Lucas has similar plans for Episode III. He's stated many times in interviews that he expects Episode III to be very unpopular, if not an outright flop, because it's the darkest of ALL of them, by far... the Jedi being slaughtered, the rise of the Empire, perhaps even (this is just speculation) Amidala biting it in the course of the film.
Of course, if it actually turns out to be that dark, I predict it will be a big hit with those who worship Empire Strikes Back because of its tone. After all, I know of at least one fellow who said that Phantom Menace should have featured scenes of the Naboo being executed en masse in Nazi-like death camps, because that would have been "really cool."
Re:Katz is even more pathetic than usual
on
The Empire Stumbles
·
· Score: 1
Katz, you're a pedantic, repetitive, overly dramatic idiot. You continuously put out poorly researched, sensational, buzzword laden drivel. You put the anal in analyze. Is it hard to breathe with your head so far up your ass? You try and cram EVERYTHING into your little "post 9/11, disillusioned generation gap, geek alienation" peghole. It's so, so sad. About the only thing I can say in your favour is how much discussion your articles tend to generate. Of course, 80% of it tends to be people criticizing your "ability" as a journalist.
Thank you for saying everything I wanted to say about this article, and Katz. You saved me the trouble.
I have to disagree. I was born in 1971, and have seen all of the Star Wars films at the time of their original theatrical release (although, for obvious reasons, I don't remember that much of the original Star Wars experience).
I loved all the original films, and I like the new films just fine. Phantom Menace was sub-par, but I found Episode II to be at least as much fun as any of the other ones.
My theory is that a lot (not all) of the people who grew up with Star Wars in their childhoods have come to think of Star Wars as being their childhoods, and are inevitably disappointed when the new movies can't strip them of their adulthood and return them to a wide-eyed state of ten-year-old wonder.
Seeing Star Wars as a kid was a wonderful, influential experience. But I'm never going to be ten again, and the best writing / acting / special effects in the world won't change that. It doesn't mean I can't still enjoy Star Wars, including the new films, as an adult. And I don't care how "unhip" that opinion is.
And just as a side note, the acting in Star Wars has never been good. That doesn't take any of the fun out of it for me, though.
As for why the Slashdot crowd hates it -- I'm sure there are an infinite variety of reasons, but I'd put the following things at the top of any list:
Extreme jadedness (years of bigger-and-better special effects blockbusters have produced audiences that bore easily)
A habit of slamming everything for purposes of seeming hip ("Worst Episode... Ever!")
Consumerist angst over the amount of merchandising and marketing surrounding the movies (conviently forgetting, most of the time, how many Star Wars action figures, lunchboxes, etc. one owned as a child)
Just genuinely not liking it... in the case of TPM, there are quite a few things not to like (Jar Jar etc.), and leveling criticism at it isn't necessarily indicative of some greater phenomenon at work.
Being popular doesn't mean it does suck, either, though people who seem to pride themselves on their cool-outsider status often loudly proclaim otherwise.
Ah, online GTA3 would just be ruined by the one guy who manages to steal a tank and then just roars around the neighborhood plowing over everyone else.
My girlfriend is the most "together" person I know. She has such a handle on her real life affairs it makes me sick. And she adores The Sims.
I'd like to say it's because she's a girl and doesn't like violence (or something equally sexist), but she also happens to be the most sadistic GTA3 player I've ever seen.
Agreed. Trying to design a house with good flow and aesthetic appeal is one of the big challenges of The Sims, and one I have the most fun with.
Hot Date has made that even more fun, as you can design entire downtown areas, so you not only get to design shops, restaurants, clubs and the like, but you have to think about street layout, seating, lighting, etc.
It's not twitch gaming. I can chill out and not have to clench my teeth and aggravate my carpal tunnel wondering if I can get to the Sodomizer 5000 before the Meklors kill me.
There are no serious consequences to screwing up. No saving and reloading, no trying to wade through mounds of enemies to get the Magical Hoobajoob. So, somebody gets fired from their job, or the shower breaks. Big whoop.
There's no real goal, so the pressure is off. I don't feel the need to charge forward so I can see the next level, cut scene, or badass monster.
My 3d card doesn't scream in agony trying to push the graphics.
I get to make the kind of interesting, screwed-up, freaky people I usually don't get to meet in real life -- and control their every move (cue Snidely Whiplash laughter).
