Reasons to Hate A New Hope? Maybe
#1
Posted 14 April 2004 - 10:57 PM
1. A new hope is the closest of the six movies to the junk sci-fi serials that Lucas based the movie on. Think: Boy hero, evil overlord in dark, space heroine needing to be rescued, three heroes kill a whole army of stormtroopers, Death Ray device. Not far from the Flash Gordon serials. Which is a lot of what ATOCs is!
2. There is the goofy "Wizard of Oz" skipping scene that Luke, Leia and Han do after the Death Star has been destroyed. Check out the hangar scene when Luke has left his x-wing. You can practically hear 'ding-dong-the witch-is dead "throughout the skipping.
3. People assail the Ewoks as being "childish", yet seem perfectly acceptable of having a bunch of little munchkin like guys in robes saying "Ontoneeee" {or something like that}.
4. People complain about the Ewok battle being unrealistic when a bunch of Teddy Bears with sticks defeat an Imperial squad. Yet they have no trouble with one X-wing with an inexperienced pilot able to evaid and survive the massive resources of a Space stations gunneries, fighters, not to mention the aid of one experienced Sith Lord targeting him from behind.
5. ANH is filled with some bad dialogue. "Get this walking carpet, out of my way" is as bad as "Hey, Dr. Jones no time for lovemaking". {And I LOVED Temple of Doom by the way}
6. The Death Star is your greatest weapon and you have it's only weakspot so easy to be destroyed by onesmall fighters torpedo?? ROTJ corrected this by making the Death Star's defenses more realistic. The superstructure {needed 5 torpedoes to destroy}, the force field, having an actual fleet there to protect it. Basic common knowledge that any strategist would use.
7. ANH easily has the worst acting of the OT films. Check some of Fisher's and Hammil's lines. Even Vader comes of a little hammy. His character was perfected in ESB.
I overlook all those things because I found the movie enjopyable. If I hated the movie I would use these nitpicking points as an all out assail on ANH much in the same way that other's have assailed ROTJ
And another thing, if there was ever an OT movie I would redo and change a little, ANH would be it. There are times I think that ANH sometimes seems too different in tone from ESB and ROTJ. I would smooth out some of the scenes in ANH to make it more realistic and more in line with the themes establish in ESB and resolved in ROTJ. That being said I would probably leave ANH alone. But if I HAD to redo one movie in the OT it would be ANH.
I will leave with this controversial tidbit of info that I will
#2
Posted 14 April 2004 - 11:47 PM
That said though, the worst piece of acting has to be when Han learns Luke is Leia's brother.... he doesn't know what to do with his facial expressions at all. I think they should never use secret brothers revealed in movies. No actor can handle them (check out Kevin Costner in Robin Hood for example).
And I agree about Darth Vader. James Earl Jones hadn't mastered the voice yet and at times you can see David Prowse's eyes. Wonder why the Special Editions didn't bother to patch that up? The stuck in lots of stupid things but neglected the opportunity to make some things better.
Anyway, interesting points you raised though. It should get a little discussion going. I wouldn't go around broadcasting that you loved Temple of Doom though... but don't worry, your secret's safe with me.
#3
Posted 15 April 2004 - 12:45 AM
Well he finally got it at the MTV Awards in 1997.
See It Here!
Yoda
#5
Posted 15 April 2004 - 06:49 AM
Well, that's what's GOOD about the movie, isn't it? The throwback to the old drive-in days? Because if it isn't, it's hard to overlook that EMPIRE is the only film without all these elements. They're damn present in JEDI, that's for sure!
JEDI has a big mouth in the ground that burps when it swallows people. It has a "Tarzan" yell. Are we going to split hairs here?
The Jawas are silly, but not terribly silly. They're little guys, yes. They collect and sell scrap droids. They trave around in a big truck. They have a language that sounds like childish chirping. But that's the end of it. We don't have any scene where someone has to make friendly with them by offering food, we don't have Jedi "magic" convincing them someone is a god, we don't have cutesy scenes of their children cowering under the spell of a holographic summary of the previous two films. They are not, in short, cute, and this is what keeps them from being "childish." Also, I think the fact that they are murdered en masse by stormtroopers and burnt in a mass funeral pyre should pretty much take the sting out of any of their silly noises.
