Dark Knight was never going to have an easy time of it. Batman Begins set a high bar and the hype for Dark Knight and the building anticipation of it began almost as soon as the premier ended. Combined with the untimely and unfortunate demise of rising star Heath Ledger, it's hardly surprising that Dark Knight had such massive box office success in its opening weekend... what IS surprising is the general agreement - the film lived up to the hype.
Heath Ledger's performance is truly excellent... which, given the strong portrayal by Nicholson in the 1989 Burton film is saying something. It's new... and very much in keeping with the nature of the atmosphere Nolan has created. Very concerned with realism and a dark, brooding atmosphere... this results in the Joker being simultaneously very different from previous incarnations but very much the same and similarly, Two Face - whose appearance in the film wasn't even touched upon in the trailers - is done in a way that bears little resemblance to the comic book treatments but remains true to the character.
Some might be concerned about the replacement of Katie Holmes... from a continuity point of view... it's unfortunate but in a more circumspect sense? Her substitute is infinitely more suited to the role, so the change of actress is a net benefit... had Holmes been playing against Ledger's sublime Joker, it would have been almost as embarrassing as everyone in Superman Returns trying to act with the talent of Kevin Spacey.
There are a few twists in the film... but most of them are fairly obvious to those paying attention but sitll enjoyable... and overall, the only real failing of the film is maybe that it's pacing at times is a bit on the slow side but overall, the almost universal adoration it received is well deserved and certainly - this deserved to punt the tedious Spiderman 3 into the long grass because it surpasses it in every facet of its existence.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
When George "It's my story" Lucas embarked upon the Star Wars prequels... Stars Wars fans rejoiced in collective orgasm. For years fans of the original trilogy had speculated about the first three chapters in the Star Wars epic - all of them dying to see the origins of the characters they dearly loved... the fall of Anakin Skywalker, the Clone Wars... all these things.
Perhaps people should have been a bit wary after Return of the Jedi, when apparently darker takes - wherein Han Solo died - were rejected... and Wookies were replaced with Ewoks. Or the somewhat limp wristed ending to The Empire Strikes Back - which had enormous potential for some manner of cliffhanger ending... beyond Han being encased in carbonite... although, in fairness - it remains above and beyond all other Star Wars films by orders of magnitude.
So where did it all go wrong?
In the overall sense… there are several failings.
The most obvious is that – despite twenty years – George Lucas fucked up. He had twenty years to get something that would mesh with the original trilogy and yet, there are several glaring contradictions that are just idiotic. The relationship between Amidala and Anakin, his “fall”, Amidala’s death, Anakin builds C3PO… the list is long.
The second most obvious? The Phantom Menace is pointless. It introduces only ONE character of merit and kills him… Just imagine the original trilogy starting with Luke dosing around and doing nothing much… It’s clear that in his way, Lucas tried to parallel A New Hope… but sadly, he wasn’t quite able to pull it off… because, truth be told – he wasn’t stealing directly from Samurai films.
The third – there is just so little to recommend these films. Star Wars was never exactly winning people over by virtue of its story telling. It was an epic story, played out across a galaxy in turmoil. The Prequels are about a TRADE DISPUTE, not just that but the dialogue is so awful and so utterly unconvincing… people act illogically because that’s what’s required of them. Even the acting is awful… and to be honest the total prevalence of CGI makes the term “special effects” useless.
The Phantom Menace:
Plot wise? As above stated – the film serves no real purpose. Sure, it introduces the characters but… that didn’t require a whole film.. why? Because the only one that has any real depth DIES! Liam Neeson is about the only person in the whole film who acts worth a damn.
There’s no real comparison to a galaxy in turmoil over civil war, compared to… A TRADE DISPUTE!
And Anakin… AS A CHILD! The baddest brother in the galaxy? As a douche bag white kid? As if him being a happy old white guy in Return of the Jedi wasn’t enough of a kick in the teeth. Not to mention he’s Mary Sue’d up… he can build C3PO… he can build a pod… why? WHY?! There’s no reason for these things… well, the pod allows us to have one of the prequel trademarks.
Scenes that feel like video games… that you can’t play! Presumably because many of them go on to be part of games you can play… regardless, it’s not really good to watch. No one really engages with what’s happening because… nothing is happening for them. They’re playing jump around in front of the green canvas… so, almost every one of these scenes – and they all drag on for considerable amounts of time – has people looking rather indifferent to quite dangerous situations. Of course, the quality of acting in the prequels isn’t exactly legendary at the best of times but these scenes serve only to highlight it…
And then of course, while there are the bloated CGI action scenes… we also have the CGI nightmare of Jarjar… it’s hard to tell whether Lucas became so surrounded by yes-men and fanboys that he simply thought that this was genuinely a good idea or whether he’d merely grown so contemptuous he wanted to show the world he could give loyal fans the one fingered salute and still produce a box office smash – or so combination of the two… but regardless, it’s hard to cover any new ground as far as Jarjar hating goes. It’s all been said.
Then of course we have probably the most controversial and stupid aspects of the entire Prequels debacle. The fact the Force is apparently a bunch of teeny tiny little organisms in someone’s blood – telling them what to do… uh, ok… and somehow that relates to their power level… why no one ever thinks to harvest them and inject a bunch… And the fact that said teeny tiny little organisms decided to have a party in Anakin’s mother’s womb and conceive the little douche… the latter may have served some purpose if it wasn’t NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. Like many aspects introduced in the Prequels, it’s never an issue in the original trilogy and hell, after five minutes – it’s not even an issue in the film it was mentioned it.
And of course, we’ve got everyone being motivated by idiocy. The Trade Federation are a fairly ill defined entity but it’s hard to understand why they have an army as the name implies they’re a corporate organisation of some sort… but the reason they decide to occupy a planet – then pretend they didn’t – is never clarified.
Similarly, Amidala’s course of action isn’t exactly logical. She runs off to Coruscant and when she doesn’t INSTANTLY get help, decides to go back to Naboo… ok, that helps thin the ranks of the Gungans but it’s the singular most illogical course of action for a leader to take. Her duty is to try and get the occupation of her planet ended and her best chance of that is with the Republic, not heading back to a warzone… Which doesn’t even BEGIN to cover quite why they take a child along with them.
And of course… Anakin taking out the control ship. Shields in Star Wars now seem to act like… actually, it’s impossible to say really, they seem to just do whatever they’re required to do by the plot. So, while the idiotically dressed Noob pilots fly around bitching about how the shields are too strong for them to penetrate – Anakin manages to FLY INSIDE THE SHIP. You’d think there’d be something to stop someone doing that… especially as the hangar seems to lead right to the reactor bay… it feels a lot like Lucas felt a need to draw parallels between Luke and Anakin… but while there was quite a lot of tension and build up to Luke blowing up the Death Star… this is just a little kid being irritating and managing to blow something up… by accident. Which magically stops the droid army. Talk about a glass jaw.
The fight with Darth Maul is actually great – except for the stupid way that Darth Maul is offed. He’s supposed to be a bad ass Sith Lord and he just stands there – looking at Obi Wan, jump up, grab Quigon’s lightsabre and then cut him in half. He still looks surprised when he’s falling in two pieces. Again, it’s just something where someone is an idiot because that’s required.
And then we wrap up with a camera shot that makes it obvious to all but the most mentally retarded of viewers that PALPATINE IS SIDIOUS. That was probably obvious, what with any Star Wars fan worth their salt knowing that it was Emperor Palpatine… but then, that simply makes the manipulations less subtle… He pretty much says “Hey, Amidala – why not impeach the current Supreme Chancellor, then I’ll fix everything by being a bad ass!” Which – by the way – happens in about five minutes.
Attack Of The Clones:
So… for some reason, an immensely inept assassin is trying to kill Amidala… It’s never really explained WHY – presumably the Trade Federation aren’t too keen on her but there’s no real reason for them to hate her that much… and this is something like how many years after the events of Episode 1?
Anyway, the immensely inept assassin detonates a bomb on Amidala’s ship AFTER she lands… You’d think that SPACE would be a good place to detonate a bomb but apparently not. It doesn’t matter anyway as Amidala has pulled her ol’ switcharoo again… So her handmaiden gets toasted… who cares?
Lucas said he wanted this film to be a love story… to say that it was a failure is kind of like saying that Jarjar Binks wasn’t a big hit – and one of the few things to show Lucas actually paid any attention to the criticisms of the first film is that he has a vastly diminished role in this one.
First off, Anakin might now be full grown but he’s basically still the same whiney little douchebag he was before. Not only that, he regularly bitches people out for his own failings, espouses a dictatorship and, let’s not forget – a bit of wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. Yet despite this, the age gap and the fact she met him at an eight year old… Senator Amidala can’t wait to marry the fucker.
The big problem though is… the Separatists. Why do they want to break away from the Republic? Why is the Republic ready to go to war? The reasoning for the war is essentially non-existent because the Separatists are commercial entities – why would they WANT a fight? Wars are expensive to wage. Also, isn’t the Republic democratic? Shouldn’t these people just be petitioning to get out and then be let out? It’s not as if the Republic seems to be a particularly strong entity… they didn’t give a flying fuck when Naboo got invaded, after all.
Also, what’s with Count Doofus? He basically spills his guts to Obiwan about the plan… treachery or manipulation – either way it’s a ham fisted effort. No wonder Palpatine has him sliced and diced. He’s either treacherous or grossly incompetent.