But seriously, it's just a nice break from the games I usually play. I enjoy first-person shooters, RTS, and space sims as much as the next guy, but sometimes I just want to relax and play a quiet, dip-and-twiddle game that won't leave me shouting at the computer screen when lag kills me or I get overwhelmed by baddies.
I don't enjoy puzzle games like Minesweeper or Tetris, so this is a good alternative for me. Before The Sims came along, I usually played SimCity for just these same reasons: no pressure, no finale, no disastrous consequences. Just good fun.
Plus, and this may seem a little trite, but sometimes I just get tired of all the violence in games. Every once in a while I need a break from it. But when I start thinking "Gee, I really wish Betty Newbie had a railgun so she could pop Bob in the dome for leaving the dishes undone," I go back to Return to Wolfenstein and all is well again:)
I'm hoping the editors will soon lose their enchantment with shoe-horning a small slam on Episode II into every movie-related story they run. Today it's "Footnote: Spider-man is better!" A few days ago it was "Matrix Reloaded previews on ET! I sure am looking forward to this more than Episode III, which will suck, by the way, Jar Jar is the devil!"
I mean, can we at least wait until Episode III starts shooting before it becomes the Worst Thing Ever?
FWIW, I don't think anybody in the States had even heard of them until a couple of years or so ago.
So by "anybody in the States," you mean "you," I think.
Infogrames published Alone in the Dark back in 1993, which was one of the first games I played on an old 386. That's a little longer than a couple of years ago, as old as it makes me feel to say that. I know I can't be the only person who remembers Alone in the Dark, for crying out loud.
Looks to me like one of those reviews more enchanted with making hip in-jokes and pop culture references than actually saying anything substantive about the film. Kind of ironic, a reviewer panning the film for being too shallow while writing an utterly shallow review.
So, if it's inevitable, is anyone working on CGI that will mimic the results of the old physical modelling techniques?
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.
This is something that has confused me greatly: why do people let Lucas off easy for making Ep. 1 merely a "set-up episode" for Ep's 2 and 3?
Because that's what it is.
The original was only self-contained because Lucas had no idea if it would even make money. ALL the other films are dependent on one another, and making the prequels changes the nature of Star Wars as a stand-alone film. Phantom Menace (whatever you think of it) was not just setting the stage for Episode II, but for all six films. Lots of backstory to be established, and they still had to start in the middle.
If they start the prequels with the Republic already fallen and everything already dark and spooky-poo, there's no sense of transition.
It was pointed out to me the other day that much of the fan fiction is better than the stuff Lucas puts out nowadays. I haven't looked into it, but I'd believe it.
You'd be wrong. Even the officially sanctioned novels feature such gems as Ikrit, the Jedi Masterbunny rabbit. Even Lucas hasn't dreamed up something that stupid (yet).
And most fanfics are based on people's Star Wars roleplaying game characters, who are named things like Darth Nightstalker Darkshadow, and have a double-bladed lightsaber like Darth Maul's, only much longer, and have been genetically engineered by secret Imperial training to be a hit with the ladies and a dynamo in the sack.
1) There's still a week to go before the film is released, and plenty of critics don't release reviews until opening day.
2) Sci-fi films of any kind rarely do well with film critics, regardless of their pedigree.
3) Films that are absolute critical flops often appeal to filmgoers a great deal. Witness Titanic.
4) As long as there's a Star Wars fan or film critic still alive who grew up with the original Star Wars, none of the new movies will ever get rated higher than the classic trilogy, especially ESB.
5) Some people will like it regardless of the quality of the movie.
6) Some people will hate it regardless of the quality of the movie.
I see it as a problem, because Vivendi, along with Universal, Sony, BMG, and a bunch of other big labels, essentially sued mp3.com out of existence. Mp3.com owed hundreds of millions of dollars to the big labels after a judge ruled that they were in copyright violation. Their choice was either to be bought up, or cease to exist.
So Universal gobbled up mp3.com, cut payment to the artists, and turned it into a house organ for Universal's signed artists. Hardly a victory for the little guy.
Well, seeing as how mp3.com is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, I'm sure the record execs are probably smiling, too.
Re:Best Buy = Best Fraud
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 2
One of the software outlets where I live (it's a major one) has a seven-day return policy on all software. I rarely return software, but when I do, they take it back, no muss, no fuss.
It's actually one of the major reasons I buy from them instead of Best Buy. So, yeah, in some cases, it does have quite a lot to do with Best Buy and how they do business.
