So I am sitting here at The Uptown theater in DC, waiting for the 10 pm showing of Star Wars. This will be my first viewing and I wanted to see it at my favorite Theater.
I love going to the movies. Good, bad, it doesn't matter, I just like the movie going experience. In my ezperience, no Theater does it better than the Uptown Theater.
I'm looking forward to this final installment of Star Wars. Unlike some, I thought the first two overall told a good story, even though there some very very annying parts. From what I've heard, this one is supposed to be good. I hope it is.
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15 comments:
I never bashed the overall story told in the first two prequel movies, just a lot of the dialogue used to tell the story. You will not be disappointed by the final installment. There are still some dialogue issues, but they take a back seat to the rest of the story. Be sure to update us on what you thought of it.
BTW: I've never seen a movie at The Uptown. I've been swallowed up by one of the modern super-cina-plexes near work. Nice, comfortable, but missing something.
Finally! A Star Wars prequel that lived up to the billing. Personally, I think this is one of the best ones out of all six. Gotta wait until they all come out on DVD to figure out how good though.
Some real powerful scenes in there. And dude, did Darth ever get his ass kicked. Limbs chopped AND burned alive? No wonder he's pissed.
"And dude, did Darth ever get his ass kicked."
Because everyone knows that the having the high-ground (well, at least 2 inches higher) offsets being the chosen one (and an otherwise complete bad-ass). Oh, I guess I forgot to add in the terrain bonus.
"Limbs chopped AND burned alive? No wonder he's pissed."
Good point. It was interesting to see how Obi-wan turned out to be a wonderful friend and an upstanding member of the noble Jedi order. Leaving his friend/brother there to slowly burn to death (of course it's even worse in that he didn't die and Obi-wan failed/disobeyed his orders to kill Anakin). How noble to allow someone to suffer so.
I'll stop there for now....
See! That's the problem, all this over analysis stuff. Star Wars is a fun movie, that's it. That's all the first three were too, just fun. Pleanty of wholes there too but we didn't care when we were 8, did we? Bah. Silly people.
Oh, I doubt you saw this but a bunch of turkeys on a conservative blog site called 'The Corner' were bitching because they thought this installment was 'critical of the Bush Administration'. Jesus, get your head out of your ass. :)
Is it really over-analysis to require a little sanity and internal consistency in a movie? It's not necessary to have an award-winning/once-in-a-lifetime story/plot to make it enjoyable, but when you're striving for reality the unreality of the dialog, the unreality of the situation and the unreality of the situation really pulls one out of the story.
Just internal consistency would be nice. Does anyone even remember the exchange in "Return of the Jedi" between Luke and Leia about their mother? Leia remembers her mother. Leia was all of 30 seconds old when her mother died of a broken heart (that's gotta be good for the kids, "sorry Son, your mom's dead because you weren't wonderful enough to give her a reason to live").
And then there's the just plain bad parts: The extermination of the Jedi, for one. I'm confused how the Jedi, with their lightning-fast reaction speed (which they're able to use to deflect blaster fire, remember) were so amazing easy to kill. Shoot 'em in the back when they're not expecting it... Hell, I coulda done that.
My biggest gripe about the movie would have to be how fast Anakin's conversion was. It was like someone flipped a damn light switch in his brain. He went from "I believe in the Republic and I need to protect Padme" to "I'm all for killing innocent, near defenseless children just because my new master (who's siezing power and destroying the Republic) told me that the Jedi were bad." Anakin may have been slowly tempted toward the dark-side over the past two movies, but his actual conversion was completely unbelievable. He showed remorse and doubt over what happened with Mace Windu and then immediately seemed to say "well, I'm boned, guess it's the dark side for me".
Bah.
Ok, I'm done for now, again.
You haven't seen overcritical until you've visited this site. They criticize the consistency of Star Destroyer design in the original trilogy. They compare closeups of the models used to make the movies and come up with theories about how they design, subclasses to explain the variations, and do comparative analyses until they're blue in the face.
THEY HAD TO CHANGE THE FRICKIN' MODELS BECAUSE THE OLD ONES WEREN'T DETAILED ENOUGH FOR CLOSEUP SHOTS! GOT IT?
Okay, I'm better now.
BTW: Leia does get adopted, doesn't she? Doesn't she therefore have an adoptive mother to remember? Dumbass.
BTW: That comic was pretty funny. I agree with most of the points made there, but I still really like the movie. I guess that just makes me under-critical.
There's "being critical" and then there's "being an anal dipshit nitpicker". It's one thing to criticize the plot faults, dialog and the obvious violations of physical law (Ben, I'm surprised that you're not more incensed over the "ship falling towards planet" scene at the beginning of the movie). It's something completely separate to nitpick the technical details of a fantasy world.
BTW: Leia does get adopted, doesn't she? Doesn't she therefore have an adoptive mother to remember?
All true, but Luke specifically asked her about her real mother.
I don't remember the exact exchange. If that is the case, I officially un-dumbass you.
Since the ships aren't really in orbit and are relying on their repulsordrives or whatever to maintain altitude, when a ship suffers a power loss, it would plunge straight into the planet.
Right. I still don't buy it. But it looks neat on screen.
I've long since given up on criticizing movies for failing to follow the laws of physics. Few of them do, and the ones that do are often boring. I'm going to the movies to have fun, not review my physics cirriculum.
