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Star Wars Episode III : Birth Of The Empire
lemmen writes "According the Brtish tabloid The Sun, Star Wars III will carry the name 'Birth Of The Empire'. This will be announced soon according the article. Also it describes one of the highlights of the movie: 'A thrilling lightsabre clash between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker while surfing on lava.' Can't wait till May 15th 2005!" Thanks to reader ExoticMandibles, another quality news source: Teen Hollywood. Update: 05/20 05:47 GMT by T :
Gokey writes with a correction: "StarWars.com indicates that the movie is released May 19th, 2005 (exactly
one year from now) not May 15th, 2005."
There was always an official Lucas announcement as to the names of the prequels, and many many rumors/fake names... anyone think this is legit?
May I humbly propose, without attempting to troll, that the Star Wars franchise is no longer relavant? Like most pop art, it is no longer in fashion. Most people I talk to today simply don't care.
Surfing on lava? SURFING ON LAVA? I guess we're in store for another gripping special effects movie which utterly bores anyone over 8 years old.
Now, if they fired Lucas and made the Zahn books into movies then they could rekindle the franchise, but Lucas would never allow that.
Oh great, this will be ultra realistic. Lucas has just gotten way too happy with the CGI in the prequels. Give me the old minatures any day.
4-6 were cool because they were grounded in reality with some cool special effects. The prequels have lost all sense of reality. A few of the things that bug me:
A planet with a water core that you can travel through, I just don't think this was possible
Yoda needed cane to walk and then doing double back flip, mctwists while fighting.
Jedi's plummiting 100's of feet through the air and landing on flying cars.
My list goes on and on. Fighting on lava is another example.
George is being serious. Almost makes you feel sorry for him. Billions of dollars can't save him from still being an idiot...
Anyone else getting the picture in your head from that one episode of Futurama, advertising "Walrus Juice" with a guy "Riding the Walrus" (and, you know, actually surfing on a walrus)? The message there was "don't make things extreme for the purposes of making them extreme". At this point, I think Lucas is way in over his head with this.
surfing on lava?
how can someone create such a dark and fantastic universe and make it so compelling int he first 3 movies, and then fill it with things like jar jar and "surfing on lava" (whoa gnarly yo!) and other idiocies in the last 3
well, the ewoks were a hint of the direction i guess
maybe lucas, who said he wants this to be for kids, not adults, is crashing the entire ship of the series against this rock of kid-friendliness
but you don't have to make it like shrek to appeal to kids
i mean i saw star wars at 7, and it was stunning... no jar jar binks needed to apply to captivate me
i think lucas really screwed up that whole "kid-friendliness" dictate- what that really means to be "kid-friendly", and what its dubious implementation might do to the tone of the series
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Great. We've had a Jewish stereotype flying slave-owning scrap dealer, a Japanese stereotype evil scheming trading guild, a 1930s negro stereotype comical figures-now-available-in-stores alien. What's in this movie? A stereotype British evil planet landlord? A stereotype German warmonger attacking peace-loving planets? Or maybe even a stereotype Texan emperor invading rogue planets to bring peace (while secretly plotting to steal their dilithium crystals).
Lucas makes me want to vomit.
Just the like the ludicrous "pod race" in Ep. I, and the (admittedly cute) hovering-Yoda saber fight in II, the only possible rational justification is videogame possibilities. Just like scenes where people and robots get tossed by-complete-coincidence onto moving conveyor belts with stamping machinery ...
Remember, A-B-B-A-up will let you kick-flip your lava board; B-B-A-B-down-up does a stalefish grab.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
The Star Wars franchise 'jumped the shark' with the Ewoks dancing at the end of EP 6.
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
This is not surprising, but it is depressing. I know that every one of you reading this comment has seen the Luke vs. Vader lightsaber fight in Ep6. It was classic, I would almost call it artful. The lighting, the music, the overall mood was just fantatsic moviemaking.
So what do we have to follow this up? Fighting on lava surf boards? That's just stupid. I wish I could say it more eloquently, but it's just. plain. stupid. The original movies exhibited a certain amount of class, but now it's just drivel. I cannot possibly get excited or emotionally involved in a battle when I'm laughing at the implausability of the entire affair. It's the same reason that the huge battle at the end of Ep2 sucked so hard: there was too much going on, it was too fancy, and it was there just for the sake of coolness.