I don't watch television, so I haven't been seeing any commercials or anything. I saw the comic book on the shelf, but didn't pick it up, or even thumb through it. I've downloaded the trailers (though not all of them) and watched them several times.
Ironically, most of what I know about the movie is from spoilers that I ran across here on Slashdot or other sites, and didn't look away fast enough. I've already had quite a few surprises spoiled for me, which is a bummer. So far, I've been much happier not knowing the movie back-to-front before its release.
It really depends on what you're going to see it for. I don't like Star Wars because it's a deep meditation on human existence, or delivers plots too convoluted for Hercule Poirot himself to unravel.
I like Star Wars because it has great creatures, space battles, speeder chases, and lightsabers. These are very uncomplicated things which I enjoy seeing, and I'm not in the least ashamed of that. When I feel like an in-depth character study, I'll watch Citizen Kane again. Until then, bring on the damn Clonetroopers.
If it wasn't a Star Wars movie, it wouldn't have any of these things in it. The thing is, nothing does. There hasn't been a space opera movie made yet (IMHO) that can even begin to hold a candle to Star Wars. Every other movie just rips off Blade Runner instead (more product placement that way). Even The Matrix takes place on Earth, where you can be science-fictiony AND still push the latest Rob Zombie single.
It's not about hype for me. It's about Star Wars doing what no other film will do.
And if some other movie took place in a galaxy far, far away, and had great monsters and space battles and lightsabers -- damn tootin' I'd see it. But no one but Lucas seems to make those.
Well, then don't watch the remake. The original is still out there.
I'm not planning on it. Despite the fact that I submitted this story, I am actually not the world's biggest fan of Akira. I thought it was very watchable, but hardly great. What distresses me is this constant strip-mining of decent movies, to be repackaged in dull, FX-laden, harmless, utterly forgettable packages, all for the sake of making a quick buck.
I don't believe Norrington can truly bring anything more to bring to this story artistically. There is no reason to "adapt" this story, except pure greed. Granted, this comes as a surprise to no one, but it's very wearying to me to see everything I liked in my younger days being put through the CGI mill and cranked out in a more insipid form.
Just because it seems inevitable doesn't mean I have to like it. And even though I don't worship Akira, at the rate we're going, a movie I do love is going to be next into the crap-mill, and that distresses me. I'm just tired of it.
As a side note, I'm interested by your statement about film buffs eating crow when a blockbuster remake / sequel is anticipated to suck but actually turns out good... I'm wondering if you have any specific examples in mind. The last few (Planet of the Apes, The Time Machine) have been real stinkers.
Slashdot Mirror
Lucas has similar plans for Episode III. He's stated many times in interviews that he expects Episode III to be very unpopular, if not an outright flop, because it's the darkest of ALL of them, by far... the Jedi being slaughtered, the rise of the Empire, perhaps even (this is just speculation) Amidala biting it in the course of the film.
Of course, if it actually turns out to be that dark, I predict it will be a big hit with those who worship Empire Strikes Back because of its tone. After all, I know of at least one fellow who said that Phantom Menace should have featured scenes of the Naboo being executed en masse in Nazi-like death camps, because that would have been "really cool."
Thank you for saying everything I wanted to say about this article, and Katz. You saved me the trouble.
I loved all the original films, and I like the new films just fine. Phantom Menace was sub-par, but I found Episode II to be at least as much fun as any of the other ones.
My theory is that a lot (not all) of the people who grew up with Star Wars in their childhoods have come to think of Star Wars as being their childhoods, and are inevitably disappointed when the new movies can't strip them of their adulthood and return them to a wide-eyed state of ten-year-old wonder.
Seeing Star Wars as a kid was a wonderful, influential experience. But I'm never going to be ten again, and the best writing / acting / special effects in the world won't change that. It doesn't mean I can't still enjoy Star Wars, including the new films, as an adult. And I don't care how "unhip" that opinion is.
And just as a side note, the acting in Star Wars has never been good. That doesn't take any of the fun out of it for me, though.
As for why the Slashdot crowd hates it -- I'm sure there are an infinite variety of reasons, but I'd put the following things at the top of any list:
Extreme jadedness (years of bigger-and-better special effects blockbusters have produced audiences that bore easily)
A habit of slamming everything for purposes of seeming hip ("Worst Episode... Ever!")
