Official: STAR WARS THREAD. These are the droids you're looking for. **WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

[FlyingMonkey]

Attack of the Clones last night... and you know what? For at least the first half, it's better than The Phantom Menace. Substantially better. Coruscant looks good. The attempted assassination of Padme and the business with the clone army are mysterious enough to hold the interest. The racism seems turned down to a minimum: there's hardly any Jar-Jar; no Trade Federation. And actually, Hayden Chistiansen isn't as bad as people said at the time. But you know what is bad? The script. That's why the young actor struggles. It's also why good actors like Samuel L. Jackson and Ewan McGregor struggle to produce anything like a 3-dimensional performance. George Lucas's lines are dreadful. He just doesn't seem to know how people talk. He has no sense of what makes a memorable line or how to use one. In A New Hope this didn't matter so much - everything was corny, endearing cliché recast in space opera so we were happy with that. But 25 or so years later, we've got more sophisticated and he's only got worse. And the love story between Anakin and Padme is still icky, just as it was in the first film, and still makes little sense given who they are and their characters as we see them. But still, the first half is okay - just.

However.. then there's the Geonosis half. This is when Lucas seems to try to make up for the relative quality of the first half by throwing everything at the screen as hard as he can: creatures, droids, aliens, Jedi, Sith in waves of CGI, one after another, without any really sense of pace or dramatic timing. It's written like my 10-year old son writes stories: this happened and then this happened and then another thing happened and there were explosions and everyone died... and none of it really makes much sense. FWIW the ending of the recent Rise of Skywalker is similar in that way, but at least it doesn't go on so long as this. Oh and the Trade Federation are back. Great. I just phased out and found myself going off to do other things while my son valiantly persevered until the end.

 

[SixOhNine]

I saw that one in the theater, and all I remember is that I feel asleep about halfway through. So that tracks with your review.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Revenge of the Sith. This one was actually okay for the most part. It's never great, although the darkness that creeps into the film more and more as Anakin becomes Darth Vader is welcome, and sometimes actually shocking. However, it does bring out the limitations of Hayden Christiansen as an actor more than in the previous film - just compare his performance here (*evil scowl*, *evil side-eye*) to Adam Driver's. Samuel L. Jackson is frankly crap in all of these films - he's really phoning it in. Ewan MacGregor's 'young Alec Guiness' impression is a bit better, well better than his stick-on beard, anyway. The CGI is more polished too, although it does at times look a little too much like a massive video game. The let-down, again, is the 'fight on an alien planet' toy sales-pitch set-piece, this time the Utapau / General Grievous on a unicycle vs. Obi-Wan on a ******* lizard fight. Which is just dumb. But the final showdown between Obi-Wan and Anakin on Mustafar is much better, and truly brutal at the end, making the final transition to Vader, which is also well done, much more believable. Overall: I am relieved to be getting to any of the other Star Wars films now...

 

[FlyingMonkey]

We wanted to watch Solo next but dor some strange reason, Disney + in Canada doesn't have it, so it's straight on to Rogue One. Wow. This is a good film. I don't just mean a good Star Wars film. This is actually a good film by any measure.

First of all, the casting is excellent, with some genuinely stand-out characters, the Guardians of the Whills duo, Baze Malbus and Chirrut Îmwe, the conflicted spy, Cassian Andor, and above all, the frustrated imperial administrator, Orson Krennic. Just feel the weight and range of Ben Mendelsohn's characterisation compared with the ostensibly similar but far more superficial role of Hux in the sequel trilogy. But the whole cast is great, even the small background roles, and Alan Tudyk's vocal acting also ensures that we have the single best droid in any of the Star Wars films with the outspoken and sarcastic K2S0.

Second, the look of the film is stunning and manages to convey the light and darkness of real alien worlds as opposed to some stuff cooked up on a computer. There is so much better handling of visual set-pieces too - with the double battle on and around Scarif is one of the best in any of the films, with dogfights above and a very WW2-style beach assault below, and the fall of the star destroyer into the shield gate is slowed down perfection.

