Revenge of the rage-filled, short, green elf
Well, I finally got around to watching Star Wars III® today. Some of you may wonder why I took so long to watch it, or why I am bothering to write about it now, a year or so after it came out. The answer to the first question is easy: I vowed not to pay money to see Eps. II or III after I saw Ep. I and it stank so much - and I finally got the chance to watch someone else's DVD of Ep. III for free today. The answer to the second question is shrouded in the mystery that is my aesthetic sense. Or as Master Shake (of Aqua Teen Hunger Force®) put it: "Why is anything anything?"
Some observations about SW3:
1. It's long, childish, poorly directed, poorly scripted, and morally confused. But it didn't have Jar Jar Binks (speaking at least), so it's still the best new Star Wars movie in over twenty years.
2. George Lucas seems to be under the impression that the first three Star Wars movies revealed his creative genius, despite the unruliness of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Anthony Daniels threatening to obscure it. But the unruliness of said performers really sold us on the rebellion, and the reality of the characters involved. See, Star Wars is a serious project, and we can't have verbal sparring distracting us from the serious, somber emotions of a galaxy at war. But what Ford, Fisher, Hamill, and Daniels realized is that people at war (and in other dire situations) use comedy to boost their own morale and that of those around them, whether or not they even think about it as such. Instead of genuine comic banter (which added to believability even if it wasn't all that funny), we got Jar Jar Binks, comic relief. But using Jar Jar for comic relief is like using a ball bearing to perform cataract surgery. All in all, I think Lucas is a very typical movie maker, who was fortunate enough to be in the right place in the right time, and benefitted from his own spinelessness as Guiness, Ford, Hamill, Fisher, Prowse, Jones, Daniels, Williams (Billy Dee), Oz, Williams (John), and that guy from those classic British horror movies (who played Gov. Tarkin) all had their way with the movie - and Lucas was helpless to resist, or at best appreciative but unable to duplicate it with others.
3. (Big Time Spoiler here.) I thought it was nice that, to illustrate the differences between the Light Side and the Dark Side, Obi-Wan cut off Anakin's (or Vader's) legs and left him to burn to death very slowly; however, Darth Sidious came by, put Vader on his donkey, took him to the inn, washed his wounds, and paid the innkeeper to look after him. Sidious said that the Jedi were hypocrites (like, say, Pharisees), but he understated his case: the Jedi are like the highwaymen that leave you for dead.
4. (Small Time Spoiler.) Why does it take four or five shots to the vital organs to kill Gen. Grievous? It only takes one shot to the "armour" to kill the clones/stormtroopers/droids/whatever else. But when Grievous' vital organs are exposed, go ahead and put it on full automatic - you'll be at it a while. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they're in co-production with a video game in which GG is a "boss" and so needs several hits to a difficult-to-hit location, for the sake of the video game. Lucasfilm® has openly admitted to concurrently producing movies and the games that are based upon them, at least in the case of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade® (movie and computer game). But at least in that case, the movie was made as a movie, and the game as a game, and they only shared attributes as long as the movie's watchability wasn't compromised, nor the game's playability. Consequently, they both worked, the movie as a movie, and the game as a game.
5. Does Vader forget how powerful R2-class astromech droids are?
6. Is it just me, or does Yoda seem full of rage?
Okay, I'm sleepy. I ranted too much on 2 and 4. But that was most of what I wanted to say. Oh yeah - 3 out of 5 stars.
Backlog Bob
Some observations about SW3:
1. It's long, childish, poorly directed, poorly scripted, and morally confused. But it didn't have Jar Jar Binks (speaking at least), so it's still the best new Star Wars movie in over twenty years.
2. George Lucas seems to be under the impression that the first three Star Wars movies revealed his creative genius, despite the unruliness of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Anthony Daniels threatening to obscure it. But the unruliness of said performers really sold us on the rebellion, and the reality of the characters involved. See, Star Wars is a serious project, and we can't have verbal sparring distracting us from the serious, somber emotions of a galaxy at war. But what Ford, Fisher, Hamill, and Daniels realized is that people at war (and in other dire situations) use comedy to boost their own morale and that of those around them, whether or not they even think about it as such. Instead of genuine comic banter (which added to believability even if it wasn't all that funny), we got Jar Jar Binks, comic relief. But using Jar Jar for comic relief is like using a ball bearing to perform cataract surgery. All in all, I think Lucas is a very typical movie maker, who was fortunate enough to be in the right place in the right time, and benefitted from his own spinelessness as Guiness, Ford, Hamill, Fisher, Prowse, Jones, Daniels, Williams (Billy Dee), Oz, Williams (John), and that guy from those classic British horror movies (who played Gov. Tarkin) all had their way with the movie - and Lucas was helpless to resist, or at best appreciative but unable to duplicate it with others.
3. (Big Time Spoiler here.) I thought it was nice that, to illustrate the differences between the Light Side and the Dark Side, Obi-Wan cut off Anakin's (or Vader's) legs and left him to burn to death very slowly; however, Darth Sidious came by, put Vader on his donkey, took him to the inn, washed his wounds, and paid the innkeeper to look after him. Sidious said that the Jedi were hypocrites (like, say, Pharisees), but he understated his case: the Jedi are like the highwaymen that leave you for dead.
4. (Small Time Spoiler.) Why does it take four or five shots to the vital organs to kill Gen. Grievous? It only takes one shot to the "armour" to kill the clones/stormtroopers/droids/whatever else. But when Grievous' vital organs are exposed, go ahead and put it on full automatic - you'll be at it a while. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they're in co-production with a video game in which GG is a "boss" and so needs several hits to a difficult-to-hit location, for the sake of the video game. Lucasfilm® has openly admitted to concurrently producing movies and the games that are based upon them, at least in the case of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade® (movie and computer game). But at least in that case, the movie was made as a movie, and the game as a game, and they only shared attributes as long as the movie's watchability wasn't compromised, nor the game's playability. Consequently, they both worked, the movie as a movie, and the game as a game.
5. Does Vader forget how powerful R2-class astromech droids are?
6. Is it just me, or does Yoda seem full of rage?
Okay, I'm sleepy. I ranted too much on 2 and 4. But that was most of what I wanted to say. Oh yeah - 3 out of 5 stars.
Backlog Bob
posted by weblogbob83 at 11:30 PM
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