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Star Wars - Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith (SPOILERS)

 
  

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Scrubb is on a downward spiral
19:39 / 23.05.05
Oh, and:

Ah, you know Yoda's best line was:

"If so powerful you are..."
*saber twirl, IGNITE*
"...why leave?"


Hell, yes. Compare and contrast with:

"What's the matter, McFly? Chicken?"
 
 
diz
20:55 / 23.05.05
i feel deeply torn reading this thread. on one hand, i agree with Haus and others who have called the fanwankery for what it is. at the same time, i'm a huge fan and i'm fond of wanking about it.

this was a very good SW movie. which is not to say that it was a very good movie overall, but it's pretty much exactly what it should have been. it's crappy in all the ways that SW movies are traditionally crappy, and fucking brilliant in all the ways that SW movies (to me, anyway, and i know that's a highly subjective thing) are traditionally brilliant.

it's also the first SW movie since ESB that i can pretty much take as a whole and like. ROTJ has the Luke-Vader-Palpatine arc, which is great, but it also has the Ewoks, which are less so, and it re-uses the Death Star etc etc etc. AOTC had the Obi-Wan plot which was good, and the beginning of the Clone Wars which was great, but it also had the atrocious Anakin-Padme romance.

(TPM, of course, was putting-hot-forks-through-my-eyes horrible in almost every respect)

ROTS had Frankenvader and the Awful No. it also had a pretty lame and sluggish space battle in the beginning, and a few bits of cringe-worthy Anakin-Padme cheese* however, it also had Order 66, the Jedi Temple slaughter, the scene at the theater, the weird twilight montage with all the big players brooding and communicating telepathically and such (which, strangely, worked), the Vader/birth of the twins thing, and plenty of moments like "HOLY SHIT HE CUT OFF BOTH OF HIS FUCKING HANDS OMG OMG ANAKIN IS TEH R0XX0R!"

i geeked out a lot. i didn't cringe too terribly often (at least, not in the this-movie-is-awful way). lightsabers cut limbs off left and right. i thought it kicked ass, frankly, and i'm happy with that.

i'd rank them like this, if anyone cares:

The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars (or A New Hope, if you'd prefer)
Revenge of the Sith

Attack of the Clones and Return of the Jedi
(tie)
The Great Ewok Adventure
The Star Wars Christmas Special
The Phantom Menace


but that's just me

* it should be noted that even the original had "Governor Tarkin, I should have recognized your foul stench..." so let's not set the bar too too high here.
 
 
wicker woman
05:57 / 24.05.05
Wow, Haus... actual content, with a minimum of smartassery. Color me amazed.

However, you do then get to the point where, for that to work, you have to start fanwanking (definition, to avoid confusion - the creation of explanations outside the text for apparent errors within it - for example, assuming that in the 20 or so years since the fall of the Republic, Obi-Wan has somehow forgotten R2D2)

That... doesn't even rely on the creation of an explanation, so it falls well outside your definition of fanwank. It's fairly well-demonstrated/intimated at various points that Obi-Wan does not like or form friendships with droids as other people in the SW universe are quick to do, at least not until the time of IV. And, (keep in mind, this is just me guessing here) the R2 unit we are so familiar with is, I'm assuming, not the only R2-D2 that has ever been built in the entire universe. Perhaps not even the only one with blue coloring!

Now that it has become clear that only the Jedi used lightsabres, why does nobody react with a bit more surprise to the use of a lightsabre? Because that was not clear at the time.

Or because Mos Eisley is a hive of scum and villany, and no one there really gave too much of a shit?

also, if Luke is in his late teens, Obi-Wan seems to be remarkably badly-preserved.

If we guess at Obi-Wan probably being in his early 30's at the time of ROTS, that would put him in his 50's at the time of ANH. He's spent the last 20 years living in a small hut in a fairly harsh environment. I've seen 50-year olds that look a lot worse than he does. It's not that big a stretch.

For R2 not to mention any of this highly relevant backstory at any point seems near-psychotic - what kind of a tin sadist is he? Is he somehow prevented from doing so by some mechanical artifice?

His likely assumption that Anakin died on Mustafar may have something to do with that. Anakin and Obi-Wan head out, Obi-Wan only comes back and they leave without Anakin. He puts two and two together, assumes Anakin is dead, and with no one to refute that for the next 20 or so years and Obi-Wan bullshitting about what happened when they finally meet up again, has no reason to doubt it. Why/how would he make the Vader/Anakin connection?

