ROTS REVIEW ROLLINGSTONE
#61
Posted 16 May 2005 - 12:41 AM
Many of use don't like ROTJ. Some like ROTJ. Some like the PT's. Most hate the PT's.
End of story. Our take on movies is neither immature or stupid. It's just how we feel.
What the hell is your problem? George Lucas does not need you as a lawyer, he sleeps well I'm sure.
#62
Posted 16 May 2005 - 12:54 AM
You guys just sit here, look for one damn bad review and accept it, before even seeing the god damn movie.
#63
Posted 16 May 2005 - 01:00 AM
I'm not going to sit back and just pretend I have no opinon on the upcoming movie. I'm also not going to sit back and pretend that it might be good. My brain tells me it will suck since the last two have sucked. I'm not forcing this train of thought, it's logically laid out in my head.
And if ROTS some how turns out to be a great film, well then, I'll be pleasently suprised. End of story. What the hell is the problem?
So forgive me for thinking ROTS will suck in advance! It's a serious crime, I know.
This post has been edited by Jordan: 16 May 2005 - 01:04 AM
#64
Posted 16 May 2005 - 02:25 AM
I agree. You can't solely attack the Prequels and blatantly ignore huge flaws in the Original Trilogy. Being ignorant doesn't make you a good writer.
And just for fun, as much as I do love ESB, I'll critique it the same way we look at the prequels. Here are a few flaws:
1. On Degobah, Yoda tells Luke the Force can be used to see the future. By doing so, Luke is able to travel to Bespin. If this is true, then why does Vader send thousand of probe droids into the galaxy, risk his fleet in an asteroid field, and hire bounty hunters when he could simply look into the future and observe that something "significant" occurs on Hoth and Bespin. This would seem to be a more logical choice.
2. When Han leaves Hoth, he is chased by three Imperial Star Destroyers. When Luke leaves Hoth, nobody is there. I guess he must have left on the other side of the planet where Vader forgot to send ships from his massive fleet.
3. How can any grown adult accept the fact that the Millenium Falcon can fly past a Star Destroyer bridge window and attach nicely on the back of a control tower in less than 4 seconds. Furthermore, how could it NOT be noticed? There's an entire fleet of ships, surely with TIE fighters zooming around, and it never gets noticed? I also forgot that there is only one window on the entire Star Destroyer, therefore making it impossible to observe if anything is sticking on. This is about as believable as Anakin destroying the Droid Control Ship in "The Phantom Menace".
4. How do Han and Leia not notice Boba Fett following them to Bespin? He's right behind the ship! In "A New Hope", the Millenium Falcon was quite capable of tracking TIE fighters following behind.
5. How could Vader arrive at Cloud City faster than Han or Leia? Even if Boba Fett had followed them without being noticed, by the time he figured out where they were going, contact Darth Vader, have Vader fly his fleet to Bespin, and land at Cloud City to make a deal with Lando, the Falcon surely would have already arrived.
6. How long does it take the Executor to lock on to a ship which is directly beside it with its tractor beam? Evidently it takes 4 minutes to lock on and 4 minutes for the officer to move his finger down and press the button to activate. If you can accept this scene, then surely you can accept Dooku's escape in AOTC.
7. Luke's X-Wing suffers no damage despite accelerating out of control and smashing into a swamp on Degobah. Try jumping off a 100 ft cliff into water. I can guarantee you it hurts.
8. In the second area in which Luke and Vader fight, Vader uses the force to smash open a window and have Luke fly out. Somehow, Luke manages to grab onto thin air and pull himself back up. If you look closely, after Luke pulls himself back into the room you can cleary see that he had nothing to grab onto on the outside.
9. Admiral Piett's men deactivate the hyper drive on the Millenium Falcon rather than just blow up the ship or sieze it. Surely once the Stormtroopers learned that Lando had switched sides, they would have sent a squadron to guard the only way off the city.
This post has been edited by Storm: 16 May 2005 - 02:29 AM
#65
Posted 16 May 2005 - 02:59 AM
It just so happens that overall the OT's were pretty solid films. Namely ESB. The PT is another story all together.
#66
Posted 16 May 2005 - 03:26 AM
![wacko.gif](http://www.chefelf.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)
![biggrin.gif](http://www.chefelf.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
#68
Posted 16 May 2005 - 10:22 AM
And the great thing about the OT is, that most of the time you're enjoying yourself so much while you are watching them to care about the errors. In the PT, they just add to the pain.
