Being bugged leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to Banishment: Malkavian and Star Wars

Malkavian

Fuck Star Wars.

No seriously. Fuck it. 

Fuck Lucas, Fuck Hammill, Fuck Ford, Fuck Fisher, Fuck Billy Dee Williams, Fuck the fandom, Fuck Kenner, Fuck the Star Wars Legacy, Fuck Everything It Inspired, Fuck He-Man, Fuck G.I. Joe, Fuck Transformers, Fuck the entire trend of toy-based franchises it caused, Fuck the wave of retro directors it opened the flood gates for, Fuck the prequels, Fuck the whiners claiming it raped their childhood, Fuck the Droids cartoon, Fuck the Clone Wars cartoon, Fuck the video games, Fuck the Disney Land Ride, Fuck the expanded universe, Fuck ILM, Fuck Franchises like Tron and Pirates trying to be the next Star Wars, and Fuck Post-Star Wars pop culture.

Mostly Fuck Myself for being no goddamn different. 

See, while cleaning up the attic I found the Star Wars DVDs I haven't watched in years. Join me as I watch the Star Wars films in chronological order and tell you my own opinion on them. (Hint: the prequels probably aren't going to be as horrific as you remember them)

Vivi

I've only see 1 of the original trilogy.

delta534

As someone who's not the biggest fan of star wars and only the only thing that came from star wars that I like is the webcomic Darth and Droids; This should be fun

MillerCross

The op made me realize that Malk is grumpier than me

Congratulations, you've finally managed to do the impossible. 

Icalasari

^ Then I guess you'll have to give up your Most Annoyed Person On IJBM trophy

MillerCross

No, fuck that. I earned this award through cheer irritation and hatred. And constance. I mean, see Nyarly. He's grumpier than me, but I've stayed through and through, being an asshole who needs to tell everyone how he hates this place all the time.

I earned this shit through preserverance and proper rage.

So go away and lemme cuddle my trophy.

ClockworkUniverse

I earned this award through cheer irritation and hatred.

Heheh.

vandro

It's sheer, Cheer is joy.

MillerCross

psssst, that's the joke.

Icalasari

I don't think you're supposed to cuddle trophies...

MadassAlex

This thread's gonna be fun.

Completely sincere, by the way. I am going to nerd-debate this thread into oblivion.

Malkavian

So.

The Phantom Menace

I think that, being a sequel a decade and a half later to a film trilogy that rocked the very foundation of the entertainment world, it's safe to say that The Phantom Menace was the most anticipated film in at that moment. I'll bet there will be people now saying it has been supplanted by The Matrix Reloaded or The Avengers, but those people can eat a dick for being wrong. This, for so many people, had become a spiritual event.

And that's the first problem with this film: the expectations. The original Star Wars film came out of nowhere and even if you're like me and your first experience was going to the special edition theaters to see it with a billion other people there's no way you could expect what you were in store for. While high expectations probably followed Empire and Jedi, the time, combined with three okay expanded universe novels which exploded into an entire series, numerous video games, and even a few cartoons, there couldn't be a bigger build-up.

Watching The Phantom Menace, I've found myself unable to dislike it. Oh, it's flawed as hell. This is a film that specifically aims to be an exciting kids movie, but Lucas has grown up a bit and he's tried to make the universe more complicated with political stratagems that bewilder children and annoy adults. The CGI is obnoxious, though it's honestly aged better than a lot of other newer movies. The Matrix comes to mind. The film is a gung-ho swashbuckler that is also introducing a character meant to be a symbol of hope all the while building up and hinting at his ultimate failure and fall from goodness. It has a complete goof-ball character in the same film as the genuinely grim and menacing Darth Maul. Even without the ever-present headache that is Jar Jar Binks, a symbol of the very split of film spirit that this film embodies and which I feel reflects possibly on a personal journey, this film is an utter mess. 

It's an honest mess though. 

This is a story that Lucas earnestly wants to tell. It's him trying to embrace his love of old action serials with his more adult understanding of the world. There's a simple but completely heartfelt message about the serious repercussions of war here, comments on how violence should not be the first recourse when rights are threatened and speaking to some teenage Star Wars fans months back, it's heartening to know that message isn't lost. 

I mentioned before that I feel this film reflects the spiritual changes in Lucas and nowhere is that more embodied than in the idea of midhichlorians: a concept that completely changes the idea of the way the force works. It's a popular whipping boy of angry Star Wars fans, but it's only a microcosm of the mechanical philosophy behind this film. With a tower and a rigidly structured hierarchy and government and as the Senate's personal peace-keeping force, it's impossible to see how anyone would ever view the Jedi as a 'hokey religion' as little as forty years later. This film by and large has an idea of machines. They blend into the world rather than in the original films where they stood in stark contrast to the harsh nature of forest, ice, and desert worlds. 

