Han Solo VS Indiana Jones

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Join date: 5-Jan-2005
Last activity: 18-Mar-2009
Posts: 2,295

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Post: #83547
Topic: The Things We Hate And Love Thread .
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83547/action/topic#83547
Time: 5-Jan-2005 11:38 PM

I hate bees, wasps and anything else that stings.

I also hate movies where EVERYONE talks in a raspy voice.

Post: #83571
Topic: Does anyone feel that cinema tough girls have degenerated over the years?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83571/action/topic#83571
Time: 5-Jan-2005 6:02 PM

One of the things I appreciate about Miranda Otto was that she remembered to wear the same combat clothes and chainmail armor as the rest of the Riders of Rohan. Carrie-Anne Moss wore real clothes most of the time throughout the Matrix trilogy except for that weird dress when she arrives at the rave in the 2nd film and the leather get up when she goes inside the matrix; her performance is so well tuned that she actually continues to command our respect despite the leather (which has become a cliche, lets face it).

I forgot to put down Milla 'cause I haven't really seen much of her work. I guess I some rentals to make...

Post: #83546
Topic: Those magic butterfly transformations
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83546/action/topic#83546
Time: 5-Jan-2005 5:36 PM

We all know part of the Hollywood beast is to show off beautiful women, and one thing that a lot of movies do is "transform" their leading ladies from being allegedly "plain" to being these beautiful, Cinderella-esque belles of the ball. You can see this in a number of Anne Hatheway movies, the Kate Hudson flick "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days" or pretty much any movie aimed at 14 year olds or shallow romantic comedies that hinge on advertising designer wear.

The thing is these "transformations" lately don't have any real impact because the woman in question already looks cute from the get go. In the movies of Anne Hatheway there's really no difference between Anne in her "plain" mode and Anne in her "beautiful" mode; she looks cute throughout the whole film no matter what the wardrobe. Another example would be Sandra Bullock's "Miss Congeniality", where she portrays an FBI agent percieved as an undesirable waif just because her hair is frumpy and she's unabashadely tomboyish in attitude, then she gets a barely there makeover and suddenly she's a beauty.

If you'd like to see this transformation thing done right, rent Terry Gilliam's "Brazil".

Post: #83544
Topic: Qui-Gon Jinn... sounds like the name of a beer
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83544/action/topic#83544
Time: 5-Jan-2005 5:21 PM

Nice to know I'm not alone necessarily.

I have too much time on my hands. Maybe school starting next week will change that...

Also if Anakin turns into Darth Vader while he's in his early 20s, and 20 some years pass between ROTS and ROTJ, then he can only be like in his late 40s when Luke pulls off the mask to reveal the face of the late Sebastian Shaw.

Post: #83432
Topic: Qui-Gon Jinn... sounds like the name of a beer
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83432/action/topic#83432
Time: 5-Jan-2005 7:57 AM

I've always felt that one of the biggest flaws with these prequels, well specifically Episode 1 - aside from too much Jar Jar Binks - is that there wasn't enough Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode 1. Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader are the only ones (aside from the droids) to appear in both this trilogy and the original trilogy; I was 15 when TPM came out, and I assumed that Obi-Wan would more or less be the lead character, with little Anakin right beside him. I foolishly believed that the movie would revolve around Obi-Wan meeting & befriending Anakin, and the beginning of their friendship (I imagined they'd have a big brother/little brother dynamic), which is crucial to the plot and to Anakin's downfall. Instead, Obi-Wan Kenobi was reduced to a secondary character/2nd banana lurking in the background while Qui-Gon Jinn, played by Liam Neeson, stepped up to the plate to get Anakin into the Jedi Order, and upon his death, he gets Obi-Wan to promise him he'll train the boy since "He... is the Chosen One."

Now before I go any further, let me just say this is not an anti-Liam Neeson thread/rant. I like Liam Neeson; he's a damn fine actor and he was very good in films like "Darkman", "Rob Roy", and "Michael Collins" and, despite the overall wooden feeling of "Menace", I thought Neeson brought a quiet dignity to Qui-Gon Jinn (that sounds like the name of a beer; imagine going into the cantina and saying "I'd like a qui-gon jinn please, with an obi-wan to go."). On his own, Qui-Gon probably could have been a very interesting character, but there's just one problem - he's a continuity error.

