Well, and why the Rebellion somehow becomes the GOOD guys when it’s currently being run by the BAD guys. I mean, Clones suggests that the Rebellion ALREADY had the Death Star plans at some point. But at the moment, it’s being run by a supremely evil Sith lord, his dark Sith master (who either is Emporer Palpatine, in one of the worst and most pathetically treated “secrets” in history, or is just something totally bizarre and counter-factual), and even a bunch of other evil, anti-Jedi nutcases including (spoiler for Clone Wars and presumably Ep 3):
An evil multi-Jedi slaughtering, multiple lightsaber weilding, cyborg commander!
I don’t need for the Star Wars movies to be high art; I just don’t want it to insult my intelligence with revisionist nonsense (midichlorians), head-slapping bad dialog (“Yippee!”), and scenes that were obviously shoehorned in only because they’d make cool levels in a video game (too many to list).
I’m not sure how else it could play out. The Republic, along with their clone army is, obviously, going to morph pretty directly into the Empire. The Sepratists ALREADY are the Rebels of the picture. What do you suppose is going to make them stop rebelling at this point? Where does the Rebelion form out of? It seems pretty obvious: just like the whole Sidious/Palpatine thing seems painfully obvious.
I think you miss the true sentiment. What’s going on here is massive disappointment. I was looking forward to Nemesis, so you can imagine my reaction when I sat down to view an incoherent mess. I really enjoyed Aliens, so you can imagine my reaction when I sat down to watch a painfully contrived scenario (though I admired that movie for having the guts to end like it did).
I was looking forward to Return of the Jedi, particularly after a little masterpiece like Empire. But Lucas cheated me, and instead of a movie focusing on cool and story I got to eat Ewok fur. Repellent - even Jabba’s court didn’t make up for it. I was really, but really looking forward to Phantom Menace, especially because (I figured) with the advance of technology and film making in the last decades it had the potential to be great. Instead I got Jar Jar Binks and a six-year old dicking around for 2 hours – a combination that proved to be the most efficient emetic known to man, or at least Abe. I was looking forward to Attack of the Clones, because I thought that Lucas would have hit his stride by then, particularly after the grievous mistakes of Episode 1. Instead I got over 45 minutes of soulful gazing into the camera lens by actors not especially talented. It was like watching the inane lovers in Shakespeare in Love except without any jokes.
But I must admit that Episode 2 could have been a lot worse, and that it was solidly superior to Episode 1. That is why I have high hopes for Episode 3 – because this could be the time that Lucas redeems himself! Or maybe I just lack all pattern recognition.
This might sound ridiculous, but I think the special effects are superior in the original trilogy. Possibly it’s because they were using real physical models and objects instead of the silly CGI craze, so things actually looked more solid. As far as the sound is concerned, the music and the sound effects have existed for decades, so not much innovation there. And wasn’t there some controversy about the digital format Lucas is using to film this movie?
Come on, Miller, admit that you have no problem watching Catwoman when it involves Halle Berry working out for 50 hours a day, squeezing into some tight latex, and strutting around. I have no problem with that at all, even if every other possible aspect of the film is executed in the worst possible manner. But I agree on Battlefield Earth – I could barely summon a laugh when I saw the window-crashing scene they blatantly ripped from Blade Runner, and that was the highlight of the film.
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but I don’t see why you think Nemesis was incoherent. Granted, the plot was the standard “Bad guys are going to destroy the earth” bit, but I’ve never thought that the story didn’t hold together. (Generations, OTOH, was absolutely an incoherant mess. The whole ending with the Nexus made no sense, and wasn’t even logically consistent.) As for Alien 3, perhaps it was a bit contrived, but no moreso than the first two movies.
While it’s a possibility, I’m with Guin – I don’t think it’s a given. The rebellion could really form out of anywhere. Remember that the Separatist movement is run by Dooku, who is actually (secretly) in league with Sidious/Palpatine. The movement appeared (from Ep II) to be just an excuse to transfer more control to Palpatine and get the clone army out there.
In “Star Wars”, we have Princess Leia Organa as a player in the Rebellion, and I believe she was taken in an raised by Bail Organa and family? He’s one of the senators, yes?
