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Star Wars Episode 2 Starts Shooting
Star Wars Episode II has started shooting in Australia. Comments on it being filmed fully digitally. Mentions that Jar Jar will be back (along with McGregor, Jackson and Portman). Millions of fans hold their breath and hope this one is good (it'd be tough to go downhill, that's for sure).
(it'd be tough to go downhill, that's for sure)
Come on! All that's ever on Slashdot about any movie is negative. Episode I was beautifully done. It had everything that made the original movies good:
1. A great story line, good vs. evil sort of thing
2. Action
3. Comic Relief (Jar Jar)
4. A bit of romance (Amadala and Anakin)
It has exactly what it needs to be a good movie and to infom us of how we eventually will get to the Empire and the Rebellion. There's much more to Star Wars besides Darth Vader.
What everyone seems to be forgeting is that Episode I is supposed to tell us how it all got started. The only purpose of the movie is to show how we get to Episode II! Everyone seems to hate it because there's no grand revealing things that happen-- there isn't supposed to be! If there was then Episode II and III would absolutely suck because there wouldn't be anything else to tell.
The second thing people need to figure out is that puppets aren't real either. There's all kinds of complaining about how Lucas should have used puppets instead of CGI animation. Why? Are puppets more real than computer generated characters? Lucas couldn't have done what he did without the help of the computers! (Jar Jar aside)
Finally when all the movies are out no one is going to complain about Episode I because it will all make sense and everyone will see that its needed to tell us how the whole thing began. When Episode V (Empire Strikes Back) there was all kinds of complaining about it being too dark and too evil and most of us would now say its needed to have Return of the Jedi. I expect that Episode 2 will be much the same way.
Anyway I loved the movie. There's my rant for the day!
Never knock on Death's door:
The Anti-Blog
Here's a very large list of both positive and negative review links at Rotten Tomatoes.
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Give me Ewoks any day.
...with a nice garlic sauce.
Star Wars is not a kid's series. Did you see Empire? Not a kid's movie. For chrisssakes, they wanted David Lynch to direct ROTJ. Can you imagine that? He would have changed Vader's secret from being Luke's father to being addicted to laughing gas (that's why he makes the huffing noise when he talks) No, the problem with Episode I is that George Lucas made it a kid's movie, even though the subject matter was much too serious to pull it off. Not-so-coincidentally, that's also the same problem with most pieces of garbage that Hollywood craps out nowadays.
I feel for you: your pain is evident. "Here", you cry to an uncaring world, "am I, slone and ignored in my self-righteousness!"
Why can't a movie be for entertainment any longer? Star Wars was ALWAYS a monetary scheme: all movies are; movie directors/producers/actors all expect to get some sort of compensation for their time. If they're good enough, they get more than those involved in bad projects (*cough*Battlefield Earth*cough*). But it isn't THEIR fault if their audience goes into a movie, expecting more than a couple hours of entertainment, something Lucas has almost always delivered (I'm not as sure about THX-1138 as the rest of the films...). So, in summary, if you expect MORE from a movie than a prettily-packaged product, you're in the wrong spot.
Now, as for the "dubious moralising, dumb looking aliens and slushy character relationships", in order: all fiction is political, and contains value judgements based upon the society it was created for. The originals had quite a bit of moralising. Say it with me: "Anger. Fear. Agression. The Dark Side are they." As to dumb looking aliens, I refer you to Star Trek - you must have gotten confused as to which SF saga you were critiquing. And slushy character relationships: society is replete with 'em. EVERY modern (fiction) show cannot help but handle "slushy" relationships. Episode I is tame by comparison.
Finally, your remarks comparing Vader and Manson: you're obviously trolling here, looking for "insightful" or some such. Real quick: Vader==fiction. Manson!=fiction. eof.
