What's your answer to this Classic Gusher Defense?
#1
Posted 31 March 2009 - 08:13 PM
"Oh yeah? Well the Original Trilogy was cheesy too, and had all those same flaws, so why aren't you bashing those movies too?"
Post your favorite responses below... !
#2
Posted 31 March 2009 - 09:58 PM
2) Another way I like to go is to say I liked old Lucas, who openly admitted to cribbing from classic sci-fi and serials. When you watch the movies, you can see his sources and either you can enjoy the homage or you can call him a rip-off artist with no originality. But either way you know where you stand: the homages and spoofs and citations are open and obvious. Sometime late in the trilogy Lucas claimed that he had studied storytelling forms and Joseph Campbell and had based his trilogy on Classical Mythology. He even plagiarised Tolkien by saying something to the effect of wanting to create a new fairy tale for a society that had no mythology of its own. Well, I am fairly well versed in the Classics and I can't draw any decent analogies between the OT and any legend or myth. So the reaction there is either to accept his statement credulously or to scratch your head and grumble. And the other comment is just pretentious, not to mention insulting: the United States does have its own series of folk tales that have to be considered a kind of mythology. They just don't have fairies and dwarfs in them because they were created in the age of industry. Anyway, the problem with the PT is that it came after Lucas had stopped openly acknowledging his sources, so it's mired down with all the pretentious pseudo-religiosity. So even if I enjoyed the clearly-taken-from-Ben-Hur pod race, I'm still busy shaking my head about the Midiwhatthefucks and the virgin birth.
3) Yet another complaint I make about the PT is how self-congratulatory it is, with all of the citations to films from the OT (which shouldn't be cited since they come LATER), and tedious reintroductions of character who already had great introductions before. The best example of that last complaint is Yoda, a decent character in Empire whose every subsequent use has dilluted and diminished his screenworthiness.
This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 03 April 2009 - 10:07 AM
#4
Posted 23 April 2009 - 10:30 PM
"But..."
Lavasurfing STFU.
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#5
Posted 24 April 2009 - 12:56 AM
#6
Posted 24 April 2009 - 03:50 PM
Oh no, it's not a joke. It happened.
First, they are on a volcanic planet with cinders and ash falling all over the place. There are miners/workers on the planet scooping lava into containers and they are "surfing" on the droid/platform things.
Then, Anakin and Obi-wan are on these droids that withstand the lava due to shields, and they're both "surfing" on the lava and sword fighting while only about a foot above it.
It's very difficult to suspend belief here. I don't think that even the Force can stop lava from burning someone a foot away when you can feel lava up to two miles away (and be sweating!) in the middle of winter.
This post has been edited by Vesuvius: 24 April 2009 - 03:52 PM
#7
Posted 24 April 2009 - 08:42 PM
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#9
Posted 26 April 2009 - 02:53 AM
Quote
#10
Posted 26 April 2009 - 09:13 PM
The scene in the biker episode of the Simpsons when Homer and the leader of the Hells Satans fight using huge choppers as swords was more convincing.
EDIT: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=zzph5aVsa-0
8:00 minutes in. Go on. Have a look. You must.
This post has been edited by barend: 26 April 2009 - 09:18 PM
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#11
Posted 26 April 2009 - 09:44 PM
And yeah, air so hot their lungs would scald, and their skin should just blister off from being in there, etc etc. I suppose we're to imagine that "The Force" is the answer to all of that. What a load of horse hockey.
This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 27 April 2009 - 03:07 AM
Reason for edit:: typos
#12
Posted 27 April 2009 - 12:35 AM
Yeah, and when Anakin is cut up at the end, all of the sudden, The Force just magically stopped working for him and then he got burned alive... still no explanation as of why he needed the Vader suit.
Oh, and he had his eyebrows in tact when the helmet was placed on him. Interestingly enough in the SE RotJ, Anakin has lost his eyebrows. Did it really take him 30 years to have them finally burned off?
#13
Posted 04 June 2009 - 07:02 AM
From the get-go GL made efficiency, money, and SFX priority over the story. He handed in scripts just before the actual shoot. He had expectations about digital technology that weren't even ready yet. He misjudged his audience by catering to catering to kids on the one hand, while ascribing the Campbellian mythos to the francise on the other.
LOTR accomplished something that everyone thought impossible. The creation of a fantasy world without it looking like it was produced by Sci-Fi channel.
#14
Posted 05 June 2009 - 03:52 AM
I agree with your on FotR. The other two LoTR movies left me a bit cold, though the ending of RoTK is nice (not the jumping-on-the-bed-Frodo-is-alive ending, or the Aragorn-eats-Arwen's-face ending or the Frod-leaves ending, but the Sam-returns-to-the-shire ending).
#15
Posted 05 June 2009 - 09:51 AM
Not all of LOTR got me either. I even think digital visuals in those movies weren't perfect yet. Are they even now? It seems you have to use speed and quick cuts to hide the imperfections.
You know, I love the Rankin Bashi versions of those films. It was full of music, great animation, and it had a very traditional story-telling feel to it. I do agree with Tolkien that The Hobbit was written too juvenile a manner. But I love the battle of 5 Armies at the end. It's a shame ROTK ended with 30 minutes of bye-bye instead of the attack on the Shire, which brought the whole story back home to Hobbiton. One might even have to say that LOTR would not have really ended without Saruman attacking the Shire. Brilliant on Tolkien's part.