Star Wars 7 shit talk

I am..... Dar

Listening to Kershner's commentary track on TESB was educational a decade ago. To deepen the characters, he'd add bits of business that weren't in the script: R2 on tiptoes eavesdropping on Yoda and Luke; a toolbox falling on Hans' head; Han and Threepio's battle, like out of a Laurel & Hardy picture, over the hyperdrive; Chewbaccca doing "Alas, poor Yorick" with Threepio's head; weird unexplained shit like Lobot opening his eyes. Lucas hated this stuff, according to Kershner, which, if true, says a lot about his attitude. Even unremarked bits of cinematographic finesse, like the Welles-ian shot of Imperial commanders in the Star Destroyer looking up at Vader pacing the deck giving the bounty hunters their orders.

The only reason the Star Wars movies have resonance is thanks to The Empire Strikes Back and its visual sumptuousness.

love The Beastmaster. Rip Torn with braids and skull + witches + John Amos + Tayna Roberts = yums.

these dudes

http://www.i-mockery.com/halloween/greatest/pics/beastmaster6.gif

+ directed by Don Coscarelli!

http://comicbook.com/2015/10/20/star-wars-the-force-awakens-has-already-sold-6-5-million-in-imax/

The new numbers coming in from IMAX state the film has already claimed $6.5 million worth of IMAX screenings in advanced tickets sales. The previous single-day advanced sales record for IMAX screenings was less than $1 million.

@ Alfred - I'm not, really. Just suggesting that recognizing it's not an A+ or even a B+ doesn't mean it has to be demoted to a D. I'd give it a solid B, though if you were blindfolded and couldn't enjoy the incredible miniature, effects, compositing and animation work, then it'd be down in the C range, as the story and character stuff is quite ropey and unexciting apart from the inherent pathos of Luke's quest.

I am, admittedly, saying that it is enjoyable to watch, which I do think is a sign it may not be garbage film-making. Is some of that enjoyment down to memories of watching it on earlier occasions? Sure, probably, that's inevitable. But there's shit I liked as a kid that I really can't sit through now, that not only doesn't "hold up" but for which "holding up" doesn't even seem the appropriate criterion (thinking here of a recent, unpleasant experience watching The Sandlot)... and Return of the Jedi isn't that.

Can't believe that Burneko writes x thousand words about why as the films came out they got worse and worse and doesn't mention the name 'George Lucas' once.

I mean, I get that the pitch was "write something about the new film", and once you admit the linking factor is missing, you're pretty much just doing therapy in the round, but FFS.

Jedi has so many good parts tbh, but yeah the pacing...that space battle is one of the best things in the trilogy and you intercut it with an "okay" forest battle scene and luke (and the viewer) being forced to listen to the emperor drone on.

it does however feature words like "dick-shitter." there are seven "dick"s and thirteen "shits," and actually "butt" only shows up twice but "fuck" is also in there thirteen times. hard to fit in "george lucas" at that point.

Also I think he's completely wrong about it being the film's ruination that Vader isn't a cartoon villain - it's the mirror edge of Luke being a dark-wearing force choking badass in the first half of the film, and that kind of hippyish outlook is def. part of the series success.

You want to see a good John Milius film? Watch "Dillinger".

Conan towers over Jedi easily.

Meanwhile, coordination. (This is about the group tracking everything in the current fictional universe and how things are doled out/planned/assigned:)

http://www.gamesradar.com/how-do-you-keep-track-everything-massive-star-wars-universe/

A fave quote:

Kieron Gillen is writing for one of the most iconic characters in popular culture. Set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader picks up the Sith Lord’s story after Han Solo sent his TIE Fighter spinning. “We pitched freely in that [time period], but I’m a writer who knows how story works,” says Gillen. “There’s a start to this story – Vader, disgraced, after the loss of the Death Star. There’s an end to this story – Vader, on the bridge of the Executor, more powerful than ever, hunting his son across the universe. I’m not going to pitch a story that doesn’t tell how Darth Vader got from one to another, y’know? Even with my reputation, I’m not going to suggest an arc where Darth Vader packs it in and becomes a superstar DJ in the Star Warsian equivalent of Ibiza.”

ehhh the forest battle maybe rises a little above "okay." ernest goes to camp's forest battle was "okay." but you're not wrong exactly. the forest leg is definitely the movie's weakest in part because there is just no character story being told at all since leia and han don't have one. luke is on a quest but the rest of them are just getting into some scrapes - together again, here we go, gang! that's not super compelling.

but i think the emperor stuff all works. it would be better if it was its own, super-tense thing by itself, without the intercutting... luke gradually realizing maybe he's fucked up and his big hunch isn't going to work out at all. hammill probably plays him a little too confidently throughout, also. but i still think it's got great atmosphere, with that awesome set. and mcdiarmid's ice-cold galaxy-ruling monk motherfucker is great. you can see why lucas kept going, wrongly, back to the well of "character confrontation scene with major space battle as backdrop outside."

rotj looked pretty poor in comparison with the first of the new Star Trek films. good news i guess for the new films!