Yes and I was hoping that the Special Edition Soundtrack still had the old Ewok song and the old Jabba's lair song as well as the sailbarge songs. The new age jazz crud they added at the end of the movie should have been cut off when panning to the ewoks. The ewok song was far more convincing... and yes as an adult I like both Jar Jar and the ewoks. The key to appreciating episode I is to go in with the expectation that it will be awful... then you are pleasantly surprised because viewed against the other 3 it is worse, but it isn't bad. This same technique can be used to learn to like Star Trek V. I actually have the sheet music to the original Ewok Anthem...(to be played by a school band) The ewoks spoke a tibetan dialect... wonder what the song is about... if it isn't gibberish.
It could have Ewoks, you know.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
So will this speed up the release of the movie?
Death to Jar Jar
Did people see the MTV Movie Awards, when Lucas went up on stage to accept "best action sequence" and he pointed out Samuel L. Jackson in the audience? He said something like "We didn't win best fight this year, but I expect to see Sam Jackson up here next year!" Sounds like they're expecting to put some meat in this one.
echo Prpv a\'rfg cnf har cvcr | tr Pacfghnrvp Cnpstuaeic
You know, I always remember the alians in the Mos Eisly Catana to be much more 'real' looking than the ones in the last film. Even though they were just people wearing corny costumes, they still 'acted' like real people gave a 'real' presence. Computer generated alians may look accurate, but they still don't 'move' convincingly or act alive.
Finkployd
At least JJ's people had energy weapons when they took on the Empire... Ewoks fought the 'crack' troopers who were supposed to be guarding the Emperor's life with sticks and rocks...and won!
Not totally preposterous. The battle scenes looked like the Empire's army had been dealing only with energy and particle-beam weapons for so long that their "armor" designers had sacrificed strength for weight and/or other factors, leaving them wide open to a kinetic energy attack.
A silly mistake, of course. But battlefields are littered with the remains of armies whose leaders and weapon designers made silly mistakes.
Of course the armor wasn't very effective against energy and/or particle beam weapons, either. And lots of the civilians they were called on to oppress were unarmed, and could be expected to improvise with clubs and the like. So why WERE they wearing that armor, anyhow?
Perhaps it was to be intimidating, ala the Nazi's crisp uniforms or the Klan's hoods. Perhaps it was as a weapons-system platform or remote-sensing countermeasures.
(Next question: Why didn't they have any thermal imaging, thus letting overgrown teddybears ambush them?)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I don't know about you but personally I found young Annakin (sp?) to be almost as annoying as Jar-Jar, and was hoping against hope that he would crash and die in the stupid pod race scene. On top of that, I always found Vader to be a deep and fairly complex villian, and someone who would be a very shrewd and fierce opponent no matter what side he fought on. Annakin's role was written/acted so poorly in EP1 that I just can't visualize the transformation. Sure the story had some not so subtle foreshadowing about his eventual fall, but nothing about the character himself suggested anything more than an innocent, clever, and happy go lucky kid. I also think that Lucas made a big mistake in the way he explained the Force as being the result of some mystical space parasites that we all have, the notion of the Force as a mystical natural energy that flowed through all living things without explaining itself made for a much better story, the space parasites thing ruins it for me. It also opens up some holes in the story, notice how in the original SW flicks Obi Wan and Yoda always explian the force as well a mysterious force, but practically the first thing Qui Gon (sp?) tells young Vader is the space parasites line? It's obvious that the parasite idea was added just for EP1. Hmm I seem to have gone off on a tangent. Oh well.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Plus, and this can't be understated, Star Wars didn't have Keanu Reeves. Big edge there :)
It's possible to have a movie that balances special effects against a good story. Forrest Gump, for example -- I didn't like it all that much, but it's the sort of thing I'm talking about. City of Lost Children is a great example though -- one of the "characters" is a flea assassin, shown in closeup several times. You need special effects to get a flea-eyed view of a flea. You don't need them to show Keanu beating up the guy from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
Frankly, I'm sick & tired of movies like that, and I can't fathom why they're so popular. It wouldn't be so incomprehensible if they weren't so universally homogenous and boring, but they are and I just don't get it.
