its time for the spaceballs prequel. In this story, the story and dialogue sucks so bad, that 15 to 30 minutes into the movie, all the actors and extras revolt and walk off the set. End of movie.

GD,
my post had nothing to do with how you felt about the mpvie. I was stating how I felt, and how I overlook those things. You have your right to continue to watch the movies you know are bad and complain about them as much as I do to like them for what they are and say why.
You were set on being disappointed with this movie before it came out and you weren't let down, in your opinion, and that's ok.
I was excited for it and it lived up to my expectations, and that too is ok.
we don't need to start a bickering match over opinions.

Actually, this movie in particular, I was set not to be disappointed. I had hear SUCH good things about it that I went in expecting, well, not the best, but better. I didn't see it. Oh well.

I'm not bickering, I'm just discussing.

Neither do I. Lucas did do a good job of making it no one's fault. Everyone is a victim of circumstance. The Jedi Council acted as it should have, Obi-Wan (and Qui-Gon) acted as they should have, and Anakin simply is what he is. The thing is this - if you were the one who practically raised Anakin, was at his side teaching him how to weild powers, wouldn't you feel bad if he ended up taking over the galaxy? They show a great moment of this frustration when Obi-Wan screams "you were supposed to be the chosen one!" But as soon as he leaves Ani to die, his internal anguish seems to be gone.

Actually, at the end of the movie, they make it apparent that Obi-Wan must go into hiding to save his own skin, and to watch over Luke. It's not over guilt that he disappears.

During the Obi-Wan vs Anakin and Yoda vs Emperor battles, I found myself thinking "all of these characters must live, how will they pull that off?" It the inherent lameness of making prequels.

After all of the good buzz I was ready to be impressed and entered the theater excited. While I did enjoy watching most of it (I laughed, cried, and left the theater feeling somewhat positive) the moment I started trying to link it together I found it lacking, and the more I talk about it the more disappointed I am.

I'll see it again (maybe even on the big screen) but I fear I'll have the same fate that I had with Ep2 - way worse the 2nd time.

Mistful (LiveJournal) does SW:ROTS (Spoilers a poppin!)
 

Maya ([info]mistful) wrote,
@ 2005-05-23 09:52:00

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Current mood: amused

So, Star Wars.
So, I swore I wouldn't see it. Because I actually had to be tackled forcibly by my tiny little brother to stop me walking out of Phantom Menace. Because I, in a tragic lack of my usually trustworthy nerdishness, never actually liked the first trilogy much. Because, I thought to myself, I have exams. And *standards.*

However, I really love [info]silver_shoes, so, that was then, and this is now.
All the same, it amazes me how much people love it. There was an enormous queue of people who already had tickets but wanted really good seats! Two queues!

MAYA: Muahahahahahaha. I mock you all.
MY FRIENDS: You. Write. Harry Potter. Porn.
MAYA: ... now the Star Wars fans are laughing at me. This is rock bottom.
MY FRIENDS: I dare you to kiss that lifesize cardboard cutout of Angelina Jolie!
MAYA: And behold, we drilled through rock bottom and struck humiliation oil!

And then... wonder of wonders, I... think I liked it. A lot. This is why, with mockery, because if this trailer's not a-mockin', I'm probably dead in here.



There's more on the blog: http://www.livejournal.com/users/mistful

Her Harry Potter one was even better.

Okay, so here's what I've been thinking regarding the prequels, and why they disappointed me so much.

First off, I'm very much about form when it comes to film. You can have the best story and ideas in the world, if you can't present it in an artisticly pleasing manner, you've failed to make a good film. So no matter how interesting the back story is, no matter how satisfying it is to learn that Anikin's own selfishness was his undoing, these will remain bad films.

Now, I'll admit, the original trilogy was hardly flawless. It shares, in fact, some of the same flaws I'm quick to point out in the prequels. But you've got to look at context. It's one thing for a movie shot on a tight budget, on a tight time schedule, with a largely inexperienced cast, answering to a studio, in sometimes difficult conditions, and that's pushing technological as well as artistic boundaries to have a few flaws. In the end you end up with an overall good movie with a few of the difficulties they had to overcome to make it peeking through. But when you've got an essentially unlimited budget, a time schedule of your own making, a cast of experienced actors, no one to answer to but yourself, shooting almost entirely in front of green screen, and the resources that prevent any technological challenge, those flaws should possibly disappear, and at the very least not get MORE glaring. What a failure.

