So, after my talking up the original trilogy for days, and the girls thoroughly depressed at the last film, we pressed on. The film begins at a very weird spot compared to the last ones. The girls were really eager to find out what happens with Anakin, Obi-wan and the twins, but A New Hope started off with... C-3PO and R2-D2. When someone watches the originals first, starting with these two makes more sense. They have a little comic relief to them, but they also provide a helpless observer point of view for the audience to connect with in this strange universe they've just been thrust into. We stick with them for a good fifteen minutes as information is gradually and slowly presented to the audience, then we spend another 15 minutes with Luke on Tatooine before he finally gets involved with the galactic plot. Now, as we were coming off the prequels, we had a lot of information on the universe already, all we needed was the details of what happened in between films (revealed in the opening crawl) and then we were good to go. By the time we got to the scene of Obi-wan FINALLY explaining what The Force was and how it worked, Berri declared, rather matter of factly, "This movie is boring." To my horror, I realized I agreed with her. The spectacular display of special effects, and the high stakes galactic intrigue of the prequels were what they had gotten invested in, and now they were very impatient as Luke wandered around the desert waiting for things to be slowly explained to him.
The B story of the film of Leia aboard the Death Star was of greater interest to them, as it involved the galactic plot line established from the previous films, but they were often distracted during the scenes with Vader and Leia. The question, "Does he know that's his daughter?" came up several times, along with, "Are those clones or people?" in regard to the stormtroopers. I didn't really have a verifiable answer to the latter.
About halfway through the film, the two stories converged and it felt more "like a Star Wars film" again, and it held their interest until the duel between Obi-wan and Vader. Originally, this was a magnificent scene that set the baseline for future duels as well as great drama, Now it's been reduced to an old man fighting a cylon with a glow stick. Kat immediately commented how "unepic" this duel was. The scene was completely destroyed by the over-the-top the episode III duel. Fortunately, the shock of Obi-wan's defeat remained intact.
My final note for this film is on the battle over the Death Star. It's the one scene that, despite the weaker special effects, outdoes similar scenes in Episode III when watched back-to-back. Remember in the last post, I said the opening battle of III was very confusing. The ships were unidentifiable and there was no emotional investment in either the clones or droids. The Death Star battle literally does the exact opposite, making it the stronger scene. The audience is clearly shown which ships are "good" versus "bad"; the pilots are actual characters with their own personalities and reactions to the battle that we care about; and there is a very clear objective that everyone is working toward. Granted, everyone usually snickers when "the fat guy" (i.e. Pork-ins) dies, but after that, every time a pilot died, I heard an "Oh no!" or a gasp or some reaction from the girls. They cared about what was happening to everyone and not just the central characters. An interesting lesson that was forgotten in the prequels.
Since this post is so long, I'll save my final thoughts for next time in order to have a complete discussion on George Lucas, Rick McCallum, and Gary Kurtz.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 3
It's over, Lucas has the high ground
I mentioned that my cousins had no idea why the Clone War was being fought. There was no real buildup, no reason, or anything. It just happened because Sidious wanted it to. So with nothing for the audience to relate to, the battles are just a kaleidoscope of special effects and nothing more. Which is exactly how Episode III started. The space battle began and Berri said, "I have no idea who's fighting." And it's true, without identification, the battle just looks like hot dogs shooting at triangles with a bunch of little ships zipping about. Once again, I had to point out who was whom and what was trying to be achieved, and they caught on pretty quickly; then General Grievous showed up. The questions about him continued all the way to his death: "Who is that guy, is he bad? Why is he coughing? Is he a robot? Is he a dog? Is he a robot dog? etc." Grievous has the unique honor of being the only villain in the films who has absolutely no back story whatsoever, and I mean none. Maybe it's explained in the Clone Wars cartoon, but I can't bring myself to watch that and the information belongs in the film anyway. Another who wasn't given much intro was Bail Organa, and he was a far more important character. They also didn't seem that impressed with Chewbacca. (They knew about him because my dad had mentioned a certain encounter I had with him at DisneyWorld, long story). Anyway, he doesn't really do much in the movie and is thus a disappointing cameo to old and new fans alike. It was about this time, that I think my cousins really gave up on the films' writing. Some new creatures/special effects show up for no reason and eventually die/disappear, and they just had to roll with it. This is unfortunate because the expectation of watching mindless action would make it harder to watch the later films.