Personally, I have high hopes for the next Star Wars movie, even if the last one did royally suck. A friend of mine and I were... um, that is, some people that I was reading about but have never met before and certainly wouldn't want anything to do with... were suggesting holding Lucas' children hostage for the duration of the next two movies -- if the next one is good, he can have one back; if the next one sucks the kid dies and he better try real hard if he ever wants to see the other again. But of course this would be terribly mean and overreactive and treating a movie way outside of reality and I'm certainly not condoning any harm come down on the dear Lucas children. Not at all. I just think ol' Georgie better do it right this time, that's all ;)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
The phrase that was coined (I think in one of the old West End Star Wars RPG's) was that Star Wars described "A univese that's been lived in". It is without a doubt one of the things that set Star Wars apart, and one of the things sorely missing from Episode I. It's like the joke about artificial intelligence not being real until you can make a computer that acts neuroticlly and irrationally; digital special effects for sets and props won't cut it for atmosphere and realism until they can simulate not perfectly rendered fractal geometry plants and leaves, but the half-brown, mildly worm eaten and irregular plants that real people have in their front yards. A New Hope looked like people hanging out in the grimy bars and run-down frontier towns of the future; Episode I looked like a cartoon show.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
The projection is using TI's newer Digital Cinema technology. It features blacker blacks, better handling of over-bright scenes (knee level), gamma that matches film, and colormetry that matches film. It was designed with the cooperation of many film-makers.
The resolution is 1080 x 1920 progressive. While film make have a higher resolution if you shoot a single frame of a Kodak resolution chart, by the time that resolution passes through multiple internegative, interpositive, printing negative and final print stages, and projected via the crappy projector at your local megaplex with it's dreadful weave problems...
Trust me. The end result will look better than using traditional film. Lucas would not have chosen to go digital otherwise.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
I'm already seeing a ton of posts basically saying the same thing. They basically say this, "George Lucas sucks and he's only in the franchise to make money. The story is going to be written for 10 year olds and all the aliens will be stupid and plastic. The origin trilogy will be soo much better than these."
I would like all of these people to sit back and watch the original trilogy again. Now watch it again. Pay attention this time and ignore any nostalgia you had from when you saw this when you were ten.
Back yet? Good now did you notice anything? Right you probably noticed that the original trilogy has most of the flaws your criticizing Episode One for.
The acting in all of them was dubious at best. Ford was wooden. Hamill was just plain bad ("You're not my father! Its not true!"). Carrie Fisher was high through most of the second and third. Lots of dialogue sucked. Quite often the best actors were the Brits playing minor roles.
They weren't written that well. Why is an astromech droid a great security hacker? Thats one helluva back door in the system. How can a farm boy crop duster turn into a ace pilot with no training? And don't give me lots of "the force" crap. Why can't an ace pilot successfully land a ship in a swamp? Especially if it can hover? "Only Imperial Storm Troopers are so precise"? Please. There are lots more, especially that god awful Tarzan yell in Jedi.
Oh and by the way, lots of aliens looked stupid or plastic in the first movies too. Especially Jedi where the band looked like muppets. Can you honestly say Greedo looked convincing in Star Wars?
Oh and Lucas is almost richer than God so he doesn't need the money. He has ILM pulling in money constantly. He has all the other Star Wars stuff. He doesn't need to spend 200 Million of his own money to make another movie.
The basic problem isn't that Lucas is making bad movies. He isn't, episode one isn't significantly worse then Jedi. The problem is he made another Jedi when people wanted another Empire or A New Hope. And he doesn't have anyone to tell him something is stupid and it should be left out like the overly gratuitous trip through the core in Ep 1. And he's not an especially good director, have you seen his other movies?Remember the horn joke from the set of Star Wars?
His real problem isn't that he's making crappier movies, its that he's making the same level of movies when we want them to be so much better. We want more believable aliens and better writing. We want better acting. So its us who really have to deal with it, not him.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
I'd have to disagree. In fact I will. I was in my early 20's when the original was released and was blown away by the story and FX. I still think the first three movies were exceptional in many ways (OK, other than the Ewoks, but I thought those were added to broaden the demographics and open the market for product targeting the kiddie set).
