And on the Second Day, She Survived Watching Episode II

Yes, not only did I make it through Episode I, but on the very next day I sat through Episode II.  My biggest gripe with this one in more recent years was that I couldn't really remember what it was actually about aside from a few "turning point" moments when Anakin shows his first dark side tendencies and somehow, through absolutely no help from the script but merely by necessity of plot, Anakin and Padme "fall in love" and get married.  I didn't even remember Anakin had lost his hand in this one. 

Ugh, where to begin?  Well, I guess the beginning.  Anakin and Obi Wan are older.  This is apparent by Anakin being played by an entirely different actor and Obi Wan having a beard and no longer having that stupid Padawan haircut that poor Anakin now has to sport.  Am I the only one who thinks it's lame to have a specific haircut they have to have during that?  The dialog, right from the beginning, is dreadful.  Anakin is already speaking in ridiculous monologues about how he's been thinking about Padme every day for ten years (and by thinking, I mean obsessing in a stalker-like manner) and you already feel a little violated on behalf of Padme. 

Even Padme seems more than a little put off by Anakin's creepy stalker vibe.  Seriously, the way he looks at her and talks to her for the most part is downright creepy.  It makes you wonder if George Lucas has any idea how relationships work or how people fall in love (he's been married more than once so you'd think he'd have some idea, although when you have like, billions of dollars the rules probably change a little bit) because any sane woman would not fall in love with someone who acted like that.  More likely, they'd be asking for a new body guard to be assigned to them.  Also not attractive at all is his whining about Obi Wan holding him back.

Seriously, all of their interactions in this movie are terrible.  I thought I remembered it being bad, but after so long I wondered if maybe I was being unfair, because you just can't compare to Han and Leia.  But honestly, upon this most recent viewing, it's like it's even worse than I remembered.  Even Padme herself early on asks him to not look at her like that because, "It makes me feel uncomfortable."  And then when he apologizes he watches her walk away with a serial killer-ish look on his face, which of course is much better.  But hey, eventually they giggle and laugh in a field for some reason, and somehow she lets him kiss her after more ridiculous, over the top dialog, but then she says she can't because of the whole Jedi thing.  Right, the Jedi thing.  And not because he's actually given you zero good reasons to actually fall in love with him apart from maybe being considered marginally attractive, but no level of good looking supersedes that much creepiness. 

Oh, wait, what else was going on?  Um, Obi Wan goes to where they are making all of those clones and we learn that Boba Fett was basically just another clone, and all of those clone troops are just like him.  This came after an assassination attempt and an almost-cool sequence where we get to see lots of Coruscant and people walking around and a fun chase through the city.  This whole thing on Kamino with the clones and Jango Fett (who, thanks to that new movie, I kept thinking in my head was Django Fett) just seems like a way to reel in all of those Fett fans.  But then he goes somewhere else for some reason and gets all captured and stuff.  I kept waiting for General Grievous to show up but hadn't remembered that he wasn't actually in this movie. 

I still don't like the idea that Owen Lars married Shmi Skywalker.  Especially when early nerds such as myself remembered that in some material prior to the prequels, it came out that Owen was actually related to Obi Wan, not Luke, but whatever.  The whole thing where Anakin goes and finds his mother near death and quite obviously having been pretty tortured was fairly disturbing, even before he turns and kills all of the Sand People.  I guess they did do a decent job there of giving him a valid reason to start turning to the dark side.  She seemed a little too tortured and bloody for a Star Wars movie.  I mean, for all of the deaths in these movies, there is remarkably little blood.  I mean, it took me until I was in my 20s after watching these movies dozens of times before I even noticed the tiny bit of blood on Han's fingers after he helps Leia when she's singed by the blaster in ROTJ.

However, his outburst of telling Padme all about it... I don't know, that didn't really seem to work for me, either.  It seemed more like he was saying it all out about murdering the women and the children was more for the benefit of the audience so that we knew how serious it was rather than something he'd actually say to Padme.  For some reason she still doesn't go running from this raging psycho. 

