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api call girl posted:Yeah, those fights were actually terrible, but at least they weren't that one in RotS. You know the one. It's like a lightsabre slap fight.
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Dec 10, 2013 05:01
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Frackie Robinson posted:While I think most people would agree that the prequels were failures on some level, I think they're failures of execution and not of vision. We could easily have ended up with something really safe and crowd-pleasing like we're likely to have with the upcoming sequel trilogy, but Lucas instead aimed for something a lot more downbeat at its root and full of kind of bizarre moments. It's not a ton fun to watch, but I'm still kind of glad the PT exists. The prequels are like 50% audience-antagonizing, and 50% just kind of cheerfully goofy. Obi-Wan poking the crab-monster in Episode 2 with a long spear - and the monster grabbing it - is a direct reference to a common theme in Ray Harryhausen's effects work. The spear consistently serves as a kind of bridge between the world of special effects and the world of reality.    People complain about the 'bad' CGI, but the effect is designed to be read as an effect. It's in no way a reference to reality; it's a reference to Harryhausen. And I believe I've mentioned this before, but the setting here is extremely important. Obi-Wan is fighting the monster in a theatre, with an audience of insects around him, cheering - and people say that there's no satire there. Lucas then frequently cuts to other people in the audience, like Dooku, looking down utterly bored. A character even calls attention to the gratuitousness of the scene: why not just shoot them? Because it's spectacle, for the insects. And it fools Yoda into unleashing the stormtroopers.
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Dec 10, 2013 05:06
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Wonderful Bread posted:The only thing I really enjoyed about the prequel trilogy was how well the lightsaber combat was choreographed in The Phantom Menace. Agree with a lot of the other posters that the lightsaber fights in the prequels are all overly choreographed and rehearsed. The fights in ESB and RoTJ are so much more effective because they convincingly look like two people trying to kill each other, or at least beat each other into submission. The emotion actually plays out through the combat, which is something that we're denied throughout the prequels, whether by design or not. SuperMechagodzilla posted:The prequels are like 50% audience-antagonizing, and 50% just kind of cheerfully goofy. Obi-Wan poking the crab-monster in Episode 2 with a long spear - and the monster grabbing it - is a direct reference to a common theme in Ray Harryhausen's effects work. The spear consistently serves as a kind of bridge between the world of special effects and the world of reality. It seems like one of the defining features of the prequels, especially in episodes 2 and 3 is Lucas making his homages to his b-movie source material much more overt than they ever were before. As if he felt like we didn't get the reference the first time.
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Dec 10, 2013 05:38
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The only thing that tops the prequels in terribleness is "how it should have went" fanfiction.
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Dec 10, 2013 05:48
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Lord Krangdar posted:It's like a lightsabre slap fight. I know that scene gets made fun of a lot, but I thought that the Obi-Wan v. Anakin fight at the end of ROTS was dramatic and powerful. There's no dialogue and Anakin's sense of rage is palpable, as is Obi-Wan's desperation.
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Dec 10, 2013 06:14
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redshirt posted:I know that scene gets made fun of a lot, but I thought that the Obi-Wan v. Anakin fight at the end of ROTS was dramatic and powerful. There's no dialogue and Anakin's sense of rage is palpable, as is Obi-Wan's desperation. No. Because it goes from that to a platformer videogame. Not a single moment of that fight has any demonstrated rage or desperation.
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Dec 10, 2013 06:41
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Frackie Robinson posted:Agree with a lot of the other posters that the lightsaber fights in the prequels are all overly choreographed and rehearsed. The fights in ESB and RoTJ are so much more effective because they convincingly look like two people trying to kill each other, or at least beat each other into submission. The emotion actually plays out through the combat, which is something that we're denied throughout the prequels, whether by design or not. More overt, huh. http://vimeo.com/33416454
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Dec 10, 2013 06:50
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penismightier posted:More overt, huh. I wouldn't really call the Hidden Fortress a b-movie. If the OT is kind of Tarantino-style homage, the PT is more like Robert Rodriguez-style replication. General Dog fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 07:14
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Frackie Robinson posted:Agree with a lot of the other posters that the lightsaber fights in the prequels are all overly choreographed and rehearsed. The fights in ESB and RoTJ are so much more effective because they convincingly look like two people trying to kill each other, or at least beat each other into submission. The emotion actually plays out through the combat, which is something that we're denied throughout the prequels, whether by design or not. Someone post a gif of Luke swinging like a muppet at the start of Jedi and missing that kick.
