How The Game Is Played

Myself as a South Park Character

Okay, I couldn't resist.

Posted at 05:14PM May 24, 2005 by gameguy in Music  | 

Episode III: Revenge of the Lucas Marketing Machine

Yesterday was my birthday and Chris M. took me to see Star Wars Episode III. I went with low expectations. The incredible over-marketing of this movie led me to strongly believe that Lucas was trying to extract his last-gasp of star wars cash before the movie was even out, which would not speak well for the movie.

But it was better then I expected. Frankly I personally think its his best since the original Star Wars (but I am not a fan of any of the other Star Wars movies.) This makes sense in my mind since its also closest in time to the original movie, which was the only one with anything resembling a decent plot.

First the positives. The movie is breathtakingly beautiful. A 2 hour on-screen orgy of special effects. Ewan McGreggor is terrific as Obi-Wan in this movie. He makes the worst dialog in the movie business actually sound sensible, natural and interesting. The story delivers on its promise, the tragic downfall of Anakin/Vader and the birth of Luke and Leah. All the action scenes are tremendous fun and very well paced and shot.

Having said that, this movie also has lots of problems. As mentioned above, the dialogue is atrocious. Furthermore, Hayden Christiansen's performance in this movie makes Keanu Reeves look like Sir Lawrence Olivier. His dull, flat and shallow presentation really robs Vader of what should have been a much more interesting arc.

Many reviewers have said that his fall from grace was badly motivated. I actually disagree, the motivation is there and its a classic motivation-- hubris. (Monsterous ego, for those not familiar with classical literature.) However Christensen plays this all so wooden and unemotional that it is totally lost and all we are left with is the very weak love story.

While we are on that subject, Lucas so soft-pedals his new anti-hero that he never really becomes one at all. It is all set-up that he kills his wife, but then Lucas backs off and tells us she is "physically fine but has lost the will to live." In otherwords, this supposedly strong woman dies in a few hours from a broken heart. Trite crap that does nothing but demean her character. I can almost excuse Portman's less then thrilling performance on this alone. If I knew that was what was in store for my character I probably wouldn't be overly excited about playing her, either.

The story has also some real spots of convenience where the audience's credibility is strained and the puppet-master's strings badly show. Whats more unfortunate is by and large they were unnecessary.

Chewbacca just "happens" to be one of the wookies to rescue Yoda on the wookie planet. I wont say more then that because it would be a spoiler, but this is overly-convenient and totally pointless as Chewbacca and Yoda will never meet again in the next 3 movies.

When Anakin's body is rebuilt into Vader's cyborg one, Lucas has him screaming through the surgery. I guess a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away they had spaceships and cyborg technology but not basic anesthetics. We wont even go into the sanitary conditions of the surgery where they have not even bothered to clean the dead skin off his body first. (This is the first thing they do to ANY burn victim to avoid gangrene.)

The space combat is visually delightful, but logically silly. Destroyer ships when damaged sufficiently literally "sink" on screen, tipping forward and starting to "fall" even though they had to be outside of the gravity well to function at all. Furtehrmore, when these ships "tilt" people fall off their feet as they would on a sea going ship turning on end. This could only happen is the gravity onboard is relative to some external fixed frame rather then the ship itself, which again is totally illogical as it has to be an artificial gravity field to begin with.

I don't want to spoil a tense scene so I won't give the details on another major gaffe except to remind you that today, when a plane has to land with crippled landing gear, they spray foam on the runway to cushion it. This too seems to be a lost technology in the star wars universe.

What saves the film in the end is Ewan McGregor as Obi-wan. His performance is stellar and he manages to bring to even the tritest lines Lucas puts in his mouth a realism and depth of emotion that makes them work. Obi-wan is really the star of this picture. Everyone else walks through it but you get the feeling that he really "makes things happen."

Which is a problem since its supposed to be Vader's story.

Having said that, not even Obi-wan escapes the obvious pull of his puppet-strings in service to Lucas's very ill-formed plot. His last act, walking away and just leaving Anakin who he claims throughout the movie to have loved like a brother, dying in agony with third degree burns and cut off legs, was a total break of character and totally unbelievable. But it was needed for Lucas to get where he wanted to go.

The other star of the movie is the now digitally animated Yoda. 5 words. Don't Mess With the Muppet!

My Conclusion: If your a fan boy/girl/muppet/whatever then go and you will have a great old time. If you enjoy visual spectacle and/or silly but action packed action sequences then go see it on the big screen too.

Otherwise, you might want to wait for TV or DVD. And if your NOT a geek at all, and only like movies with good stories, acting and dialogue, give it a miss and you won't be sorry.

Posted at 03:41PM May 24, 2005 by gameguy in General  |  Comments[1]