Not to mention the “investigation” into the clone army lasts all of five minutes… they make a big deal out of it. THEN FORGET IT. Whatever happened to their concern about a plot to destroy the Jedi?
And did Amidala suffer brain damage? What kind of fucktard puts Jarjar Binks in charge? Of course, she DID marry a fuckwit like Anakin so, clearly she’s an idiot.
Jango Fett? What’s the real point – beyond giving the fanboys something to think about on long winter nights… It’s pretty pointless and making him a Maori is just… idiotic. He’s introduced, has a fight or two and then gets beheaded… guess you should have had a neck piece in there, ol’ chap.
There’s also an issue with the fight on Geonosis… first of all… even if the Republic ships dropped out of hyperspace right on top of the enemy – they’d have SURELY known to the point they got more of a warning that the enemy merely turning up in the sky – it seems logical to assume there’d be some kind of space battle given all the Federation ships in orbit. Not to mention the idiocy of having a big part of your ship planetside…
Revenge Of The Sith:
Really Attack of the Clones ends where the Prequels should begin and Revenge of the Sith where it should end… Which is to say, the Clone Wars should be what this trilogy covers but it really doesn’t even touch upon it.
Anyone that watched the seminal Clone Wars cartoons will know this begins where it left off… but rubbish. It’s also the explanation for why General Grievous sounds like a French child molesting, asthmatic. He’s supposed to be a bad ass that kills Jedi and was giving the Republic a run for their money… but he just comes across as your average bungling Saturday morning cartoon villain. It’s easier imagining him facing off against Inspector Gadget than a Jedi.
The original trilogy really put some emphasis – and indeed, pretty much everything Obiwan tells Luke about his father is used to make the point – that Anakin Skywalker was a good guy who over a period of time was seduced by the power and lure of the Dark Side and became Darth Vader… This film pretty much takes that idea and tosses it out the window. One minute Anakin is ready to take down the Chancellor when he (AFTER THREE FILMS) works out he’s a Sith lord. Then all of a sudden, he’s cutting off Mace Windu’s hand, swearing allegiance to the Dark Side and rounding up younglings to slaughter. Looks like someone set this Anakin Skywalker from good to evil!
Except, it’s not as if one can ever really say he was good – last film he went and did a pretty good job of killing some kids too! Ok, granted last time it was because he was angry at the death of his mother and this time it was because Palpatine said “Yeah, go kill those little fuckers.” But that’s not exactly a fall, so much as maybe miss stepping because you thought there was an extra stair.
Lucas may be tacitly admitting that he phoned that part in by having Padme reiterate that this is all new and bad… Except it merely highlights the idiocy of all this because Padme knew that Anakin had killed kids and espoused dictatorship… not to mention just generally being petty and spiteful – oh and violating a bunch of Jedi codes by shagging her.
And all that’s FURTHER compounded – and by this point the contrivance is getting to such a level that it seems as if skill has actually be exerted to make it this idiotic and stupid – by the fact the only reason Anakin supposedly signed up with Palpatine was to save Padme… which he kind of tosses out the window when he FORCE CHOKES HER.
Then she LITERALLY dies of a broken heart. It’s almost as if they were taking bets to see how many horrible clichés they could use in the most literal sense for this film… What’s important though, is that this contradicts another established piece of continuity. Leia says she KNEW her mother… that seems a little unlikely if she dies all of 5 seconds after popping her babies out.
Regardless, Anakin and Obiwan have another poe-faced fight over lava – because hey, it’s just liquid rock at a few thousand degrees. It only hurts you if you touch it! For some reason having the high ground is a big deal to people who can jump around with no regard for the laws of physics… But, why doesn’t Obiwan finish off Anakin? It makes no sense. Maybe he doesn’t have the heart to finish Anakin off… but then, that doesn’t really make any sense as leaving him to burn to death with his arms and legs cut off seems infinitely more cruel… in fact, it just plain doesn’t make any sense. There is no logical reason for Obiwan to leave Anakin there. Furthermore, if Obiwan left him for dead in a horrific amount of pain – you’d kind of figure someone that gets ticked off by little things like the escape of the Millennium Falcon, would want to see Obiwan die long and slow.
The wrap up is really little more than an exercise in pushing the piece to where they need to be for the original trilogy to happen… but then, why even BOTHER with that if there’s going to be stuff like killing off Luke & Leia’s mother…
Summation:
In truth, there’s a lot to find fault with in the prequels on almost every level. From continuity with the original trilogy to basic logic to just plain horrible dialogue and acting. Even if one ignores the inherent betrayal of the originals that this amounts to, there’s little to recommend the films beyond the action set pieces.
The battles suffer from being little more than run of the mill CGI fests… these aren’t exactly special these days and there’s nothing to really recommend the Prequels battles beyond anything else. They’ve had more money thrown at them but they’re not particularly interesting and they include such futuristic tactics as “running directly at your enemy while shooting wildly”… no cover for these guys!
And in what way are these robots ANY threat to the Republic? It seems that Anakin and Obiwan could just hack through a million of them and really, the only thing at stake would be time. The only time it seems as if they’re actually capable of killing Jedi is in Episode 2 when they have people totally surrounded by them…
It’s rather sad that the prequels couldn’t even get the details right… yes, the pieces are pushed into place for the original trilogy but there’s just so many things that are unnecessary. Anakin BUILDS 3PO?! Anakin was the virgin birth? Anakin was the Chosen one of some prophecy?
Ok – those things COULD have been ok… but they were just dropped. They were all dead ends. Just loose ends, raised but never resolved. At best they’re just pointless ways to fill screen time – at worst, they’re terrible clangers that make no sense and detract from the overall mythos. Midichlorians being a PRIME example. One could scarcely ruin a mystical energy field more comprehensively than having it be tiny little things in your blood.
The choice to use Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, rather than Wookies was really just the start of Star Wars graduating wholly toward a demographic barely into double digits. The logical conclusion of this path being the new Clone Wars CGI fest but the facile and shallow nature of the Prequels… it’s hardly surprising that Lucas calls them kid’s films… that’s what he made them. Albeit a franchise which includes decapitations, incest, genocide and Jarjar Binks.
For anyone who had even passing interest in the Star Wars franchise before the prequels, it’s easy to see why people feel betrayed… there is something of an inherent danger to prequels. Unless they’re artfully planned, they’ll fail because they’re forced to either fit in between existing continuity or merely ride rough shod all over.
There are easy examples – like C3PO and Anakin – but there are more problematic ones… Most specifically, Anakin and Obiwan… Or possibly just to simplify it? Anakin… Really, didn’t everyone think this was going to be the tale of his fall from grace? It sure should have been.
That might have been a perfect situation… a teenage Anakin joins the Jedi order – his training rushed because of the Clone Wars… he’s reckless but his intentions are well founded… but slowly the power of the Dark Side beckons to him… a series of moral compromises that eventually lead him to fall from grace.
But no, we get a guy who is turned to the dark side essentially by Palpatine saying “Oh, go on – kill some irritating little kids!” Which in a single scene manages to accurately capture the hamfisted conception of the prequels… that or Qui Gonn dropping a clanger about midichlorians.
It all just goes to show, you can throw as much money you want at special effects but it’s all for naught if you haven’t got the writing to back it up, it’s not going to be anything more than a glut of explosions. Hollow cash ins that lessen everything that made the original trilogy good.
Perhaps people should have been a bit wary after Return of the Jedi, when apparently darker takes - wherein Han Solo died - were rejected... and Wookies were replaced with Ewoks. Or the somewhat limp wristed ending to The Empire Strikes Back - which had enormous potential for some manner of cliffhanger ending... beyond Han being encased in carbonite... although, in fairness - it remains above and beyond all other Star Wars films by orders of magnitude.
So where did it all go wrong?
In the overall sense… there are several failings.
The most obvious is that – despite twenty years – George Lucas fucked up. He had twenty years to get something that would mesh with the original trilogy and yet, there are several glaring contradictions that are just idiotic. The relationship between Amidala and Anakin, his “fall”, Amidala’s death, Anakin builds C3PO… the list is long.
The second most obvious? The Phantom Menace is pointless. It introduces only ONE character of merit and kills him… Just imagine the original trilogy starting with Luke dosing around and doing nothing much… It’s clear that in his way, Lucas tried to parallel A New Hope… but sadly, he wasn’t quite able to pull it off… because, truth be told – he wasn’t stealing directly from Samurai films.
The third – there is just so little to recommend these films. Star Wars was never exactly winning people over by virtue of its story telling. It was an epic story, played out across a galaxy in turmoil. The Prequels are about a TRADE DISPUTE, not just that but the dialogue is so awful and so utterly unconvincing… people act illogically because that’s what’s required of them. Even the acting is awful… and to be honest the total prevalence of CGI makes the term “special effects” useless.
The Phantom Menace:
Plot wise? As above stated – the film serves no real purpose. Sure, it introduces the characters but… that didn’t require a whole film.. why? Because the only one that has any real depth DIES! Liam Neeson is about the only person in the whole film who acts worth a damn.
There’s no real comparison to a galaxy in turmoil over civil war, compared to… A TRADE DISPUTE!