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Dec 10, 2013 10:29
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Frackie Robinson posted:It seems like one of the defining features of the prequels, especially in episodes 2 and 3 is Lucas making his homages to his b-movie source material much more overt than they ever were before. As if he felt like we didn't get the reference the first time. It's funny though, because people still didn't. The RLM videos, for example, constantly try to make the point that the original movies pay homage to this stuff (showing a reference to a war film in the originals) then claims that the prequels are only based on the original star wars and nothing else and are just made-up garbage. Also could someone please explain out the 'fight' 'choreography' when Vader and Kenobi clash in New Hope? Because it looks like an old man and a guy in an awkward suit with barely any vision flailing at each other and spouting dumb one-liners.
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Dec 10, 2013 12:40
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Yeah, I don't pay much heed to videos like the TPM one because I imagine that most movie fights look ridiculous if you go through them frame by frame. "Real" unchoreographed fights are sloppy, awkward, and usually boring to watch. Seriously, watch a UFC match or a Youtube video of a bar fight and tell me if it reminds you of anything you ever saw in a movie. I certainly was more engaged watching the fights from the OT, but I think that's more due to the rest of the story providing better context and reasons to care about the outcomes of those fights.
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Dec 10, 2013 15:32
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Hbomberguy posted:It's funny though, because people still didn't. The RLM videos, for example, constantly try to make the point that the original movies pay homage to this stuff (showing a reference to a war film in the originals) then claims that the prequels are only based on the original star wars and nothing else and are just made-up garbage. The thing that most people don't "get" about lightsaber battles is that it's a precog vs. precog battle. It's not -just- a swordfight; it's two people that are constantly seeing the next move trying to throw enough feints and nonsense in there that the other person can't pre-block whatever they're going to do. Thus, BOTH Obi-wan/Anakin fights make sense. The first are two very experienced masters of the Force (Knight/Master was not defined in the first movie, so they were both as high as you could get then), channeling the Force as much as possible and making slight movements and a lot of "tests," basically at a standstill the entire time. Short jabs and feints because neither could foresee a weakness, and they're too experienced to waste a lot of movements. In ROTS, Anakin and Obi Wan were young and at their physical primes and attempted to do so much at once that they wouldn't be able to accurately predict the next movement. Thus the excessive flailing and feinting and spinning - "what am I going to do next, you can't tell, can you?! *spin spin spin*" That fight only got stupid once they jumped on the lava and it became a platformer. The Empire fight was great because Vader was dicking around with Luke for the most part and didn't actually bother until Luke actually channeled enough Force to touch him. Jedi was great because Luke's anger was empowering him enough where there was nothing Vader could even do to defend. Phantom Menace was okay because it was staged well and everyone fighting in it relatively sucked. AOTC had two horribly composed, choreographed, and lovely fights that I can't really apply the same amount of logic to.
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Dec 10, 2013 16:15
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INH5 posted:unchoreographed fights are sloppy, awkward, and usually boring to watch. Seriously, watch a UFC match or a Youtube video of a bar fight and tell me if it reminds you of anything you ever saw in a movie. Perhaps this says more about movie fights than real fights. The brawls in The Shield are really good because they're realistic in their brutality and sloppiness, and done really well without it looking like a 'bad' fight. Darko posted:AOTC had two horribly composed, choreographed, and lovely fights that I can't really apply the same amount of logic to. Two characters try to out-force each other with physical objects because they have no true grasp of the more intellectual power of the force and then one of them does like fifty stupid flips because all the characters know is fancy lightsaber crap, because that weapon is his life. It does what it does perfectly, imho. A scene with two idiots flailing around being stupid isn't necessarily a bad scene, sometimes it's illustrating that exact idiocy. If there was a movie scene where two characters are trying to play chess and look intellectual, but both of them are violating the rules of chess because they don't actually know how to play chess, does that make the scene automatically 'bad'?
