Went to the Star Wars movie

[nancylebov]

I saw it yesterday, and I recommend it. The special effects are excellent and the emotional situation is intense enough that it's frequently involving in spite of the movie's many weak points.

When I think of the weak points, I'm amazed that it's any good at all. Aside from the tone-deaf names (General Grievous? Dooku? Darth Sidious?), bad to mediocre acting, and flat dialogue, there isn't much wrong with it. (Except that I might have forgotten something, in which case I hope that my loyal commenters will remind me of it.) Nonetheless, I don't regret seeing it, and I might see it again.



The doggie/dragon mount was great, and I want one--and I don't mean a stuffed toy, either.

The lava planet was great, too, but I don't think I want one. The final swordfight, with the two blue-white light-sabers in the middle of all that red, worked really well, though I was wondering why Vader's saber didn't go red when he went over to the dark side.

Speaking of, why didn't Jedi training include a little of "when people tell you something,
check on whether it makes sense" as well as combat and gymnastics? If Annakin had thought about whether the dark side is likely to be useful in healing (and why doesn't the light side include some healing skills?), or why it can beat a prophecy that nothing else can, or why he isn't getting some actual training instead of being sent off to kill people, his life would have gone a lot better.

Even though General Grievious had a very silly name, he was an exceedingly fine nightmare image.

nosebeepbear doesn't agree with me, but I think there was a decent ironic twist to Padme's death--Annakin's visions of her dying set him in motion to cause her death. The "lost the will to live" bit doesn't strike me as totally medically implausible--considering her children, she may have a few midichlorians herself. If she used the Force against herself in her despair, it's reasonable that the doctors wouldn't know what to do about it or recognize the nature of the problem. On the other hand, nosebeepbear has a point that Padme had some very good reasons for keeping herself alive, and she certainly isn't well-enough characterized to give any clue for whether her level of despair is reasonable.

I'm not sure what went wrong with Yoda, but he was really delightful the first time around. This time, I could see how meticulous the facial expressions were, but I just didn't care about him.

Nitpick territory: I'm reasonably sure that flying car traffic would be more interesting/complex to look at, even with autopilots.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

Speaking of, why didn't Jedi training include a little of "when people tell you something,
check on whether it makes sense" as well as combat and gymnastics?

The Jedi believe that in order to use the Force, they have to let go of their conscious mind and trust their feelings. It shouldn't be surprising if Jedi training leaves them weak in the critical thinking department.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Also, I see this as a problem in Lucas's worldbuilding, based in the fact that The Force is a weird combination of Daoism and Manichian dualism.

[zenlizard]

Yes, but they killed Kenny, the war lizard. Those bastards!

[nosebeepbear.livejournal.com]

When I think of the weak points, I'm amazed that it's any good at all.

nosebeepbear doesn't agree with me, but I think there was a decent ironic twist to Padme's death--Annakin's visions of her dying set him in motion to cause her death.

No, no. I absolutely DO agree with that part. That's precisely why it annoyed me so much when they lamed out and made his part in her death so indirect (and rather stupid, that's where it seems we disagree) instead of going for him killing her himself. It just feels like they took a big chunk out of the gloriously ironic tragedy they set up.

[(Anonymous)]

Plus we're missing the public ruckus about domestic violence that would be running now if he'd murdered his wife.

On the healing question, I'd assumed Jedi could do some healing. I thought that Obi-Wan healed Luke after he'd been knocked out by the sand people in Episode IV.

- Captain Button

[nosebeepbear.livejournal.com]

Oops. I was going to comment on this, too:

When I think of the weak points, I'm amazed that it's any good at all.

That's pretty much what I've been thinking since I saw it. Gee, I hated this, and that, and the other thing...why the hell did I like this movie?! Nevertheless, I did. Partly, it was just so darn fun! But it's not just that. Somehow the emotion of the story got through despite the badly done bits, which is both amazing and frustrating; imagine what Lucas *could* have done with this.

[nosebeepbear.livejournal.com]

Next time, I'll put together all my thoughts before replying. Really! :)

Thanks for giving me a plausible explanation for at least *how* she could die when there was nothing wrong with her. I still think she's more likely to have used whatever power she has to stick around at least long enough to make sure her children were safe. (As opposed to "hiding" one of them with Anakin's bleeping BROTHER! That's the dumbest thing Yoda did since saying, "There is no try.")