So then they have to go find Obi Wan.  That doesn't go well, but at least by having gone back to Tatooine now they have Threepio with them, which means when they all get thrown into this droid making factory there is opportunity for comic relief in the form of excessive puns from Threepio.  Ok, even in the OT he cracked some groaners, but they were sparsely sprinkled throughout, so it wasn't so bad.  Four awful puns in like ninety seconds of screen time might be just a little much.  Oh, also, suddenly Artoo can fly.  I remember discussing this with my brother when these movies came out, like, when did Artoo suddenly get all of these new cool powers that he never had 20 years later? 

One other thing I noticed in this movie was of course, once again, excessive CGI.  I mean, scenes where they really just as easily could've just had, you know, actual people walking around in the background they turned them into cartoons.  Once again, at times I felt like I was watching a video game.  There was one part during this droid factory scene where they show Padme when she is stuck in this container thing.  This is probably the one shot in the movie that is quite apparently actually not altered in any sort of way with any sort of effect.  It's actually visually jarring to see it, it feels so out of place. 

So, then we get to this whole scene where Obi Wan and Anakin and Padme are captured and about to be put to death in an overly complicated spectacle of an execution.  Usually these scenarios are just to give the good guys a chance to escape.  But wait, first Padme has to tell Anakin that she loves him.  Why?  I don't know.  At least partly because they are about to die.  But she doesn't just love him... "I truly, deeply, love you."  Ugh, really?  This whole thing is so absurdly forced and the characters have zero chemistry, but anyway...

So, good guys escape and eventually a whole bunch of Jedi show up and admittedly it is pretty awesome to see dozens of lightsabers throughout the crowd.  Although man, can we get a few different options for lightsaber colors beyond green and blue?  Mace Windu gets purple and nobody else does, and apparently red is reserved for bad guys.  But there are other colors, you know.  Somewhere in this spectacle we get the one moment I remembered because it was so ridiculous and overt, when Padme's shirt is ripped exactly perfectly across the bottom to expose her midriff.  Although honestly, if my midriff had ever looked anything like that I would probably want it exposed most of the time, too. 

Um, escaping stuff, and eventually they come across Count Duku, or Sarouman the wizard from Lord of the Rings.  He's a bad guy doing bad guy stuff (we know he's bad because his lightsaber is red and has a curvy handle for no reason) and he speaks all evil-like.  So Obi Wan and Anakin are fighting him and not doing so well, getting singed pretty badly or, in Anakin's case, losing your hand.  But then Yoda shows up.  And this isn't the same Yoda we usually know, this is badass, crazy spider monkey Yoda.  I had actually forgotten this until it started, then I distinctly remember laughing during this part when Yoda suddenly starts flipping all over the place and going insane with his lightsaber.  And when I say I laughed, I actually don't mean because I thought it was ridiculous and dumb, I thought it was pretty cool. 

Anyway, good guys win, bad guys lose, but Clone Wars have begun or whatever.  Oh, and then at the end Anakin and Padme get married.  I guess we're supposed to be happy about that but since this is the worst love story of all time, it probably would've made just as much sense if either of them had married Artoo.  And my final gripe with that is Anakin's prosthetic hand.  I get that this is like 20 years or so before the OT, but given how every other bit of technology in these movies seems just as advanced (or even better) than what we had seen before, it just seems hard to believe that at this point in time he had that ridiculous fake hand when not too long after his son had a hand that was basically human. 

I don't really remember what I thought of this when I first saw it.  I'm sure I hated the love story and thought that was terrible, but I'm not sure just how much I disliked it.  I don't think I tried to make myself like it or held onto the same level of denial as I did after the first one.  At this point I think I'd maybe come to terms with the fact that these movies were generally going to be pretty bad.  And once again I was left wondering what the heck it was all about anyway.  And wondering what else they could've done to make it better.  Just so much worse than the OT. 

So, that's it, I finally watched this crappy movie again.  The love story is as bad or worse than you remember.  The plot is as convoluted as ever.  The acting is just as bad, except for Obi Wan.  The CGI makes you feel like you're watching a cartoon.  But there are a few ok moments, at least.  Not enough to make it a good movie, but whatever.  Maybe now I'll have an easier time answering the prequel questions on my Star Wars DVD Trivial Pursuit if anyone would ever play it with me. 

