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Jun. 8th, 2005 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
polychromatic22Yah. So, here's some Star Wars thoughts I've been having lately, in no particular order or attempt to necessarily connect them.
1: Yesterday I rewatched the original 3. They weren't that good. Seriously. I mean, I liked them okay, and if I just let them be nice and entertaining, they are that, but mostly, they aren't that good.
2: Star Wars (all of the movies) are best enjoyed by people between the ages of 7-16 (and that 16 is a little old, but, yano, whatever).
3: George Lucas sucks at dialogue.
4: The third movie of each series is the best one, what the hell is that about? I think it might be that he sets up so damn much, and never really gets anywhere, so by the third one, you have an actual movie. Maybe?
5: Star Wars fans are what makes Star Wars good. They took what was basically a dorky little film and made a whole universe from it. They fleshed it out and made it interesting. The more I know about the star wars universe (that really, the fans created and not george lucas) the more interesting it is to me. Luke becomes a really interesting chracter with huge amounts of depth when you realise that he's like the strongest Jedi yet seen at that point. I mean, from the first set of films you just get the idea that all Jedi's are like that. That Luke's jedi was what all Jedi were. This is only strengthend by Obi-Wan and Yoda being, aparantly just as strong as Luke. You only get later, from the fiction that was written, that Luke is freaky, that he's super extra strong, that Obi-Wan and Yoda are also, themselves super strong, but not even as strong as Luke.
6: Need I point out that women basically suck, according to Lucas. They can be fighters, sort of. Leia fights and is tough and stuff, but you don't get the feeling that she's even stronger than Luke. You only see her shoot a few things and do some battle stratagies. Nevermind Padme, who fights okay, but then becomes a simpering wet rag tied around Anakin's throat. Unable to defend herself or do much of anything. In the book of the same name as the movie, she's doing things, starting a rebellion, being somewhat important.
7: Lucas does seem to have a thing for asthmatics. They can rise to high levels, but they're still evil. Evil I say. Bad schoolyard memories, anyone?
8: I really, really, really like the Star Wars universe. With the insight that the expanded universe gives the movies, the movies become interesting, and good even.
9: Anakin's really really, really really, really really really Hot. Especially as he goes evil. Hayden is nice and stuff about it, but the reason that Anakin sucked in episode 2 was that Lucas wrote bad dialogue and chose actors that had no chemistry with eachother. None. Zero, zip. Nada. From what I'm told of his other acting, he's good, and Natalie Portman is good, but playing opposite eachother, with dialogue that sucks, they end up looking like a bad junior high dramatic playing in front of your eyes. Pretty, sure, but do you care? No. As it was, it was hard to look past the bad dialogue in episode 3. I could do it, though, because I was busy staring into Anakins dreamy evil eyes. :)
10: George Lucas doesn't understand the nuances of the actual world. His character are two dimensional at best. What he originally said of his creation, when it came out, was that it was his stab at recreating the serials of his youth. Action, drama and fun. They are that, they are B movie goodness at it's best. That he is so foolish as to attempt to revision them into joseph campbellian Hero With A Thousand Faces after the fact is just silly. Look, every story is going to have those nuances in them, that's the whole point of campbell's work, that these are the stories we retell, over and over again, that they are hardwired into us, and no matter how we try, we retell them with every new story we make. Of course it has those elements in it, how could it manage to not?
11: Der Palpatine made Anakin. Just, DER. That's no virgin birth, man, that's a sith lord using the force to create life. But does the movie come out and say that? It only barely hints at it. You mostly get the feeling that Palpatine is lying about the sith lord legend just to sucker Anakin in. In the book he admits that the sith lord in question was his master, and that he does have that power, which pretty much all but says that he in fact, "influenced the midichlorians to create" Anakin's life.
12: The whole after the fact revisionism of Luke's question to Leia about her remembering her mother and how she says she was beautiful, but sad, blah blah blah, and yet, Padme dies so what's up with that? And how we were all, but of course, she was adopted, she thought of Organa as her mother. Nu-uh. I just watched the damn thing again. In Return of the Jedi, Luke says "what do you remember of your mother? Your real mother?" Now we can revision that and say she still thought he was talking about Organa, and she didn't know she was adopted, but to be honest, she seems to know. She takes it as instant, "duh, of course you're my brother, I always knew, somehow I always knew." (and by the way, when you kissed him hardcore to make Solo jealous, you knew then, too? Ew, just, ew.) So, the way Lucas originally conceived of it, Padme had Leia for at least a short time. I don't mind stories changing and stuff, but damn, try to be consistent. This is why when writers write, especially whole series, they make concordances, so they don't trip themselves up, and end up throwing you out of the story going, "huh?"
13: Finally, I do like the stories, and I even want to own the whole damn movie series, eventually. But as it stands right now, I want the books, more. Read Revenge of the Sith, am reading Labryinth of Evil, will read Clone Wars (and rent that, hear it's good little cartoon) and the original 3, but want suggestions as to where to read next. I am actually interested beyond Anakin and his sultry dreamy evil hotness. Seriously. Wanna know about Luke and Leia and them training Jedi's and all of that future stuff, too. What do I need to get my hands on? Should I actually ask my brother? (gasp)?
