The Ravings of Demented Rabbits

*lightsaber noises*

Reveling in my newfound gain in internet connectivity, which I say newfound because Comcast died on me for like three days, I shall give unto you, my faithful readers, a blog post. I could talk about school, say, but I just had two classes on searching, pretty much in a row, and it's not THAT interesting a topic. I did some work for my assistantship today, but that was, if you count the half hour I spent BSing with Sarah on the phone, about 4 hours of putting things in envelopes.

So instead I'm going to talk about Star Wars, because I just sat down and watched all six movies consecutively (not in the same day, mind you), and have some things to say on the subject.

Let us begin with Episode I. Considering how much I have been villifying it for years now, I expected to have to force myself to sit through it. Fortunately, I was surprised. The Gungans, Jar-Jar included, weren't actually all that annoying this time around. OTOH, Jake Lloyd as Anakin was rampantly annoying, both as a character, and because the sequence where he sits down in the fighter at random, starts it up, learns how to fly it in 3 seconds and then saves the day for everyone is just that completely retarded. There are single-cell organisms smarter than that chain of events. On the other hand, you have Darth Maul, who's a total badass, as Darth Fuzzy would no doubt agree. Also Qui-Gon Jinn, who is perhaps my favorite Jedi if only because he lives in a slightly more realistic world.

Phantom Menace is clearly the weakest of all six movies, however. By far and away. Not even in contest.

As far as Episode II goes, again, I liked it a whole lot better this time around, which probably has a lot to do with watching it back to back with Episode I, and so it becomes clearer where George was trying to go. I also buy into Hayden Christensen as Annakin fairly well, and more and more as the movie progresses and he seems to get better at it. The whole "sand is rough" is still really painful, but I think I buy into it as a perhaps too realistic attempt by a teenagish male at romantic dialogue, and we all know how well THAT works out.

Also, clone troopers for the win. And Dooku, despite Pinball Yoda, which was VASTLY less annoying this time around.

The fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi, wise Jedi Knight, needs the 5 year-old child advisor to tell him why the planet's missing is pretty amusing in the context of the Evil Overlord List, but seriously people, it's like the first thing that jumps to everyone's mind.

Jar-Jar Binks dooming the Republic makes me laugh every time I watch it.

Still the second weakest of the movies (some people put Jedi here but not me), but not as bad as I remembered.

Revenge of the Sith, on the other hand. Holy crap that movie rocked on. Palpatine revealed for the evil arch-badass he is. Order 66. Any of several friggin' sweet lightsaber duels. Like the entire second half of the movie where evil triumphs. You name it, it's awesome, except:

1. The droids that attack Obi-Wan and Annakin's fighters at the beginning are really freaking stupid. Just blow them up, people. It's a lot cheaper.

2. While the climactic duel between Obi-Wan/Annakin is like the most awesome duel this side of Rob Roy, the whole being on a volcano thing is fighting for stupidity levels with the Annakin saves the day at random thing from Phantom Menace. The droid factory from Attack of the Clones is right up there too, but it's pretty hard to beat climbing into a cockpit, being told to STAY THERE by your supposedly wise mentor, randomly punching buttons, and somehow owning the entire Trade Federation. Yes, I hated that part.

Watching said Trade Federation get served by Darth Vader in III was really really nice, though. I enjoyed that a lot.

Padme as a character freaks me right the hell out. Just seriously freaks me out. It's not so much the "OMG I'm in love with a kid I knew when he was 5!" thing, though that's slightly out of the norm, and it's not so much the "I'm still in love with my, if he weren't a Jedi would be a wife beater, husband!" thing, but the combo of those two just does something. I dunno. She's creepy.

Still, I think Revenge of the Sith is either top or second in coolness level out of all six movies, and running away the best movie out of the prequels.

Moving straight along to the final three movies, which I watched in the remastered and not the original version because I've seen the remastered once and the original about 800 times...

...wow does A New Hope look like shit when you watch it straight after Revenge of the Sith. In a few instances, this is good - Dagobah in Empire Stikes Back looks probably better than it would in CGI. OTOH, the lightsaber effects in particular look like crap. The switch from the awesome, highly stylized past of 20 years ago to The Future of 1977 is, well, a little jarring, though it does kind of fit the Empire a little better.

Speaking of the Empire, has anybody noticed that the symbol of the Galactic Empire looks like Bethesda Softworks' latest logo? Just saying.

Luke Skywalker isn't exactly Shinji (and thank God for that), but he sure does whine a whole lot. Except that brief flash at the end of A New Hope when he pulls it together long enough to take down the Death Star. And Return of the Jedi, where he goes from being "Aaaa! I'm a total loser all of Dagobah!" to "I'm just THAT badass. Seriously."

Too, the Jedi, such as they are, sure do treat Luke like crap. Which, since they're all pretty much arrogant assholes whose lack of focus on reality caused the downfall of the Republic in the first place isn't all that surprising, but sure does become more apparant when you try to place various things into context, like "Oh look, Obi-Wan Kenobi is now lying to Luke about the droids, because you KNOW he's not senile enough to forget R2D2."

Yknow, the digital remaster stuff isn't really all that bad, though I bet if it'd been done post-Sith it'd have been better, but the Greedo shoots first thing is still dumb. Really really dumb. I know everyone else said that too, but it needs repeating often.

And I think I've figured out why I think Return of the Jedi is better than Empire Strikes Back. It has a lot to do with, on the one hand, my liking marketable pack hunters more than many (and think on the bright side - they weren't Gungans), and on the other hand, everyone in the movie running around acting like the badasses they are. In Empire, OTOH, sure, everyone runs around being awesome on Hoth a lot, and watching Han and Leia get served on the cloud city is cool, but Luke on Dagobah. Wow. I've seen it a million times and I STILL want to reach through the screen and throttle him for such a petulant little child.

Anyway. The whole two of you who cared enough to read all that, feel free to comment.

Posted by Dwip at September 28, 2006 7:29 PM