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In Reply to: Just saw Star Wars/ Revenge of the Sith today.... posted by TWB on May 29, 2005 at 22:35:42:
Everyone has become a critic thereby lessening their own impact.When I watch Star Wars I don't do it looking to see where George screwed up or looking to find an excuse to bash it just because that's the current bandwagon. I watch Star Wars because it takes me back to my childhood. I'm not looking for oscar-worthy performances or writing. Star Wars was written in the same league as Flash Gordon just with better effects. And that's really all I expect from Star Wars. Plus now as an adult I've been able to look further into the mythological themes Lucas has renewed with the prequel trilogy. I would recommend reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell if only for the first 50 pages or so.
Where have all of these overblown expectations come from? Why are people trying so hard to find fault with these movies? Is it because they are critic-proof? That they are extremely successful despite their non-oscar-worthyness? It sometimes seems like everyone has their own vision of Star Wars and how they think they could "improve" it. This is of course exactly why GL is making the movies "his" way. You can't make everyone happy.
I'm happy. George Lucas is happy.
Sorry you're not but that's your problem.
Rob CThe world was made for people not cursed with self-awareness
Follow Ups:
..for poets and the internet.Just read 'jusbe', 'rico' and a few other opinions on the film. No doubt George Lucas is laughing all the way to the bank.Good for him. There's absolutely nothing wrong with liking crap. It's an inalienable right (at least for certain cultures anyway).
If this film was released under any other title other than Star Wars, people would be lambasting within an inch of its miserable life. I hope everyone who liked this film will recall the latitude they give George for his amateurish writing, and be equally magnanimous to other films equally handicapped.
Read 'Hero..' when I was in high school. Campbell takes Tarantino's title of 'Mixmaster', hands down.
If it's crap, that's fine. You like it, that's fine too. Just don't get worked up if somebody tells you it's so.
"If this film was released under any other title other than Star Wars, people would be lambasting within an inch of its miserable life."I thought people were doing this anyway?
"I hope everyone who liked this film will recall the latitude they give George for his amateurish writing, and be equally magnanimous to other films equally handicapped."
No reason not to expect that. But then few of us who have the forebearance to embrace a pop culture that includes Star Wars spend much time potificating on what's "crap" and what's not. My earlier comments were a barely disguised call for balance. Its easy to rip SW to shreds - what's interesting about that? I'd like to hear your take on its enduring appeal. On second thoughts, maybe not.
"If it's crap, that's fine. You like it, that's fine too. Just don't get worked up if somebody tells you it's so."
I don't go to a burger bar and expect Michelin Star fare. Do you?
And, as many will attest, sometimes only a burger will do, unless you're herbivorous. Describing anything as "crap" reveals you as a poor critic. Star Wars is a genre all to itself, aside from any canon of sci-fi one could enumerate and certainly outside the confines of good cinematic taste (bonkers plot, a glut of CGI, poor direction). Its still often highly enjoyable, if you're able to leave your Crit. Lit. hat at the box office.
Big J.
Jusbe,
Quote:[ "If this film was released under any other title other than Star Wars, people would be lambasting within an inch of its miserable life."I thought people were doing this anyway?]
Actually, no. What I'm hearing most often is, " Wow, it's better than the first two! (Therefore) It's great!" Only the thinnest skinned SW fan would think it is being 'lambasted'. Besides, what kind of defense is, " It's not as bad as the first two!"
Quote:["I hope everyone who liked this film will recall the latitude they give George for his amateurish writing, and be equally magnanimous to
other films equally handicapped."No reason not to expect that. But then few of us who have the forebearance to embrace a pop culture that includes Star Wars spend much
time potificating on what's "crap" and what's not.]Sorry, but you must have mistaken me for some of the other inmates, most notably those with initials starting with 'V' and ending with 'K', and his soul mate in France (or is that Germany? German in France, or Frenchie in Germany, I cannot remember). I actually happen to like a lot of pretty bad 'B' movies and other pop culture props. But even those bits of fluff have standards. What's more, (many of)the people liking SW are calling it 'great filmmaking', and not going through the usual PoMo exercises at rehabilitation via relabelling things as 'kitsch' or 'camp'. Listen, even by 'objective' standards (and by this I do not mean some lofty pronouncement from on high, but just pretty basic stuff that anyone who enjoys movies..and I didn't call it 'film'...can agree on), the new SW films are embarrassingly bad.