If this is a problem for you, then it's a huge weakness with the third film as well, since they pretty much do the exact same thing. But to clarify: Luke is not inexperienced. He is a natural, yes, but he has flown before. And his evasion of the sith lord is no big deal: the Force is string in him, and the sith lord is fired upon from behind by a much larger ship. Add to which the station's defenses were not designed to repel little planes. It's stupid, sure, but it's part of the theme of indiciduals versus a collective. When they repeat the exact same event in the third film, it has nothing to do with any sort of theme at all. It's just an obligatory action scene, lazily cranked out and uninspired.
You want to throw the baby out with the bath water, you go right ahead. There's bad dialogue in all of the movies, EMPIRE included. This isn't WITHNAIL AND I, it's cheesy space opera. There's no way you're really going out on the "STAR WARS is the only film in the series with bad dialogue" limb.
You're grasping at straws. JEDI didn't improve on the notion, because in JEDI they still manage to blow the thing up with a few well-placed shots. If anything JEDI drew attention to itself, since the Empire was apparently willing to sink all those resources into building something similarly flawed. The song and dance about it being harder is nuts: all they had to do to protect the weak core of the ship was make it so narrow or twisty that you couldn't fly a fighter place right up to it, much less the Millenium Falcon.
Oh - and when Luke destroys the Death Star In STAR WARS, it's the culmination of a story arc about the mystical energies being more reliable than technology, about Luke's faith on the old ways. When Lando blows up the Death Star in JEDI, it's just another action scene. It has nothing to do with the theme of redemption that is meant to be the centre of the film. All of the real stories are taking place elsewhere, and the space battle is really just background to create urgency for the other characters.
Are we still splitting hairs here?
Wow. I would change JEDI to conform with STAR WARS, not the other way around.
#6
Posted 15 April 2004 - 10:10 AM
Right it is nitpicking and splitting hairs. your arguments against the points made are exactly the same points we made to objections about ROTJ. Things you find abhorrent with ROTJ you are more than perfectly willing to let slide in ANH.
It boils down to this you liked ANH, you didn't like ROTJ simple as that. Has nothing to do with cinematic theory or proper movie making.
Wow. I would change JEDI to conform with STAR WARS, not the other way around
If I had to change one of the OT movies. Truth be told i would leave all three alone. A New Hope is raw and has incosistencies in tone with the other three movies. Action sequences could have been better. I would not change a thing with the Lightsaber duel, Greedos death or the space battle though. I would get rid of the stupid gunwell scenes with luke and Han. I mean some of the expressions on Luke and Leia's faces are downright inappropriate for people possibly facing death from the Tie fighters.
The acting starts out below average in ANH, gets better with ESB and is very good by the time it gets to ROTJ. Although you can chalk it up to inexperience on the actors and crew.
Han Solos performance in ROTJ is not the best, because his character has reached the end of his arc by the middle of the movie. Han is no longer the leader, alpha male or teacher in the trio. Han know has to learn humility, comaradery and sacrifice two things he never had to do before. The Han we see is a different one form the ESB and ANH.
I also proudly state that I loved Temple of Doom. in fact I just watched it yesterday and still loved it and will watch it again. I think again it boils down to personal tastes.
#7
Posted 15 April 2004 - 11:44 AM
Han Solos performance in ROTJ is not the best, because his character has reached the end of his arc by the middle of the movie. Han is no longer the leader, alpha male or teacher in the trio. Han know has to learn humility, comaradery and sacrifice two things he never had to do before. The Han we see is a different one form the ESB and ANH.
I also proudly state that I loved Temple of Doom. in fact I just watched it yesterday and still loved it and will watch it again. I think again it boils down to personal tastes.