I liked seeing Yoda kick some more butts, but I think what bothered me about him in this movie (besides finding out putting Luke on Tatooine was HIS stupid idea...) was the tedious way he talked. Yeah, always backward talked he has, but in the other movies there were variations in his sentence structure which made his speech sound natural even though it was odd. All his lines in this one sounded like they'd been put through a "Yoda sentence generator."

[jimtbari.livejournal.com]

(As opposed to "hiding" one of them with Anakin's bleeping BROTHER! That's the dumbest thing Yoda did since saying, "There is no try.")
Yes, but it *worked*. Granted, the *fact* that it worked is genuinely stupid. One could retcon it with some sort of prescience on Yoda's part where he can see that Anakin will never think to look there/the Force is keeping him away/whatever.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Ah, but the tone-deaf names have been a constant in the entire series--starting with the original. Leia Organa? Han Solo? Please. :-)

[mneme]

"Princess Leia" was pretty good, though.

So was "Boba Fett", (and "Jabba the Hutt"), though it wasn't used for much. agrumer probably correctly pointed out that a lot of Bobba Fett's popularity might have come originally from the otherwise dreadful Star Wars Christmas Special.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on. "Jabba the Hutt" a good name for a criminal kingpin? Have you forgotten the joke about his brother, "Pizza the Hutt"? "Princess Leia" is fine until you start thinking about "Leia Organa" again and the low jokes you can make from it (Lay-a Orgasma, say).

I suppose "Boba Fett" isn't too bad, if the point of the name is to invoke images of a good ol' boy who ended up on the wrong side of the law.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I didn't compare RoS to the rest of the series--I was using Absolute Standards.

I'm no expert on the movies (it's been a long time since I saw the first three, and only once or twice for each of them, I saw #1 (fourth made) once and skipped #2), but I think the major deterioration was the loss of reasonably good dialogue. I'm not going to say it was great (is "let the wookie win" actually funny?), but at least it was somewhat lively. "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" is classic and "May the Force be with you" has some staying power.

"So this is how liberty dies -- to thunderous applause ..." isn't bad, but that's a skimpy amount of good wordage for a long, talky movie. I am reduced to making "Sith Happens" buttons.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

So was I. My comment was directed to mnemex who seemed to believe that some of the proper names in the original three movies weren't bad. That's all I was taking issue with.

I also agree with you about the dialogue. The original 3 movies were hardly dialogue-rich, but most of the little dialogue they had was either functional or "somewhat lively".

Stephen Green had an even wittier take on the "Sith Happens" concept. My contacts on GT claim that he pronounced a one-sentence review that ran: "Short review of 'Revenge of the Sith': the last word of the title is
definitely misspelled, but all the letters are there."

Then again, if brevity is the soul of wit, "Sith Happens" is wittier. :-)

[mneme]

I enjoyed the movie too, despite its weaknesses (drcpunk correctly pointed out that the "turning to the dark side" scene—from after Mace Windru's death to the end of that scene—was extremely weak; it's actually amazing how strong the movie is despite how many of its climactic scenes are pretty much ruined).

Re Padme's death—it's a classic tragedy, with the very moves Anakin takes to prevent her death, instead causing it (actually, I'd argue that since the events in his vision didn't take place, that he prevented the death he saw only to cause a worse one, but it's more or less the same thing). The crosscutting of her death with Anakin's near-death makes me think that there was a force-based link -- that she was dying in sympathy to his near-death, or lending him her force that he might live, or that he was accidentally drawing on her life-force to keep himself alive.

Why Palpitine chose the (apparent lie) he did is kinda mysterious; it doesn't seem any more useful to his purposes than the exact truth.

[(Anonymous)]

I think he lied to keep Darth Vader from looking for his child, because a child might grow up to be an ally of Vader's against the Palpatine. Indeed, Vader does propose exactly that in "The Empire Strikes Back":

"Luke. You can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny. Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son. Come with me. It is the only way."

- Captain Button

[mneme]

Hmm. Ok, good point -- his lie did hide the fact (successfully, for a while) that Vader had a child, much less two.