And not one of the Corman-Poe series for AIP, though they might repay your attention. (I mean, OK, one of them is actually a Lovecraft film with a Poe title, but never mind.)
And nor is it Warlords of the Deep (vt Warlords of Atlantis), which, well, yes.
I do unironically love Masque of the Red Death, though.
Thank you.
I have come to a weird and unsettling realisation. Iâve been watching my son play through Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagaâ. Itâs rather like watching all the Star Wars films again (1-9), quicker and with more jokes, some of which are surprisingly good (I particularly like Emperor Palpatine sinisterly intoning âExecute Order 67â, only to have his stormtroopers bemusedly start break dancing before he quickly corrects himself to âExecute Order 66â).
Obviously, my son thinks the films 4-6 are the best, which was satisfying as an old fanboy, but also correct as theyâre clearly much better. What has surprised me much more, however, is to discover that I actually (gasp) respect what films 1-3 were trying to do much more than films 7,8 and 9.
Watching the twists and turns of the prequel trilogy, charmingly re-enacted in lego form, has made me realise that the films really could have been special. The deep tragedy of the fall of Anakin, and the machinations of Palpatine, are brave and interesting choices for the saga, and the manufactured enemies stirring up the masses seem pretty relevant in these days of populism. In contrast, the later trilogy (7-9) just retreads everything that was good about 4-6. The only time it makes brave choices are in The Last Jedi, and everyone hated that so they just made a carbon copy of Return of the Jedi for Rise of Skywalker.
Donât get me wrong⌠the prequel trilogy is bad. Really bad. The acting is weird and stilted, the CGI is so overused that even Max Headroom would struggle with it, and it misses all the emotional notes that would have made it work. But⌠but it was brave, and it tried, and even though it failed miserably I find to my surprise I respect it much more than the last three films.
Funny what you learn as you get older.
have you seen Clone Wars? made me reconsider the prequels. well, the idea of them anyway.
I saw this a while ago and found it pretty interesting. Really, all of this guyâs videos are good and make you rethink some things.
Really, I think the âhateâ for the prequels is almost entirely from those who grew up with the original trilogy. People who were kids when they saw the prequels seem to really like them. As for why the original fans had problems with them was, in my opinion, overuse of comic relief in films that really werenât that dark (Jar Jar in The Phantom Menace and C-3PO in Attack of the Clones), changing the story we had been told in various ways, and some really poor dialogue (which the video above addresses).
So the sequels were trying to âwin backâ the original fans, and in the case of J.J. Abrams, just regurgitating the original films with some different characters and situations, but mostly hitting the exact same beats. Which did kind of work for The Force Awakens but really missed the mark with The Rise of Skywalker, IMO.
I appreciate Rian Johnson trying to shake things up in The Last Jedi. I honestly felt everything with Rey, Luke, and Kylo Ren were really solid, it was the rest of it that just really didnât work (for me, at least). Making Rey not part of some famous bloodline was bold and put forth the idea that anyone could be a Jedi, but that got retconned in the following film.
I think the real problem with the sequels was a lack of unified vision. Lucas was the main story writer for all the previous films, so always had some idea of where events would lead. He smartly made a definitive ending for his first film, but very obviously knew where he wanted to go from there, even if some bits changed over time. Same with the prequels.
For the sequels, Abrams did the first and then it was just handed off to Johnson to do whatever with. There should have been a complete story summary for the entire trilogy they were making so it could have been a coherent whole, rather than something that feels like an RPG that got a guest DM for a few sessions in the middle of the campaign.
Maybe Abrams always intended on Palpatine being the big bad of the trilogy, but if so, since it wasnât communicated to Johnson, there is absolutely no indication in his film of such. So the reveal in the opening crawl of the last movie feels cheap and shoehorned in, again like a DM trying to get his campaign back on track after someone filled in for a while, rather than seeing where the characters were and adjusting the campaign to continue with that.
To be fair on one point, I did get the impression that each film was meant to have one of the original characters as a major role, so Carrie Fisherâs passing may have thrown the third film for a loop. Hard to say, but considering how TFA had Han as a central character, and TLJ did the same with Luke, it is a reasonable assumption.
Wow, that was long!
No I havenât, but thatâs a good idea, I might give them a try now.
The first few seasons are really hit and miss. A few good ones, a few bad, one great, one awful,and so on.
The last four or five episodes are among the best Star Wars ever made. Like, ever. Anywhere.
Close to Andor. On par with Rogue One. Just spectacular.
Not sure I really agree with the video honestly. He botched the basics and achieved the⌠mediocre in the prequel trilogy. I was just thinking, though, if heâd managed to hit the right emotional notes so that when Obi-wan screams âYou were the chosen one!â, we were right there with him⌠well, that could have been something pretty special. We werenât, but I do respect him for trying.
I think I have more respect for Episode 8 as its own thing, because it tried to trade in themes not already done in the saga. The broad plot is definitely too close to Empire Strikes Back, but there are more interesting ideas in there like the destruction of your past to create your own future, the failure of the Jedi to not deal in absolutes⌠it was an imperfect film, but one that made me really excited for the final chapter.
