[Magee]

I always thought that Chef Elf's wind criticism was the weakest and most unfair of his normally fair criticisms of the PT. We can accept a universe where ships can travel at the speed of light, an entire planet can be a single city, and men can move objects with their minds, but we cannot accept one where the wind doesnt blow at 10,000 feet the way it would on the Planet Earth.

[showmethemoney]

I always thought that Chef Elf's wind criticism was the weakest and most unfair of his normally fair criticisms of the PT. We can accept a universe where ships can travel at the speed of light, an entire planet can be a single city, and men can move objects with their minds, but we cannot accept one where the wind doesnt blow at 10,000 feet the way it would on the Planet Earth.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Agree. i don't know how this post is so succesfull.

[dougte]

Agree. i don't know how this post is so succesfull.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I love it when things come full circle...let's go back to the very first post.


For those complaining about chefelf's "wind" nitpick, I think this review does a better job fleshing it out. I don't think it's so much a lack of wind that causes the nitpick, but the "digital clean" feeling throughout all three movies....


"...After all, the Lucasian universe is drained of all reference to bodily functions. Nobody ingests or excretes. Language remains unblue. Smoking and cursing are out of bounds, as is drunkenness, although personally I wouldn’t go near the place without a hip flask. Did Lucas learn nothing from “Alien” and “Blade Runner”—from the suggestion that other times and places might be no less rusted and septic than ours, and that the creation of a disinfected galaxy, where even the storm troopers wear bright-white outfits, looks not so much fantastical as dated? What Lucas has devised, over six movies, is a terrible puritan dream: a morality tale in which both sides are bent on moral cleansing, and where their differences can be assuaged only by a triumphant circus of violence. Judging from the whoops and crowings that greeted the opening credits, this is the only dream we are good for. We get the films we deserve...



...All of the interiors in Lucasworld are anthems to clean living, with molded furniture, the tranquillity of a morgue, and none of the clutter and quirkiness that signify the process known as existence. Illumination is provided not by daylight but by a dispiriting plastic sheen, as if Lucas were coating all private affairs—those tricky little threats to his near-fascistic rage for order—in a protective glaze. Only outside does he relax, and what he relaxes into is apocalypse. “Revenge of the Sith” is a zoo of rampant storyboards. Why show a pond when C.G.I. can deliver a lake that gleams to the far horizon? Why set a paltry house on fire when you can stage your final showdown on an entire planet that streams with ruddy, gulping lava? Whether the director is aware of John Martin, the Victorian painter who specialized in the cataclysmic, I cannot say, but he has certainly inherited that grand perversity, mobilized it in every frame of the film, and thus produced what I take to be unique: an art of flawless and irredeemable vulgarity. All movies bear a tint of it, in varying degrees, but it takes a vulgarian genius such as Lucas to create a landscape in which actions can carry vast importance but no discernible meaning, in which style is strangled at birth by design, and in which the intimate and the ironic, not the Sith, are the principal foes to be suppressed. It is a vision at once gargantuan and murderously limited, and the profits that await it are unfit for contemplation."

[Magee]

Well I guess my point then is that we already knew the Star Wars galaxy was antiseptic from the OT. And unlike most of Chef Elf's reasons to hate the PT are reasons that did not already show up in the OT, which is not true of the criticisms made in the New Yorker. Those criticisms are criticisms of all 6 movies, which is unlike the rest of Chef Elf's points.

[dougte]

Well I guess my point then is that we already knew the Star Wars galaxy was antiseptic from the OT. And unlike most of Chef Elf's reasons to hate the PT are reasons that did not already show up in the OT, which is not true of the criticisms made in the New Yorker. Those criticisms are criticisms of all 6 movies, which is unlike the rest of Chef Elf's points.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

On some level I agree with you about the "wind" critique not being on of chefelf's strongest, which was why I thought this article did a better job "fleshing it out." However, I thought the original trilogy had a much more real feel to it because (gasp!) they actually used a lot of real sets. These new movies all had that "green screen" feel to them. Grievous looked like a cartoon to me, and his little getaway vehicle (that wheel thing) looked cartoony as well. I won't even go into Jar-Jar...

One of the things that most pissed me off (yeah, I know this is off track) was when Lucas went back into the Original Star Wars and made the Greedo/Han shoot-off some sort of weird tie. Huh? It totally took away from Han's character development...

It was like Spielberg taking out all the rifles in ET...what the hell is up with this politically correct B.S? "Death sticks"? Give me a break.

[Despondent]

The entire Bespin art direction included wind. the landing platforms, Luke's hang from below. Who can forget hearing the wind at the "Obi-wan never told you" part.

Maybe even at the binary sunset there was wind? Then there's the Hoth breath frost (actual).


Lucas didn't direct ESB, so of course he wouldn't remember those decisions. And someone with more experience failed to raise their hand.

Aside from wind, the OT had the murky trash compactor water. And the bog and stuff artoo spits out. Oh yeah. the snake. Real stuff.

So the complete ABSENCE of living things (good for the Midi's, I'm sure) would mean the unquestioned absence of atmospherical conditions. FINE.