And it makes me wonder if those flaws from the OT can be written off as a result of the limitations brought on by the situation. Which just sucks. Part of what helps elevate Star Wars past those flaws is the "knowledge" that, yeah, there was part of the vision that just didn't quite make it onto the screen. And as fans, we happily fill that in, "knowing" that flawless vision was there, but he was just limited by all those mitigating factors. Well, we don't "know" that anymore. If the Special Editions and these prequels were that amazing complete vision that just was too complex to make it onto the screen, then I think that really detracts from the original trilogy.

Finally saw the movie tonight and liked it. Finally got to read the rest of this thread tonight, HAH! Geeks. Hayden Christensen is dreadful. Actually, he was only bad up until he caught on fire. I was grateful there was some humor thrown in. Did anyone else catch Monorail Purple of the Future? I half expected one of those giant pteredactyls to look into the camera, shrug, and say, "It's a living." Glad I don't retain enough of the specifics of the other movies to be bothered by the continuity glitches. Hated the first two, had abysmally low expectations for this one. I don't read or watch entertainment "news," and I've avoided any reviews or write-ups at all. They sure like cutting off hands. Not living near lava, I'd assume that floating around on top of it would be pretty hot. "I have a very bad feeling about this!" I still don't get why Obi-Wan, in Star Wars (yeah, I called it Star Wars, wanna make something of it?), doesn't recognize the 'droids. Could someone give me a rundown on the history of C3PO? He was built by child Anakin, and then I lose track. Poor Jar-Jar, so sad at meesa Padme's funeral. Loved the Peter Cushing-alike at the end. Why did Anakin suddenly acquire a British-y accent after being fitted with the helmet?
Overall, I really enjoyed it. I have to save my Geek Rage for the next Light Magic or Pooh-storm to hit Disneyland.
"It's a dessert topping, you cow!"

I believe the generally accepted excplanation for Obi-Wan's lack of droid knowledge is that he's a big fat liar. He does, after all, lie initially about Luke's father. So why not lie about knowing droids?

I've decided that once Anikin is saved from the Dark Side by Luke, he's so wracked by guilt at his failing that, in a tribute to his late masters and trainers Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, he affects a British accent. It's touching, really.

A ha! I was wondering if there was any SW discussion on LoT. I found it in this thread.

Here's my take on SW-ROTS (this is cut-n-paste from MC):

Have you ever had a friend who liked cooking for you but really stunk at it? You love your friend, and maybe once or twice they got it right, but at some point (if it’s a really good friend) you have to give out some constructive feedback or they’ll have to learn to get better otherwise they’ll never get it and you’ll have to eat it.

Ie. A friend of mine thinks she’s the world’s bestest chef. She loves to cook. She loves to feed her friends. Sadly, what she cooks is famously bad. So, after several meals I had to break down and tell her. Of course, we fought and there was a period where she didn’t talk to me. But upon listening to me and other friends, she came to the conclusion that she needed to try different things and get help to get better. And she did!

George Lucas is a grand chef who served up great meals in the past, but is now serving us garbage. And, to top it all off, after seeing ‘Sith’ I have food poisoning. Someone at some point in the making of the films needed to tell him he needed to go back to cooking school, but no one did. Ugh.

But, GC, you were so excited and wanted to see this film. Maybe your expectations were too high.

Since the announcement of the 3rd movie and until today, I avoided every review, magazine etc about the making of this film. I avoided the book, comic books and all reviews in this thread on purpose. I wanted my vision unaltered beforehand, I was excited but my expectations were not too high… I was stunned at how bad ‘Phantom’ and ‘Clones’ were. Going into this film I expected it to be just okay, if not better than the previous two. I was wrong in both regards.

It’s Star Wars, it’s not Shakespeare.

Nothing but Shakespeare is Shakespeare. I don’t expect Oscar winning performances when I walk into SW movies. I don’t expect them to be deep, life changing or even emotionally uplifting. However, what I do expect from every movie I walk into is pretty basic. They NEED to have the following: a clear-cut message/moral/point (unless the ultimate goal of the movie is to not have one, but that must be acknowledged somewhere in the film), an engagingly structured plot (the characters go from here to here and change [because of things that happen] in these ways) and a film always needs to know its audience (Age group? Sci-fi fans? Romantic Film Fans).

The problem with the prequels is that Lucas never knew his audience. He forgot about the thirty/forty somethings who made his first three films mega-hits. He searched for a younger, newer fan base and appealed the stories to children. But not even in an affective way, Jar Jar characters and Jake Lloyd ‘woopee’ characters appeal to no one. If the adults don’t like them, kids won’t either.

Lucas said himself that he didn’t care about the people who hated ‘Phantom’ and ‘Clones’. In Entertainment Weekly he said that he has younger fans who love the films. If this is true, didn’t he just alienate the new fans by making ‘Sith’ violent, PG-13 and a ‘Titanic’-style love story?
I, as an audience member, felt like an outsider watching these films. Why? To put it simply, there was no ‘Han Solo’ or ‘C-3P0’.