As mentioned, I'll be watching Revenge of the Sith soon, but not for another week or so because I'll be quite busy, but I'll get to it.  Especially since I know that one has a fair amount of good moments in it.  Like, 5% good moments, 95% bad as opposed to the even more skewed ratios in the first two, but I'm not as annoyed at the prospect of watching that one as the other two. 

I Finally Watched My Episode I Blu Ray

It's been 15 years now since your hopes and dreams were smashed and replaced with the huge disappointment that was Star Wars: Episode I.  That makes this particular rant more than a little bit outdated, but it's been nearly that long since I seriously sat down and watched the entire thing and since we are fairly well hurting for content on here lately, I'm going to go ahead and write at least a few of my thoughts.

First, it's kind of amazing that it has been nearly two years since I got my box set of these and am just now getting around to sitting down and re-watching the prequels.  I told myself that I would at some point sit down and watch them all again, and for some strange reason yesterday I finally decided to go ahead and pop this one in.  Aside from glimpsing a few scenes here and there during those almost monthly Star Wars weekends where they show all of the movies on Spike, I haven't watched this one since my VHS copy that I'm sure I tried to force myself to like just because it was Star Wars before finally having to admit to myself that it is complete crap. 

So, what did my recent viewing remind me?  That yes, it's still pretty darn bad.  Half of it plays off like a cartoon or a video game.  I mean, I literally felt like I was watching the intro scenes on my nephew's Lego Star Wars game a few times.  It's really hard to feel anything for characters when you don't feel like anything you're watching is real.  And it still astounds me that space battles created with visual effects in 1977 can look more realistic than the cartoon CGI creations in this.  I've said it before and I'll say it again here: the special effects in the OT were used as a service to tell the story and were quite well done and never felt like showing off or overdoing it.  This whole movie seems like a commercial for ILM to show how far technology has come and how much more they can do now.  The only problem is that none of it looks real.  I think in the back of our minds we know when we're watching ANH that we're not actually seeing an X-wing flying through the trench of the Death Star, but it just looks so much more tangible.  In this movie there is not a moment where we mistake what we're looking at for anything but computer generated. 

Jar Jar might be worse than I remember him.  Not just the cutesy comic relief, but the fact that for absolutely no reason at all he is given the rank of general and left to help lead a pretty important battle.  Really?  Um, yeah.  But hey, he goes on to wipe out lots and lots of battle droids totally by accident.  Seriously, he does absolutely nothing due to any bit of competence and only takes them out because he gets his foot tangled in some wires or something.  Look, it was kind of funny when Han Solo "killed" (debatable, I guess we'll find out soon if he did or not) Boba Fett by accidentally hitting him while he was blinded, sending him into the Sarlacc pit.  But I think we would've lost a lot of respect for Han if everything he did was accidental.

Oh, Jake Lloyd.  Look, I feel bad for the kid because I'm sure he did the best that he could and was just following George Lucas's terrible direction.  He never should've been cast in the first place.  I really find it difficult to believe that there wasn't a better choice out there.  Or even a hundred better choices.  In the history of movies with important child leads there are plenty of examples of kids who you almost wouldn't even guess were "acting."  So it seems impossible to me that there were literally no other kids out there who could've done a better job. 

And the plot and the trade routes and senate and no confidence votes and... what the heck was going on there?  Maybe it's just because it all bores me so much I don't pay enough attention, but all of that crap is just plain confusing.  I'm not even entirely sure what the final battle was all about beyond the fact that the people of Naboo/Gungans are the good guys and the... uh, other guys (the ones with the vaguely Asian accents) were the bad guys and the Emperor, or at this point, Darth Sidious, had something to do with them.  I don't want to watch it again to see if I can make this all more clear, but it's possible that before Episode VII comes out I'll try and have a marathon viewing and watch all six movies again.  We'll see. 

If you didn't recall, Episode I originally had a puppet Yoda before they moved to CGI starting with Episode II, but for the blu ray they made him CGI again.  Somehow even 1999 puppet Yoda looked less good than 1980 puppet Yoda, so this change doesn't really bother me aside from knowing that Frank Oz must be kind of annoyed that he had to do all that work for nothing when ultimately all you get of his performance is his voice which surely doesn't require awkward positions and cramming himself into small, hidden spaces for. 