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Dec 10, 2013 17:21
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All you people trying to retroactively put reason into the actions of prequel characters: I defy you to make reason out of Padme.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:04
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Carnaticum posted:All you people trying to retroactively put reason into the actions of prequel characters: I defy you to make reason out of Padme. Her character makes perfect sense when you understand that she's not a very good person.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:22
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Consider her in contrast to Princess Leia, who shed her uniform of royal aristocracy and joined the people as a revolutionary guerrilla fighter, a bounty hunter, and as a slave. Padme is introduced as discarding her image as a helpful servant and donning a cloak of liberal decadence.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:25
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Naboo has a very strange system of government, but that seems natural given the implied origins. Humans show up to "settle" an already inhabited planet with no care or interest in dealing with the native inhabitants fairly, going so far as to push them into the sea. That the Gungans can breathe underwater seems incidental.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:34
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Carnaticum posted:All you people trying to retroactively put reason into the actions of prequel characters: I defy you to make reason out of Padme. The 'bad acting' of Natalie Portman is in fact the bad acting of Padme. It absolutely serves the story, Padme is a Queen and not very good at all at pretending to be anything else. Numerous times in the movie, Qui-Gon taunts her to her face with the fact he knows she's the real Queen, and when she finally 'reveals' herself, while everyone else looks surprised he just gives a smug grin. Qui-Gon Jinn sees through the Queen's disguise, just like we do in her so-called 'bad acting'.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:34
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Carnaticum posted:All you people trying to retroactively put reason into the actions of prequel characters: I defy you to make reason out of Padme. Padme was a great character in the first two prequels. I don't know what happened in the third, and I agree her ending is pathetic.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:35
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Hbomberguy posted:The 'bad acting' of Natalie Portman is in fact the bad acting of Padme. It absolutely serves the story, Padme is a Queen and not very good at all at pretending to be anything else. Numerous times in the movie, Qui-Gon taunts her to her face with the fact he knows she's the real Queen, and when she finally 'reveals' herself, while everyone else looks surprised he just gives a smug grin. How do you know Qui-Gon knew? When Padme does the reveal at the end of TPM, he and Obi-Wan share a look that says to me "wow, didn't see that coming".
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Dec 10, 2013 18:36
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My favorite part of TPM is where Padme reveals she's using a body double and the queen is not really the queen. It's such a stupid scene even the actors have the a "wtf really?" look on their faces. Also, it makes no sense because there's a part where the fake queen orders the real queen to clean up R2-D2 and "honor" him after he repairs the ship. I can relate to that because I sometimes like to dress up like a McDonalds employee, and have the guy at the fryer put on a suit and order me to scrub the deep fryer and assign it due honor.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:37
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redshirt posted:How do you know Qui-Gon knew? When Padme does the reveal at the end of TPM, he and Obi-Wan share a look that says to me "wow, didn't see that coming". Qui-Gon's grin looks completely knowing to me, but I could be wrong. Also, the scene where Padme says 'The Queen would not approve of this' and Qui-Gon says 'The "Queen" doesn't need to know' and almost laughs in her face. He directly taunts her with her real identity. In order to make him stop she would have to reveal herself, and he knows she won't because Qui-Gon is the one smart Jedi in the entire six films and might actually be good at reading people.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:39
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Jerk McJerkface posted:Also, it makes no sense because there's a part where the fake queen orders the real queen to clean up R2-D2 and "honor" him after he repairs the ship. To be fair, that's exactly what I would do in that situation. Yeah, I'm the boss now, so you go and clean that robot. What are you going to do, fire me? Good luck finding a replacement in our current situation. I think you can actually see the other handmaidens smirking in the background when this happens.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:49
