Salem said:
Great podcast. Had time to finally listen to this one today. A lot of my thoughts and speculations were addressed and expanded upon. Aaz always has a very articulate way to put things, which fleshes out even the deep layers of the story.
At this point I'm not going to be surprised about the moonlight boy. I feel like there have been enough theories to exhuast any big twist. Speaking of which....
Star Wars discussion had me rolling. I agree with just about everything discussed here. My personal theory is Kylo is Luke's son and will kill him. Won't that get the golden calf bit of the audience furious?
I never had a very deep hatred for the prequels, even enjoyed episode 3 for the obvious turn of Anakin. Was it sloppy and did Hayden make me believe he could be an non advanced ai? Absolutely, but I could watch that one, even if said ai couldn't turn into a bomb and kill younglings. The first two will never be explored again.
I think Griff hit the nail on the head with the "pleasing everyone" part of the conversation and that Reznor reference from Walter.
I'm pretty sure I could mount a decent contrarian defense of the prequels and especially Lucas [does search...] because I already did! Behold:
http://www.skullknight.net/forum/index.php?topic=12259.msg224391#msg224391
Griffith said:
Anyway, one significant thing did occur to me during Episode I that should be said for Lucas, which is that these were still very influential movies for better or worse. I don't think there was such a CG heavy live action movie before Phantom Menace, and Eps I and II took it to another level. Now, it's common place, it's the norm even. So, as bad as it was for Star Wars and maybe movies in general as the sterility of the 00's set in, you can't deny Lucas' technical influence as a filmmaker; even when he's otherwise stinking it out as far as story, character, and acting goes, he's still revolutionizing the industry. Fucker.
Griffith said:
nobody else could have done it because nobody else had that combination of money, creative credibility, and power. Though I don't hold that against him too much since he made himself that guy, innovation is innovation however it's achieved, and doing it at all was completely his prerogative. He could have just continued resting on his laurels, which might have been better for everybody, but he wanted to make insane two hour CGI Star Wars tech demos for some reason. So, credit/blame where it's due, his influence on film-making, the modern blockbuster, and the industry in general, from the original Star Wars to The Phantom Menace, cannot be escaped.
Yeah, and I have to say again, modern blockbusters, which of course have their roots in the original Star Wars, are all basically made like the prequels (throw $200 million dollars of epic CGI on the screen and go from there), just with better writing and actors. BTW, how much did you ever hear about prequels before "The Prequels?" It can be said even the insane proliferation of reboots, prequels, and origin stories all followed the Star Wars prequel trilogy (I'm looking at you with haughty derision, The Hobbit). On the plus side, Star Trek (2009) and Guardians of the Galaxy are basically the concept come full circle and arguably what Lucas was
trying to do. Also, even though the prequels are so infantile, I think even Empire had a bad influence because, rather than just being fun, the prequels took themselves way too seriously trying to live up to it with the political machinations, which combined with the aforementioned infantilism made for painfully unaware self-parody.
Also, I posted that Gary Kurtz article back then too, and my last line:
Griffith said:
Makes me want to see a "Revenge of the Jedi" fan edit based on his notes.
I just spent a few nights this week in movie maker doing precisely that after posting the article again in the Force Awakens thread.
But my consistent lameness aside... it's pretty cool! No direct image or reference to the "death star," no ewoks, Han sacrifices himself to blow up the shield generator, Leia is alone, and it ends with Luke burning Vader.
Hopefully the new movie is picking up where those notes left off, at least where Luke is concerned.
Aazealh said:
To be honest it's not so much that I hate those movies, but that they're basically the worst possible version of the story we could have had. It's really just a matter of mourning what might have been, as far as I'm concerned.
Also, it made Star Wars a laughingstock for over a decade, pretty much until now. That was an awful way for things to turn out considering it was riding high going in (kind of like now). After that, besides the old fans that bitterly remembered, it was basically something stupid or for younglings only.
THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT THOUGH!
