Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Star Warp
Perhaps being inclined towards someone isn't so much about their innate attributes, as wanting to be inclined towards him or her.
Perhaps that is what transforms the schizophrenic humanity in all of us, into something quirky and interesing.
*****
There was something different there; it had little to do with the demands of the profession (or perhaps we of unsound mind gravitate towards out endlessly repetitive lives of medi-slavery).
Somewhere in those large, provocative eyes lurked an uncommonly encountered quality : kindness.
*****
I've had it up to here with people rhapsodizing about episode three. I'm nice, I just sit here and seethe politely, but enough is enough.
Sitting down for tea with my reg ripping the movie apart felt good.
Firstly, the Romantic Element. Seriously, folks. Only someone who hasn't ever experienced it in real life could possibly fall in love with a love so weak that the two lovey dovey protaganists never ever looked each other in the eye.
Romance is about subtlety (vs sex, which is about sex). Romantic comedies capture these subtleties over "still" scenes where lovers sit down across from each other, or walk alongside each other, and the camera scans their faces for those hidden moments we know so well from real life - catching him looking at you. Catching her eye. That moment of recognition, the smile that plays about both your lips as you catch each other watching. That certain imperceptible leaning-in as you listen to her; that chance brushing of skin on skin, lingering for just an instant. Engaging someone with your... soul.
Episode three had as much romance in it as a porn flick starring pinnochio and a blow-up doll.
And story, story, story.
It tied in well, didn't it? I hear people say.
Unspoken : at bloody long last.
I don't think it did tie in that well; I had the feeling throughout the entire movie that Lucas was grasping desperately at plotlines and trying to string them together into a half-credible storyline after ? deliberately ruining everything he had achieved in episodes 4, 5 and 6.
I mean, one minute Anakin's getting his skin burned off, and the next he's strapped into a huge metal mobile ventilator cum scary voice modulator. It's a good thing there weren't more people getting third degree burns in the galactic empire or they'd be knee deep in black clad metal death lords innit?
And let me see. The Jedi Order, mistrustful of the senate's intentions and more paranoid than our boys in white, at their time of greatest peril and crisis, naturally split up so that they can be as defenceless as possible, gape prettily at their troops turning rogue (hello?? Force Push anyone?) and get cut to shreds by laser fire which any halfwit padawan in the computer games would be able to deflect without so much of a flick of his logitech gamer's moue...
Ah yes, while they're at it, they also leave their seat of power - a large, blocky concrete fortress - virtually undefended (except by little younglings with big eyes and squeaky voices) with the doors wide open. They might as well have put out the Welcome Evil Sith Lords Cum Kill Us Pansies doormat.
I dunno, most other orders with even an iota of self-preservation would have at least have had a guard of about a couple hundred jedi waiting for anakin when he walked in the front door all evil-eyed.
Ah yes, they discover (thanks to good old ana-gumshoe) that their senator incumbant is an evil, powerful sith lord with intentions to take over the known universe. It's only logical they send a measely three (instead of thirty) jedi "masters" to arrest him, of which two are only adept at dying noisily in slow-motion, and a third who's really good with a sword but not so hot with his peripheral vision. Mmm. (Anakin, what's that big glowing thing you're holding over there and swinging at my...)
Ever wonder what that scene with the little jedi-child survivor-of-the-apocalypse rolling out of absolutely nowhere to save the life of the good senator only to get cut down in a hail of laser bolts was all about? Yeah, me too. Seeing as how the script writers didn't bother to tell us who he was.
I mean, why a child-jedi anyhow? Why not a nekkid woman-jedi? Or a big doggy jedi with four arms, two legs and an automatic pistol in each paw?
Force powers. Anyone who's ever played the Jedi Knight series knows the ins and outs of being a jedi.
When encountering dark jedi carrying big lightstaves approximately twelve times faster than and twice the range of yourself, always
1) wait for them to show off their fancy swordplay then grab them and hurl them off the canyon wall / bridge / very tall building you're standing upon.