#69
Posted 16 May 2005 - 10:30 AM
#70
Posted 16 May 2005 - 11:29 AM
There are things I'd change in the OT, but the difference between the mistakes in the OT and the PT is simply one of the sum of the parts keeping the whole together. The good outweighs the bad. Its that simple. I like ESB. I don't like AotC. Visible wires trying to jerk tears from my eyes will be rejected far quicker than visible wires holding up a spaceship.
The PT is particularly offensive to me because it never feels good for more than a a few seconds at a time. There are so many glaring obvious errors continually happening as to render the fantasy untenable for any length of time. I am continually being asked to accept the absurd when a perfectly mundane explanation will do. A kooky milennium falcon maneuver I'll buy a lot sooner than I will a clearly superior Count Dooku running away when he should have just bushwhacked Yoda while the bastard was vulnerable doing the un-Zen maneuver of directly lifting a heavy piece of masonry.
And there *are* good parts in the PT. I could compile a huge list of them. But what good are they if they get continually stomped into the dirt by poor direction? And anybody who says "relax dude its just a movie" is missing the very real fact that it is just a movie *and* it is more than a movie. Know what passion is? I'm going into Star Wars with the expectation of excellence, that if I won't have a visionary experience of ecstasy I'll have a pretty good thrill.
When Obi Wan gets a face full of force lightning from the villain he's been hunting the whole movie...and deflects it with his lightsaber....whoa, you take off into the stratosphere with the tingle of excitement that this is going to be a *real* conflict. Obi Wan shows a few tricks up his sleeve and does something I've never seen before.
Then it gets completely ruined a few seconds later when Dooku schools Obi Wan. There's clearly no contest. Talk about anti-climax. I plummet back to earth and realize we're back to the all-powerful bad guys again, who can do anything they want and the actions of the good guys are pretty meaningless.
Wait! Obi-Wan throws Anakin his lightsaber. We see Anakin do the dual-lightsaber action! Yeah! And he just turned to the dark side - dark side means more power, right!? Its time for the "chosen one" to earn his stripes and show what he can do! Starting to take off again! THIS is what we have been waiting for, young Darth Vader kicking ass!
No, he goes down too. And he's sans a hand. I guess turning to the darkside was completely unimportant to the story. So much for all his whining about not having a chance to shine. Hrm, I guess that does it for the heroes. We watched them go through their trials and here they are, on the floor and out for the count (no pun intended). What a waste of my time! If I wanted to experience this crappiness I could just go to work and forget to pack a lunch.
Oh! Yoda! Oh, okay, the good guys part was to delay the bad guy until a Master could show up and clean house. They have succeeded and its okay that they got beat down. Finally there will be some resolution and catharsis. And we KNOW Yoda kicks ass, this Dooku guy is going DOWN. Absorbing force lightning, yeah, so far so good. Dooku, you going down sucka! This is Yoda, the baddest ass ever. What?! Yoda is going to use a lightsaber?! What the hell is this crap! Noooooooo SUPER GROVER AHHHHHH! Stop the bouncing bullshit! Stop! Stop!
Manic Depression is NOT good story. Its not good Pattern. Lucas is NOT the king, the king-a-ling-a-ling. He is not the King of Pattern.
- rangwe
#71
Posted 16 May 2005 - 12:00 PM
Easily explained? By all means, I would like to hear your defense to those points.
#72
Posted 16 May 2005 - 12:05 PM
Like if you can point out that the OT had some tiny flaws, it somehow makes the MAJOR flaws of the PT more acceptable.
Just admit that the new films blow, rather than try to make the case that ALL the films stunk, etc.
#73
Posted 16 May 2005 - 01:29 PM
Like if you can point out that the OT had some tiny flaws, it somehow makes the MAJOR flaws of the PT more acceptable.
Just admit that the new films blow, rather than try to make the case that ALL the films stunk, etc.
That's not the point at all. I'm looking at all film from an objective standpoint. And if you read my post entirely, you would notice I said ESB is one of my favorite movies. However, it does have small tidbits that make absolutely no sense. And a lot of these aspects can easily be compared to flaws in the Prequel Trilogy. If you're using the OT as the "standard" to compare the PT, you can't just ignore similar flaws in the OT and harp on the exact same one's in the PT.
I think "A New Hope", "The Empire Strikes Back", and even "Return of the Jedi" are all great movies. "The Phantom Menace" is an adequate movie and "Attack of the Clones" is horrible. But they aren't bad because of little flaws which everyone is so obsessed with pointing out. For the most part, the Prequel movies are just boring.
