CP3S

breannaandreu said:
1. In one sentence, what is your description of a villain?

A character whose even actions or motives are important to the plot.

2. Do you consider yourself a Star Wars fan? On a scale of 1-10, 1 being not a fan at all and 10 being a “super fan”, what would you consider yourself?

Before 1999, an 8. Now, a 1.

3. In what order did you first watch the Star Wars films?

A. Episodes 4-6 first, then Episodes 1-3 (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith in that order.)
B. Episodes 1-3 first, then Episodes 4-6 (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in that order.)

A

4. Who is your favorite character from the films?

Ric Olie

5. Who is your favorite villain from the films?

Jar Jar Binks

6. What is the first thing you think of when you think of your favorite villain from the film?

"Muay, muay! I wuv you!

7. If your favorite villain was not the Emperor, what is the first thing you think of when you think of the Emperor?

Oldwomanmonkey

8. If your favorite villain was not Darth Vader, what is the first thing you think of when you think of Darth Vader?

Black leather

9. What is Senator Palpatine’s motivation for becoming the Emperor?

Control

10. What is Anakin Skywalker’s motivation for becoming Darth Vader?

Being ridiculously insecure, apparently. As we see in ROTS.

11. Do you feel sympathy for the Emperor?

Yes, the character starts off being portrayed as pretty slick all the way through TPM, then he suddenly becomes overly ridiculous and his motives just seem stupid and sad.

13. Do you feel sympathy for Darth Vader?

Absolutely not.

14. Why or why not?

George made him a character that is really hard to sympathize with. Ironically, back when he was just a villain I did sympathize with him and imagined him to have once been this really great hero. Now that we've all gotten to see him before he turned bad, I think he was a pretty horrible person from the get go. I think he was probably a better human being as a villain. In two out of three of the movies he is in as a good guy, he violently murders a group of children. 

15. When the Emperor died in Episode VI, what emotions did you feel, if any?

16. When Darth Vader died in Episode VI, what emotions did you feel, if any?

I've been watching these movies since I was quite young, I can't remember a time I felt any emotion regarding the events taking place on the screen.

17. Do you think the Emperor fits into your description of a villain from question one?

Yes.

18. Why or why not?

Because he is a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

19. Do you think Darth Vader fits into your description of a villain from question one?

Yes.

20. Why or why not?

Because he is a character whose even actions or motives are important to the plot of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

Holy shit, dude. Bingo has explained the whole thing in detail twice now. Why not just go back and read his first two posts on the subject if you're not getting it?

Tyrphanax said:

Having grown up with the SEs, I had never heard that line until I started getting into preservations. When I heard it, I immediately loved it and wondered why they'd ever take it out of the film.

I'm pretty sure it may have already been a variant among certain pre-SE versions of Empire. Perhaps from the 70mm? Others here know far better than me. From what I've read, that alternative line was used simply because it was deemed to be of higher quality than the other, and that the nobody even realized it was completely different from the one in the original film until after it was released and fans noticed it. A perfect example of how much love and care these films have received over the years.

Apparently, the line heard in the SE is straight from the script, and the one in the theatrical Mark Hamil came up with himself (much like Harrison Ford's "I know"), and they liked it so they used it.

georgec said:

I never saw ToD as a prequel, since like CP3S said it didn't seek to "answer questions" or connect the dots to a previously made film.

Wait? In order to be a prequel, does a prequel have to seek to answer questions and connect dots? By definition, I think it is simply a "sequel" that takes place chronologically prior to the the story that it follows.

Back onto the subject of prequels that worked, I think Temple of Doom did the job quite well. It didn't feel like a prequel, and regardless of how you feel about the quality of the story, nothing about it tried to explain anything from the other film. They didn't feel the need to tell us every mundane detail about Indy's past, such as the origins of his name, why he is afraid of snakes, exactly where he got his hat, or his whip, or that scar on his chin from, or dive deep into the details of his relationship with his father. Phew, imagine if they made an Indiana Jones prequel! I bet they'd squeeze all those things into it! Ugh, that'd be awful.

