Star Wars 7 shit talk

This thing is FOUR HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS why?

Because Lego sets have always been ridiculously overpriced. Branded Lego sets are even worse. Star Wars branded Lego sets are the worst.

I guess they have, but they seem especially inflated now? Like when I was a kid I don't remember large lego sets seeming like the kind of thing that was totally out of reach pricewise, whereas there's no way I'd spend the kind of money some of these sets cost on a gift for my own kid.

apparently the price per brick has actually gone down, there's just a lot more of these ridiculously huge sets (the Death Star has 3803 pieces)

http://therealityprose.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/what_happened_with_lego/

xp Right, but Lego can still make a lot of money even with precisely zero kids in the target market for that.

Also yeah Red Letter Media are legit good if gimmicky (kind of like Film Crit Hulk?) - they made a half-hour long thing about Jack & Jill which is fascinating (even beyond being a half-hour long about Jack & Jill and watchable).

it's kind of hard for me to fathom that death star having 3803 pieces bc it just doesn't look that big

Think the hilt for protecting wrists is a good idea for an unskilled lightsaber user. Though if you're unskilled enough to need one I'm not sure you should be using a lightsaber in the first place, that's really dangerous.

true, tanuki, true

Emergency cutting open of Tauntaun bellies is permissible.

A Mofference was a secret conference held by the Imperial Central Committee of Grand Moffs in the secluded Mofference room of their Moffship.
Come on now.
― ledge, Thursday, December 4, 2014 4:52 PM (2 hours ago)

Emperor: Boba Fett in the mofference room.
Darth: Yeah, I'd like to suck on some of that!
Emperor: o_O
<Darth goes to conference room, sees it's Jango Fett not Boba>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

"Mofference" might be the stupidest Star Wars-related thing I've ever heard.

Today, anyway.

force-sensitive is up there, for today

"Silence! I call this Dartherence to order!"

Mofference vs. Sithcon

read that as sithcoin first

Darth is such a moff-diver...

you aren't being very force-sensitive with those slurs

re the nature of performances in SW, Pauline Kael in '77:

Lucas has got the tone of bad movies down pat: you never catch the actors deliberately acting badly; they just seem to be bad actors, on contract to Monogram or Republic, their klunky enthusiasm polished at the Ricky Nelson school of acting. In a gesture toward equality of the sexes, the high-school-cheerleader princess-in-distress (played by Carrie Fisher) talks tomboy-tough--Terry Moore with spunk. (Is it because the picture is synthesized from the mythology of serials and old comic books that it didn't occur to anybody that she could get the Force?)

good conference room gag by forks, first solid entry in the form in a while

Kael being force-sensitive.

i could watch movies for the rest of my life not knowing what pauline kael thought of them and be perfectly happy about it

iirc she returns to that can-Leia-use-the-Force thing in her ROTJ review.

She's not wrong, J.D. Those Republic motion pictures were fun.

Kael sounds like the least fun person ever

I posted her review of Empire yesterday – she loved it.

tbh I don't think I would've loved SW either if I hadn't seen Empire first.

Yes, she liked the second movie a lot more.

You do realize that Star Wars (1977) was modeled on crap movies, right?

btw here's the rest of her capsule review:

One of the biggest box-office successes in movie history--probably because for young audiences it's like getting a box of Cracker Jack that is all prizes. Written and directed by George Lucas, the film is enjoyable in its own terms, but it's exhausting, too: like taking a pack of kids to the circus. There's no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the image of a double sunset. The loudness, the smash-and-grab editing, and the relentless pacing drive every idea from your head, and even if you've been entertained, you may feel cheated of some dimension--a sense of wonder, perhaps. It's an epic without a dream. Maybe the only real inspiration involved was to set its sci-fi galaxy in the pop-culture past, and to turn old-movie ineptness into conscious Pop Art. And maybe there's a touch of genius in keeping the film so consistently what it is, even if this is the genius of the plodding.

she's not really wrong, but i do find her constant barrage of 'you feel this,' 'you think that,' 'you feel cheated,' etc. exhausting.

she is not the critic you are looking for

the only attempt at beauty is in the image of a double sunset.

ah, but what a double sunset.

all the way across the sky!

can we discuss how awesome this sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aMudiylPiw

would be funny if everyone in starwars figured out how to use the Force. It would be like scanners.

It must be so frustrating when it's your 21st birthday and you haven't even felt the tip of the Force.

And what was the deal with that protrusion on the end of the lightsabers?

pilot light. these existed on the real lightsabers but were matted out onscreen.

And what was the deal with that protrusion on the end of the lightsabers?

even a long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away they argue about circumcision.

http://popmech.tumblr.com/post/100945828153 was this posted itt? it pretty much has destroyed everything for me

http://41.media.tumblr.com/82a4e6ce13b067a25413ea041655709e/tumblr_nd6y33G9F01s2wio8o6_1280.jpg

my childhood is dead :( it was only 26

i seriously never actually considered any sort of thought about how the big space battles were filmed

that just makes it cooler

just some dudes in a parking lot weaving sci-fi dreams

gonna rewatch ANH and keep an eye out for the beige pickup truck

I love that. Those ship models above too. Model effects will always be way cooler than CG.

CG can work better for creatures if tastefully done, but buildings and vehicles should always be models.

Yeah seeing the models just confirms how much great craftmanship really went into those films.

Not saying there's no skill in cgi work, just that endless amounts of beardies making cool huge detailed models is way more epic.

Recently watched the Bladerunner making of, and how they created the long view of the city. Utterly mind blowing.

Recently watched the Bladerunner making of, and how they created the long view of the city. Utterly mind blowing.

Same here--all those bits of photo-etched metal, and a Millennium Falcon model stuck in sideways to be a building, and millions of little greebly bits for texture. Lovely. I wish I had a job doing that.

i'm cool with all buildings being google sketchup models as long as jim henson productions makes all monsters out of felt.

that Blade Runner doc is like one long eulogy for the art of practical effects

Did Kael hate "Blade Runner"? What an old crab.

I know it blew my mind years ago when I learned that it was not the ships flying fast but the camera moving past the models.

Guys... the Moffship thing let me to this:

Trioculus was a three-eyed mutant warlord of the Galactic Empire who declared himself Emperor a year after the Battle of Endor. As a figurehead of the Central Committee of Grand Moffs, led by his mentor Bertroff Hissa, Trioculus took control of the remnants of the Empire in opposition to Ysanne Isard.

The self-proclaimed son of Palpatine, Trioculus was in actuality a pretender to the throne, usurping the role of Palpatine's true son, three-eyed mutant Triclops. Spurred on by a prophecy of Rajah Ubooki, the false Kadann, he sought the glove of Darth Vader to establish his legitimacy. Trioculus's pursuit of the Jedi Prince Ken and his infatuation with Leia Organa pitted him against rival Zorba Desilijic Tiure, and led to him being taken captive by the Hutt and frozen in carbonite. Trioculus was eventually betrayed by Kadann, who sought the Imperial throne himself, and in the end was assassinated by a New Republic droid.

My brain just starts shutting down when there are so many linked things I've never heard of. And then I start clicking links...

Did Kael hate "Blade Runner"? What an old crab.

― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee),

I don't know but Blade Runner sucks. I understand its reputation: art direction, atmosphere, etc. The story and acting are crap.