theprequelsrule

dclarkg said:

deepanddark20 said:

There is a part in ROTS, right after Padme lands her ship on Mustafar, when the movie stops for a few seconds to hang on a shot of her resting her head on her hand, gazing out the window lost in contemplation of what she's about to face, and starting to cry, while a somber rendition of Anakin and Padme's love theme plays in the soundtrack. For a fleeting moment, I'm transported to a different dimension where the rest of the prequel trilogy around that scene disappears and is replaced with what it should have been.

The problem is that the prequels fall so short of their potential that, paradoxically, the good things about them just serve to make them even harder to stomach.

I agree, there are good moments in the PT that get me wonder on why they didn't want to put a little bit more effort on the movies, those moment show they were able to do it.

 +1. That shot of Padme is the best moment in the prequels. And I did quite like the Across the Stars love theme.

I also kind of liked Count Dooku (the character, not necessarily the performance) - he seems to actually think he is one of the good guys. Palpy really screwed with his mind.

DuracellEnergizer said:

^She was barely alive to begin with.

Dem's fightn' words.

It appears that Aayla Secura has not been resurrected, so I have no interest in this film.

It has come to my attention that people are defending Alien 3 on this website. The movie sucked. It was a boring retread of the original without the terror, suspense or interesting artistic designs. Plus, no pulse rifles.

Re: JJ. He is a good director. The Star Trek reboots had poor scripts.  SW7 will sink or swim based on the script.

Dear Lord! 30,000 posts? Is Frink independently wealthy or something? If so, can he employ me? I am very good at making and pouring coffee, and pretty good at bringing it to people so they can drink it.

Around 2006 the wheels started to turn -  I spent a year trying to convince myself that Episode 3 was good and had partially salvaged the PT. But I finally just admitted it was crap. Then I started to get really sick of shoddy CGI in films; which turned me against the SEs for good.

Ultimately though the films just work better with what was originally filmed.

Nerd Alert! Read below at own risk!

The only regret I have is that numerous B-Wing sequences during the Battle of Endor had to be cut due to problems with green screen technology. I loves me the B-Wing.

Real Death Star? J.J. Abrams to direct? Jeez, I'm gone for a little while and everyone etc.

Tyrphanax said:

I wish I wasn't getting so excited about this considering all the past disappointments, but man I can't help it.

Same here.

I'm late to the party but here goes.

This film was a trainwreck, but only a minor one (injuries but no deaths). Some random thoughts:

• stupidest...scientists...ever
• related to the above point; I was always asking myself "why the hell would you do/say/think that?" for almost everything the characters did/said/thought
• you would think these folk would be a little more excited about discovering an alien species
• what was with the cheesy looking flamethrower and tazer weapons?
• did we have to have another android with ulterior motives?
• Shaw and Vickers should have been combined into one character
• no Charlize Theron in tight panties. Disappointing
• did Scott intentionally make a film that had just enough Alien references to piss off the fans?
• I liked the initial scenes with David before the others come out of hypersleep
• the last 15 minutes are absolutely terrible
• Noomi Rapace has an incredibly wide head
• Scott seemed to ignore the Alien lore that followed his original film; he had the concept that the creatures were deliberately engineered weapons, but the introduction of the Alien Queen seemed to imply that they were simply a very dangerous and malevolent species
• special effects still looked overly clean and tidy to me
• it reused some ideas from early Alien scripts the same way TPM used ideas from early Star Wars scripts; the ideas were not used in the original films because they were stupid
• I hated the ending narration; it felt absolutely out of place
• Scott or the studio obviously felt the story was too weak to stand on it's own (read: make money), hence the massive amounts of Alien stuff retained from earlier script drafts and the advertising campaign that left little doubt to any fan that it was a prequel

Are Vasquez and Drake finally convinced to hold their fire?

1990osu said:

At these talks, Arndt always tells attendees that Star Wars’ enduring appeal has to do with resolving its protagonists goals’ nearly simultaneously, at the climax of the movie. In the comments section of a discussion about a Star Wars talk Arndt gave at the Austin Film Festival in 2010, one attendee of the seminar notes, "Arndt stated that if a writer could resolve the story's arcs (internal, external, philosophical) immediately after the Moment of Despair at the climax, he or she would deliver the Insanely Great Ending and put the audience in a euphoric state. The faster it could happen, the better. By [Arndt’s] reckoning, George Lucas hit those three marks at the climax of Star Wars within a space of 22 seconds."