Minimalist direction and set design can convey so much more emotion and plot than overblown, busy looking CG riddled garbage. Of course I'll see this movie, but I'm going into it knowing I'll be laughing at, rather than actually caring for, the characters.
I'm not angry at George Lucas, he has a right to make the movie he saw in his head. I just rather pity him. Growing old should make someone more mature, not less.
There's an entire library of material licensed and sanctioned by Lucas, and he chooses to cast most of it to the wind. So what's going to keep this movie from sucking? My guess is nothing. George Lucas went from being a modern mythmaker to peddling contrived sci-fi. It's really sad to see his work decline because of his overinflated ego. He believes his films somehow stand on their own, regardless of what the fans think.
Someone really needs to remind George Lucas, and Hollywood in general, that while CGI is a great tool it's not a panacea when it comes to making films. Stories matter. Miniatures and actual sets still have their places.
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
modern movies seem obsessed with being "cooler" than everything that has gone before.
Case in point
Matrix - Kung Fu in a virtual world
Matrix Reloaded - Kung Fu in a virtual world with mythical beasts
Matrix Revolutions - Kung Fu in a virtual worldwith mythical beasts that walked on the celing and not the floor.
It's like Star Wars is running out of ideas so the franchise is going for big and flashy over anything worth watching. This is why I am predicting that there will be a battle involving the largest armies ever concieved, and this time, there will either be a two lightsabred enemy or more than one bad guy at once. Just so this film can be "Bigger, More Destructive, Better" than the last one.
Which is a shame, because these new films are in serious danger of ruining the original films (which I love) just by association....
RoseColor red={0, 0xffff, 0x0000, 0x0000};VioletColour blue={0, 0x0000, 0x0000, 0xffff};find / -name *mybase*|chown you
Overuse of CGI? That's at the bottom of the list; try:
- ridiculous references to modern times, like themeing the pod race like a nascar race, with stupid anachronistic quotes.
- more in-jokes referencing tv programs, like anakin saying "there's nothing to see here" a la police stereotype at a crime scene
- the removal of the wonder and mysticism of the force by explaining it scientifically, n.b. "midichloreans". This has the effect of forcing the viewer to treat everything that happens as having a real scientific reason, and there are plenty of ridiculous happenings that cannot be explained this way.
- atrocious over acting on the part of Hayden Christensen and Euan McGregor. Hayden for his emotionless portrayal, and McGregor for blatantly trying to retrofit McGuinness's voice style and coming off sounding like he's holding in a sh*t the whole time.
- that ridiculous "bowl" haircut on young anakin. Can't we have one american movie without a bowl-haircut child in it, please?
- no nekkid carrie fisher.
- mind-numbing script. need I go on?
PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
The sixth movie in the series also features Anakin's transformation into evil Darth Vader and his baby son, Luke, being smuggled to safety to the desert planet Tatooine.
Good idea, smuggle him to his father's home planet. Why didn't Lucas create a couple more places? It always struck me as ridiculous that he made Anakin come from Tatooine in Episode 1 (to say nothing of the whole Vader is also C3PO's father weirdness).
Screw the title, is anyone else worried about this cheesy-sounding fight on lava surfboards? Surfboards?!
God, Lucas, please stop! Give me a dignified sword fight in the vein of the OT. Nope, we need green-screened, CG'd light saber battles on top of lava with the two combatants using them like surfboards!!!
And how do you think it acquired said aura?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Well it seems to have switched from sci-fi to sci-fantasy. At least the first movies tried to be faithful to reality. The force thing was always a little out there but now it's taken a life of it's own. The force now replaces the plot.
and is more like Birth of a Nation in space.
You know what, I might pay to see *that* movie.
You made his joke 1,000 times funnier by simultaneously NOT getting it and EXPLAINING it to everyone here.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Really THAT funny? I guess I'm one of the last remaining people that love the Star Wars saga for it's story, and not just the fact that it was the best Sci-Fi/Adventure series from my childhood. I wonder how many 80 year-olds rolled their eyes when Star Wars came out because it wasn't Metropolis.
