Chefelf.com Night Life: So, wait a minute. - Chefelf.com Night Life

Jump to content

Star Wars Fan Convention

  • (3 Pages)
  • +
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3

So, wait a minute. You guys LIKE the saber duels in the PT?

#16 Guest_Guest_*

  • Group: Guests

Posted 29 April 2004 - 10:34 PM

Technically, the lightsaber duel in TPM is very well done, a nice choregraphed moment, but that's IT! There is no heart to it. I mean, they're going after Maul just because he looks bad? Is it because he and Q-G had a little tussle in the desert? I mean, not even a mention of, "I feel the Darkside in this one.. he's bad." NOTHING!! There is no motivation!

If they're trying to stop Maul... what are they trying to stop him from doing WHAT? I don't know! And, he certainly doesn't make any effort to go after Amidala, heck, not even after the "the most powerful Jedi ever" Anakin. Shouldn't Maul be sensing him? (Okay, whole different rant).

As for Yoda's duel with Dooku.. without a doubt, the worst duel EVER! It goes against everything that Yoda is/was in ESB. Yoda is not a warrior. He says this, he believes this, and he should live it! The Sonic-Hedgehog battle should never have happened! The playing around with the Force, Lightning, telekinesis.. the power of the mind--that makes sense! Lightsabers? No, Yoda should never had had one.

The moment I heard he was getting his own lightsaber, I knew things were bad...
0

#17 User is offline   CowboyCurtis Icon

  • Soothsayer
  • PipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 800
  • Joined: 11-February 04
  • Location:Minnesooota
  • Interests:I lose interest in more things each and every day as things grow more and more mediocre and substandard...
  • Country:United States

Posted 29 April 2004 - 10:35 PM

Oops, that was suppose to be me.
Flying Ferret

Battle for the Galaxy--read the "other Star Wars"

All I know is I haven't seen the real prequels yet.
0

#18 User is offline   HK 47 Icon

  • Level Boss
  • PipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 487
  • Joined: 20-April 04

Posted 30 April 2004 - 04:02 AM

QUOTE
As for Yoda's duel with Dooku.. without a doubt, the worst duel EVER! It goes against everything that Yoda is/was in ESB. Yoda is not a warrior. He says this, he believes this, and he should live it! The Sonic-Hedgehog battle should never have happened! The playing around with the Force, Lightning, telekinesis.. the power of the mind--that makes sense! Lightsabers? No, Yoda should never had had one.


"It seems we cannot decide this contest by our knowledge of the force..." WHY!?!?! What exactly does George mean by that? So a jedis skill with his lightsaber has nothing or little to do with how strong he is with the force?
0

#19 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

  • -
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 4,140
  • Joined: 10-April 04
  • Gender:Not Telling
  • Country:Nothing Selected

Posted 07 May 2004 - 11:11 AM

QUOTE
So a jedis skill with his lightsaber has nothing or little to do with how strong he is with the force?


Yeah, all that's out the window now. Apparently, the only thing that really counts these days is your midichlorian count...
0

#20 User is offline   Despondent Icon

  • Think for yourself
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 4,684
  • Joined: 31-October 03
  • Location:a long time ago
  • Interests:Laughter. Louis pups. Percussion. What binds us. Bicycling, Tennis.
  • Country:United States

Posted 07 May 2004 - 11:35 AM

Isn't Dooku the midichlorian Count?
0

#21 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

  • -
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 4,140
  • Joined: 10-April 04
  • Gender:Not Telling
  • Country:Nothing Selected

Posted 07 May 2004 - 11:39 AM

biggrin.gif That was good.
0

#22 User is offline   barend Icon

  • Anchor Head Anchor Man
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Crappy News Team
  • Posts: 11,839
  • Joined: 12-November 03
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Nieuw Holland
  • Interests:The Beers of Western Europe, Cognac, and constantly claiming the world would have been a better place if Napoleon had won.
  • Country:Australia

Posted 09 May 2004 - 08:43 PM

laugh.gif

well seeing as light sabers are made out of light, I would have thought anyone with a functioning wrist who wasn't a complete retard would do okay with one...


has annyone seen that MPEG of the geek with the broomstick trying to do all the Darth Maul moves, with 'gaybar' by Electric 6 playing? funny stuff!!!:)
0

#23 User is offline   Supes Icon

  • Sunshine Superman
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 1,334
  • Joined: 30-October 03
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Sydney, Australia
  • Country:Australia

Posted 10 May 2004 - 12:25 AM

QUOTE (barend @ May 9 2004, 08:43 PM)
has annyone seen that MPEG of the geek with the broomstick trying to do all the Darth Maul moves, with 'gaybar' by Electric 6 playing? funny stuff!!!:)

The Star Wars Kid - Ghyslain Raza
Luminous beings are we... not this crude matter.
Yoda
0

#24 User is offline   njamilla Icon

  • Level Boss
  • PipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 283
  • Joined: 02-November 03
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Washington, DC
  • Interests:Black belts: aikido, kendo, iaido, jodo. 1987 World Fencing Championships, World University Games participant. Writer: novelist, freelancer. Interestes: Renaissance, religious history, turtles.
  • Country:United States

Posted 17 May 2004 - 11:01 AM

I'm with you that the PT lightsaber fights are boring, but in the overall scope of those two films, the lightsaber fight is the most memorable thing about those movies. That's my experience at about a score of talks I gave promoting my book on lightsaber fighting.