The appeal of slasher flicks has always kind of been lost on me. When I was a kid the posters would give me the willies, but upon watching my first one I felt it was little more than watching two-dimensional characters getting picked off one-by-one for the glee of it. I kind of feel the way about all slasher flicks how Bingo feels about the beginning of Scream. They just strike me as little more than a sadistic thrill.

As a teenager, the first time a date snuggled up next to me and buried her head in my shoulder during a scary bit, I decided I had discovered their true reason for existence.

Though it could be argued zombie movies offer the same kind of sadistic thrill as slasher films, I really do enjoy them. Perhaps its the world gone to chaos/survival aspect of them I appreciate. Double standards, I suppose.

I just watched that animation you linked to. I just don't get it. You say amazing, I can't seem to see anything special about it. I couldn't relate to it and there was nothing moving or even slightly interesting to me about it.

I think a handful of us are just destined not to get it.

I'm in the same boat as Tryph, I've never been able to get into any anime either. It may cover a wide range of decades, genres, and styles, but it all seems to share in the same obnoxious features. There are many my friends have told me about that I expected to like, and a few I've really tried hard to like, but ultimately I just find them obnoxious to a degree that I can't look beyond or forgive.

That still doesn't make it a prequel, it is the first part of a series that takes the material it is adapting and presents some of the events in chronological order.

I think prequels generally don't work because they are too boxed in. It seems when people make prequels it is felt that they should address every little thing. X-Men First Class is one of the best prequels I've seen, but it still suffers from this. (FIRST CLASS SPOILERS FOLLOW) By the end of the film Xavier is in a wheel chair, Magneto decides to be a bad guy, and Mystique decides to leave her long time best friend Charles to go be bad with Magneto. All the chess pieces are lined up in their exact places for the first X-Men movie, even though it takes place a very long stretch of time later. It feels like many of those elements were forced in there because well, obviously these things have happen to the characters sometime.  

Much like Padme dying, the Death Star being built, and Anakin donning the leather suit in ROTS. There was no rule saying that those things had to happen in the prequels, and I'd argue that they really didn't need to (at least not if those events were of no more importance to the story that they could afford to be shoved into the last 10 minutes of a nearly 7 hr. long trilogy). 20 years pass between the trilogies, but yet all the pieces are in place for A New Hope, Luke, the droids, Yoda, we find these characters just where we left them.

At the end of Star Wars they are in this fancy Mayan Massi (or something) temple on a nice sunny forest planet, Empire Strikes Back comes out and suddenly they are in the snow. Were our minds blown? How did they get there!!! What is going on???!!! Nope. If these movies were made today and Star Wars was a prequel to The Empire Strikes Back, you can bet it would end with the crew arriving on Hoth. 

A story needs to be focused primarily on character and plot. To me, X-Men: First Class was good (despite the awful title) because it did focus on characters and had an interesting plot (well, the Sebastian Shaw/Magneto stuff was great, teenage X-Men stuff was painful at times though). To me, the parts where it failed were the parts where they felt they were obligated to showing us things we already know must happen sometime just for the mundane sake of showing us. A character becoming paralyzed from the waist down could be some powerful character development for a potential later film, or it could just be shoved in at the end of the film with a nudge and a wink, "Hey, look what just happened! Ha, and now you know why he is in a wheel chair! Always wanted to know that didn'cha!"

CatBus said:

Bingowings said:

Superman The Movie is another one in my book anyway.

That's an origin story but I'd argue it doesn't really qualify as a prequel since prior Superman incarnations were in distinctly different media.  i.e. Lawrence of Arabia could be considered an origin story, but hardly a prequel, even though there were books about the guy before.

Seconded. Superman The Movie is as much of a prequel as Batman Begins, or the new Spider-Man movie, which is to say absolutely not at all.

CWBorne said:

-The term "Sith" is thrown around much less and not even mentioned on screen in the OT. 

