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Books Lying Open:
Soul-Devouring Worry:
Answer of the Day:
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Phrase
of the Moment -- PotM
Archive Flux:
How do you feel about the cat? Yes, we're easily amused by each other. -- April 27, 2005 |
Wednesday May 25, 2005 |
| Quote
of the Day -- QotD
Archives "Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out." --Michel de Montaigne | |
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That event will occupy all of our Saturday, but we've still got Friday night and all day Sunday to fill, and no firm plans for filling them. We're leaning tourist stuff in Chicago on Sunday; probably visiting a museum or two and maybe doing some shopping. You might point out that we could do exactly those things in San Francisco, a city we can reach in 30 minutes and for $4 on BART, and wonder why we're instead doing them 1500 miles away. And you'd have a point. I'm not about to discuss that now though, since it's late Tuesday night, and we've got a ton of errands to run and packing to get to Wednesday. Plus there's a Kali workshop Wednesday night, and then I'll likely do my regular Kali class Thursday evening, before we have to get up at some ungodly hour on Friday to get to the airport on time. I might just pack for two trips at once, since we return here Monday afternoon, and I fly out to San Diego Tuesday morning. I'll be there for a week or so, while my dad undergoes and recovers from back surgery, but I can say with some confidence that I will not visit any museums during my stay. I won't entirely rule it out though, since all the good museums in San Diego are helpfully-grouped together in Balboa Park, and since I'll likely be spending some time with my mom and stepdad, and they like walking around the park and doing museum-type things... ahem. Did I mention how little I like traveling, and how I dread trying to sleep in a hotel or unfamiliar bed, since I know I'll be lucky to get more than 4 or 5 hours of rest a night? I am looking forward to having dad's big backyard to work at my Kali stickwork though, although it'll probably be like 90 the whole time I'm there. It's been 80 here lately, and I think that's way too hot, after the gloriously cool winter and spring we've enjoyed. And I'm hoping to get some reading done, and really hoping to get a good amount of writing done in San Diego, without my usual cat or Internet-based distractions. Except that mom's got two young cats, and dad recently got DSL. Uh oh.
I'll stop now, before I go completely stream of consciousness, and go get into bed. Forgive me, but my haircut is set for less than 7 hours from now, and since Malaya's going to observe it and try to learn the technique since I'm always asking her to cut my hair and then complaining when she doesn't do it how I like, I'll probably need to actually be there, and be somewhat awake at the time. Below you'll find more on Episode III, in the form of reader mail. Enjoy. |
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 peaking
of Star Wars III, which I reviewed
yesterday, I was thinking how strange it is, as I read the reader
mails and reflected on how many words I'd spilled over it already. Strange
that we're all giving it so much thought. After all, if Episode III
somehow existed in a vacuum and there had never been any other Star Wars
movies, would anyone have given it a thought? I don't think so. I think it
would be just another soulless summer special effects extravaganza, like
the last few James Bond movies, or The Chronicles of Riddick, or Mission
Impossible 3, or whatever. Not a total waste of time/money to sit
through, but basically a film with a cheesy plot and awful acting and
dialogue that was partially redeemed by an excess of fight scenes,
explosions, and space ships.I've written plenty of over-long reviews of lame films in the past, usually about movies that weren't any good, but could have been with just a few fixes. Underworld and The Punisher for instance. Would Episode III have fallen into that same realm? Or would I just have given it a 4 or a 5 score and promptly forgotten it, as I did with AVP, Blade 2, House of Flying Daggers, King Arthur, The Mummy, Terminator 3, and so on? I don't know, and like the question about the opinion of the hypothetical person who has seen Episodes 1-3 but not 4-6, it will probably go unanswered forever. Getting to the point, here are a couple of reader emails about the new Star Wars movie. Neither of these guys much cared for the film, but they both had a lot to say about it, so at least it's not just me accelerating my eventual finger arthritis with Episode III commentary. First up here's Caaroid, who actually mailed thrice about the film; once after he'd seen it and before I had, once after I'd seen it, and then a third time in reply to what I wrote about it on the blog. You've got to like his first mail, which might have come from his cell phone, it's so brief and to the point.
With this message in mind off I went to the theater Saturday night. His 2nd message came Sunday, before my review had been posted.
