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Yoda Is Your Father

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6-Jan-2005
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13-Mar-2025
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Post
#229272
Topic
Pirates of the Caribbean Two
Time
I must admit it had some nice set pieces and a good amount of funny moments and lines.

I especially liked this line by Jack Sparrow: 'Elizabeth, that outfit does you no justice. It should be a dress or nothing. And I just happen to have no dress in my cabin'.

But good set pieces and a few funny lines do not IMO make a good whole, and they certainly don't make a masterpiece.
Post
#229250
Topic
Pirates of the Caribbean Two
Time
The whole thing was just a mess and totally lacked the charm of the first movie. The San Farancisco Chronicle review in the first post of this thread sums it up much better than I can (by the way, I read this review after seeing the movie, so I was not biased, but having seen the film I wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer).

For those of you who don't want to go back to page 1 and hit the link, here's some of the review that I particularly agree with:

Epics come about by necessity. The material demands it. A story is too big and too grand to contain within the usual boundaries, and so an epic is born. "The Lord of the Rings," for example, became an epic film trilogy because its story could only be told in that form. Epics don't come about through sheer willpower, by someone deciding to make an epic and then stuffing a weak story with a lot of junk. Do that and you don't get an epic, just cinematic water torture on the order of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."
This second installment in the "Pirates" trilogy is more than the usual bad or even numbingly horrible movie. It's an amalgam of many of the modern cinema's worst tendencies and modern filmmaking's most unfortunate misconceptions. The film has an epic scale without an epic story, epic characters, epic ideas or epic emotions. The conversations are without wit and often without purpose. Much of the acting consists of mugging and empty gestures. Scenes are stretched out for no reason but to give the illusion of importance, so that the story is buried under rubble. Worst of all, director Gore Verbinski doesn't seem to understand the difference between motion and action.

It's an important difference. Motion is just violence and tumult happening onscreen. Action is violence and tumult that actively advances the story. Of recent movies, "Mission: Impossible III" has action scenes, while Peter Jackson's "King Kong" mostly consists of motion (at least in the Skull Island sequences). In "Pirates," whenever there's a battle, or a fight, or a chase scene, the story comes to a dead stop while the filmmakers devise clever, active ways for absolutely nothing to happen. The slightest incident is pumped up into a 10- or 15-minute segment. In one scene, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has to escape from native islanders who want to use him in a ritual sacrifice. The movie has one inventive stunt (he's attached to a pole and finds himself stuck between two mountains), but by the time that stunt arrives, its moment has long past.

As Captain Jack the Pirate, Depp seems to have lost some of the Keith Richards swagger that he had in the first installment, but he's still game and willing to mug his way through the picture. That's fine. The problem is that he has nowhere to take the character -- it's a self-contained dead end -- while the filmmakers seem to have decided, this time out, to take Captain Jack seriously. It does Depp no justice to take the amusing caricature he's created and try to give it a complicated moral nature. Observe how uncomfortable, how torn in two directions Depp looks in his heart-to-heart conversations with Keira Knightley, as he tries to play a scene and remain Captain Jack at the same time.
Post
#229149
Topic
Please tell me I'm not the only one....
Time
Hmm.. I did not know that. Still though, I'm sure somebody with a good knowledge of Star Trek continuity could come up with a good idea for a movie based around Captain Pike.

So was being wheelchair-bound what got him taken off the Enterprise? Doesn't seem very fair, especially in a politically correct Star Trek universe. All Starfleet captains really do is sit in a chair all day anyway , and I imagine you can get some pretty badass hover-wheelchairs in the future. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure they could easily undo his paralysis with the help of some nanobots or some other trekky-future technology.
Post
#229115
Topic
YIYF's Long Bridge Club
Time
Thanks for your comments Number20, and I totally agree with what you are saying about not labelling a whole religious movement because of the actions and opinions of some of it's members who have obviously missed the point. As you point out Jesus hung out with 'questionable' citizens, and surely this should be an example to all of us. Let me stress that I have absolutely no problem with any of the teachings of Christ - What I have a problem with is the man-made institutions built up around those teachings and the attitudes mentioned by Gaffer that have sadly arisen from some of the people in those institutions. I also have a problem with a lot of the old testament and poeple who blindy believe in it's every word in a literal way. However, the new Testament (i.e the teachings of Christ) are A-OK, and I think if people would just open up their minds they would see that Jesus, the Buddha, and probably a few other religious characters (who I am not familiar with and therefore can't really comment) were all talking about the same thing, just in different terms.

I also take your point about not neccessarily understanding everything but having faith anyway. That is fine, but what I was really talking about are the people who don't even think for themselves. They just get told something as a kid and that's it. My Grandmother is one of those people - she was raised catholic, taught a certain way and that is the end of that (although in her defense she works in the fashion industry and comes across many gay people and does not treat them any differently even though she does not agree with what they do, so I respect her for that - she has compassion for everyone, even 'sinners').
Post
#229089
Topic
YIYF's Long Bridge Club
Time
Probably because you are a thoughtful individual who takes the words of the bible and considers and analyses them for yourself, whereas most 'bible thumpers' just read it (or are told it) and accept it unquestionably without even really understanding it simply because that is what is expected of them. Or worse still they follow the bible for fear of going to hell. I myself was raised catholic and as I have mentioned I do actually believe in God (in a way) and Jesus. But I reached an age where I was alble to think for myself and I realized that a lot of what the Catholics were forcing down my throat was, for want of a better word, bullshit. I am not afraid to look at alternatives and absorb ideas from other religions and merge them with my own, whereas many people are.

The person who I asked before that couldn't give me a satidfactory answer basically just quoted the bible and kept repeating 'he died for our sins and you must accept him into your life' and I was like 'that may be so, but how and why?' He just couldn't give me any thoughtful answer beyond the 'script' he had been given by his bible group.
Post
#229058
Topic
Please tell me I'm not the only one....
Time
Originally posted by: Han Solo VS Indiana Jones
I like Star Trek. I'd like to see them do something with Christopher Pike, the Enterprise captain from the abandoned 1960s pilot "The Cage" played by the late Jeffrey Hunter. But it probably won't happen.
See, now that would be interesting.

Maybe instead of Kirk they could do Pike at the academy. Over a series of films he eventually becomes captain of the Enterprise for a short period until he either dies (heroically of course) or is stripped of his rank and kicked out of Starfleet (again for doing something heroic - doing something he knows will get him court marshalled but it's for the greater good).

Post
#228748
Topic
SUPERMAN RETURNS REVIEW
Time
Originally posted by: Number20
Originally posted by: greencapt

Thus the problem I see with 'Superman Returns'- audiences expected to see Superman but instead of a heroic, honorable and (gasp) patriotic character they saw a neurotic, brooding, stalking, whining, emo character who was painted as being the second coming of Jesus. And looking at the box office results the general public had that same disconnect.



Why must Superman have all the emotional problems,etc? Because the audience must be able to 'connect' with the hero? Why can't Hollywood accept that Superman is just a good person, and wants to do the right thing?
Why does evryone have such a problem with Superman being upset about Lois having a kid and living with Cyclops? It's totally understandable and, as Chaltab mentionmed, when it comes to the crunch he puts his personal issues aside and saves the world.