Even today, there's endless talk about how good the new lightsaber scenes are going to be. I'm sure they'll be passable, and certainly in the "refined" judgment of many experience movie-goers, they'll be the best sword fights in history.

I was interviewed for a Philadelphia newspaper about the recent number of sword fight movies, and I and the choreographer for The Last Samurai were luke warm about the sword fighting in Kill Bill. People like the fights, and that's pretty much all most people care about. They don't have to think there's actually a purpose for them, just that they are there. People are starting to clue in that story is actually a lot more interesting than the fights. The lackluster reviews of the two latest (and hopefully last) Matrix movies attest to this.

This post has been edited by njamilla: 17 May 2004 - 11:01 AM

Author: Sword Fighting in the Star Wars Universe.
0

#25 Guest_Guest_*

  • Group: Guests

Posted 17 May 2004 - 05:17 PM

It seems cyclical (either for audience or the studios), they'll put out the slam-bang movies, all action, no story, and people eat it up until they hunger for something a little more, and by the time Hollywood gets this, if they ever do, then a new crop of movie-goers who have disposable incomes will rise and the Hollywoods would go right back to catering to them. They shrug of the more "mature" audience in favor of that quick buck. Those who want more, don't get more or better. Why cater to an audience that is technically "smaller?"

Hollywood sucks. They don't give their audiences enough credit. Sheesh, they just need to get on the web see the tons and dozens of critical review sites and comments from every Tom-Dick-and-Harry who has an opinion.

In reality, shouldn't movies be (hate this word) 'evolving?'
0

#26 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

  • -
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 4,140
  • Joined: 10-April 04
  • Gender:Not Telling
  • Country:Nothing Selected

Posted 17 May 2004 - 07:08 PM

I couldn't agree more.
0

#27 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

  • Knows All The Girls Named Lola
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 7,234
  • Joined: 24-May 04
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Rural Pahrump Nevada
  • Interests:Tyranny
  • Country:United States

Posted 25 May 2004 - 04:30 AM

I definately have to say that those of you who are defending the saber duel are not in fact defending the saber duel. I believe it was pointed out that the music ROCKED. I completely agree. In fact without that music the saber Duel would have just been plotless slaughter (aren't Jedi supposed to be AGAINST that? ) I mean what was Darth maul even doing there? I can hardly remember to tell the truth but I have no doubt that he was just sitting around waiting for some Jedi to come kill him. They could have at least spliced some dialogue in, no matter how crappy and cliched it might have been so that if I walked in while they were fighting I wouldn't have to wonder why two Jedi were bludgeoning some red and black bloke to death.

Just rip off James Bond for goodness sake, something like "The world will be ours" "Never!" I mean that's not too much to ask. Fight scenes are cool but they really should either involve so much passion that no talk is needed or they should involve words to show the battle between the character's opposing view points. A sword duel should either be "Mercutio's soul is but a ways overhead and I or you or both must follow!" Wherein the two characters hated eachother so completely that we understood what they were about and why they had to fight or it should be a bit of exposition where we see the two opposing views laid out and by the end of the fight one of them has been proven wrong, usually with the death of its champion. In the prequels all we get is "You have an odd shaped red lightsaber so you gotsa go."

Now as for the worst parts that's a hard one. I think Jar Jar could have been done as an endearing comic relief goofball if the directors and writers had been competent so I'll let that slide because I can see what they're shooting for. What I can't forgive is the job they did with Anakin. He's sweet, he's lovable, he likes to blow things up, he enjoys watching and participating in violent pod races, he hits on Amidala when he's like six, and he loves his mom very much but he'll still tell her to sod off and die at the drop of a mediclorian counter... What in the hell? This character isn't conflicted he's just a mess! There's no inner turmoil in him he's just screwed up! Is he good or evil I don't know that's for a team of well trained phsycologists to figure out I want no part in it! Maybe it's just Anakin's Oedipal complex that causes him to go to evil, he wants to make love to his mother and kill his father... No wait, he can't even have that, haha this character is madness.