For the first time ever in a SW movie, (in Rots) they refer to entering the atmoshpere.

[Magee]

Luke sweats on Dagobah and again after his fight with Vader in ESB. As much as I like the New Yorker article it is a little off base. There is drinking and smoking in II and IV. I just think that there is so much wrong with the PT that wind shouldnt be in the top thousand problems.

In response to Doughte, it isnt the green screen that bothers me really. Ive heard alot of people say that they could not relate to the PT because of the CGI. I am not one of these. I was able to relate to the Lion King and the characters in that movie are animated animals. What kills the PT as movies (plot inconsistencies kill them as Star Wars movies) is the complete lack of realistic human relationships. Does anyone relate to OB1's sympathy for Anakin or Padme's attraction for him or Palpatine's respect for his ability? It is shocking to me that this PT story was concieved by the same man who humanized Darth Vader in OT. The task of humanizing that character so that his audience could relate to him was a much harder task then humanizing the young Anakin Skywalker. Yet Lucas failed miserably.

So I wish everyone would stop taking cheap shots at the ridiculous CGI effects. In a strange way I actually applaud Lucas' boldness to use his crown jewel as the forum of innovation. That only slightly marginalizes my admiration.

[dougte]

Luke sweats on Dagobah and again after his fight with Vader in ESB. As much as I like the New Yorker article it is a little off base. There is drinking and smoking in II and IV. I just think that there is so much wrong with the PT that wind shouldnt be in the top thousand problems.

In response to Doughte, it isnt the green screen that bothers me really. Ive heard alot of people say that they could not relate to the PT because of the CGI. I am not one of these. I was able to relate to the Lion King and the characters in that movie are animated animals. What kills the PT as movies (plot inconsistencies kill them as Star Wars movies) is the complete lack of realistic human relationships. Does anyone relate to OB1's sympathy for Anakin or Padme's attraction for him or Palpatine's respect for his ability? It is shocking to me that this PT story was concieved by the same man who humanized Darth Vader in OT. The task of humanizing that character so that his audience could relate to him was a much harder task then humanizing the young Anakin Skywalker. Yet Lucas failed miserably.

So I wish everyone would stop taking cheap shots at the ridiculous CGI effects. In a strange way I actually applaud Lucas' boldness to use his crown jewel as the forum of innovation. That only slightly marginalizes my admiration.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think it's just the screen that does it; I think it's the green screen coupled with the bad dialogue and bad acting. (The acting wouldn't be as bad if there were good dialogue and good directing.)

I also don't think "Lion King" is a good example, since Star Wars wasn't meant to be a cartoon (although, ironically, that's what it now feels like.)

A better example might have been the FIRST Matrix. The dialogue in those movies is horrid. Close your eyes and listen to it and you'll see how bad it is. However, the direction and special effects kicked ass. The "W bros" (I'm not going to try and spell their name) elevated what should have been another "Johnny Nemonic" for Keanu to something truly special. (Although Matrix will never have the lasting power of the OT)

Lucas used his CGI as a crutch any time he had to do something hard, like...characterization. Who can concentrate in a little office all alone, writing, when there are so many "toys" for him to play with? Oh well...I give him thanks for the great childhood memories, but that's it.

[barend]

ONCE AND FOR ALL....

The Deal With Wind
a community service announcement

the problem with the lack of wind, or moments when (like the fight between mace and palpy) the wind just stops at the same time as a camera cut or when the actions over is that it serves to remind those of us who have actually been to that wonderful place known as "outside" that this story is not taking place on another planet but in a soundproof studio in Sydney.

not taking into consideration that being a global city, Croissant would be ONE BIG FUCKING WIND TRAP THAT WOULD ACTUALLY HAVE WINDS THAT WOULD BE A REAL FUCKER TO FLY A HOVER CAR IN LET ALONE WALK AROUND ON, you have to look at what makes something appear real...

having people talk to each other like they're reading it as they say it becausue a certain paranoid director refuses to let actors know what's happening in scene, combined with CGI characters walking around who move not like humans or organic species but like computer game NPCs who act less human than the robots do, in addition to the utter lack of real sourounding stimuli that a CGI background has (so that you have actors acting like they're fighting on a particularly warm day as a pposed to inches away from lava!!!), and then put them on a balcony where air doesn't seem to move you are left with an uncomfortable sense of unreality that radio shows from the 1930s seemed to be able to conquor...

no. what we have here is a series of films that, if it weren't drowning in ample finance would look like "Q-the winged serpent" (no really check it out... i just kept thinking SW).

so for those who still don't get the 'wind-nitpick' that seems to have started so much controversy, i hope you enjoy on-line RPGs because i get the impression that it's the only "reality" you people seem to be used to...

[dougte]

so for those who still don't get the 'wind-nitpick' that seems to have started so much controversy, i hope you enjoy on-line RPGs because i get the impression that it's the only "reality" you people seem to be used to...

Ouch!

This post has been edited by dougte: 12 July 2005 - 11:50 PM