On the flip side, they also started to get into Anakin's story. Don't get me wrong, there was still a bit of snickers and scoffs with the dialogue, but they definitely became emotionally invested when Anakin began to turn to the dark side. I could see them all literally on the edge of their seats during Windu's duel with Palpatine, so praise to Lucas there. The climax was the strongest of the prequels and they noticed. Though the dialogue was bad and they shared my outrage at Yoda taking a facefull of force lighting, they really seemed to get into it. There was again a stunned disbelief when Obi-wan dismembered Anakin, and Berri was noticing an alarming pattern with the characters' limbs. I would call the film's ending a success because the audience came away with the intended feeling; the bad guys have won, a hero falls from grace, but there is a glimmer of hope. Once again, the Death Star was glazed over, no one asked about it.
Final Thoughts
So it wasn't until this one this one that I think the series started to hook the audience, though with a rather bitter bait. Indeed, my cousins were so heartbroken about the ending that they weren't sure they wanted to continue. Upon learning the next film was called A New Hope, they agreed to proceed. There was one catch that I didn't see coming, Lucas was so caught up in being as grand as possible in this film that the transition to the original trilogy was very rough indeed.
Next...
We'll call them George, Rick, and Gary...
I mentioned that my cousins had no idea why the Clone War was being fought. There was no real buildup, no reason, or anything. It just happened because Sidious wanted it to. So with nothing for the audience to relate to, the battles are just a kaleidoscope of special effects and nothing more. Which is exactly how Episode III started. The space battle began and Berri said, "I have no idea who's fighting." And it's true, without identification, the battle just looks like hot dogs shooting at triangles with a bunch of little ships zipping about. Once again, I had to point out who was whom and what was trying to be achieved, and they caught on pretty quickly; then General Grievous showed up. The questions about him continued all the way to his death: "Who is that guy, is he bad? Why is he coughing? Is he a robot? Is he a dog? Is he a robot dog? etc." Grievous has the unique honor of being the only villain in the films who has absolutely no back story whatsoever, and I mean none. Maybe it's explained in the Clone Wars cartoon, but I can't bring myself to watch that and the information belongs in the film anyway. Another who wasn't given much intro was Bail Organa, and he was a far more important character. They also didn't seem that impressed with Chewbacca. (They knew about him because my dad had mentioned a certain encounter I had with him at DisneyWorld, long story). Anyway, he doesn't really do much in the movie and is thus a disappointing cameo to old and new fans alike. It was about this time, that I think my cousins really gave up on the films' writing. Some new creatures/special effects show up for no reason and eventually die/disappear, and they just had to roll with it. This is unfortunate because the expectation of watching mindless action would make it harder to watch the later films.
On the flip side, they also started to get into Anakin's story. Don't get me wrong, there was still a bit of snickers and scoffs with the dialogue, but they definitely became emotionally invested when Anakin began to turn to the dark side. I could see them all literally on the edge of their seats during Windu's duel with Palpatine, so praise to Lucas there. The climax was the strongest of the prequels and they noticed. Though the dialogue was bad and they shared my outrage at Yoda taking a facefull of force lighting, they really seemed to get into it. There was again a stunned disbelief when Obi-wan dismembered Anakin, and Berri was noticing an alarming pattern with the characters' limbs. I would call the film's ending a success because the audience came away with the intended feeling; the bad guys have won, a hero falls from grace, but there is a glimmer of hope. Once again, the Death Star was glazed over, no one asked about it.
Final Thoughts
So it wasn't until this one this one that I think the series started to hook the audience, though with a rather bitter bait. Indeed, my cousins were so heartbroken about the ending that they weren't sure they wanted to continue. Upon learning the next film was called A New Hope, they agreed to proceed. There was one catch that I didn't see coming, Lucas was so caught up in being as grand as possible in this film that the transition to the original trilogy was very rough indeed.
Next...
We'll call them George, Rick, and Gary...
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Flight of the Bumble Bee (in 3D)
I just want to be clear about several things. I'm a fan of the Green Hornet. It first came to my attention when I was introduced to Bruce Lee (whom I'm also a fan of). I've seen several episodes of the various serials. I was extremely excited to see the new film. Not only because it was a new version of the hero to enjoy, but the film also appeared to be outside the streamlined superhero films that have been coming out lately. It's not often you see such a goofy vigilante and I was fully prepared to give them full props for taking such a risk. However, when the moment came for me to go see it, I refused. I couldn't find a showing that wasn't in 3D.
