The “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” scene is ruined in the new version as well. In the original when we see the stormtroopers pulling over the landspeeder our immediate reaction is “Uh-oh, they’re in trouble now! How are they going to get out of this?” Then as the dialog between Ben and the trooper unfolds we realize that this old man has powers we never dreamed of. It’s thrilling, and funny too as the trooper mindlessly parrots Ben’s suggestions.
In the new version Lucas threw in a bunch of CG aliens when Luke and Ben arrive in Mos Eisley. So immediately we’re distracted. Instead of being focused on the main characters were paying attention to all these interesting and strange creatures in the background. Then, just when the stormtroopers are pulling over the speeder, a huge CG beast of some sort walks between the action and the camera! The entire set-up for the scene is wrecked. We never get that little “oh crap” moment – by the time the creature is gone Ben and the trooper have already started their exchange … which now plays completely flat.
And, of course, showing all the aliens wandering around town also destroys the thrill of entering the cantina … .
I got the impression it was meant to come as a surprise. The audience were supposed to think he’d got away safely to a happy ending, then sudden disaster falls. But it failed to shock only because it had been telegraphed beforehand.
Did it? I guess I can see how some would be able to derive meaning out of those seemingly random scenes involving crazy-guy, but I (and many others, evidently), remained oblivious until they explicitly revealed that point during the course of the film.
I won’t pretend that after the opening credits ended I said to myself,
I bet all the characters we meet will be aspects of the killer’s fractured psyche.
But I was mightily clued in to the notion that they were not real people involved in a real situation in any normal sense of the word. I haven’t watched the movie in a couple of years, so I can’t tell you exactly what it was that gave it away for me.
I know I shouldn’t be overthinking a children’s movie, but the thing that always bothered me about Toy Story is Buzz Lightyear following the other toys’ lead and playing dead, in the beginning of the movie, even though he’s convinced that he’s not a toy!
second edit: (note to self: read the whole thread before adding your comment )
Don’t think of Buzz’s behavior as acting like a toy. Think of it as wisely mimicking the survival tactics of the locals when faced with a potentially hostile giant.
Boy, the ending of The Illusionist sure rubbed me the wrong way.
This dude is performing magic tricks that are so awe-inspiring that the only explanation to any sane person is that there’s some kind of supernatural element to it, which I was quite willing to accept. But as it turns out, there isn’t. He’s just a very, very good magician who can make 3-dimensional holograms that interact with the audience…in a movie set a hundred years ago. Then the entire story is basically negated by the stupid fuckin goddamn twist ending. Ebert defined this kind of bullshit as a “jerk-around” movie. Can’t say I don’t agree.
Ruining the “Luke, I am your father” in the prequels was pretty much inevidable. What pissed me off was that they could’ve kept Leia’s parentage a secret to new comers to the series fairly easily by not revealing that Padme had had twins.
The 13th Floor was a really interesting movie about virtual reality that would have had a great twist, had the trailers not had Vince D’Onofrio shouting that
Their world, where the main characters have created a perfect interactive VR simulation of a city, is itself a VR simulation that can be entered by its creators. In turns out that the creators are taking an interest in this world because, of all the simulations they made, this was the only whose inhabitants went ahead, of their own volition, to create their own simulations.
Throughout the movie, we’re shown that Jodie Foster is a hardcore scientist who only believes in what she can prove. They even toss in Matthew McConawhoahey as a religious man who directly states that she needs to learn to take things on faith. Then, we see her go through the stargate or whatever, visit “Pensacola,” and come home… where we find out she just fell straight through in an instant. But, she insists that it happened, it was real, and she’s going to ignore all the scientific evidence and take something on faith. And we’re right there with her. Her character arc is complete, she’s changed as a person just like she needed to, we the audience learned something, and the movie’s over.
…Except then Corporal Exposition says that there was “18 hours of static on the flight recorder.” So we now have scientific evidence for her trip, she KNOWS she’s right because she has proof, and her entire character arc is completely invalidated. Plus, we (or, at least, I) feel insulted because we were willing to accept the same thing on faith, and the movie spoon-fed us The Truth.
I mean, it wasn’t a great movie either way, but that just completely ruined it for me.
Shortly after Clones came out, I outlined (alas, over beers and nachos and not on these boards) an extremely plausible and (if I do say so myself) far superior three-part plot for the prequel trilogy which ended with Anakin raping Padme before going off on a quest to wipe out the Jedi. It had, in my opinion, the advantage of leaving the Stuff We All Know Happened (the Jedi extermination, the lightsaber dual over the volcano, the birth of the twins) to the viewer’s imagination as well as not ruining various portions of the established back story (Leia remembering her birth mother, Yoda being Obi Wan’s master). Granted, it didn’t have Jar-Jar, but hey, I’m not perfect.
Sorry, I was just reviewing that very abbreviated summary and realized that I left out the critical information that in my version of the prequel trilogy, a naive viewer (one who has not seen the Original Trilogy) would only have suspicions that Vader and Anakin are the same person, and it is in fact in the persona of Vader that Anakin rapes Padme.
Just recently in a Star Wars thread I outlined how it could have been done. In my story you build up the rivalry between Dooku and Anakin. They are competing for Sidious’ favor. The end of the third movie is a three-way light saber battle between Anakin, Dooku and Obiwan at the lava pit. Anakin and Dooku both end up in the lava. Obiwan leaves. Sidious fishes one of them out of the fire and gives them the Vader suit and the name. You don’t know which one it was until the end of Empire.
The fact that she accepted something on faith completely ruined the movie for me and completely and totally destroyed the central message in the original book, which was that one should not take things on faith. I mean, the entire course of her life was to find evidence for Gods existence… the “growth” as you defined it above, meant that she gave up her search. Giving up is “growing”?
The character arc was invalidated because it was the wrong character arc. Eleanor Arroway would’ve never told Congress “Well, yuck-yuck, I guess y’all are jest gonna hafta believe me!” and it didn’t happen that way in the novel: she was like “I’m right, but I can’t prove it. However, when I can prove it… watch out”.
Which is what happened.
Until Zemeckis f-ed it all up and dumbed the story down for the audience by tacking on that “faith” message.
Sorry… but no movie’s ending has ever pissed me off more than Contact’s. Carl Sagan must still be spinning in his grave.
