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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Attack of the Clones

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12:24 / 20.03.02

All I want is large-scale lightsaber battles.

Everything else is noise.

12:32 / 20.03.02

I sort of agree with betty up to a point-- i think whats important with really skilled story tellers is not so much what happens, more the way in which it happens. Writing an engaging story where the audience already know the ending is a difficult task and it would seem one that Lucas wasn't up to...

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:45 / 20.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Flux = No Rock n' Roll Fun:
*raises hand*

...but Lord Of The Rings dialogue is just as bad if not worse!No contest. But it flows a little better than some of the SW stuff, in my opinion. And to be fair, the Tolkein stuff was pretty much in existence anyway - it's not wholly new-and-thought-up like most of the dialogue for the SW flicks must be.

But yeah. More lightsaber battles. And less ripping off of Ben Hur, please.

12:59 / 20.03.02

The more lightsabers the better. It's a golden rule.

Freud would have loved it.

Matthew Fluxington

13:06 / 20.03.02

Would you prefer magical evil vagina-eyes like in LOTR?

Apparently there is a Death Star in this movie, and they are keeping it hush-hush...

13:21 / 20.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Cholister:
My attachment to Star Wars is completely irrational .... I am a fucking *fan*, and I actually care about Star Wars, and I like caring about Star Wars, and don't want to stop, misguided though that might be. I reserve the right to go see Star Wars and to fucking hate it, and complain about it for at least two months afterward. I could not *not* go. ... I can't not see it, and I also don't think I am the only person that feels like this.Look objectively at that post and then give me one good reason why you and all your ilk should not be forcibly euthanized.

For fuck's sake...

13:26 / 20.03.02

For fuck's sake indeed. Well, goody, 'cause I've been feeling fairly shitty lately, so if you in your infinite wisdom want to petition Blair to get some legislation brought in to that effect, it'll save me the fucking trouble. I'll take the firing squad, please. I always wanted to die messily.

13:34 / 20.03.02

Sounds to me like you might be having issues with your own latent/denied Star Wars fannish tendencies, too. Can't imagine why it'd matter to you so much, otherwise...

13:43 / 20.03.02

ah Star Wars, the one subject where it is impossible NOT to sound like a fanboy.

Haven't we had this EXACT conversation (right down to the reactions) like 6 or 7 times already?

13:48 / 20.03.02

Yes, let's talk about something less contentious, like Kevin Smith films...

13:57 / 20.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Cholister:
Sounds to me like you might be having issues with your own latent/denied Star Wars fannish tendencies, too. Can't imagine why it'd matter to you so much, otherwise...Nothing to do with Star Wars in particular: more with the human tendency to hold on to things far past the point where it's healthy for us, to get emotionally invested in things that just don't matter.

That simply leads to needless suffering, and needless suffering pisses me off. It's sort of a bodhisattva-with-bad-attitude thing.

Do you really want to give a movie that much power over your life? What kind of integrity is that? What kind of autonomy is that?

Let it go, kid. It's over. Take your life back and move on--there's nothin' to see here.

14:01 / 20.03.02

So why are you here in this thread? Just trying to help us poor suckers on the road to recovery?

Matthew Fluxington

14:05 / 20.03.02

Jack, don't you feel you may be overstating your case, or that Cholister may have been doing just the same?

It's a big sci-fi adventure serial. No reason to get so huffy-puffy about it...

The Return Of Rothkoid

14:12 / 20.03.02

Yes. Please calm down in the film forum...

... or ROTHKOID SMASH!

14:16 / 20.03.02

I just really like Star Wars. My frigging dissertation is on science fiction. I have no idea why I should like Star Wars so much, but I do, and I do not mind liking it, it does not trap me. I often forget I am not amongst 'my ilk' just because I am in the midst of a Star Wars thread...

I was offended, to say the least, at Jack's musings about whether me and my ilk should be forcibly euthanized. An ickle bit of an over-reaction, methinks. And I still don't fully comprehend why, working on his principles of 'not getting emotionally invested in things that don't matter', he can be bothered to get worked up over a sad fangirl's attachment to Star Wars. Seems like you're getting pretty emotionally invested in this, one way or another, Jack, unless you habitually go chucking comments about fan-slaughter around...

