A Few Thoughts On Star Wars

So on Sunday, Beej had the bright idea of hosting a screening of Episodes I & II as a way of hyping ourselves up for Episode III. Like a good wife I kept my mouth shut as to the logic of this particular plan. He was just so excited & I certainly wasn't going to be the one to rain on his parade. But alas, although he tried to place a ban on "haters", by the time I finally showed up (most of the way through Ep I) I had to launch right in to the explicative filled directions:
"Why are there no fucking close ups?"
"What moron edited this piece of shit?"
"There should have been a cut there. And an insert there. Fuckers."
"God this is so fucking slow."
"This looks like a goddamn video game."
"The writing and acting I can forgive. You can work around that. If you know what the fuck you're doing."
And so on and so forth until I found the stack of comic books Beej had just picked up from RX and decided to read those and stop torturing my retinas.

I know it is easy to pick on Episodes I & II. With so much riding on them there was bound to be a backlash. But beyond that, the fact remains that they just aren't very good movies. Although they were meant to be cutting edge, and probably were for about 15 minutes, the bar for special effects is now so far above what was delivered as to be extremely embarrassing. All of the dialogue in Episode II, ALL OF IT, takes place in two shots. Poorly framed two shots. Even with flat dialogue and wooden acting, you can fake some drama by letting us SEE PEOPLE'S FACES! You know, show people ACTING! Or trying to. That would have been fine too. But neglecting your "talent" so blatantly just gives people another reason to buy into the image of you as a distant sociophobe incapable of relating to people, or anything outside of your compound.

As for the usual complaints about Hayden Christensen and his acting, let me come to his defense once and for all. Hayden Christensen is a fine actor, and like the rest of the cast (except for Natalie Portman), most of the inconsistencies in his preformance can be chalked up to lazy directing. The fact of the matter is, Anakin is not a good guy. He's not really that heroic. He's a spoiled whinny bitch, which is why it makes sense that he becomes Darth Vader (a.k.a. the Emperor's Bitch). Luckily Mr. Christensen comes through in the end (like I knew he would) which leads me to an analysis of Episode III:

Pretty much what I expected. I wouldn't go as far as Kevin Smith and call it my favourite film of all time or anything, but it is far enough above Episodes I & II in overall quality (general film making) and impact on the overall story (get this folks: actual DRAMA. ::gasp::) There were moments that gave me goosebumps and it was emotionally satisfying. In fact, Episodes I & II never happened and I am happy. Sure, the "love" dialogue all sucked ass, but what do you expect from a bitter divorce whose marriage was crushed in whole or in part by the empire that this film is a part of?