Oh, and as for further Lucas alterations to the trilogy? He's planning on giving the whole thing the 3-D treatment come 2007. No, I'm not kidding.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
09:08 / 24.05.05
Eh? You What?

With these:



??
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
09:34 / 24.05.05
And, reading back a pages, I'm fairly sure that the series is 'supposed' to be viewed in its IRL chronology rather than its meta-chronolgy...i.e, Episode IV-VI followed by I-III. Whatever. That's the way we all watched it, so it hardly matters that there are 'spoilers' in the prequels..that's basically the point, non? The enjoyment of watching them dovetail into the OT so known and loved is the thrill...

I do find that applying adult critical sensibilities to analysis of these movies doesn't really wash...I mean, most of the posters here were sucked into the \OT at the age of what? somewhere between 5-10 years old I'd guess, so it becomes difficult to apply the same sort of rigour to the nostalgia laden originals...If they were released back to bck a la LOTR, would the first three have survived a modern older reading by a critical adult audience? Probably not, but they are still pretty campy adventure fun. And I actually quite liked the blatant swipes at BushCo. George Bush IS Darth Vader. Do you see? And proud of it, no doubt.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:43 / 24.05.05
Wow, Haus... actual content, with a minimum of smartassery. Color me amazed.

And yet not so amazed as not to throw in this utterly unnecessary bit of snidery.

I can see Lucas having removed every human being from the films by about 2012. When even your actors start making polite noises about being secondary to the scenery, in a sense what you are making ceases to be a film in the traditional sense and moves more towards some sort of sci-fi Koyaanisquatsu... as mentioned above, a demonstration of what you can do with a really fast computer and a kick-ass graphics card. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but to compare it with, say, the Thin Red Line seems a bit odd, since the skills involved are completely different. George Lucas, by that logic, is a sort of bleeding-edge multimedia designer who has to work, due to the formal demands of the environments he wants to display his work in, with people. The ideal Lucas movie might logically be written, produced, directed and acted entirely by computer programmes, and if at all possible watched by robots. At the moment the need for organics at both ends of the process is holding back his freedom and our enjoyment.
 
 
Triplets
11:03 / 24.05.05
I think we need to recruit these guys. They'd fit right in here.
 
 
Triplets
13:13 / 24.05.05
Question: how does Obi-Wan know Anakin becomes a leather daddy death-knight? Does he end up meeting "Darth Vader" after the scene in which the dark one laments his lost love like so much emo kid?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:43 / 24.05.05
Perhaps the name gave it away?

Unless 'Darth Vader' is the far, far away equivalent of John Doe.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:45 / 24.05.05
Either that, or the obvious...Y'know, with the searching and the feelings and all that.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
13:48 / 24.05.05
Yoda told him that he's Anakin's been consumed by Darth Vader. I'm pretty sure that, conveniently enough, Emps took the time to stop by the Jedi Temple to congratulate Anakin and call him Darth Vader on camera.

"I just watched...a holographic recording..."

Now THAT'S awkward dialogue, baby!
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
16:41 / 24.05.05
I really love all the terrible dialogue and shoddy script. It's hilarious. It's like an embarrassing uncle at a wedding or Christmas party, rapping on the karaoke and bungling shit jokes. Kind of shit, but in an affectionately nostalgic, 'Awwww' kind of way.

Reading some of the boards where people post about these things, you'd think George Lucas has actually slapped someone's mother with a wet halibut the way people pout and stamp about their beloved franchise. Grow the fuck up! 'Betrayed', 'Heartbroken', 'Dismayed' and 'Devastated' are hardly appropriate responses to a kids adventure sequel made nearly 20 years after the original by a billionaire who has kept himself busy in the meantime providing audio post production facilities to the Backstreet Boys. Actually, RotS threads on movie boards are almost as entertaining as the bits of the film.

'You're so beautiful'
'That's because I'm in love'
'No, that's because I love you so much'
*hugs*

Poetry, I says, poetry.
 
 
Triplets
16:46 / 24.05.05
No you're wrong. By releasing Phantom Menace, George Lucas raped my dog, then my mother. With the corpse of my dog.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
18:03 / 24.05.05
lol
 
 
Yagg
05:42 / 25.05.05
"Your dog is dead, Lord Vader."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
 
 
wicker woman
08:17 / 25.05.05
Wow, Haus... actual content, with a minimum of smartassery. Color me amazed.