I find it more likely that the Rebellion will form out of old major players in the Republic who do not approve of Palpatine’s seizing power and turning the Republic into an Empire – perhaps starting with a batch of dissenting senators. Personally, I think this is more likely than having Dooku’s followers continue to oppose Palpatine for years to come.
The problem is that while Dooku is evil, the rest of the Sepratists seem to have legitimate beefs with the Republic and think the whole thing is sincere. They clearly seem to have been duped by Dooku rather than being in leauge with him. And by A New Hope, it seems like the Empire is still cleaning up after some long struggle: an ongoing rebllion rather than a new one. The Organa’s and other ex-Republic players seem to be covertly joining an ongoing rebellion as the Empire dissolves the old Republic. The only real issue is why in the last 4 movies the only rebellion players are humans + a bunch of lobsters.
That’s very subjective and your opinion. A lot of people think AotC was good and a marked improvement over tPM.
While I do understand that different people like different things, I’m quite consistent in my belief about people jumping on movies to be cool. I’ve stated as much in several threads in the last year. At the risk of blowing even more message board cred, you can see as much in this old thread about Catwoman. It’s not that I thought the movie was all that good. (AotC was much better.) I’m just honest enough to admit that I’ve seen comparable (or much worse movies) that didn’t have Halle Barry in latex and leather as a redeeming value. Van Helsing for instance was no better than Catwoman, but it didn’t generate the “me too” effect of everyone having to pile on about how bad it was. I guess it wasn’t worth as many coolness points or something? Jump on Battlefield Earth all you want. What a waste of Travolta and Pepper.
I don’t think it’s about any mysterious coolness points, I think it’s about expecting to see something really good and being upset when it’s not so great. I haven’t actually seen Catwoman so I can’t comment on that specifically.
Meh. If I want to ogle Halle Berry, I’ll watch Monster’s Ball. Besides, the catsuit was just too goofy to be really sexy. Other than that, I agree with everything you wrote.
Look, I don’t want to hate the new Star Wars movies. I’m as big a fan of the original trilogy as anyone here. Heck, I used to defend Phantom Menace. I still think it could have been a decent movie with some tighter editing. I think it was significantly better than that pile of crap, Attack of the Clones, which makes me a minority of one even among the Star Wars haters. I wish I enjoyed the movies as much as some of you do, but I just don’t see anything enjoyable about them. Except as fodder for some savage deconstructionism and general mockery. These are bad, bad, bad movies. Sure, the original trilogy was cheesy, but there’s quite a difference between good cheese and rancid milk.
I think anyone who has a strong opinion about Star Wars has long since give up any chance of being considered “cool.”
A lot of people believe in UFOs, too.
Yeah, I hear that one a lot. I think it’s pretty much bullshit. Also, more than a little insulting. I’m sure you don’t intend to, but you realize you’ve just called me a liar, right? At the very least, you’re claiming to know more about how my mind works than I do, which is pretty patronizing. It’s sort of like me saying, “You don’t actually like the movie, you’re just such a fanboy you can’t bring yourself to admit that something with Star Wars in the title isn’t very good.” Wouldn’t a comment like that get your back up? Just a little?
Now, I’m not actually upset about it, because we’re just talking about a movie, and all, but you might want to think about that before you post about your theory again. A lot of people take this shit way more seriously than I do (Hi, Joe!) and could get seriously peeved at a comment like that.
I have to admit, I haven’t actually seen Catwoman, I just picked it because it was pretty widely reviled, and nobody ever tries to defend it with, “Can’t you just enjoy a popcorn movie?” If you want to say Attack of the Clones was better, I’ll take your word for it, although my gut reaction is that you’re being unfair to Catwoman. I mean, I have seen Van Helsing, and while I can’t really say I enjoyed it, if I had to pick between seeing that for a second time, or seeing AotC for a second time, I’d go with Van Helsing in a heart beat.