I'm excited to see the last movie, becuase it's the reason the prequels were made in the first place. It's the reason any of us were excited to see the Phantom Menace. It's the reason why everyone, including PM-haters, went to see Attack of the Clones. However, even though I liked the first 2 prequels, I admit this last one will have to be nothing short of great. If it fails, the whole prequel trilogy fails.
- ridiculous references to modern times, like themeing the pod race like a nascar race, with stupid anachronistic quotes.
Of all the complaints I see, I've never seen anyone else complain about the one thing that annoys me the most--the freaking DINER in Attack of the Clones.
I swear, I was half expecting some manner of creature in a pink dress to come out and screech "kiss my grits!"
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I had this discussion with someone recently - there's a difference between believable scenarios, and believable behavior.
I can imagine Tolkien's middle earth because things act and interact in a consistent manner, I can imagine the scenario in episode 4, but ewoks helping defeat the empire is a bit of a stretch, and surfing on lava is just ridiculous - regardless of the setting.
~Berj
Of course, Star Wars has an actual plot, so it'll have a leg up on Spy Kids 3-times-shittier-than-anything-you-ever-imagined-D .
Funny, I thought the movies were all science-fantasy. At best, space opera sci-fi. Really, the movies were never about the science, which was always ludicrous and inconsistent.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If the entire Jedi counsel can stand next to Senator Palpatine and not have the slightest clue that he's force sensitive, let alone a Sith Master, Vader not locating Yoda doesn't really rank up there in the hard to believe catagory.
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
After TPM came out, and I was still suffering from "Jar Jar Shock," one of my friends enlightened me with the idea that Star Wars is a children's movie. That is why I remember the OT being great, but I am so disappointed by the Prequels.
I let my 2-year-old son watch all 5 recently, and he loves them. Now instead of asking to watch Monsters, Inc. or Toy Story, he wants Star Wars.
The Fat Man Walks Alone
Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang, was a serious film which pondered the man/machine rift using the best film technology had to offer at the time. In the 1920s it was absolutely at the forefront of film special effects, yet the effects didn't overshadow a then highly original story and screenplay. Star Wars was simply a western shot in space with high end special effects of the era. Comparing the first Star Wars to Metropolis does Lang and his film a terrible disservice IMO. You would do better to compare 2001 with Metropolis since they both cover similar ground of dehumanization in subservience to machines and the cycle of birth and death - both for individuals and societies at large. Lucas never offered such serious themes in his work, it's strictly entertainment. --M
...the spoilers don't have the whole story? Ever thought of that? Perhaps the two are fighting on a platform *over* lava that falls into the lava having been ripped from its base. Maybe Palaptine does the ripping. Maybe it's cut by a lightsaber. Do you ACTUALLY think that we will see Jedi "surfing?" That would be *too* stupid. Not going to happen.
Go ahead, mod me down as though I were some sort of nerd heretic. Although it's really odd how being a Star Wars fan used to be a nerd prereq, and now you have to despise the movies in order to get your loser cap.
You left out:
- hokey physical comedy and stupid gags, like C3PO in both movies. In retrospect, the special edition of ANH fortells this, with the Jawa being thrown around by some huge lizardlike steed, or Han stepping on Jabba's tail.
- Ridiculous foreshadowing that attempts to tie every single plot thread or character from the original movies into the prequels. Tatooine figures so prominently in the prequels that you'd think the Empire would have been interested in the planet before the droids landed there in ANH. They should have just left the droids out entirely; they had character in the originals, and here they're just cartoonish plot devices. Any bets on whether and how Han Solo will show up in EPIII?
- Overexplanations in general, not just the midichlorians. I don't give a shit whether the stormtroopers are all clones. What made them so scary in the originals was the fact that they've been dehumanized by sticking them behind all that armor. It's actually a lot more frightening if you don't know their origin; they're robot-like, but not robots.
- Which brings me to: all those friggin' robots. Battle droids aren't scary or evil. Stormtroopers are evil, massive Star Destroyers are evil, TIE fighters are evil. The only evil parts of I and II were Darth Maul, Count Dooku, and the Fetts. The Empire had this whole aesthetic style to it that just screamed "heartless planet-crushers and destroyers of hope"; the Trade Federation has crappy faux-Oriental accents and CGI bots.
Star Wars is, was, and always will be FANTASY. There has never been any attempt to interject scientific reality into the star wars universe (execpt for all that midichlorian mumbo jumbo, and look how well that was recieved). The force isn't real, hyperdrives aren't real, lightsabers aren't real, and none of them have any basis in reality. I could go on, but I think y'all get the point.
