Vaderisnothayden said:
I already did that for myself after watching the review. I have no need to do it to prove anything to you. That said, I may change my mind and come back and do it. We'll see. But I don't think other posters recognizing characters has anything to do with it or should be part of it.
Oh what the heck... Qui Gon is wise, underhanded, compassionate but a little ruthless, independent-minded, determined, a little arrogant maybe at times, something of a chancer.
TPM Padme is passionate, strong, crafty and prone to subterfuge, determined, commanding when she chooses to be, gentle when she chooses to be, an odd mixture of maturity with girlishness, devoted to her people, and is into guys two-thirds her age.
That's how it was done in the review. Just pick the character and describe them, no guessing games about who the character is. And no need to include characters from both sets of movies, just the relevant ones.
And no need to include characters from both sets of movies, just the relevant ones.
So in a comparison between the characters from both trilogies, picking relevant characters from both "sets" for direct comparison is wrong how??
I'm saying this as someone who has a minor issue with that segment somewhat downplaying Qui-Gon's personality (he's mostly just stern and stoic, but shows personality during single moments) myself - what you just wrote is apologetic fanboi poppycock.
You are somewhat right about Qui-Gon, but those personality traits are visibly turned down in comparison to even the bumbling robot side-kick from the OT, and despite the slight polemics, RLM drives this point home well enough.
Qui-Gon, like, frees Jar Jar, and lays his hand on Shmi... guess he's compassionate.
Mostly, though, if you proceed from his facial expression and delivery, 80% of the time he's really just "stern and stoic", but sometimes he'll put up a coquettish phony smirk when shitting over Watto, or give off a fatherly smile towards Anakin, or make like an annoyed face at Obi Wan or something, and basically show life-signs of still being a human being.
So I'll grant you that one. Maybe the interviewees really just had seen the movies a while ago, and in that case, them not remembering Qui-Gon's personality would actually say a lot about the characterizations in both trilogies.
Obi Wan sometimes has that fratboyish cocky expression on his face, too, and gives off some snarky one-liners. Although that kinda doesn't tie into the story whatsoever. From what it looks, George might've tried to somehow capture the image of young Obi-Wan being "over-eager" or "youthful", as hinted in EpV, despite doing everything he could to make him the conservative, reserved contrast to his daring, nonchalant mentor.
Padme's character in TPM is, indeed, boring and monotone and THAT'S IT. Even MORE SO than in the sequels, where she actually shows some personality and humanity in comparison, rather than being even BLANDER than in I (and doesn't pull it off well).
She makes an annoyed face at Qui-Gon a couple times, looks kinda bit trembling when kneeling before Blessed (or when looking at the hologram broadcast), and smiles and blushes a couple times, but that's it, she's just a cardboard cutout for the entire duration of the film, saying her lines, and all the traits you listed are threadbare cliff notes that are only there because the plot says so.
Passionate how?
Strong? Well yea, she's like, an action girl and gives exposition dialogue for the operation. The plot pretty much spells it out, and she still does it all in a horribly monotone manner.
Crafty and prone to subterfuge? Whaaaat?
Another deep trait of her personality is that she's a pacifist, but understands that sometimes one needs to fight. Wow. RLM would've made a better point by citing those characterization cliff notes and contrasting them with the OT characters, rather than just focusing on her virtual lack of personality, but really, she was a boring, monotone drone for 99% of the movie and that segment drove the point home. It's like he couldn't even be bothered by Padme's character being obviously "determined to help her people", because she's such a monotone bore.
The ultimate irony in your point is that this same character shows a whole bunch of more so-called "character traits" in II and III, except acted out with noticeably more humanity (one of them being that she's in love with Anakin but realizes they can't do that... then she wants to escape with Anakin instead of ruling the universe with him... she remembers that they need to hide while Anakin's being a hat about that... she doesn't like him murdering the youglings I guess... lol), and apparently you just gloss over all of that to make the absurd point that she had more personality in TPM.
Sorry, I think you're just being nonsensical and controversial for the sake of it.
__
As for your huge issue with the "misogyny", well... you say those things are often covered up in satire and role-play in order to conceal / cowardly expess actually bigoted views. Fine.
They also often aren't, and actually have nothing more to them than being plain ol' jokes. Is there any point in theoretizing about Stoklasa' hidden motives, when on the surface of said reviews, they're really just that... comic relief?
No, as far as I'm aware, they don't "satirize" anything. They're just comic relief. In form of comedy that thrives on being "dark", and "shocking". Never pretending to be some kind of profound social commentary. Does that deprive them of justification? Especially in the obvious context of being weird and shocking for the very sake of being weird and shocking comic relief?
At any rate, all of this comes down to whether one appreciates the common phenomenon that is called "black humor". It's humor dealing with dark subjects that actually are as far from laughing matter in real life as possible, yet ends up being funny (to some) in this form.