But that’s beside the point. Taking the argument that Van Helsing and Catwoman were of equal quality, the reason why you hear more carping about Catwoman than Van Helsing is because there’s already an established fan base for Catwoman. People have read the comics. They have an idea about who the character is, what she does, and why she’s cool. When the movie fumbles all that stuff, they get pissed, because they have a standard against which to compare it. When Van Helsing comes out and sucks, no one really cares, because no one has any investment in the character.
Same thing with Star Wars. The people who really hate the movie are the ones who really loved the original ones. (Not that I’m saying that people who like the new ones don’t like the originals, of course.) The movies are bad enough on their own, but compared to the originals, they’re abominations. Everything that worked in Star Wars is broken in Attack of the Clones. It’s very frustrating. On top of that, there are a lot of people who really liked AotC, and who talk about it a lot. Unlike other bad movies, which eventually fade from the viewer’s memory, people keep talking about this one. It stays in the popular consciousness longer, people have more time to talk about why they didn’t like it and hear why other people didn’t like it, re-enforcing their opinions and collecting new reasons to dis it. There may be a touch of the old mob mentality about it, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that people hate AotC simply because other people hate AotC.
The lead, no. But the stable of Universal monsters that Sommers dragged out of storage and fucked up? I’ve got an investment in that, and I’m pissed at Van Helsing for making any attempt at revisiting Wolfman, Frankenstein, etc., unthinkable until the stinging memory of his appalling shitfest has faded.
(For the record, I agree completely with you that the prequels so far have sucked, sucked, sucked. I also agree with you that Phantom Menace is marginally more entertaining than Attack of the Clones, with the caveat that the best thirty minutes of the latter is better than the best thirty minutes of the former. It’s just that the worst thirty minutes of the latter is so much worse than the worst thirty minutes of the former that the balance is tipped in favor of the former.)
(And for what it’s worth, I’ll be seeing Revenge of the Sith opening week, but I’ll be baked out of my skull and my expectations will be somewhere between Tomb Raider and Ghostbusters II.)
Well, excuse the hijack, but… c’mon, man. Unclench. We’re talking about the Wolfman here. I can guarantee that Sommers didn’t have as much investment as you seem to there, but that’s just because they just don’t warrant that much investment.
These characters have been in movies with Abbot and Costello.
Sure, you could make a compelling story about a werewolf, or a vampire, or Frankenstein’s monster, and plenty of people have tried that to varying degrees of success, and will continue to try it. Sommers wasn’t trying to do that, though. He was paying tribute to old characters that he grew up watching, by making a modern-day B-movie with a silly plot, melodrama, big stunts and effects and doing a monster movie as if it were a James Bond movie set in the 1800’s. Whether it’s good or not is up for everyone to decide for himself (I thought it was fine; pretty fun, not great but entertaining*). But it’s a big stretch to say that it “ruined” these classic characters.
*Anyone who wants to call me out for liking Van Helsing, I’ll just point you to the bits above about Catwoman. Just replace “Halle Berry in latex and leather” to “Hugh Jackman with his shirt off,” or, for the less delicate and sensitive action movie fans, “Kate Beckinsale in leather pants and a low-cut shirt.”
Well, Billy Bob’s naked ass is kind of takes away from Halle for me.
I’m not sure what you are trying to get at here. I’m hoping everyone can agree that everyone enjoys different things about movies. For the record, I do believe that there are UFOs (unidentified flying objects). I just don’t think they are space ships with little green men in them and someone (the military mostly) does know what they are.
Now to the meat of your post. No, I really don’t see how I called you a liar. I have no reason to doubt that you hate AotC. In fact, I don’t doubt any of the people who posted that. I’m commenting on the fact that all of you jumped in to put some hate on a movie that hasn’t been released yet. Let’s look at a line from the OP for a second:
So what are you looking forward to most about the movie?
Now look at the first 20 posts or so. To borrow a term from another thread, the posts are mostly just threadshitting. The thread wasn’t about what sucks about Lucas and the current state of the Star Wars franchise. It was suppose to be about what you’re looking forward to seeing in the new movie.
Well, nobody but me apparently. or should that be a… :smack:
I own AotC. I doubt I would bother to stop to watch Van Helsing if I saw it on HBO or the like. This doesn’t mean I’m calling you a liar. It means we like different movies.