... when a ship suffers a power loss, it would plunge straight into the planet.
I wasn't referring to the plunge of the ship towards the planet. (I'll give them that considing the omnipresence of gravity when hovering above planets.) I was referring to the fact that when then ship took a nose-dive so did the occupants.
It's nice to see that their gravity generators (which are perfectly feasible in a fantasy environment) are so accomodating as to throw the internal gravity of the ship into turmoil just because the ship happened to angle "down" towards a nearby planet.
(And don't give me anything about planetary gravity affecting the occupants as it did the ship. If that were the case, the occupants would either be plastered to the back of the ship or in freefall (e.g. the "elevator with it's cable cut" phenomenon).
I've long since given up on criticizing movies for failing to follow the laws of physics.
But that's the problem. See, if you want me to believe that it's real (which the filmmaker obvious does, otherwise they would have used $10 models on strings and not millions of dollars in CG), then you've got to be consistent. What's wrong with letting the ship plunge towards the planet but leave the occupants upright and still scrambling to get to safety before the ship flattens itself into the planet. That effect would have been far more interesting (both visually and plot-wise) than what they actually did.
This reminds me of an upcoming FOX TV Series called 'When Star Trek Fans Attack'! Yea, it's about these Star Trek fans that are used to people going through great lengths to maintain consistency appling that same desire to a fantasy film made for kids. Should be wild.
Come on, they had the people falling down through the ship because the majority of the audience wouldn't get it if they were still standing straight up. It'd meant to entertain, not to educate. As a result, you do what is enteraining for the target audience, the youngins. Just like the first trilogy was aimed at us youngersters and we loved the ewoks, etc, so is this stuff aimed at the small fries.
I continue to maintain that if we were 30 when the original trilogy came out, it wouldn't mean the same as it does to us now. Plot holes, cheesy dialog, etc doesn't mean beans when you are 8. It's all about the experience and the fun.
Except that:
1. I'm not a Star Wars fan (or at least I'm not anymore)
2. This movie isn't for kids
Come on, they had the people falling down through the ship because the majority of the audience wouldn't get it if they were still standing straight up.
So we continue to cater to the ignorant masses and perpetuate bad stereotypes just because we want it to be entertaining? Are "entertaining" and "accurate" mutually exclusive? I'd like to think not.
I continue to maintain that if we were 30 when the original trilogy came out, it wouldn't mean the same as it does to us now.
I don't agree. When the "Special Edition" was released all those years ago, I still enjoyed it. However, I seriously disliked the changes.
Sure there were holes (very few things, movie or otherwise, don't have some), but they weren't as obvious, blatant and jarring. (Again, with the exception of the "improvements".)
I also don't think that it's necessary to patronize children in order to entertain them. Personally, I think I liked Star Wars so much as a kid because it didn't patronize me. It was (and in pre-Special Edition version, still is) an intelligent and yet still entertaining story.
I dare say you are one of the exceptions, then. The majority of the American public isn't concerned about accuracy, in their movies or their politics. They are more concerned about day-to-day issues and, as a result, are only worried about being entertained as opposed to being challenged.
I was ready to put up with whatever Lucas through at me in all three prequels because I went to only be entertained, nothing more. There are movies that are accurate and challenge me, and I enjoy those, but I expect it from that type of movie and the challenge is the reason to watch it. The reason to watch Star Wars is because it's a huge epic and entertaining, not accurate.
As far as Firefly goes, I loved that series and probably could have liked it as much as Farscape, but it was cancelled. It being cancelled makes my point for me, that the majority of the American public doesn't care about accuracy, just wants to be entertained.
Looks at 'reality' television for further proof.
The majority of the American public isn't concerned about accuracy, in their movies or their politics.
Oh now don't bring politics into this debate. ;-)
In all seriousness, however, why do you think that is? Could it be because they've learned that they can't expect to get any accuracy from those sources? Perhaps if we aimed higher and expected more from them instead of patronizing them.
But, I digress....
I was ready to put up with whatever Lucas through at me in all three prequels because I went to only be entertained, nothing more.
Again, I'm confused. Why are "entertaining" and "challenging" mutually exclusive? Why do entertaining movies have to be dumbed down and why do accurate/challenging movies have to require a PhD and careful contemplation in order to appreciate. This dichotomy confuses and saddens me.
It seems to me to be more troublesome (worrysome?) that I might have to "put up with" crap in order to enjoy myself.
[Firefly] being cancelled makes my point for me, that the majority of the American public doesn't care about accuracy, just wants to be entertained.
Looks at 'reality' television for further proof.
While I don't disagree with you (except that Fox was more responsible for Firefly's death than anything else), does this mean that we shouldn't even strive for good storytelling?
Firefly was cancelled, and that sucked... But we mourn it because it was good... and entertaining.
I'm certainly not advocating bad storytelling. Nothing is better than a movie you can totally get sucked into because of a solid plot line.
And as far as 'entertaining' and 'challenging' being mutually exclusive, of course they aren't.
I guess what I'm driving at is taking it for what it is. Star Wars is an epic entertaining movie that isn't accurate, consistent nor challenging, but it's very fun. Trying to make it anymore than that or harping on it because it isn't anymore than that is just plain silly, because it never pretended to be more and never could be more.
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