Then the final chapter cleanly paved over everything good that Episode 8 had planted, and I ended in the same place you are.
You may want this if you have a bent to media consumption like me:
I broadly agree. I think the worst missteps in the prequels were midichlorians and that the dialogue that should have built Anakinâs story into something relatable and moving was roundly bungled. Also, was it a story that needed telling? Throwaway lines about clone wars meant more to me as a kid with an imagination than anything they ever could have executed. It was a story that wanted selling though and thatâs the world weâre in.
One lens Iâve used for the prequels is the certain point of view thing. I play in my head that the prequels are unreliably narrated by Anakin. Itâs what he tells himself. At its darkest Iâve often considered what if that star fighter never actually took off at Naboo? What would a kid just pulled out of slavery need to cope if the wise old savior locked him in a cockpit and never came back?
Short version: I approve of all things Star Wars at this point other than Revenge of the Sith and Rise of Skywalker and I dislike both of those because the execution overall feels sloppy. But of those two Rise of Skywalker is an exponentially goofier mess and Iâd guess itâs because of too many hands in it at every step of the way and because even a great film from 1977 is a thin reed on which to hang that much money and attention.
Right now Iâm watching RRR, which is absolutely bonkers but a proper ripsnorting bit of entertainment.
I think it peaked early with the motorcycle stunt, but yeah, itâs good.
Addendum: yes I approve of the Ewoks TV movies and the Droids cartoon and the Marvel comic. Because I enjoyed those back when. I checked out of the EU from 1993 on so Iâve got no dogs in that hunt.
And this is your friendly reminder that while the events of Andor season 1 were occurring Noa Briqualon (Wilfred Brimley) had been crash landed on Endor for around 21 years. Have some Quaker Oats.
I also consider C-3PO being created by Anakin and R2-D2 being there from the beginning as missteps.
Yes.
Based on the dismissive comments made to Vader made it seem to me that the Jedi were long gone, as in multiple generations.
7 posts were split to a new topic: Dangling references and filling in the blanks
Today was part 1 of Barbenheimer (part 2 will be on Tuesday).
I have lots of thoughts, mixed feelings. Some things it did terrifically well. Some things were a bit muddled and disjointed. Casting was all spot on. Costume and sets were incredible. Some brilliant off the wall jokes I didnât expect at all. All in all, it was full of great ideas, but needed some more time to make the script a coherent story.
Slight spoiler - nothing plot-wise, just general structure:
By the end it all but gave up being a work of fiction and turned into a Ted talk. And thatâs not an exaggeration. A 15-20 minute monologue that is lazily cut up and given to 4 or 5 different characters to try and make it less onerous (resulting in the film having more false endings than Lord of the Rings).
Watched four movies in a single week! In chronological order:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Fantastic in almost every regard (a bit too much reliance on telling instead of showing that sags the middle), but man does this not feel like a complete movie. Itâs weird because I feel like there are two or three points near the end that would feel more like a full âarc + cliffhangerâ movie, but the point where they decided to cut is crazy abrupt. I know some people consider it a spoiler to mention this is only half of a two-part movie, but (a) itâs been publicly known for a while now, and (b) if I entered the theater expecting a full film I would have left very annoyed, so I think itâs necessary information. As it is, the movieâs great, but cut at a baffling point.
Oppenheimer: Doing Barbenheimer in reverse! The most surprising part of this one is how pacy it is; I really didnât feel the 3-hour runtime until the last 20 minutes or so, and thatâs a very deliberate slowdown to help convey a large quantity of information. Other than that, it was largely what I expectedâexcellent, but not tremendously surprising. That said, the use of sound is especially evocative, and is at least 50% responsible for my enjoyment.
Barbie: Really liked it! Call me a rube, but this did not feel like the 2-hour-long Barbie commercial Iâve seen it described as. The plot is so critical of its subject matter at every turn that I canât think of a kid leaving the theater thinking âBarbie is awesomeââand more to the point, I canât imagine an adult leaving the theater thinking âmy kid should have a Barbie.â There is quite a bit of monologuing near the end, but I think it works in context. It reminds me of the novel The Female Manâin both, a woman born and raised outside the patriarchal societal norms needs to directly explained what itâs like to be a âmodern woman,â because the reality of it is nonsensical and upsetting. Itâs one of those things that seems unnecessary to people who already agree with it, but for the character of Barbie it needs to be carefully laid out to âmake senseâ.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Not bad! Solidly in the middle of the pack, better than the two bad ones and worse than the two good ones. I might have ranked it higher but for two reasons: 1) I like Indiana Jones better when itâs more historically âgroundedâ, and this was fairly fantastical, and 2) at least two interesting characters are introduced in this film and criminally, almost offensively, under-utilized. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a delight, and I would love to see more adventure movies with her in the leading role, but aside from her the new characters are wasted.
I have Oppenheimered. I dug it. No Demon Core criticality and no ânow we are all sons of bitchesâ but also no significant hagiography. Einstein is the only historical figure that seems to have reached the point of having to be a character and not being allowed to be a person.
Was worth the IMAX.
Just finished Season 3 of Sex Education in time for the new series in September.
They better give Adam a happy ending or I am going to kick off!!