One of the things that annoys me is that people pretend there's absolutely nothing good about this film and this simply isn't true. The action scenes are a hoot. Hell, despite the dull wall scroll about trade routes, the first fifteen minutes of the film is a lot of fun. The Pod Race scene is something I've always found fun and just an interesting concept the embodies the re-textured past that Star Wars has (chariot races with rockets instead of horses) but it does simply go on too long. Everything about Darth Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn is great. People bitch about how little Darth Maul is used in this film but really, used any more than he was in this film he'd lose a good deal of his menace and his mystery.  Maul is a character completely made of the classic show-don't-tell rule. Parks carries the character in a way that you know he's an evil badass. Then we have Jedi Oscar Schindler. Neeson is pretty much never not awesome and here he really does embody what I imagine to be the Jedi ideal. Compassionate and wise, but steadfast in his beliefs. Pernilla August also spins gold with her utterly laughable material of a virgin birth, a choice I find even dumber than midichlorians.

I could go on about the actual virtues of The Phantom Menace, but these are instances of an auteur's genius within a confused hodgepodge. It's confused mood served only to engage children less than the originals and frustrate adults. 

I wouldn't for the life of me call The Phantom Menace a good movie, but it's also not the abomination upon cinema it's built up to be. (Nerds over-reacting. Imagine that.) There's a world of selfish nerds talking about how Lucas raped their childhood when it was just that Lucas was working with his own. Did it make for a good movie? No, but I enjoyed this a hell of a lot more than a lot of other 'personal' movies. 

MadassAlex

If I might contribute somewhat:

A Martial Artist's Perspective

I go into this knowing full well that most people don't know or care about the martial arts that inform this kind of thing very much. But if you're martially-minded, there's a few things that stick out in both what we see on-screen and during the making-of documentaries included on the disc.

Firstly, there's Parks. This is a positive point. He's obviously a great martial artist, but sometimes this serves to call out Neeson and McGregor on their comparatively luckluster lightsaber performances. If you watch the trio fight, you might notice that all of Parks' movements serve multiple functions. He places his body and weapon in such a way that it efficiency parries two strikes and continues to provide a threat. He creates the brilliant illusion of a real fight in the way only a martial artist can. And I do mean only. A fight choreographer without a martial background will tend to fail at this, and fail with blinding, stupid arrogance.

Which brings me to my next point. I don't remember the name of the fight choreographer for this, so I'll just call him Bob. Bob is an arrogant twat. During the making-of features, he makes the comment, multiple times, that "[what I put on screen was] the only way the fights could go". This is pretty silly, since he only speaks from the perspective of making linear strikes rather than using variable footwork and other techniques to avoid getting sabre'd. What this also makes clear is that Parks did his own choreography; where Liam and Ewan are observably constrained by Bob, Parks flourishes in his role.

The essential issue is that Bob thinks he knows things he doesn't. Rather than delivering a full spectrum of technique like Parks does, Bob only presents us with his flawed and limited considerations of what weapons combat is like. Now, I'm not pushing for full realism here, but Star Wars is a production of such cultural weight and financial investment that I'm sure they could've gotten someone better, and someone who payed greater respect to both the martial arts and the audience. There's a particular moment in the next film that stuck out at me, before I had ever picked up a sword or read anything about martial arts, but that can wait for now. The essential point is that Bob's arrogance prevents him from making the considerations that could've made the fights truly brilliant and unique within cinema.

I can't blame Liam or Ewan for any of this, of course. The only resource available to them (barring a sudden interest in the true sword combat arts) was Bob. Bob is okay for a choreographer, but he sucks for a choreographer tackling a project that should demand as much quality as this.

Where Parks presents the illusion of a real fight using true skill, the rest of the series presents the illusion of skill and nothing more. If you ask me, Parks should've been kept on board as master choreographer for the rest of the prequels. Even if the forthcoming movies are still quite flawed, they could've lived up to the gravity the original films placed in their lightsaber battles.

Malkavian

I think my favorite bit of extra stuff was an interview I read years back where MacGregor in the first scene where he used a lightsaber started swinging it around and without realizing it was making the noises for the lightsaber and Neeson gave him a look that said 'You're a professional actor! What the fuck are you doing?"

In any case, I think the prequels deliver pretty well on action to a layman's eyes, but Maul's scenes definitely do take the cake. 

Parks is a great mime-actor. Even in G.I. Joe as Snake Eyes he brought a physical presence to the character.

MadassAlex

Yeah, Parks is something else. I'm hesitant to get ahead of your bloggings, but I personally believe keeping Maul as a villain would've been a great move. It'd be better than throwing three different villains at us across the three films, in any case. As you pointed out, he simply has presence. I suspect Maul is an ensemble darkhorse essentially because of this; Maul has very few lines, and most of the dread he conveys is purely through expression and body language.