Look back to the original "Star Wars" and to "Return of the Jedi" for a moment, long considered the weakest of the old trilogy but still lightyears ahead of the prequels (they may be silly, but I dig those crazy Ewoks). In the first movie, Obi-Wan seems to emphasize this idea of Anakin as "a good friend", a line he repeats in ROTJ. In ROTJ, the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi says to Luke "When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot, but I was amazed at how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong."

In Episode 1, we see none of this. Obi-Wan & Anakin have like 2 to 3 exchanges of dialogue while Anakin follows Qui-Gon around. As Chefelf pointed out on the 78 reasons to hate episode 1 page, Qui-Gon was basically a carbon copy of the old version of Obi-Wan from the first movie; albeit Qui-Gon couldn't make up his mind over being a maverick and being the wise, mysterious, aloof old master. Having said that, the idea of Qui-Gon was to serve as the grandfatherly "wizard" archetype that you see in so many mythological hero quests and, at the same time, to be the "liberal" Jedi Knight (as a friend of mine once put it) and for Obi-Wan and all the other Jedi we see in #1 to be "conservative" Jedi Knights. This all greatly contradicts Obi-Wan's speech from ROTJ about his first impression of Anakin; throughout the film, Obi-Wan & Anakin barely interact, which hurts Episode 2 where their relationship is supposed to be strained and in turmoil because we never saw them having much of a friendship to begin with. This is due to the mis-use of Qui-Gon.

I'm not saying Qui-Gon couldn't have a role in the prequels; I'm just saying that I feel that Qui-Gon Jinn should have been used differently. Qui-Gon should have been one of the more "conservative" Jedi who think it a bad idea to take in the devil child that is Anakin, and Obi-Wan should have been the "liberal" Jedi putting his ass on the line for Anakin; and upon his death, Qui-Gon relents and encourages Obi-Wan to follow his heart, even though he disagrees with the Anakin thing. I know the "conservative older man VS the liberal younger man" is cliche, but for the sake of continuity and keeping in step with Obi-Wan's ROTJ speech, this is how it should have been. Of course, I have other ideas on how the prequels should have been handled, but I'll save those for another thread.

Then the fact that Qui-Gon, as the apparent mentor of Obi-Wan, clashes with "The Empire Strikes Back" where the ghost of Obi-Wan says that Yoda instructed him. I keep waiting for a line explaining that Obi-Wan was initially trained by Yoda and later given to Qui-Gon but it never materializes.

Post: #83431
Topic: Does anyone feel that cinema tough girls have degenerated over the years?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83431/action/topic#83431
Time: 5-Jan-2005 7:44 AM

Princess Leia, the tomboy feminist of the old Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983), is considered by more than a few as a turning point in the development of "tough" female characters in cinema. As we all know, she was tough, she was assertive, and she was one hell of a good shot.

After her, we had Sigourney Weaver's long-suffering Ellen Ripley character from the Alien(s) series.

Then we had Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood in "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

Followed by Joanne Whalley as sword slinging semi-evil princess Sorsha in "Willow", Linda Hamilton as a buffed up, newly pyschotic, machine gun toting Sarah Connor in "Terminator 2", and Michelle Pfeiffer as the bull-whip cracking, leather clad Catwoman of "Batman Returns".

In more recent years, we've had Natalie Portman taking an unconvincing stab at action heroinedom in "Attack of the Clones", running around in a ripped off shirt to show off her six-pack (which was probably digitally enhanced), followed by an ultra-vanilla Jennifer Garner badly miscast as Elektra in "Daredevil".

And, only a few months ago, we had Keira Knightley as the ass kicking Lady Rambo Guinevere of the 21st century in "King Arthur". For some reason, Knightley's Guinevere wears a light dress during this snow battle scene on an frozen lake while all the men - King Arthur, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table - are all dressed warmly and wearing armor in preparation for a battle with some miscellaneous barbarians. For the film's climax, we get Guinevere running around half naked (sporting what looks like a "chest thong"), decked out in Celtic paint, again while the men are all wearing armor, and somehow she manages to killing a bunch of men who're twice her size, despite the fact that she's too thin and too frail looking to even break a twig.