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Christ figures are everywhere in western literature, and you don't have to look far to find other examples. Sometimes it is done well (like in Cool Hand Luke), sometimes not so well (In The World According To Garp, he was conceived when his mother raped an unknown dieing soldier.)
If we are to criticize Lucas for the virgin birth in TPM, it should be for being so ham-fisted and obvious about it, when he was so subtle and crafty with the symbolism in the last half of Empire. Perhaps he should consider hiring a more seasoned director to get his vision on the screen without cramming it down our throats.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Los Angeles, CA - Insiders at Warner Brother Studios have reported that The Matrix Parts 2 and 3 will actually be the same movie and just retitled. The technique known in the industry as 'retitling' was pioneered on television sitcoms, and first used on film in the 'Friday the 13th' series of movies.
"What did you think we meant when we said we were filming the two sequels at the same time?" said the Wachowski brothers, directors of the first film. "We don't think most people will notice. The average moviegoer saw the first film 11 times. They can't be that bright. The great thing is the actors don't even know. We only used them for about 15 minutes. The rest is all computers. I don't think Keanu will ever figure it out."
The producers of the movie said, "We toyed with the idea of just releasing the first movie as the sequels, but we figured that would be too obvious to the clever American public." They continued, "Usually the third movie in a sequel sees quite a bit of drop off in quality. This way we can guarantee it will be as good as the second!"
A Warner Brothers official denied the report, "They aren't exactly the same. I mean one is called 'The Matrix: Part II', and the other is called 'The Matrix: Part 3 - Part 2 Revisited', isn't that enough of a difference?"
No way - it could turn out to be the key to the series. Consider:
What if the Jedi are wrong? What if those germs aren't the Force, but rather inhabit those who have the Force? (Like detecting anti-bodies to something rather than detecting the something itself...)
These little guys could be the key to the eradication of the Jedi. If you're going to try and kill off the Jedi, how would you do it? Hand to hand combat with every single one? Bomb the annual JediCon? What if you could attack the one thing that distinguishes Jedi from the rest of the populace? What if you could turn the symbiotic relationship into something harmful?
Darth and Co. decimate the ranks of the Jedi sometime between now and when Luke comes on the scene. Wanna bet how they do it? I bet those idiot little germs have something to do with it.
And it could be played as one of those 'spiritual enlightenment' scenes for Obi-Wan... "Those germs have died - I no longer have The Force. Wait! I have The Force still! The Force must be inside me, more than something physical..." and so on and so forth until we all barf.
But, then again, I could be wrong and Lucas could play it out straight and drive us even further away...
RinkRat
Sorry, but SW fan that I am, Binks in the reason that I will NOT pay to see the second film. A bloody ewok would have been a better sidekick!
"What's the point in being grown up if you can't act childish once in a while?" - The Doctor
There is only one good excuse for the return of Jar-Jar Binks. After all, we all know he's evil and obnoxious...and the sith are short an apprentice. I can see it now..."Meesa Darth Binks! Yousa gonna die..." (immediately followed by jar-jar cutting off his own tongue with his light-saber.)
I prefered the original Star Wars series due to the ceativity involved.
I thought the actual 'sci-fi' portion was better looking due to the actual physical models projecting actual shadows over the bumps and curves of the ship, other than the computer generated models which appear flat. The scenery has no depth to it either...
Sorry Lucas, but computers can do everything.... Yet....
...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.
I tell myself not to nitpick, but I can't help it. Here we go.
:)
:)
Basically, a relationship between two living beings is categorised as parasitical (sp? I took Bio in Portuguese, not English) when one of them survives at the detriment of the other. It's a +/- relationship. Therefore, a disgusting nematelmynt (again, sp?) that lives inside your stomach qualifies parasite. So does an unemployed divorcee who lives off the ex-spouse's hard-earned pay.
