Mike messaged me on iChat this evening after getting back from watching Star Wars Episode III. Our conversation ended up touching on most, if not all, of the points I’ve had wandering around in my head and was planning on using for a more in-depth review than the one I gave previously. So, with his permission, I’m reposting our conversation here.
Spoilers abound, of course, so if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t click through to the full entry…
WCityMike: Hi, Mike.
Me: hey mike
Me: ‘sup?WCityMike: Just saw Sith.
Me: aha
Me: what’ja think?WCityMike: Must very courteously ask you:
WCityMike: What the hell kind of psychadelics were you on when you wrote that review?Me: :laughs
Me: not very good ones, apparentlyWCityMike: Dude, in all honesty, SITH was quite literally the worst movie I have ever seen in my LIFE.
Me: wow — i’m not going to claim it was one of the best, but I can think of tons that were worse
WCityMike: And I came into it wanting it very badly to be good!
Me: maybe that’s part? I went in hoping that it might be good, but expecting that it’d suck as badly as the last two
WCityMike: Well, perhaps I’m just coming freshly off its badness.
WCityMike: Got one word for you:
WCityMike: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! shaking hands melodramticallyMe: lol yeah…I got a good laugh out of that
Me: it probably looked good on paper…WCityMike: James Earl Jones was a frickin’ voice-over and Lucas still helped him suck …
WCityMike: And there was the very bad CGI in places that stuck out like a sore thumb …
WCityMike: Jango’s head floating atop a stormtrooper’s body …Me: in my defense — that was just my fresh-out-of-the-theater quick blurb
Me: one that I’ll stand by — I enjoyed it — but there is a host of stuff that I can (and do) find fault withWCityMike: Awful. So awful I flicked off the “directed and written by” credit.
Me: lol
Me: i keep meaning to write up a more detailed look at it…but I really need to send a few posts into Seattlest, and I wouldn’t mind catching a matinee to refresh some of what I noticed
WCityMike: Yeah.
WCityMike: The spectacle was lush, wonderful, amazing. The plot, emotions, acting all just … yick.
WCityMike: I’m still just shaking my head …
WCityMike: “She’s perfectly healthy but … SHE’S LOST THE WILL TO LIVE.”
WCityMike: All that you needed was a soap opera “DUM DUM DUM” …Me: and that’s worse than “But I was going to go into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!”?
WCityMike: But that had its charm.
Me: yeah
Me: you were six
Me: :laughsWCityMike: Heh.
Me: lessee what i can remember off the top of my head…
Me: Hayden: kill me now
Me: or, him, ratherWCityMike: Got that right.
Me: it’s odd, ’cause he wasn’t at all bad in the non-Star Wars movie that I’ve seen him in
WCityMike: Which one?
Me: (and can’t remember the title of…magazine writer who made up a ton of interviews…)
Me: Shattered Glass
Me: about Stephen GlassWCityMike: Ah.
WCityMike: Well, Portman was wonderful in Garden State, so I know what you mean.Me: :nods was just going to mention that
Me: but then, Lucas seems to have a gift for making talented actors suckMe: best actor/character: Palpatine, by far
Me: he understood one critical thing: this is cheezy
Me: fun, but not to be taken too seriously
Me: he hammed it up, had fun, and ended up coming off better than anyone elseWCityMike: Yeah, I’d agree. Although the shift from normal Palpatine acting to bloated carcass melodrama was a little abrupt.
WCityMike: And I was waiting for someone in the Senate to go DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU?!?!?!Me: R2 bugged me…lots, especially during the opening battle sequences
Me: never thought I’d describe a rolling trash can as “sprightly”, but he was — and it didn’t work for meWCityMike: Agreed.
Me: hopping up and out of the ships, flying (wtf is up with that, anyway?), being able to snag the comm unit with his little gripper when it was tossed to him…just goofy
Me: Threepio, thankfully, was less annoying than in Episode 2
Me: (I can’t stand his jokes in that one…”I’m beside myself”…”now we’re getting a head”…ugh!)WCityMike: Yeah. I actually felt sorry for him. you know something’s wrong when the droid provides more emotional subtext than the lead.
Me: :laughs no kidding
Me: R2’s always been one of my favorites, too, so it was sad to be annoyed by him
Me: always amazed me that they could put that much life, emotion, and personality into a trash can on wheels, just through creative sound effectsWCityMike: It was fun to see him kick a little ass, though.
