OK, I know, I know. It's been more then a year since Star Wars Revenge of the Sith RevengeoftheSith came out but last year this time I didn't have a blog!
What I would really like to do here is give you my opinion on the 3 Prequels, hopefully in a more concise way then some other reviews I've seen, but I know it will be hard so I will try! There is a lot to say.
I guess another reason this comes to mind is HBO is showing Sith in rotation all this month.
Overall, I will say the 3 prequel films did little to evoke most or all of the warm and fuzzy original Star Wars feelings as I had growing up in the 70s and early 80s.
To be honest, if I didn't know any better, I would have thought George Lucas completely turned over his Star Wars Franchise (the films, that is) to a different director or several different directors.
The special effects got better with each prequel but by now that is to be expected. Yet that good ole Star Wars feeling just wasn't there for all three.
I will say that the novel for Sith actually was very good I thought and I knew ahead of time that this Episode was going to be a darker story arc - yet something was still just missing in all three.
OK. Can I be really honest here? I have felt more of a Star Wars rush from reading the various books and comics over the years then what Lucas did with these three films.
In the long run it just makes me think as much as people love Star Wars, it will just endear them even more to the original 3 because these pre-quels combined just didn't deliver in the way a lot of us wanted them to deliver.
So, original Star Wars gets even more love by default! LOL.
I think another problem was that those of us who grew up with the originals have had 25 to 30 years to completely digest, enjoy, watch over and over again, marvel, analyze and more, the original movies.
OK. Here's my breakdown:
Episode I's best parts were the Pod Race and the final fight with Darth Maul.
Episode II's best parts were going inside the Jedi Temple more in detail, the opening chase scene of Obi Wan and Anakin going after the bounty hunter, and about the last 40 minutes of the movie when they had the grand battle. The actor who portrayed Jango Fett I thought was good too. They could do a whole series on Jango and Boba as he grows up as far as I am concerned because Boba was always an interesting character.
Episode III I thought was the best of the three, the opening sequence was tight, but overall, the film still had many holes I wish I could have been on set and had George Lucas' ear and his confidence in me to tell him what I thought could have been done.
My little brother is a 2nd Degree Black Belt who knows a lot about different techniques and weapon styles. He noticed some things in the lightsaber fight scenes that could have been way better if they had gone with some Eastern, Chinese, Japanese and Korean Grand Master Teachers instead of the fight and stunt coordinator who George Lucas went with for all three, Nick Gilliard. He showed me some old tapes of some serious martial arts sword fighting styles they could've incorporated that blew me away. The actor who portrayed Darth Maul, Ray Park in Episode I, he did give his stamp of approval on though.
The thing that tripped me out about this movie was at the end George Lucas had the nerve to put up some stuff on the screen that looked like wanna-be Star Wars! LOL. Now, the question I thought to myself was how can the original guy who came up with all this stuff when he tries to do it again can make it look like a watered down version at best.
A young Grand Moff Tarkin on the deck of an Imperial Ship overlooking the new Death Star with Vader and The Emperor, Obi Wan bringing little baby Luke to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, showing little baby Leia in the arms of her adoptive parents? OK, nice but...LOL! OK, I know a lot of people in the audience went, "Awwwwwww!" when that happened but I was just thinking, "Ohhhhhkaaaaayyy and sooo, that's it?!" LOL!
I just thought Lucas could have taken us from that point on from the beginning from the Episode I and with more of an original legit look to it.
I know he had to lay all the other backstory and all the political stuff which I actually thought he spent too much time on but there are just other ways I would have done all that.
I actually have about 5 to 10 different scenarios for Episode III and about 5 to 10 different scenarios for Episodes I and II each I cannot post because they are just that good and juicy and would have delivered to all fans, especially the fans that grew up with it.
Ewan McGregor who portrayed Obi Wan Kenobi is an excellent actor and so is Ian McDiarmid who portrayed the Emperor for all the SW films going back to the originals. His transformation from the Chancellor to the Emperor however, I found to be too campy. I would even say high camp. I was thinking "What tha?" LOL! And Darth Vader's scream at the end when he thinks he killed Padme, "Nooooooooooo!" LOL. What was that? LOL! That scene was definitely a nod to Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein, but why go THERE?
Ben Burtt, who is the sound designer I thought did an out of this world job though in that scene for The Emperor's voice transformation. Now that was scary! And well done.
I thought what George Lucas did here was make the audio experience more intense then the visual for the children's sake out here, but I wanted him to go a little darker for the visuals for this scene, but that is just me! LOL. "If you gonna go dark in Sci-Fi or Fantasy, go dark, man! Scare my ___!" But they had to keep it PG-13, another first for a SW movie so I'm not mad at him.
For a minute or two I thought in time, maybe, just maybe, the three prequels would all balance out nicely with the original 3 but after seeing Episode I (actually just minutes into it, I knew these films were going in a totally different direction, a direction I was not feeling at the time) overall, they still feel like two sets of 3 films each.
At the same time, it is a totally wild concept for it to be 1977 to 1983 when you as a storyteller or director tell the parts IV, V and VI of a story when special effects were just ok (even though they blew all of our minds and set a new level for movie making at the time) and more than 20 years later, you do the earlier stories, I, II and III and the quality is much better and cleaner etc. in its look yet something in your story seems missing. What happened?
I wonder at times how kids of the future will view these films in that order I, II, III, IV, V, VI, with such an obvious difference in story, actor, chemistry, etc. even though they cleaned the original movies up several times over.
We actually had to wait 2 to 3 yrs in with IV, V, VI to find out what was going to happen next. But then again this generation had to wait with the same time in between for I, II, III so they got some of that feeling of what it is like to wait for it. But I think nothing will replace that original feeling of waiting for IV, V and VI.
I am looking forward to the new boxsets (here we go again!) this September. Did somebody say Tuesday, September 12th?! Lol! You know, the same the original versions which I have on tape already?! LOL! Does George Lucas know how to keep on making that money or what?! LOL. Marketing genius.
I can see Lucas going into his 80s: "I have one more scene in each film I'd like to add in all 6 movies." LOL! And you know we'd all buy it too! LOL. Well, then again, maybe some of us won't! LOL.
I hope the new TV series in 2008? 2009? will restore some of that good ole Star Wars feeling we all had. 2007, the 30th anniversary of when it all began, Man, it seems almost like yesterday.
No comments :
Post a Comment