When I was a wee lad I got a Darth Vader action figure that came with a collector's coin, it had Vader's head on it and said "Dark Lord of the Sith" on it. I thought it was a real word and asked my dad what "sith" meant. I remember very clearly he was sitting in his study with his nose buried in some reference works, his massive office chair slowly spun around as he turned to face me with a puzzled look on his face. After a moment he noticed the coin in my hand and immediately said, "Oh, it's a dark Jedi" and turned back to his books.

I wonder how he knew that? I'm just now realizing how weird that is, he wasn't into Star Wars, so I have a hard time imagining him reading up on it outside of the films.

Uh oh, I sense a new theme among bitter Star Wars fans: J. J. Abrams raped my future.

Bingowings said:

Personally I think it's sad that Star Trek has become Star Revenge.

Say what you like about the first picture but at least it was about exploration and was cinematic.

Since then all the films including JJ's have been rather cartoonish revenge stories which could have been made for television with a big backer.

All the films? Just going through my head and trying to think of all the movies and how many of them have revenge themes in them. Been a while since I've seen any of them though.

Wrath of Khan - Yes

Search for Spock - No

The Voyage Home - No

The Final Frontier - No

The Undiscovered Country - Yes

Generations - No

First Contact - Yes

Insurrection - Yes

Nemesis - Yes

J. J. Trek 2009 - Yes

Unless I am forgetting certain aspects of some of the films, or making up others, that is over half, even if you throw The Motion Picture in for good measure. Bingo's all is hyperbole, but only a little.

DominicCobb said:

Primer (2004) 8/10 - Very interesting, very original, and quiet thrilling. The third act completely falls apart though; and while I think that was the point, it just didn't work for me. Up until then, I was really into it, then it kind of just said, "stop enjoying this" and totally left me out. 

I agree, the last portion of the movie really could have been a lot more tightly woven. I still really love this movie though.

Oooh, found another great one too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXTF6bs1IU

Hey guys, I randomly stumbled upon this video that gives an interesting, not so commonly looked at angle on why the moon landing couldn't have been hoaxed! What timing and luck!

http://devour.com/video/why-the-moon-landing-was-not-faked/

Is "Live and Let Die" really worth the existence of "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time"?

They didn't need to leave it in the movie though, for the type of movie it is, a kid driving a car off a cliff is perfectly reasonable. The movie is full of nonsensical and poorly explained things, the vast majority of the audience doesn't care and probably doesn't even notice.

Of course, leaving it in would have been nice for those who do care about that sort of thing.

;)

Yes. Yes it would have.

Mrebo said:

My conversational partner expressed (expected) shock, insisting that it is. I base my view on what I see in popular culture, the media, and politics.

 

...

 

I do imagine abortion is scary for many or most women, but if there is much of a moral concern, it is not well-represented in society.

I've been "close" with a few women who have shared with me that they have had abortions. Two in particular that I have really talked about it with. Neither of them told me until they got pretty close to me, and both seemed to hold it as a really difficult decision they made in their lives.

Having my appendix removed was scary. But it isn't something I reflect back on and consider years later and only admit to people after I feel comfortable with them. Even if they both came to the conclusion that they did the right thing, it was still clearly a moral concern to them and weight on them. Seems to me the women I have known who are more flippant supporters of abortion, are also ones who happen to have never been pregnant before.

I have no real point of my own to make here. Just felt this personal experience of mine related to what you were saying.

BmB said:

The annoying thing is, I agree with you on some of this, the government lies and hides stuff from us all the time. I think mistrusting them is a good thing, but you take it all to the cliche point of ridiculousness that makes it so nobody can take it seriously. Thanks to wacked out crazy hypothesizes, it is hard to get people to take things we probably should be on our toes about seriously.

Just like the "Obama's gonna burst into our homes and take away all our guns!!1" people make it really hard to pose a reasonable constitutional argument about the potential dangers of government gun control without being thrown into that same stupid dumbass useless camp. In this way, conspiracy theorists are somewhat like Orwell's sheep, drawing a distraction from real dangers and issues by braying incessantly and mindlessly. 

