The obligatory Star Wars thread

[Smegged]

*warning* spoilers ahead *warning*













So what did people think of the final installment of Star Wars?

I found it quite entertaining, with the occasional cringe moment (like the whole scene with the ship falling through the atmosphere, and pretty much every romance scene in the movie). Hayden Christiansen has apparently learned how to act between movies, and Ewen McGregor is really very believable as Obi Wan. The best thing without a doubt about this final SW movie though is the lightsaber fighting. All of the fights had strong emotional significance, and were choreographed to perfection. I thought that the fight between Vader and Obi Wan was by far the best light saber battle in any star wars movie thus far. On the downside the blatant political references did get annoying after a while ("if you're not with me you're against me" - I wonder where I've heard that before ).

Overall though I had to say that I had a big childish smile right the way through the movie. This movie is finally one that lives up to the quality of the original trilogy. Sort of. Anyway, 4/5 from me.

[Flint]

Well the movie was good. That said, I do have some complaints. It was kind of interesting knowing how the movie has to end and Lucas did a good job answering all of the questions but I didnt like how he answered them. I thought it was really lame how anakin joined the dark side. There was better ways to do it rather than using that whole Padme-is-going-to-die thing. Also I didnt believe how all of a sudden Anakin could become such a killer, murdering all the young Jedi. Still I didnt believe lucas could do it putting the link between movies 2 and 4, and I am impressed he did. Smegged: I did love that fight between Anakin and Obi Wan, and I loved the ending. It was pretty powerful to see.

[KingOfPain]

It's like sex. You don't necessary have to like it (much), but you do it anyway. And, like sex, it can leave you feeling empty afterward. (so I've heard ) *Puts on Occhi's hat*: "Empty or emptied depended on your gender" *Ducks*

I am the kind of GFP who saw all 3 Harry Potter movies, hoping it may just become a small fraction of what the media hype makes them to be. I swore not to see another Harry Potter again, again.

Star Wars is childish fun. If you leave all your senses at the popcorn stand there is something in the movies for every child. As for me, I go for the ride - the cinematography/eye candy.

Most disapponiting to me is that Lucas had a good thing going in the SW series and failed to take it to higher grounds - The fight scenes can be SO MUCH better if he didn't cheapout of hiring a real Kung Fu choreographer.

Spoiler... Highlight of the movie -












Surprized me to find out Darth was actually Bob

search term: What do you call a man with no arms and no legs in a pool

KoP

[Griselda]

I just saw it last night, and it was a real for me. I don't think Hayden Christensen can act at all, but of course the script didn't help him much.

I think you could do a lot of really interesting things with a character turning to the dark side. Certainly, we all have a "dark side" in us, and I think they could have exploited that potential by making Anakin's path one that we could see ourselves on, if put in a similar situation. Instead of sypathizing with him, they settled for "almost credible"- that bar was set too low. It could have been very emotionally powerful. Instead, it was an eye roller. They would have had to do Ep. 2 differently to really make a change here, though.

As far as the Anakin character, though, somebody with such an extreme lack of mental discipline would never have been made a jedi, prophecy or no prophecy. They want to claim that there's a mental and spiritual component in there, but apparently all they care about is strength in the force. Bah. They could save a lot on training and just install a VR fighting machine for the new recruits.

Storyline stuff:

- If they have constant surveillance video in Palpatine's chambers, why did they need Anakin to spy? They could have had Obi-Wan see tape from the jedi tower instead, and the story would have been just fine, but instead they showed tape from Palpatine's room. At the very least, they might have noticed Palpatine strapping on his *light saber* every morning when he gets up.

-Couldn't they have made Padme die of *something*, rather than the old "you're not convenient to the storyline anymore, so you have lost the will to live?"

-Time. They could have done a better job showing the passage of time in the movie. That would have helped, too, because it would have made Anakin's progression to the dark side happen over time, in a more believable way. As it was, the movie looks like it happened over the course of about two weeks, except for the fact that Padme went through an entire pregnancy in that time.

That said, my daughter loved the movie. She was very upset that we were making fun of it on the way home. So, maybe it's just that we're looking at a movie that was intended for children, but from the point of view of an adult.