And Anakin… AS A CHILD! The baddest brother in the galaxy? As a douche bag white kid? As if him being a happy old white guy in Return of the Jedi wasn’t enough of a kick in the teeth. Not to mention he’s Mary Sue’d up… he can build C3PO… he can build a pod… why? WHY?! There’s no reason for these things… well, the pod allows us to have one of the prequel trademarks.
Scenes that feel like video games… that you can’t play! Presumably because many of them go on to be part of games you can play… regardless, it’s not really good to watch. No one really engages with what’s happening because… nothing is happening for them. They’re playing jump around in front of the green canvas… so, almost every one of these scenes – and they all drag on for considerable amounts of time – has people looking rather indifferent to quite dangerous situations. Of course, the quality of acting in the prequels isn’t exactly legendary at the best of times but these scenes serve only to highlight it…
And then of course, while there are the bloated CGI action scenes… we also have the CGI nightmare of Jarjar… it’s hard to tell whether Lucas became so surrounded by yes-men and fanboys that he simply thought that this was genuinely a good idea or whether he’d merely grown so contemptuous he wanted to show the world he could give loyal fans the one fingered salute and still produce a box office smash – or so combination of the two… but regardless, it’s hard to cover any new ground as far as Jarjar hating goes. It’s all been said.
Then of course we have probably the most controversial and stupid aspects of the entire Prequels debacle. The fact the Force is apparently a bunch of teeny tiny little organisms in someone’s blood – telling them what to do… uh, ok… and somehow that relates to their power level… why no one ever thinks to harvest them and inject a bunch… And the fact that said teeny tiny little organisms decided to have a party in Anakin’s mother’s womb and conceive the little douche… the latter may have served some purpose if it wasn’t NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. Like many aspects introduced in the Prequels, it’s never an issue in the original trilogy and hell, after five minutes – it’s not even an issue in the film it was mentioned it.
And of course, we’ve got everyone being motivated by idiocy. The Trade Federation are a fairly ill defined entity but it’s hard to understand why they have an army as the name implies they’re a corporate organisation of some sort… but the reason they decide to occupy a planet – then pretend they didn’t – is never clarified.
Similarly, Amidala’s course of action isn’t exactly logical. She runs off to Coruscant and when she doesn’t INSTANTLY get help, decides to go back to Naboo… ok, that helps thin the ranks of the Gungans but it’s the singular most illogical course of action for a leader to take. Her duty is to try and get the occupation of her planet ended and her best chance of that is with the Republic, not heading back to a warzone… Which doesn’t even BEGIN to cover quite why they take a child along with them.
And of course… Anakin taking out the control ship. Shields in Star Wars now seem to act like… actually, it’s impossible to say really, they seem to just do whatever they’re required to do by the plot. So, while the idiotically dressed Noob pilots fly around bitching about how the shields are too strong for them to penetrate – Anakin manages to FLY INSIDE THE SHIP. You’d think there’d be something to stop someone doing that… especially as the hangar seems to lead right to the reactor bay… it feels a lot like Lucas felt a need to draw parallels between Luke and Anakin… but while there was quite a lot of tension and build up to Luke blowing up the Death Star… this is just a little kid being irritating and managing to blow something up… by accident. Which magically stops the droid army. Talk about a glass jaw.
The fight with Darth Maul is actually great – except for the stupid way that Darth Maul is offed. He’s supposed to be a bad ass Sith Lord and he just stands there – looking at Obi Wan, jump up, grab Quigon’s lightsabre and then cut him in half. He still looks surprised when he’s falling in two pieces. Again, it’s just something where someone is an idiot because that’s required.
And then we wrap up with a camera shot that makes it obvious to all but the most mentally retarded of viewers that PALPATINE IS SIDIOUS. That was probably obvious, what with any Star Wars fan worth their salt knowing that it was Emperor Palpatine… but then, that simply makes the manipulations less subtle… He pretty much says “Hey, Amidala – why not impeach the current Supreme Chancellor, then I’ll fix everything by being a bad ass!” Which – by the way – happens in about five minutes.
Attack Of The Clones:
So… for some reason, an immensely inept assassin is trying to kill Amidala… It’s never really explained WHY – presumably the Trade Federation aren’t too keen on her but there’s no real reason for them to hate her that much… and this is something like how many years after the events of Episode 1?
Anyway, the immensely inept assassin detonates a bomb on Amidala’s ship AFTER she lands… You’d think that SPACE would be a good place to detonate a bomb but apparently not. It doesn’t matter anyway as Amidala has pulled her ol’ switcharoo again… So her handmaiden gets toasted… who cares?
Lucas said he wanted this film to be a love story… to say that it was a failure is kind of like saying that Jarjar Binks wasn’t a big hit – and one of the few things to show Lucas actually paid any attention to the criticisms of the first film is that he has a vastly diminished role in this one.
First off, Anakin might now be full grown but he’s basically still the same whiney little douchebag he was before. Not only that, he regularly bitches people out for his own failings, espouses a dictatorship and, let’s not forget – a bit of wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. Yet despite this, the age gap and the fact she met him at an eight year old… Senator Amidala can’t wait to marry the fucker.
The big problem though is… the Separatists. Why do they want to break away from the Republic? Why is the Republic ready to go to war? The reasoning for the war is essentially non-existent because the Separatists are commercial entities – why would they WANT a fight? Wars are expensive to wage. Also, isn’t the Republic democratic? Shouldn’t these people just be petitioning to get out and then be let out? It’s not as if the Republic seems to be a particularly strong entity… they didn’t give a flying fuck when Naboo got invaded, after all.
Also, what’s with Count Doofus? He basically spills his guts to Obiwan about the plan… treachery or manipulation – either way it’s a ham fisted effort. No wonder Palpatine has him sliced and diced. He’s either treacherous or grossly incompetent.
Not to mention the “investigation” into the clone army lasts all of five minutes… they make a big deal out of it. THEN FORGET IT. Whatever happened to their concern about a plot to destroy the Jedi?
And did Amidala suffer brain damage? What kind of fucktard puts Jarjar Binks in charge? Of course, she DID marry a fuckwit like Anakin so, clearly she’s an idiot.
Jango Fett? What’s the real point – beyond giving the fanboys something to think about on long winter nights… It’s pretty pointless and making him a Maori is just… idiotic. He’s introduced, has a fight or two and then gets beheaded… guess you should have had a neck piece in there, ol’ chap.
There’s also an issue with the fight on Geonosis… first of all… even if the Republic ships dropped out of hyperspace right on top of the enemy – they’d have SURELY known to the point they got more of a warning that the enemy merely turning up in the sky – it seems logical to assume there’d be some kind of space battle given all the Federation ships in orbit. Not to mention the idiocy of having a big part of your ship planetside…
Revenge Of The Sith:
Really Attack of the Clones ends where the Prequels should begin and Revenge of the Sith where it should end… Which is to say, the Clone Wars should be what this trilogy covers but it really doesn’t even touch upon it.
Anyone that watched the seminal Clone Wars cartoons will know this begins where it left off… but rubbish. It’s also the explanation for why General Grievous sounds like a French child molesting, asthmatic. He’s supposed to be a bad ass that kills Jedi and was giving the Republic a run for their money… but he just comes across as your average bungling Saturday morning cartoon villain. It’s easier imagining him facing off against Inspector Gadget than a Jedi.
The original trilogy really put some emphasis – and indeed, pretty much everything Obiwan tells Luke about his father is used to make the point – that Anakin Skywalker was a good guy who over a period of time was seduced by the power and lure of the Dark Side and became Darth Vader… This film pretty much takes that idea and tosses it out the window. One minute Anakin is ready to take down the Chancellor when he (AFTER THREE FILMS) works out he’s a Sith lord. Then all of a sudden, he’s cutting off Mace Windu’s hand, swearing allegiance to the Dark Side and rounding up younglings to slaughter. Looks like someone set this Anakin Skywalker from good to evil!
Except, it’s not as if one can ever really say he was good – last film he went and did a pretty good job of killing some kids too! Ok, granted last time it was because he was angry at the death of his mother and this time it was because Palpatine said “Yeah, go kill those little fuckers.” But that’s not exactly a fall, so much as maybe miss stepping because you thought there was an extra stair.
Lucas may be tacitly admitting that he phoned that part in by having Padme reiterate that this is all new and bad… Except it merely highlights the idiocy of all this because Padme knew that Anakin had killed kids and espoused dictatorship… not to mention just generally being petty and spiteful – oh and violating a bunch of Jedi codes by shagging her.
And all that’s FURTHER compounded – and by this point the contrivance is getting to such a level that it seems as if skill has actually be exerted to make it this idiotic and stupid – by the fact the only reason Anakin supposedly signed up with Palpatine was to save Padme… which he kind of tosses out the window when he FORCE CHOKES HER.
Then she LITERALLY dies of a broken heart. It’s almost as if they were taking bets to see how many horrible clichés they could use in the most literal sense for this film… What’s important though, is that this contradicts another established piece of continuity. Leia says she KNEW her mother… that seems a little unlikely if she dies all of 5 seconds after popping her babies out.
