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lederhosenWent and saw it last night with friends and family. Rey, Ratboy, Tony and I had all read Dork Tower's strips on that subject in advance, which gave us a fairly good idea of what to expect.
I enjoyed it about as much as the previous two, which is to say, it was eye candy and I had fun nitpicking. I was never a huge Star Wars in the first place, so I didn't come out of any of 'em with the "George Lucas defiled my childhood dreams" reaction that so many people seem to have; OTOH, I didn't really come out of this one with the "George Lucas has made up for Ep I & II" reaction either. Spoilers below...
Things That Made No Sense (partial list):
* 90% of the dialogue. I've heard more convincing lines in an Ed Wood flick.
* The names. So many of the names sound like placeholders - "we'll just call this guy 'Grievous' until we think of a space-y sounding name that means the same thing, OK? Better remember to do that before we finally shoot it." I kept expecting Palpatine to start talking about people with names like 'Darth Not Appearing In This Film'. And is Lucas *seriously* not aware that 'dooku' is slang for 'poop'?
* Jedi ethics: after spending the first two episodes telling us that Feelings Are Bad, M'Kay, every time the Jedi need some sort of guidance that can't be provided by logical means, the mantra is now "What do your feelings tell you?"
* Jedi ethics: It's bad for Anakin to summarily execute Count Dooku. But it's perfectly OK for Mace Windu to (try to) summarily execute Palpatine. (Or maybe it isn't. Mace Windu would hardly be the first person to survive losing a couple of limbs and falling a long way, and we never saw a body... maybe he'll show up in Ep 7 as 'Darth Badass'?)
* Jedi ethics: Maybe it's just me, but if I'd loved somebody like a brother (not that Jedi feel emotions, of course), and I'd just been driven to the point of chopping three of his limbs off, I would not leave him lying on a crumbling slope at the edge of a river of lava. Try to save him, maybe, if I was feeling really generous. Put him out of his misery, if I didn't feel I could trust his surrender, maybe. But walk away, leaving him to either die a slow and agonising death, or come back in a REALLY bad mood... sadistic and dumb. We've already established that even extreme provocation doesn't excuse a Jedi doing that sort of thing.
* Droids. Is it too much to ask that creatures supposed to be robots should, just occasionally, act like robots instead of comedians made out of metal?
* Wookie battle tactics. You've set up a defensive position, you've entrenched (although Wookies are apparently incapable of building bunkers etc). And then the moment the bad guys appear, you jump out of your trenches to charge them head-on, yelling what is undoubtedly the Wookie version of "Freeeeeedooooooom!", presenting a lovely big exposed target.
* Lanyards, on light sabers, lack of. Still. Come on, people, this isn't rocket science.
* When I am the Dark Lord of the Sith, plotting to subvert the Galactic Senate, I will have a minion or two keeping tabs on the senators. If budget constraints preclude watching *all* of them, I will at the very least pay some attention to the one carrying my apprentice's child. Like, maybe enough attention to notice when a Jedi who hasn't even bothered to disguise himself despite having just become State Enemy #1 shows up to talk to her?
* Children. Seriously, neither the Force nor medical tech of the day figured out that Amidala was carrying twins until it was delivery time?
* "We need to hide the kids. Okay, one can be adopted by an important senator, because Palpatine would never pay attention to somebody like that, and the other one... let's give him to Anakin's closest surviving relatives. And not change his name or anything." Smacks of General Haig's "That's the last thing they would expect!" battle plan from Blackadder IV.
* Amidala's pyjamas. The ones with great big pearl-type things across the arms. That's going to leave serious dents in you when you wake up...
Things That Made Entirely Too Much Sense:
* Ewoks. No, they weren't in the film, but think about it. What else in the Star Wars universe is as short as an Ewok? What else is as hairy as an Ewok? Do we ever see Ewoks in the SW universe before Yoda visits WookieWorld? No, we do not.
Edit, so it's all in the one place:
* What do you get if you swap the syllables of "Ewok" around?
* What well-known Star Wars character is famous for jumbling the order of his words?
I enjoyed it about as much as the previous two, which is to say, it was eye candy and I had fun nitpicking. I was never a huge Star Wars in the first place, so I didn't come out of any of 'em with the "George Lucas defiled my childhood dreams" reaction that so many people seem to have; OTOH, I didn't really come out of this one with the "George Lucas has made up for Ep I & II" reaction either. Spoilers below...
Things That Made No Sense (partial list):
* 90% of the dialogue. I've heard more convincing lines in an Ed Wood flick.
* The names. So many of the names sound like placeholders - "we'll just call this guy 'Grievous' until we think of a space-y sounding name that means the same thing, OK? Better remember to do that before we finally shoot it." I kept expecting Palpatine to start talking about people with names like 'Darth Not Appearing In This Film'. And is Lucas *seriously* not aware that 'dooku' is slang for 'poop'?
* Jedi ethics: after spending the first two episodes telling us that Feelings Are Bad, M'Kay, every time the Jedi need some sort of guidance that can't be provided by logical means, the mantra is now "What do your feelings tell you?"