You probably have something here. This was brought up in the Catwoman thread and I clearly stated that I have no interest in the comic franchise, which may help me look at the movie as just a movie.
That’s not what I’m saying though. I’m saying that the mob mentality has something to do with people feeling the need to post about their hate in threads that start out positive. It’s the mob mentality that makes people keep piling on.
Personally, I’m still looking forward to episode 3. I’ll block out the negative comments about a movie that no one has even seen yet. Besides, I don’t put much stock in movie reviewers. Remember, S&E gave Star Wars two thumbs down in their initial review.
I don’t see where anyone has indicated anything to the opposite.
Because you’re second guessing my motivations. I’m not saying I don’t like AotC to be “cool.” I’m making lengthy posts about a Star Wars movie on an internet message board, for God’s sake. I can’t think of anyway to more clearly communicate the idea that I’ve given up on ever appearing “cool.”
This is true, and I’ve already admitted as much. But this has nothing to do with my motivations for posting in this thread, which are entirely about my total disillusionment with what used to be the most important movie in my life. You are correct, I should have saved my bitching for a more appropriate thread, but it’s too late for that now.
Okay, but you agree with the principle that there are some movies that are so bad, they are not enjoyable, even as mindless entertainment? That’s what I was originally trying to get at when I mentioned Catwoman.
I didn’t say I liked Van Helsing, I said it was better than Attack of the Clones. Other than that, I commend you for your grasp of the obvious. I mean, I’ve met a few people out there who were unable to understand that opinions on the quality of a work of art are entirely subjective, but they are vastly outnumbered by the people who feel the need to respond to any criticism of a movie/book/song/whatever that they enjoyed with, “Yeah, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” Yeah, yeah. We’re all adults, here. We know the difference between fact and opinion, and can figure out on our own that “That movie was shit!” is a statement of opinion, not fact. It does not need to be restated any time someone wants to discuss the merits of a particular work of art.
That last post may have come across as more snarky than I intended. Or, at least, than was deservered. Sorry, I’m posting from work, and just learned that I’m likely going to be working through the weekend. For the third weekend in a row. Kinda soured my mood.
Good point – and I agree that some of those could become elements of what we know of as the Rebellion later. Although I could also see the Separatist movement getting pretty much destroyed in the current “Clone War”, with Dooku possibly just abandoning them now that the Empire is starting to form. So the Rebellion could just be formed from whatever ragtag elements of the Separatists are left, plus other dissenting elements from the Republic. Or either of those.
Perhaps Ep. III will answer that question. (Although I doubt it will answer the “only humans and lobsters” question. ;))
False. I don’t recall what Siskel thought of it, but Ebert’s original review gave it four stars. Ebert has always been an enthusiastic Star Wars fan, even rating TPM at 3.5. Ironically, he’s only begun to sour on it with AotC.
Every now and then I hear some rumor about a movie Ebert or Siskel “originally” disliked, then supposedly changed their minds about when everyone disagreed with them. E.T. was supposedly one of these. These attempts at establishing the craven, herd mentality of movie critics invariably fails; I know of only one movie about which Roger Ebert changed his opinion, and he admitted that his imminent wedding colored his judgment on first viewing; it had nothing to do with what “everybody else was saying.” (The movie was Unforgiven if anyone is keeping score.)
While I’ve got you in my sights:
We know it’s opinion; all aesthetic judgments, when you boil them down, are opinions. Some opinions are more informed than others, but “[Such-and-Such] is a good movie” is by definition not a statement of fact, and there is no need to qualify it with “in my opinion.” ("[Such-and-Such is considered a good movie" is another story.) When people in these kinds of threads trouble to point out that a dissenting opinion is only that, it’s usually a sign that their feelings have been hurt, that they feel other people are calling them stupid for liking something. Don’t give in. If you like Attack of the Clones, then go right on liking it; don’t let this stuff get to you. The pleasure of throwing opinions around and testing one another’s judgment is a primary reason people populate boards like these; it’s just part of the fun.
or should that be a… :smack: