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philraid

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Join date
17-Jun-2019
Last activity
2-Nov-2024
Posts
86

Post History

Post
#1563483
Topic
Plinkett's Prequel reviews
Time

I rewatched them about a month ago. There’s some good jokes and I agree with some of their points. Before those videos I hadn’t really seen a long form review of a movie like that, so it was very new at the time. Also the first time I saw them I didn’t really understand why people hated the prequels so much, so seeing those reviews helped me understand the criticisms. I do enjoy a lot of Red Letter Media videos, although I think they can be too cynical sometimes.

Post
#1550397
Topic
What are you reading?
Time

I’m kind of reading two books at the same time. I’m re-reading Dune since the second movie is coming out this year. Really looking forward to that movie.

I’m also reading the novelization for Revenge of the Sith. So far it has a very different feel from the movie. Almost all of the dialogue is different and it goes more in-depth on the story, characters and their motivations.

Post
#1544019
Topic
What are you reading?
Time

Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho’s House by Steve Stoliar. I’m a little over halfway done with it and I’m really liking it.
It’s about a guy who’s a huge fan of comedian Groucho Marx that ended up working for him as a secretary the last few years of Groucho’s life. Parts of it are funny and parts of it are depressing because of what he had to deal with in his later years. They’re making it into a movie, and based on what I’ve read of it so far it should be an interesting movie.

Post
#1543244
Topic
Your DVD Collection
Time

Bought a bunch yesterday as a belated birthday gift. A lot of it was just me buying stuff that I couldn’t believe I didn’t already have:
The Addams Family and Addams Family Values- DVD
Back to the Future Trilogy- Blu-ray
The Big Sleep (1946)- DVD
Never Say Never Again- DVD
Coming to America- DVD
Deliverance- DVD
Dumb and Dumber- DVD
Escape from New York- Blu-ray
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off- DVD
Flash Gordon (1980)- Blu-ray
Forbidden Planet- Blu-ray
Ghostbusters 2- DVD
King Kong (1933)- DVD
The Last Starfighter- Blu-ray
The Marx Brothers Collection boxset which has A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Room Service, At the Circus, Go West, The Big Store, and A Night in Casablanca- DVD (technically was a rebuy as I had six of these, but I didn’t have A Day at the Races or the boxset)
Short Circuit- DVD
Total Recall (1990)- Blu-ray
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)- DVD

Post
#1541032
Topic
favorite songs
Time

My favorite band is Queen, so you’re basically asking me to pick a favorite Queen song, which is impossible. I did rewatch Highlander recently for a podcast, so I’ve had a lot of their songs from the soundtrack stuck in my head.
I couldn’t list favorite songs. I could list favorite bands and artists, though. The aforementioned Queen, The Beatles (George Harrison’s probably my favorite), Pink Floyd, Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, The Who, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Tom Lehrer, Randy Newman, John Williams, Van Halen, Aerosmith, Billy Joel, David Bowie, Harry Nilsson, Warren Zevon, 70’s era Joni Mitchell, Erik Satie, The Doors.
As you can see, some of it is a bit eclectic, although I definitely favor stuff from the 60’s and 70’s.

Post
#1541027
Topic
Rank The Indiana Jones Films
Time

I should point out that the Top 3 are all 10/10 movies for me, so ranking them is kind of pointless.

  1. Raiders- Perfect escapism. Perfect hero, perfect villain, perfect action set pieces, an engaging plot line. Good balance between intensity and humor. What else is there to say?
  2. Temple of Doom- I like that they took risks and tried to do something different. It’s such an insane ride. Of the four, it feels the most to me like a 30’s adventure movie.
  3. Last Crusade- Used to be my favorite and I do still really love it (mainly because of Sean Connery), but I like the intensity of the first two more. I will say though, this one is the funniest of the series and probably the most quotable.
  4. Crystal Skull- I don’t think it’s as bad as some say, but it’s not good either. Has its moments, but it’s pretty lackluster. It loses me around the halfway point. I didn’t think the plot or action scenes were that great. Hopefully Dial of Destiny is better.
Post
#1541022
Topic
Heir to the Empire Trilogy. A General Discussion
Time

They were good. Felt like a logical extension of the original trilogy, especially compared to stuff like Darksaber or The Crystal Star.

I liked that Leia was a politician in it. Luke felt like Luke. Han felt like Han.

Mara Jade’s a cool character. I have mixed thoughts on the expanded universe (at least the parts I’ve read, I’ll admit my knowledge of it is pretty limited), but she’s definitely one of the best characters to come out of it.

I’m gonna be honest, at first I didn’t really get the big deal with Thrawn. Now I get it. He was a different type of villain than what we usually got. A more smart and calculating villain.

Also, The Last Command I thought they kind of dropped the ball with the story. The whole Luke having an evil clone plot point (and that they got the DNA from his severed hand) I thought was pretty stupid. Especially the fact they named him Luuke. That was dumb.

But overall, I thought they were decent. Not great, but good. I can see why Timothy Zahn’s considered one of the better EU writers.

