Can anyone point me to some fan or faneditor commentaries? I loved The Phantom Editor's commentaries to Ep. I and II, and I'd love to hear more alternative perspectives on all the SW movies - good, bad, or otherwise.
I wish my old crew and I could have recorded one back in the day. It would have been hysterical, at least to me.
We have all laid out our misgivings about the Fredo Corleone of the OT, one Return of the Jedi. Here's another:
Can we discuss the scene where EV-9D9 is torturing a droid? What the hell is this scene doing in this movie? It's ridiculous, first of all; second of all, what is with all the changes in tone during the Tattooine portion of the film? 3PO and R2 playing comedy, then slave girls in chains, then a burping frog, then one creature eating another, then Han and Luke swapping vaudeville, then torturing droids....WTF??
It's not that the droid torture scene is disturbing as much as it is bizarre. This movie can't decide if it's trying to appeal to adults or kids, failing rather badly at both until reaching a genuinely good climax in the Throne Room.
Tortured droids. Discuss.
Again, this is off the top of my head, so I may be forgetting something good. As before, no particular order of preference beyond the first pick:
A Few Good Men - incredible movie. loaded with great performances.
Reservoir Dogs - Tarantino's true masterpiece. Pulp Fiction was also great but tried too hard.
The Daytrippers - one of the best slice of life films I've ever seen
Deconstructing Harry - another of Woody Allen's short list greats
Husbands and Wives - ditto
Fargo
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut - honestly, I am amazed at how good this movie is. It's sort of like when you were a kid and you bought C-3PO's cereal just because of the Star Wars tie-in, but it turned out the cereal was really, really good.
Sneakers - great cast, great story
Swingers - I admit it - the "Rat Pack" jargon doesn't hold up so well over the years, but it's still a fantastic movie. Vince Vaughn was never better.
The Spanish Prisoner - a wonderful homage to suspense films of the 1950's - in color!
No order of preference for me, beyond the first pick:
Crimes and Misdemeanors (probably my favorite Woody Allen film)
Top Secret! (the best Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker movie ever. seriously)
Hannah and Her Sisters (one of Woody's short-list best movies)
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (how have you all missed this one so far? I love it!)
Star Trek II (my brother and I have quoted it forever)
Noises Off! (hysterical)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (also hysterical)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (naturally)
Die Hard (am I wrong, or was this movie the template for the modern-day action flick?)
Manhunter (I really wish Red Dragon was never made)
1) This was off the top of my head, so I'm probably forgetting something pretty obvious.
2) No, I'm not forgetting Empire - I like it, but I've never loved it the way everyone else has.
1) Every so often, I think of the scene in ROTS just after Anakin turns to the darkside. When Anakin professes his loyalty to Palpatine, he replies, "Goooooooood!" - this performance is laughably bad. It reminds me of the sounds a ghost might make on Scooby-Doo: "Goooood! Gooooooood!"
2) I found this old thread recently: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/So-Who-Killed-Palpatine-Anyway/topic/6233/
- and I think the question bears repeating. In fact, Gaffer Tape, if you (or anyone else, for that matter) would care to explore the question in a YouTube segment, I would appreciate it. Maybe a broader audience might give me an answer I could live with.
I have to admit, CGI Yoda in II and III looked much better, much closer to the OT Yoda than the Yoda of TPM. I don't know how they could get that TPM puppet so bloody wrong.
And Janskeet, vbangle seems to be venturing forth a prediction. No sources are necessary for such things.
CO, you're not the only one who feels that way about Gump. I never got what people loved about that movie.
One thing I like about Craftsman is that replacement parts are not hard to get. My dad recently recruited me into getting both belts for his Toro - it was like looking for the Holy freaking Grail.
If he had a Craftsman, he would have had those belts five minutes after he realized he needed them. For the Toro, he had to wait about ten days for shipping.
In fairness, though, it was a decent surprise to get the OUT even in that form. Not to say that it means that we'll get a Blu-Ray transfer or anything, but at least we no longer have to deal with the deteriorating mess that is a VHS tape.
I'm a glass half-full kind of guy. Sometimes.
Future generations will only laugh at GL - for all his attempts to modernize his old movies, the OT will, as it inevitably must, become a snapshot of its proper time and place. I really doubt Lucas will see to it that, after he becomes a Hayden Christensen Force-ghost, someone updates the OT time and time again to try and keep up with whatever the latest film technology demands. Furthermore, the gap between '77 visuals and '97 visuals or '04 visuals will be so freaking obvious to the audiences of the future that the SEOT will look comically bad, like a woman in her sixties wearing tight clothing and excessive makeup. I only hope that future film buffs remember that the embarrassment of the SEOT was the failing of George Lucas, not the films themselves.
And the only good part of ROTS is the Order 66 sequence.
I respectfully disagree. I didn't know any of those characters slain in that montage. We have this abstract idea of what Jedi are supposed to be and what they are supposed to do, but we never go to know any of these characters. Of course the ascent of evil is a tragedy, but it's not a personal one in the case of ROTS.
The more I think about it, I think ROTS is the worst of the PT films.
You know, it's almost as if this isn't legit.
To some extent, some of the PT stuff was foreshadowed in Lucas' early notes, as zombie pointed out in Secret History. Bottom line is that the young George Lucas had a much greater instinct about what to keep and what to throw out than old GL does. Not to mention the invaluable input of talented people with enough brass to tell him, "No, George."
Gaffer, first of all, thanks for your kind words. My last post was not aimed at you specifically - it just happened to follow yours.
I didn't mean to come off as drama-queeny as I did, but I assumed that any positive feedback I got would have involved Han, since he was so lame in the real ROTJ.
BTW Skyjedi, did you think I wrote that Luke killed Vader? Reading your posts again, I could swear that you thought I had Luke killing him, which I didn't. It is true that Luke was about to put Vader away for good, but Leia talks him out of it. (Granted, Luke and Leia leave Vader there to die in the DSII explosion, but as we saw in ROTS, that's OK. :D)
You know Gaffer, I suppose I did have Leia captive and helpless twice in my ROTJ. I guess Freud was right, there are no accidents...
STII is the best of them all.
Baaa-aaaa-aaaa!
No comment on my treatment of Han Solo? I thought my idea strengthened Han more than any other character.
It doesn't have to be a problem with Skywalker blood. People are imperfect, even Jedi - especially hastily-trained Jedi who have been trained at a much advanced age than milennia of practice has shown to be best. Luke already had those things working against him.
Luke has a soft spot in his personality toward his friends. It nearly led him to ruin in ESB - why wouldn't it work on him again? It's his fatal flaw - all heroes have them. Vader knows that Luke will act rashly when his friends are threatened. But the fact that Leia could pull him back from the brink of the dark side would show that his fatal flaw is also what makes him strong. He was nothing before he met Han, Leia, Chewie, and the Droids - now he saves the galaxy with them in his corner.
I appreciate your feedback, skyjedi.
First of all, undo the "I...am your father" revelation. In my ROTJ, Vader and Anakin are two different people; Vader, having slain his former comrade, has developed a delusion over the decades that they were the same people the whole time. When Luke and Obi-Wan talk about the confrontation, we are informed that it is in fact Vader who lied, not Obi-Wan.
Leia and Luke are not related, but neither are they attracted to each other beyond that of a strong friendship. In a sense, their relationship is indeed sibling-like, but without the embarrasingly tacked-on blood relation.
Why? Consider Luke-Vader II. When Vader says, "... if you will not turn to the dark side, then perhaps she will.", Luke reacts with anger. I'm not so convinced in that moment; Vader has been playing against Luke's feelings for Leia as his sister. Luke has strong feelings for Leia, but they've only been brother and sister for like 20 minutes. This person who I have not known as a sister should not produce such an emotional trigger in that way. In my ROTJ, let's up the ante a little:
After the sabotage team lands on Endor, a skirmish with the Imperials ends with Leia held captive. She is taken to the Death Star, a prisoner of Darth Vader yet again. Han and Luke have an emotional debate over how to approach the situation; Han wants to break from the team and rescue her personally - after all, they are in love and she freed him from the carbonite. He feels personally indebted to her, similar in a way to Chewie's life debt. (Although this is strictly an EU conception, I like the Chewie life-debt thing) Luke argues that Leia would always think first of the mission, and that only a Jedi knight could infiltrate Vader's DSII stronghold, just as Kenobi ventured out into the original DS. Han reluctantly accepts, though he knows Luke is right. In this way, we see Han's arc work more thoroughly - when he is convinced to stay behind and fight, he fights not as a fun-loving space cowboy - he fights with the burden of a man committed to fighting for others. (Besides, this turn of events would have given Harrison Ford something to do)
Luke Kenobi's his way into Vader's stronghold. There is no Emperor, there is only Vader and an unconscious Leia secured to the wall. Vader kidnapped Leia knowing that the act would lure his "son" to him. Vader indeed plans to use Luke's considerable powers to tighten his grip on the galaxy, but if he cannot persuade Luke to join the dark side he will eliminate Luke as the only person in the galaxy capable of opposing him.
The duel is evenly fought early on, but Vader goads Luke towards the dark side the entire time. He reminds Luke that the dark side flowed through him in killing millions on the Death Star. As he slew every one of Jabba's henchman. As he struck down the faux Vader at the tree. Luke responds to this as a Jedi would, shifting himself into a purely defensive mode. Eventually, Luke powers down his lightsaber - he understands what Kenobi had done against Vader in their last duel and tries to do the same - and hops onto a catwalk, just as in the real ROTJ. In the same way as the actual movie, Vader hurls his saber at Luke. Luke's light side mastery is not yet so complete as Obi-Wan's, so he saves himself with a last second dodge. The flying saber destroys the catwalk.
Luke's reasons for rushing to face Vader centered around his friends - and as Vader searches for Luke in the shadows, he invokes Luke's closest friend in order to draw him out. If Luke will not fight, then Leia will suffer unimaginably. Vader begins to describe Leia's coming ordeal when Luke leaps from the shadows and overwhelms Vader, reducing him to a smoking, immobile, helpless heap. Luke is on the edge of fully indulging in the dark side when a barely awake Leia manages to appeal to Luke's better angels. And the circle is closed. Luke, Han, and Leia have already saved each other many times throughout the trilogy, but this intervention of Leia's is by far the most meaningful. Luke would certainly have filled the power vacuum left behind by the slain Vader.
As Vader lies in ruins, Luke and Leia escape in Vader's personal shuttle moments before Lando's attack claims the DSII. In the final scene, Han and Leia reuinte with the fervor of true lovers aware that they might not have seen each other again. Hugs all around for everyone else. Luke sees three Force ghosts: Obi-Wan. Yoda. Someone else. Luke looks astonished and slowly mouths the word, "Father?" (remember, there is no dialogue) Anakin Skywalker mouths in return, "Thank you, son." (The implication here is that Darth Vader was working to keep the spirit of Anakin Skywalker from communicating with Luke and other Jedi)
Oh, and what happened to the Emperor? That's for the next three movies.
We have seen Darth Vader in:
Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
The Indian in the Cupboard
Revenge of the Sith (edit, I forgot!)
and now
Am I missing any other Darth Vader appearances?
Before I go, I will say one more thing. Looking at that list of names that George first brainstormed, does anyone else find it creepily prescient that "Hayden" is one of the names he came up with?
Maybe GL learned how to manipulate midichlorians in order to create...a really bad actor.
As far as George Lucas saying that Empire is his least favorite. Since when does any one believe what Lucas says anymore? People are always complaining about Lucas contradicting himself. You cant have it both ways. either what he says is admissable or its not.
Interesting point, but
1) You can't just say "people" are saying this about Lucas in attempt to rebut a specific poster, unless that poster has made the same argument that "people" have, and
2) I've never seen another quote by Lucas saying he loved Empire, therefore, in this instance, it seems Lucas has been consistent on that issue.
Guess I can live with their existence, but man do I get annoyed at contantly being asked if I "Caught such and such a reality show last night" or "How about them -insert random sports team here-! Pretty great game wasn't it? What did you think when so and so made that such and such and won them the game?" Usually I have to say something along the lines of, "Yeah, that was really something." to appease them, everytime I say, "I dunno, I didn't watch it." they look at me like I just told them I enjoy humping dogs.
