6.07.2005

star wars

yoda--quitter!
sure he lost his lightsaber but that didn't mean he couldn't throw things right back at palpatine.
he didn't have anything cut off and didn't seem seriously injured.
it looked like he was crawling away just fine in that escape tunnel.
lucas should've had palpatine cut something off. if yoda had a limb again in "empire" i'd have dismissed it as a lizard-like"grow back" thing.
i don't even remember any cuts or wounds on him.
if i missed something (there was a lot to see on the screen after all) please let me know.
if yoda couldn't handle it alone, he could join forces with, "jedi master" obi-wan,
and together take on the last remaining bad guy. that's 2 jedi vs. 1 sith.
palpatine ain't so tough, windu walked all over him. lucas should've established palpatine as a clearly superior warrior for me to buy it.

constructive criticism:
a smoother transition from incapacitating windu to killing kids would've been better for "revenge."
i'll still "buy" it on the basis that
orphan annie pledged allegiance to the emperor.
he basically did what he was "ordered" to do.
but that's still a pretty big leap. i mean, for example, a thief isn't a murderer.
that'd be two different crimes that vary greatly in gravity.
daddy warbucks will hear of this!


how come people expect so much from the star wars movies? when i think about the originals, i only really like "a new hope" and "empire strikes back"
"return" actually kinda sucked.
i put my finger on what was wrong with the new movies (ep.I-III)
they had way too many scenes that were cross-merchandising efforts.
the pod race?
artoo dodging the assembly line in "clone wars"?
all scenes that went on too long and were too easily recognizable as a video game.

essentially, the problem was that the movies were not exclusively telling a story. they were also obviously vehicles for selling products.
great storytelling cannot survive a dilution in purpose.

don't get me wrong, i still liked the new movies even though a lot of fans were vocal in their disappointment. i actually wasn't expecting a renaissance of the magic the originals engendered.
i just enjoyed the movies for what they were.

issa people gonna die-ay? mee-sa thinks the problem with jar2 is that he is too recent a racial stereotype.

best line of "revenge:"
obi1: "it's over annie! i hold the high ground"
vader: "you underestimate my power"
wahaha! panis.

5 Comments:

Blogger Jim Arroyo said...

"Orphan Annie." Hehehehe. I wonder why no one's thought of that before!

I pretty much agree with you on all counts, though I confess I enjoyed Episode III a lot, notwithstanding consistently bad dialogue and positively flaccid "romantic" scenes.

Anyway, I agree that there are holes and failures in logic galore, but what for me made the movie work was, even more than the action and visual effects, the collapse of the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin. As wooden as he was, Hayden Christensen still managed to generate chemistry with Ewan McGregor in their master/pupil or big brother/little brother dynamic. This movie worked for me, among all the prequels, because I finally had some kind of emotional connection with the characters. That's my two cents on it.

By the way, did anyone else notice how absolutely goofy General Grievous was? It's funny how he was hyped to be some kind of badass, because it seems clear that Lucas intended otherwise.

Well, my sequel/prequel itch is at least partially scratched for the year, but I confess what I'm really looking forward to is...

...The Legend of Zorro (and the return of Catherine Zeta-Jones to her career-launching role. Rrrrowrrrr!)

8:54 PM  
Blogger Hobbes said...

I watched A New Hope a day after I watched Revenge. Aside from the requisite few holes, I think 3 does transition fairly well into 4. I found it real cute to see a younger Obi Wan tossing away a blaster and calling it uncivilized, then see an older Obi Wan describe a lightsaber to Luke as a weapon of a more civilized time.

Still, what got to me was how much more well-developed the characters were in A New Hope. The conversations between Leia, Han, and Luke were certainly much more entertaining that the ones between Obi Wan, Amidala, and Anakin.

I found it unfortunate since the prequels had players like MacGregor and Portman, who have already proven to be capable of much more. It wasn't as if Hamil was such a better actor than Christensen either, but obviously a lot more work was put into scripting Luke's role than Anakin's. Or imagine a scene for Samuel Jackson in righteous rage right out of A Time to Kill.

I suppose that it might have made more sense to get an English writer for episodes 1-3. If the Jedi were supposed to be so stiff and formal, might as well get people who can make such characters funny.

Still, I did like Revenge myself.

10:03 PM  
Blogger Jay said...

Jimbo, I dunno if you were able to catch the clone wars on cartoon network but grievous was a "badass" there. At the point before th movie started, Annie was able to slash him good before he was able to make a getaway. must've been too damaged by the time episode three started.

And I, despite my comprehensive movie collection won't claim to be a very good critic but the best part about episode III was that it really did give you the closure you needed. In our terms, it brought balance to the force...

I just wish they found a way to kill JarJar. Anything would have done.

8:55 AM  
Blogger TC said...

Best (read WORST) line in Revenge of the Sith:

Padme: "Anakin! Why are you doing this? You're breaking my HEART!!"

DAMN YOU, LUCAS!!! I've heard better dialogue from porn!!

If you think about it, Episodes I and II are pretty expendable. There's really nothing of substance in either film that really contributed to the whole epic. Exactly right, Ryan - they were nothing more than expensive merchandising and marketing ploys.

Episode III transitioned well into Episoode IV. In fact, one gets the instant urge to watch A New Hope right after coming out of the theater showing Episode III.

One of my peeves about Ep III is how flimsy they executed the scene where Windu and four (count em, FOUR) other Jedi try to arrest Palpatine. I thought they could have done better, considering Palpatine is supposed to be THE baddest of the Sith (at least the one left alive at that point). I expected a more engaging saber fight between the 5 Jedi and Palpatine. But nooo....

One loose end in Episode IV:

Luke Skywalker presents R2D2 to "Ben" Kenobi:

Luke: I think this droid belongs to you.
Kenobi: That's strange. I don't recall ever owning a droid before!

Did his memory banks get wiped clean too just like C3PO and R2 on Bail Organa's ship just before he landed on Tatooine??

9:30 AM  
Blogger banzai cat said...

Maybe he was just being mysterious?

Still, I think that's one of the problems Lucas wasn't able to answer with his movies at this point in time: half the time he was trying to make a movie for the fan boys and half the time for the rest of the movie-going public.

Consider the Grievous thing: his wound was shown in Cartoon Network but not everyone will be able to get to watch that-- except for the fanboys.

But yeah TC that was the worse line in the movie, it totally dried up my interest in that movie.

11:01 AM  

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