However, the MOD^H^H^Hmidichlorians (BTW, what a stupid damned name! It tries to be scientific, while ignoring that "a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away" nobody spoke Latin!) don't. I mean, think about it. They get to float around in your cells. You get premonition, supernatural agility and speed, and the right to wear damned cool robes and use those awesome lightsabers (in five fruity colours!). I'd say it's a +/+ relationship, no doubt about it.
Perhaps the word you were looking for is "symbiosis", not "parasitism", eh?
(BTW: It's spelled "Anakin".
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Did I miss something, or did Lucas just slip up? :)
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Dear god.. say its not so...
The ewoks were bad enough.. a bunch of little pomeranians walking around chanting "yub yub". But jar jar.... *shudder*... save us... I swear, he's someone's vision of Joe Camel while tripping on acid : P
- Rei
The yellowcake is a lie.
It could also easily be made better too, just add LOTS of Jedi fighting...
Ninjas, they make anything better
Take a step back and look at your audience and your peer groups before using "everyone" this and "everyone" that.
Yes, that's right, 99% of Slashdot readers are male, computer literate, and young to early-middle-aged technophiles.
As a personal note, I went with a group of over a dozen friends to go see Episode I, twice. 8 guys, 4 girls, all college-age adults except for a younger brother (9 years old) present.
After the movie, it was pretty clear that different people liked (or disliked) specific things about the movie. The college guys hated or at least though Jar-Jar was annoying. On the other hand, they loved the extensive lightsaber duels, Darth Maul, and, of course, Queen Amidala.
The younger brother loved Jar-Jar. He thought he was funny, in a clownish way. He could have cared less about Queen Amidala, but he thought Darth Maul and all the fighting was cool.
The girls unanimously liked Jar-Jar. They thought he lightened the movie's mood, and was generally humorous in a "Dumb and Dumber" way. They generally didn't like Amidala too much (too uptight). Darth Maul was too icky for some of them, and they could care less about "laser sabers" (a direct quote!).
In other words, YMMV. But, try to keep in mind that you speak for probably 5-15% of the population before claiming to represent me, or any of my friends, in your personal views.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
IIRC, Athena was not born at all... she emerged from the cracked skull of Zeus. Also, she was not a person, just another god among many in a polytheistic pantheon.
Shouldn't bug you...unless you think the bible is some sort of factual text rather than a collection of peasant poetry, mythology and moraltiy plays.
Cute. Just what we need, sufficient flamebait to start a massive, off-topic, fundamentalist-versus-agnostic-with-no-room-for-ot her-options flame war.
I'm not going to touch that one, other than to say "thanks a lot" for the shouting match which is likely to follow your comment.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
--
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -- Darth Vader
I think that filming entire films digitally is an exciting concept, one that is sure to see many innovations and have it's ups and downs. The obvious ups are the ease of editting and the fact that editting is lossless, and the with which equipment can be developed. Also, the media is probably about half of the cost of film (real cost, not inflated "I've got the first one" cost).
Downs, the colors are a bit off (black specifically, which has to do with the projection, not the capture, and of course is easy enough to fix digitally) at the moment, and film can probably do better resolution with less effort (but who knows, what are the specs on the CCDs used in these cameras)?
Eh...
and Aussie Leeanna Walsman, who'll take on the physically-demanding role of a new highly-killed bounty hunter.
Can't be a very good one then...
But my point was that the "Force as religion" concept made Star Wars a great mythical story.
The "Force as a biological parasite" concept makes Star Wars a really stupid Sci-Fi serial.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Not all children's entertainment has to be as mindless as TPM or (shudder) Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, or as saccherine as (double shudder) Barney and the (hurl) Teletubbies. Kids are smarter than most people think, if you only give them credit. Look at the old Warner Brothers cartoons from the 40's - 60's; they are obstensibly for children, but still have enough meat to be interesting to adults. The Simpsons does a pretty good job of appealing to all ages. Lucas, in his attempt to make the SW saga accessable to children, alienates the adults. He seems to be stuck in the same mindset that gave us the evil purple menace. Good children's programming should be able to hold the attention of adults as well.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
While I feel your pain regarding how much PM sucked, I think it's too early to write the next movie. I think it's possible that even Lucas learned from the first movie. Hard to say; either he will learn from his mistakes and the next movie will have a lot more plot, or he will go the other direction -- the dark side, let's call it -- and make Jar Jar even more annoying:
I'm really, really hoping that he learned from the disaster.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
... to gouge yet more money out of fans who are so dedicated to the original series that they'll still go and watch anything with the Star Wars moniker on it, even though it's aimed at ten year old kids who think that Jar Jar Binks is actually cool, rather than being the alien equivalent of slashdot-terminal on crack.
