks dont annoy me.

    You know what angers me? Flying R2.

    Fuck yes.

    They did shit to the droids in those godawful prequels, unspeakable shit.

    As far as Ewoks go, they were adorable, served a purpose, and, probably the greatest thing about them, they carried emotional weight. If you put a human or humanoid alien resistance group in their place, you'd have a bunch of people getting shot or hurt or whatever, but you wouldn't know them, so their deaths/injuries would be felt as strongly as any other red shirt death from earlier films - which is to say, you wouldn't feel strongly at all. You have something cute and cuddly get blasted, you fucking feel it. Watching Ewoks die was like watching someone kick a puppy. That shit still bothers me.

    Wash on
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  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    I actually think Revenge of the Sith is the worst of the prequels, if only because it squanders so much potential and so much of the ending was already predetermined. Anakin had to become Vader, Obi-Wan had to get Luke to the Lars', Padme had to die, . . . at every turn it was just done about the worst and most-hamfisted way possible.

    So while Phantom Menace and ATOC were arguably worse as films themselves, at least they were more honest in their execution. ROTS had an extremely low bar to clear, and still tripped.

    Atomika on
  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited September 2009
    As a piece of coherent, visually stimulating, filmic storytelling, Revenge of the Sith is more successful than Return of the Jedi. Divorced from nostalgia, rose-colored revisionism, and childhood ties, it is a better movie.

    Do you know what "subjective" means?

    _J_ on
  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    jacobkosh wrote: »
    I can't get behind the "Jedi is bland looking" thing at all. The movie has this incredible visual crispness to it and the colors pop in a way they don't in the first one. The space shots are not just black but velvety, the planets seem to glow from within, and the models and puppets do things that still amaze me nearly thirty years later. There were a lot of sci-fi films in the eighties and I think Jedi is still, with Blade Runner, one of the two or three best-looking ones.

    The cinematography is flat. Very flat. It's lit like a TV show. Empire has visual crispness, and that's because Suschitzky is behind the camera and lighting the set and overseeing the visuals, and he's easily the best cinematographer to ever work on a Star Wars movie.

    The colors didn't pop in A New Hope because Lucas sorta desaturated things on the production design level. He wanted things to be dingy and beat up. Plus, it was a relatively cheap movie, and the film stock he was using wasn't the greatest, either. And if I remember correctly, Gil Taylor wasn't exactly enthused to be working with Lucas on the movie.
    Toxic Toys wrote:
    Order 66 was came out of no where and killed all the Jedi. A massive conspiracy that no Jedi felt.

    Well, yeah. Successful conspiracy, then. And, I thought Luke's threat to Jabba was sorta weak, diluted by the cheezy Threepio comedy beats.

    If the arguments for Jedi being better than Sith come down to "This moment is better than that moment" and it's just a collection of strung together moments with weak connective tissue, you're not really making a good argument for the film's quality overall.
    _J_ wrote:
    Do you know what "subjective" means?

    knock that shit off. Also, selective quoting (which would answer the question your'e grandstanding to ask right now) as the sentence following that one speaks to the point you're attempting to zing me with.

    Fatboy Roberts on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    You guys have heard this story, right?

    That when Lucas started seriously considering doing the prequels, back in 95/96, he was NOT planning on writing and directing, he was just going to produce and oversee, as he did with Empire and Jedi. He went so far as to begin preliminary talks with directors, and around 96/97, had decided that

    Episode I would be directed by Joe Johnston
    Episode II would be directed by Frank Darabont
    Episode III would be directed by David Fincher

    of course, he decided to direct Episode I, and then once he decided that, McCallum convinced him he should just do the whole shebang, and he started writing the screenplay and we got what we got. But apparently, at one point, the Prequel Trilogy were going to be essentially graduation presents for directors who came up in the LFL system.

    I remember hearing that story via folks bullshitting on usenet back then, maybe in a spinoff IRC room or AOL chatroom that sprung from a particular thread. Never been confirmed or denied. But I like it a lot.

    Probably somewhere around the house I still have the Star Wars Insider articles with Lucas talking about how, in '96 or so, it's was all but a done deal that Darabont was directing Phantom Menace. And it's widely rumored that Spielberg pleaded with Lucas to direct ROTS.

    It's infuriating and frustrating how much better these films could have been without Lucas' inexplicable desire to make them as shitty as he could.

