Okay, here are a few things I've said in response to a young Star Wars prequel fan who refuses to look at them with a critical eye. I know it's beating a dead cat, but the upcoming aboninations of 3D-converted re-release make it part of the soft boycott I'm sort of doing.
OCCASSIONALLY wooden acting? Compare the work of any cast member to their non SW prequel work. Even Jake Lloyd is more bearable in Jingle All the Way. And I'm sure it's no accident that there isn't any mention of Haley Joel Osment screen testing for Anakin on the DVD documentary.
Minor plot holes with OT - Padme's death in III despite Leia's memory of interacting somewhat with her, as described in VI ? That's minor?
- Here, have something to drink without even sniffing it for poison despite the disturbance you feel in the Force.
- Why would anyone want balance to the Force when there are supposedly two Sith in the Universe and a community of Jedi? That's the right kind of ratio.
- The wisdom of the Jedi is apparently to be humorless, reckless and fearless despite paying lip service to the opposite. A character must REACT with fear to new surroundings so the audience can feel suspense, even if they summon the strength to overcome it.
- In OT, decisions were usually made under fire and in a crunch, on the fly. In the prequels, there is usually no urgency and things are decided or discussed in periods of rest. (Except of course scenes like "rational" Obi Wan jumping through a window instead of pulling the floating robot to himself with the Force, despite saying he "hates when" Anakin jumps from a flying vehicle).
- One point in the Sith review that makes GREAT sense is that it would be common practice for the Jedi to "watch the watcher" or keep an eye on Palpatine or anyone else in power. Knowing that absolurte power corrupts absolutely. They need only look into the heart of anyone they encounter, including Palpatine, and if they are blocked then they know that person is communing with the Dark Side in order to do so.
- I don't care about the rationalizations. "I didn't really come here to free slaves, " is an INFURIATING line coming from "Schindler" but it is also not befitting any Jedi or any protagonist in a heroic adventure. Freeing slaves and disregarding an outlying system's WRONGHEADED tolerance of it would have been a rousing and engaging central premise. And LEAVING Shmi Skywalker to live as a slave and not even check in on her for, what, 10 years?
Fear of Anakin's mother suffering is a REASONABLE fear, and NO relation whatsoever to Fear that we overcome, like prejudice -- which I what I thought Yoda was talking about when I saw the trailer, and what other fans nodded appreciatively over.
The business of "attachment" being forbidden is paradoxial, since a Jedi may be attached to irrelevant rules at the expense of what is worth a hero giving his life to defend.
- Anakin talks about a device he has invented for scanning where slaves have their incendiary devices planted in their skin. THAT should lead to a quite worthy sequence! Is Qui-Gon removing Anakin's explosive when he takes the blood sample? I don't recall WHAT he was doing. Then why not Shmi's explosive next? Why not make a point of covertly ridding all of Anakin's friends of their bombs? Maybe Shmi is off at work when this happens and she has to be among the last, and maybe she crosses a perimeter and Watto sees this and activates his remote.
THAT would have been an ideal circumstance for her to die, right in front of Anakin, and maybe in reflex he mentally swats Watto against a wall like a fly. Might not be apt for a children's film, but certainly okay if Lucas cared to establish a tone that naturally ended with the PG-13 finale of Anakin's legs being chopped off before he burns beside a lava lake.
- The chief accomplishment of Attack of the Clones is they manage to have a battle between armies of robots and Jedi and make it boring. They have also made peace boring, which is quite offensive in a set of stories about war and mostly released during war time.
That's not even the tip of the iceberg. Years from now melchiahdimension-1 you'll watch these prequels and wonder WTF you were thinking.
On close examination of the most basic points, it all falls apart.
George Lucas is all about negotiations and deals and those transactions are a big part of the "story" in the prequels. It doesn't make them more civilized. It makes them false and out of touch with the human spirit.
The fact that Lucas will re-release The Phantom Menace in 3D February 2012 and not stick to the OT just willfull greed and shortsightedness. The prequels are a disgrace.
Showing posts with label discussions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discussions. Show all posts
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Thursday, January 8, 2009
zoetrope.com
I'm starting my day early for no reason. Usual bowl of chilled monkey brains just so it won't go bad, watching my girlfriend levitate from the other side of the table. She hits her head on the ceiling a lot since I filled her with helium. Otherwise a typical day.
I may check my e-mails and the usual message boards, even though they say "ignore the fruits of your actions." By that rule it makes no sense to see if anyone replies to a post. It would save a lot of time.
Here's a quote that is rattling around in my head lately, like a song that just won't go away so you have to look for it on Youtube or your own collection and hear it until you are cured:
"I've been in high school eight years; I'm no dummy."
- Curtis Armstrong advising John Cusack in Better Off Dead
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088794/
I think it's the ever-present realization that being "smart about movies" isn't such a badge of honor and that when you close in on a decade of discussions (even killing time on someone else' clock as is the case with many of us most of the time) it's not that a seasoned veteran of b.s. can say to a newbie, "Listen here, in my day. . ."
There have been steps forward in the vocation, but if I was one of those annoying people with a five year plan and a one year plan chirping "fail to plan, plan to fail" I might be more in touch with whatever unconscious depression might be going on. Or I might be exactly where I need to be. They say the measure of sanity is the proximity of reality to the dream.
What could I be doing instead of debating whether a given movie may be over-rated or under-rated? I mean, I'd be sacrificing the pay-off of possibly convincing some anonymous teen to knuckle down and see more movies. What could I be doing instead of watching movies? To my left is a $3500 Cannon HX A1 which can shoot some pretty decent HD; it has a nice t-shirt over it so it won't get all dusty. On the floor is the instruction manual torn apart for photocopies. I've read some of it. What a time to realize my instruction-phobia is back in full bloom. I've had meetings and meetings and generated a backlog of scripts. . .
