Chefelf.com Night Life: ernesttomlinson - Viewing Profile

Kudos for the "Love Story" reference. And I have to mention now the parody at the end of "What's Up, Doc", with Ryan O'Neal and Barbra Streisand:

Streisand (fluttering eyelashes): "Love means never haven't to say you're sorry."
O'Neal: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Bad movie romances...

Here' s one that probably nobody's heard of: "Moment By Moment" with a young John Travolta in a May-December romance with, of all people, Lily Tomlin.

Here's one from a popular movie some years back: Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant in "Four Weddings and a Funeral". "Is it raining or is that just me?" Horrible.

I'm actually tempted to risk flaming and put in a vote for "Casablanca", as much as I like the movie. Bogart is so sarcastic and contemptuous throughout that when Bergman falls for him again it seems like something demanded by the screenplay and not something that'd happen naturally.

My hypothesis is that Lucas got a little unhinged after the release of Phantom Menace. The hype was tremendous, with much flattering journalism about the return of Lucas, the creator of a modern myth. Phantom Menace was going to be special, as timeless a film as the original Star Wars movies.

Instead it was just another summer blockbuster. It made a load of money but also spurred a lot of criticism, some of which (mostly to do with the racial caricature evident in Lucas's portrayal of the Trade Federation bad guys and possibly of Jar Jar) even made it into the mainstream press. And there was plenty of unfavourable comparison to the original movies, as well all know.

I suspect that Lucas sincerely believed of Phantom Menace that his work had never been better and that he would be hailed as a creative genius. When he wasn't and was instead greeted with criticism and scorn, I think Lucas took it badly. People were pointing at him and saying, in essence, "What the hell happened to the guy that made Star Wars?" I think then his heart hardened against his original movies; he blamed them for obscuring the genius of his newest masterpiece. That's when he started making defensive comments about the prequels and contemplating further mangling the original movies, all the while claiming that his true "vision" demanded it.

I think Lucas knows in his heart of hearts that he's now a mediocrity and that his prequel movies will never win the sort of praise he wanted. They're going to go down as reasonably entertaining action movies with lots of computer graphics, overshadowed not merely by the original Star Wars movies but by a certain other trilogy of action movies that came out around the same time. As long as he knows this he's going to take it out on his old creations. Lucas needs to do everything possible to convince himself that it's his new movies, not his old ones, that are his true legacy and magna opera; if that means altering the OT beyond recognition and destroying history then, dammit, that's what he has to do.

"Most of all, with the name 'Mandalorians', which is gay."

I wasn't aware that names had a sexual orientation. Well, "Paul Lynde", maybe, but that's it.

(Yes, I know what you mean. I don't have to like it, though.)

er...I heard him deliver a short clip of his performance on KZOK 102.5 Seattle some weeks back and he is amazing. Very entertaining. If he's a "fucknut" then the Reduced Shakespeare Company are even more fucking nuts for compressing all of Shakespeare into 90 minutes.

Two words? Annie Skywalker? or George Lucas, of course.

Your point about Aura Sing (how did you learn this character's name anyway?) is a good one and applies to other important elements of the prequels. Lucas introduces big ideas he fails to develop (e.g. the prophecy about the "Chosen One" that never gets an adequate explanation). He also does the reverse, suddenly introducing ideas without setting them up first (e.g. the posthumous wisdom of Qui-Gon.)