    Atomika on
  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Fallingman wrote: »
    I'm throwing my hat in for Jedi beating Sith hands down.

    Jedi had character... I enjoy Sith as the best of the prequels, but all it did was not fuck things up too bad. And maybe it was my age when I first watched them, but the ewoks dont annoy me.

    You know what angers me? Flying R2.

    Fuck yes.

    They did shit to the droids in those godawful prequels, unspeakable shit.

    As far as Ewoks go, they were adorable, served a purpose, and, probably the greatest thing about them, they carried emotional weight. If you put a human or humanoid alien resistance group in their place, you'd have a bunch of people getting shot or hurt or whatever, but you wouldn't know them, so their deaths/injuries would be felt as strongly as any other red shirt death from earlier films - which is to say, you wouldn't feel strongly at all. You have something cute and cuddly get blasted, you fucking feel it. Watching Ewoks die was like watching someone kick a puppy. That shit still bothers me.

    Yes. Ewoks, as much as we dislike their cuteness, had personality. Also, for making you feel like the universe was populated with all sorts of wierd creatures the Jabba's Palace scene was second only to the Cantina.

    And the end of Jedi is the *most* epic part of the entire series. The duel in sith could have been if Obi-Wan had at least made an attempt to redeem Anakin (and maybe dismembered him a limb at a time rather than all at once in a very confusing manner). It should have been an epic battle for Anakin's soul (which would have made it bookend nicely with the duel in Jedi), but... it wasn't. If Episodes I and II weren't so terrible I'd drop Sith down another rank just because it could have been so much better.

    Tomanta on
  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    It's infuriating and frustrating how much better these films could have been without Lucas' inexplicable desire to make them as shitty as he could.

    I don't think Lucas possessed any sort of real desire beyond getting Episode I made for about 115 million.

    Holy shit I haven't done something like this in about 5 years. It's a little more fun now than it was then, when people couldn't help but shit their pants and froth at the mouth at any minutely differing opinon :)

    Fatboy Roberts on
  • JacobkoshJacobkosh Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
    edited September 2009
    The thing that bothers me about the whole prequel enterprise - and while it's obviously not all that's wrong with it, it's the part that really grates on me - is the entire backstory and characterization of Anakin. The Anakin we get in the prequels is not the dude Obi-Wan described in Star Wars at all. He was supposed to be a great space pilot who annoyed his brother - someone who he was close to - by constantly going off on "damn-fool idealistic crusades."

    That painted a picture, to me, of a grown man, a professional soldier, a guy who started out with genuine beliefs but perhaps succumbed to expediency in the grind of a long and hard war and just needed be shown his child's idealism to be shaken out of that thinking and redeemed. It certainly didn't conjure up an image of a petulant teenager who never really seemed good or idealistic to begin with. What was there in Hayden Christensen's Anakin to be redeemed in the first place?

    Jacobkosh on
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  • Bloods EndBloods End Blade of Tyshalle Punch dimensionRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    I thought Sith had better music than Jedi. The only memorable track I really remember from Jedi was Into a Trap, while Sith had Battle For Heroes, Anakins Dark Deeds, and Palpatines teachings

    Bloods End on
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    5
    4
    6
    3
    2
    1

    That's how it is.

    And 2 is better than 1. Absolutely.

    Loren Michael on
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  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    The thing that bothers me about the whole prequel enterprise - and while it's obviously not all that's wrong with it, it's the part that really grates on me - is the entire backstory and characterization of Anakin.

    It was one of the earlier drafts where Lucas fucked up by shifting Anakin's age in Episode I back from 13-14 to 8-9. His reasoning was that "a 13 year old won't be too traumatized at the idea of leaving his mother behind, not like an 8 year old would."

    Which is bullshit. a 13 year old would probably better recognize that he was abandoning his mom to slavery, yet he wouldn't have the tools to rationalize that decision and move on. There's other arguments one could make that are probably better than that one, but that one decision is the one I look at as the kneecapper for Episode I.

    Fatboy Roberts on
  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    If I fast forward through Tatooine and pretend that Anakin isn't there, I actually enjoy Episode I.

    EDIT: Oh, and don't think too hard about how Obi could have killed Maul. You build maul up to be a badass, dangerous threat... and he just stands there with a dumb look on his face with a lit saber while his opponent leaps over him, calls a lightsaber to his hand from a distance, turns it on, and chops you in half? I call bullshit.

