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David Brin on "Attack of the Clones"
dpt writes "Science fiction author and scientist David Brin caused quite a stir at the time with his article on The Phantom Menace, and now here are his thoughts on Episode II. Not being as harsh, it hasn't received much attention, but it's an interesting read anyway."
... with the new star wars films is nostalgia. We look back on the original three films with rose-tinted glasses, when really the dialogue sucked, the plots were generic, and acting not up to scratch. :-)
The only new crime of the new trilogy is the over-reliance on CGI.
PS this isnt a troll I actually love Star Wars
<fnord>OBEY</fnord>
From Time magazine, as quoted in the Brin piece:
Cheers
-b
A girlfriend of mine had a cat that would sit and watch you all day long, not moving, not reacting to anything. If you got close enough, it would try to claw your eyes out. If you escaped and could still use your eyes, you would see the cat sitting there looking at you calm and cool. That cat was evil.
Giving into anger is more about making a person evil than it is about displaying emotion. Any master is calm, cool and collected. Luke was a student, not a master. They wanted him to be an evil student, and the quick path to that is anger.
Overall, I don't think that article was any more accurate or insightful than the movie it chose to criticize. It, too, was somewhat obvious and full of factual errors. (Lucas did not direct all five movies, for example.) I'm glad he found it entertaining, though.
I think what would have really put Episode 2 over the top would have been if Count Dookoo was fighting the Dark Side. If he had seen the Sith's rise and the Jedi's incompetence, he should have moved to build an army and defeat the Sith before it took over the Senate, or at least gather enought power to form a decent resistence. Then everything mostly could have worked in the plot. Why kill Obi-wan? Because obi-wan knew where they were. Why fight the Jedi? The Jedi were being used as pawns of the Sith and had to be stopped before they caused too much damage.
Of course this is just one CS majors ramblings, but I would have liked to see that.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
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So what? Brin is most definitely not in the "can't do" category. He's a fantastic author who's won a stack of awards for his Science Fiction writing. I'll admit that the one movie made from one of his books was awful, but the blame for that lies clearly on Kevin Costner's shoulders, not Brin's.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
The problems and holes in TPM could have been fixed with some quick editing and a couple of reshot scenes. It wouldn't have approached the first Star Wars, but then again very little does.
AotC was so utterly, unredeemably bad that it is unfixable. Sheesh - once glance between Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in ESB carried more romantic tension than 30 minutes of moping between what's his name and Natalie. "Let's go to the mall Anni". As my 8 y.o. said "Yuck". How perceptive is the mind of a child.
sPh
Biggest damn plot hole in the history of all plot holes:
C3PO: Hi, I'm a droid.
Owen: Hey, didn't I meet you before?
C3PO: No, I don't think so.
Owen: Yeah, you're C3PO. Build by Anakin Skywalker, right? You're the one who told everybody how itchy you were so you could get Padme to oil you up.
C3PO: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Owen: My dad married his mom! We worked together for about 10 years or so. Remember the whole sandpeople incident, where they came and kidnapped her for no reason? Or how we've been raising her grandson - your creator's son - for 18 years now? By the way - why didn't he ever come back and look in the local phone directory under "Skywalker" - he might have found out his son was right here.
C3PO: (Waves his hand before Owen.) We are not the droids you remember.
Owen: (Dazed.) You are not the droids I remember.
C3PO: (Waves hand again.) You want to purchase us. And give me an oil bath.
Owen: Bath.
Call me strange, but I think there was just a little plot hole there. Maybe a small one.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Next movie will surely have a Chicano low rider caricature help Obi-Wan
make his escape with the twins.
Anyone know if Cheech and Chong are free?
His crazy plot for Ep III sounds interesting ...
.... Darth & Obi-Wan setting this whole thing up to bring balance to the force ... how crazy would this be! Lucas would forever be known as a movie genius!
... we still don't know where he learned the ways of the Dark Side ... maybe it was Yoda that taught him ... That would REALLY mess things up!