I'm not even gonna touch the topic of Halle Berry's "Catwoman"...

Lately I'm finding that there really aren't a lot of convincing "tough girls" out there. A lot of them are just underfed waifs who cop an attitude with no real feeling of depth and do the half naked/leather dominatrix get up thing while duking it out with men twice their size in a series of badly choreographed fight scenes. The only ones from more recent years who've been convincing for me have been Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity in "The Matrix" films and Miranda Otto's Eowyn in "Return of the King".

Keira Knightley's Guinevere is probably one of the more offensive examples - she not only lacks the intensity to be a warrior princess type, but she lacks the physicality to boot (where exactly did those 20 lbs of weight training muscle go?). If you're going to do a tough girl, at least make sure she LOOKS like she can beat the crap out of someone. Lucy Lawless (Xena) looked like she could beat the crap out of someone, Keira Knightley does not. Of course, it all depends on what the tone of your movie is: "Pirates of the Caribbean" was a farce, "King Arthur" was not supposed to be a farce.

Post: #83430
Topic: Should anime be adapted into big budget films?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83430/action/topic#83430
Time: 5-Jan-2005 7:39 AM

With all the comic book and fantasy novel adaptations going around, I keep wondering if there'll be any big screen adaptations anime (and I think there's been at least one attempt, "City Hunter" I think starring Jackie Chan, and I hear there's work on an "Appleseed" movie). The question is - should Hollywood take a stab at live action anime adaptations and risk ruining them the way certain comic book movies were ruined (like "Daredevil" and the upcoming "Elektra")?

Post: #83429
Topic: George Lucas makes you an offer you can't refuse
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83429/action/topic#83429
Time: 5-Jan-2005 7:36 AM

The question is hypothetical - I know it would probably never happen. If it did somehow happen, I'd hold out to see if I could get someone else to direct with GL just producing it (I mean that's prettty much what he did for a little less than 20 years when he wasn't working on special effects and what not).

Post: #83411
Topic: George Lucas makes you an offer you can't refuse
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83411/action/topic#83411
Time: 5-Jan-2005 6:28 AM

Yeah, sorry. But out of curiosity Sean, what's your avatar of?

Post: #83410
Topic: Did anyone else find Ian McDiarmid to be ineffectual as the Emperor?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83410/action/topic#83410
Time: 5-Jan-2005 6:27 AM

I've always thought Ian McDiarmid wasn't that great as the Emperor. Occasionally creepy with a few well delivered lines, but not really commanding or terrifying. Even when I was a little kid I thought he was more annoying and effeminate than actually scary and evil; I never believed he could boss Vader around, even with the lightning bolts shooting out of his hands ala Gozer in "Ghostbusters" (or should that be the other way around?). I would have rather seen someone like Christopher Lee or Frank Langella in the role.

What do you all think?

Post: #83408
Topic: George Lucas makes you an offer you can't refuse
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83408/action/topic#83408
Time: 5-Jan-2005 6:24 AM

Thanks for the user name compliment. What's your avatar of?

I didn't mean sending the screenplay to Lucas as a fan thing, I just meant sending my screenplay to the 20th Century Fox studio or Lucasfilm or any filmmaking outlet in general.

Post: #83405
Topic: It isnt so bad...
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83405/action/topic#83405
Time: 5-Jan-2005 6:19 AM

The special edition of ANH is tolerable, even though though Obi-Wan's "lightsaber twig" shot is still unfixed and the CGI Jabba doesn't match the puppet Jabba from ROTJ in terms of size. I'm surprised Lucas didn't try to insert CGI versions of Darth Vader and Obi-Wan in order to make the fight longer and more exciting for all the 14 year olds out there.

What I don't like is that he redubbbed Boba Fett (and I'm not even a fan of Boba Fett), replaced the Clive Revill Emperor from ESB with the Ian McDiarmid Emperor (whom I always found to be rather ineffectual, even when I was a kid) and that he replaced the late Sebastian Shaw ghost of Anakin with Hayden Christensen as the ghost of Anakin. This is very disrespectful towards the original actors, which is somewhat ironic considering that the use of Sebastian Shaw could be viewed as disrespectful towards David Prowse, who wore the Darth Vader costume.

