Me Me Monday #21

#21
I think George Lucas REALLY screwed the pooch, from marketing in the "Return", to the acting in Episodes 1 and 2, to making the Force no longer a mystical thing so much as a viral infection (mitichlorians), and this list could go on and on. And the dialogue in Ep3? Let's not even talk about it.

I know. This is not a big thing or surprising for most people. First, Episode 1... what was he thinking? I actually LIKED the way the empire looked like it was shaping up, with the planet of Naboo being very reminiscent of Ancient China in its dress and customs... the fight scene with Darth Maul... awesome. Awesome, that is, up until the very end. It's as if they couldn't think of a feasible way for the 2 Jedi to actually kill off Darth Maul - cause straight up, he was kicking their asses.
And, dammit, after all the marketing hype of Darth Maul, you went and killed him off so ignominiously. Had the fight scene remained consistent, there would be no Obi Wan left either, having been sliced in half long before he even got his saber back while jumping up out of the pit. How sad was that?

And in Episode 2 you replaced Maul with a geriatric Lord Dooku. Granted, the actor is awesome, but he's not exactly nimble enough to pull off all those fight scenes and make it look nearly as sweet as Ray Pak's Maul. And let's not even discuss just how stupid that name sounds, okay? Somehow, this makes no sense.... then again, I suppose that's one of the problems with having such an incredible franchise as Star Wars - you can produce crap and it will still sell.

Case in point - midichlorians. Umm, what's the point? First, the force was a religion followed by old crazy wizards - all of this came from the first 3 movies (episodes 4, 5, and 6) - and now, flash to episode 1. Now they have midichlorians.. it's like unto equating the Force with having some sort of bacterial infection. Please. We didn't need to have it explained, Georgie. We really didn't. We LIKED the fact that it was just this undefined energy field created by ALL living things (not just bacteria, George), that surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together. Whatever happened to all of that? What? Did Yoda NOT KNOW about them?

And one more thing.

Jar Jar Binks

'Nuff Said. Lucas should be shot for that one alone...

Now it wasn't all bad, but there wasn't much good... here are the only good things to come out of Episode 1:

1. Hey, a new Star Wars movie AT LAST!!! We'd been waiting for YEARS!
   
2. The Darth Maul fight scene, up until the very end of it, at least
3. Marketing for Star Wars went off the charts - gee, could they milk us for any MORE money - this was good only in the sense that it was good for Lucas and the toy companies. Really, this is a BAD point. Just thought I'd stick it in here to see if you were paying attention.
   
4. We knew that Jake Lloyd would not be in the second or third movie.
5. It ended, so we didn't have to see Jar Jar onscreen any more.
   

Episode 2. Talk about fluff without substance. Haydn - hey, at least he definitely had the whiny punk act down, showing that, in theory, personality can in fact be passed down genetically. We could actually believe that Mark Hammil's Luke was a descendant of Haydn's whiny Anakin. Truly.

But it wasn't ALL bad... no, really. Here are some good points

1. Another Star Wars movie. Yeah!
2. The Clone Wars... been waiting all these years for some deep, dirty infighting about the ominous CLONE WARS that had been mentioned back in ep.4-6... !!
3. Starships AC apparently works very well. (Okay, so yes I'm a pig)
4. Not much Jamaican Slave talk spoken in this movie by the most annoying character ever created, that Jar Jar character

Here are some of my issues with Episode 2:

1. Amidala falls from a troop ship travelling at least a few hundred knots and from a distance of, oh, at least 50 feet.... yet, she somehow only rolls 10 feet when she hits the sand dunes... and then actually gets up and runs off. Umm... physics lesson George?
2. Could we please have some more marketing? How many new vehicles were invented just for this movie?
3. Need I mention whiny Haydn's "acting" once again?
4. Hey, umm... so R2D2 can fly now... yet he could barely roll around in the Ep.4-6?
5. Hey, I was just wondering... the jedi fights are now superfast and cool... I guess the force really got weak after these movies cause Luke and Vader's fights were pretty damned lame by comparison.
6. Lord Dooku. Dooku. Dammit George. You need some Quality Control over your character names.
7. Attack of the Clones - sounds too much like Attack of the Clowns.
8. Jar Jar spoke
9. Jar Jar was in the movie
10. Jar Jar wasn't whacked
11. Did he really need to provide commentary on modern issues - like smoking - in this movie? Umm, no.
    