...Yoda trained Dooku, who has obviously played a part in Anakin's turning to the dark side by showing him how powerful it is. Yoda trained Qui-Gon ... who trained Obi-Wan, who trains Vader. And if Yoda trained Sidious!!! WOW! At that point, maybe the universe should have been focused on pointing a death star at the little green bastard! ... or maybe Yoda was so smart that he knew this would rid the Universe of the Jedi and prevent the Jedi from taking over (for the long haul) ....
It would definately make Lucas look like a genius, but like the good doctor, I don't believe that Lucas would be smart enough (or would let his ego deflate enough) to use this terrific plot that has been presented infront of him.
Consider the possibilities: Yoda and the Emperor working together the whole time
This would also answer the question of how the Emperor became so powerful with the force
Think about it
That story line definately has possibilities!
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There are many who will take offense at Brin's comments. But as a fan of Sci Fi it is Brin's duty to question Lucas and call him on his mistakes.
If more people step up and speak the truth about how much of a "let down" both of the "new" Star Wars films have been, maybe George will spend a little more time writing the third and less time worrying about the CGI.
So you think it's just coincidence, or lack of foresight or something, that LucasFilm is notorious for releasing not one, not two, not three, but *four or more* versions of each film to the home video market? The initial ones being downright crippled, then gradually getting better?
How about the fact that they had to scale back the number of merchandising tie-ins for AotC because there was so much press about how TPM was basically a 2 hour vehicle for cross-promotions of toys, ties, and KFC
His lifestyle, which you point out, actually argues my point: when people are greedy, they often *don't* have mansions, yachts, harems, etc, because it isn't about enjoying wealth, but rather accumulating it.
George Lucas definitely had some potential, but speaking in present tense, he's about as much of an "artist" as Brittney Spears -- he may be in complete technical control of movies, but he is absolutely a slave to public opinion when it comes to what to make, because he's greedy and the primary interest is in maximizing revenue, not producing quality movies. Sometimes it works in our favor (everyone hates Jar-Jar, we get less Jar-Jar), sometimes it works against us (must include a cheesy romance to capture the female demographic). That's par for the course in Hollywood, I know, but my point is that he's no exception... and that, with customer-abusive attitudes in video release and merchandising, he is actually one of the worst.
Cheers
-b
Well, that works for half the equation. Maybe Owen is a droid too.
Chalk it up to movies 2001:A Space Odyssey.
We'd been conditioned to see space as an antiseptic place, full of glaring bright light, shiny technology, and alien experiences. The original thing about the first SW movie was the way it visually reimagined space to be grungy, bange-up, and lived-in, full of low life characters who were perfectly comprehensible even if they spoke some weird electronic lanuge and looked like a pile of congealed excrement. Star Wars opened up outer space to the great unwashed.
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Right, but, Lucas seems to want folks to feel there _is_ a message in his films, claiming to be inspired by the work of Campbell (who definitely claimed that even 'escapist' cultural myths reveal the underlying philosophy of a culture).
So Brin is critiqeing from the view that Lucas does want to be taken seriously.
I happen to agree that Lucas just wants to make a bunch of money and play with some cool new digital toys & that he is using Campbellian patterns in his stories because they are recepies for popularity, not because he actually wants or expects his stories to teach or shape the culture.
But a central theme to Campbell's work was that popular myths _do_ shape and teach...
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Bottom of the page.
I don't care if he's jealous. His addendum RAWKS!
God, it's so good, I wish I'd thought of it!
note to self: read more of his books!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Literary criticism can actually get more interesting as time goes on. What if anything does "Blade Runner" have to say now that we have cloning? Does "Seven Samurai" or "Magnificent Seven" inform the debate on terrorism today? How does a character like Charles Foster Kane illustrate what we now see in people like Rupert Murdoch or, for that matter, Bill Clinton?
Every generation gets to reintrepret stories, whether those stories are Star Wars movies, Shakespeare's plays, or the epics of the Greeks & Romans. The first generation gets a first crack at such review, but really it takes time for the first wave of interesting stuff to fall out, and the revisionism that later generations can bring can be even more interesting, even if it makes purists wince. Compared to that slower, more thoughtful criticism, the puff pieces you get to see right when the movie/book/etc comes out are for the most part pretty boring & useless.
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