Enjoyed that, thanks.
Star Wars Lives!
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I appreciate how dark and different Temple of Doom is, it was refreshing to have Lucas & Spielberg try something different when making a sequel before going the more familiar route in Last Crusade (also a great movie).
One problem with the prequels is I don’t think Lucas was fit to both write and direct them, he needed some additional voices in the room. I’m still bummed Return of the Jedi was so compromised. Luke should be spending episodes VII-IX looking for and helping train his sister, not having a very convenient solution to the love triangle established in Empire.
But after reading about Lindelof and his resume, things don’t look promising. I hated Prometheus and Into Darkness was such an insult.
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Heroes (or Hero) get chased by monster, while running from said monster it is eaten by a bigger monster. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon leaving the Gungan city/Kirk stranded on the ice planet.
I thought that might have been the one. I did not see anything particularly awful about it. I mean it was a very pedestrian and cliche attempt at suspense in both instances, but certainly there are worse offenses in both films.
One of the reasons I loved “Rise of The Planet of The Apes” is the fan sevice they threw in felt organic. There wasn’t belabored set-up so they could do the fan service.
I agree with that. If the fan service falls naturally into the storyline or script it comes off as respectful and true to the original, rather than as pandering. In that respect, it really is no longer fan service (which is pandering).
I really cannot think of any other examples like Planet of the Apes, where the service was natural and unobtrusive. Another very obvious and poor example is Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Granted, I only watched it once, a while back, because it was so bad. One piece of fan service that I do remember was when Jones was being chased through the warehouse at the beginning, one of the boxes that gets knocked over is shown to contain the Ark of the Covenant. The camera painfully focuses in on it too. It seemed like such a shill when I watched it. Just really kitschy and in-your-face. I am sure there was some sort of Ooh, Ahh or giggling of glee in the theater, but I watched it at home and it was more of an, “Awww Dammit!”. Then it only got worse from there.
I’m still bummed Return of the Jedi was so compromised. Luke should be spending episodes VII-IX looking for and helping train his sister, not having a very convenient solution to the love triangle established in Empire.
While I am well versed in the films themselves, not so much in the background of the writing/development… What exactly do you mean “compromised”?
But after reading about Lindelof and his resume, things don’t look promising. I hated Prometheus and Into Darkness was such an insult.
Into Darkness was insulting and really not very interesting.
After watching Prometheus I remember saying, “Well, I never want to watch that movie again.” It had so much promise, but something just was off about it. I really don’t know what though. Full disclosure: I had never watched anything from the Alien franchise when I saw Prometheus (I have since watched Alien). However, even after watching Alien, Prometheus still did not make a lot of sense. Maybe the actions of the people in Prometheus made less sense. There were some Alien-esque interesting (revolting) things in Prometheus, but it was not a good movie because of them. There were good elements, but clearly did not reach its potential.
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Since May the Forth is upon soon, I thought a Star Wars question was appropriate. Who is your main character in the series? Who is your favorite supporting character?
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@ABWorsham:
Since May the Forth is upon soon, I thought a Star Wars question was appropriate. Who is your main character in the series? Who is your favorite supporting character?
I assume this should read favorite main character and favorite supporting character ?
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One of the best comments I’ve ever read about the Star Wars cast of characters was the observation that, when the Emperor was briefly introduced in The Empire Strikes Back and especially when his role was greatly expanded in return of the Jedi, Star Wars fans were shocked to realize that the epic-scale villain Darth Vader was essentially just a middle manager. We see this demonstrated right at the beginning of RotJ, when Vader informs the Death Star construction supervisor that the boss is “most displeased” with his lack of progress, adding the further comment that the Emperor is “not as forgiving as I am.” This kind of scene would not be out of place in a Dilbert cartoon.
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Can’t believe anyone would bother saving Episodes 1 & 2 from the incinerator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI&list=PL8358B6703245914D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfBhi6qqFLA&list=PL39C77C596E490C96
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I love the Plinkett movie reviews, I remember stumbling upon his ST Next Gen reviews and getting so excited for his take on the prequels. Though I will say of all the Next Gen films First Contact is by far the best not worthy of total condemnation.