But, wait, I saw C-3P0.

Han Solo and C-3P0 in the first three movies were audience members invited into the film to experience everything that happened to the main characters. We related to them and laughed at them because we saw ourselves reacting to these extraordinary situations as they did. There was no one to relate to in these three films.

C3P0 in these films was almost a set piece. He said things occasionally, but didn’t give us the comic relief he gave us in the 1st three. He played no vital role.

Ie. Han Solo showed us that traveling in space is fun, that some people in the galaxy are skeptical about the Force and that even people with advanced technology at their disposal still have everyday financial debt.
Ie. C-3P0 showed us that traveling in space is dangerous and scary, that getting desert sand in your gears sucks, that it was possible to be a gentleman in turbulent times and that companionship is important even to robots.

Who could you relate to in the original trilogy? Luke – farm boy stuck in someplace he’d like to get out of, loyal to family needs to get his own life. Han Solo – normal guy who fixes and races vehicles. Obi Wan – Older person dragged back into society after writing it off.

Who could you relate to in the prequels? Nobody. Unless you happen to be a slave, Senator, Senate Leader, Emperor, a fussy teen Jedi, Council member, Count, droid with human parts or a big bright blue chicken lizard. (That last one was a joke.)

I know this is a long post, but I’m really passionate about film, filmmaking and the man who redefined filmmaking for everyone and handed us this piece of Shi-th…

Specifics about the film:

(I’ll start with the Pros)
1. There was one scene I absolutely loved, loved, loved! On the platform of the lava planet, the Anakin, Padme and Obi Wan scene where she discovers Anakin has lost it. His anger, her fear and Obi Wan in the middle made it wonderful.

2. Loved all of the light saber scenes.

3. Loved Grevious’s wheel mobile.

4. Love Ian McDirmid all the way through. Evil, evil man.

5. R2-D2 saves the day yet again. Love it.

(Now the Cons)

1. Lots of scenes were just way too busy with special effects to effectively watch certain key areas of action. Even during the love scenes, there were so many flying vehicles and racing ships and even floaty objects (that made grids in the air for some reason) that the effects turned out to be distracting and didn’t play a vital role to the story.

2. Horrible horrible dialogue. ‘My heart is breaking.’ Yes, we know. Movies show us things not tell us the obvious.

3. Dooku getting killed off early. Palpatine should have killed Dooku. Anakin too Darth-like early on, he had nowhere to go with his character then.

4. New characters in the 3rd part of a trilogy? Who the heck is Darth Grevious and why do we care? I don’t know. He just shows up.

5. Obi Wan riding that big turquoise chicken lizard Mardi Gras lizard. What was Lucas smoking when he chose that creature to be the steed of choice?

6. Female Jedi getting killed in what looked like E.T.’s home world from Universal’s E.T. ride. Yuck!

7. The E.T. moment when Chewbacca and friend watch Yoda take off in small E.T. ship shaped vehicle. Bleh. I know Steven helped with this one, but give me a dang break. I was waiting for the rainbow to shoot out of the end of the ship…

8. Arbitrary names for kids. C’mon writer, figure out a why for the names.

9. Leia in ‘Jedi’ remembers mother as being sad. When she was 1 minute old? Ugh.

10. Darth Vader’s Frankenstein and “Noooo!” moment. I don’t know if it was a tribute to the Frankenstein film, but it didn’t work.

Here’s how the Darth Vader scene should have worked:
Anakin wakes up as Vader. His binds fly off… he makes the binds come off, he’s a Jedi he can do that. None of the other room breakage occurs at this time or before… Emperor summons him, Vader walks to him. He kneels to Emperor.
“Rise, Lord Vader.”
He stands, looks Palpatine in the face and his first word as Darth Vader is “Padme?”.
“Anakin, Padme was killed…”
Vader turns away slowly.
“By you.” Emperor says. “In anger.”
Vader stands there, silent. Then suddenly the room starts to shake, the medical equipment flies apart, the droids explode, the table breaks and Palpatine is inadvertently thrown off his feet. Vader’s anger destroys the room. Palpatine looks up at him with a ‘I better keep my eye on this one. He could end up killing me’ look of concern.
The scene ends with Vader standing there unmoved looking forwards. The Emperor slowly gets to his feet.
End of scene

Anyway, as you can see, I didn’t care for the film. I loved how it all tied in to the 1st trilogy, but it just wasn’t what it should have been.

Sorry for the long post...

What Cricket said! I agree with nearly everything!

The Commodore had some great points too!