I wonder how many screenplays I can read and review - under whatever accounts or IDs - and have it improve my taste and facility within the form of the screenplay. It's great to stumble across a link to a resource or somebody else's short film and be inspired once in a while or take a shortcut in my political education or current events by looking at articles and clips that someone else labored to collect. I'll get drawn into a debate on zoetrope once in a while, and it's interesting to come away with a vivid projection of someone's character or pathology. Not something to debate or even state outright, of course, because any self-respecting sociopath would take offence at the accusation. I have been called arrogant, but it's hard to make that stick when I'm pretty open about my stupidity.
I know from my job that there are some very functional sociopaths walking around.
Starting to dabble in radio drama again. I wrote a one-act play for the stage in 2001 after I had been on my job for a few months. It had a public reading, went well, and then after 9/11 there was to be a reading of the next draft and somehow I got the date wrong and missed it. I've been re-writing it on the same themes with each workplace. Once in a while a vital layer is added and the story enriched bu higher stakes. A life experience can be an end to itself; a job experience had better add to the writing.
I keep thinking if I really apply myself I can finish watching all the Extended Lord of the Rings DVDs by this weekend, and hear the commentaries. Imagine THAT feeling like a chore to procrastinate about.
Man, when I had nothing, when I had no job or when I thought my job was temporary I would spend days in a library cubby hole doing my storyboards and correcting my scripts. There is a point where everything that drifts into your transom is not there as a sprig of wisdom that has to be absorbed or explored in your life as an artist. Most opinions are the waste material of having consumed movies or TV or gossip rags or having spent all day playing video games (like cigarettes, this last example is one of the few bad habits I haven't picked up yet, much to the disappointment of friends and nephews).
If anyone else does read this, the one thing I can say in my defense is that the chilled monkey brains and inflate-a-date are jokes. If I actually get some cardio at the gym today for a change, I might view this whole thing differently. I might be ready to actually accomplish something today.
I may check my e-mails and the usual message boards, even though they say "ignore the fruits of your actions." By that rule it makes no sense to see if anyone replies to a post. It would save a lot of time.
Here's a quote that is rattling around in my head lately, like a song that just won't go away so you have to look for it on Youtube or your own collection and hear it until you are cured:
"I've been in high school eight years; I'm no dummy."
- Curtis Armstrong advising John Cusack in Better Off Dead
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088794/
I think it's the ever-present realization that being "smart about movies" isn't such a badge of honor and that when you close in on a decade of discussions (even killing time on someone else' clock as is the case with many of us most of the time) it's not that a seasoned veteran of b.s. can say to a newbie, "Listen here, in my day. . ."
There have been steps forward in the vocation, but if I was one of those annoying people with a five year plan and a one year plan chirping "fail to plan, plan to fail" I might be more in touch with whatever unconscious depression might be going on. Or I might be exactly where I need to be. They say the measure of sanity is the proximity of reality to the dream.
What could I be doing instead of debating whether a given movie may be over-rated or under-rated? I mean, I'd be sacrificing the pay-off of possibly convincing some anonymous teen to knuckle down and see more movies. What could I be doing instead of watching movies? To my left is a $3500 Cannon HX A1 which can shoot some pretty decent HD; it has a nice t-shirt over it so it won't get all dusty. On the floor is the instruction manual torn apart for photocopies. I've read some of it. What a time to realize my instruction-phobia is back in full bloom. I've had meetings and meetings and generated a backlog of scripts. . .
I wonder how many screenplays I can read and review - under whatever accounts or IDs - and have it improve my taste and facility within the form of the screenplay. It's great to stumble across a link to a resource or somebody else's short film and be inspired once in a while or take a shortcut in my political education or current events by looking at articles and clips that someone else labored to collect. I'll get drawn into a debate on zoetrope once in a while, and it's interesting to come away with a vivid projection of someone's character or pathology. Not something to debate or even state outright, of course, because any self-respecting sociopath would take offence at the accusation. I have been called arrogant, but it's hard to make that stick when I'm pretty open about my stupidity.
I know from my job that there are some very functional sociopaths walking around.
Starting to dabble in radio drama again. I wrote a one-act play for the stage in 2001 after I had been on my job for a few months. It had a public reading, went well, and then after 9/11 there was to be a reading of the next draft and somehow I got the date wrong and missed it. I've been re-writing it on the same themes with each workplace. Once in a while a vital layer is added and the story enriched bu higher stakes. A life experience can be an end to itself; a job experience had better add to the writing.
I keep thinking if I really apply myself I can finish watching all the Extended Lord of the Rings DVDs by this weekend, and hear the commentaries. Imagine THAT feeling like a chore to procrastinate about.
Man, when I had nothing, when I had no job or when I thought my job was temporary I would spend days in a library cubby hole doing my storyboards and correcting my scripts. There is a point where everything that drifts into your transom is not there as a sprig of wisdom that has to be absorbed or explored in your life as an artist. Most opinions are the waste material of having consumed movies or TV or gossip rags or having spent all day playing video games (like cigarettes, this last example is one of the few bad habits I haven't picked up yet, much to the disappointment of friends and nephews).
If anyone else does read this, the one thing I can say in my defense is that the chilled monkey brains and inflate-a-date are jokes. If I actually get some cardio at the gym today for a change, I might view this whole thing differently. I might be ready to actually accomplish something today.
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