Was it Jedi that had the giant asteroid worm?

i don't have a problem with the emperor stuff in theory, i just think the glacial pace of those scenes is a poor substitute for tension. like we know vader and luke are going to do battle again, the emperor just has to give a two day speech while they stand there.

asteroid worm = ESB

By Jedi they were just too focused on making the particular Luke-Vader myth payoff. It was never really the central focus of the movies until after Empire came out. When they dropped the twist in Empire it really doomed Jedi to be the cleanup episode. Too many soap opera style speeches not enough space exploration.

Also the tone of Jedi is just cartoony, even wo the Ewoks. There are a few Harrison lines that should have been delivered deadpan and have this really over the top wide eyed "Whaddaya gunna do?" performance to them instead. Or for example when he is sneaking up to that one stormtrooper in the woods and he steps on a branch and everyone is looking on from the side. Straight out of a Scooby Doo cartoon.

Palpatine is more interesting having watched the prequels, but even for 8-year-old me he was a sorry Emperor: the cackling, sloshing what Pauline Kale called tobacco juice in his mouth to make him look sinister, the lame dialogue.

I do like the Emperor's choice of throne room: an abandoned control room or something.

What also doomed 8-year-old me was reading the "novelization" of the movie, which had the back stories and temptations fleshed out that the movie didn't. Worth noting: the Emperor wasn't a Sith, but a lowly bureaucrat with the right combination of guile and luck who got lucky.

to an extent that's still true

alfred, not sure if you saw that bill kristol came out with an argument in favor of the empire.

I remeber an attack scene where papers are flying around like an indoor tornado and blue lights were flashing up the dark room occasionally revealing the emperor's hellish face.... That scene rocked. At Least I remember it rocking.

take out the speeder bike, some Jabba bits and the stuff with Vader and Luke and ROTJ is pretty thin. the Yoda bit is cringe-y in particular.

i could imagine a plausible slate pitch arguing rots is better than rotj

alfred, not sure if you saw that bill kristol came out with an argument in favor of the empire.

― nomar, Tuesday, October 20, 2015

the Empire will compensate him if he dies!

ace poster when it was first announced mind

http://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Return-of-the-Jedi-Poster-2-05032015.jpg

^^ a Burger King collector's cup waiting to happen

just realized I want a space pirate SW film directed by Robert Rodriguez

dude, totally.
STAR KIDS
for that, i would buy advance tickets

http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltr73nHgDf1qzgpx9.gif

ha, there's alot of RONG and rmde in the deadspin piece (go figure) but this is great:

After wearing Luke out with furious lightsaber skills from one end of Cloud City to the other; after bashing him to a pulp with flying space toasters; after blasting Luke out of a window and chasing him out to the end of a lonely windblown plank far from everyone who has ever known or cared about him, he lops the little pissant’s entire hand right the fuck off and then, then, only then, figures the time is right to go, Oh and also, I fucked your mom.

I haven't really thought about Star Wars in years, but after reading this thread and thinking about it, I've decided The Wrath of Khan>>>>>>Return of the Jedi

was that ever in doubt?

That poster is incredible.

Khan is better than all the Star Wars movies

btw is Scanners the best use of The Force in a context outside Star Wars?

love this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tP5tZ_ekXs

Khan is better than all the Star Wars movies

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, October 20, 2015 10:22 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Def all but Empire. Empire is really amazing though.

I would have a hard time picking. Yoda and the whole Dagoba thing is incredible. The Luke-Vader reveal at its most shocking. The extreme chiaroscuro lightsaber fights. Millennium Falcon pulling out the incredible asteroid belt chase. So many brilliant moments. The ending shot is insanely beautiful.

Khan is classic and has the better performances but the world design in Star Wars is formidable.

There are several points in Khan where the film really slows to a crawl and characters just sit down and reflect. Which is not bad, it's a different movie, but Empire has a more engaging pacing imo.

impossible to give a shit about kirk's son in khan; not sure there's a comparable weakness in empire. otherwise a masterpiece obv.

i'll go empire over khan also but as someone who was on board w/ star wars literally almost as far back as i can remember and someone who only really watched tos a couple of years ago and always kinda scoffed at star trek in general (though i somehow ended up seeing all the movies and enjoying most of them) i will say the kirk-spock-bones interplay TOWERS over luke-leia-han. kirk also more of a badass than han though han way more plausible a ladykiller (nevermind lando).

I don't mind it -- Khan has a good script, and as a result those hanging out scenes with Kirk and the crew are Shatner at his most likable imo.

Empire is a visual triumph.

i will say the kirk-spock-bones interplay TOWERS over luke-leia-han.

star trek has people in it.

I was seven when Khan was released (a big deal too -- I remember it was the movie that Trekkies thought it was the movie of their dreams), so can't remember how loud the scoffing was at Mr. Rourke playing a supervillain.

* uh, the movie of Trekkies' dreams