Consumerist angst over the amount of merchandising and marketing surrounding the movies (conviently forgetting, most of the time, how many Star Wars action figures, lunchboxes, etc. one owned as a child)
Just genuinely not liking it... in the case of TPM, there are quite a few things not to like (Jar Jar etc.), and leveling criticism at it isn't necessarily indicative of some greater phenomenon at work.
Being popular doesn't mean it does suck, either, though people who seem to pride themselves on their cool-outsider status often loudly proclaim otherwise.
Ah, online GTA3 would just be ruined by the one guy who manages to steal a tank and then just roars around the neighborhood plowing over everyone else.
My girlfriend is the most "together" person I know. She has such a handle on her real life affairs it makes me sick. And she adores The Sims.
I'd like to say it's because she's a girl and doesn't like violence (or something equally sexist), but she also happens to be the most sadistic GTA3 player I've ever seen.
Agreed. Trying to design a house with good flow and aesthetic appeal is one of the big challenges of The Sims, and one I have the most fun with.
Hot Date has made that even more fun, as you can design entire downtown areas, so you not only get to design shops, restaurants, clubs and the like, but you have to think about street layout, seating, lighting, etc.
It's not twitch gaming. I can chill out and not have to clench my teeth and aggravate my carpal tunnel wondering if I can get to the Sodomizer 5000 before the Meklors kill me.
There are no serious consequences to screwing up. No saving and reloading, no trying to wade through mounds of enemies to get the Magical Hoobajoob. So, somebody gets fired from their job, or the shower breaks. Big whoop.
There's no real goal, so the pressure is off. I don't feel the need to charge forward so I can see the next level, cut scene, or badass monster.
My 3d card doesn't scream in agony trying to push the graphics.
I get to make the kind of interesting, screwed-up, freaky people I usually don't get to meet in real life -- and control their every move (cue Snidely Whiplash laughter).
But seriously, it's just a nice break from the games I usually play. I enjoy first-person shooters, RTS, and space sims as much as the next guy, but sometimes I just want to relax and play a quiet, dip-and-twiddle game that won't leave me shouting at the computer screen when lag kills me or I get overwhelmed by baddies.
I don't enjoy puzzle games like Minesweeper or Tetris, so this is a good alternative for me. Before The Sims came along, I usually played SimCity for just these same reasons: no pressure, no finale, no disastrous consequences. Just good fun.
Plus, and this may seem a little trite, but sometimes I just get tired of all the violence in games. Every once in a while I need a break from it. But when I start thinking "Gee, I really wish Betty Newbie had a railgun so she could pop Bob in the dome for leaving the dishes undone," I go back to Return to Wolfenstein and all is well again :)
I'm hoping the editors will soon lose their enchantment with shoe-horning a small slam on Episode II into every movie-related story they run. Today it's "Footnote: Spider-man is better!" A few days ago it was "Matrix Reloaded previews on ET! I sure am looking forward to this more than Episode III, which will suck, by the way, Jar Jar is the devil!"
I mean, can we at least wait until Episode III starts shooting before it becomes the Worst Thing Ever?
FWIW, I don't think anybody in the States had even heard of them until a couple of years or so ago.
So by "anybody in the States," you mean "you," I think.
Infogrames published Alone in the Dark back in 1993, which was one of the first games I played on an old 386. That's a little longer than a couple of years ago, as old as it makes me feel to say that. I know I can't be the only person who remembers Alone in the Dark, for crying out loud.
Mmmm.... rice and salt....
Looks to me like one of those reviews more enchanted with making hip in-jokes and pop culture references than actually saying anything substantive about the film. Kind of ironic, a reviewer panning the film for being too shallow while writing an utterly shallow review.
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.
Because that's what it is.
The original was only self-contained because Lucas had no idea if it would even make money. ALL the other films are dependent on one another, and making the prequels changes the nature of Star Wars as a stand-alone film. Phantom Menace (whatever you think of it) was not just setting the stage for Episode II, but for all six films. Lots of backstory to be established, and they still had to start in the middle.
If they start the prequels with the Republic already fallen and everything already dark and spooky-poo, there's no sense of transition.
You'd be wrong. Even the officially sanctioned novels feature such gems as Ikrit, the Jedi Master bunny rabbit. Even Lucas hasn't dreamed up something that stupid (yet).