Some people don't expect our movies to be scientifically sound. I've seen enough of reality; bring on the fantasy.
None of you would be complaining about the lava-surfing if it involved Jar-Jar! :oD
Poor editing, actually.
If you look on the ep1 DVD's deleted scenes, you'll see a scene where Qui Gon is talking with Anakin in Mos Eisley, and one of the flying camera droids that Darth Maul had released when he got on the planet creeps up on them. Qui Gon senses its presence, and in a very cool Jedi move turns around, takes out his lightsaber and destroys the drone in one swift motion. then turns to Anakin and, aware that they have been found, says something like "We must hurry!" and they run off to the ship. Upon their hasty arrival, Darth Maul catches up with them, and they fight (the deleted scene ends when he says they must hurry).
But that scene was cut, so the following scenes do not make sense:
That is now a useless scene because they don't do anything. He releases them...and that's the last we hear of them (I think we see one zipping along once in the background, but that's all).
Why are they running? How did Darth Maul know the ship was there?
So, he cut an important scene that linked two other scenes (therefore crucial to the flow) and showcased super cool lightsaber action and force powers (what we are there to see!), all because of "time constraints". But he felt it necesary to leave in the same chapter the scenes of:
That is bad storytelling. If you have time constraints, you cut the scenes that have no relevance to the story and no impact on the flow, not the ones that are both cool and integral to the story.
You can't take the sky from me...
I remember being probably around 5 or 6 when I watched the star wars movies. I liked them then, and I can't wait until the first trilogy is released on DVD September. That said, I was pretty young and couldn't really make an opinion over "Wow that's cool!" and couldn't appreciate the fine details in the first 3 movies. I haven't watched them in a while either so the memories of them are vague at best.
Getting to the question at hand, what about episodes 1 and 2 turned you off? I enjoyed them on their own merits rather than comparing them to the first trilogy (because it was easy for me, read above), and although there were some things like a planet with a core of water that was unrealistic, Star Wars in general is unrealistic.
Of course, there is the Jar Jar Binks factor. Personally I bet Lucas regretted that character, I know I sure would.
Some talk about a Jedi falling 100 feet and landing on a flying car and how that is unrealistic, others talk about the set rules of physics that seem to be ignored in I and II, others about destroying the "wise sage" that was Yoda, and also the demystifying of the force with science. I'm sure there is more, which I hope you'd inform me of.
One thing I'd like to say is that episode II to me seemed to show the golden age of the Jedi coming to an end. I can see how certain things in the first 2 or 3 episodes could be different from the last 3, such as the jumping from 100 feet thing.
Anyway, I'd like to hear your responses as I've been wondering why people seem to rag on the new SW movies a bit.
Anyone who actually uses the name "Anny" to refer to Anakin Skywalker is disqualified from criticizing these movies. And it's not Ben, it's Obi-Wan. He was only called Ben during his time of hiding out and watching over the growing young Skywalker on Tatooine. Sorry, but we've got to keep continuity
If Episode I and II were such a travesty, such a smear on the well-coddled spot of pop culture that you hold so dearly close to your heart, then don't go see Episode III. I mean it. Don't spend any money, don't ask anyone else how good (or bad) it was. Just ignore it when it comes out and leave it behind you forever.
Will you do that? I would venture to say no. That would spoil the fun of having something to bitch about.
The real reason people use as justification to see the new version of anything is that they might miss something that DOESN'T suck, something that everyone else saw on midnight the night before opening night. Heaven forbid I be left out of a geek orgy! But feelings are so strong about Episodes I and II you would figure no one would touch Episode III without biohazard gear and robotic assistance. But they will. In droves. And when Episode III comes out, people will dress up in their Stormtrooper outfits, Darth Vader suits, and Leia bikinis and flock to the theaters.
And they will be thoroughly disappointed.
Expectations for this series are way beyond what anyone can reasonably expect. George Lucas has left the Star Wars universe simmering for far too long and with little discipline for ANYONE to be satisfied with his vision of the beginning of his own saga. Anyone with such high expectations is destined for disappointment, because the movie they see is never as good as the movie they imagine.