Regardless, Anakin and Obiwan have another poe-faced fight over lava – because hey, it’s just liquid rock at a few thousand degrees. It only hurts you if you touch it! For some reason having the high ground is a big deal to people who can jump around with no regard for the laws of physics… But, why doesn’t Obiwan finish off Anakin? It makes no sense. Maybe he doesn’t have the heart to finish Anakin off… but then, that doesn’t really make any sense as leaving him to burn to death with his arms and legs cut off seems infinitely more cruel… in fact, it just plain doesn’t make any sense. There is no logical reason for Obiwan to leave Anakin there. Furthermore, if Obiwan left him for dead in a horrific amount of pain – you’d kind of figure someone that gets ticked off by little things like the escape of the Millennium Falcon, would want to see Obiwan die long and slow.
The wrap up is really little more than an exercise in pushing the piece to where they need to be for the original trilogy to happen… but then, why even BOTHER with that if there’s going to be stuff like killing off Luke & Leia’s mother…
Summation:
In truth, there’s a lot to find fault with in the prequels on almost every level. From continuity with the original trilogy to basic logic to just plain horrible dialogue and acting. Even if one ignores the inherent betrayal of the originals that this amounts to, there’s little to recommend the films beyond the action set pieces.
The battles suffer from being little more than run of the mill CGI fests… these aren’t exactly special these days and there’s nothing to really recommend the Prequels battles beyond anything else. They’ve had more money thrown at them but they’re not particularly interesting and they include such futuristic tactics as “running directly at your enemy while shooting wildly”… no cover for these guys!
And in what way are these robots ANY threat to the Republic? It seems that Anakin and Obiwan could just hack through a million of them and really, the only thing at stake would be time. The only time it seems as if they’re actually capable of killing Jedi is in Episode 2 when they have people totally surrounded by them…
It’s rather sad that the prequels couldn’t even get the details right… yes, the pieces are pushed into place for the original trilogy but there’s just so many things that are unnecessary. Anakin BUILDS 3PO?! Anakin was the virgin birth? Anakin was the Chosen one of some prophecy?
Ok – those things COULD have been ok… but they were just dropped. They were all dead ends. Just loose ends, raised but never resolved. At best they’re just pointless ways to fill screen time – at worst, they’re terrible clangers that make no sense and detract from the overall mythos. Midichlorians being a PRIME example. One could scarcely ruin a mystical energy field more comprehensively than having it be tiny little things in your blood.
The choice to use Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, rather than Wookies was really just the start of Star Wars graduating wholly toward a demographic barely into double digits. The logical conclusion of this path being the new Clone Wars CGI fest but the facile and shallow nature of the Prequels… it’s hardly surprising that Lucas calls them kid’s films… that’s what he made them. Albeit a franchise which includes decapitations, incest, genocide and Jarjar Binks.
For anyone who had even passing interest in the Star Wars franchise before the prequels, it’s easy to see why people feel betrayed… there is something of an inherent danger to prequels. Unless they’re artfully planned, they’ll fail because they’re forced to either fit in between existing continuity or merely ride rough shod all over.
There are easy examples – like C3PO and Anakin – but there are more problematic ones… Most specifically, Anakin and Obiwan… Or possibly just to simplify it? Anakin… Really, didn’t everyone think this was going to be the tale of his fall from grace? It sure should have been.
That might have been a perfect situation… a teenage Anakin joins the Jedi order – his training rushed because of the Clone Wars… he’s reckless but his intentions are well founded… but slowly the power of the Dark Side beckons to him… a series of moral compromises that eventually lead him to fall from grace.
But no, we get a guy who is turned to the dark side essentially by Palpatine saying “Oh, go on – kill some irritating little kids!” Which in a single scene manages to accurately capture the hamfisted conception of the prequels… that or Qui Gonn dropping a clanger about midichlorians.
It all just goes to show, you can throw as much money you want at special effects but it’s all for naught if you haven’t got the writing to back it up, it’s not going to be anything more than a glut of explosions. Hollow cash ins that lessen everything that made the original trilogy good.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Hellboy 2 was never going to spend a whole lot of time in the lime light, sandwiched between a film that had been hyped for over a year... and one that had been hyped since the instant its predecessor hit the box offices... Even The Incredible Hulk dwarfed Hellboy 2 in terms of presence...
So, Hellboy 2 was always going to have to take a stand against the box office monsters of Ironman and Batman on merit, rather than marketing and hype... which seems rather a shame because it doesn't really compare favourably to any of these films... That's not to say it's bad - there's some visuals in this that are far too original and funky to make their way into the far more mainstream of Marvel and DC films - and that's part of the charm of the film.
Sadly though, it doesn't really grab the attention... The Bureau comes off as MiB on a shoestring... and whether that's true to the comic or not, it doesn't feel particularly compelling. In fact, that's the entire problem with the film. The world is in danger... but that danger never feel particularly pressing. Abe falls in love... but it's never particularly evocative... Hellboy feels torn about trying to defend a world that doesn't love him but who cares... even he doesn't seem to spend more than a few minutes on it... ditto
And it's not really helped that they telegraph the ending... Was there any necessity to have as LITERALLY the first scene in the film being the one that explains how the good guys are going to win... ok, it means that we don't have someone just going "Oh, I know how we can win." out of the blue but... eh, it just means that there's the gratuitous action scene before the final fight... and no particular reason for it.
The visuals are the strength... but the story is weak and it's far too much of the generic A to B to C stuff... which is probably why it's rather unengaging... that and it tries to cover a multitude of topics in a rather short space of time and so, never covers them with sufficient depth that one might actually be interested. It seems like a classic case of numerous ideas having been pitched and rather than thinning them out and just working on a few, they just all got tossed in and everyone hoped it would work.
It's enjoyable enough for a comic book film but not really that good compared to its mainstream rivals.
So, Hellboy 2 was always going to have to take a stand against the box office monsters of Ironman and Batman on merit, rather than marketing and hype... which seems rather a shame because it doesn't really compare favourably to any of these films... That's not to say it's bad - there's some visuals in this that are far too original and funky to make their way into the far more mainstream of Marvel and DC films - and that's part of the charm of the film.
Sadly though, it doesn't really grab the attention... The Bureau comes off as MiB on a shoestring... and whether that's true to the comic or not, it doesn't feel particularly compelling. In fact, that's the entire problem with the film. The world is in danger... but that danger never feel particularly pressing. Abe falls in love... but it's never particularly evocative... Hellboy feels torn about trying to defend a world that doesn't love him but who cares... even he doesn't seem to spend more than a few minutes on it... ditto
And it's not really helped that they telegraph the ending... Was there any necessity to have as LITERALLY the first scene in the film being the one that explains how the good guys are going to win... ok, it means that we don't have someone just going "Oh, I know how we can win." out of the blue but... eh, it just means that there's the gratuitous action scene before the final fight... and no particular reason for it.
The visuals are the strength... but the story is weak and it's far too much of the generic A to B to C stuff... which is probably why it's rather unengaging... that and it tries to cover a multitude of topics in a rather short space of time and so, never covers them with sufficient depth that one might actually be interested. It seems like a classic case of numerous ideas having been pitched and rather than thinning them out and just working on a few, they just all got tossed in and everyone hoped it would work.
It's enjoyable enough for a comic book film but not really that good compared to its mainstream rivals.
Monday, July 21, 2008
It's likely that Robert Heinlein's RPM is probably sufficiently high that his grave could alleviate the energy crisis the world is currently in... and doubtless, if he were able to see the latest sorry chapter in the film franchise that bears little resemblance to his seminal/controversial novel penned a half century ago - it's entirely probable the energy output would be similar to that of the Sun.
The film based Starship Troopers has sought to portray the regime of the Terran Federation as utterly fascist - ruthlessly executing dissenters, opposing religion and having practically no regard for either its civilians or those that serve. These have been considerably expanded upon in the 2nd two films. The 2nd - and utterly dire film, which presumably exists to make this one look better by comparison - one showed us the Mobile Infantry as merely "meat for the grinder"... which given the laughable tactics and horribly ineffective weapons they're given, seems fitting - and about a million miles away from the exceptionally well equipped, well trained and exceptionally effective MI that Heinlein conceived of - and effectively created/popularised the idea of power armour and even predicted the direction of military tactics in the real world.
The third film is somewhat more political than the previous incarnations... whereas their message of a fascist state with no real regard for human life was merely something that was mere mentioned in passing, here we have something going out of the way to make the point. Several scenes have character condemning those that don't "do their" part and the propaganda/news clips are where one can see the likes of Fox News being in about 10-15 years time in their unremittingly right wing agenda, with little apparent regard for whatever facts might happen to be in the way. It's so over the top that it actually passes through the overblown satire - which the first film did so well - and passes into eye rolling and indifference.
The film starts with the defence of some farm planet - the war is still ongoing... and the Bugs have bred some new species to help in their efforts to exterminate humanity. Apparently this is the "frontline" in the war... it's not made clear how, exactly. Apparently we have to take their word on it. Johnny Rico - clearly the actor fell on hard times - is hanging out there to defend it. One of his former comrades comes along - now a general - is there and so is the Sky Marshal... he's the head honcho, if you'd forgotten.
Johnny and his old pal go to the bar for a few drinks with T'Pol. There are a couple of hick farmers there who are bemoaning the fact the Federation are there, saving them from being bug chow - also, for some reason everyone is now referring to the bug as "Archie". Why is never explained... "BUUUUUGS!" seemed to work better... is it some kind of reference to the fact the Americans called the Viet-Cong "Charlie"? We may never know. As you'd expect with hick farmers shooting their mouths off in a bar, things end up with a brawl...
