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× Talk abut Movies & TV here. Just tell us what you have been watching. Have hyper-academic discussions on visual semiotics. Whatever, it's all good.

When did you first notice that Star Wars sucks?

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22 Jan 2012 14:30 #113729 by Juniper
Basic storytelling principle:

It's dramatic when a character makes an important decision and follows through.

In Star Wars, Luke decides to leave Uncle Owen's dirt farm in search of glory and alcoholic galactic princesses.
At the climax of the film, Han decides to save Luke and join the rebel alliance (since this happens at the climax, it accidentally turns Han into the hero of the trilogy, even though Luke was supposed to be that).

In the Phantom Menace, nobody makes an important decision, ever. The characters never learn anything about themselves, or grow or change. You might argue that Qui Gon decided to take Anakin off Tatooine, but did he learn anything about himself? Did Qui Gon grow as a result of the decision? When Anakin blows up the thing that controls the robots, it was -- as others on this thread have noted -- an unlikely accident, rather than bravery or resolve that saves the day.

Maybe Lucas needed everything in the prequels to seem predestined, so that Darth Vader wasn't so purely evil, just tragic, and so that Vader's decision to defy Palpatine in Return of the Jedi is that much more of a distinctive moment. But the result is something like 6 hours of dramatically inert prequel movies.

That's why, sometimes, backstory should remain backstory.

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22 Jan 2012 15:04 #113731 by Black Barney
that Clone Wars cartoon clip is so awesome. I love the ending and the fun sound effects throughout. yay SW love

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22 Jan 2012 15:31 - 22 Jan 2012 15:31 #113732 by Schweig!
The cartoon sucked. Why are they all just standing around firing? What is this - linear warfare? How about using some lasers to dig trenches? It's also much too hectic and violent. And then people are wondering why kids can't sit down to play a board game any more.
Last edit: 22 Jan 2012 15:31 by Schweig!.
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22 Jan 2012 20:48 #113781 by Mr Skeletor

Bullwinkle wrote:

Mr Skeletor wrote:

Black Barney wrote: It's like I strongly dislike the screenwriter of Alien 3 because Aliens is my favourite movie of all time and now the ending is kinda ruined because I know that Newt and Hicks don't wake up.

Grow some balls you baby.

No, Barney's right. This is a fucking cinematic crime. The guy who wrote it needs to spend a few years in prison. He can share a cell with the same prick who wrote Terminator 3.


Bullshit. The cinematic crime was Cameron's, who thought that since Ripley was a woman he needed to give her a 'family unit' complete with child and husband. "Oh look, Ripley has her daughter back, now she can live happily ever after." - that's unbelievably lame shit that brings the whole movie down. The series didn't need a stupid mother angle (at least the 'father angle' in terminator made more sense in terms of story) and Neut brought NOTHING ELSE to the picture and was a crap character. Hicks was just another body so his death meant little either.
The irony is that for all of geek nations bitching about the offing of her lame character, that act in Alien 3 gave Neut more meaning and purpose then she otherwise had. Her death haunts the entire film and impacts Ripleys growth like no other event in the alien films. Having her in the film would have stunk the shit out of it (you can imagine awsome scenes where teenage neut shoots her first gun! Fucking badass! Not) and Barneys idea of just having her sit the film out because she is at home renders the characters UNBELIEVEABLY pointless.
Killing her was the best thing they could have done.

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22 Jan 2012 20:57 #113786 by Mr Skeletor

Juniper wrote: At the climax of the film, Han decides to save Luke and join the rebel alliance (since this happens at the climax, it accidentally turns Han into the hero of the trilogy, even though Luke was supposed to be that).


I'll agree with 100% of what you wrote with the exception of this. The OT isn't perfect, but one thing it nailed 100% was how to use its archtypes.
Luke was always the hero of the OT, and remained so throughout the whole thing.
He destroys the deathstar (the main climax of the film, moreso then Vader.)
His confrontation with Vader was the climax and biggest event of Empire, overshadowing even Han being carbonated.
And he gets the main villan fight in Jedi - if anything Jedi fucks up by having Han do nothing and not even really needed. Does he do anything of note in that film?

Yeah, everyone loves Han over Luke, but people have always been more into the rogue then the main protagonist since stories first started. Just comes with the territory of the type.

If you want to see an example of where the rogue becomes the hero of a story, look at Pirates (though I'm basing that on fuzzy memory.)

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22 Jan 2012 21:12 #113791 by mads b.
One of the ways of finding out who the main character - or hero - is, is to look at which character that undergoes the largest concious transformation. That could be Han, but you could also argue that Luke embracing the force in order to make the shot is an even bigger transformation. Especially when you take into account that Han spends most of the beginning of Empire talking about his payment.

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22 Jan 2012 22:10 #113799 by scissors
I love the original trilogy. I was a kid when the first Star wars came out. For me they will always be kids movies which are also enjoyed by countless adults. Like Harry Potter. It takes nothing away from their greatness as genre acton and hero's journey and adventure to say they were aimed primarily at kids. Didn't Lucas make his fortune by foreseeing, unlike anyone one else, the huge tie-in potential, taking a large pay cut to retain 100 percent rights to merchandise, from which was later able to build ILM?