Episode 3:
I think Revenge of the Sith was pretty weak overall. I'm sorry, but Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) going down the way he did? Please. And, poor Natalie Portman's lines... could ya make her any more annoying, whining, or codependantly weak? George - you really need someone else to review the scripts, dude. Those love scene lines could make a chick porn star gag, okay? And that's saying something, considering some of the tree trunks that are in vogue today... not that I would personally know....

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Here's the list of what was wrong with Episode 3:

1. The Clone Wars certainly don't seem to deserve all the dread and awe that was laid out in Episode 4. Yeah, a weak complaint... but there was so much there
2. Whiny Haydn turned into lovesick, poorly motivated, whiny Vader. Come on. Would any of us have really fallen for that crap Palpatine was dishing out?
3. Windu's death scene. What kind of weak crap was that?
4. Lava scene battle... CG can only take you so far
5. Hamfisted plot line to make it impossible to miss the parallels with the second trilogy of episodes 4-6. Give us a little more credit, Georgie.
6. Dialogue sucked. Period. Captain Kirk had better lines in "The Final Frontier" than this.
7. Amidala in this movie rendered completely worthless. She goes from battle-hardened heroine to whiny "I miss my Ani-boo-boo" crap... what the hell?

So, years ago I remember reading an interview with Georgie, talking about the Star Wars story. He said he already knew what the whole story was, and that it was going to take a trilogy of trilogies to work the whole thing out. First would be Episodes 4-6, which he did. But they took so damned long... and that's why he shortened it up into just 6 movies. There was supposed to be an entire story dedicated to Chewie and the Wookie planet. This obviously got nerfed into a few afterthought battlescenes for Episode 3. Poor Chewie. Everyone dug him and they go and whack his movie. I won't even metion the obvious question about "how come the robots have no clue about anything in E4-6?" Okay, so I DID mention it.

Of course, obviously, this is all a load of crap. Having the story already in mind as 9 films certainly doesn't pan out when you look at the first 2 movies and realize that BOTH of those movies comprise of only 20 % substance, and 80% fluff and scenery. Even Georgie admitted to that. He later claimed he ALWAYS wanted to make just the 6 movies. This is, of course, why he went in after the fact and changed the ending of Return of the Jedi to show celebrations going on all over the empire, instead of making you wait for the 9th movie for this to happen.

Now, I can't really blame him. 9 movies is a HUGE undertaking, much less 6. But I have to believe that once, long ago, in a California far, far away, there was actually a George Lucas who had a good story AND the balls to tell it. Unfortunately, that George disappeared when the marketing came in - case and point - Episode 3. Ewoks. This was SUPPOSED to be the Wookie story, but Wookies are not cute and cuddly enough... so they whacked the Wookies in half and made them cute. For you trivia buffs, E-wok came from reversing the syllables of Wookie. And WHY did they do this? Why did they add Jar Jar Binks? For prepubescent girls. Period. They were missing out on a huge market by not having something cute and cuddly to have FOR SALE.

Ahh, poor George. Sold his soul to Mattel and Hasbro.

Oh, forgot to mention something VERY annoying about Episode 6. How can you kill off the coolest bounty hunter in all the galaxy like that? WEAK. (Oh, and then Lukey-boy had to hamfist, yet again, the parallel of father and son getting whacked. Geez, George, can you quit being so cliche'?)

Side point Jango Fett's name - that name always reminds me of that party game where you have a stack of equally sized blocks and have to pull one out each turn, trying to avoid making the entire tower fall... Still, it's a better name than Lord Dookie.

Finally, the most unforgivable fact :

Han shot first.

That's right, he SHOT FIRST. This was a single act that defined the character. It made him COOL. And George neutered him in the remake with Greedo shooting first.... AND MISSING from a HUGE distance of about 1 meter/3 feet.

About the remakes, don't get me started or I'll end up writing even more.

So, there you go, George. I could have done it better... and if I ever get the right contacts and the backing, boy, I will...

And it will have balls, marketing be damned...

George made the deal at the Crossroads... his balls for billions. Poor Georgie.

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Yes, I'm a geek. Admittedly so.
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