And yet not so amazed as not to throw in this utterly unnecessary bit of snidery.


No backtracking, but that came off more snidely than it was meant. But not entirely. It was primarily a comment on how most of your posts in this thread up until a couple pages ago were low on content, high on fat, as it were. Not too much personal offense meant.

On the 3-D bit. If it can somehow be made to look as great as the Muppets 3-D Spectacular at Disney World, I could almost buy it. I mean, wow.

Anyone seen the fan film? http://www.panicstruckpro.com/revelations/ I haven't watched it due to severe lack of a high-speed connection, but I hear the space battles are extremely well done.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:00 / 25.05.05
I'm sorry for the lack of content you perceived in my posts. Obviously, I am never going to have the insight and understanding that can only be gained by being on first-name terms with the film's stars.

So, this 3D thing. Notwithstanding how cool the Muppets in 3-D at Disneyworld is (content, ladies and gentlemen), is this in any way serious? Myabe one of you guys who have Hayden or George's number could drop them a line about this, because it strikes me that 3D films tend to be 3D from the start - that is, they are constructed with the viewer experience in mind. As such, it seems odd subsequently to add 3D to films created without. Does Lucas, as a part of this, intend to reshoot (or rather reprogram) all the flight and combat scenes in order to make them more oriented around X-wings flying over the camera? What, I suppose I am asking, is gained by making the film 3D, apart from awesomeness?
 
 
lonely as a cloud...
09:20 / 25.05.05
From what I gathered from the interviews with George - that is, Mr Lucas - on the documentary on Sky last week, he intends to do some animated stuff and live action stuff for TV, and 3D versions of one or both. I don't think he mentioned 3D versions of the original trilogy.
 
 
Seth
09:21 / 25.05.05
George, my friend... you've kinda misinterpreted the criticisms that Star Wars is one-dimensional.
 
 
wicker woman
09:57 / 25.05.05
Must be lovely to live in that brightly-coloured, preliterate world where putting a smiley at the end of a sentence makes it magically inoffensive.

Nevermind, I take it back. It was meant to be entirely offensive. Must be depressing to live in that hopelessly dark world where pointlessly snarky comebacks revolving around the use of a smiley give you some form of affirmation. The smiley wasn't meant as a contradiction or lightening of what I said, but I'm guessing the perpetual cloud of self-importance that you live in didn't really allow for seeing that.

I'm sorry for the lack of content you perceived in my posts.

Perceive? Ok, sure, if that works for you. However,

Regardless of the quality of the film... Benjamin, have you considered watching all the demos for high-end graphics cards back-to-back? It may be the most satisfying narrative experience of your young life.

and

Shamed by Ewoks.

Ewoks bring the shame.

I maintain the prequels would have been far better if Obi-Wan had throughout the whole thing been seething with jealousy that Qui-Gonn liked Anakin better, and, having repeatedly engineered situations in which Anakin was placed in life-threatening danger/ surrounded by naked ladies just before Yoda visits (cue force-enhanced Brian Rix farce)/ inexplicably dragged up on Wookie night, finally loses patience, betrays the cock out of him and knocks him into a stream of molten lava. This seems psychologically far more convincing than "they were animals... and I killed them... like animals.... which is to say, on reflection, that I behaved in an entirely proportionate fashion. Cup of tea, anyone?" At which point the hapless and utterly naive Anakin finally realises that Obi-Wan is, essentially, a piece of shit as big as the Ritz, and in fear of his life makes a deal with Palpatine in which, in exchange for pricey medical attention and 24-hour protection from the nutter, he slaughters the Younglings. Also the Weaslies. Obi-Wan, finally realising that he has really fucked the pig this time, flees to Anakin's home planet to hide out, because he is a halfwit, and spends several decades feeling like an enormous wanker and trying not to watch the news.


and

Fantastic! Is he running in slow motion and stretching out a hand at the same time?

and

I wouldn't have used "Nooo" per se

How about 'Wheeeeee"?


and

Yeah, but Skywalker's a very common name. Presumably, or else soomebody would surely say at some point "Skywalker? Of the destroyed-the-republic-and-got-totally-fucking-robotman Skywalkers? How fascinating..."