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

14:31 / 20.03.02

He's using a Jedi mind-trick....

[ 23-03-2002: Message edited by: The Haus that shot Liberty Valance ]

14:36 / 20.03.02

Ahhhhh. I understand now... Thank you, Haus.

And here I was, just about to ask him if he approves of my scar design... It's the emblem of the Rebel Alliance, dontcha know...

(er...not really, in case anyone wondered)

[ 20-03-2002: Message edited by: Cholister ]

15:33 / 20.03.02

The white vans will be coming for all of you shortly. I hope I gave the right addresses.

You'll find the therapy much more pleasant if you don't struggle.

15:37 / 20.03.02

Or as Joelle Taylor might say - it's easier if you just lie still, you know...

16:41 / 20.03.02

well, this is kind of reminding me of (one of) the dead-kennedys-without-jello threads: the dks meant shitloads to shitloads of folks, most won't go and see the new dks but feel outraged anyway, some will go and will feel gutted and some will go and will throw things at the band.

i don't believe in throwing bad money after good, (well not too often anyway) so i probably won't go to see the new star wars film - the phantom menace was too much for me - but if others - and people really do care about this stuff - want to go, i'll be waiting outside the cinema of their choice with tea and sympathy.

it their thing, you see, jack. writing is my thing. it's ultimately pointless, no more or less worthy than taking your sleeping bag to queue overnight for 'attack of the clones'. better to have passion for something than nothing. save euthanasia for people that do real damage.

[ 20-03-2002: Message edited by: shortfatdyke ]

Matthew Fluxington

17:01 / 20.03.02

It is entirely unreasonable to think that the movie might at least be okay? Why jump straight to the conclusion that it would be as bad as Phantom Menace, especially since that film was so reviled that it would probably force anyone with self-respect (even Lucas!) to at least try to make the follow up better?

I don't think the first Star Wars is very good, but Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are wonderful. There's a precedent for improvement...

I'm just saying, maybe you should at least in some small way give it the benefit of the doubt...maybe not run out and drop $10 to see it if yr uninterested, but at least be a bit fair...

18:27 / 20.03.02

quote:Originally posted by shortfatdyke:
i probably won't go to see the new star wars film

Oi! You said you'd go with me... I'll be on my best behaviour, I promise

[ 20-03-2002: Message edited by: Cholister ]

19:52 / 20.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Cholister:
I just really like Star Wars. My frigging dissertation is on science fiction.

I'm going to be a pedant here, but a curious one all the same (having just written an 18th century lit essay on Frankenstein as the prototype of the scifi novel, and it being not suitable for the exam, so I'm going to submit it to the Barbelith zine having tweaked it):

do you define Star Wars as sf?

I don't. I really, really don't; I'd say that Star Wars is something that, more than anything, has killed off SF these days.

But that's just me. Space Opera. Yes. SF? No. I'd be interested in your reply; I'm not picking it up to be an arse, but because I'm geniunely curious, and because it instinctively makes me go "wuh-huh?"

Nelson Evergreen

20:24 / 20.03.02

Who directed "Empire?" It wasn't Lucas. Somebody Kirschner, wasn't it? Is he alive? If so he should be doing the new ones. If not someone should dig him up immediately and get him on the job anyway. The Phantom Menace had some great bits in it: the bits where no-one had to bother trying to act of course, or whenever that wretched 'Binks' creature was offscreen, but a less....self-conscious director could have done wonders for the poor thing. As ever, I blame the parents.

09:18 / 21.03.02

Paleface: I take your point about science fiction, or rather, I see what you are trying to say. But I think the category is and should be rather wider than you seem to want it to be...

Darko Suvin has defined science fiction’s main formal device as “an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment”’ (Griffith/Pagel, from the introduction to 'Bending the Landscape: SF', 1998)

I think Star Wars fits the bill - unless you have sarlacc pits and the Death Star in *your* empirical environment?