I'm now kind of sad. My opinion of your taste in flicks just dropped in a massive way.
I mean, ROTJ had some decent SCENES, but overall acting wasn't very good. Hamill did grow as an actor and most of his scenes in Jedi were much improved over SW (I shall heretofore return to speaking of "A New Hope" as Star Wars in light of Civvie's comment earlier). It was a little rough watching him go from being really upset over Ben's death to being excited the TIE fighter attack, but I would wager it is one of those things that soldiers experience. He was upset about Ben but eager over his first big space battle. And you would have to be stupid to cut the gunwell battle from SW. It was one of the highlights of the film.
Han Solo shouldn't have had to take a back seat. It is possible that there can be two strong male characters. LOTR had Aragorn, Gimli AND Legolas all strong, full of piss and vinegar and kicking major ass. Solo's "arc" wasn't complete. Just because he's a full-fledged good guy doesn't mean he has to turn into puss of the year. I don't even know why he settled for coked-out Carrie rather than hanging around for some other space-hotties with hearts of gold and brains to match.
And loving temple of doom? BLECH! That movie was a piece of ass pie. I never saw it as a child and only viewed it for the first time, in its entirety, when I was 20. Kate Capshaw turned in a horrible performance (no surprise), Short Round was an obnoxious little shit and Indy had taken the same medication Han Solo took before the start of ROTJ.
I guess we can't fault Capshaw for her not being Karen Allen, but damn did that bitch whine - and she wasn't funny. Indy should have been scoring with whatever slavegirls were available and not attempting to tap that. I also love how all the progress made with Marion's character as a strong female was destroyed by "Willy."
All of the little kid shit was painful, too. Indiana Jones does not require a sidekick, whether a little Asian kid or not. Sallah wasn't a sidekick, he was a contact and neither was Marion. The whole thing was part of that Goonies (ugh), "a little child shall lead them" kick that Spielberg and most filmmakers went on in the 80's.
Let's not even mention how boring and unmotivated the plot was. Indy had no real hardcore interest in this case. It's been established he studies antiquities, mostly middle-eastern and Euro stuff, and things linked with the occult. Sure, there were some occultic elements of the jewel thing or whatever it was (Note that in the other two films we can recall easily EXACTLY what he's looking for, but not in TOD?) And what was the plot? He was running from somebody after stealing a jewel, then they put him on a plane and abandoned ship hoping that he would die in the plane crash? More fucking elaborate than any 007 death plan. If the pilots were sympathetic, shoot Jones in the head! They wanted him dead, right? Once he crashes down they wander aimlessly (like the storyline) and stumble across a village and then the bad guys (good guys?/bad guys?/oh, okay, bad guys), eat monkey brains and discover that some tin horn dictator wants to rule the villages. Okay, have fun. There was no sense of urgency because I wanted "Willy," Short-Round and Indy all dead. And take all those dumbass kids with them. As a matter of fact, if the ground had just opened up and wiped them all off the planet I would have been happy.
Worse than this was the idea it was a fucking prequel! We knew Indy would survive and he was the only character anybody with sense would have an affinity for!
I repeat, BLECH!!!
--FW
#9
Posted 15 April 2004 - 02:34 PM
Oh, not at all. The things you bring up are present in both films, yes. But weak acting I have to forgive or I drop the series altogether, excepting most of EMPIRE. The WAR OF THE WORLDS weakness (the one button or virus or word or song or activity what kills all the bad guys everywhere) is in both movies, but it's only a complaint in JEDI, not because it's silly but because it is repetitive. We've seen it now in how many STAR WARS films (including, just this once, the PT)?