2) wait for them to take death-defying leaps up thirteen stories to reach the little platform you're standing upon, then push them back down just as they're about to land and go into their combat stance.
3) roll hard and stab them in the crotch / butt
No, but seriously, these are real-world dynamics here. You have to believe you're really one with the Force.
Some guy leaps up out of a big shaft thingie in front of me, I don't wait for him to force-pull his lightsabre out from behind me, land behind me, turn around in flabbergasted surprise and get sliced open like a can of tuna from head to toe.
I just force push him, or better yet, kick him back into the endlessly deep shaft and eternal oblivion. (barring the odd millenium falcon bug.)
Heck, if I had the wits about me, I might give him a friendly prod on the way down with my dual-bladed light-stave too. Just for good luck.
Same again, you're on a little raft fighting a furious light sabre duel with some goody two shoed jedi master. Do you
1) fight hard and furiously with your sabre
or
2) kick, bite, scratch, and force push him into certain fiery death when he is distracted?
I think the computer-game programmers had a much better grasp of the star-wars universe than did the screenplay writers.
Hell, next time I vote THEY write the storyline.
Jedi academy had some really priceless moments, when Luke Skywalker himself says "I sense a disturbance in the force", and Kyle Katarn (smart-talking wiseguy duke-nukum with force powers character, who unfortunately got pipped to the big screen by some irritating jamaican sea slug) says "You always sense a disturbance in the force."
Someone else explain this to me.
Yoda's this exotic creature who's like seven thousand years old, yet spry enough to give evil sith lord Count Dooku a near flogging (and the odd balaku. sorry. rhymes) in episode.. two was it? And even nearly best Darth (In)Sidious himself.
Twenty years down the line when luke's all grown up Yoda's seven thousand and twenty, and suddenly he's got senile dementia, wants to eat the porn magazines in Luke's backpack, and terminally ill with some mystery condition which makes doesn't stop him lifting big heavy starfighters, but apparently makes him die peacefully in his sleep.
Them little green men sure do age sudden.
Chewie the big fuzzy bear thingie has friends and family (unlike poor yoda) on his homeworld, where they soundly trounce the republic troops after their initial pre-battle hiccup of that weird collective epileptic fit they had together (oh, sorry was that a war-cry?)
Next thing we know, he's flying around the universe with a space-pirate. The rest of his kind presumably get spacesick.
Ah yes, the spunky, fiesty princess wossname, you know, with the ugly princess leia hair and the bad attitude, suddenly turns into this teary-eyed near-mute extra gazing mournfully into the distance and destined to die by the end of the movie regardless of how many unbelievable turns the storyline takes.
Pregnancy does that to a woman. Hormones and all, you know.
Ah yes, why is it dark force users turn all ugly with bad contact lenses the second they employ their powers, but light force users don't sprout halos and angel wings (but instead get their hands chopped off)?
And why is it in a perfectly normal young man's sojourn to the friendly dark side he has to constipatedly squint beetle-browed into the distance every three seconds? Oh wait, I forgot, that's called acting.
And why, why, why if someone has the "high-ground" (ie defender's advantage) would anyone in their right mind try to jump over them and get their legs lopped off in the bargain?
Oh yeah, it worked for obi wan when he sliced and diced Darth Stone-Maul from behind. I dunno about the other dodgy Jedi Knights out there, but I prefer to go in from in front...
Me, I'd just have force-pushed good old Anakin back into the lava.
Heck, for that matter, you've just despatched one of the most dangerous dark-jedi in the known galaxy.
Do you
1) Leave him behind to be picked up by his evil cronies, be repaired, modded and overhauled into the meanest dark lord the galaxy has ever seen, or
2) take him with you so you can lock him away forever in some dark hole, or
3) poke out his eyeballs with your trusty lightsabre, or even
4) force push him back into the lava to die a fiery death?
No prizes for guessing which option I'd have chosen, but then again I have trouble getting my mind around the concept of a 100% squeaky-clean Jedi Knight. Give me Kyle Katarn anyday.