...feel free to defend the apparent worth of these posts that my poor "pre-literate" self seems to be missing. I stand by my observation, at any rate. Granted, there are a couple posts around page 9 where you seem to be trying to say something, but still.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
11:03 / 25.05.05
The clash of steel! Outerbridge sings up a storm!

Can't be arsed to read this very very boring thread full of embarrassing fanboys busily retconning all the continuity errors out of Lucas' rather myopic vision... so I have no idea whether anyone's posted Maya's abridged ROTS yet... I think I'll wait for a very boring rainy day before I go see this, though.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:30 / 25.05.05
Well, two of those comments have been Barbequoted, which suggests at least that somebody got something out of them. However, just as standard models of criticism collapse in the face of a perspective that allows no higher praise than "like playing Revenge of the Sith on XBox, but louder", likewise in a thread where paeans to the coolness of the bit where the Naboo starcruiser totally flew up the King of the Gungans represent content the standard rules clearly do not apply.

So, the Muppets in 3D at Disney World. Is that really awesome? Like, Django Fett awesone?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:53 / 25.05.05
Actually, while we're here:

The smiley wasn't meant as a contradiction or lightening of what I said

So, what was it for, exactly? Do you just sort of generate them involuntarily? Do you have some contractual obligation, every so often, to provide a representation of your exact facial expression on certain occasions? Is that, in fact, a tiny photgraph of your real face? Is this... a personal ad?

I have to hide now.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:15 / 25.05.05
The 3D films stuff is very serious, see the article I linked about 3 pages back in this thread. It's also been mentioned in numerous interviews and articles with Lucas in the mainstream entertainment press.

As for the movie...

>> Yoda, after he is rescued from Coruscant by Organa. "Into exile I must go...failed I have..." The CG here was excellent (and everywhere, I might add), coming as close to muppet-Yoda as we've seen in the prequels

I agree, we saw some real emotion and regret from Yoda here. Seeing the wisest of the wise doubt himself was moving, I must say.

I thought Natalie Portman held her own decently acting-wise, except at the very end where she finds out the full extent of Anakin's wacko-ness and she lapses into bad melodrama for a few lines.

And the normally great Ian MacDirmid as Emperor/Palpatine went over the top a few times and got laughs from the audience with how screaming EEEVILLL he was.

Also, Palpatine is clearly ham-acting (the character, not the actor) ‘please don’t kill me, please, please, whimper whine, I’m so helpless’ when Mace has him dead to rights; he wants to see what Anakin does and obviously wants Anakin to attack Mace and keep moving closer and closer to Darkness. I agree with Imp.

As for the hit-you-over-the-head final moments and Luke going to Beru & Owen and Leia going to Jimmy Smits (who really seemed to suck acting-wise in this film; Ive seen the man on stage and he was terrific, but his lines in Ep. III seemed just blah...and I don’t know about other people, but the weird way he said “My wife and I always wanted to adopt a baby girl” got a huge laugh from the audience - partly cause of how dumb and obvious the line was and partly because he said it with this bizarre look on his face, like he was a pedophile or something) — Lucas said he just wanted to end the movie on some kind of optimistic “hope for the future” note, since Ep. III is about where it all goes to absolute shit.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:45 / 25.05.05
Also - one very cool epic moment was when we see the helmet slide onto Vader's head and we hear the first "breathing" - a nice, still moment from Lucas.

Another nice moment was the quiet moment where Anakin is looking at the building far away where Padme is and vice versa. A rare silent bit in the SW movies.

I felt like the Wookies might as well have been some other race; they didn't do very much, did they? I thought the "Thank you, Chewbacca" was gratuitous and pointless.

I rather liked Padme's consistent unwillingess to believe that her "Annie" was going evil (right up until the end). Love is blind. Even after he's force-choked her, when she comes out of it at the hopstial, her first words are "Is Anakin all right" or something like that.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
13:46 / 25.05.05
I don't have a link, but the 3D has been scrapped. They liked a test reel made by the 3D people, but IMAX wouldn't play ball. I guess it would've required some modifications on their part.

EEEEVIL Sidious? Like this?

"UNNNNNNLIIIIIIIMMMMMIIIIITTTTTTEEEEDDDDDD PPPPPOOOOOOWWWWWWWEEEEERRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
 
 
lonely as a cloud...
14:13 / 25.05.05
I felt like the Wookies might as well have been some other race; they didn't do very much, did they? I thought the "Thank you, Chewbacca" was gratuitous and pointless.
Totally. I felt Chewbacca was only put in there to encourage fan-wankery, or whatever you want to call what's gone on in the last couple of pages of this thread...
 