What is ACTUALLY hilarious is how some people on these forums are incapable of formulating their own opinion without first consulting with Chef Elf.
#74
Posted 16 May 2005 - 01:29 PM
I think I can speak for everyone here, and I will, we DON'T want ROTS to suck, just as we didn't want TPM and AOTC to suck. We're not happy that one of our favourite pieces of popular culture has been bastardised and ruined by it's creator, we're absolutely f**king heartbroken by it! Star Wars used to be great once, it really did, and when the PT came along we were the most excited bunch of lightsabre-wielding fanboys (and girls) you could wish to meet ...
And then we saw it ... the TPM effect was initially one of confusion ... was it okay? Did it suck? We weren't sure ... all we could say with any certainty was the something was very, very wrong. This wasn't Star Wars ... it was, to quote Simon Pegg in "Spaced", a jumped-up firework display of a toy advert. When we watched it again, it all became clear. Lucas had broken our hearts by delivering something that simply wasn't worthy of the Star Wars label ...
We weren't pleased ... we weren't sitting in the cinema as that glorious logo appeared, pen and paper in hand, waiting, interminably waiting to write down everything about it that sucked. We weren't there with our laptops typing live to bulletin boards, forums, blogs, or any part of the internet that would listen to us ... we were genuinely excited ... we'd waited 16 years for a new Star Wars movie - and we were horribly, inexorably disappointed ...
When AOTC came around, we still had our burnt fingers crossed. TPM had sucked, but we were still filled with hope that it was just a slow start and that episodes 2 and 3 were going to kick some serious ass ... we hoped, we wished, we prayed, we waited. And again, we were disappointed - bitterly. We didn't want it to suck, but it did. There was no getting around it ... Star Wars was in a terminal condition, and only a miracle could save it.
And now, days before release, we wait for our miracle ... but we wait with a profound sense of pessimism and a justifiable cynicism that ROTS is going to make up for the celluloid abortions known as TPM and AOTC. We so want it to be good, we really do, we want it to scrub our memories of the pain we felt in 1999 and 2002. I remember the intense pain as I exited our local Warner Village after AOTC feeling like I'd spent two hours on my hands and knees with George Lucas behind me ... as the abuse continued, becoming ever more unbearable, I only remember the pictures of pretty spaceships he held in front of me to distract me from the pain ... "This is bullshit!" "LOOK AT THE SPACESHIP" "I've seen better plots in an Australian soap!" "LOOK AT YODA GO!!!" "Ow! It hurts!" "IT'LL ALL MAKE SENSE IN EPISODE 3"
We really, REALLY don't want it to suck, guys, believe us ... we're not here to indiscriminantly hate Star Wars ... we're here because we love it, because it is a part of our lives, our childhoods. We grew up with these movies ... and we want to feel that rush of exhiliration that we remember as Luke fired into the Death Star ... we want to again feel that beautiful, terrifying shiver travel down our spines as Vader confessed, "Luke, I am your father".
But after TPM and AOTC, you'll understand why we don't hold out much hope ...
#75
Posted 16 May 2005 - 02:12 PM
1. Luke could see Bespin, and feel the pain of his friends, because he had a bond with them, he's been with them for years. Even though Luke is Vader's son, Vader had only one brief encounter with the boy, so how in the world would he be able to detect him or his friends from across the galaxy?
2. This is something that doesn't matter in the slightest. Luke's X-wing had a hyperdrive, even if some of the fleet remained over Hoth, I have no doubt that he could evade them long enough to escape. Having him escape the fleet as Han did would add un-needed screen time to the film.
3. The Falcon is the same color as the star destroyer. The Star Destroyer is huge. Finding the Falcon is like finding a needle in a haystack. The Star Destroyer probably has very few windows outside of the bridge. And I'm sure Han knew where the placements of those windows were. It's a strech, but I feel that it works.
4. This is an error that I cannot defend, unless the Slave I has a cloaking device. It bothers me too.
5. They get there faster because they have hyperdrives. Remember, Han says Bespin is a ways off.
6. This is something else I cannot explain.
7. Luke's X-wing is built to withstand the brutality of space, I think it can handle a crash into water.
8. I have no idea waht you are referring to, so I cannot explain it. Inconsistancies often happen in all movies during fight scenes, I do not let them bother me.
9. You are right about this, they should have just destroyer the Falcon. Perhaps their ego got in the way.
Whew, ok, there's your explanations, Storm. Take them as you wish. They are enough to satisfy me, but they may not be enough for you.