Perhaps that is what transforms the schizophrenic humanity in all of us, into something quirky and interesing.
*****
There was something different there; it had little to do with the demands of the profession (or perhaps we of unsound mind gravitate towards out endlessly repetitive lives of medi-slavery).
Somewhere in those large, provocative eyes lurked an uncommonly encountered quality : kindness.
*****
I've had it up to here with people rhapsodizing about episode three. I'm nice, I just sit here and seethe politely, but enough is enough.
Sitting down for tea with my reg ripping the movie apart felt good.
Firstly, the Romantic Element. Seriously, folks. Only someone who hasn't ever experienced it in real life could possibly fall in love with a love so weak that the two lovey dovey protaganists never ever looked each other in the eye.
Romance is about subtlety (vs sex, which is about sex). Romantic comedies capture these subtleties over "still" scenes where lovers sit down across from each other, or walk alongside each other, and the camera scans their faces for those hidden moments we know so well from real life - catching him looking at you. Catching her eye. That moment of recognition, the smile that plays about both your lips as you catch each other watching. That certain imperceptible leaning-in as you listen to her; that chance brushing of skin on skin, lingering for just an instant. Engaging someone with your... soul.
Episode three had as much romance in it as a porn flick starring pinnochio and a blow-up doll.
And story, story, story.
It tied in well, didn't it? I hear people say.
Unspoken : at bloody long last.
I don't think it did tie in that well; I had the feeling throughout the entire movie that Lucas was grasping desperately at plotlines and trying to string them together into a half-credible storyline after ? deliberately ruining everything he had achieved in episodes 4, 5 and 6.
I mean, one minute Anakin's getting his skin burned off, and the next he's strapped into a huge metal mobile ventilator cum scary voice modulator. It's a good thing there weren't more people getting third degree burns in the galactic empire or they'd be knee deep in black clad metal death lords innit?
And let me see. The Jedi Order, mistrustful of the senate's intentions and more paranoid than our boys in white, at their time of greatest peril and crisis, naturally split up so that they can be as defenceless as possible, gape prettily at their troops turning rogue (hello?? Force Push anyone?) and get cut to shreds by laser fire which any halfwit padawan in the computer games would be able to deflect without so much of a flick of his logitech gamer's moue...
Ah yes, while they're at it, they also leave their seat of power - a large, blocky concrete fortress - virtually undefended (except by little younglings with big eyes and squeaky voices) with the doors wide open. They might as well have put out the Welcome Evil Sith Lords Cum Kill Us Pansies doormat.
I dunno, most other orders with even an iota of self-preservation would have at least have had a guard of about a couple hundred jedi waiting for anakin when he walked in the front door all evil-eyed.
Ah yes, they discover (thanks to good old ana-gumshoe) that their senator incumbant is an evil, powerful sith lord with intentions to take over the known universe. It's only logical they send a measely three (instead of thirty) jedi "masters" to arrest him, of which two are only adept at dying noisily in slow-motion, and a third who's really good with a sword but not so hot with his peripheral vision. Mmm. (Anakin, what's that big glowing thing you're holding over there and swinging at my...)
Ever wonder what that scene with the little jedi-child survivor-of-the-apocalypse rolling out of absolutely nowhere to save the life of the good senator only to get cut down in a hail of laser bolts was all about? Yeah, me too. Seeing as how the script writers didn't bother to tell us who he was.
I mean, why a child-jedi anyhow? Why not a nekkid woman-jedi? Or a big doggy jedi with four arms, two legs and an automatic pistol in each paw?
Force powers. Anyone who's ever played the Jedi Knight series knows the ins and outs of being a jedi.
When encountering dark jedi carrying big lightstaves approximately twelve times faster than and twice the range of yourself, always
1) wait for them to show off their fancy swordplay then grab them and hurl them off the canyon wall / bridge / very tall building you're standing upon.