And most fanfics are based on people's Star Wars roleplaying game characters, who are named things like Darth Nightstalker Darkshadow, and have a double-bladed lightsaber like Darth Maul's, only much longer, and have been genetically engineered by secret Imperial training to be a hit with the ladies and a dynamo in the sack.
I stand corrected. No film that ever bombed with the critics was EVER a runaway box-office hit. Ever.
Okay, bad example, but you know what I mean.
Well, a couple of things:
1) There's still a week to go before the film is released, and plenty of critics don't release reviews until opening day.
2) Sci-fi films of any kind rarely do well with film critics, regardless of their pedigree.
3) Films that are absolute critical flops often appeal to filmgoers a great deal. Witness Titanic.
4) As long as there's a Star Wars fan or film critic still alive who grew up with the original Star Wars, none of the new movies will ever get rated higher than the classic trilogy, especially ESB.
5) Some people will like it regardless of the quality of the movie.
6) Some people will hate it regardless of the quality of the movie.
I see it as a problem, because Vivendi, along with Universal, Sony, BMG, and a bunch of other big labels, essentially sued mp3.com out of existence. Mp3.com owed hundreds of millions of dollars to the big labels after a judge ruled that they were in copyright violation. Their choice was either to be bought up, or cease to exist.
So Universal gobbled up mp3.com, cut payment to the artists, and turned it into a house organ for Universal's signed artists. Hardly a victory for the little guy.
Well, seeing as how mp3.com is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, I'm sure the record execs are probably smiling, too.
One of the software outlets where I live (it's a major one) has a seven-day return policy on all software. I rarely return software, but when I do, they take it back, no muss, no fuss.
It's actually one of the major reasons I buy from them instead of Best Buy. So, yeah, in some cases, it does have quite a lot to do with Best Buy and how they do business.
I don't watch television, so I haven't been seeing any commercials or anything. I saw the comic book on the shelf, but didn't pick it up, or even thumb through it. I've downloaded the trailers (though not all of them) and watched them several times.
Ironically, most of what I know about the movie is from spoilers that I ran across here on Slashdot or other sites, and didn't look away fast enough. I've already had quite a few surprises spoiled for me, which is a bummer. So far, I've been much happier not knowing the movie back-to-front before its release.
Maybe you were being sarcastic, but... yeah!!!
It really depends on what you're going to see it for. I don't like Star Wars because it's a deep meditation on human existence, or delivers plots too convoluted for Hercule Poirot himself to unravel.
I like Star Wars because it has great creatures, space battles, speeder chases, and lightsabers. These are very uncomplicated things which I enjoy seeing, and I'm not in the least ashamed of that. When I feel like an in-depth character study, I'll watch Citizen Kane again. Until then, bring on the damn Clonetroopers.
If it wasn't a Star Wars movie, it wouldn't have any of these things in it. The thing is, nothing does. There hasn't been a space opera movie made yet (IMHO) that can even begin to hold a candle to Star Wars. Every other movie just rips off Blade Runner instead (more product placement that way). Even The Matrix takes place on Earth, where you can be science-fictiony AND still push the latest Rob Zombie single.
It's not about hype for me. It's about Star Wars doing what no other film will do.
And if some other movie took place in a galaxy far, far away, and had great monsters and space battles and lightsabers -- damn tootin' I'd see it. But no one but Lucas seems to make those.
Wha... the... Starbuck's owns Tazo...?
*stumbles off weeping quietly*
I'm not planning on it. Despite the fact that I submitted this story, I am actually not the world's biggest fan of Akira. I thought it was very watchable, but hardly great. What distresses me is this constant strip-mining of decent movies, to be repackaged in dull, FX-laden, harmless, utterly forgettable packages, all for the sake of making a quick buck.
I don't believe Norrington can truly bring anything more to bring to this story artistically. There is no reason to "adapt" this story, except pure greed. Granted, this comes as a surprise to no one, but it's very wearying to me to see everything I liked in my younger days being put through the CGI mill and cranked out in a more insipid form.
Just because it seems inevitable doesn't mean I have to like it. And even though I don't worship Akira, at the rate we're going, a movie I do love is going to be next into the crap-mill, and that distresses me. I'm just tired of it.
As a side note, I'm interested by your statement about film buffs eating crow when a blockbuster remake / sequel is anticipated to suck but actually turns out good... I'm wondering if you have any specific examples in mind. The last few (Planet of the Apes, The Time Machine) have been real stinkers.