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Jerk McJerkface posted:My favorite part of TPM is where Padme reveals she's using a body double and the queen is not really the queen. It's such a stupid scene even the actors have the a "wtf really?" look on their faces. You've never heard of the Prince and the Pauper? Padme is slumming it for fun, to 'get in touch with the people' and so-on. The body double thing is like the shape-shifter reveal in Episode 2. It has almost no bearing on the plot, so it's entirely symbolic. The answer to 'which is the real Padme?' is that they both are. The aristrocrat and the servant are two sides of the same character - which is related to the recurring theme of symbiosis. "You and the Naboo form a symbiont circle. What happens to one of you will affect the other." Padme endears herself to Boss Nass by revealing that she is the queen, presenting herself in her servant's clothes as a symbolic gesture. "Our highest official is your servant." But people always miss that Padme smirks. She is deliberately employing the imagery of servitude to mask her exploitation. No matter what clothes she wears, she is still hyper-rich, having her pilot fly her all-chrome spaceships. It's poverty tourism. It's false. This is obviously done to skewer Padme's liberal elitism. And it reflects badly on Obi Wan's 'symbiosis' thing as well. There's a system in place, but it's not a good one. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 18:55
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How do you explain the moronic order to clean up a droid and give it some sort of honor? After you unclog your toilet do you have your children hand polish the plunger and put it up on your mantel and tell your family how amazing it is?
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Dec 10, 2013 19:07
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Jerk McJerkface posted:How do you explain the moronic order to clean up a droid and give it some sort of honor? After you unclog your toilet do you have your children hand polish the plunger and put it up on your mantel and tell your family how amazing it is? People clearly develop emotional attachments to droids in the SW universe.
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Dec 10, 2013 19:13
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Jerk McJerkface posted:How do you explain the moronic order to clean up a droid and give it some sort of honor? After you unclog your toilet do you have your children hand polish the plunger and put it up on your mantel and tell your family how amazing it is? Also, when was the last time your plunger saved your life?
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Dec 10, 2013 19:29
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the last s0n posted:Also, when was the last time your plunger saved your life? When you are a girlfriends house and the water in the toilet starts going up past the point of no return a well placed plunger is a live-saver.
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Dec 10, 2013 19:33
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I was 6 when Star Wars came out and the OT was a huge part of my childhood, like everyone always says. ( I've been scanning old drawings: http://mychildhoodartwork.tumblr.com/search/Star+Wars) I still haven't seen all the prequels but for some reason I'm considering it again. After the horror of TPM, I only ended up seeing a third of the second one before I deferred to RLM's take on the PT, which scared me off from any further viewing. The discussion in the last few pages makes me want to run in fear but I might just put on my big girl panties and finally watch those abominations.
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Dec 10, 2013 20:12
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Jerk McJerkface posted:How do you explain the moronic order to clean up a droid and give it some sort of honor? After you unclog your toilet do you have your children hand polish the plunger and put it up on your mantel and tell your family how amazing it is? You are comparing a machine capable of achieving sentience to a loving toilet plunger. You are, literally, a fascist racist pig.
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Dec 10, 2013 20:23
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It's not rational for the girl to wear symbolic clothes, or to talk to her mechanic. Also yeah, the droids and aliens have always represented the universe's underclasses. You're a space racist.
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Dec 10, 2013 20:55
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The best part of the prequels is still the part where Amedala looks at her children and are so disappointed in them that she loses the will to live and dies.
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Dec 10, 2013 21:45
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Jerk McJerkface posted:When you are a girlfriends house and the water in the toilet starts going up past the point of no return a well placed plunger is a live-saver. Who would thank a plumber for keeping their house from flooding? He's a loving plumber, dumabss menial piece of poo poo. He should be glad to fix my pipes and gladder I condescended to pay his dumb barely got a GED rear end. Haha no I don't know how to fix the pipes, I have a real job.