* Jedi ethics: It's bad for Anakin to summarily execute Count Dooku. But it's perfectly OK for Mace Windu to (try to) summarily execute Palpatine. (Or maybe it isn't. Mace Windu would hardly be the first person to survive losing a couple of limbs and falling a long way, and we never saw a body... maybe he'll show up in Ep 7 as 'Darth Badass'?)
* Jedi ethics: Maybe it's just me, but if I'd loved somebody like a brother (not that Jedi feel emotions, of course), and I'd just been driven to the point of chopping three of his limbs off, I would not leave him lying on a crumbling slope at the edge of a river of lava. Try to save him, maybe, if I was feeling really generous. Put him out of his misery, if I didn't feel I could trust his surrender, maybe. But walk away, leaving him to either die a slow and agonising death, or come back in a REALLY bad mood... sadistic and dumb. We've already established that even extreme provocation doesn't excuse a Jedi doing that sort of thing.
* Droids. Is it too much to ask that creatures supposed to be robots should, just occasionally, act like robots instead of comedians made out of metal?
* Wookie battle tactics. You've set up a defensive position, you've entrenched (although Wookies are apparently incapable of building bunkers etc). And then the moment the bad guys appear, you jump out of your trenches to charge them head-on, yelling what is undoubtedly the Wookie version of "Freeeeeedooooooom!", presenting a lovely big exposed target.
* Lanyards, on light sabers, lack of. Still. Come on, people, this isn't rocket science.
* When I am the Dark Lord of the Sith, plotting to subvert the Galactic Senate, I will have a minion or two keeping tabs on the senators. If budget constraints preclude watching *all* of them, I will at the very least pay some attention to the one carrying my apprentice's child. Like, maybe enough attention to notice when a Jedi who hasn't even bothered to disguise himself despite having just become State Enemy #1 shows up to talk to her?
* Children. Seriously, neither the Force nor medical tech of the day figured out that Amidala was carrying twins until it was delivery time?
* "We need to hide the kids. Okay, one can be adopted by an important senator, because Palpatine would never pay attention to somebody like that, and the other one... let's give him to Anakin's closest surviving relatives. And not change his name or anything." Smacks of General Haig's "That's the last thing they would expect!" battle plan from Blackadder IV.
* Amidala's pyjamas. The ones with great big pearl-type things across the arms. That's going to leave serious dents in you when you wake up...
Things That Made Entirely Too Much Sense:
* Ewoks. No, they weren't in the film, but think about it. What else in the Star Wars universe is as short as an Ewok? What else is as hairy as an Ewok? Do we ever see Ewoks in the SW universe before Yoda visits WookieWorld? No, we do not.
Edit, so it's all in the one place:
* What do you get if you swap the syllables of "Ewok" around?
* What well-known Star Wars character is famous for jumbling the order of his words?
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-29 04:52 am (UTC)This hurts my brain.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-29 01:37 pm (UTC)[...]
You'd think the Dark Side would be particularly capable of sensing the presence of potential minions.
* Ewoks. No, they weren't in the film, but think about it. What else in the Star Wars universe is as short as an Ewok? What else is as hairy as an Ewok? Do we ever see Ewoks in the SW universe before Yoda visits WookieWorld? No, we do not.
Evil, evil man.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-29 01:40 pm (UTC)Minnnnnionssss. I love saying that word.
Evil, evil man.
*blush*
no subject
Date: 2005-05-29 03:14 pm (UTC)Ow. You just had to go there, didn't you?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-31 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-01 04:24 am (UTC)I really did NOT need to be sitting here in an empty office laughing and coughing.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-29 10:41 pm (UTC)And is Lucas *seriously* not aware that 'dooku' is slang for 'poop'?
Well until I read that, I wasn't either.
And what exactly was General Grievous, anyway? He obviously wasn't a droid. In fact, 'dalek' is the first thing that came to mind after I got a good look at him.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed William Wookie Wallace there. Or silently shouting "Finish him off, you moron!" to Obi-wan after he chopped off bits of Anakin.
Another thing - why, when a big hole is smashed in the droid spaceship in outer space and everything is being sucked out, do the characters not suffocate? Come to that, why do they even bother having breathable air in most of the ship? The general obviously doesn't need it, despite secretly being a dalek.
And there's something just not right about seeing Darth Vader going "Noooooooo!"
no subject
Date: 2005-05-29 11:41 pm (UTC)According to people who've read the books and/or seen the 'Clone Wars' cartoon, Grievous is some sort of cyborg. This is the only reason why his persistent cough isn't in the above list, though why they couldn't give him a decent artificial lung if they were going to replace so much else escapes me.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed William Wookie Wallace there.
Speaking of 'borrowing' from other films, one of the Palpatine/Yoda moments is pretty much cloned from the "It's a trick. Get an axe." scene in Army of Darkness, only without the punchline...
no subject
Date: 2005-05-30 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-30 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-30 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-30 06:29 am (UTC)