Long story short, something goes wrong - the colony is over-run. Johnny is blamed but avoids a court martial to go off on a super secret mission that means he'll only really come back in the last 5 minutes... He's going to work on the film's namesake MARAUDER!
The Skymarshal heads up to his ship in orbit, they somehow get hit while at warp and have to abandon ship. Naturally, we follow T'Pol and the Skymarshal as they crash onto a big ol' generic desert planet - it does have a sea but all we really see is the desert. There's no time for a rendition of "we do like to be beside the seaside" because the twitchy chef - whose chances of survival are about the same as him winning the lottery - sees a bug.
For some reason, despite the fact they're supposedly all members of the military, discipline and the chain of command instantly breaks down. The cook is jittery, the Sky Marshal's aide turns out to be a religious nut (which is illegal, remember)... the big dumb strong guy isn't taking orders, neither is the doctor... and the Sky Marshal is out to lunch... Looks like it's T'Pol's job to hold it together.
She decides to move away from the escape pod - the merits of this plan are debatable. You're in a big ol' desert... here you've got a defensible position, you'd be passing that up to... what, wander around on a barren enemy infested planet? Kind of makes you think they should have taken some marines with them instead of the flotsam and jetsam with the most important man in the Federation.
Or is he? Johnny's friend Dix finds that a distress message from the Sky Marshal was classified. Although, he shouldn't be surprised as he saw the admiral that did it impersonate him to deliver a speech... anyway, turns out she has thought that the Sky Marshal has been compromised by the brain bug they captured and now believes the "brain of brains" to be God... so yes, he's gone batshit crazy.
As you can guess, things don't go so well in the desert. The doctor confesses the Sky Marshal has gone off the deep end - as if you need a medical opinion, when the guy starts spouting about God all of a sudden and how he had a jolly nice chat with him. Shortly after this, the doc falls down a hole... then the twitchy chef meets his end... The CGI of the bugs here is absolutely DIRE, it's at times worse than the CGI cartoon... if they weren't spending the budget on the script or actors or effects... what WERE they spending it on?
The Sky Marshal reveals to his remaining compatriots that God is the bug "brain of brains" and that he's going to make peace with it... by which he obviously means, spill his guts about the disposition of human forces and lead to their total destruction... so in other words, a bad thing. Which is all related to us by the uber-brain itself... sigh. Fortunately the agony is almost over. Johnny Rico turns up in some mechs that he stole from Command & Conquer and amazingly they're actually effective against the bugs - there's a first time for everything... they save T'Pol and her bible bashing friend - both of them praying like they mean it, in possibly the most idiotic religious conversion scene ever.
They blow up the uberbrain by destroying the planet... religion is adopted because the Admiral observes that it's a good way to instil mindless obedience - pretty cynical, eh?
It's fair to say, it's not as awful as the previous instalment - their guns actually shoot something more threatening than blinking lights and the characters aren't walking personifications of every war film cliché ever... however, at least that film was actually a cohesive effort... a fucking awful one that probably could induce brain damage but it was a film that knew where it was going.
Starship Troopers 3 wants to do a whole bunch of things... but it doesn't really succeed in any of them. The religion angle is laughable - T'Pol converts to religion because the bible basher tells her to pray... uhuh. Given her utter contempt for religion before that, it seems fairly stupid. Especially as she's saved by Johnny Rico in his C&C brand mechs.
It seems conceivable that these "Marauders" are a doth of the cap to the original concept of the Mobile Infantry using power armour but really, it seems a bit late in the day to be worrying about the vision of Heinlein... because he'd likely be so outraged by the senseless idiocy of the first film, he'd have no inclination to see the others unless it was for a massive law suit... And in any case, these are more mini-mechs than true powered armour and their "strategy" is essentially "stand in a line and shoot the hell out of everything"... so, it's not as if mobility is a huge factor... they might as well have sent in moving pill boxes.
And of course, there's the Fox...uh, Federation News Network... espousing the death of "peace terrorists"... it really does go past satire to just trying so hard to hammer home a point that it's insulting. Yes - they're fascists who hate free speech and demonise people who exercise free thought an execute any who question the war or the Federation.
All in all - a car crash that should be avoided at all costs... there's nothing here for anyone. Not the sci-fi fan, not the action fan... not even fans of the original film. Even intoxicated, this makes for difficult viewing.
The film based Starship Troopers has sought to portray the regime of the Terran Federation as utterly fascist - ruthlessly executing dissenters, opposing religion and having practically no regard for either its civilians or those that serve. These have been considerably expanded upon in the 2nd two films. The 2nd - and utterly dire film, which presumably exists to make this one look better by comparison - one showed us the Mobile Infantry as merely "meat for the grinder"... which given the laughable tactics and horribly ineffective weapons they're given, seems fitting - and about a million miles away from the exceptionally well equipped, well trained and exceptionally effective MI that Heinlein conceived of - and effectively created/popularised the idea of power armour and even predicted the direction of military tactics in the real world.
The third film is somewhat more political than the previous incarnations... whereas their message of a fascist state with no real regard for human life was merely something that was mere mentioned in passing, here we have something going out of the way to make the point. Several scenes have character condemning those that don't "do their" part and the propaganda/news clips are where one can see the likes of Fox News being in about 10-15 years time in their unremittingly right wing agenda, with little apparent regard for whatever facts might happen to be in the way. It's so over the top that it actually passes through the overblown satire - which the first film did so well - and passes into eye rolling and indifference.
The film starts with the defence of some farm planet - the war is still ongoing... and the Bugs have bred some new species to help in their efforts to exterminate humanity. Apparently this is the "frontline" in the war... it's not made clear how, exactly. Apparently we have to take their word on it. Johnny Rico - clearly the actor fell on hard times - is hanging out there to defend it. One of his former comrades comes along - now a general - is there and so is the Sky Marshal... he's the head honcho, if you'd forgotten.
Johnny and his old pal go to the bar for a few drinks with T'Pol. There are a couple of hick farmers there who are bemoaning the fact the Federation are there, saving them from being bug chow - also, for some reason everyone is now referring to the bug as "Archie". Why is never explained... "BUUUUUGS!" seemed to work better... is it some kind of reference to the fact the Americans called the Viet-Cong "Charlie"? We may never know. As you'd expect with hick farmers shooting their mouths off in a bar, things end up with a brawl...
Long story short, something goes wrong - the colony is over-run. Johnny is blamed but avoids a court martial to go off on a super secret mission that means he'll only really come back in the last 5 minutes... He's going to work on the film's namesake MARAUDER!
The Skymarshal heads up to his ship in orbit, they somehow get hit while at warp and have to abandon ship. Naturally, we follow T'Pol and the Skymarshal as they crash onto a big ol' generic desert planet - it does have a sea but all we really see is the desert. There's no time for a rendition of "we do like to be beside the seaside" because the twitchy chef - whose chances of survival are about the same as him winning the lottery - sees a bug.
For some reason, despite the fact they're supposedly all members of the military, discipline and the chain of command instantly breaks down. The cook is jittery, the Sky Marshal's aide turns out to be a religious nut (which is illegal, remember)... the big dumb strong guy isn't taking orders, neither is the doctor... and the Sky Marshal is out to lunch... Looks like it's T'Pol's job to hold it together.
She decides to move away from the escape pod - the merits of this plan are debatable. You're in a big ol' desert... here you've got a defensible position, you'd be passing that up to... what, wander around on a barren enemy infested planet? Kind of makes you think they should have taken some marines with them instead of the flotsam and jetsam with the most important man in the Federation.
Or is he? Johnny's friend Dix finds that a distress message from the Sky Marshal was classified. Although, he shouldn't be surprised as he saw the admiral that did it impersonate him to deliver a speech... anyway, turns out she has thought that the Sky Marshal has been compromised by the brain bug they captured and now believes the "brain of brains" to be God... so yes, he's gone batshit crazy.
As you can guess, things don't go so well in the desert. The doctor confesses the Sky Marshal has gone off the deep end - as if you need a medical opinion, when the guy starts spouting about God all of a sudden and how he had a jolly nice chat with him. Shortly after this, the doc falls down a hole... then the twitchy chef meets his end... The CGI of the bugs here is absolutely DIRE, it's at times worse than the CGI cartoon... if they weren't spending the budget on the script or actors or effects... what WERE they spending it on?
The Sky Marshal reveals to his remaining compatriots that God is the bug "brain of brains" and that he's going to make peace with it... by which he obviously means, spill his guts about the disposition of human forces and lead to their total destruction... so in other words, a bad thing. Which is all related to us by the uber-brain itself... sigh. Fortunately the agony is almost over. Johnny Rico turns up in some mechs that he stole from Command & Conquer and amazingly they're actually effective against the bugs - there's a first time for everything... they save T'Pol and her bible bashing friend - both of them praying like they mean it, in possibly the most idiotic religious conversion scene ever.
They blow up the uberbrain by destroying the planet... religion is adopted because the Admiral observes that it's a good way to instil mindless obedience - pretty cynical, eh?
It's fair to say, it's not as awful as the previous instalment - their guns actually shoot something more threatening than blinking lights and the characters aren't walking personifications of every war film cliché ever... however, at least that film was actually a cohesive effort... a fucking awful one that probably could induce brain damage but it was a film that knew where it was going.