I mean c'mon....by common acceptance, dialogue is 'bad', acting is 'wooden', storytelling is 'clumsy', plot is 'simple'(and I'm being generous here). I'm sorry, but what the hell else is left in a film? The score? SFX? Vision? What vision? For the first one, m-a-y-b-e..but oops, Corndog's already called it a Joseph Campbell rip ( how about some poetry about that, Corndog?)! All the newer films are not so much Lucas's 'vision', as it is those of the people he paid to do his designs, costumes and the like. Okay, so some will say, "Yeah, but he had to pick up the grease pencil to 'OK' them..what, that's not an active imagination at work?!? " Look, even if we give it that, one must surely wonder..billions of dollars and _that's_ the best he could come up with??? Watch practically any modern mecha anime and you'll see 'better' ( and by this I mean well thought out etc etc) designs.
Quote:[My earlier comments were a barely disguised call for balance. Its easy to rip SW to
shreds - what's interesting about that? I'd like to hear your take on its enduring appeal. On second thoughts, maybe not.]Don't get a contusion raising your lightsabre too quickly.
Quote: [I don't go to a burger bar and expect Michelin Star fare. Do you?]
No, but at the very least, I expect a good, well-made burger.
Quote:[And, as many will attest, sometimes only a burger will do, unless you're herbivorous. Describing anything as "crap" reveals you as a
poor critic. Star Wars is a genre all to itself, aside from any canon of sci-fi one could enumerate and certainly outside the confines of good
cinematic taste (bonkers plot, a glut of CGI, poor direction). Its still often highly enjoyable, if you're able to leave your Crit. Lit. hat at the
box office.]Yes, your 'Crit. Lit. hat' surely, but the rest of your brain too?? 'Crap' is only useful in forums like these when one doesn't have the time to really fully explain a response. Anonymity and lack of ability to gauge tone of voice etc is a hinderance in this case. If we were friends ( and in close geographic proximity), we could sit down and actually unpack individual experiences and understand why we have arrived at very different conclusions about this piece of shi--oops, there I go again!
People like it because they like it. that's fine, Just don't bother with the extra exercise of rationalizing that like in the hope of creating some hasty bulwark against whatever bit of cognitive dissonance that may arise from genuinely liking crap.
That's actually a half-decent reply. I'd still have to disagree, so I guess that'd amount to a reasonable drinking session to boot.Too old to be bothered about whether anyone else considers my predilections crap or not but I guess I'm curious about the furore instigated by the production of these prequels. We *know* that Lucas left it too long to make them; that the intervening gap left by the absensce of a fleshed-out 'back-story' after the original trilogy was quickly and comprehensively colonised by the collective SF imagination. So why are we surprised then that whatever was produced was going to be a monumental disappointment?
And since we're on the subject of effluvia, does anyone else agree that the score for episode 3 was porcelain pebble-dash by comparison with SW1 and 2 (let alone the original series)? Now you can pass me the loo roll!
I think you secretly like it all. Just a little.
Big J.
Big J,> > That's actually a half-decent reply. I'd still have to disagree, so I guess that'd amount to a reasonable drinking session to boot. < <
Anything that ends in a drinking session is fine by me!