WCityMike: I wonder if Kenny Baker was back or if it was all CGI?Me: I’d almost guess all CGI
Me: Lessee…
Me: Major nitpick — Leia says in RotJ that she remembers her mom
Me: barely, but she does — “pretty, and sad”, or something like that
Me: Lucas just blew that one out of the waterWCityMike: Nahhh … heard a good explanation for that one.
Me: oh?
WCityMike: Leia’s Force-sensitive … she’s recalling Padme.
Me: eeh…i’m iffy on that
WCityMike: Yeah, it’s not the best explanation. More of a “retcon,” as they say.
Me: :nods
Me: Grevious annoyed me
Me: what’s with the tuberculosis? He’s a frakkin’ droid, for god’s sakeWCityMike: A cyborg/droid with asthma.
WCityMike: Well, not entirely. You saw the organs, right?Me: well, yeah…I really think they were stretching it with the hacking cough, though
WCityMike: Yeah.
Me: I saw a heart thing, eyes behind the mask, no lungs, though
WCityMike: The CGI was awful in many places.
WCityMike: Particularly focusing around the Jango clones.Me: i’d need to look more closely for that — I didn’t catch that at all
Me: it was funny seeing them take their helmets off occasionally, thoughWCityMike: Two things to look for:
WCityMike: (1) In one scene, a Jango clone captain is looking up to talk to Obi-Wan … at Grievous’ home lair, I think … and it looks like the head’s floating above the body, it’s obvious that it was a very bad copy-and-paste job.
WCityMike: (2) In another scene, there’s a bunch of Jangos around a ship. The one that’s speaking looks real. The faces of the rest look like Jango Ken dolls.Me: lol
Me: i’ll have to look for that if/when i see it againWCityMike: I mean, this is ILM, for Christ’s sake … they inspired everyone. All of a sudden Pixar is beating them in terms of realism?
Me: :nods
Me: Wookies: pointless
Me: cool, yes, but so obviously little more than a nod to the fanboys
Me: most of that just felt like they were shoehorned into the scriptWCityMike: Yeah … fun, though.
Me: yeah, I’ll definitely grant them that
WCityMike: I disliked how all of the segue stuff was silent.
Me: one thing I really liked: the sabers cutting into/through floors and walls
Me: when Greivous was spinning his (GOOFY!) and taking chunks out of the floor, and when Obi-Wan and Annakin were battlingWCityMike: nod
WCityMike: The actual ‘unveiling’ of Vader: COOOL.
WCityMike: First Vader breath: COOOL.
WCityMike: And then “Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
WCityMike: Spoiled it.
WCityMike: It was weird to hear James Earl Jones ask about Padme.Me: :laughs I know!
Me: Overall, i can buy Annakin’s descentWCityMike: Yeah. I can agree.
Me: the rest of the jedi are apparently completely brain dead with how they handled him…
Me: …but the path he took made sense to meWCityMike: Well, that’s something I hated about the Prequel Trilogy — it made the Jedi seem just as morally ambiguous as the Sith.
WCityMike: Capricious, etc.
WCityMike: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Now, hold still, so I can kill the Emperor.”Me: actually, that’s something I like, in a weird way
Me: they are — and Palpatine had some of the best lines
Me: he wasn’t coaxing Annakin with the Dark Side per se, but rather the grey areas in between
Me: just coaxing him in a bit at a time
Me: pointing out the Jedi’s hypocricies
Me: and using that to turn Annakin to his point of viewWCityMike: Oooh. Good observation.
WCityMike: And I didn’t feel too sorry for Mace, actually.Me: yeah – on the one hand, Sam Jackson’s a guaranteed bad ass…on the other hand, apparently bad ass = cocky
WCityMike: I loved that one scene at the beginning … Anakin’s just been appointed to the Jedi Council. Mace tells him he’s not a Master. Anakin pitches a fit.
WCityMike: And Sam Jackson just peers at him with this Jules look from Pulp Fiction. I half expected him to pull out his wallet and go, “Listen, man, what does this wallet say? BAD MOTHA FUCKER.”
WCityMike: And Ani backs down.Me: :laughs
WCityMike: It’s just sweet.
Me: I really wonder if they ever did anything like that on set
Me: would love to see things like that in the outtakesWCityMike: I think we’re as likely to see that as we are to see The Star Wars Christmas Special: Special Edition.
Me: lol yeah — but at least we’d want to see those outtakes
Me: hmm…I really liked the design work, which was a pleasant surprise
Me: that was one of the things I didn’t like about Eps. I and II — too clean, too Star Trek-y, didn’t have that worn/used/lived-in feel that I associated with Star Wars
Me: Ep. III actually did a good job (in my eyes) of bridging between the two design aesthetics
Me: Obi-Wan and Annakin’s fighters being somewhere between an A-Wing and a Tie Fighter
Me: getting to see the Tantive IV when it was newWCityMike: Yeah … you could see devices you knew would be TIEs, X-wings, etc.