The major problems I have with JEDI are not present at all in STAR WARS or EMPIRE. The major problems I have are with the answers to the dramatic questions raised in the first two films. The answers are just too fricking lame! Luke and Leia are bro-sis; ok that's the love triangle, check. Leia is the "other," so no cool new characters (Sean Connery was a late-series addition to the INDY films, and he worked perfectly, so no complaints about how it would be impossible to introduce a new guy will register here. Especially sicne I want the new guy/gal for the promised *third* trilogy). Vader aplogizes, so that does it for the father-being-evil thing, check. And Ben didn't really lie to Luke, "from a certain point of view." There; throw in a gratuitous big blow-up for the emperor and, what the hell, a second death Star (only stupid, again, because it is repetitive), and we got us as cynical and cash-cow a piece of filmmaking as I could have imagined.
To give the devil is due, the Vader = father thing was a difficult thing to deal with. It was going to have a tragic ending, if it was to work at all, and I have to break it to you, watching the big villain die, even if he apologizes on his way out, is not tragic. Especially when we soften the blow even more by getting to see him hanging out in the spirit world with the other "good" Jedi, while teddy bears dance all around us. Fewer "happy endings" have been so aggressivley happy. Was it silly to have R2 chirp and whistle at the end of STAR WARS? Sure. But nothing like the dancing and Jedi spirits ending of JEDI, dude. That was downright embarrassing, on par with the worst of the CHRISTMAS CAROL films.
TEMPLE OF DOOM is just another INDIANA JONES movie, like DIE ANOTHER DAY was just another BOND film. Since there is no literal continuity between the films, it couldn't hurt RAIDERS the way JEDI hurt EMPIRE (from my point of view). So really, not my cup of tea, but I couldn't care less how many people liked it. You can argue this one with Ferris. Sure, I think it's big and dumb and goes places the other films would (wisely) never dare, but it has its moments, here and there, which is something I cannot say for DIE ANOTHER DAY. Because that one, I mean, God damn.
PS: My language? Really? What are you, some kind of cuss-Nazi? I'm not mad at anyone here; isn't that much obvious?
PPS: Answering a question in another thread, "diatribe" = "a bitter or malicious criticism or denunciation." Strangely enough , it derives from "diatriba," which is latin for "learned discussion." I guess those old Romans took their "learned discussions" about as seriously as we do here at Chef's place!
PPPS: I have a couple of degrees in English Literature, but I am a filmmaker now (among a few other things). I agree that it's hard to tell how one helps the other, but I've never regretted my education.
#10
Posted 15 April 2004 - 03:39 PM
And Mike, as for your reasons, I'm going to have to agree with Civ on everything here. Although I still say Hamill is very good as Luke, and I actually thought Ford comes off as a very unpolished actor, though he does have that air of coolness about him that makes his character great. ANH (which I will call it because I am younger and that's how I think of it ) is not perfect, it has its moments of subpar dialogue (though I again say its script is very much underrated and the dialogue really is very good for the most part. Not Tarantino good, but good). Even with its problems, its great. And even though I liked ROTJ more, I would still sooner change it than I would change ANH. ANH is what it is, and it's great. ROTJ is great, but it could have been better, if you understand what I mean. And as far as I'm concerned, the fact that ANH is close to AOTC in its story is a + for AOTC and not a minus for ANH, because the story of ANH is truly timeless, and while some may say timeless is just another way of saying cliche, I still think ANH is something special.
Also Civ, why didn't you tell us you were a filmmaker, even though its among other things? Do you plan on doing anything professional (or have you done anything professional) or is it just an on-the-side hobby?
#11
Posted 15 April 2004 - 04:04 PM
Civvie's real name is Kevin Smith.
...
Okay, I really don't know. I'm just joshin' ya. Well, it amused me at least.
Of course, number two does sound like a bathroom code.
--FW
#12
Posted 15 April 2004 - 04:40 PM
Oh, of course it did. I admit that. I was 14 in the summer of '83, and along with others my age I was excited to see it opening day (I skipped school to be at the first screening). I loved it all the way home, even though several aspects of it were disturbibg to me. I just loived it for the action, you know, the way a lot of kids your age woulf love WILLOW the first time they saw it. A few days later, I saw it again, and that was the last time I saw it in a movie theatre for about three months. Three months later was the last time I'd see it in a theatre. Years later, I got around to buying the THX laserdisc, and it was a few months after that that I finally watched it in my home. As I had seen EMPIRE something close to a dozen times during its initial theatrical run (yes, I was 11 years old), I had some investmetn in the franchise. With JEDI I earned my Purple Heart.