So ignore Episode III when it comes out. Don't go see it. And don't complain when it sucks. Because Star Wars does not belong to you. It belongs to George Lucas. And he can rewrite his story (and "history") all he wants, because it's his. If you don't like the story, don't fork over the cash. And if you do go see it, just remember what George Lucas actually said: "the last three [episodes] are more commercial." Don't expect to see the death of every Jedi. Because I am predicting Darth Vader will not show up until the end of the movie. And if there's anything that will get the Star Wars zealots up in arms, it will be the "implied" slaughter of all the Jedi, just like the "implied" slaughter of the Tusken raiders in Episode II. After all, this is a series for kids!
"What luck for the rulers that men do not think." Adolf Hitler
The only evil parts of I and II were Darth Maul, Count Dooku, and the Fetts.
Meh? How was Maul evil? He had horns? All of these guys are evil only because they're on the wrong side, not because they really establish their respective characters at all.
Darth Vader used the force to choke a guy to death - because he got a little back-talk. Darth was a bad, bad man - and got lots of great scenes to establish his character. So did the emperor. Heck, they blew up a whole planet.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
... their target readership dreams only of guzzling litres of lager while watching clones of Pamela Anderson playing topless football. Phwoar! etc.
Just look at the quote- "they control these like surfboards". Wow... sounds plausible. Sigh. I strongly suspect that whatever actually happens in this scene, the 'insider' or The Sun felt they had to dumb it down so that their readership could understand it- and distorted it in the process. Surfboards!?! Hah!
Personally, I'm hoping to see "Star Wars: Episode III: Return Of The Sith" scroll up the screen. That would follow George's professed style of making movies 'like music', echoing the same riffs and themes throughout the Star Wars sextology.
Given the quality of the first two prequels, maybe the subtitle should have been "Death of the Empire."
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Do you ACTUALLY think that we will see Jedi "surfing?" That would be *too* stupid.
You do realize that George Lucas is writing and directing this movie, don't you? You do realize this is the same guy who gave us Jar-Jar, virgin-birth Anakin, and mitichlorians, right? Do you seriously think anything is "too stupid" for George Lucas to insert into his next action-figure-selling movie vehicle?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I'd personally like to thank the retard editor who let this spoiler go. Surfing lightsabre battle, great, I'm sure it's fantastic, but what is it with posters and editors who think it's necessary to dump details without a spoiler warning? I find I enjoy movies best knowing as little about them as possible before going in. In particular it saves people from me being yet-another-twit posting about how this or that was a let down thanks to my inflated expectations.
I'll see it when it comes out, probably a week or so after opening and when crowds have thinned (after all the whinging begins in papers and on /. about how it sucked because of this, that or the other thing.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
lucas created a lot, what you define as noncreative is exactly what creativity is: mixing and matching previous cultural artifacts into new and novel combinations for great entertainment effect
;-(
in other words, your forensic analysis of lucas's influences are dead on, but that simply illusrates how creative he is: to mix and match such disparate influences into something wholly fresh and enthralling
you seem to think creativity happens in a vacuum
ALL stories, written by ANYONE can be found to have similarities to previous stories, as all stories are simply variations on the hero myth and have the same story arc of crisis leading to resolution
i mean, according to your definition, shakespeare or homer deserve credit for all books and movies made in western culture for the past couple of hundred years... um, no
study joseph campbell and his groundbreaking work with myths, especially the hero with a thousand faces to see what i mean
lucas is incredibly creative: watch his early film thx-1138 and do a forensic analysis of the science fiction and cultural critique roots of that movie... it doesn't take away from lucas's creativity to find his sources of inspiration
no, the problem with lucas is that he hit his audience dead on in the first few films: older children and young teenagers, in the spirit of tintin: genuinely evil forces and genuine mortal risk at work against a young hero with colorful friends and enemies in a colorful universe
however, for whatever bizarre reason, with jar jar and surfing lava, lucas somehow thinks that YOUNGER children should be courted instead of staying with his sweet spot of older children/ young teenagers... i mean c'mon jar jar is nothing but a teletubbie character: lucas has gotten the age wrong when he seeks to be kid-frinedly- he's aiming at too low of an age, and losing the sweet spot that his star wars universe appeals to
on a side note, this whole delving into the forensic analysis of predecessors to creative works gets at the problem with corporations claiming intellectual property creep further and further into the public domain: micky mouse not lapsing into it, or the whole debale with the grey album: at some point, by claiming excessive ownership on what is essentially our shared human culture, corporations are stifling innovation, not helping it, by keeping works locked up in a vault where no one can freely dip into and remix from them...