Starship Troopers 3 wants to do a whole bunch of things... but it doesn't really succeed in any of them. The religion angle is laughable - T'Pol converts to religion because the bible basher tells her to pray... uhuh. Given her utter contempt for religion before that, it seems fairly stupid. Especially as she's saved by Johnny Rico in his C&C brand mechs.
It seems conceivable that these "Marauders" are a doth of the cap to the original concept of the Mobile Infantry using power armour but really, it seems a bit late in the day to be worrying about the vision of Heinlein... because he'd likely be so outraged by the senseless idiocy of the first film, he'd have no inclination to see the others unless it was for a massive law suit... And in any case, these are more mini-mechs than true powered armour and their "strategy" is essentially "stand in a line and shoot the hell out of everything"... so, it's not as if mobility is a huge factor... they might as well have sent in moving pill boxes.
And of course, there's the Fox...uh, Federation News Network... espousing the death of "peace terrorists"... it really does go past satire to just trying so hard to hammer home a point that it's insulting. Yes - they're fascists who hate free speech and demonise people who exercise free thought an execute any who question the war or the Federation.
All in all - a car crash that should be avoided at all costs... there's nothing here for anyone. Not the sci-fi fan, not the action fan... not even fans of the original film. Even intoxicated, this makes for difficult viewing.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Gotham Knight - or the Batmanamatrix, in reference to the notion it emulates the Animatrix, referencing the same continuity but ultimately being of little true consequence to the film that precedes or succeeds it - is the newly released Batman animation.
The six stories told are without a great deal of overlap... being as they are, simply set in the interim between the end of the last film and before the beginning of the Dark Knight... suffice to say that while the style varies between them that the animation is all of a suitably high quality - although, it's rather strange to see the slightly different realisations of Batman and Bruce Wayne, as they're all voiced by the same voice actor.
The stories vary considerably - from Batman testing out a magical bullet shield (which is fortunately one of the shorter stories and where Batman quickly rejects the device), to Batman saving cops from a mobster shoot out all the way through to Batman and Deadshot facing off. The Animatrix seemed to flounder because of it's different directors and styles... and the Animatrix was essentially just a way for the Wachoski Brother's to introduce the irritating hero-worshipping Kid and explain how Zion was aware of the Machine's digging.
Gotham Knight doesn't have any stories that are facilitated by a particular plot need. They're presumably just what the writers thought would be cool... and it works and even if you find one of the stories dragging a bit, you've always got the prospect of another one just around the corner... all in all, an excellent way to whet the appetite for the new Batman.
The six stories told are without a great deal of overlap... being as they are, simply set in the interim between the end of the last film and before the beginning of the Dark Knight... suffice to say that while the style varies between them that the animation is all of a suitably high quality - although, it's rather strange to see the slightly different realisations of Batman and Bruce Wayne, as they're all voiced by the same voice actor.
The stories vary considerably - from Batman testing out a magical bullet shield (which is fortunately one of the shorter stories and where Batman quickly rejects the device), to Batman saving cops from a mobster shoot out all the way through to Batman and Deadshot facing off. The Animatrix seemed to flounder because of it's different directors and styles... and the Animatrix was essentially just a way for the Wachoski Brother's to introduce the irritating hero-worshipping Kid and explain how Zion was aware of the Machine's digging.
Gotham Knight doesn't have any stories that are facilitated by a particular plot need. They're presumably just what the writers thought would be cool... and it works and even if you find one of the stories dragging a bit, you've always got the prospect of another one just around the corner... all in all, an excellent way to whet the appetite for the new Batman.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Stargate staggers on to a second direct-to-DVD movie... We've already seen off pretty much everyone that opposed SG-1, all they've got left is Baal... who had a lot of clones but the film starts with us being told that the last clone has been captured and they're about to perform a symbiote extraction on the Tok'ra homeworld.
As Baal is a SG-1 bad guy, this naturally has the usual - banter where he makes grandiose claims about revenge. Unlike most of the other times that system lords have had their backs to the wall, this time it actually works out. Turns out while this guy IS the last clone - the real Baal was smart enough to turn off his transmitter thing and is still alive and well and even built a time machine. We have a kind of "The Sound of Thunder" moment as people are able to SEE changes in the timeline - most notably people disappearing... it turns out that these changes are apparently moving at the speed of plot because there's plenty of time for the remaining SG-1 (O'Neill gets stabbed by the clone, Teal'C and Vayla vanish) get to the stargate and travel back to Earth.
Turns out though, it's not their Earth. Well, it's their Earth but where the Stargate programme never existed because Baal went back in time and blew up the ship carrying the Stargate... well, almost. Turns out Mitchel's grampappy tossed the explosive overboard so that it just ended up frozen in the Artic. Anyway, as you'd guess the chances of them escaping being pretty much nil - they're rescued by O'Neill... except, this being an alternate timeline - he doesn't know them... except Carter, she's a dead astronaut.
What happens next is necessary for reasons of - amazingly - logic and plot. The three of them are all debriefed at length where they explain the Stargate programme, the alternate timeline and how they need to fix things before Baal comes along and rapes the fucking shit out of them. General Landry - because naturally, it being an alternate timeline they don't bump into different people... just people they know from their timeline - points out that SG-1 doesn't have the RIGHT to change what is the status quo for this entire universe... clearly somewhat missing the point that Baal isn't exactly keen on humans... them being mere cattle to him and all. Still, it is a valid argument - who are SG-1 to say their timeline should take priority. Maybe everything in this universe will be just smiles and sunshine? Hahaha and Teal'C might stop saying "indeed". So, anyway everyone signs non-disclosure agreements and agrees not to communicate. They're all relocated across the country and then we get the ol' "years pass" montage in which precisely fuck all happens.
Yeah... this thing has been going on a while and a whole lotta nothing has happened. Presumably the writers realised that too because at this point Baal's uber fleet jumps into system - yeah, this is one of the shots they used for the very misleading trailer - and they sit there. We get a who's who of the old system lords but none of them get much more than a couple of words to say. Naturally, Teal'C is here and Gould Vayla - who is Baal's queen... yeah, choose a woman who is pretty treacherous WITHOUT the extra treacherous alien parasite - that won't come back to haunt you.
It's basically surmised that since his appearance, Baal has been doing very well because of his future knowledge... that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Sure, Baal would know where various Ancient pieces of technology were but the moment he starts doing things in this timeline, his knowledge of future events is going to become useless because... that's how causality works. He'd know the people he was playing against but it seems a bit foolish to say that his every move would be a right one. Evil Vayla makes it clear that she's suspicious of him... jeez, tip your hand why don't you.
Baal - unlike everyone else - seems Earth as a resource to exploit, rather than an enemy to nuke into oblivion and then take what's left in the debris... which seems pretty fucking sensible, even though Earth could essentially put up no resistance in this timeline... or at least - that's what Baal thinks.
As soon as a dozen big fat ships turn up - actually they send some recon flights around the Earth first but that's fairly irrelevant - SG-1 go and see the president. He's just as adamant about altering timelines. Anyway, their Stargate programme is apparently located in the Antarctic now and they're also drilling to the Ancient's weapon platform... so SG-1 head off in some F-16s. What follows is essentially the only pretty combat you'll see... F-16s vs. Deathgliders... And then some Migs... well, actually that happens after a strike on the two sites in Antartica and after Vayla - GASP! You'll never guess! - turns on Baal and cuts him in twain, then orders an immediate bombardment of Earth... but not before loyal Teal'C can run off to enact Baal's final plan.
Anyway, SG-1 go to the Russian Stargate - handy! - and magically, Teal'C arrives to help with a handy gadget for activating Stargates which aren't powered. They find out that Baal's time machine was actually just a massive system of satellites to look for solar flares throughout the galaxy - solar flares being what have caused time travel in previous instances. Apparently though, Vayla knew about this place... so, wait... she KNEW about the secret time travel machine all along and never thought to sneak off and use it herself? In fact why is she sending people there? Why not just nuke the damned place from space? Right about now she's just about queen of the god damned galaxy - there's no reason to do anything but blow this thing up and cement her rule. Also, Teal'c et al don't take more than an hour or two to get to the stargate... and yet Vayla is there about two minutes after them? Since when did they have Ludicrous speed on their motherships?
Regardless of these gaping plot holes, SG-1 basically hold off the bad guys who are ringing in - in something that wouldn't be out of place in an episode, really. Everyone dies, except Mitchell who gets through. Jump to the same scene from the start, except Mitchell is sitting in the hold with a rifle and him and the guy that gets vapourised the first time around shoot the fuck out of Baal and his minions. Which hits the reset button. We return to the present day, Baal burbles about his terrible revenge but nothing happens. The symbiote is extracted and then smashed on the ground. We see Mitchell's locker picture now has his grandfather and him from the other timeline... which really suggests that the timeline hasn't actually been truly reset but merely altered to essentially resemble the original more closely... Oh wait... didn't the EXACT SAME THING HAPPEN IN MOBIUS?! AND for that matter, 2010?