2) wait for them to take death-defying leaps up thirteen stories to reach the little platform you're standing upon, then push them back down just as they're about to land and go into their combat stance.
3) roll hard and stab them in the crotch / butt
No, but seriously, these are real-world dynamics here. You have to believe you're really one with the Force.
Some guy leaps up out of a big shaft thingie in front of me, I don't wait for him to force-pull his lightsabre out from behind me, land behind me, turn around in flabbergasted surprise and get sliced open like a can of tuna from head to toe.
I just force push him, or better yet, kick him back into the endlessly deep shaft and eternal oblivion. (barring the odd millenium falcon bug.)
Heck, if I had the wits about me, I might give him a friendly prod on the way down with my dual-bladed light-stave too. Just for good luck.
Same again, you're on a little raft fighting a furious light sabre duel with some goody two shoed jedi master. Do you
1) fight hard and furiously with your sabre
or
2) kick, bite, scratch, and force push him into certain fiery death when he is distracted?
I think the computer-game programmers had a much better grasp of the star-wars universe than did the screenplay writers.
Hell, next time I vote THEY write the storyline.
Jedi academy had some really priceless moments, when Luke Skywalker himself says "I sense a disturbance in the force", and Kyle Katarn (smart-talking wiseguy duke-nukum with force powers character, who unfortunately got pipped to the big screen by some irritating jamaican sea slug) says "You always sense a disturbance in the force."
Someone else explain this to me.
Yoda's this exotic creature who's like seven thousand years old, yet spry enough to give evil sith lord Count Dooku a near flogging (and the odd balaku. sorry. rhymes) in episode.. two was it? And even nearly best Darth (In)Sidious himself.
Twenty years down the line when luke's all grown up Yoda's seven thousand and twenty, and suddenly he's got senile dementia, wants to eat the porn magazines in Luke's backpack, and terminally ill with some mystery condition which makes doesn't stop him lifting big heavy starfighters, but apparently makes him die peacefully in his sleep.
Them little green men sure do age sudden.
Chewie the big fuzzy bear thingie has friends and family (unlike poor yoda) on his homeworld, where they soundly trounce the republic troops after their initial pre-battle hiccup of that weird collective epileptic fit they had together (oh, sorry was that a war-cry?)
Next thing we know, he's flying around the universe with a space-pirate. The rest of his kind presumably get spacesick.
Ah yes, the spunky, fiesty princess wossname, you know, with the ugly princess leia hair and the bad attitude, suddenly turns into this teary-eyed near-mute extra gazing mournfully into the distance and destined to die by the end of the movie regardless of how many unbelievable turns the storyline takes.
Pregnancy does that to a woman. Hormones and all, you know.
Ah yes, why is it dark force users turn all ugly with bad contact lenses the second they employ their powers, but light force users don't sprout halos and angel wings (but instead get their hands chopped off)?
And why is it in a perfectly normal young man's sojourn to the friendly dark side he has to constipatedly squint beetle-browed into the distance every three seconds? Oh wait, I forgot, that's called acting.
And why, why, why if someone has the "high-ground" (ie defender's advantage) would anyone in their right mind try to jump over them and get their legs lopped off in the bargain?
Oh yeah, it worked for obi wan when he sliced and diced Darth Stone-Maul from behind. I dunno about the other dodgy Jedi Knights out there, but I prefer to go in from in front...
Me, I'd just have force-pushed good old Anakin back into the lava.
Heck, for that matter, you've just despatched one of the most dangerous dark-jedi in the known galaxy.
Do you
1) Leave him behind to be picked up by his evil cronies, be repaired, modded and overhauled into the meanest dark lord the galaxy has ever seen, or
2) take him with you so you can lock him away forever in some dark hole, or
3) poke out his eyeballs with your trusty lightsabre, or even
4) force push him back into the lava to die a fiery death?
No prizes for guessing which option I'd have chosen, but then again I have trouble getting my mind around the concept of a 100% squeaky-clean Jedi Knight. Give me Kyle Katarn anyday.