Me: ‘zactly — that all worked out far better than I was expecting…the two trilogies bridge better than I thought they would
WCityMike: Yeah.
Me: and it was amusing to see Tarkin on the bridge of the Empire/Republic ship at the end
WCityMike: You mean the actor in obviously heavy make-up that was supposed to look like Tarkin?
WCityMike: (or a CGI death mask, I can’t figure out which)Me: CGI, I think
Me: though I wasn’t sold with seeing the framework of the Death Star
Me: sure — cute, nice nod to the fanboys, and we’ve seen the plans in Episode II
Me: but…this is set 20 years before Ep. IV (roughly)
Me: so it took ~20 years to build the first Death Star
Me: then, what, five or ten to build the second, which was twice the size?WCityMike: If that.
WCityMike: I don’t think IV-VI is a 5-10 year span.Me: I’ve never been sure just what the timeline is
Me: either way, seeing the early framework for the Death Star bugged meWCityMike: Hmm … hang on.
WCityMike: Not sure if it’s canon, but Wikipedia: Dates in Star Wars
WCityMike: @4 years.
WCityMike: Yeah, dumb mistake w/the framework.Me: that seems really short to me…but okay
Me: i’m sure more hardcore fans than I have worked on puzzling it all outWCityMike: Seems okay to me … four years can be a long time when we’re talking about rebellion 368 days a year …
Me: true
Me: i’ve always wondered about Luke’s Jedi training between Empire and Jedi, though
Me: he bails from Yoda, saves his friends, yadda yadda…next time we see him, he’s in all black, and either is or is just calling himself a Jedi
Me: considering most Jedi used to be trained practically from birth, i always figured there had to be at least a good few years between V and VIWCityMike: Well, remember he did return in Jedi, only for Yoda to say, “Your training’s already done, dude.”
Me: :laughs “dude, your training done already is”
Me: yoda as a surfer
Me: sweetWCityMike: Yeah — that was another thing.
WCityMike: Fuck what was up with, syntax of Yoda?
WCityMike: There were a lot of lines I just didn’t parse, and neither did anyone else in the office, it seemed.Me: only Lucas knows
Me: it’s not that much of a stretch to my mind, though — most European languages have very different syntax than english does
Me: I’d rather have that than Jar-Jar (who, thankfully, was silent this time around)WCityMike: Yeah, but that, to me, was the final “fuck you” from Lucas to fans, was having him be in the funeral scene …
Me: one thing I noticed — the Nemoidian’s accents were really played down…almost non-existant
WCityMike: Nemoidian?
Me: um….maybe i’ve got that wrong
Me: trade federationWCityMike: Ah.
Me: their Aisan-esque accent was really present in Eps. I and II, and nearly unnoticeable in III
WCityMike: nod
Me: made me wonder if Lucas got tired of (or actually paid attention to) the accusations of racism, whether or not they were intended
Me: (I doubt it was intentional, but it was pretty damn jarring in the first two)WCityMike: Opening sequence was sweet …
Me: except for R2, yeah — I really liked just about all of the action sequences
WCityMike: Well, you got to see the other droid get its head sawn off.
Me: the elevator sequence was a bit silly, and considering these ships have to have artificial gravity, I’m not entirely sold on the whole “sliding downhill” bit (though I suppose they could have been close enough to the planet’s gravity well, since they were able to land)
WCityMike: Didn’t have much of a problem with it.
WCityMike: Actually kinda fun.Me: yeah — one of those areas when my mind goes “um…waitasec…”, but then just surrenders to the suspension of disbelief
WCityMike: nod
Me: one of the reasons I want to catch a matinee when it’s still in the theaters is to watch all the dogfights in the background
Me: look away from the primary action — there was a ton of stuff going on
Me: which I liked — the battle still raging behind the windowsWCityMike: nod
Me: you mind if I just go ahead and post this?
Me: it’s covered most, if not all, of what I wanted to mention in my postWCityMike: grin I was going to ask you the same thing.
Me: :laughs
Me: rock onWCityMike: No problem on my end — and I’ll probably be doing the same, although not immediately, as sleep beckons.
Me: sounds good
WCityMike: Have a good one, Mike.
Me: laters
WCityMike: Later …
“Resurrection Hex (Dub)” by Love and Rockets from the album Resurrection Hex (1998, 5:57).