That's the sad inevitability of a time travel theme where things are so thoroughly altered... the reset button is going to be hit at the end because... fans would have a fit if you fundamentally altered the universe they loved and it would essentially be tossing all your old continuity out the window... so, any sci-fi fan worth their salt would know that things in this episode were always going to be temporary. Which really made it something of an exercise in anti-climax... not to mention the fact that this was sorely lacking in action... we spend a WHOLE lotta time in the middle with the SG-1 kids sitting around, moping about their lives and their inability to fix things.
And sure, they defeated Baal - FINALLY... but that's not exactly that exciting... and if he had been sitting on his time machine... why wait until all his clones were dead? Was that really necessary? Not that it really matters.
All in all, it's really... kind of dull. The action takes up precious little of the time and the rest is ponderous and ultimately irrelevant given that the reset button is hit. No character development, no revelations... not even any real fun and not even a particularly interesting plot. Don't bother seeing it - or you'll wish you could go back in time and destroy the DVD you bought.
As Baal is a SG-1 bad guy, this naturally has the usual - banter where he makes grandiose claims about revenge. Unlike most of the other times that system lords have had their backs to the wall, this time it actually works out. Turns out while this guy IS the last clone - the real Baal was smart enough to turn off his transmitter thing and is still alive and well and even built a time machine. We have a kind of "The Sound of Thunder" moment as people are able to SEE changes in the timeline - most notably people disappearing... it turns out that these changes are apparently moving at the speed of plot because there's plenty of time for the remaining SG-1 (O'Neill gets stabbed by the clone, Teal'C and Vayla vanish) get to the stargate and travel back to Earth.
Turns out though, it's not their Earth. Well, it's their Earth but where the Stargate programme never existed because Baal went back in time and blew up the ship carrying the Stargate... well, almost. Turns out Mitchel's grampappy tossed the explosive overboard so that it just ended up frozen in the Artic. Anyway, as you'd guess the chances of them escaping being pretty much nil - they're rescued by O'Neill... except, this being an alternate timeline - he doesn't know them... except Carter, she's a dead astronaut.
What happens next is necessary for reasons of - amazingly - logic and plot. The three of them are all debriefed at length where they explain the Stargate programme, the alternate timeline and how they need to fix things before Baal comes along and rapes the fucking shit out of them. General Landry - because naturally, it being an alternate timeline they don't bump into different people... just people they know from their timeline - points out that SG-1 doesn't have the RIGHT to change what is the status quo for this entire universe... clearly somewhat missing the point that Baal isn't exactly keen on humans... them being mere cattle to him and all. Still, it is a valid argument - who are SG-1 to say their timeline should take priority. Maybe everything in this universe will be just smiles and sunshine? Hahaha and Teal'C might stop saying "indeed". So, anyway everyone signs non-disclosure agreements and agrees not to communicate. They're all relocated across the country and then we get the ol' "years pass" montage in which precisely fuck all happens.
Yeah... this thing has been going on a while and a whole lotta nothing has happened. Presumably the writers realised that too because at this point Baal's uber fleet jumps into system - yeah, this is one of the shots they used for the very misleading trailer - and they sit there. We get a who's who of the old system lords but none of them get much more than a couple of words to say. Naturally, Teal'C is here and Gould Vayla - who is Baal's queen... yeah, choose a woman who is pretty treacherous WITHOUT the extra treacherous alien parasite - that won't come back to haunt you.
It's basically surmised that since his appearance, Baal has been doing very well because of his future knowledge... that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Sure, Baal would know where various Ancient pieces of technology were but the moment he starts doing things in this timeline, his knowledge of future events is going to become useless because... that's how causality works. He'd know the people he was playing against but it seems a bit foolish to say that his every move would be a right one. Evil Vayla makes it clear that she's suspicious of him... jeez, tip your hand why don't you.
Baal - unlike everyone else - seems Earth as a resource to exploit, rather than an enemy to nuke into oblivion and then take what's left in the debris... which seems pretty fucking sensible, even though Earth could essentially put up no resistance in this timeline... or at least - that's what Baal thinks.
As soon as a dozen big fat ships turn up - actually they send some recon flights around the Earth first but that's fairly irrelevant - SG-1 go and see the president. He's just as adamant about altering timelines. Anyway, their Stargate programme is apparently located in the Antarctic now and they're also drilling to the Ancient's weapon platform... so SG-1 head off in some F-16s. What follows is essentially the only pretty combat you'll see... F-16s vs. Deathgliders... And then some Migs... well, actually that happens after a strike on the two sites in Antartica and after Vayla - GASP! You'll never guess! - turns on Baal and cuts him in twain, then orders an immediate bombardment of Earth... but not before loyal Teal'C can run off to enact Baal's final plan.
Anyway, SG-1 go to the Russian Stargate - handy! - and magically, Teal'C arrives to help with a handy gadget for activating Stargates which aren't powered. They find out that Baal's time machine was actually just a massive system of satellites to look for solar flares throughout the galaxy - solar flares being what have caused time travel in previous instances. Apparently though, Vayla knew about this place... so, wait... she KNEW about the secret time travel machine all along and never thought to sneak off and use it herself? In fact why is she sending people there? Why not just nuke the damned place from space? Right about now she's just about queen of the god damned galaxy - there's no reason to do anything but blow this thing up and cement her rule. Also, Teal'c et al don't take more than an hour or two to get to the stargate... and yet Vayla is there about two minutes after them? Since when did they have Ludicrous speed on their motherships?
Regardless of these gaping plot holes, SG-1 basically hold off the bad guys who are ringing in - in something that wouldn't be out of place in an episode, really. Everyone dies, except Mitchell who gets through. Jump to the same scene from the start, except Mitchell is sitting in the hold with a rifle and him and the guy that gets vapourised the first time around shoot the fuck out of Baal and his minions. Which hits the reset button. We return to the present day, Baal burbles about his terrible revenge but nothing happens. The symbiote is extracted and then smashed on the ground. We see Mitchell's locker picture now has his grandfather and him from the other timeline... which really suggests that the timeline hasn't actually been truly reset but merely altered to essentially resemble the original more closely... Oh wait... didn't the EXACT SAME THING HAPPEN IN MOBIUS?! AND for that matter, 2010?
That's the sad inevitability of a time travel theme where things are so thoroughly altered... the reset button is going to be hit at the end because... fans would have a fit if you fundamentally altered the universe they loved and it would essentially be tossing all your old continuity out the window... so, any sci-fi fan worth their salt would know that things in this episode were always going to be temporary. Which really made it something of an exercise in anti-climax... not to mention the fact that this was sorely lacking in action... we spend a WHOLE lotta time in the middle with the SG-1 kids sitting around, moping about their lives and their inability to fix things.
And sure, they defeated Baal - FINALLY... but that's not exactly that exciting... and if he had been sitting on his time machine... why wait until all his clones were dead? Was that really necessary? Not that it really matters.
All in all, it's really... kind of dull. The action takes up precious little of the time and the rest is ponderous and ultimately irrelevant given that the reset button is hit. No character development, no revelations... not even any real fun and not even a particularly interesting plot. Don't bother seeing it - or you'll wish you could go back in time and destroy the DVD you bought.
Hancock, Hancock, Hancock. There are a couple of different types of comedy film… you get the kind of relentless joke after joke films with no real attempt at any serious message, like The Naked Gun or American Pie. Then you get the films that can’t make up their damned minds and switch between serious and comic faster than you can blink – like East is East where scenes of domestic abuse can quickly transition to unattractive girls getting humped by very large dogs… Finally, there’s the films that start out funny and then about halfway through they go “Oh, how about a message and some seriousness?” Like… pretty much every Adam Sandler film and that’s the school from which Hancock seems to be spawned.
This will likely to some people feeling rather disappointed with Hancock because it essentially gets to the halfway mark and suddenly, loses all the fun energy and becomes rather serious and the joke count drops and you wonder what happened to the guy who wrote the first half of the film and why he didn’t write the second half.
Things start out with quite a lot of promise, Hancock is a drunken superhero whose intentions are good but whose methods leave a lot to be desired. Drunkenly destroying large amounts of property while trying to apprehend criminals and carelessly wrecking vehicles as he attempts to save people. Needless to say that this is quite the juxtaposition to Superman… as Hancock’s appearance is greeted with derision and contempt. This really could have been a great premise if only it was explored in more depth but halfway in this film is barely forty five minutes, so depth isn’t something we can really afford.
Inevitably, the PR guy tries to turn Hancock around - he realises that he's inherently a good guy, trying to do the right thing and that people should love him - not hate him. It's not actually made particularly clear why Hancock is so bad at his rescues... He's a sloppy drunk, sure but you don't go around trying to rescue people who keep complaining for no reason... but that's never really elaborated upon... Anyway, PR guy convinces Hancock to hand himself over to the authorities to show he wants to make amends for essentially being a monumental fuck up as regards property damage and so, he's sent to jail.
If you hadn't guessed, this is pretty much the point at which the film gets serious. PR guy's basic plan is - if Hancock is a good guy, turns himself around and stops fucking up that they'll want him back as crime soars... yeah, we've got a city full of people that commit blatant crime when there's a Superman analogy (even a drunk one) around... that's pretty much a given in these situations though. Anyway, we spend some time showing how Hancock is progressing and eventually the chief of police calls him in for a nasty hostage situation from a bank job gone wrong. Hancock swoops in and saves the day without destroying everything.