in such a too near future world where corporations and their hordes of lawyers exert too much of an influence on cultural ownership, a lawyer can come along just as you did in your parent post, and claim ownership of star wars based on previous works, and stifle star wars before it ever got out of the script pile
on other words, in the future of increasing dubious and aggressive cultural ownership practices by large corporations, we would never have seen star wars... that's the kind of stifling of innovation we are dealing with in the whole ip battle
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
ridiculous references to modern times, like themeing the pod race like a nascar race, with stupid anachronistic quotes.
Nascar? More like chariot races of Roman times.
more in-jokes referencing tv programs, like anakin saying "there's nothing to see here" a la police stereotype at a crime scene
What else would you expect him to say? Something cool like "Some friend"?
the removal of the wonder and mysticism of the force by explaining it scientifically, n.b. "midichloreans". This has the effect of forcing the viewer to treat everything that happens as having a real scientific reason, and there are plenty of ridiculous happenings that cannot be explained this way.
The midichlorians only allow people to interact with the force, they are not the source. Besides, you're kind of repeating your previous point.
atrocious over acting on the part of Hayden Christensen and Euan McGregor. Hayden for his emotionless portrayal, and McGregor for blatantly trying to retrofit McGuinness's voice style and coming off sounding like he's holding in a sh*t the whole time.
Oh, like Leia pointing to a star destroyer and blandly saying, "Star destroyer," isn't emotionless...or the millions of times Luke overacts his youthful exuberance or wannabe venerable Jedi calm attitude?
that ridiculous "bowl" haircut on young anakin. Can't we have one american movie without a bowl-haircut child in it, please?
Luke's haircut throughout was a friggin bowl. And how about Han's fun little hairdo? Another bowl.
no nekkid carrie fisher.
Natalie Portman in a torn form fitting suit will do in a pinch.
mind-numbing script. need I go on?
Please do. I haven't seen a single thing you mentioned that's not visible in the holy trilogy, script included. Come on man, Vader's "No disintegrations" isn't cheesy? Everything's lifted from something else, from "You must learn the ways of the force," to the emperor's "You want this..." to Luke, it was all awful, disgusting, and stolen. But because it was so friggin cool, I ate it all up and continue to do so. Unlike some people, I still watch Star Wars through the eyes of a child and treat it as such. It doesn't have to make perfect sense and mesh with the laws of physics. All it has to do is give me an environment where I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. Nothing will come close to Star Wars. Nothing.
I also reply below your current threshold.
I've read all the high rated "funny" and "interesting" comments thus far.
It's amazing how people are ready to take a hard dump on the movie before it's even released. It's even more amazing how people take one word "surfing" out of a press release or news report and negative fantasize until they are blue in the face like somebody who is REALLY constipated.
But the fact of the matter is.....just about every one of them will be at the theater within 2 weeks of release, ready to pay their 7-10 bucks (or equivelant currency) to see it.
Maybe their expectations will be so low that they might actually like it.
Jango Fett just struck me as some vaguely trailer-trash single dad who wanted to make a few bucks to raise his kid. Saying he was supposed to be "evil" smacks of George Lucas's bizarre moral philosophy, e.g. Anakin is "evil" because he's afraid, or because things piss him off -- or because he misses his mother, for Pete's sake. None of this stuff is "evil" to me, it's just human nature: some good, some bad.
Breakfast served all day!
Remember when you expected huge epic space battles from Star Wars? I'm tired of these CG ground-based battles. Only one we've gotten so far, and it's a kid and his "cute" accidents that win the battle.
Where are the X-Wings? The Tie Fighters? The space battles?
Where is the history of the Rebellion, and their first design prototypes of the Y-Wings, X-Wings, and so forth? The creation of the Rebel fleet and bases on Hoth and so forth? I'd rather see Hoth again, not Tattooine.
You know, actual prequels to the storyline we know in the original movies. If Lucas wants to jerk off over CG--where is the absolutely monstrous, record-breaking spaceship battle taking place between Star Destroyers, fighter ships, and so forth that shows everyone how it's done?