1: Yesterday I rewatched the original 3. They weren't that good. Seriously. I mean, I liked them okay, and if I just let them be nice and entertaining, they are that, but mostly, they aren't that good.
2: Star Wars (all of the movies) are best enjoyed by people between the ages of 7-16 (and that 16 is a little old, but, yano, whatever).
3: George Lucas sucks at dialogue.
4: The third movie of each series is the best one, what the hell is that about? I think it might be that he sets up so damn much, and never really gets anywhere, so by the third one, you have an actual movie. Maybe?
5: Star Wars fans are what makes Star Wars good. They took what was basically a dorky little film and made a whole universe from it. They fleshed it out and made it interesting. The more I know about the star wars universe (that really, the fans created and not george lucas) the more interesting it is to me. Luke becomes a really interesting chracter with huge amounts of depth when you realise that he's like the strongest Jedi yet seen at that point. I mean, from the first set of films you just get the idea that all Jedi's are like that. That Luke's jedi was what all Jedi were. This is only strengthend by Obi-Wan and Yoda being, aparantly just as strong as Luke. You only get later, from the fiction that was written, that Luke is freaky, that he's super extra strong, that Obi-Wan and Yoda are also, themselves super strong, but not even as strong as Luke.
6: Need I point out that women basically suck, according to Lucas. They can be fighters, sort of. Leia fights and is tough and stuff, but you don't get the feeling that she's even stronger than Luke. You only see her shoot a few things and do some battle stratagies. Nevermind Padme, who fights okay, but then becomes a simpering wet rag tied around Anakin's throat. Unable to defend herself or do much of anything. In the book of the same name as the movie, she's doing things, starting a rebellion, being somewhat important.
7: Lucas does seem to have a thing for asthmatics. They can rise to high levels, but they're still evil. Evil I say. Bad schoolyard memories, anyone?
8: I really, really, really like the Star Wars universe. With the insight that the expanded universe gives the movies, the movies become interesting, and good even.
9: Anakin's really really, really really, really really really Hot. Especially as he goes evil. Hayden is nice and stuff about it, but the reason that Anakin sucked in episode 2 was that Lucas wrote bad dialogue and chose actors that had no chemistry with eachother. None. Zero, zip. Nada. From what I'm told of his other acting, he's good, and Natalie Portman is good, but playing opposite eachother, with dialogue that sucks, they end up looking like a bad junior high dramatic playing in front of your eyes. Pretty, sure, but do you care? No. As it was, it was hard to look past the bad dialogue in episode 3. I could do it, though, because I was busy staring into Anakins dreamy evil eyes. :)
10: George Lucas doesn't understand the nuances of the actual world. His character are two dimensional at best. What he originally said of his creation, when it came out, was that it was his stab at recreating the serials of his youth. Action, drama and fun. They are that, they are B movie goodness at it's best. That he is so foolish as to attempt to revision them into joseph campbellian Hero With A Thousand Faces after the fact is just silly. Look, every story is going to have those nuances in them, that's the whole point of campbell's work, that these are the stories we retell, over and over again, that they are hardwired into us, and no matter how we try, we retell them with every new story we make. Of course it has those elements in it, how could it manage to not?
11: Der Palpatine made Anakin. Just, DER. That's no virgin birth, man, that's a sith lord using the force to create life. But does the movie come out and say that? It only barely hints at it. You mostly get the feeling that Palpatine is lying about the sith lord legend just to sucker Anakin in. In the book he admits that the sith lord in question was his master, and that he does have that power, which pretty much all but says that he in fact, "influenced the midichlorians to create" Anakin's life.
12: The whole after the fact revisionism of Luke's question to Leia about her remembering her mother and how she says she was beautiful, but sad, blah blah blah, and yet, Padme dies so what's up with that? And how we were all, but of course, she was adopted, she thought of Organa as her mother. Nu-uh. I just watched the damn thing again. In Return of the Jedi, Luke says "what do you remember of your mother? Your real mother?" Now we can revision that and say she still thought he was talking about Organa, and she didn't know she was adopted, but to be honest, she seems to know. She takes it as instant, "duh, of course you're my brother, I always knew, somehow I always knew." (and by the way, when you kissed him hardcore to make Solo jealous, you knew then, too? Ew, just, ew.) So, the way Lucas originally conceived of it, Padme had Leia for at least a short time. I don't mind stories changing and stuff, but damn, try to be consistent. This is why when writers write, especially whole series, they make concordances, so they don't trip themselves up, and end up throwing you out of the story going, "huh?"
13: Finally, I do like the stories, and I even want to own the whole damn movie series, eventually. But as it stands right now, I want the books, more. Read Revenge of the Sith, am reading Labryinth of Evil, will read Clone Wars (and rent that, hear it's good little cartoon) and the original 3, but want suggestions as to where to read next. I am actually interested beyond Anakin and his sultry dreamy evil hotness. Seriously. Wanna know about Luke and Leia and them training Jedi's and all of that future stuff, too. What do I need to get my hands on? Should I actually ask my brother? (gasp)?