There is adulation for Hancock as he becomes the hero he should have been, PR guy is naturally now everyone's best pal - although, he still wants to push his world changing branding... but people are really only interested in Hancock. Hancock relates how he woke up 80 years ago in a hospital and recalls nothing of his life before that moment - hence when the nurse asked for his "John Hancock", he assumed that was his name... but little more of his history is related.
Apparently PR guy had a skin full and when they get home, he goes upstairs to sleep it off. The tension between Hancock and PR guy's wife culminates in a kiss - followed by her tossing a fridge at him, knocking him out into the street. He's stunned but the next day - when the film seems to remember that it started out as a comedy - he smacks her about with various kitchen items while her husband is distracted and she agrees to meet up and tell him what the deal is.
Turns out, both of them are part of some race of superpowered beings who have been around for over 3,000 years. Everyone else has died though, apparently the one weakness they have - and yes, it's really as stupid as it sounds - they were created in pairs and they're drawn to one another, when they're in proximity their powers fade and they become mortal and die. Apparently this has happened several times with Mary and Hancock but he got brained when he was mortal 80 years ago and got the most common brain condition in Hollywood, AMNESIA!
The idiot crooks that Hancock beat in the hostage situation are showing just how stupid they are... because, despite the fact Hancock gets shot and wounded stopping a robbery... there is NO POSSIBLE WAY they could have known he was going to lose his powers unless they're psychic... So, they were pretty much going to chase after a guy who is bullet proof. Damn, they deserve the schooling they get.
As you can guess, Hancock decides it is a far, far better thing he does now... and flies off to save New York and leaves PR guy and his wife to live a normal life... even though she's immortal.
It really feels that the breaks slam on as soon as Hancock decides to reform. The second that happens, the film gets to be a LOT more angsty. It's more drama... the comedy comes to be thin on the ground and you're left wondering what happened to that rather amusing initial premise... because that's how the film was sold. Not very good superhero... but then it turns out he's actually a 3000 year old superbeing whose one weakness is Charlize Theron.
We don't really find out just why he's drunk and a fuck up... Oh, he rises to the challenge PR guy sets him but that's such a generic, loser makes good that if it weren't for the superhero angle - it wouldn't be anything remarkable... It's short and yet, it feels like it drags. The initial premise disregarded for no real reason. It's initially enjoyable but it just becomes so generic that the fairly original concept might as well not have been bothered with. It honestly feels as if the writer for the funny first part walked out after penning the first thirty minutes.
Probably best to wait for the DVD to rent... all the wasted potential just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Wall-E is the much anticipated Pixar film about a cute little robot thinger... although, given the fact that Pixar is churning out more films like Finding Nemo than Toy Story or The Incredibles - you have to wonder why people love them so... Disney's insipid influence is clearly starting to show... but at least Wall-E isn't an orphan or something...
So, the film starts out with Wall-E zipping around a deserted Earth city which is littered with mountains of garbage. Him and his cockroach pal hang out and it's all very cute - no dialogue or anything, just him mooching around. Very pretty but beyond indicating that humanity are out in space, not a lot is going on.
So, this could go on forever but then, Eve - a shiny i-pod like robot - comes along and then we essentially have more of the same for a while until she finds a plant, which she takes and then causes her to shut down. Then she gets hoisted off by her ship and we have a long protracted scene where Wall-E is basically trying to get back to her. Again - it's got some great visual spectacle but the plot content is microscopic and dialogue is minimal... but then given the fact that both the main characters are all but mute - that shouldn't be a surprise.
We find humanity has been - as intimated on Earth - floating around in space because things went tits up. This has apparently led them to become pampered blobs who achieve nothing as their every whim is catered for from birth to death by fleets of cutesy robots. Some deranged Right wingers in the USA think this is liberal propaganda but really, it seems like more of an excuse to have the cutesy robots flying around. The humans are pretty much relegated to second place and besides a tangential and mostly irrelevant subplot of romance between two of them spherical humans, only the Captain really has any significance at all.
Because, as it turns out - the EVE robots have been checking Earth for signs of life for 700 and now it's become capable of sustaining life again. Which leads to operation recolonisation - heading back to Earth and starting over... it's not made clear if the Axiom contains the entirety of the surviving human population nor why - as they have FTL - why they didn't just try looking for a new planet... but then, this film makes little effort to be engaging for adults like Toy Story and The Incredibles. Which is sad because part of what made Pixar good was the ability to relate to more than one demographic...
Anyway, for reasons that aren't entirely clear - the plant inside EVE has disappeared and that needs to be stuck in an analyser so everyone can go home... but the prospect of going home starts to get to the Captain, as he realises that humanity has literally spent the last 700 years sitting on its ass. As it turns out though, this is because project "Cleanup" failed and this has - for some reason... mostly that of plot - been kept secret. The auto-pilot, which is literally an evil steering wheel, then decides that the status quo must be maintained...
As one can imagine, this leads to more chasing around. Some of it actually in space, where Wall-E and EVE get to act about as romantic as robots get. Naturally, the plant is found and they must rush to try and get it back... so, a lot more chasing and pretty CGI etc. but often little amusing or interesting... it would be no simplification to say, evil auto-pilot is defeated, plant is returned and everyone returns to Earth and lives happily ever after.
There's just nothing to it. Yes - it's pretty and yes, it's cute but even for a paltry ninety minutes, this really struggles to justify itself plot wise. Of course, that's what you'd expect when you've got your main characters a couple of words away from mute. There's some nice emoting from both Wall-E and EVE, considering they lack actual faces and the obvious thread in the film is as much the relationship between the two of them as it is the struggle to get humanity back to Earth but there's not really much time taken out from the set pieces and mooching around to give any justice to the latter. The relationship is nicely understated for a kids film... but really, that's all you can say about this film. It's a good kid's film.
That's a stark contrast to the aforementioned Toy Story and The Incredibles, which one could say were pretty good films - period. That's because they had layers to them, there was a plot, characters, action and a humour that functioned on more than one level. This film makes no concessions to adults and so... what is there to say? Fine for the kids but not something to seek out unless you're a blind and unquestioning Pixar fan.
So, the film starts out with Wall-E zipping around a deserted Earth city which is littered with mountains of garbage. Him and his cockroach pal hang out and it's all very cute - no dialogue or anything, just him mooching around. Very pretty but beyond indicating that humanity are out in space, not a lot is going on.
So, this could go on forever but then, Eve - a shiny i-pod like robot - comes along and then we essentially have more of the same for a while until she finds a plant, which she takes and then causes her to shut down. Then she gets hoisted off by her ship and we have a long protracted scene where Wall-E is basically trying to get back to her. Again - it's got some great visual spectacle but the plot content is microscopic and dialogue is minimal... but then given the fact that both the main characters are all but mute - that shouldn't be a surprise.
We find humanity has been - as intimated on Earth - floating around in space because things went tits up. This has apparently led them to become pampered blobs who achieve nothing as their every whim is catered for from birth to death by fleets of cutesy robots. Some deranged Right wingers in the USA think this is liberal propaganda but really, it seems like more of an excuse to have the cutesy robots flying around. The humans are pretty much relegated to second place and besides a tangential and mostly irrelevant subplot of romance between two of them spherical humans, only the Captain really has any significance at all.
Because, as it turns out - the EVE robots have been checking Earth for signs of life for 700 and now it's become capable of sustaining life again. Which leads to operation recolonisation - heading back to Earth and starting over... it's not made clear if the Axiom contains the entirety of the surviving human population nor why - as they have FTL - why they didn't just try looking for a new planet... but then, this film makes little effort to be engaging for adults like Toy Story and The Incredibles. Which is sad because part of what made Pixar good was the ability to relate to more than one demographic...
Anyway, for reasons that aren't entirely clear - the plant inside EVE has disappeared and that needs to be stuck in an analyser so everyone can go home... but the prospect of going home starts to get to the Captain, as he realises that humanity has literally spent the last 700 years sitting on its ass. As it turns out though, this is because project "Cleanup" failed and this has - for some reason... mostly that of plot - been kept secret. The auto-pilot, which is literally an evil steering wheel, then decides that the status quo must be maintained...
As one can imagine, this leads to more chasing around. Some of it actually in space, where Wall-E and EVE get to act about as romantic as robots get. Naturally, the plant is found and they must rush to try and get it back... so, a lot more chasing and pretty CGI etc. but often little amusing or interesting... it would be no simplification to say, evil auto-pilot is defeated, plant is returned and everyone returns to Earth and lives happily ever after.
There's just nothing to it. Yes - it's pretty and yes, it's cute but even for a paltry ninety minutes, this really struggles to justify itself plot wise. Of course, that's what you'd expect when you've got your main characters a couple of words away from mute. There's some nice emoting from both Wall-E and EVE, considering they lack actual faces and the obvious thread in the film is as much the relationship between the two of them as it is the struggle to get humanity back to Earth but there's not really much time taken out from the set pieces and mooching around to give any justice to the latter. The relationship is nicely understated for a kids film... but really, that's all you can say about this film. It's a good kid's film.
That's a stark contrast to the aforementioned Toy Story and The Incredibles, which one could say were pretty good films - period. That's because they had layers to them, there was a plot, characters, action and a humour that functioned on more than one level. This film makes no concessions to adults and so... what is there to say? Fine for the kids but not something to seek out unless you're a blind and unquestioning Pixar fan.
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