Nah, lets watch a bunch of Gungans and some CG clones shoot through clouds of dust instead.
When I say 'best movie' I'm talking about the art of filmmaking, not the values of the people in the movie. The book Native Son is about a semi-retarted black boy who kills a white girl, and I hated the story. But it's still considered a great book and that's why it is on reading lists in universities. I hated Lord of the Flies because I despised the characters and the plot sickened me, but it's still considered a great book.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Machiavellian?? Nicolò Machiavelli would have stolen Palpatine's power base and obliterated opposition in that idiotic senate before breakfast. Palpatine's rise to power was as a subtle as a sledgehammer and about as dull.
The lauded Jedi Council was also a room full of idiots. Blindly they walked into trap after trap and then got slaughtered by the hundreds by flying into an ambush on purpose! "Gee Yoda, maybe we should fly down under cover fire, load up our friends, get the hell out, and nuke the site from orbit." "No no, let's try to attack from the center of the combatants, yeah!"
Did the Jedi, at the height of their power, just not like to use the force? I expect that a few hundred Jedi would have some seriously cool tactics involving force manipulation. But no, all I saw was isolated force pushes and medieval sword twirling.
Bah!
Hey dude, the plot of Clark's book was only a framework for Kubrick to tell the *real* story of his film.
Kubrick spent a ton of time and energy finding, and then filming and editing, 2001 becasue he was trying to work in a central metaphor for the whole movie.
If you're familiar with Nietzsche, there's this whole "Worm turns to Ape turns to lower Man, who then turns to Uber-Man" (or something like this) thing he wrote about. That transformation, and the details of it, are what Kubrick tried to present through Clrak's plot.
Instead of using the plot to tell us the story, Kubrick used the process of editing and filming the story to get this message across.
I think this is one reason why he is so highly regarded. He used the form of "filmaking" to tell a story that was (as I am sure he saw it) much larger than the hackneyed "aliens help man evolve" b.s. in Clark's story.
After the film was done, Kubrick intentionally had all the props and film footage destroyed. Telling the story arc of Clark's book was not what was *really* going on in the film, for Kubrick.
There're a couple of books you might want to check out that really give an in depth view of the whole deal:
Geduld, Carolyn. Filmguide to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1973.
Rasmussen, Randy. Stanley Kubrick (Seven Films Anlayzed). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 1998
For those who have it, The Fawlty Towers box set has a great interview with John Cleese. It is a great interview and some of the points he makes are very relevant to Star Wars.
When questioned why he never made another series after the second, or whether he would do a movie or a reunion episode, he categorically says "no". Not because he doesnt want to, but that he knows that individuals romanticise movies and tv shows, and in their own mind make them to be better than they ever really were.
We all remember the great parts of the OT, but all too easily skip over the bad parts that we have chosen to forget about, or discard when we watch them again.
The reality is, that in our childhood minds the OT have a special place. And that will never be matched by any subsequent episode in the Star Wars universe. We all hold it so fondly in our minds that, regardless of how bad it actually was, we still love it anyway.
The REAL test is to put someone who has never seen any of the 5 movies and gauge their reaction. You will be surprised to find that (of the people i know) the OT is considered cheesy, melodramatic and (in the case of ROTJ particularly) are just kids films.
We made them great in our minds... the Prequels could never live up to that.
I refuse to have a sig... dammit!
Not true! Jabba's palace was great! So was the space battle over Endor. Luke's scenes from when he surrenders to Vader thru the death of the Emperor are quite possibly my favorite section in the series.
Ewoks are dumb, but don't forget all the good stuff that happened when they weren't around.
Well it is hard to ignore the effeminate pseudo asian trade federation which mirrors asian stereotypes of the 1930s through 50s in serial and B hollywood films. and if you don't see the step-and-fetch it in Jar-Jar then you need to have your movie goggles adjusted. I am not going to be a Star Trek appologist as the 60's era trek was all about American Imperialism and spreading the values of the Federation except when the "prime directive" was going to be violated (unavoidable). At least the more current Star trek while including these stereotypical behaviors actually make them plot elements. People are, after all, imperfect. It would be boring to watch perfect characters intereact, there would be no conflict. . . Besides The past two Star wars movies just plain sucked. . .