    Tomanta on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    but that one decision is the one I look at as the kneecapper for Episode I.

    Well, that and the fact that the main characters aren't Obi-Wan or Anakin.

    Atomika on
  • Toxic ToysToxic Toys Are you really taking my advice? Really?Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Toxic Toys wrote:
    Order 66 was came out of no where and killed all the Jedi. A massive conspiracy that no Jedi felt.

    Well, yeah. Successful conspiracy, then. And, I thought Luke's threat to Jabba was sorta weak, diluted by the cheezy Threepio comedy beats.

    If the arguments for Jedi being better than Sith come down to "This moment is better than that moment" and it's just a collection of strung together moments with weak connective tissue, you're not really making a good argument for the film's quality overall.

    Well you did saw what parts you skip in each movie. I just picked up on that and ran.

    As for successful conspiracy - it more deux machina with out some foreshadowing. Jedi flowed together much better then Sith. AS jumpy as Jedi was, Sith was much worse. Endor was the only real outcast in Jedi that didn't touch on the other films. Sith was really just all over the place. General Grievous really came out of no where, but he was a bad ass.

    Toxic Toys on
    3DS code: 2938-6074-2306, Nintendo Network ID: ToxicToys, PSN: zutto
  • Fatboy RobertsFatboy Roberts Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    but that one decision is the one I look at as the kneecapper for Episode I.

    Well, that and the fact that the main characters aren't Obi-Wan or Anakin.

    Very good point :)

    Fatboy Roberts on
  • SliverSliver Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Sliver wrote: »
    also, on the conversation of who'd be the best director for a star wars film, Christopher Nolan. (Ridley Scott would be a close second.)

    Star Wars, at its heart, is an action fantasy. Nolan makes bleak street-level post-noir crime dramas.

    Saying Nolan is best suited for this series because of TDK is about as appropriate as saying Scorsese is suited for rom-coms because people liked Goodfellas.

    RotS and the entire lead up is about anakin turning to the dark side and betraying the jedi order. I think bleak would have been a fitting tone. Second, his first big movie was about a man driven to evil avenging the woman he loved. Now you tell me, who do you think would have handled RotS (and particularly the responsibility of anakin's turn to the dark side) better than Nolan could have.

    Sliver on
  • ShadowenShadowen Snores in the morning LoserdomRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Bloods End wrote: »
    I thought Sith had better music than Jedi. The only memorable track I really remember from Jedi was Into a Trap, while Sith had Battle For Heroes, Anakins Dark Deeds, and Palpatines teachings

    Ahem.

    The Emperor's Arrival (which introduced the Dark Side theme, which sounds so much more gleefully evil than the Imperial March). Yoda's Death. Final Duel (the most chilling music in the whole series). The Death Of Anakin (a contemplative take on the Imperial March). The celebration music from the special edition (and not that stupid fucking Yub yub song, srsly, what is up with people's love for that aside from nostalgia?).

    I can't remember if Into A Trap is the one with the energetic battle theme that was later used in the trailer for DF2: Jedi Knight and would haunt me for years until I found out which song on the soundtrack it was (Battle Of Endor I on the special edition soundtracks, incidentally), but if it isn't, you should have included it, too. If you did, ignore this paragraph.
    fnord

    But I'm surprised you didn't mention Padme's Ruminations. It turned a scene with no dialogue where the two characters are miles apart into the most romantic in the entire prequel trilogy--and that doesn't sound like it's saying much, but the overall effect of the scene is.

    Shadowen on
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Sliver wrote: »
    Sliver wrote: »
    also, on the conversation of who'd be the best director for a star wars film, Christopher Nolan. (Ridley Scott would be a close second.)

    Star Wars, at its heart, is an action fantasy. Nolan makes bleak street-level post-noir crime dramas.

    Saying Nolan is best suited for this series because of TDK is about as appropriate as saying Scorsese is suited for rom-coms because people liked Goodfellas.

    RotS and the entire lead up is about anakin turning to the dark side and betraying the jedi order. I think bleak would have been a fitting tone. Second, his first big movie was about a man driven to evil avenging the woman he loved. Now you tell me, who do you think would have handled RotS (and particularly the responsibility of anakin's turn to the dark side) better than Nolan could have.

    I kind of agree, actually. But more because of The Prestige than any of the other movies.