But I also agree that 'Frankenstein' is basically SF - I just don't see that the boundaries have to be that concrete...

I think that just because something is not super-intellectual, does not mean that it is somehow 'not SF'...it is set in space, and on planets that don't exist, using technology that is fairly improbable, with non-terrestrial beings. Yes, it is a space opera, but a space opera that is by its very nature SF. IMHO... I realise this is probably not terribly clear - I had not really thought about it, but I appreciate that others have different opinions about what constitutes SF than I do - I had not examined my categorising of Star Wars as SF, but I do think it is the 'right' category...don't see 'space opera' as an entirely distinct category. What of Star Trek? Though I realise that is a little more 'hard' SF...

Matthew Fluxington

09:18 / 21.03.02

Ah, the sarlacc pit! "We shall throw all you men into the vagina dentata, never to return!"

09:18 / 21.03.02

Exactly! Barbara Creed's 'The Monstrous Feminine' is a good book on that whole area, though I don't think she mentions the Sarlacc. Lots of stuff about the Alien series though...

09:18 / 21.03.02

I can't see any argument for Star Wars as science fiction. The story is set in space, but that is entirely incidental. There's nothing about the story that couldn't work just as well set as a western or muscle car movie. Space is just an excuse for pretty effects.

Sci Fi is about how the things we create affect us (hence Frankenstein as sci-fi) and there's none of that in Lucas' films. His are just melodrama.

09:18 / 21.03.02

Ah, I haven't heard _that_ Suivin quotation, but I have heard others from that text (ought to find it).

That's the thing. I disagree with that principle: juts because it's an "imaginative framework alternative" doesn't necessarily make it sf. If anything, I'd say that made it fantasy. Hell, now I have to qualify what I define SF as. Hang on. Give me some time. But for me it's fiction rooted in a scientific background, not fiction rooted merely in an alternative, usually futuristic, setting.

Thanks for the reply, though, anyway... might kick something off in Books to discuss this.

09:18 / 21.03.02

I think we might be talking about what I'd call 'hard' SF vs. 'soft' SF, but our definitions are different. You seem to be talking about the men and machines go explore space thang as 'proper' SF... I dunno - is the Alien series SF or horror? The 'Dune' saga SF or fantasy? The Ender saga, I dunno, SF or fictional anthropology? All of these, and Star Wars, have technology that doesn't exist here in this world...all are set in the future, or in an alternate universe. Science in the 'men and machines' sense is not a terribly huge feature of any of them, at least, I would say the science is somewhat incidental - I am interested in whether you consider any of them to be SF?

Btw, I do see what you and videodrome are saying about Star Wars... I s'pose I just don't think it matters so hugely, I have a looser definition of what can constitute SF...

But yes, this should be a separate thread somewhere...

09:18 / 21.03.02

It was Irvin Kerschner who directed Empire. And yeah, it's cracking direction.

Chol: you're right. Alien's a fusion, it's mainly horror, with a few bare trappings of SF. So what? It's a fantastic film.
Dune IS pretty much verging on Fantasy.

And I haven't described the "men and machines go explore space" thing as "proper" SF _anywhere_. Because setting something in space doesn't make it SF. I mean, to be contentious and honest... I'd describe AI as the best REAL SF film I've seen in a very long while.

09:18 / 21.03.02

I've not seen AI. And I'm not trying to be awkward - simply curious about what fits the bill as SF, for you. Sorry for being careless with my interpretation of what you were saying. Anyway, gotta go to college now...

The Natural Way

09:18 / 21.03.02

AI? WHAT?!?!?

Run! Run fast!

Matthew Fluxington

10:33 / 21.03.02

I think it would best to classify Star Wars as a pastiche of various genres - bits of sci-fi, war, martial-arts, magical fantasy, western, superhero, soap opera, etc all mixed together. Hence, it has a much broader appeal than any straight science fiction.

[ 21-03-2002: Message edited by: Flux = No Rock n' Roll Fun ]

The Natural Way

10:37 / 21.03.02

Someone's bound to turn up w/ the "Star Wars is a western" argument, any minute.....

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