I'd swear George Lucas forced Natalie Portman to have the most monotone voice in the history of the universe.  All of her dialog is stilted and awkward, and I'm sure none of that is her fault but all due to direction and the fact that the dialog is terrible.  That said, Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor actually somehow manage to do a decent job and not look like they can't believe they have to be in this ridiculous movie. 

Darth Maul is still kind of cool and it's actually kind of too bad that he had to die in this movie and couldn't be used later.  The lightsaber fight is also pretty impressive.  It also makes me laugh a few times throughout as even though we only saw this movie a few times, there are a few lines my brother and cousins and I quote to each other here and there, when applicable.  I mean, seriously dumb, mundane lines but when said in the correct tone of voice and accent they cause laughter because we all know exactly where it's coming from.  (Example: "You catch on pretty quick."  See?  Why would that make anyone laugh?  But for us it does.) 

The same stuff still makes me roll my eyes though.  Midichlorians, Anakin is Jesus because he has no father (are you kidding me?) Anakin built C-3PO, Obi Wan wasn't trained by Yoda, Samuel L. Jackson is awesome but spends the entire movie just kind of sitting there.... ugh, it's impossible to list all of the reasons, and you've all been there and it's been covered endlessly, but I just figured I'd write out a few of my thoughts on seeing it for the first time in a while. 

I do believe it would be impossible to make a movie this disappointing again.  So, we can hold out hope that Episode VII won't be anything like this.  Hopefully we will be given some characters to care about, we will for sure get to see some of our old favorites, and preferably we will be happy with what has become of them at this point.  We can probably also be sure that we will not get another Jar Jar-esque character.  Admittedly the other day out of nowhere I started thinking that we might get to see Han Solo and Chewbacca flying the Falcon together again, and whatever else may happen, that's pretty awesome. 

So that's it, I finally got around to watching The Phantom Menace.  Remember when they revealed that title and we were all like, huh.  I mean, it doesn't even make sense.  Shouldn't it be something about the Chosen One or something?  The title of the movie just indicates that even they don't know what it was really supposed to be about.  Anyway, I may watch Attack of the Clones tonight if I'm feeling up for it, although I'll need a nap first or else it will surely put me to sleep.  This will be good, because I really and truly don't remember what the heck this movie was about, either.  I'll be sure to let you know when I find out.

Happy Birthday, Harrison!

It's that time of year again: Harrison Ford's birthday!  Hard to believe the man is 72 today.  I realized this also means that he is more than twice as old as he was when he first appeared as Han Solo.  Crazy. 

Also, for any of you who are not aware or keeping tabs on his recovery from his broken leg and the subsequent filming delays, there are photos circulating of him walking around on this sort of peg leg thing where he rests his weight on his upper leg, but not the lower.  I've never seen such a contraption but thought it was a very encouraging sign that he will recover relatively quickly.  This way he is still basically walking around, still putting weight on that leg, just not the lower part of it, which means he will probably not lose much in terms of muscle atrophy, etc.  I also suspect it could make things easier to shoot from the waist up if needed.  I did read that he has taken quickly to it and will, as we all would suspect, bounce back faster than most.  So even at 72, he's still doing pretty darn well for himself.

Production will also be taking a two week break in August to give him some time to heal.  I suspect this means that any of those reports that said that he would be out for six months are lies, as by the end of that time frame we'd be coming up on 8 weeks since this happened, right within the 6-8 week range we were initially, and subsequently "officially" given on how long he'd be out for.  This news felt rather encouraging, and I suspect they may not have to alter things as much as I feared or even at all except maybe framing certain shots.  There were a lot of panic inducing "articles" circulating without much factual basis about writing him out of the movie or drastically reducing his role, and none of that appears to be true. 

But anyway, today's his birthday and as a fellow Cancer, happy birthday, Harrison!  Can't wait to see you as Han Solo again.

Helpful Article on Writing

Once upon a time we used to write a lot of posts about actual writing.  That was actually kind of the intent of the blog in general, although we meandered off on a lot of often fun sidetracks.  It's been a very long time since we discussed writing in and of itself, but I just came across this article that I thought had some simple but also very useful tips on writing.  I'll link it here rather than copying and pasting, but it is six tips on writing from John Steinbeck.  Push, especially, I thought of you quite a bit when reading some of these.  One tip in particular talks about moving on from a particular scene that is giving you trouble, which is something I've told her to do on occasion.  It doesn't do you any good to spend all of your time hung up on one scene and never getting anywhere, especially when you have a clear idea of what the rest will look like. 

