You have failed me for the last time, Admiral Lucas
Well...not to make Star Wars the dominating motif of this esteemed collection of my innermost thoughts & feelings, but I finally got around to seeing Episode III. And man oh man, what a steaming pile of crap it was. I had been putting off actually going to see it because I knew that once I had seen the last installment, there would be no more to look forward to. Well, except the constant stream of re-releases, redigitized version, 3-D versions, DVD versions & so on & so forth. But I couldn't put it off any longer, co-workers were talking about it in front of me & I pretty much knew what was gonna happen inthe damn movie so I drove out to the stadium-seating multiplex in Alhambra & plunked myself down in front of the screen, armed with peanut M&Ms & a gibungous soda.
Right away I knew there was going to be trouble. This may sound dumb, but the opening theme song sounded really...weak. It just didn't have that power, that resonance or what have you, that lets you know you're about to see an epic saga. It sounded like it was a junior high school band playing halftime at a pop-warner football game. Why they would record a version like that I don't know. And to tell you the truth, throughout the whole movie, the score really failed to get me interested. Maybe John Williams was having a bad day. Hey, we all have 'em.
But the actual story? About as engaging as Pokemon. I was starting to get annoyed. I mean, Episode IV was the first movie I ever saw & thusly, it had tremendous influence on me. Maybe I had too much emotional baggage going into this, but surely Lucas must have realized the pressure, the, the scrutiny this movie was gonna be subjected to.
So this was supposed to wrap up all the loose ends, but the only contributions to the overall plot took place in rapid-fire succession at the absolute very end. The creation of the Darth Vader persona is frustratingly reminiscent of Abbot & Costello meet Frankenstein. And Yoda calls the Senate "Congress", for christs sake! Since when did this become a story about democracy?!?! Not to mention democracy had yet to be conceived by the Ancient Greeks. Yeah, the beginning of Episode IV reveals the Senate has been dissolved. If I knew the prequels were going to be the backstory of a fictional political upheaval I would've just read War & Peace instead...which, might I add, would've taken a lot less time & cost a lot less, & would involve a lot less dizzying CG. And speaking of which: Why is it that novice actors Harrison Ford & Mark Hamill, circa 1977, can get you emotionally involved in the story by making you believe their spaceship is navigating its way through a dangerous asteroid field, when they're sitting in a small prop being shaken by bored stagehands. Meanwhile I was more interested in what color M&M I was eating than watching an intricately detailed CG space battle in Episode III that literally costs millions to produce.
Eh, what can you do. Doesn't mean I can't sit back with a Heineken keg-can, pop the original trilogy into the VCR & let it take me back to a more civilized time...before the Empire.
Right away I knew there was going to be trouble. This may sound dumb, but the opening theme song sounded really...weak. It just didn't have that power, that resonance or what have you, that lets you know you're about to see an epic saga. It sounded like it was a junior high school band playing halftime at a pop-warner football game. Why they would record a version like that I don't know. And to tell you the truth, throughout the whole movie, the score really failed to get me interested. Maybe John Williams was having a bad day. Hey, we all have 'em.
But the actual story? About as engaging as Pokemon. I was starting to get annoyed. I mean, Episode IV was the first movie I ever saw & thusly, it had tremendous influence on me. Maybe I had too much emotional baggage going into this, but surely Lucas must have realized the pressure, the, the scrutiny this movie was gonna be subjected to.
So this was supposed to wrap up all the loose ends, but the only contributions to the overall plot took place in rapid-fire succession at the absolute very end. The creation of the Darth Vader persona is frustratingly reminiscent of Abbot & Costello meet Frankenstein. And Yoda calls the Senate "Congress", for christs sake! Since when did this become a story about democracy?!?! Not to mention democracy had yet to be conceived by the Ancient Greeks. Yeah, the beginning of Episode IV reveals the Senate has been dissolved. If I knew the prequels were going to be the backstory of a fictional political upheaval I would've just read War & Peace instead...which, might I add, would've taken a lot less time & cost a lot less, & would involve a lot less dizzying CG. And speaking of which: Why is it that novice actors Harrison Ford & Mark Hamill, circa 1977, can get you emotionally involved in the story by making you believe their spaceship is navigating its way through a dangerous asteroid field, when they're sitting in a small prop being shaken by bored stagehands. Meanwhile I was more interested in what color M&M I was eating than watching an intricately detailed CG space battle in Episode III that literally costs millions to produce.
Eh, what can you do. Doesn't mean I can't sit back with a Heineken keg-can, pop the original trilogy into the VCR & let it take me back to a more civilized time...before the Empire.
posted by I. P. Frehley at 7:44 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home