For the record, I think MacGregor was a pretty brilliant Obi-Wan in all three films. I hear a fair amount of hostility towards his depiction of Obi-Wan, but I'm not seeing it, and can't really think of anyone else that could've carried a young Ben better. maybe juan

RedEyedAbyss

If I recall correctly, didn't Lucas have the midichlorians idea long before this movie? Apparently he told a bunch of EU writers about them. Makes me wonder what things would have been like if he introduced them in the original trilogy.

Malkavian

I think it's also worth noting the collective hatred this movie has garnered while The Transformers films, which are all leagues and leagues worse get blind defenders who use 'It's Transformers!' as their main line of defense.

RedEyedAbyss

But don't the prequels get blind defenses of "It's Star Wars!" as well? Maybe the prequel hatedom is much louder, but that's an odd thing to say.

Malkavian

If they exist I've never met them, and while there probably are some they certainly don't exist on the level of Transformers defenders.

I've met prequel defenders, but they will generally actually talk about the films, albeit not well, but they at least tried to make genuine points.

MillerCross

If I recall correctly, didn't Lucas have the midichlorians idea long before this movie? Apparently he told a bunch of EU writers about them. Makes me wonder what things would have been like if he introduced them in the original trilogy.

Part of the problem with the midichloridians is precisely the fact they were introduced later.

Basically, Luke spent three movies being trained by Obi Wan and Yoda and they never ever bring up what the force is? And they call him a Jedi? It comes across as bullshit.

From an Watsonian perspective, it's completely unforgivable. And from a Doylian perspective, even more so as you should be aware of this and instead of trying to shoehorn it later, just let it go.

TheConductor

I kind of like the Prequels, while I don't think they're even fit to like the OT's boots, they're still watchable.

Ofcourse, maybe I'm just biased because Ewan McGregor is in them and I really like Ewan McGregor (he went to the same college as me).

MillerCross

I grew up on the prequels, so I can't say I truly hate them, but goddamn they're bad.

But they're not as shitty as the Transformers films (To borrow a bit from Malk here). No, they're worse, and I'll tell you why.

Because you can see the potential in this story. You can see the good story that could be told and you can see that if Lucas didn't half ass it and focused on the things that made Star Wars unique, rather than shifting the franchise into something that is not, this story could have been downright as amazing as the original trilogy was.

And every time you see that, it feels like you're being stabbed in the eyes for noticing and then watching the next shit scene.

That's what makes the prequels so unbearable at times, really.

MadassAlex

Possible awesome changes:

- Darth Maul, Count Dooku and General Grievous are all one character, named "Darth Maul", thereby giving Obi-Wan an un-Jedilike revenge plot throughout the movies that provides tension via clashing with his spiritual perspective.
- The Phantom Menace opens with Obi-Wan's Jedi trials to establish both him as a character and the Jedi as an order. Qui-Gon still goes on the mission with him, because there's no rule saying two Jedi Knights can't go on a mission together.
- Their mission takes them straight to Tatooine, for whatever. We can work that shit out.

MillerCross

What bothers me is that there's no focus in Anakin in those changes. Specially as Anakin is both the whole point of the prequels as well as its most flawed aspect, except for maybe Jar Jar and Padmé.

TheConductor

Alex: If I could make one change, keep Dooku but not as a Sith.

Juan: I find that aside from being played by a terrible, terrible actor, Anakin was fine.

For me, the only part of the prequels I can truly say that I hate is when Darth Vader screams "Nooooooooooooooo".

MillerCross

I dunno, man. anakin's writing is truly bizarre. He's basically the biggest pawn in history and does all of this for a misguided sense of love.

that shit ain't dramatic. That shit ain't nothing but retarded.

MadassAlex

^^^ That's why I think the plot should move from the introduction of the Jedi straight to Tatooine. After Obi-Wan is established as the prime perspective point and protagonist of the film, we can move directly to matters dealing with Anakin without getting too sidetracked.

^^ If you watch the making-of stuff, there's this one other kid that auditioned that would be perfect. He just had this creepy vibe, as if he was already so internally shattered that everything seemed vaguely hostile to him. That would've been a great starting point for Anakin, to my mind.

Malkavian

But they're not as shitty as the Transformers films (To borrow a bit from Malk here). No, they're worse, 

Forzare

Yeah, I'd say the wasted potential is what bothers me the most about the prequels. There's so much there that could have been awesome, but it just... isn't. I don't hate them, but I don't like them, and I haven't really enjoyed them since I was eight.

Also, I can enjoy the Transformers movies on some level, which is more than I can say for the prequels.

MillerCross

I've been meaning to steal that face for a while.

Done and done.

Malkavian

Wasted potential my ass. The 'wasted potential' is fans overinflating what Star Wars is from a modern Republic serial into Space Othello.

But I'll get into that when I review Revenge of The Sith.