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Dec 10, 2013 22:43
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DeimosRising posted:Who would thank a plumber for keeping their house from flooding? He's a loving plumber, dumabss menial piece of poo poo. He should be glad to fix my pipes and gladder I condescended to pay his dumb barely got a GED rear end. Haha no I don't know how to fix the pipes, I have a real job. If the plumber was a robot programmed explicitly to fix your plumbing would you thank it then?
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Dec 10, 2013 22:47
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This is the dumbest turn any starwars conversation has ever taken
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Dec 10, 2013 22:50
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zVxTeflon posted:This is the dumbest turn any starwars conversation has ever taken Welcome to the world of SMG where subtext is everything. Poor writing is symbolism, and wooden acting is foreshadowing. It's a fair way to discuss a work though, because it's sort of an interesting way to take a piece of art, completely separating the author (scriptor) from the finished work. However when applied to the PT, it's laughable because the PT is just a huge honking mess of nonsense plots, poor dialogue, bag CGI, and ridiculous themes it makes for the ultimate death of an author experience.
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Dec 10, 2013 22:52
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I think that's part of the fun of reading into the prequels. I might be presenting myself as a defender of the movies, so let me reiterate: The prequels are a terrible mess that I happen to enjoy watching because I'm probably literally crazy. Reading into the films gives me the same pleasure as the people who love doing that to Disney movies. I mean I can't stand doing that because I have a nostalgia for Disney that I don't want to break, but I can understand the appeal because I do it myself, just to other things. I made a massive mess in the Only God Forgives thread belaboring the opposite point I'm making now because I hated that film, and thus don't deem it necessary to 'read into' or whatever. Based on the reactions of Jerk McJerkface, zVxTeflon and others to this conversation string, I can sort of see the same interaction happening, but with myself on the opposite side now. Basically if you don't like the movies or reading into them that's completely fine by me, you all seem like chill people. We should chill in a Skype call and watch the star wars holiday special together
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Dec 10, 2013 23:36
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People are welcome to my world if they want refuge from the world of *prolonged honking fart sound*
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Dec 10, 2013 23:37
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:People are welcome to my world if they want refuge from the world of *prolonged honking fart sound* Can you go into the use of identity in TPM? We have at least two specific examples of main characters who have alter-egos (Padme and Palpatine). Additionally, the name of the movie lends itself to a question of identity - who is the "Phantom"? The first line spoken by Obi-Wan speaks directly to this. Additionally, Qui-Gon pretends to be just some ruffian for a good deal of the movie, and of course the main example, Anakin - who's presented as both just a kid and the Chosen One.
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Dec 11, 2013 00:07
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redshirt posted:who is the "Phantom"? The first line spoken by Obi-Wan speaks directly to this. Additionally, Qui-Gon pretends to be just some ruffian for a good deal of the movie, and of course the main example, Anakin - who's presented as both just a kid and the Chosen One. The Phantom Menace is assumed to be some hidden enemy, but the point is really that the Jedi see phantom menaces everywhere, like Yoda constantly blames the dark side for 'clouding his mind'. Qui-Gon is barely a Jedi as far as the other Jedi are concerned, but better at being a Jedi than any other Jedi is at all, ever. Jedi. Jedi Jedi. This identity thing is stretched even further in AOtC, where Dooku, the man who trained Qui-Gon, is so maverick that people assume he's a Sith Lord, even though (if I remember correctly) he basically only looks like one and might actually be masquerading being evil to draw Sideous out to kill him himself. Which is a really good strategy unless you get outsmarted. tldr - Jedi and Sith are treated like monolithic identities and the films present this as a genuine issue, characters constantly No True Scotsman-ing each other as all hell until Anakin can't take it any more and switches sides completely just to get a little loving peace
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Dec 11, 2013 00:47
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