[Smegged]

-Couldn't they have made Padme die of *something*, rather than the old "you're not convenient to the storyline anymore, so you have lost the will to live?"

Ugh I agree. Make her burst an artery from when Vader was choking her or something. But then again any scene with Padme from episodes 2 and 3 really was horrible. She wasn't so bad in episode 1, but maybe that's simply because so much of the rest of episode 1 was so horrible that her scenes were a little less horrible and therefore seemed ok.

Still, if eps 1 and 2 were of the same quality as ep 3 I wouldn't be complaining. Not quite up to the original trilogy, but good nonetheless. They need to remake eps 1 and 2 and remove jar jar, hire a decent scriptwriter, good actors and a good director.

[Sirian]

They want to claim that there's a mental and spiritual component in there, but apparently all they care about is strength in the force. Bah.

I always thought the Force was a spiritual thing. Then Lucas turned his interesting mystical epic in to the Third Reich by turning the Jedi in to nothing more than genetic superbeings -- "the superior people" with those metacloreans(sp?) in their blood. No moral or spiritual or mental advancement, no enlightenment, no insight, just dumb luck of the draw on who was born special vs who was not.

Wow, talk about throwing the whole story down the crapper. Now instead of imagining myself as someone who might play a part in such a story, all I can do is reject the premise down to the core of my being. Genetic Jedi? Um, no thanks. :mad:

Whatever magic he had for the first three movies, he lost it along the way. Or else he merely got lucky the first time and misjudged what it was about his own stories that made them so successful.

The fans haven't become jaded: the writing plummeted in quality.


The thing I try to do is mentally to "edit out" the crappy bits and rewrite them in my own head, and try to enjoy the rest of the story as best I can.

I haven't seen Episode III yet, by the way, so please no major spoilers on reply. Thanks. 8)


- Sirian

[Doc]

Embraced the dark side I have. Dominate my destiny it did. Returning to the light difficult it is.

Dark side has cookies it does.

[Smegged]

I always thought the Force was a spiritual thing. Then Lucas turned his interesting mystical epic in to the Third Reich by turning the Jedi in to nothing more than genetic superbeings -- "the superior people" with those metacloreans(sp?) in their blood. No moral or spiritual or mental advancement, no enlightenment, no insight, just dumb luck of the draw on who was born special vs who was not.

Wow, talk about throwing the whole story down the crapper. Now instead of imagining myself as someone who might play a part in such a story, all I can do is reject the premise down to the core of my being. Genetic Jedi? Um, no thanks. :mad:

I could not agree more. It's one thing that bothered me ever since I saw ep 1. Well the one story thing. The whole Jar Jar character, the padme-anakin romance and pretty much every line of dialogue bothered me as well (Padme had no reason to fall for Anakin in ep 2 - he acted like a complete idiot and not in a lovable way either).

What would have been good is if ep 3 had have been the beginning point for the new trilogy, instead of the ending point. Lucas has steadily improved his dialogue over the last 3 movies to the point where it is mostly palatable. His storylines are getting better also. If he kept improving it at this rate one could consider him to be a decent writer by 2077.

[Flint]

If he kept improving it at this rate one could consider him to be a decent writer by 2077.

By 2077? My hope is Lucas will be dead by then and someone will come along and buy the rights and remake the first three movies. I also agree with Sirian on that whole metaclorean thing. The force was cool because anyone could do it as long as they really believed or whatever, but like yall said, Lucas just didnt understand what made his first movies so good.

Not to change the subject, but Men in Black 2 was screwed up in the same way. The director thought people liked the first one because of all the aliens. So the second movie was full of all these wierd aliens and it was so stupid. People actually liked the first movie because of how Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones played off each other, not because of the aliens. Sometimes it would be best if the directors (or game designers *hint *hint) listened to their audience and discovered the real reason why they liked the film.

Edit: @ Doc I appreciate and accept your motives for joining the dark
side, it is so much better than the corny reason that Anakin used

[LKendter]

Many movies can be screwed up from on mistake. I still want to see the last few minutes of Rush Hour 1 again. I swore there was a scene where the cop said he could speak Chinese. However, he is clueless in the second?