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Pip
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
333 Posts |
 Posted - 03/14/2006 : 10:20:21 AM
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Found this in a dark crevice within my hard drive. Apparently, I typed it last summer sometime. Lest it be a complete waste, I'll post it here...
Dear Jingle,
I gotta say I was a little jazzed by the opening credits. The movie starts with the end of the Clone Wars. The Clone Wars are covered in detail in cartoon format and I'm actually kicking around the idea of Netflixing them. They’re supposed to be really good, but I generally don't like cartoons with the exceptions of a couple of Disney holdovers from childhood which have aged well. Anyway, there’s supposed to be some truly lovely stuff in there about Anikin, Obi-Wan, and General Grevious who is reputed to be more tough guy in the cartoon than he was in the movie. Frankly, I liked the character, but like all the Sith in the prequels, he dies too fast for me to understand what is going on.
So anyway, the movie starts with Anakin and Obi-Wan rescuing the Emperor. Of course this is a bit of a set up since the Emperor is on both sides in this war, but whatever. The good guys fight off Christopher Lee who plays the role of Count Dorku The name is incredibly stupid, the part was demeaning, but I’m going to give Lee props. You know why? The guy is 82 years old and in World War 2 he fought Nazis and stuff. This guy has seen and done a lot.
Unfortunately that brings us to the topic of lightsaber duels. I greatly enjoyed these as they typically have displayed excellent choreography. This movie has, I would rate, the worst of the series. That's because half the fights involve older men or computer generated characters. The last one ... and we’ll talk more about that ... is awesome. But the rest are filmed in Gladiator speed-o-vision. Not much you could really do about that. Well, aside from letting Darth Maul survive the first movie and eliminate the character of Dorku, which is probably what should have been done.
So, they rescue the Emperor, and then ... like ... stuff .... happens. Obi-Wan fights General Grevious, that’s cool. But there’s a lot of ... stuff. I didn't get a lot out of it. Dustin liked the hot blue Jedi chick. Anikin gets seduced to the Dark Side, which is entirely understandable. He’s saved the Jedi Council’s butt more than once, he’s the frigging Chosen One, and what does Yoda say when Anikin reveals that he has premonitions about Pademe’s death? "Rejoice". Seriously. Anakin is supposed to be happy that his wife dies in childbirth. On the other hand we have the Emperor promising Anakin the ability to prevent death entirely. Look, if *I* thought I was going to die and I was unclear if my baby girl would live or not, and you told me that I could save them if I killed a lot of other people, guess what? A lot of other people are in for a very bad (albeit short) day. So Anakin falls. Duh.
Did I mention the completely lousy dialogue that permeates this film? Do I need to? Just call someone anytime Anikin and Padme share the screen together. Trust me. It'll make the movie better.
So now we get to the part where Anakin has to choose between the Emperor and Mace Windu (aka Maddy’s main man, Sam Jackson). Jedi Sam Jack essentially promises to hold Anikin in a slightly higher regard than before. The Emperor promises to keep Padme alive. A few seconds later Jedi Sam Jack comes down with a bad case of dead.
This is when the movie starts. This is when George Lucas makes up for Jar Jar.
Do not bring kids to this movie. Well, don’t bring kids to any movie I’m at because brats in theatres drive me up the wall. But don’t bring young ones to this one especially. This is PG-13 for a reason. We don't actually see Anikin killing children. He just opens up the lightsaber and later on we see child bodies tossed about the floor. This movie gets real dark, real fast. Basically, we get front row seats to genocide. Jedi are exterminated when the Emperor issues order "66". Why Lucas didn’t go the whole nine yards and make it order "666" is a mystery, but then this is the same guy who came up with the idea of Jake Lloyd. At least it wasn’t Plan 9 of the outer space variety.
Now I tangent about Padme and her pregnancy. It comes into discussion because at this point she looks to be at about seven months. Granted, they're twins, so maybe five. Padme bounces about quite sprightly for a woman with child, but Maddy got to wondering why nobody knew that she had twins and isn’t it funny that there isn't ultrasound in Star Wars. I offer the following rebuttal: you know why there isn't any ultrasound in Star Wars? Because it’s Star Wars! Now shut it! There. I’m glad we could handle that in a calm, intellectual manner.
So Padme and Obi-Wan go to confront Anakin about the whole child-murder hi-jinks. For some weird reason, Lucas has decided to call them "younglings." The movie lost me a bit during the confrontation. Anakin uses his telekinetic choke on Padme because he thinks she’s betrayed him. I didn't get that. This is necessary as we discover in the last five minutes, but it still lost me a bit. I can rationalize it because he just used a whole lot of Dark Side committing the second mass slaughter in the movie, but really it is central to the character that he loves his wife above all else.
The fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan is truly exciting. It takes place on a volcano planet where there is lava a-go-go. There’s this bit where Anakin is standing on this little hovering thingie, his lightsaber is on, and he looks PISSED. Fantastic. You can really see that that hatred has corrupted him and that he truly is Darth Vader and no longer Anakin Skywalker.
The last five minutes ties up the loose ends between the two trilogies. There’s a slightly random bit where Yoda reveals he's been rapping with Qui Gon Jinn, which was actually foreshadowed in Attack of the Clones, but like I said earlier, the last thirty minutes is a love note to the fanboys.
So what do I think? I could be a Jedi. Of course, I would have to forgo all worldly pleasures like vodka and sex, but I’m sure Joe would understand about the latter. I would take in the Cute Life girlies and make them my apprentices. They would grow to understand my teachings and we would correct the wrongdoings of the world. Yes. Together we would be a powerful enemy against those who oppose us. We four would stand together as one and we would come to RULE THE GALAX-
-oops .. sorry ... bit of a Dark Side slip there. Won’t happen again! I promise. Pinky swear!
Seriously, the problem with the franchise is that Lucas is excellent at storyboarding a
movie, but he sucks at writing. Sucks. A great line from the second (fifth?) movie was when Harrison Ford looks at the princess women played by Carrie Fisher as he's about to be dipped in the metal stuff and says “I know.” The only problem was that the line “I know” was ad-libbed. Harrison Ford came up with it on the spot. When Fisher said “I love you,” Han was supposed to say “I love you” back at her like some 7th grade boyfriend/girlfriend phone call replete with cutesy fake hang-ups and giggling. But that wasn’t Ford’s character and Lucas clearly doesn't understand that.
Lucas does know special effects. He can do that part right although it comes out as more video game fodder than movie material. Science Fiction seems to be best used as a method to literalize metaphors. But Lucas doesn’t seem to get that. He's all about the whiz-bang. Joe suggests Lucas has been seduced by computer imagery and become part of it. To quote Obi-Wan, "He's more machine
than man now. Twisted and evil." I agree with that statement.
But do I recommend this movie? Yes. Too much backwards talking from Yoda there is. Break me a freaking give. But this movie made me want to be a Jedi. The little bear people things didn’t do it for me. The other two movies in the prequels didn't do it for me. This movie did it. So, for what it’s worth, I kinda recommend it.
-Pip
Buy the book. You won't be (too) sorry. http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11457.phtml |
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