TOS had a great sendoff only if you pretend Generations didn’t happen. I’d like to see Kirk’s final words be second star to the right and straight on til morning. Not some Nexus thing that didn’t make sense. and now he only exists as an echo in the nexus. While Spock got lost and died in the JJ timeline.
Transformers is easy. G1 cartoon, G1 toys. Original Marvel comics. The end.
Peter Cullen is Optimus, Frank Welker is Megatron. The bayformers movies are trash. It is very easy to compartmentalize.
I’m not digging the DVNR on the 4K directors edition of Star Trek TMP if the trailer is anything to go by. What is the point of going back to the 65mm negative which wouldn’t have as much grain. If they were going to make it look like a movie shot today digitally. I guess its a pass for me.
I hate that all of a sudden they created Leia as the sister because Lucas didn’t want to deal with the love triangle of two men pursuing Leia. Because Luke following the Jedi path meant he had to give her up anyway, but she didn’t have to be his sister and a Skywalker because Luke’s real sister was out there in the universe and wasn’t supposed to show up into the sequels.
I don’t like that it supposedly made Star Wars 1977 more mythic because of incestous overtones. When Lucas wasn’t basing these on the myths he was basing them on Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.
There aren’t major problems for me with the OT like the other trilogies. Although maybe Vader shouldn’t have been Luke’s father possibly, but i don’t know if the other way to tell the story would be better. A simple Revenge tale. Vader killed Luke’s father and Luke would kill Vader. But Lucas decided Jedi’s don’t take revenge because it turns them into Sith.
I couldn’t disagree more on force awakens. I mean they took Luke and made him a worthless maguffin. Who does that? He was the main character of the original Saga of episodes IV, V and VI. Because they couldn’t figure out a way to include him without upstaging the Disney characters. The one thing i did like was Finn, i liked Poe, i liked Rey and her scavenger on Jakku story. But its a bad unoriginal story and completely derivative on purpose due to the prequels having the perception of being so bad they left a stank on Star Wars.
You could still have new characters like Rey, Poe and Finn and easily set it in the far future. Don’t repeat the same beats rebels vs empire. Don’t crap all over the legacy characters. The sequels are a mixed bag. But the one thing they botched Luke, Han and Leia. Completely and utterly. Its almost unforgivable.
They finally recast Kirk Prime. For Strange New Worlds.
Timeless is one of my all time favorite shows. I wish it would get uncancelled. Matt Lanter also happens to be my favorite Anakin Skywalker. And i’m not the biggest Filoni fan but i liked Clone Wars for the first 5 seasons. Enough to watch it on cartoon network but not enough to buy the blu rays.
Added Japanese Laserdisc of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. No OBI and never had one. No Digital audio. No English subtitles. Analog mono. 1984 CLV.
Dirty Pair OVA From Lovely Angel with Love Japanese Laserdisc CAV. Analog no digital audio.With OBI, 1987 release.
Volume 2 of New Dominion Tank Police CAV, Digital audio. 1993 with OBI.
I watched the Sea Hawk with Errol Flynn, it was better than i remembered. and The Adventures of Robin Hood also with Errol Flynn. Both with lavish production values, a great score. High adventure. And Flynn is in fine form in both. I love how he plays Robin Hood with zest and exuberance. The only weak aspect of this version of Robin Hood is how pathetic The Sheriff of Nottingham is. Basil Rathbone is fantastic as Sir Guy. And he makes Flynn look good as a swordsman when he wasn’t.
Watched Spider-man no way home. Liked that he ended the film finally as Spider-Man, and no longer Spider-Boy or Iron Man Jr. It was the best of the three Disney MCU linked films, and still had nothing on Raimi’s films. It was okay-ish. But why did this movie have legs like the original Star Wars, it wasn’t that special the villain end battle was very anti climatic. Honestly Into the Spider-verse is superior in almost all ways.
And i’m so tired of movies being commercials for another movie. Its the thing i hate the most about the MCU.
I’m almost afraid to rewatch the Sixth Sense. Because i used to really like Signs. Rewatched it and found it was awful. I kind of used to buy into M. Night being a genius filmmaker. But now i’m not so sure.
Every director can have bad films. I’m not knocking him for After Earth and The Last Airbender.
But is there one movie he has done that proves he is this great auteur?
What always gets me is Marcus being an imbecile. Got lost in his own museum. This isn’t the character from Raiders.
The art design was never the problem. Nor were the effects. Or the music, or the editing. Or the actors/actresses. It was the screenplay.
The Sequel trilogy did everything right except for the story, and the handling of the legacy characters. They did a better job on virtually everything and better than the prequels except for worldizing and the lore, and the characters. But they had an unlimited budget practically and all the years of advancement of technology the prequels and originals afforded them. and they couldn’t top Return of the Jedi.
They had a vast canvas and could have done almost anything post ROTJ, but they remade the OT instead. Or inverted/subverted it in places and said they were clever and original.
The lightsaber dual should have been more psychological like Empire and Jedi. Instead it was all flash of spinning blades of light. I’ve never been more let down by a lightsaber duel other than in the Disney movies.
They never really connect, you never believe in the action of what is going on the way you did in Empire. Videogame physics, cgi nonsense. Style over substance.
The lightsabers should have heft and weight and be used with both hands.