If you have a problem with it, you should be appalled by RLM just as much as about Chaplin's "Gold Rush" (which plays horrific nightmare fuel material for slapstick), or that gag from the Simpsons where a guy makes jokes about being impaled in an iron maiden. Appalled more by the very notion of black humor rather than RLM specifically. And be appalled by Plinkett being a MURDERER far more than a misogynist.
What if he murdered males in some sort of bizarre parody of Saw or Sea of Love (as opposed to the common trope of serial killers killing women, as in Silence of the Lambs - and you'd have to be a complete ass not to notice the obvious similarity between Plinkett's voice and Buffalo Bill), he wouldn't be a misogynist anymore, but just as much of a monster. Are random misogynistic remarks about "complaining like a woman" really that much of an issue in that light?
Which brings me to a related form of humor: Fratire. It's a form of satire / comedy that plays the concepts of manliness, gender stereotypes, misogyny and chauvinism for laughs. Mostly, it's done using a character who is overbearingly manly, misogynistic and all in all a huge asshole.
With those "laughs" derived straight from just how wrong and stupid those things are - the amount of disagreement with / disgust towards character's displayed views and actions is directly proportional to the amusement derived from the material. Exactly BECAUSE it so relies on the "wow, that's so WRONG" sentiment upon reading it.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=oil
Would you say you have a problem with that kind of humor? Because it's played for laughs without any profound intent (other than maybe making fun of people like that), and there's no indication anywhere that the author actually shares a trace of this attitude. It's just fun.
Whether you can find it funny or not depends on your taste, however, at any rate, it's such a common and widespread type of humor that is NOT used to cover actual bigotry and sadism that your criticism of RLM's humor should've really just boiled down to "he uses black humor; don't like".
The main point, however, is that the humor in the RLM review is derived from the seemingly absurd contrast of "nerd picking apart Star Wars" and "disturbing murderer", and how casually the latter crawls its way into the former.
The murders and abductions are seemingly downplayed in their seriousness by being in a Star Wars review (i.e. the woman being confused by the abductor talking about Star Wars) and treated with a casual attitude (the abductor seemingly ignoring the woman being in the middle of his Star Wars review... on Youtube nonetheless), and the "geeky film review" gets a sinister edge from being done by a creepy monster.
The contrast and absurdity of it, and the way it's executed, is what makes up the humor - NOT just the fact that the character abducts women and it's "shocking", but the juxtapposition of the "wrong and shocking" to the "lighthearted and nerdy", and the way it's timed and executed.
PS:
Can any of that serve as a cover for real bigotry, or real sadistic fantasies? At the end of the day, of course, but the ironic twist is that the same thing that applies to jokes and comedy also applies to non-humorous entertainment ranging anywhere from pure tense entertainment to hamfisted art with serious social messages.
Who's to say James Cameron didn't secretly act out his desire to blow up a bunch of bumbling, helpless Natves, by making the badass villain of his latest one do exactly that, in sequences with lots of fun 'splosions?
How about the annoying smartass that gets killed in Die Hard, sure it's there to establish how bad of a prick the villain is, but the whole movie is also pure entertainment we derive tension and enjoyment from, and even that very scene is done in an entertaining and humorous fashion, while simultaneously being brutal and terrifying.
Who's to say the makers / viewers live out some secret fantasy of shooting an annoying smartass in the head?
How about stuff like American X (a movie interpreted as pro-Nazi by a bunch of idiot heads) with that tough, muscular ass-kicking, eloquent villain protagonist, wouldn't that be a perfect opportunity for the director to disguise his bigoted views in an anti-Nazi film?
Or what about simple comedy routines that make fun of ethnic and gender stereotypes in a lighthearted manner, without any dark or disturbing edge to it? They may not serve as a cover for bigotry, but sure for some stupid, boneheaded prejudices on the part of the comedian.
What if that metal band that assures playing its Satanic, gory theme for entertainment / cheese, actually has a secret fascination for devil worshippers and carnage? Why not?
Not to say this kind of paranoia is completely unjustified, but it's no more applicable to RLM than Scary Movie or Event Horizon, or any piece of entertainment that somehow deals with something sinister.
Even exploitation films can sometimes be just that - entertainment. And I don't particularly like exploitation films.
Having all that said, whether by themselves or in reaction to complaints, RLM have changed their style and turned these borderline-realistic depictions of violence into hammy, parodistical B movie schlock. The prostitute from the basement has since escaped, put on a leather suit with a hood, acquired a katana and is out to murder Plinkett in a hammy over-the-top manner while pushed by the voice of Emperor Sidious. Whatever controversy there may have been, it's pretty much a thing of the past by now :)