The second time I saw JEDI I was crestfallen. I "realized" (subjective, I know) that Lucas had just hastily tied everything up, possibly out of exhastion, possibly becuse he was overwhelmed. Then he started saying in the press that he had never really planned to do nine films, but that he might go back to do a prequel trilogy sometime in the uncertain future. This outside-the-film stuff had an effect on me, I admit. I thought Lucas had ripped off his fans, and by extension me, and yes, I gauge JEDI in terms of EMPIRE, since JEDI was the last film he made. He essentially told the world they were never going to see another movie with those characters ever again, and he went out with a whimper. JEDI is nothing like EMPIRE, it doesn't complete the story as it might have, and it does nothing with any of its various loose ends (Jabba and Boba Fett are handled with all the grace of a fart joke, there is no value to the "other hope," there are no ramifications to Vader being Luke's father, and we're left believing that with the Emperor dead, there is no Imperial regime, which is frankly stupid). We're not even given any understanding of this terrible "Dark Side of the Force" we heard so much about in EMPIRE, since it's depicted as a thing you can drop whenever you finally grow a pair.
And yeah, I found the Ewoks annoying, and no, Mr Mac, they were nothing like the Jawas, since the Jawas were not integral to the resolution of the film and since we didn't spend really any time with them. I'm not 100% convinced of your conviction there.
All that said, I'll say again: I don't think JEDI is all that bad. It's just a bad ending to the series, and for that I stand on the side of "it sucks."
I thought that was obvious from some of the things I've said in posts. Mostly it's a hobby, yes. I do work professionally, but hold no union cards. I have worked in lead roles on a few indies, (shorts, features and docs), but have yet to direct anything bigger than a short film of my own. Primarily I work as an editor and videographer, doing music and dance videos (and short documentaries), as well as helping people put together demo reels and press kits. I am working on a few screenplays that I hope to sell and never see again, and one and a half that I would one day like to direct on my own, funding and distribution willing. Additionally, I am involved in Customer Support Training for a Fortune 500 company, and I teach academic writing at the high school and university level. I like long walks, intense conversation, and bitching about STAR WARS movies (and occasionally religion) with people I meet online.
#14
Posted 15 April 2004 - 07:15 PM
What films are to your credit? BTW. Or would you be afraid that another 80 Reasons to Hate list might be created by Elf Just kidding!!!!
I have never seen Die Another Day, and have no intention of doing so. I am an avid reader of James Gardners Bond novels {great reader and true to Flemings character} I hate all of Pierce Brosnans James Bond Movies. The only true "Bondian" movies IMO are
1. Goldfinger
2. Dr. No
3. From Russia with Love
4. Thunderball
5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
6. For Your Eyes Only
7. Living Daylights
8. License to Kill
Timothy Dalton's James Bond is the closest to the literary character that is James Bond. Read any of Gardner's novels, the Bond portrayed in them is Timothy Dalton's bond. Timothy Dalton's bond films are my favorite throughout the series.The failure of Dalton's films is due to the fact that there was little marketing and the budget used in making the films was smaller than in previous Bonds. I can just imagine how more popular these films might have been had the marketing and budget used in Brosnan's films were used on Dalton's films.
Regarding ANH and ROTJ, I rest assured in knowing that my opinions are shared by other "collegues(sp?)" Stalemate. Not worth the breath or effort.
Not a cuss nazi. I just don't appreciate the lords name taken in vain.
#15
Posted 15 April 2004 - 08:09 PM
Also, did you know that Quentin Tarantino has said that he wants to do the next Bond? He says that he would make a lower budget (meaning I believe about 40 mil.) movie of Casino Royale, but like the book, not the spoof. I for one think he would be great, and doing this could revitalize the franchise. What do you guys think?