    Loren Michael on
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  • JacobkoshJacobkosh Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
    edited September 2009
    It was one of the earlier drafts where Lucas fucked up by shifting Anakin's age in Episode I back from 13-14 to 8-9. His reasoning was that "a 13 year old won't be too traumatized at the idea of leaving his mother behind, not like an 8 year old would."

    Which is bullshit. a 13 year old would probably better recognize that he was abandoning his mom to slavery, yet he wouldn't have the tools to rationalize that decision and move on. There's other arguments one could make that are probably better than that one, but that one decision is the one I look at as the kneecapper for Episode I.

    It also turns the kid who should be the central character of the enterprise into a plot object. That ridiculous final space battle aside, an eight-year-old can't really contribute much to a story of galactic politics and war except by being kidnapped or menaced or whatever, and he has almost no stake in anything that happens around him.

    The whole movie is just incredibly unfocused, and I'm not really clear on who the central characters are even supposed to be. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, obviously - but the princess is AWOL for half the movie, and there's that stupid twist with the handmaiden that I still haven't got quite down, Jar-Jar doesn't do a whole lot except comment on the goings-on around him (which might make me think he's filling the role of the droids, except then they turn up too) and then he disappears in the later movies, and that stuffy black space captain guy seems like he might be sort of interesting, but we never see him again either. It feels so slapdash, which of all the things I might have expected from Lucas was close to the last.

    Jacobkosh on
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  • VariableVariable Mouth Congress Stroke Me Lady FameRegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Fallingman wrote: »
    I'm throwing my hat in for Jedi beating Sith hands down.

    Jedi had character... I enjoy Sith as the best of the prequels, but all it did was not fuck things up too bad. And maybe it was my age when I first watched them, but the ewoks dont annoy me.

    You know what angers me? Flying R2.

    Fuck yes.

    They did shit to the droids in those godawful prequels, unspeakable shit.

    As far as Ewoks go, they were adorable, served a purpose, and, probably the greatest thing about them, they carried emotional weight. If you put a human or humanoid alien resistance group in their place, you'd have a bunch of people getting shot or hurt or whatever, but you wouldn't know them, so their deaths/injuries would be felt as strongly as any other red shirt death from earlier films - which is to say, you wouldn't feel strongly at all. You have something cute and cuddly get blasted, you fucking feel it. Watching Ewoks die was like watching someone kick a puppy. That shit still bothers me.

    I don't like their cuteness.

    Variable on
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  • SliverSliver Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Sliver wrote: »
    Sliver wrote: »
    also, on the conversation of who'd be the best director for a star wars film, Christopher Nolan. (Ridley Scott would be a close second.)

    Star Wars, at its heart, is an action fantasy. Nolan makes bleak street-level post-noir crime dramas.

    Saying Nolan is best suited for this series because of TDK is about as appropriate as saying Scorsese is suited for rom-coms because people liked Goodfellas.

    RotS and the entire lead up is about anakin turning to the dark side and betraying the jedi order. I think bleak would have been a fitting tone. Second, his first big movie was about a man driven to evil avenging the woman he loved. Now you tell me, who do you think would have handled RotS (and particularly the responsibility of anakin's turn to the dark side) better than Nolan could have.

    I kind of agree, actually. But more because of The Prestige than any of the other movies.
    That does seem to be a running theme in his movies, now that I think about it. Tragedy in the form of loss, driving otherwise sympathetic characters into the depths of depravity.

    Sliver on
  • WashWash Sweet Christmas Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Variable wrote: »
    Fallingman wrote: »
    I'm throwing my hat in for Jedi beating Sith hands down.

    Jedi had character... I enjoy Sith as the best of the prequels, but all it did was not fuck things up too bad. And maybe it was my age when I first watched them, but the ewoks dont annoy me.

    You know what angers me? Flying R2.

    Fuck yes.

    They did shit to the droids in those godawful prequels, unspeakable shit.

    As far as Ewoks go, they were adorable, served a purpose, and, probably the greatest thing about them, they carried emotional weight. If you put a human or humanoid alien resistance group in their place, you'd have a bunch of people getting shot or hurt or whatever, but you wouldn't know them, so their deaths/injuries would be felt as strongly as any other red shirt death from earlier films - which is to say, you wouldn't feel strongly at all. You have something cute and cuddly get blasted, you fucking feel it. Watching Ewoks die was like watching someone kick a puppy. That shit still bothers me.

    I don't like their cuteness.

    You lack a heart

    Wash on
    gi5h0gjqwti1.jpg
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