See, I love sports, especially basketball, but I sympathize with the idea that a lot of sports fans are not only morons, but that they enjoy being morons. I love watching sports because it's a treat watching the best players in the world doing things I can understand. If they televised world-class physicists doing their thing, I'd respect it but I couldn't follow it in the least.
There are plenty of intelligent sports fans out there. Read Bill James for the perspective of a truly intelligent fan.
I've got a show I want to develop, C3PX. It's basically a bunch of slackers, working at something like a video game/toy/collectible shop, who exhaust every available resource in trying to not work. Customers are messed with time and time again, the district manager is treated to a dog and pony show with every visit, books are cooked to show that the store is profitable, and so on. All the while, employees just come in to fuck around, play with the toys at the store, and have their little episodic adventures. I happen to find lazy people funny, and lazy people making an effort to remain lazy is even funnier.
I don't know how to pitch a show or develop one, but if you or anyone else wants to help develop this idea, let me know.
And, yes, it goes over the top at times. The River Phoenix sequence is a bit contrived with Indy receiving all his trademarks in one adventure.
Actually, that idea is more plausible than it would seem to be for this reason: if I'm a young Indiana Jones, and this amazing experience just happened to me, why wouldn't it make a lifelong impression? Can we not all relate? (Here's a hint - we all like Star Wars a lot)
Ah, my brief but memorable forays into RPG. Did it for the better part of two years. Some things stand out:
- One guy had a character name that was spelled something like: FLWUISNFODKANMTRGHSHNWTQAOPDJTGFECVK (or even longer) and he pronounced that name, "L".
- One guy had a character who used primarily psi-based attacks. The character's name? "Psionicus". It's like naming a white cat "Whitey".
- One GM or DM or whatever ran C'thulu games all the time. The thrust of those games was that you and your party are college students at Miskatonic University and you'd always encounter badass super natural demons. Well, after one or two games it was quickly obvious that your character had to have a high gun skill. This was boring to me that every single fucking game came down to gunplay, so when we started a new campaign, I created a character who was a Croatian grandmaster of chess, complete with annoying accent and no gun skills to speak of. I was in serious danger in every game and my accent (this is role-playing, after all) got on the nerves of one of my friends. This character was by far my favorite to play. After all, think of real life - how many random groups of people are populated entirely by expert marksman?
- The same guy who got annoyed by my accent decided to run his own game. Not to be a DM of some established game, mind you - I mean, his. Own. Game. He had been playing for all of a month or two and he thought he could run a game, just like that. He spun this little sci-fi tale in which the first major battle featured us in our ship against...the "Space Tank".
I wish I was making that up.
He showed us a picture of this drawing he made of the Space Tank; I wish I could show this thing to you guys. It was hysterically bad. Like Homer Simpson's winning entry in the "Design The New Power Plant Contest" - just awful, and hilariously so. And what's more, this Space Tank was basically invincible, yet we were supposed to destroy it in our first fucking fight. After thirty minutes had passed and we hadn't made a dent in it, he sheepishly said, "Ah, fuck it, y'all blew it up. Anyway, on to the next planet..."
He hadn't sufficiently allowed for the twists and turns players can spring on a DM. Early in that game, my character's ship was ordered to a stop by the authorities for boarding. They suspected that we had contraband on board, which we did. My character, who relied on talking his way out of situations, invited them to come on board and inspect. This completely knocked the DM for a loop. After the game he explained, "You were supposed to try and run to start a fight." But the last thing my character wanted to do was look suspicious, and what is less suspicious than welcoming and inviting the authorities in?
- Same game. The DM got a little better at running a game, and he separated me and my friend in adjacent holding cells. I was alone in mine, but my friend had a cellmate. This cellmate was one of those classic prison assholes, calling my friend bitch and ordering him around. This was supposed to lead to a story change, but my friend seemed legitimately frightened by the events. He just would not take the bait, no matter what the asshole cellmate said to him. I urged him to fight the guy but he just wouldn't. It was weird. He was really into it, and therefore paralyzed into not taking any action.
Sorry for the long reminisce.