The RLM team summed up ST 2009 pretty well and even warned about what kind of movie Into Darkness would be. Their Half in the Bag shows are amusing reviews with a little Plinkett mixed in.
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Can’t believe anyone would bother saving Episodes 1 & 2 from the incinerator.
While they are exceedingly far from perfect, there are a precious few good choices or scenes.
Casting Ewan McGregor as Obi-wan was an excellent choice in my opinion. Liam Neeson as Qui-gon was good too, though I shrink from calling it excellent. However, like the video points out, their performances were inhibited by a poor script.
The ending lightsaber fight in Ep. I with Qui-gon, Obi-wan and Darth Maul was perhaps the best fight of any Star Wars movie. Definitely worth keeping.
For that matter, Darth Maul was a great bad-guy, but so little was done with him and his role was (intentionally?) left very under-developed. Could have been even better.
I like Sam Jackson as Mace Windu, though the character himself left a little to be desired.
Beyond that, casting was very poor and acting was worse. A good part of that blame must be chalked up to the script, but still…
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I thought Neeson looked thoroughly embarrassed to be seen in the movie; sleepwalked through his role.
As Plinkett says, there isn’t a single real character in it, apart from Binks who everyone hated.
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I thought Neeson looked thoroughly embarrassed to be seen in the movie; sleepwalked through his role.
As Plinkett says, there isn’t a single real character in it, apart from Binks who everyone hated.
I do agree. Neeson did not do a great job, so I should redact my statement as it pertains to him.
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I just hope the new one does something interesting with the original cast, like Luke being corrupted by the Force.
Just playing older versions of themselves taking on a new set of one-dimensional villains with British accents would be pointless. Apart from the money they’d make.
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The first picture in this story will probably remind Star Wars fans of Luke speeding above the Tatooine desert in his landspeeder. Even the landscape colour is similar.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/aerofex-hover-bike-goes-on-sale-in-2017-1.2642866
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Star Wars Set Photos Taken By Accident
A man who was taking publicity shots for a flying school returned home to discover he had captured images of spacecraft used in the new Star Wars film.
Matthew Myatt originally thought his pictures of the Millennium Falcon and an X-Wing fighter were experimental aircraft at Greenham Common, Berkshire.
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That is brilliant, thanks Marc.
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There is the dark side…and the light…
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When I saw that Trailer, I was like:
Oh man not again, not another fan made one, because I thought first that it was Kevin Hart the Stormtrooper.
Then I realized , Oh! :-o :-o :-D -
Always wondered why they didn’t have cross hilts on light sabers. Now they do.
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Always wondered why they didn’t have cross hilts on light sabers.
A normal crosshilt on a normal sword offers some protection to the user from the opponent’s sword – but a lightsaber crosshilt consisting of two short lightsaber blades strikes me as being potentially hazardous to the user. One wrong move and you could end up cutting off your own wrist.
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@CWO:
Always wondered why they didn’t have cross hilts on light sabers.
A normal crosshilt on a normal sword offers some protection to the user from the opponent’s sword – but a lightsaber crosshilt consisting of two short lightsaber blades strikes me as being potentially hazardous to the user. One wrong move and you could end up cutting off your own wrist.
That is true, but we would have to assume that a force using Jedi/Sith would be adept enough to prevent that from happening. At least that is a possible rationale.
My concern, which I am sort of surprised that some others picked up on, is that the emitters for the cross hilt blades stick out from the hilt itself. This negates the protection that the cross hilt is meant to offer in that another blade could slide down and cut the emitters heads off and continue right on into the user’s hands. (http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2014/11/28/7302383/lets-talk-about-the-new-lightsaber-ouch-hands).
Either that was not thought through very much or utility doesn’t matter as long as this Sith has some new badass weapon in the mode of Darth Maul. I think it is likely both. All in all, it is a rather puzzling addition because in all the lightsaber fights before we have never seen the need for a protective cross hilt. I am sure we will see it used in an offensive capacity to justify its existence.
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A normal cross-hit on a light sabre wouldn’t work. Because the other guys light sabre would just cut through it!
Hence, the important of the light cross-hit, which may have two small/obscure mandibles that prevent the hand from touching them!
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