Third, the sound. This film really understands a soundtrack is not just about music, but draws on Lucas's mentor, Walter Murch's sound-montage techniques in a way that none of the Star Wars films since A New Hope really have, but without copying them. It actually does some quite startling things with noise that seem almost avant-garde compared to the very conventional use of sound in most of the rest of the sequence.

Fourth, Darth Vader. I will give him his own category here, even though he only appears relatively briefly, because he's not really a character here, more of a force in himself. If you watch Rogue One immediately after Revenge of the Sith, you really get that this is what the rebuilt, battle-hardened version of the burnt limbless thing that is left by Obi-Wan on Mustafar would become. He's an utterly ruthless killer, a brutal man-machine and truly terrifying in a way that we hadn't experienced since we were kids and first saw him in A New Hope.

Fifth, they all die. I can't stress how much this adds to the film. It is properly tragic. We know from the start that they all must die because none of these characters we come to know and love quite quickly is going to be in A New Hope or any of the sequels. But that doesn't stop us rooting for them, hoping they might escape, even though they cannot. They all die.

Finally, as a Star Wars film, Rogue One actually adds more to the feel of the Star Wars universe than all of the recent films. You really get a feel for the rebels' disunity and despair, you understand the control the Empire has over the lives of ordinary people, the protective Jedi are a long way away. But it also has little references back and forward, connecting to Rebels (a lot) and forward to A New Hope. Really, in many ways this is a more faithful part of the mainstream story than anything else done recently, despite it being supposedly a standalone piece.

The only downside for me is the CGI used for Governor Tarkin and Princess Leia, although it works better for the former than the latter, who looks more than a little uncanny.

Overall: an excellent film.

 

[hpreston]

@FlyingMonkey I really appreciate your thoughtful write-ups.

Not sure if you have Netflix, but in the US, Solo is on Netflix, that is part of the reason it is not on D+ yet.

You going to continue with the original trilogy, and then sequel trilogy?

 

[FlyingMonkey]

@FlyingMonkey I really appreciate your thoughtful write-ups.

Not sure if you have Netflix, but in the US, Solo is on Netflix, that is part of the reason it is not on D+ yet.

You going to continue with the original trilogy, and then sequel trilogy?

That's the idea (my son's idea).

 

[Texasmade]

That's the idea (my son's idea).

What did your son think of the prequels? They came out when I was in HS and college and I though they were terrible.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

What did your son think of the prequels? They came out when I was in HS and college and I though they were terrible.

Pretty much the same as me except he's more tolerant of the endless shooty stuff, and he's too young to see the racism.

 

[kasper007]

Solo is still on Netflix Canada for whatever reason.

 

[javyn]

It's been a while since I saw the prequels, and even then I was only halfway paying attention. What's the racism about?

 

[beargonefishing]

It's been a while since I saw the prequels, and even then I was only halfway paying attention. What's the racism about?

I haven't had my nuts kicked in years, and have zero doubt it's still painful as ****.

 

[wojt]

It's been a while since I saw the prequels, and even then I was only halfway paying attention. What's the racism about?

that's because you internalised it so much you don't see it, wake up man it's there

 

[javyn]

Ah, I looked it up. Jar Jar was the problem. I genuinely don't remember much of that trilogy, and even less about Jar Jar. He was a lizard dude who fought inside a giant marble. That's about all I took away from him.

I may give Rogue One a shot since everyone says it's so great.

 

[beargonefishing]

Rogue One is, easily, the best SW film ever, and I don't think it has anything to do with everyone dying.

 

[wojt]

Ah, I looked it up. Jar Jar was the problem. I genuinely don't remember much of that trilogy, and even less about Jar Jar. He was a lizard dude who fought inside a giant marble. That's about all I took away from him.

Black actor voiced him, which is the source of this idiotic allegations

though the movie is easily worst of old SW movies