I'm sorry, but whilst the orignal Star Wars trilogy had its appeal at the time, this time around the dubious moralising, dumb looking aliens and slushy character relationships just don't really cut the mustard with me. And a whole series about how great the kid who grew up to be Darth Vader, killer of the innocent, is - what the fuck is that about? What's next, Charles Manson - The Childhood Adventures?
Now lets watch as this post get moderated into oblivion by slashbot moderators who still think that George Lucas is something other than a tight-fisted money gouging bastard. These are the same kind of people who will buy each film on video, then each as "Director's Cut", the collected version with a 32-page commerorative booklet and then finally, in about 2020, the DVDs with amazing "enhanced" features - subtitles and an interview with The Man himself.
Nope, I just can't wait for this film.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Lucas has reiterated numerous times after being given heat about Jar-Jar that Jar-Jar is integral to the story. There are a number of rumours circulating around the Internet concerning this.
One is that Jar-Jar is unconciously weilding the force, and is on his own path to becoming a Jedi. This rumor speaks about how Jar-Jar, although clumsy, still seems to win battles despite his clumsiness. This kind of story line could speak to the nature of the force, how it is far reaching, even to the meek.
Another rumour is that Jar-Jar is a character from the later movies, and is currently "disguised." This rumour speaks about how Jar-Jar is pretty similiar to Human in size and weight (some other stuff too I'm not sure of.) I even saw one website suggesting Jar-Jar was Bobafett(!).
Lucas is a master of weaving storylines. I can't wait to see how Jar-Jar fits in based on Phantom Menace.
Just my $.02
Execute? [Y/N] _
All I can say is ...it's True!
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Episode One was one of the corniest things I ever paid $8.50 twice for (the second showing was improved by the syphilitic in front of me whose rigid posture and eight inch afro obscured the occasional subtitles and most of the graphics). Episode Two doesn't even deserve to be seen; I'll watch it, maybe, if Lucas manages to get the word out that it is an apology for the first one. What was there to make Episode One tolerable? A few interesting aliens in the race scene and a well-choreographed swordfight towards the end (although the death of Darth Maul is not believable either). What made it insulting? Every thing else.
Well, perhaps it is unfair to use the term insulting? After all, it's not as if Lucas promised us anything... or did he? Probably not; it's simply aimed at a new generation of viewers (aka purchasers (mom, buy me Jar Jar!)). So those who enjoyed 4-6 should probably ignore 1-3 entirely. After twenty years of being a Star Wars fan (and not too much of an obsessive), I can finally terminate my relationship with Lucas. Just as so many Napster-and-Metallica fans have terminated their relationship with those shmucks. Episode One crossed a line and destroyed the nostalgic magic. So what else can I say about Episode Two? To paraphrase Jay Sherman, the Critic (on "English for Taxi Drivers"): "If the movie looks terrible, DON'T SEE IT!"
For the record I have not terminated my relationship with Chewbacca.
(Movies to pay good money for: Casablanca, Godfather II, the Blues Brothers, A Clockwork Orange, Animal House, Dr. Strangelove. "Empire" holds the distinction of being one of maybe 5 good sci-fi movies ever made, the others are Bladerunner, 2001, uhh... Heavy Metal??.)
Ben Chadwick - Editor, Zero Future/Post-Collegiate Malaise
Hell, I posted it on the Pentium story, might as well put one here. I think it's time for some Weird Al.
All Al all the time!
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The scenery has no depth to it either...
Don't forget the writing.