> > Too old to be bothered about whether anyone else considers my predilections crap or not but I guess I'm curious about the furore instigated by the production of these prequels. We *know* that Lucas left it too long to make them; that the intervening gap left by the absensce of a fleshed-out 'back-story' after the original trilogy was quickly and comprehensively colonised by the collective SF imagination. So why are we surprised then that whatever was produced was going to be a monumental disappointment? < <
Not so much surprised as disappointed. I go into every film looking/hoping to like/love it. That's probably what drives whatever impulse I have to search out obscurities and the like anyway. The case against is pretty basic, really--the fact that he had so many years to plan, prep, think and rethink the options he had, that, with all the resources he had at his disposal..literally the best talent money can buy, and I'm talking in pretty much any and every department...this is all he could come up with? What with the converted already willing to forgive almost any transgression, so long as they got more lightsabre battles (largely poorly staged and shot, I might add). And I'm not even talking a disagreement with a writer/director's treatment or direction...those sorts of disgareements can make for very interesting discussions where the various parties may hold genuinely different but nonetheless valid positions. But just pretty basic level of competence is pretty much missing. And I'm talking when even compared to the two earlier films.
> > And since we're on the subject of effluvia, does anyone else agree that the score for episode 3 was porcelain pebble-dash by compariso with SW1 and 2 (let alone the original series)? Now you can pass me the loo roll! < <
Ha ha..at least we can agree on something!
> > I think you secretly like it all. Just a little. < <
Whoaaa..low blow, low blow!
.
Rob CThe world was made for people not cursed with self-awareness
..or should I say Max Martin?
I have cd's of both.I also didn't mind Jar Jar. There was plenty of bad dialogue in the OT but nobody ever talks about that.
Rob CThe world was made for people not cursed with self-awareness
Do you also have Backstreet Boys, Celine Dion and N'Sync (or do the boys from N'Sync write their own stuff, I cannot remember. Maybe that's why they have_so_much street cred?!?) to complete the Max Quartet? It's a free country (wiser minds will argue otherwise), nothing wrong with that. You don't think that Britney is 'great music' though, do you? But you know what, even that is arguing for apples against oranges...what I'm trying to get through is that even within the confines of what it is, SW 1,2,3 are awful. It's as if Lucas came back from his hiatus and forgot how to make a 'working movie'. Naturally Jusbe will be the first to point out that it must surely be 'working' for all the people who are lapping it up like pigs in shit. Well, you know what, I guess that must be the case. I have a friend who loves old kaiju films, and absolutely adores the new Gamera trilogy. But at least he has the good sense to say, at the end of the day, when discussing its relative filmic (yay, there's that word, finally) merits, "You know what, I love it and everything, but it's still a movie about a giant flying turtle." Of course he's referring to content, and what we're discussing here is not even that. I'm just saying techniquewise, the films are really weak. Things like pacing, structure and yes, dialogue. I mean Jesus, how can one be asked to emote or feel anything for the characters when the lines being delivered are so utterly risible? Okay, so that's a subjective call. How about the fact that the dialogue exactly replicates what one already sees on screen (I'm paraphrasing here: "He's been hit with a poisoned dart!" That is after we see this person being hit with a (presumably poisoned) dart. No shit sherlock!)[ Reminds me of some of the old Stan Lee dial..like that classic panel from Fantastic Four, wherein we see the four members slowly disappearing from the waist down, and Reed Richards (if memory serves), utters increduously, "We're vanishing!"] That has a name..it's called bad screenwriting.What's OT? Original Trilogy? 'Return..' sucked eggs too. And I paid extra to get into a charity screening to boot.
As long as we're being subjective, I disagree that episodes 1-3 are awful. I find them entertaining and have watched them several times. Perhaps it's because I didn't take classes on film-making or how to write a good movie, etc. I could give a crap about technique. The special effects work for me. I remember star wars haters 20 years ago lamenting the puppets! Perhaps I feel more for the characters because I've read the books and already understand their motives and actions.Perhaps the story Lucas wanted to tell wasn't the one you wanted to see. I would be more interested to hear what a 12 year old who watches them in chronological order thinks. Even more so 10 years from now when star wars will just be old news.
Rob CThe world was made for people not cursed with self-awareness
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