 
FinderWolf
14:22 / 25.05.05
from an Aint It Cool News review:

>> The biggest controversy addressed (or not)? The origin of Anakin’s parentage.

>> I’ve already seen some pretty heated disagreements over what that scene means. I took it to be a pretty direct acknowledgement that Palpatine’s mentor, Darth Plagueis, was Anakin’s creator, something that Palpatine was aware of. After killing Plagueis, Palpatine kept an eye on Anakin, fully aware of his potential. I’ve seen other fans insist already that Palpatine is a liar and that what he says has nothing to do with Anakin’s origin. But if that’s true, then why did Shmi introduce the notion of a virgin birth in the first film? Palpatine’s story just fill in the second half of the tale, albeit in a maddeningly indirect way.

I agree with this guy's take on it, that's what I thought when I watched this scene. This closes the weird 'virgin birth' plot hole from Episode I.
 
 
FinderWolf
14:25 / 25.05.05
The Bush/Iraq war parallels, which Lucas has commented on, were certainly there, especially Anakin's 'if you're not with me, you're against me' line (and Obi-Wan's line "Only Sith deal in absolutes, recalling Alan Moore's touching short comic story "This Is Information" about 9/11, saying that there is a third option: compassion for all). Also "This is how liberty falls...to thunderous applause."

And yeah, UNLIMITED POWERRR and Palpy first getting mutated got some laughs, not the good kind, from the audience.
 
 
Keith, like a scientist
15:56 / 25.05.05
i think it's pretty clear Lucas is saying that Palpatine created Anakin, not Plaguesis. He said that Plaguesis taught him everything he knew before Palp offed him. It's a pretty obvious wink. And in line with the theme of the "fathers and sons" in SW.

Saw it again last night (second time). I liked it even more, and, wilding risking the ire of the naysayers, I thought it was basically perfect. I couldn't really find anything to fault, and much that I loved even more. Biggest grip is the blown-out, video quality lighting of the Vader assembly scene and, of course, The No That Was Heard Around The Galaxy, but honestly, it's likely Lucas will re-dub that No at some point. I would be perfectly happy if it was an angry menancing bellow, instead of the pained whimper... Vader Voice asking about Padme, though...my friend pointed it out to me: it's what bridges the two trilogies the best...

And, goddamnit, I get tingly when Padme breaks down and says "anakin, you're breaking my heart." Melodrama? Sure, but I think it's...well...heartbreaking.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
16:27 / 25.05.05
I'm partial to "You are going down a path I cannot follow" myself.

A coupla softies are we.
 
 
vajramukti
16:36 / 25.05.05
I think someone said it best when they commented that this was brilliant in all the ways star wars film are supposed to be brilliant, and stupid in the ways star wars films are supposed to be kind of naive and stupid. It's space OPERA, not david fucking mamet. does anyone complain about the animation style in south park? they COULD do so much better, but is that why you're watching south park? no, if anything the stupity and crudity of the animation is the point. in the same way the hamfisted over the top dialouge is part of the point of star wars. If you're not prepared to just roll with it to some extent, you're probably expecting a different kind of film. There's no point critiqueing the film lucas didn't make, only the one he did.
 
 
FinderWolf
16:40 / 25.05.05
>> i think it's pretty clear Lucas is saying that Palpatine created Anakin, not Plaguesis. He said that Plaguesis taught him everything he knew before Palp offed him. It's a pretty obvious wink. And in line with the theme of the "fathers and sons" in SW.

Actually, that's what I meant...Palpy is clearly the father. That's what I get for reading/skimming, cutting and pasting text fast at work and saying "I agree with this guy."
 
 
FinderWolf
16:44 / 25.05.05
Darth Plagueis, Sidious, Maul... I guess you can just plug in any word that means something really evil or bad after "Darth," plus make it sound extra cool by tinkering with it a bit.

Let me try...let's see....Darth Mutilus (from mutilation).

ummm...Darth...Darth...Decepticus?
 
 
I'm Rick Jones, bitch
17:30 / 25.05.05
Bad shit, eh?

Darth Thisthread.

Darth Especialyanythinghaushassaidinthisthread.

Darth StarWarsEpisodeIIIRevengeOfTheSith.
 
  

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