And the acting...
Now that's a headline.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Should be a good movie. Maybe not great, but still worth seeing.
________
1995: Microsoft - "Resistance is futile"
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
It feels pretty weird
To type "Natalie Portman"
And not lose Karma.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
We pretty much know what happens to most of the characters from Episode I, unless they throw us any major curves.
Anakin: Becomes Darth Vader, is talked about in second trilogy, dies on second Death Star.
Obi-Wan: Lives through slaughter of Jedis, becomes crazy old coot, lives on Tattooine, dies on first Death Star.
C-3PO: Eventually gets built.
R2-D2: Remains an ash can.
Queen Amidala: The assumption is that she becomes Luke/Leia's mother and gets killed.
Really, the only character with room for development, who can have the kind of character arc that Luke had in the first movies, is Jar Jar. He's the one we know least amount, and he's the one who apparently has the farthest distance to travel, in the George Lucas/Joseph Campbell sense. Don't you get it yet? Star Wars, Episodes I-III, is the story of Jar Jar Binks!
He starts out as a bumbling, outsider nobody who can't get anything right. By the end of Episode I, he's proven himself to be an okay guy. In the next couple movies he'll continue to mature and advance, will become a major general or other figure, until finally by the end of the third movie...
(SPOILER ALERT)
Breakfast served all day!
The Matrix.
Mission Impossible 2.
Star Wars 2.
...and a host of other lesser known titles...
Anyone see a pattern here? Why does Australia have 2 large studios (Universal in the Gold Coast, Fox in Sydney) making the cutting-edge hi-tech movies?
IMHO We here in Oz are the cheap Asian labour we've always been afraid of. Also Low Crime rate, Low Labour cost, Highly skilled, Politically stable. We even have more Americans emigrating here than Aussies leaving for the US, despite the pitiful salaries for IT engineers here. (How does 15 years of C, C++, Java, HTML costing $40,000 grab you?)
Market forces may increase the salaries - but may not. There are just too many non-monetary advantages to living here. And there are literally thousands of talented CGI programmers who will almost pay to be allowed to make movies here. Actually, given what I've seen at the multi-media training centre 200m away from my house in Canberra, delete the "almost".
Wonder what the Unions in Hollywood have to say about this consequence of Globalisation.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
First of all, he established the groundwork for what are sure to be two very dark and combat-filled movies.
Also, the lightsaber fight at the end was the best filmed so far.
Even during a second viewing, I was still laughing every time I saw the "thin client" attack droids in action. IMHO, anybody who doesn't think an entire army of Crow T. Robots getting their asses kicked by lizzard men is funny needs to lighten up a little. That battle alone was worth my seven bucks.
On the downside, turning The Force into super-intelligent germs was a huge mistake. In two brief scenes, he ruined the whole series by turning a beautifully impossible fantasy into a very implausable sci-fi load of crap.
This was even less forgivable than the cartoony Jar Jar, the Bat-Grapling-Guns that Amidala's royal guard used, or the fact that Brian Blessed (voice of the Gungan King) put in the corniest performance of his carreer since his hammy appearance in Flash Gordon.
Alright, I'm going to shut up now, because I'm starting to sound like the "Comic Book Store Guy" from The Simpsons.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I'm not karma-whoring, it's just funny. Please don't moderate me up.
wish
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But it's FUN to reverse-engineer a plausable explanation for things in SciFi (as opposed to SF) movies which are REALLY there solely for dramatic effect.
For example:
Q: Why does a "photon torpedo" going off nearby throw people around on the Enterprise's bridge?
My candidate A: EMP from the detonation interfering with the artificial gravity's mechanism for compensating for impulse engine acdelleration.)
My favorite from someone else:
Q: Why does the Enterprise go "whoosh" as it flies by (in a vacuum) in the opening credits?
A: Because someone left the vacuum cleaner running.
(Real A: Because they tried it silently and it just didn't work ffor the audience.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
On a related note, Gaming Age have MPEG movies of the Nintendo Dolphin version of Star Wars Episode 2 Racer, here!