The 3D fad of Hollywood has gotten way out of hand. It started as a cute little gimmick for younger audiences and has now grown into an expected form of prestigious film polish. For some reason, the studios think that the audiences think that 3D is cool. Maybe they're right, but I rarely enjoy watching 3D films (so far the only exception out of five films has been Tron: Legacy). 3D works great with big special effects films. During the course of the Star Wars marathon I've been writing about, one of my cousins remarked that the films would have looked great in 3D (tune in in 2012). In average action film, 3D conversion does very little to enhance the film and only damages the film's quality as it becomes darker and only slightly 3D. The conversion adds $4 to the ticket price for what? An ill colored effect that's being implemented before the technology is ready.
3D did not belong in The Green Hornet. It's an action film with minimal computer effects. The conversion would only damage the film and encourage an ill suited fad. I refuse to see the film until it comes to DVD. Maybe not even then.
The 3D fad of Hollywood has gotten way out of hand. It started as a cute little gimmick for younger audiences and has now grown into an expected form of prestigious film polish. For some reason, the studios think that the audiences think that 3D is cool. Maybe they're right, but I rarely enjoy watching 3D films (so far the only exception out of five films has been Tron: Legacy). 3D works great with big special effects films. During the course of the Star Wars marathon I've been writing about, one of my cousins remarked that the films would have looked great in 3D (tune in in 2012). In average action film, 3D conversion does very little to enhance the film and only damages the film's quality as it becomes darker and only slightly 3D. The conversion adds $4 to the ticket price for what? An ill colored effect that's being implemented before the technology is ready.
3D did not belong in The Green Hornet. It's an action film with minimal computer effects. The conversion would only damage the film and encourage an ill suited fad. I refuse to see the film until it comes to DVD. Maybe not even then.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 2
Episode II: Why Are They Fighting?
So, with everyone safely assured that the films would get better, we pressed on. The opening text of this film was not encouraging and Cat asked me to pause and rewind it so she could read it again. They were mostly confused about Amidala's sudden demotion from Queen to Senator, but also asked about Count Dooku, "Was he the guy in the cloak?" I noticed they completely glazed over the bit about the Separatists as they had no visual to go with it and there's no real explanation for them in the text or otherwise. Anyway, so Padme's decoy gets blown up ("That's not Keira Knightly!") and when Obi-wan and Anakin enter the scene, I heard, "Wait, who's that?" Neither myself or Lucas bothered to tell them this film takes place ten years after its predecessor, so Hayden Christensen threw them a bit (he does that). Surprisingly, once they got over this, they actually seemed to enjoy the dynamic between the two characters. I guess without Alec Guiness's description to fall back on, the rebellious Anakin and the controlling Obi-wan were much funnier. Of course, once Anakin started talking to Padme, the snickering never stopped (so awkward). Indeed, all the romantic scenes seemed to be good for were cheap laughs. When I told them that my screenwriting professor showed me the water kissing scene as an example of terrible dialogue, they had no trouble believing it. As for the Obi-wan mystery story, they had some trouble keeping up with the weird twists and turns. They understood that someone was building a clone army for the Republic, but didn't connect that as a prelude to war, since the motivations for the conflict were never explained. They also had a lot of trouble identifying the villains. I had to point out Count Dooku to them because he's nearly unidentifiable during the meeting of the Separatist leaders. As for Jango Fett, all they could really tell was that he was a bad guy, but his place in the grand scheme wasn't really established. (For instance, after giving his DNA for cloning and receiving payment, there's no real reason why he sticks around). Anyway, we get to the thrilling climax, Anakin and Padme profess their love ("Say what?") and everyone and their mother's clone shows up at the arena to fight. Berri immediately asked, "How did this turn into a battle?" How indeed? As I said, there's no explanation for the Separatist movement, and as such, the battle is just a rescue mission that gets way out of hand. Curiously, no one asked about the Death Star which was shoehorned in there, again with no explanation or foreshadowing. Anyway, Anakin must have done something right to get the girls on his side, because when he loses his arm, there was just a stunned silence. "Did his arm really just get cut off?" asked Cat. Anyway, the effect lasted for a moment, then Yoda showed up and, of course, was a big hit. Bear in mind, at this point, he was just a minor supporting character that talked funny. His pulling out a lightsaber and going all Mexican Jumping bean was a huge surprise. When the movie closed, there was supposed to be a sense of coming dark times as the war begun, but instead the girls were confused. They didn't quite understand what had just happened, what the stakes were, or what was supposed to happen next. Berri didn't understand why Anakin and Padme were getting married and the film ended with very mixed feelings.
