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Quickies from a Galaxy Far Far Away
In celebration of the release of AotC, here are a bunch of random SW stories
that have fluttered through our bin:
Tim Drage has made a
Lego Star Wars movie,
POds sent us a fan film
Fan Film
(quicktime. Bah).
Here is a comic to
share and enjoy.
iamchaos noted that the next Matrix Trailer
will be showing with Clones.
nellardo sent in a fine tribute to darth maul.
Anyone want a Star Wars Axe?
Zack sent us a great collection of
SW Characters you won't see as much
as you might want to.
wiredog sent us some spoilers, the Skywalker family tree
and how Anakin becomes Vader.
peter_gzowski sent in an
essay by Ebert
where he gives it 2 of 4 stars, and discusses the digital filming.
Finally ant sent us a bizarre tale
of some guys who got the brilliant idea to build a
life-size Millenium Falcon.
So there it is folks. I have tickets for a 12:01 showing in Ann Arbor and I'll
be getting in line in just a few short hours.
And I'm quite impressed. I watched Phantom Menace on DVD before going, and followed it up with AOTC. It was rather impressive and made Phantom look rather shallow. Yes, it may make you cringe in a couple of places, but overall, it seems more like the Star Wars of old, and it is cool to finally have the story coming together, something that didn't really happen with Phantom (of course it was mainly used as a movie to introduce characters and themes).
;)
I went in with an open mind, not really knowing what to expect, just hoping it was going to be better than Phantom. I personally think it has well outdone Phantom. It is much deeper, more emotive, and certainly darker. I really enjoyed this movie, and overall I think the audience did too, especially Yoda's scene - you'll know it when you see it
Ok guys, just got out of the theater down here and I thought I would give some feedback to the community. First of all, I'd like to qualify any negative tones that come through by stating that a few of the specific scenes were tainted in my first viewing by a big fat guy next to me that kept saying "this isn't star wars" I felt like turning next to him and saying, "well fatso, what is it then, mary fucking poppens?" because undoubtedly this is star wars.
Over the years, I think Lucas may have lost touch a little bit with his fan base, but AotC is a step in the right direction. Its hard to go into any details without spoiling (which i promised myself i would not do) so forgive me if I skimp out in those areas
Lucas makes use of two main plots, regarding anakin and obi-wan (sp?) now the former plot in my opinion, endulges a little too much in the realms of honest idealism, and can get cheesy at times, but the remaining portions, along with the later plot, definitely make up for it. (Yoda. need i say more?)
Halfway through the movie I must admit I was quite skeptical, as I had already extrapolated every action to the end. However, the clues did not reveal all, to the point that at the end I was left stunned, contemplating what was going to happen next, what I missed, and how long until I could see it again.
Strong the force in this one is.
-John
disclaimer: as it is 3:21am and I only had 5 hours of sleep in the last 40, please excuse any spelling, errors, or lack of interes... oh screw it - flame away
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
Ebert has a good basic measuring stick of a good movie: if you can remember any quotes from it.
Then list five memorable lines from Phantom Menace.
Then list five lines from A New Hope.
"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."
"That's no moon! It's a space station."
"When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master."
"Only the master of evil, Darth."
"He doesn't like you."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't like you either. You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems."
"I'll be careful."
"You'll be DEAD!"
Do you think that Attack of the Clones will be as basically enjoyable? I don't think so. At least we get to see some Mandalorians. I'm going to wait. Maybe catch a matinee.
Personally I want to see the Star Wars where Jar-Jar dies on every page.
What is music when you despise all sound?
They never stopped doing that. If you watch the documentary for Jurassic Park (it's on the DVD), you'll see that veteran animator Phil Tippett and his crew had a very hard time making the transition from "go-motion" animation to working with a keyboard to make CGI dinosaurs. So the special effects crew built a number of model dinosaurs that were tied into the computer, and the animators moved them by hand, just like they did with stop-motion, and the movements were recorded and smoothed out by the computer. The technique, ultimately, didn't change much at all.
One of the animators even complained that "people think that with computers, we just have a keyboard and press C for creature and D for dinosaur, and never do any hands-on work, which is just wrong."
Even TPM featured a lot more miniatures work than is apparent in a film. It's really nerdy of me, but I've gotten a bit of pleasure out of it when I was watching TPM with an anti-CGI fellow, and when he sneered "that looks so fake" at one particular part, pointed out to him that it wasn't CGI, but a miniature. Oops, now it looks real after all!
My favorite bit is people always yapping about the actors opposite Jar Jar (yeah, I know, I know) "looking over his head" or "into space," when in fact there was an actor in a Jar Jar suit right there in the scene with them, and was replaced later.
Certainly, some CGI effects look better than others, and I've seen enough piss-poor CGI Rorscharch blots to last me the rest of my life -- but this hating CGI "just because" just sort of puzzles me.
That said, I think Ray Harryhausen is to be revered as the pioneer that he was, but stop-motion, by today's standards, looks like complete ass. I think it's a testament to how spoiled we are as moviegoers that we can carp and gripe about special effects that look more realistic than anything that's ever been in the movies before -- no matte lines, no mismatched colors, etc. Like any effect, when it's done well, it's done well. When it sucks, it sucks.
Can you get any more geeky than Star Wars in ASCII over telnet?
Video Game cheats, hints a