I didn't think the action photography was that bad, in terms of close ups or shaky cams. Maybe I've just grown used to it thanks to the Bourne movies and Unleashed and others, but the filming of the action in SW3 seemed damn near old fashioned, with almost long shots of the lightsaber fights. Too long, since they showed that the participants only knew about three combos, and that their positioning and especially their footwork was dreadful, but I didn't find them dizzying. The one scene in which the camera work did annoy me was the opening one, where we got a super close up of the two small space ships as they buzzed along the outside of that huge space battle. It felt like Lucas had watched some of the catapult-cam shots from LotR:RotK too many times, and thought, "If PJ can fly his camera above a rock thrown from a catapult for five seconds, I'll stick it above a swerving space ship for 30, and mine will be six times as good!" I didn't think the action was that great in Episode III, just that there was a lot of it and it was visually-appealing, but the fact that it wasn't breathtakingly stupid was what got me to score it higher than I did Episode I or II. I still shudder to think about the Speed Racer-style pod race and then child Anakin's accidental space flight in Episode I, and the "charge across the desert straight at millions of laser bolts" battle tactics of Episode II was dumb2. I'm not sure which movie had the battle between Jar Jar's frog people and the desk lamp army, but that was godawful too. So while the Episode III action was pretty mediocre, at least none of it was so painfully dumb that I winced. Well, aside from the "let's stand six inches above great flows of molten rock and not even break a sweat" part was pretty stupid, but since every movie does that with lava, I tried to overlook it. I think a lot of people were rooting for Palpatine -- at least I've heard from several people that they thought he was the only interesting character, and the only one who did any decent acting. Several people were holding to that view during our pre-Kali class discussion of it Tuesday night, at least. The other acting comment I heard then that I hadn't thought about (largely because I saw Episode II once in the theater and never since) was how lame Padme was in Episode III. In 2 she was heroic, brave, she fought for her life against giant savage beasts, and so on. In 3 she stands around Anakin's apartment and whines and says she's worried about him, before flying off to Lava-world just in time to get choked and then die for no discernible reason just after squeezing out the two largest twin babies in the history of human wombs. Nice female role model there, George. Incidentally, is there any explanation for Padme's pregnancy and gestation? The flow of time was completely unclear in the film, but I didn't think more than a few weeks passed, at most. Yet she went from flat-stomached and shocking revelation of pregnancy to full term and giving birth in half the movie. Sure, some mammals can have babies in that amount of time, but they're usually four-footed and covered in fur. I was told by some of the people I saw the film with that Padme's character is not human; that she's some other race who just happens to look exactly like a human and has such a similar genetic code that she can breed with a human, and maybe that explains her remarkably-rapid quickening, but it's a weak explanation at best. As for Caaroid's mention of Equilibrium, I wasn't even sure he was talking about a movie at first. I got a faint memory jog when I looked it up and saw its 37% on RT, but when I checked it on BoxOfficeMojo I got more of a hint as to why I had no recollection of it. $1.2m and two weeks in limited release doesn't tend to leave a real large memory footprint. Hell, it might be good though; and I'm sure it cost about 1/1000th what Episode III did.
Not yet satisfied, Caaroid mailed again after my SW review went up, with a few more comments.
I noted how absurdly easy two of the Jedi were to kill when they went to arrest Palpatine, and the third one hardly blocked a swing either, but I think the theory there was that they were simply overwhelmed with shock as this slow old man suddenly whips out an evil red lightsaber, snarls like a T-rex, and leaps spinning across the room towards them. Of course you might ask what sort of Jedi they are if they get surprised and dead so easily, but that's a question for George and his neck wattle, not me. Then again, the theory with Grevious and his lack of fighting prowess might be that he had four lightsabers and thought that would be enough for an easy victory, having never had a Jedi to spar against before. That fight was disappointing though, since it started off with Grevious doing his cool twirling thing and chewing up the floor while Obi Wan retreated, but once they locked proverbial swords they both just stood still and waved them around a lot. I had hopes for something more clever, like Obi Wan leading Grevious in a circle as he cut a hole in the floor with his spinning blades. You know, like how they do in ever movie and cartoon with a scene on top of a frozen lake.
Derek threw in his thoughts as well:
Yes, but at least "Thukie" doesn't mean poo, as far as I know. As for "Palpatine," sure the Emperor was in SW 4-6, but they never used his name, did they? I suppose Lucas thought it up back then, but if it was never uttered in the films I'm not counting it. On the other names, Lucas appears to have been in his pre-vowel phase back then, and there are plenty of silly names to go around, but I was mostly annoyed by the lazy "take a real word and change one letter" thing he did in the new trilogy. Whether or not that bothers anyone else remains to be seen, and I'm not saying names can't be similar to real words; Lake and Like don't bar Luke. I just don't like it when a very distinctive word is used and turned into a name that's so similar there's no way to hear one without thinking of the other.
That's the real issue, I think. Whether or not the original 4 are actually any good. Most of us remember the original trilogy very fondly, but how much of that is just our childhood sentimentality speaking? I haven't sat through more than 20 minutes of any of the original 3 in at least 15 years, and I haven't seen any of the tinkered with reissues Lucas put out recently. Well, other than a few short bits of Episode IV and Episode V since they've been on cable all the time lately. I have to find time to actually sit and watch all the early ones again, or at least 5 and 6, just to see if they work as complete films now, to my jaded, adult eye. It's hard to give Episode 4 too much shit, even though 90% of the plot elements and character types were ripped off from Joseph Campbell's compiling work, simply because it reinvented action films and set a new standard for special effects and adventure films. And yes, there are plenty of critics who would fault it for that; for setting us on the road to all the junky action films we have today.
Finally, here's Jicama Eater, with a long and fairly thoughtful mail on the film.
