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The Last Starfighter--The Musical!
nomadic writes "Yes, seriously. Some people have decided to remake everyone's favorite obscure 1980's Star Wars ripoff into musical form. Definitely sounds like a Troy McClure role..."
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I liked that movie!
R.I.P. Phil Hartman.
A truely classic movie.
Even by today's standards the CGI isn't too bad.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It's no star wars ripoff. WTF is the OP talking about? It had a decent plotline and was fun to watch, which is a lot more than you can say about star wars 1,2, and 6, and probably 3.
It has acting and writing at a level that George Lucas can only dream about.
Yeah, it's a genre film, but so was battlestar galactica.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
In the 80's everything that was science fiction was considered to be a Star Wars ripoff.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
It doesn't bother me they're making a musical. A musical is more a homage to the original film than it is a ripoff or sequel or anything derivative. Unlike Star Wars, which has been driven into the ground and is now a mere shadow of the greatness it once was.
If you think about it, taking a sci-fi movie such as TLS to the stage will probably test the cutting edge in theatrical and lighting effects. This would be very challenging. I would love to see this just to see if they're capable of pulling it off convincingly.
As for TLS being a rip-off of Star Wars, that's BS. Star Wars is as derivative of dozens of other films that came before it. The two movies may have shared some plot similarities, but they both had their cheesy moments.
However, IMO, the cinematography in many scenes in The Last Starfighter is far better than Star Wars. The trailer park scenes were brilliantly shot. The acting and character development was superlative and nowhere near as pressured as Star Wars.
I think the two movies are really dramatically different in their approach. Star Wars whisked you off to a far-away place where you vicariously watched someone else save the world. Whereas The Last Starfighter brought the battle to Earth and make the viewer feel like it could really happen to him - it was much more realistic.
If you haven't seen The Last Starfighter in awhile, rent it and watch it again. It holds up better than the original Star Wars now.
George Lucas took an archetypical storyline and added "in space". It's original like "on the Internet" patents are original.
I agree with the other guy. It's not a Star-Wars ripoff.
I don't know why EVERYTHING with a well-armed
space hotrod in it has to be considered a Star-Wars ripoff.
Geezus Christ.. Is STAR WARS all the SF you people know?
Get a life.. wait.. on second thought, maybe you HAVE a life
and that's why you don't know anything about SF.
Ok. GET RID of your life.. Cancel those party plans and
stay home reading E.E. "Doc" Smith "Lensman" novels. Then
play some "SpaceWar" and rethink the StarWars ripoff question.
The plot has hardly been Lucas's problem -- it's the dialogue, script, & directing. Plot-wise, he's fine. :)
No, his plots suck pretty badly too.
A couple of examples: Obi Wan stashes Luke on the same planet where Anakin grew up. Oh yeah, DarthAnakin would never think to look there... And Leia is supposed to be Plan B should Luke fail but Darth can't sense that the Force is strong in her, even when he's personally overseeing her torture?
Remember, Lucas invented the Chewbacca defense.
I saw that shot more than a few times back when Starbuck was a man. ~ lucabrasi999
Just because you don't like rap, country, theatre, opera, or galleries doesn't mean the people that do fit into whatever typecast you want them to be in. I personally love to go to the theatre here in town, especially the small ones. Some of the best gut splitting humor is in plays, and it's a great way to support your local economy, and meet interesting people in other walks of life.
Typecasting people that enjoy certain arts is the same bs as people that typecast me as antisocial because I like technology. I assure you that most folks at plays aren't snooty, and like a raunchy bit of humor as much or more than the next. Most of the folks I've met at plays are pretty open minded, educated, and highly interested in freedom of speech issues.
- Tattoine is a clone of Arrakis
- The Moisture Farm the Lars' run is right out of Dune.
- Luke is a dumb whiny kid at the beginning who grows up to be a leader in the rebellion and overthrows the evil emperor; Paul is a dumb whiny kid at the beginning who grows up to lead the Fremen and overthrow the evil emperor.
- Luke finds Obi-Wan in the desert and learns the ways of the Jedi from him; Paul finds Stilgar in the desert and learns the ways of the Fremen from him.
- Paul's Voice; Luke's Jedi Mind tricks. Paul's mental Sight; Luke's Jedi Vision. Paul's weirding ways, Luke's jedi fighting. Crysknife - a knife from a worm's tooth; Light Saber - like a saber-toothed tiger
- Do you really think the sandworm in RoJ isn't from Dune?
There is almost nothing in SW that isn't taken right out of Dune.Ditto that. Some big differences:
The villian. A ravaging horde kept at bay by a barrier wall (the frontier) is not the same as your own imperial government stomping out the last of the political dissenters.
The hero. The Starfighter is a kid living on obscure planet who is deliberately recruited against his will to save life as he knows it. Luke is a kid living on an obscure planet who stumbles into a bit part in an adventure; only later does he learn that he and his family are the central players.
... "YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO PUBLISH." ... "MAKE YOUR ROYALTY PAYMENT. HA HA HA!!"
Once you start believing that every story that is the least bit similar is a ripoff, THEY've won.
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Director: What happen?
Computer: This is a copyright infringement suit, Level 3 alert.
Screenwriter 1: Somebody set up us the cease and desist letter.
Screenwriter 1: We get subpoena!
Director: (stands up, in shock) What!
Evil Lawyer: "ALL YOUR PLOT ELEMENTS ARE BELONG TO US"
Director: (staring in horror) What you say!!
Screenwriter 2: DIRECTOR!
Director: Take every "Zig" offshore.
Director: For great justice!
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
IT'S DARTHANAKIN'S FAMILY TOO! You don't think during at least one of his heavy-breathing sessions, he didn't bonk himself on the helmet and say "Wait a minute: Owen lives on Tatooine... And if that was the planet to which Leia was trying to flee with the stolen Death Star plans...? He knew Leia was on the Alderaanian freighter and that she had the DS plans with her. He finds out she's headed for Tatooine--which just happens to be the planet where the man who married his mother lives. He can sense the Force in Luke after the wuffleball affair but he can't detect the presense of his former mentor (you know--the man who tried to kill him during an upcoming lava-surfing session) on a planet with an ostensibly low popluation density: a presence he manages to detect when Kenobi infiltrates the Death Star which is large enough to be mistaken for a moon and probably has a crew numbering in the tens of thousands?
Guy, seriously, have you actually thought about Star Wars? The entire opus is one gigantic Chewbacca defence. Lucas doesn't ask you to suspend your disbelief: he demands that you take it out back and put two in the brain.
If my spouse ever absconded with my daughter, the last place she'd hide is with one of her relatives because those are the first possibilities I'd check. Apparently, elementary logic has no place in "Jedi business".
"If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests."
I saw that shot more than a few times back when Starbuck was a man. ~ lucabrasi999
Both stories revolve around a young, male geek/nerd.
In both stories the young man is "trapped" in a going-nowhere existence
In both stories the young man knows there is something bigger and more important out there waiting for him to discover it
In both stories an older man approaches him and tells him that he's more than he thinks he is and that he may be the key to saving the world/universe
Both movies feature (for their time) incredible special effects of a kind never seen before
The young male geek gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance to not only live out his dreams but to save all of humanity
I could probably go on, but that seems like enough for now.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
And Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is based on Wagner's ring cycle and the Norse myths before it.
That doesn't change the fact that execution of the idea was more important than the degree of originality. Some of the most original ideas are also the least accessible to mainstream audiences.
In the case of Star Wars, the execution was very well done indeed, at least for Ep. IV and V. IV is very rough around the edges technically, but in a very endearing homebrew way that has been lost in modern CGI filmmaking.