I don't think the claims you make are ridiculous because they are out of the normal line of belief, or because I think the government would never try these things, but because the conspiracies you are citing are so over the top, unbelievable, and impossible, they takes heavy amounts of suspension of disbelief. 9/11, the moon landing, we are talking about things that would be nearly impossible to pull off. And on top of that, all the evidence for these things apply pathetically sad misunderstandings of various sciences.

If either of those two things are conspiracies, and for the sake of argument, I will concede that there is a possibility they are, then conspiracy theorists just got extremely lucky in their guessing, because the evidence they bring forth (fire can't melt steel! Look at the shadows!) is painfully ignorant and demonstrably wrong, and the government is much more capable and able than they have ever openly showed themselves to be.

I'm very open minded and willing to consider some pretty wacky crap. I'm totally willing to go against the flow and believe something the vast majority of people refuse to believe. But if you come to me with a piss poor understanding of how the physical world works as your evidence for this wacky crap, then I am going to have to write it off as nothing more than wacky crap.

Actually that's not entirely true, they do employ people to troll forums that are too far out of line.

Evidence of this? Or is it just a "OMG, a troll heckling us. Must be the Feds again." sort of thing?

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I agree with everything Bingo said in the post directly above mine. Well said.

skyjedi2005 said:

As far as i know Mark is pretty much retired as an actor.  And has even retired as the voice of the Joker.

He still does voice acting regularly.

Warbler said: 

Do you know why I think they really believe the moon landing was fake,  it is because they are bigoted against the establishment.   They hate the establishment and so anything the establishment says must be a lie.   The establishment says   we landing on the moon,  it must a lie. The establishment says Elvis is dead, it must a lie.  The establishment says Bin Laden did 911, it must be a lie.    The only conspiracy theory I give and credence to is that someone may have been helping Oswald kill Kennedy.   When I saw the Zapruder film, I first thought "there is not way the headshot came from behind"  (since then I have been convinced that it is possible the head came from behind), and then there was all the stuff about the magic and pristine bullet.   So I can't blame someone for thinking that maybe someone else was involved.    But the other stuff is just ludicrous.    

Wait a minute? What the hell? You are taken in by asinine reasoning and bullshit physics and believe there is some possibility to the Kennedy conspiracy stuff, but you disregard anyone else who is taken in by bullshit explanations as idiots who should fuck off and die? Seriously? Wow. People have thrown together physics engines and proven that a bullet traveling at that particular velocity from that particular trajectory could do exactly what that bullet did. But someone spun the information to you in such a way you decided there may have been two shooters.

I feel like you have equally as convincing "scientific" reasoning as to why we couldn't possible have gone to the moon as we do for the BS two shooters JFK thing. So why be so hateful and unforgiving toward someone who has done essentially what you have done with the JFK stuff, that is, seen some videos on it and found themselves convinced it is a possibility?

Warbler said:

Please CP3S, try to use logic and reason to convince BmB that the moon landing was not faked.   Lets see if you can do it.  I'll bet it will just be a waste of your time.   

Less of a waste of time than telling him how dumb he is and that you wish he'd go and die simply because you disagree with him.

zee944 said:

Similar with Star Trek '09. It needed a rethinking... oh, the characters weren't the same and did things they would've never done in the classic Star Trek? That was the point, people! I can understand why a Trekkie would be angry over that, but Star Trek has been changed and became fresh and exciting again.

I feel like this statement sums up how I feel about the whole J. J. Trek 2009 thing. Essentially what it was is the taking of an established franchise and mainstreaming it. Giving it mass appeal. Making it something for everyone. Yeah, it is new and exciting, but I think your use of the word "fresh" is a bit extreme. We've seen this movie before and we'll see it again, there was nothing fresh about it.