For episode two that's a bit easier. A lot of people are going to say the Yoda Dooku fight scene but I think the problem in this movie lies with the existence of count Dooku in the first place. The real star wars movies had one bad guy and his name was the emperor. He was evil, sinister, revolting and bad. He was so evil he didnt even have to kill his own men to display how evil he was. He didnt even have to put the heroes in easily escapable traps. Now that's evil. We all grew up with that, that undeniable evil that could only be overthrown not by weapons or trickery but by the goodness in the heart of one man everyone else thought was gone.

Now look at the new series. Darth Makeup, Duke Doodoo, Newt Ray gun, Homo Fett and, in episode three I'm sure that Parappa the Hutt will make an appearance, oh no wait they already did sully Jabba's reputation. Granted that there were some bad guys other than the emperor in the originals but they were all very clearly either his minions or just working for their own goals. Now consider the new ones. What the hell? You've got Darth maul running around on a speeder going after some silly goal and helping the idiot trade federation, you have Newt Gun Ray who can't even take over a tiny low tech planet with a space armada that would even scare the Borg, and who then gets back into business with Dooku even after he's been ruined to supposedly fight the emperor or something and some guy had a clone army built and Jango Fett is just off trying to kill people because someone hired him to and he cant get anyone to babysit his sinister little kid.

To summarize the first trilogy was Saving Private Ryan. The prequels are Hogans Heroes reruns. It kind of makes you wonder how the evil guys could ever have won at all. Oh that's right, the force was growing weak... or something?

As for the

Quote

I don't know about you but I have never advocated that homosexuals, for any reason, be cut out of their mother's womb and thrown into a bin.
- Deucaon toes a hard line on gay fetus rights.
0

#28 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

  • -
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 4,140
  • Joined: 10-April 04
  • Gender:Not Telling
  • Country:Nothing Selected

Posted 25 May 2004 - 04:52 AM

They are an absolute mess, aren't they? And they don't give you one single sympathetic character to get us actually in any way interested in what transpires on the screen.

I agree that all the stupid new bad guys are a big mistake too. Lucas has been so busy with all these silly people and their silly, trivial ambitions that he has done almost nothing to progress the main story - the rise of the Empire and the fall of Anakin Skywalker.

However, and this is where we get to MY biggest problem with the prequels... the dramatic potential of the fall of Anakin Skywalker is already lost. Simply because they've made Anakin into such an annoying, juvenile dislikeable character that nobody is going to care about his fate.

I've always reasoned, that in light of the prequels, becoming Darth Vader was actually a big improvement for Anakin. He's no longer a whining adolescent creep.

Of course, this means they are going to have to make some HUGE changes to the original movies to accomodate this.

Any reference to Anakin being a good man will have to be dropped and some scenes may need to redone....

Star Wars

Luke - You knew my father?

Uncle Owen looks down at the floor and shakes his head sadly - God, don't remind me.

Return of the Jedi

Luke - I've accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father.

Darth Vader slams his fists against the railings, roaring - I WAS NOT ANAKIN SKYWALKER!!!!!!!!!

He then seems to be in a state of shock, gripping the railing, unmoving.

Luke - Are you okay?



And yes - I loved that bullshit about the Jedi losing their strength in the force. I don't wonder so much where Lucas pulled that from (as I'm pretty sure it was somewhere where the sun does not shine).... however, I am curious to see how Lucas will try to get out of this stupid hole he's written himself into.
0

#29 Guest_Guest_*

  • Group: Guests

Posted 25 May 2004 - 04:54 AM

Darth Makeup laugh.gif

But yeah, Maul is just the least interesting bad guy ever - he has, what, two lines in the entire film? Dooku in AotC is almost as bad - do they ever even explain what his 'political ideals' were, or why he left the Jedi, or how he fell to the Dark Side and became Sidious' apprentice? Great, yet another villain with absolutely no personality or motivation!
0

#30 User is offline   Despondent Icon

  • Think for yourself
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Members
  • Posts: 4,684
  • Joined: 31-October 03
  • Location:a long time ago
  • Interests:Laughter. Louis pups. Percussion. What binds us. Bicycling, Tennis.
  • Country:United States

Posted 25 May 2004 - 09:27 AM

I had a dream last night. I'm not kidding. I was in the episode 3 and was there for the ride. not in the jar jar sense of screwing things up, but kind of like a greek chorus. ("there's one more movie after this one, right?") then, as if the rush was realized, Anikan was dueling with Dooku. But then to I guess shock Dooku (and ME) Anikan cuts off his own arm. (!) then starts cutting off his legs, limbs, what have you. And starts mumbling about "Let's just get on with it already. I wanna be Darth, damn it!"

I woke to the snooze alarm and tried to return to this dream. More worthy of repeat viewing than anything shy of the simpsons.









"way to go, 'Moon-Millhouse'"
0

  • (3 Pages)
  • +
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3


Fast Reply

  • Decrease editor size
  • Increase editor size