Indeed, in the third act of Star Wars, as Arndt explained to his young screenwriting Padawans at the 2009 Hawaii Writers Conference, its central characters' main goals all are met on pages 89 through 91 of the original Lucas script: At the crescendo of Star Wars, a spectral Obi Wan urges, “Use the Force, Luke,” and he does, thus reaching his inner goal (fighting self-doubt to become a hero). Han Solo reappears (meeting the philosophical goal of overcoming selfishness with altruism) to shoot down Darth Vader, which allows Luke to use the Force to mentally guide his shot and blow up the Death Star (outer goal and inner goals simultaneously met).

http://www.vulture.com/2012/11/star-wars-episode-vii-may-have-found-its-writer.html

Wow, this seems to me to be a tremendous and original insight into the success of Star Wars. Thanks for posting this.

I think Whedon and others of his ilk would be too hard pressed to not make a film that winks at the audience. Great Star Wars material has to be made completely unconscious of it's origins and influences. The proper director must take Star Wars as seriously as George Lucas took it's influences (Flash Gordon etc.)

...along the lines of  Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - attempting a gritty photorealistic non-stylized look. This has never been done successfully. Why not have the ST be groundbreaking the same way the OT was? I would vastly prefer this to the mix of live actors and CGI that we are likely to get.

Thoughts?

starwars said:

They'll probably just recast everyone. I can see it now, a new movie every few years far surpassing episodes 7, 8, 9. Star Wars will become like the James Bond franchise, a new actor playing Luke every few films.

I would be okay with this. Kind of a return to the old "Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker" idea. The thing about the prequels was that it was like the final at bat for a retiring ball player- you had to get it right because this was it. With a James Bond style format you can just shrug off a bad film the way Bond fans do because a better one will come along (although since I started reading the original novels the only version of Bond I now can stand is that played by Dalton).

I just don't get the whole idea. Why did God bother with creation in the first place? And why fuss over us? I mean, so what if we don't worship you - just create another universe of people and this time don't fuck up and give them the option of not worshiping you.

Actually maybe that happened. Nietzsche was wrong; God isn't dead, he has just moved on.

I hate when you open an oreo cookie and the white filling does not stick to  just one of the wafers (leaving the other one naked), but instead breaks off and is kind of on both wafers but not really.

CP3S said:

theprequelsrule said:

The trailer was quite poor really - it gave away every scene in the movie in apparently chronological order...

Ah, to know that you'd have had to already have seen the movie. Awesome! How was it? Not that good, then? :(

Lol. Yeah well, I suppose there is some speculation. Damn the interwebs!

Bingowings said:

But it also means that almost anything could be in a chair like that if it can fit into the suit.

The alien could have been a blob that wears bipedal slightly humanoid bodies like some fat people wear cars.

Like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbapapa ?

And those who speak blasphemy against Zardoz shall feel his wrath! ;)

+1

timdiggerm said:

Prometheus Plot, based on trailers

I doubt this is totally accurate, and I'm still not 100% convinced this is even the same planet as Alien

but it's pretty good anyway.

I surmised a lot of this from the trailer as well. As you said, it is probably not 100% accuate, but I think it gets a lot right. I agree with you in that it is probably a different planet and the alien ship is not the same vessel as in Alien - which had been on LV-426 an incredibly long time (the space jockey was fossilized). Unless some horrible time travel element is in the plot...

The trailer was quite poor really - it gave away every scene in the movie in apparently chronological order, so it allowed people to put together what appears to be the entire plot quite easily. It was incredibly obvious that at one point Prometheus crashes into the alien ship -  the black guy who plays the Captain sacrificing himself (of course).

Well, it looks like I've saved myself some money and disappointment this June!

I could get behind this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_to_Stay

The more I think about it the more I think the whole notion of setting a film in the Alienverse but not feature the aliens is quite lame. I'm sure the makers of this film think it is oh so neat and clever.

These days I think most films spend all their best ideas and budget on viral marketing and sexy trailers.

Wow! I've turned incredibly hostile towards this film in under 24 hours!

TServo2049 said:

CatBus said:

ALSO: Where is the Buckaroo Banzai love in this thread?

*slaps forehead* I can't believe I forgot to mention that film! One of my personal favorites...

"No matter where you go, there you are".

SPOILERS! (MAYBE)

I am also bothered by the sleeker look of the tech, but it is not a deal breaker for me (I think).

I am also bothered by the fact that the space jockey creatures look like humans and that what we thought were their faces are actually masks/helmets!

darth_ender said:

You should have joined me
Padme Amidala, fool
I miss you, hot stuff

-DV 

I think I have found my signature.