With the OT you had a likable character in Luke to latch onto and follow. The prequel didn’t have that. Its a grave mistake. Whether it be the writing or the casting, it doesn’t work. Maybe it should have been OBI Wan’s point of view we saw the prequels from. I don’t know. But Anakin is the same and Vader is the same. There is no slow descent into evil and madness and seduction of power. He is the same as Vader as Anakin was in II and III. Same conflicted character. He doesn’t have that journey implied in the OT. He isn’t this man of virtue and heroism, that when he finally turns it rips your heart out. You laugh in episode III when Obi Wan says he has the high ground and it ends like a videogame cutscene, and Anakin says you underestimate my power. And Obi Wan is sad why, they never showed they were good friends except in books and cartoons.
Star Wars was from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker. It was about him and he was the main character. Darth Vader wasn’t his father, and there was no long planned out saga of Darth Vader. Vader was Tarkin’s henchmen. With the first film obviously, then Lucas started rewriting from Empire on.
Lucas made it all up as he went. Its very clear he only started writing the prequels in 1994. He never bothered to watch the original movies again to keep continuity.
Fans balked at the prequel retcons when we really should have when Vader became Luke’s father and Leia his sister. Lucas was retconing the Saga all the time. Nothing was planned beyond the first movie. It was a happy go lucky comic book movie, movie serial like the old serials of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. A swashbuckling adventure. Lucas had no plans for Vader, the story conference for Splinter of the Mind’s eye lays that bare.
I bet when Indiana Jones 5 comes out i’ll rank Last Crusade in fifth place. The way it characterizes Sallah, Marcus and Henry Jones Sr is pathetic. Nothing in the film is believable there is no verisimilitude like Raiders and its trying too hard to be a comedy. The only thing i liked was Connery and Ford playing off of each other and the great admiration Indy has for his father. and i like the idea that James Bond, the only true Bond is Indy’s father.
Hamill was great in Last Jedi only. He did nothing in Force Awakens and his performance in Rise of Skywalker was painfully phoned in. Ford on the other hand was fantastic in both Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker. Carrie was good in Last Jedi, and they had to create a non existing performance in Rise of Skywalker since she died. Its unfair to judge her part in the sequels when each movie was supposed to be about one of the OT characters. Ford’s was Force Awakens, Hamill’s was Last Jedi and Fisher’s was supposed to be episode 9.
Lando really got shortchanged, Billy Dee was as good as ever and they gave him nothing to do in these. Its disgraceful. Same for Finn and Boyega running around shouting Rey but never becoming a Jedi or connecting to the story of his being a runaway stormtrooper. Rose basically being all but deleted from the 9th film.
and Poe who was interesting and a potentially new character direction just another Han ripoff and Spice runner in episode 9. Episode 9 just sucks.
Rey being shoehorned into the Luke Skywalker role and paradigm in episode 9 instead of allowing her to be her own character. Go off in her own direction. Just to tie everything up in a neat bow when nothing in this Disney trilogy was planned.
Honestly episode 9 is worse than the prequels. The way it ruins the myth of Star Wars and shrinks the universe is uncanny.
I hated it. It leans too heavily into Disney Star Wars and the prequels. There is almost nothing resembling the Star Wars i grew up with or care about. I guess for me its a pass.
Maybe if there was some more OT flavor sprinkled in. I might check it out.
Raiders
Temple
Skull
Crusade
I just watched Free Guy. It wasn’t good but it wasn’t bad either. Quite a bizarre video game movie. I have no idea who this movie was made for. and why it was so highly rated.
It was mildly amusing and fun in places, but not very original.
I’m watching the Disney remake of West Side Story by Steven Spielberg. I’m liking it so far, but there are an awful lot of lens flares. Like a JJ Abrams film.
The young leads are lovely young people, i’m trying to understand why other than being an unnecessary remake this bombed so hard and lost like a hundred million dollars.
I need to rewatch everything he did and see his latest film Belle. It seems like it been ages since he directed Mirai which is the last one of his films i watched.
I still haven’t seen Boy and the Beast, but i recommend Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars.
also waiting for some of Shinkai Makoto’s films to be reissued on blu so they aren’t a million dollars to purchase. also for his new film to be released.
The creative spark, and life of Star Wars is George Lucas. I think Disney Star Wars is Star Wars in name only. Its creatively bankrupt, has nothing to say and completely uncreative. A bunch of noise and explosions and special effects. It’s exactly what Star Wars would have been if it was a Hollywood product.
Largely a complaint aimed at the sequel trilogy and JJ Abrams.
They got away with it in force awakens by making a fun movie after the execrable prequels, we thought it was a return to the good old star wars movies. Then we saw how they treated the legacy characters. Luke Skywalker a worthless maguffin. JJ was the absolute worst choice. Ruined the lore, and any potential for any more movies with these characters in the Saga.
Tom Veitch. Writer of Dark Empire and Tales of the Jedi. Creator of Nomi Sunrider and Ulic Qel Droma, and Exar Kun. The Double lightsaber. first to resurrect Emperor Palpatine and Boba Fett.
The first to write about Knights during the old republic, to portray Leia as a Jedi. To show Luke struggling with his father’s legacy post Return of the Jedi. Basically anything Lucas or Disney did he already did it better.