If you grew up in the 70s you know what a big deal Star Wars action figures were and they were for KIDS.

Also, look at all the sanitised violence and language. Silly rabbit, these are kids movies.

Were there too many muppets in Jedi? Maybe. But I had no complaints when I was 12. Of course, for adults Empire is also gonna be the go-to film- it is more sophisticatd and darker and made by an altogether better director than Lucas ever was.

To respond to the original question of when did SW begin to suck. Most definitely the new films.



On a side note, I was recently suprised that Christiansen can actually act, seeing for the first time Shattered Glass, where he plays a journalist who used to work for the New Republic
- I was shocked it was the same guy. So chalking him up as not as bad as I thought.

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23 Jan 2012 03:13 #113831 by clockwirk
You can't base any opinion about someones ability to act on the prequel films. Natalie Portman looks like a total hack in them, and Ewen MacGregor isn't much better. Lucas seems to have the ability to direct all of the acting ability away from the actors.

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23 Jan 2012 04:14 - 23 Jan 2012 04:16 #113833 by Ancient_of_MuMu
George Lucas is famously for giving only one piece of direction "Do it again, but faster and more intense". The guy cannot give direction so it only works if the actors can work without external help.
Last edit: 23 Jan 2012 04:16 by Ancient_of_MuMu.

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23 Jan 2012 04:41 #113836 by scissors

clockwirk wrote: You can't base any opinion about someones ability to act on the prequel films. Natalie Portman looks like a total hack in them, and Ewen MacGregor isn't much better. Lucas seems to have the ability to direct all of the acting ability away from the actors.


I didn t: I was thinking Jumper too....

And yes, I blame the directer. A shitty director combined with shitty dialogue and script will undo even a very talented actor.

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23 Jan 2012 10:02 #113846 by wice

scissors wrote:

clockwirk wrote: You can't base any opinion about someones ability to act on the prequel films. Natalie Portman looks like a total hack in them, and Ewen MacGregor isn't much better. Lucas seems to have the ability to direct all of the acting ability away from the actors.


I didn t: I was thinking Jumper too....

And yes, I blame the directer. A shitty director combined with shitty dialogue and script will undo even a very talented actor.


And that's why it's important that back then Lucas wasn't the demigod he became by the beginning of the filming of the prequels, so Harrison Ford could tell him that his dialogs suck.

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23 Jan 2012 10:32 #113848 by scissors
Yeah, but Magnum P.I. wouldn'ta told him that even way back when (had they gone with him with Raiders of the Lost Ark as Lucas wanted).

Can you imagine how succesful a franchise that would have been if...

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23 Jan 2012 14:12 #113855 by wice
It was Lawrence Kasdan who wrote the screenplay for Raiders, the same guy who wrote those of Empire and Jedi, so I think the dialogs weren't that bad to begin with.

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23 Jan 2012 14:44 #113863 by Black Barney
Skelly, Newt is a great side-character in Aliens and I think it was smart to make a survivor. It made from some great exchanges with Hudson too, "why don't you put here in charge?!"

But I agree she is REALLY weak character-wise so when the movie totally focuses on her instead of the marines (when Newt gets separated from Ripley/Hicks) that's when the movie becomes MUCH less interesting because now instead of survival, it's about rescuing Newt which is LAME.

I agree that Newt being dead in Alien 3 makes for some great scenes (autopsy) but I'm saying that her being dead really kills the momentum in Aliens upon rewatches (because what's the point). I think an alternate storyline on EARTH would have been great. Newt doesn't necessarily have the be in the movie just like Jonesy in not really in Aliens, "this time you little shit, you're staying here". i can totally see Ripley saying that to her "daughter" and it would be cool.

I'm so disappointed that Ridley Scott isn't really doing the Alien prequels anymore from the sounds of it, that could have been great.

I just hope COLONIAL MARINES will add something for the fans in the same way that the CLONE WARS mini-cartoon gave something cool to hardcore SW fans

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23 Jan 2012 17:36 #113893 by clockwirk
One thing I found really interesting about the prequels that I didn't think about until I watched the Red Letter Media reviews is the limitation that using purely digital backgrounds puts on cinematography and actor direction. I'm not even talking about the actors having to act against a floating styrofoam ball that they have to imagine is an alien character (although that's definitely a problem). I mean the restrictions on camera angles and visual creativity that comes with the fact that none of the environments actually exist and are only created in the computer later.

This affects simple things like the actors always walking on flat ground and not being able to interact in any way with their environment. It not only looks bad, but it severely limits what an actor or director can do with a scene. Actors basically have to walk and say their lines, and the director is reduced to shot/counter shot over the shoulder. Compare that to the scene in Empire where the rebellion is evacuating Hoth during the Imperial invasion. One has urgency and excitement, the other is boring.
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