Where have you gotten your best advice on writing?  Do you try to make yourselves better or do you just write and not worry about it?  Personally, I always want it to be better.  Sadly this often means I'll go back and cringe at older things I've written, but it can also inspire you to do better and figure out how not to make the same mistakes.  I do wonder though if for some there is just a natural gift for words that cannot be taught or learned.  And then there is the fact that some people have their own distinct style of writing.  For me, if I wasn't trying to be better at it, I'd just write for myself and not share it with other people.  Although it's difficult to be a story teller without an audience.

Anyway, hopefully you got some good tips in there and I'd be interested to hear if others read about writing or study it at all or if you just go out and write and don't care what anyone thinks.

Not So Great News From the Set of Episode VII

Well, things haven't started out so well on principal photography on the set of Episode VII.  The photo above is obviously from ROTJ, when they actually made it through without injuring anyone terribly.  If you haven't heard, Harrison Ford has apparently been fairly badly injured on set.  The exact details are unclear, but based on what's been going around so far he has a broken ankle from a hydraulic door that fell on him (some reports say it was the door of the Falcon, others say it was just some door on set) and it will require surgery and 6-8 weeks of recovery and therefore not shooting. 

While this news is bad, we can only hope that it is not terrible and more of a pain and a delay than anything tragic.  First of all, let's be glad it didn't land on the man's head.  I suppose we can also sort of be glad that if the cause of the injury is true, then it means that we can't really blame it on him being old and not able to do the same things he used to do, because if something falls on you, I don't care how old you are, you're probably going to break a bone.  The news is still fairly vague but they are telling us that it will require schedule juggling and moving a lot of things around, but filming should still be completed on schedule.  I only hope this doesn't shrink his role or severely limit him even when he does come back.  As you can imagine, with an unsafe set the rest of the cast is not happy, and I'd imagine he won't be thrilled when he comes back either.  It will be interesting once we get the real story.

It's slightly more concerning that he has been in the hospital since it happened on Friday.  There were other reports floating around about a pelvis injury but that has been denied.  Time will tell.  I feel bad for the guy but this is far from the first time he has had something bad happen on set.  He wrecked one knee on Raiders, he destroyed his back on Temple of Doom, he wrecked his other knee on The Fugitive.  I know on ToD he was off set for many weeks and had surgery and came back, so we know that they can make things work even when he's the star of the film and in every scene, let alone when they can adjust the schedule and probably shoot plenty of scenes without him.  Then again, he was 30 years younger working on that movie, but let's not think about that. 

So, unfortunate news for sure, but hopefully not devastating.  If we find out that the schedule was merely rearranged and we won't notice a difference when the movie comes out, I'll be happy.  I just hope it doesn't change anything.  And again, I do feel bad for him since nothing like that should be happening on a set!

How Much Do You Want to Know Before it Comes Out?

So, by now we are all hearing bits and pieces of actual news about this movie.  It is becoming more and more real that it is actually happening, and now we can at least relax in the knowledge that our favorite characters are, in fact, coming back.  And likely in fairly substantial roles (especially one ex smuggler in particular).  But I find myself wondering how much and what I really want to know before it comes out.

Many of you are probably hearing these rumors swirling around that Han Solo will die.  Now, I think I said a long, long time ago, when all we knew was that there would be a new movie and that our favorite characters would likely be back, that if done well, I could live with that.  I don't really want to argue over whether or not that is something they should do, because they're going to do what they're going to do there and there is nothing we can do to change it.  I'm more curious to know how "spoiled" you all want to be going into this movie.

I have mixed feelings here.  I know for a fact that I do not want to know everything.  I mean, how fun would that be?  I also know for sure that what I mostly wanted to know was that Han, Leia and Luke would be back, and that Han and Leia would be an old, married couple.  Since that fact has been basically verified, I am feeling a lot more at ease and a lot less interested in scouring movie news for information.  I think we are all also basically assuming that at least one of the young actors will be their child, so that also makes me happy.