Final Thoughts
After this one, I think it finally sank in that the films were more about special effects that anything else. And, after a fashion, that holds true for most of the series. As the real story arc of the prequel trilogy begins here, the girls didn't have a certain anticipation about how things were going to play out, but I think after this film, they started to turn their brains off and just watch the mindless action. Regardless, the feeble attempt at romance and the ill directed mystery were enough to keep them interested as we proceeded onto the next film.
Next
"I don't know if I can watch anymore."
So, with everyone safely assured that the films would get better, we pressed on. The opening text of this film was not encouraging and Cat asked me to pause and rewind it so she could read it again. They were mostly confused about Amidala's sudden demotion from Queen to Senator, but also asked about Count Dooku, "Was he the guy in the cloak?" I noticed they completely glazed over the bit about the Separatists as they had no visual to go with it and there's no real explanation for them in the text or otherwise. Anyway, so Padme's decoy gets blown up ("That's not Keira Knightly!") and when Obi-wan and Anakin enter the scene, I heard, "Wait, who's that?" Neither myself or Lucas bothered to tell them this film takes place ten years after its predecessor, so Hayden Christensen threw them a bit (he does that). Surprisingly, once they got over this, they actually seemed to enjoy the dynamic between the two characters. I guess without Alec Guiness's description to fall back on, the rebellious Anakin and the controlling Obi-wan were much funnier. Of course, once Anakin started talking to Padme, the snickering never stopped (so awkward). Indeed, all the romantic scenes seemed to be good for were cheap laughs. When I told them that my screenwriting professor showed me the water kissing scene as an example of terrible dialogue, they had no trouble believing it. As for the Obi-wan mystery story, they had some trouble keeping up with the weird twists and turns. They understood that someone was building a clone army for the Republic, but didn't connect that as a prelude to war, since the motivations for the conflict were never explained. They also had a lot of trouble identifying the villains. I had to point out Count Dooku to them because he's nearly unidentifiable during the meeting of the Separatist leaders. As for Jango Fett, all they could really tell was that he was a bad guy, but his place in the grand scheme wasn't really established. (For instance, after giving his DNA for cloning and receiving payment, there's no real reason why he sticks around). Anyway, we get to the thrilling climax, Anakin and Padme profess their love ("Say what?") and everyone and their mother's clone shows up at the arena to fight. Berri immediately asked, "How did this turn into a battle?" How indeed? As I said, there's no explanation for the Separatist movement, and as such, the battle is just a rescue mission that gets way out of hand. Curiously, no one asked about the Death Star which was shoehorned in there, again with no explanation or foreshadowing. Anyway, Anakin must have done something right to get the girls on his side, because when he loses his arm, there was just a stunned silence. "Did his arm really just get cut off?" asked Cat. Anyway, the effect lasted for a moment, then Yoda showed up and, of course, was a big hit. Bear in mind, at this point, he was just a minor supporting character that talked funny. His pulling out a lightsaber and going all Mexican Jumping bean was a huge surprise. When the movie closed, there was supposed to be a sense of coming dark times as the war begun, but instead the girls were confused. They didn't quite understand what had just happened, what the stakes were, or what was supposed to happen next. Berri didn't understand why Anakin and Padme were getting married and the film ended with very mixed feelings.
Final Thoughts
After this one, I think it finally sank in that the films were more about special effects that anything else. And, after a fashion, that holds true for most of the series. As the real story arc of the prequel trilogy begins here, the girls didn't have a certain anticipation about how things were going to play out, but I think after this film, they started to turn their brains off and just watch the mindless action. Regardless, the feeble attempt at romance and the ill directed mystery were enough to keep them interested as we proceeded onto the next film.
Next
"I don't know if I can watch anymore."
Friday, January 14, 2011
An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 1
Intro
While visiting my family over Christmas, I discovered a few of my little cousins, hereby known as Cat (17), Berri (15), and Valise (11), had never ever seen a Star Wars movie. I resolved to rectify that. As I reached for my dad's Episode IV DVD, I remembered something Lucas had done. The general release DVDs had the special edition on them which included material from the prequels (*cough *cough, Hayden Christensen). I would have to show them the whole series chronologically in order for it to make the most sense. Kicking myself for not bringing my Limited Edition Theatrical Cut DVDs, I showed them the entire series, front to back. It was difficult working around family activities and healthy outdoor activity, but we finally finished just six hours before they were scheduled to leave. Here's what they thought.
Episode I: What's the Name of This One Again?