Post
#1541018
Topic
What changes would you make to the Sequels?
Time

There’s a lot of things I would change. Way too many to list and I don’t exactly have anything fleshed out here nor do I feel like being too long winded, but I think these ideas could have been interesting. At the very least they’d have been better than Rise of Skywalker.

One of the main ones would be to have Finn be more prominent as a character instead of… what they actually did with him in the last two. They set him up as a defected stormtrooper and potential Jedi in Force Awakens and then never did anything interesting with him again. Basically just give him something to do.

Another thing, have Rey be tempted a lot more by the dark side. We got brief glimpses of that in the movies, but there should have been more. Maybe have scenes in Last Jedi of her training with Finn and they serve as mirror images of each other. Finn used to fight with the bad guys and now he’s becoming a Jedi, meanwhile Rey is getting tempted over to the dark side. And then she eventually decides to turn to the dark side and at the same time Kylo sees the light, so him and Finn have to stop her. Then there might actually be some suspense. At the very least they took an actual risk with these characters. Then at the end one of them would kill Snoke and one of them would die and it’d be this big dramatic moment.

Which that’s another thing. Instead of bringing Palpatine back to life, I would keep Snoke alive in Last Jedi and have him be the main villain in Rise of Skywalker.

Another thing I’d change is I’d make the original trilogy characters a little less important to the main plot. Definitely have them be there, but have it be more of a passing of the torch type thing. They already didn’t do a whole lot with Han and Leia, so keep them more as cameos. If you’re gonna keep Luke as a main plot point, I think having him in an Obi Wan or Yoda role is fine.

Post
#1541011
Topic
Ranking the Star Wars TV series
Time

Caston said:

philraid said:

  1. Clone Wars (2003)- Well-animated, lots of good action scenes, and it does a good job bridging the gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

It is so pleasing to see this series still gets much love and respect.

I always feel like I’m one of the few people that prefers it over the other Clone Wars show (granted more people have seen the latter), but yeah it’s really good. It still has the best depiction of General Grievous.

Post
#1540357
Topic
What do you think of the <strong>Sequel Trilogy</strong>? - a general discussion thread
Time

I’ll keep this brief because I don’t like thinking about these movies and I don’t feel like going in depth on them. I already did that when I did podcasts.

Force Awakens- I think it’s okay. When I first saw it I really liked it, but it didn’t hold up on rewatches. I like the first half, but I lose interest in the second half. It becomes too derivative, but the initial set-ups for some these characters was interesting. I do have some nostalgia for it because it’s the first Star Wars movie I saw in the theater and it represents a time in my life when I was more optimistic.

The Last Jedi- Loved it the first time I saw it, but it didn’t hold up at all. Has parts that I like, but the bad parts are so bad that they ruin the experience for me. I like some of the stuff with Luke, but I despise the other two plot lines. It’s such a badly paced movie with an inconsistent tone. That being said, there are some fan edits that are able to make it somewhat enjoyable, which is more than I can say for the next one.

Rise of Skywalker- Fuck this movie. The plot makes no sense and it basically seems to go out of its way to make everything pointless. It traumatized me enough that I almost lost interest in Star Wars. It’s my least favorite Star Wars movie (well unless you count the Clone Wars movie or the Holiday Special).

Post
#1540353
Topic
Prequels or Sequels; Which do you prefer - and why?
Time

Let me put it this way, I don’t love the prequels, but when I do Star Wars marathons, I’ll still watch them now and again. I accept that they exist. With the sequel trilogy I’m at the point where I don’t even know if I ever want to watch them again. Especially the last two. I get depressed even thinking about them. I’ve only been able to get myself to watch fan edits the past few times I’ve rewatched them. Part of it is that they’re more cynical than the prequels, but also part of it is the inconsistency.
The prequels for all their faults felt like they had more of a vision behind it. There were some choices that didn’t work, but at the end of the day they felt like one vision. With the sequels you have two movies that don’t even logically go together because they had two directors playing tug of war to cancel each other out. They never committed to one thing and they paid the price for their lack of vision.
Again, there’s plenty of things you can criticize about the prequels, but they at least feel like a trilogy. The sequel trilogy feels like it was compromised.

Post
#1539145
Topic
Random Musings about the Empire Strikes Back Draft Script
Time

It’s been a few years since I read it before doing a podcast on Empire, but I was surprised at just how different it was to the finished movie. Namely that it was far more ridiculous than the final draft. I did find it funny that they actually showed the dinner scene on Cloud City and it’s revealed that Darth Vader doesn’t eat or drink. Such a strange detail to include.

Post
#1539087
Topic
Anyone else prefering the way buildings on Tatooine looked like, before the SE and the Prequels?
Time

Definitely. It was supposed to be a “wretched hive of scum and villainy”, which it definitely felt more like that in the original film. You turn around any corner you could get shot or captured by a criminal or the Empire. Adding in more buildings, CGI rats and dinosaurs makes it feel more like a zoo or a theme park.
I also just never understood why they kept going back to this planet in the movies, especially since it was never as interesting as it was the first time around for a lot of reasons listed above. Why did Anakin have to be from the same planet as Luke?