Post: #83401
Topic: Jedi Knight casting call
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83401/action/topic#83401
Time: 5-Jan-2005 6:12 AM

Who would you give a lightsaber to? Here's my list (if you can guess which ones are actually joke suggestions, I'll e-mail you a cookie):

1) Kevin Sorbo [of TV's "Hercules"]
2) Dolph Lundgren
3) Oded Fehr
4) Val Kilmer
5) All of the non-hobbit and non-Saruman actors of "Lord of the Rings" [Miranda Otto, Karl Urban, Viggo Mortensen, etc]
6) Jeff Goldblum
7) Peta Wilson
8) Ron Perlman
9) Peta Wilson
10) Eric Bana
11) Hugh Jackman
12) Johnny Depp
13) Michelle Pfeiffer
14) Daniel Day-Lewis
15) Clint Eastwood
16) Sean Connery
17) Peter O'Toole
18) Charlton Heston
19) Michelle Yeoh
20) Carrie-Anne Moss
21) Timothy Dalton

Post: #83393
Topic: Changing avatars and signatures
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83393/action/topic#83393
Time: 5-Jan-2005 5:53 AM

What if you wish to change your avatar and/or signature? Is that an option?

Post: #83392
Topic: Director's Cuts?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83392/action/topic#83392
Time: 5-Jan-2005 5:52 AM

In response to a quesiton by Jeffrey Schmid, I have no idea why Kershner didn't do ROTJ, but I assume its for the same reason that Lucas couldn't have his long time pal Steven Spielberg do it - because at the time Lucas was having a dispute with the director's guild over how the credits rolled in his film [or something like that] and so he couldn't sign an American director; he eventually settled for Richard Marquand, after being turned down by famed Canadian horror/sci-fi director David Cronenberg and the "Dune" director David Lynch.

Richard Marquand, I'm sorry to say, died a few years after he made "Return of the Jedi".

Post: #83390
Topic: Fan-made Star Wars music videos
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83390/action/topic#83390
Time: 5-Jan-2005 5:47 AM — Edited 22-Dec-2019 10:35 AM

A friend of mine once made a music video from “The Phantom Menace” where he edited over the “Duel of Fates” theme with the U2 classic “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”. Even though he knew it was supposed to be an anti-war song, he felt that the fast, violent rythm [probably spelled that wrong] suited the action.

Anyone else around here ever kick around songs that you’d like to play over your favorite or least favorite Star Wars scenes?

Post: #83389
Topic: The Curse of the Blue Lightsaber
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83389/action/topic#83389
Time: 5-Jan-2005 5:40 AM

I always thought a purple lightsaber would be better suited to the Sith, but that's just me.

I hadn't noticed that before about the blue lightsaber, but now that you mention it, it's kind of interesting.

Post: #83388
Topic: Remake the OT?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83388/action/topic#83388
Time: 5-Jan-2005 5:37 AM

What about casting new actors to fill the boots of Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Alec Guinness, Billy Dee Williams, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse and all the rest?

I could possibly see Bernard Hill (King Theoden from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) doing Obi-Wan Kenobi and maybe Eric Bana as Han Solo, but the rest I have no idea.

Post: #83386
Topic: Prequel Music
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83386/action/topic#83386
Time: 5-Jan-2005 5:32 AM

I kind of liked the "Duel of Fates" theme, despite the fact that it sounded like it belonged in another movie (possibly Lord of the Rings) and "Anakin's Theme". And, as much as it surprises even me, I regard the quote un quote "love/luv/lust" theme from AOTC (what did they call it, "Across the Stars"?) as a guilty pleasure. I just with the prequels were better, maybe then the newer music and possibly the older music wouldn't seem as out of place.

Post: #83382
Topic: George Lucas makes you an offer you can't refuse
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/83382/action/topic#83382
Time: 5-Jan-2005 5:14 AM

As an aspiring screenwriter, I'd like to ask: if I wrote a screenplay and sent it out, and somehow George Lucas got a hold of it, read it, liked it and sent out his minions to find me and bring me before him in order to discuss him greenlighting the film, should I take his offer? So far everyone else I've asked this question of has told me that if this ever happened I should take the money and run, while only one other person out there has told me I should say no to him.

What do you all think?