If he does this for Star Wars, I am sure it will be a good thing and will make many fans happy. No director could get me excited for new a Star Wars film. You go to the cinema and watch the trailers, and it is the same movie over and over again, I've seen them all and couldn't care less. I love it when a film gets me excited, when the credits roll and I have to take a few minutes to gather my thoughts. Star Wars did that for a lot of people once. New movies still manage to do this to me, I'd rather spend my time on those than on the silly lineup of identical summer blockbusters.

J. J., being mainstream and a safe choice couldn't possible get me excited or be any further away from Star Wars' roots as a non-mainstream risk that became a smash success because it was something people hadn't seen before. I have no doubt J. J. Wars 2015 is going to be a huge success, people will love it. It was a smart choice.

Bingowings said:

Star Trek (2009).

...hopefully Chekov will have less of a comedy accent in future episodes).

Unfortunately, no. Saw a several minute long preview when I went to see the Hobbit in 3D. new Chekov's fake accent is as comedic and over the top as ever.

The Chekov accent was always a horrible idea. In the future when the world has shrunk even more than it has now and we are all under one government, will we really have such over the top accents? But that horrible idea was easier to forgive back in the 60-80's. Fresh start and reboot, I don't get why they thought it would be cool to make it even thicker than Walter Koenig's just for the sake of some sort of dumb and redundant comedy relief. That film had so much comic relief in it, it is practically as much a comedy as it is a sci-fi or action film. Of course, it does all three genres poorly. 

I think J. J. Trek 2009 makes a good case for how painfully dumbed down our movies are becoming. At the risk of sounding like skyjedi, it is somewhat offensive, it is hard for me to go see movies like that and not feel like the film makers are talking down to me.

Next up was Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011).

A film of two halves one of which was totally redundant the other rather good actually.

The apes in this film are the stars. The humans were wasted or plain awful.

There is a thread over on the Star Wars discussion boards about what Hayden would have been without Anakin.

James Franco out planks Hayden in this film.

The camera hates him, he is as emotionally engaging as a thimble of sand and his character could easily be left on the cutting room floor.

Oooooh, but he is so damn HOT!

;)

Freida Pinto is prettier and smiles with conviction but in every other respect has as less of a right to be there than Franco.

Tom Felton should have done something different after Potter instead of playing a pantomime nasty person with a fizzing taser wand.

David Oyelowo wins the award for the most pants unsympathetic character in any film of this kind.

David Hewlett plays a terribly hamfisted creation. He would stick out as being annoyingly cartoonish even in a Resident Evil movie.

John Lithgow is nice as always but isn't in the film enough and doesn't do enough to save the human side of this film.

Brian Cox literally spends the film sitting near a door (presumably waiting for the paycheck to arrive).

Patrick Doyle's score is obvious and dull not a patch on Goldsmith's or Elfman's.

When the apes rise it's a bit crap that they leap around San Fran pointedly avoiding killing people while wrecking everything in sight.

But the section in the holding cells is a revelation.

True that.

It deserves to be in a separate film.

After a while I began to forget it was CGI and the ape characters without any dialogue conveyed more variety and human warmth than any of the human characters (Lithgow aside).

I could easily have watched a feature length presentation with just those characters with perhaps the occasional doping up from a faceless human resulting in their growing intelligence and eventual escape.

What we have here is a bizarre Harvey Dent of a film which on one side is fantastic and the other side actually worse than Tim Burton's film.

Watching it made me love Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes even more.

Now there were humans you could love and hate and laugh at.

Ape Story (Enhanced)/Human story (Gelded). 

As an old ape fan, I actually really liked this film. In a guilty pleasure sort of way, not a "that was a great movie" sort of way. It was kind of a gleeful romp for me through and through. I think if the Burton film hadn't been such an unbearable and painful to watch pile of steaming crap, I would have been a harsher critic. But as it was, HOLY CRAP, a new PotA film that was not only watchable, but also fairly enjoyable! I look forward to seeing more new Ape films that are better than Burton's.