I meant to mention the movie theater I saw the film in Monday, so thanks for reminding me. We saw the film at a big old palace in Oakland, the Grand Lake. It's one of those classic old theaters, with all the interior decoration, sweeping stairways, murals, a balcony (now closed) and so on. It's even got a huge Wurlitzer organ, and a guy who comes out and plays it before the feature; the audience went wild once he tore into the Star Wars theme, of course. The Grand Lake isn't the same as it always was, of course. It's been divided up into four theaters now, with one large one and three smaller ones, the balcony is closed and largely converted into a snack bar, and so on. It's still very unlike seeing a film in one of the new interchangeable box theaters, and I enjoyed being there with a very large and very enthusiastic Star Wars opening weekend crowd. That being said, there's nothing to make you appreciate modern theaters like sitting through 2.5 hours in an old one. I sometimes notice modern conveniences that seem so common sense that you wonder how people needed so long to invent them. Why did it take decades before someone thought to put power rolling into vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers? Why did no one think to put a built in footrest into the front of a couch for hundreds of years? Why weren't kitchen utensils designed with grippy grips and ergonomic shapes until recent years? Why were there roller skates for decades before someone thought to put all the wheels in a row, like the ice skates that were popular for centuries? The list goes on and on, but we can definitely add coliseum seating to the list. How could it have taken until the late 90s for movie theaters to be built with steeper descending bowls, so that all of the chairs can have high backs for neck support, and still be low enough that the person behind can see the screen? It seems so common sense; but hell, it probably took several decades before someone had the sense to make diagonal aisles and offset the seats enough that people weren't sitting directly behind one and other, thus guaranteeing that someone's head was always in your way. On top of the old, flat-cushioned, non-reclining, no-neck support chairs in the Grand Lake, the speakers at the back of the theater were weak and far from surround sound capable, and the screen was actually rather small and set back behind a stage so it seemed even smaller. None of those issues ruined the film, but I'll certainly try to take the comfortable seats, great sound, wide screen, and improved visibility less for granted when I accompany Malaya to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Batman Begins, Land of the Dead, and various other summer films we're looking forward to. Continuing with JE's mail:
I nitpicked in my review, but I didn't even scratch the surface of the sniping Malaya and me were doing on the ride home. Just consider the time issues: Obi Wan going from 40 to about 80 in the time it takes Luke to grow into his teens -- the fact that it took them 20 years to build the Death Star and then two years to rebuild it (while preserving the exact same ridiculous structural weakness) after it was blown to smithereens -- the way Yoda ages more between 780 and 800 than 1 and 780 -- the way Padme's gestation goes into warp drive once Anakin starts losing it, etc. I'd go on, but I'm sure someone will work up another uber list of reasons Episode III sucks, and I'll link to that rather than writing it myself.
The whole kicking thing in sword fights never fails to amuse me. Sure, kicks can be an effective tool in a duel, but they're almost always thrown in so stupidly that it hurts to watch. You can certainly break someone's ankle, or cripple their knee while their attention is on your weapon up high, but the odds of getting a solid kick to their face or chest is pretty remote. Yet it happens repeatedly in Episode III, always to characters who were previously able to block every stab and slice from a lightsaber; attacks that were moving ten times faster than the kicking foot. If ever someone had tried one of those slow kicks and lost their leg below the knee, I would have led the applause myself. Furthermore, why can't they ever use their Force telekinesis subtly? It's either "hurl opponent fifty feet/break huge metal object off and crush them beneath it" or nothing at all. Why not aim it at your opponent's hand and twist their wrist back so they cut themselves in half? Or just use it to trip them, or to slow their sword hand long enough to get in your own killing stroke? Lastly, what happened to the Jedi mind control in Episode III? True, there weren't any "These aren't the droids you're looking for." scene opportunities, but the Jedi, and Anakin once he went into slaughter mode, could not have been less subtle. Obi Wan drops down into the center of the entire enemy army to call out Grevious, Anakin marches into the Jedi academy and cuts everyone down, and then wades into that control room/hideout on the lava planet and does the same, etc. We don't need Splinter Cell Jedi, but something approaching stealth or guile wouldn't have hurt.
The jaw-dropping fact that the Episode I and Episode II novelizations were written by Terry Brooks and R. A. Salvatore, respectively, was more than enough of a hint to keep me away from reading them. So I'm happy to take his word for it.
It's generally easier to explain why something sucked (for me, certainly) than defend why it was cool, so no criticism of this from me.
Thanks to everyone who mailed in about Episode III. More comments on it or the blogs about it are always welcome, though I shan't speak of it again for a while, just to have a change of subject. |
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s
previously-related, we're off Friday afternoon to Chicago, for a
friend's wedding. A friend I knew in high school, corresponded with in
college, but haven't seen since his last wedding, which was held in New
Orleans half a decade ago. I was very skeptical of that match, but this
one seems to suit him far better, so let's hope it will be a lovely
ceremony and that the food will be good at the reception.