Beyond that?  I'm not sure what I want to know.  Back when Episode I was coming out, it was truly exciting.  I was in college at the time and the internet was just starting to become a thing that you really used quite a bit, though not quite as big that you spent hours and hours on it like we do now.  Although that was probably just because it moved a lot slower.  I was so excited for these prequels, and had also felt much like I do now, that I'd never get to see a new Star Wars movie.  I made a conscious decision to try not to read/see too much about it before it came out so I could go in with fresh eyes and see it all as new and exciting.  So I could really see it all unfold before my eyes.  I remember that the first trailer coming out was a huge deal, but I don't remember if I let myself watch it or not.  I probably did, but after that, I'd avert my eyes when it was shown on TV.  I would save magazine articles to read later, after I'd seen it.  I never looked at message boards or web sites that would tell me anything about it.  Although to be fair, at the time I don't think I ever went on message boards anyway.

So, I went in with those fresh eyes.  And I wound up being bitterly disappointed.  Well, not at first.  Honestly, at first, I think we all wanted so badly to like it that we wouldn't admit even to ourselves let alone out loud that we didn't really like it.  We'd waited our entire lives to see it, and it was mostly crap.  It was hard to really accept that, let it sink in, and vocalize it to see if everyone else felt the same way.  But oh, it was painful.

I don't expect this one to be nearly as painful.  Now, do I expect it to be amazing?  Right now, no.  I won't let myself get my hopes up.  But I do know I'm debating in my head what I want to know going in.  I already know the most important things, that Han and Leia are still together and have at least one child.  Do I want to know more beyond that?  If Han Solo is going to die, do I want to know that before I see it?  I don't know!  Although honestly, if that is slated to happen, I actually would find it hard to believe that a living soul could go into that movie and not already know that.  The internet is a crazy place, and for better or worse, information like that would be impossible to keep under wraps.  I mean, if we had the internet in 1980 I'd be willing to bet that most people would've known before they saw ESB that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father.  I think it's kind of sad that we've lost the element of surprise, but it is what it is and there's no going back.

But still, will I avert my eyes when the trailers come on?  Will I be able to not watch clips that are shown before it comes out?  Will I try not to see much media before?  I still don't know.  I will say though, I've had this thought in my head that sooner or later there will be the first shots of Han and Leia as their old, married selves, and I'm not sure I'll be able to not look at that, or contain my ridiculous excitement upon seeing it.  But specific plot details?  I don't know!

Have any of you given any thought to this?  I'm all about spoilers when it comes to things I don't care about that much, but if it's something I really want to see, I kind of like to be surprised.  I just wonder how surprised I'll really let myself be.  Really it'd probably just be easier to go into a coma tomorrow and wake up in December of 2015 but then, well, that's actually probably a terrible idea.  

May the Fourth Be With You!

 

Happy Star Wars day, everyone!  Would you have believed a year ago that we'd have just now found out some of the awesome news on Episode VII?  Me, neither.  Then again, two years ago I'm sure none of us had any hope that there might be another movie in the first place, so at least sometimes there are good surprises.  Anyone doing anything good to celebrate?  I'll admit, I unfortunately have had a crazy busy day and I've been traveling so I am not even wearing a Star Wars t-shirt.  Lame, I'm terrible this year.  But I'm at least relieved to have heard some movie news, and think it's just awesome that they are about to start shooting scenes with Han and Leia.  I mean, how amazing is that?

Anyone watch The Big Bang Theory?  I'm not an avid watcher and really only saw a whole episode probably like a year ago.  At which point I was like, how have I not been watching this show all along?  So much geeky goodness.  But anyway, last week they had a Star Wars Day themed episode.  It wasn't the greatest but there were a few funny references only fans like us would understand.  I've also heard that the show The Goldbergs, which is a family comedy set in the 80s, also had a Star Wars themed show I haven't had a chance to check out yet.  Honestly though, if you love the 80s, you should check that show out.  I've found it highly entertaining.  It's sort of like The Wonder Years but a little bit less serious. 

Not much else to say here since we're all still hung up on casting news and such, but it didn't seem right to let such an important day pass without a post.  So, happy Star Wars day and May the Fourth be with you!