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I agree with you somewhat. I enjoyed parts of Episode 1. The opening scene with Mark Renton and Rob Roy kicking robot ass, running light-sabers through 6-feet adamantium doors was cool. Pod racing was all right; space battle so-so. Jar-Jar was annoying, but not "Drop him in boiling grits" annoying.
Your right about the expectations, though. Personally, I think Episodes 2&3 will be a lot better, if only because people won't expect as much out of them.
1. Jar Jar is a major comic relief in Episode I, comic reliefs are usually needed to help compliment the heroes
2. Putting Jar Jar in EII tells me that Lucas is going to continue to direct HIS vision, despite all the public scrutiny that he got in EI with Jar Jar's alleged references (leave it to people these days to find something to get angry over in something so harmless)
3. I thought (after watching the character for the 3rd time) that Jar Jar's character is a bit more deep than one might first appear, and his character has quite a bit of growth potential (despite the speech impediment of his entire race)
Cheers
Tenement.
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I heard rumors on some fan site that the Empire is going to use bounty hunters to freeze Queen Amadalia the same way that Vader froze Hans Solo in Empire. Is the script released?
Is this true?
because if so PETRIFIED NATALIE PORTMAN! OH YAAAAAAAAAAAA!
-hee. sorry. begin karma burn.
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What happens when you outlaw guns
"[New find] Aussie Leeanna Walsman [will] take on the physically-demanding role of a new highly-killed bounty hunter."
Poor Aussie. I wonder how often one needs to be killed in a movie before one gains the fame of being 'highly-killed'?
-Adam
Morale will continue until the beatings improve!
I would imagine that the kid doesn't have a single major work to his name. Lucas stated publicly that he wanted a total unknown for the project, someone from outside the business.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
I agree completely (though the actual content of the film is something to be argued about later).
The film is for kids. Period. You (general) were a kid when you saw it, now the next generation is getting a taste. Just because the seried didn't appear to "grow up" with everyone else doesn't mean it sucks.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
Highly killed, huh? Tough job, but someone's gotta do it...
"Who's the man?"
/. with a bit of salt
Mace Windu
"Who's the man who comes for his Jedi's?"
"Still the man? Any questions?
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Ofcourse
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I often hear this apologia for The Phantom Menace, but there are many excellent kid's fantasy films that adults enjoy too: The Iron Giant, Indian in the Cupboard, My Neighbour Totoro, Labyrinth, The Last Unicorn -- these are just ones I own.
The truth is, The Phantom Menace was badly structured (who was the hero?), badly written, and -- unlike Star Wars -- relied on flash rather than a compelling story. It deserves every scrap of criticism it got.
Not all kid's movies need to have adult appeal, but unlike a Barney the Dinosaur movie, Phantom Menance *could* have been something adults would enjoy. Maybe the next one will be.
Yogurt
-rpl
There will be a fight between 10,000 Jedis and 20,000 bad guys which results in several Jedi's being killed.
What this means is that we'll have more huge CGI generated scenes. Moores law having duly cranked a few more times, you can model the more fluid movements of people instead of the robots of Episode 1. Frankly, I'm not terribly excited about this. I like cool effects, but when the whole scene comes out of a giant render farm it loses something, at least for me.
What was the best part of Episode 1? I liked Ray Park, the British kung fu athlete who played Darth Maul. I enjoyed it for the same reason I like Jackie Chan movies. There's something exciting about watching an actual flesh and blood human being do something that he really shouldn't be able to, even if he's had a little help from carefully chosen camera angles and multiple takes.
Maybe the reason massive computer generated scenes leave me cold is that I'm too aware of the technology that goes into it and it spoils the trick for me. Or perhaps the ones I've seen have artistic flaws that will be fixed with better technique and more computer power. Maybe we won't even need actors. I'm not sure though. Would slashdot trolls be fixated on petrified Natalie Portman if she were digitally generated? The company that puts out Tomb Raider still hires a series of increidbly nubile girls to make personal appearances as "Lara Croft".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.