I warned them before we even started that the first three were the bad ones that we just had to get through before we got to the original trilogy, and this film proved me right very quickly. As we watched, I was asked to pause the movie every ten minutes or so to explain what was going on. The film failed to properly ground them in the new and exotic universe and the story seemed to simply involve the characters dashing from one action sequence to the next. Cat noticed very quickly how ineffective the battle droids were and seemed to get bored of them fighting the Jedi. Scenes like the bongo trip and the pod race were more interesting to them. Surprisingly (or not) Jar Jar got very few laughs, except out of my dad. I didn't sense that they found him annoying, they just noticed that there wasn't much to him. One thing I did to make the screening more interesting was to tell them that "The Queen" was played by Keira Knightly and "Padme" was played by Natalie Portman, leaving them to debate who was actually on screen at any given time. Berri wasn't fooled and when the Queen revealed herself, she declared "I told you!" to everyone who believed me. Throughout the film, I got several questions along the lines of, "What is the Force? What exactly do the Jedi do? What are Hutts? Are they bad?" Fair questions which are completely glossed over in this film and and aren't even touched upon until the Original Trilogy. They were forced to take the mishmash of it in stride and put the confusion to the back of their minds. I tried not to fill in too many gaps because I wanted to see how much information the film gave.
Final Thoughts
Their journey into the Star Wars universe almost ended right after starting. Valise declared that "Star Wars is stupid" and only agreed to keep watching when my little sister, who had seen them all, talked her into it. Berri astutely asked why "that guy with the beard" (i.e. Qui-Gon) was in the story so much when all he did was die at the end. Why indeed? It's been said before, but I say it again. This film failed on all counts. It failed to properly introduce new viewers to Star Wars, it failed to tell a good SW story (or a good regular story for that matter), and it failed to be an effective start to the prequel trilogy. All in all, FAIL.
Next
Awkward dialogue and a lot of "Wait, what?"
While visiting my family over Christmas, I discovered a few of my little cousins, hereby known as Cat (17), Berri (15), and Valise (11), had never ever seen a Star Wars movie. I resolved to rectify that. As I reached for my dad's Episode IV DVD, I remembered something Lucas had done. The general release DVDs had the special edition on them which included material from the prequels (*cough *cough, Hayden Christensen). I would have to show them the whole series chronologically in order for it to make the most sense. Kicking myself for not bringing my Limited Edition Theatrical Cut DVDs, I showed them the entire series, front to back. It was difficult working around family activities and healthy outdoor activity, but we finally finished just six hours before they were scheduled to leave. Here's what they thought.
Episode I: What's the Name of This One Again?
I warned them before we even started that the first three were the bad ones that we just had to get through before we got to the original trilogy, and this film proved me right very quickly. As we watched, I was asked to pause the movie every ten minutes or so to explain what was going on. The film failed to properly ground them in the new and exotic universe and the story seemed to simply involve the characters dashing from one action sequence to the next. Cat noticed very quickly how ineffective the battle droids were and seemed to get bored of them fighting the Jedi. Scenes like the bongo trip and the pod race were more interesting to them. Surprisingly (or not) Jar Jar got very few laughs, except out of my dad. I didn't sense that they found him annoying, they just noticed that there wasn't much to him. One thing I did to make the screening more interesting was to tell them that "The Queen" was played by Keira Knightly and "Padme" was played by Natalie Portman, leaving them to debate who was actually on screen at any given time. Berri wasn't fooled and when the Queen revealed herself, she declared "I told you!" to everyone who believed me. Throughout the film, I got several questions along the lines of, "What is the Force? What exactly do the Jedi do? What are Hutts? Are they bad?" Fair questions which are completely glossed over in this film and and aren't even touched upon until the Original Trilogy. They were forced to take the mishmash of it in stride and put the confusion to the back of their minds. I tried not to fill in too many gaps because I wanted to see how much information the film gave.
Final Thoughts
Their journey into the Star Wars universe almost ended right after starting. Valise declared that "Star Wars is stupid" and only agreed to keep watching when my little sister, who had seen them all, talked her into it. Berri astutely asked why "that guy with the beard" (i.e. Qui-Gon) was in the story so much when all he did was die at the end. Why indeed? It's been said before, but I say it again. This film failed on all counts. It failed to properly introduce new viewers to Star Wars, it failed to tell a good SW story (or a good regular story for that matter), and it failed to be an effective start to the prequel trilogy. All in all, FAIL.
Next
Awkward dialogue and a lot of "Wait, what?"
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