So today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and in rememberance of this notable individual and his historic achievements, I'm watching this Star Wars marathon on Spike. Obviously. 'Cause that's how us sci-fi/fantasy, alternate-universe nerd-girl/space-junkies roll: Star Wars, Aliens, Terminator (yes, even Rise Of The Machines — you got a problem?), The Matrix, 12 Monkeys — I'm all over it. There. I said it. I'm not ashamed.
Anyway...it's not a marathon of the originals, only the new ones, or, as I like to refer to them, "Revenge Of The Shit." Seriously. I mean, as much as I love Natalie Portman (and those Amidala costumes — to die!!!), the CGI characters give more nuanced and less stiff performances. And God bless Ewan MacGregor, hard as he tries, even he can't save these films from atrocity. I believe the most glaring fault of this inferior trilogy can be summed up in a single name:
Jar-Jar Binks.
That's right, it's pretty much unanimous among EVERYONE IN THE DAMN WORLD that Jar-Jar blows womprats. Pure, Grade-A, CGI bantha-shit. And I find it ironic, considering the holiday our nation is currently celebrating, that he is also considered the most condescending racial stereotype of a "character" in the Star Wars universe. I think the SNL skit from a few years ago put it pretty succintly:
"Mee-sa Jar-Jar Binks! Mee-sa go pee pee and poo poo and kaka!"
So, yeah, I freakin' hate Jar-Jar, and right now I'm up to Attack Of The Clones, and what do you know, here comes the scene in the Senate where they vote to give Chancellor Palpatine — you know, the guy who oh-so-subtly morphs into the evil Emperor and basically FUCKS UP THE ENTIRE GALAXY — immediate emergency powers, and who is it who proposes this motion that will lead to TOTALLY WIPING OUT the Jedi and basically MAKING LIFE SUCK FOR EVERYONE? Why, hey — it's Jar-Jar!
IT'S ALL JAR-JAR'S FAULT!
*phew*
So, Mr. Lucas, if for nothing else, thank you for giving us, the outraged audience, this small measure of poetic justice in an otherwise shitastic series of vomitous self-indulgence.
And by the way, can we all just agree to pretend that The Last Crusade was the final Indiana Jones movie and that Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull never existed? Or was just a bad, bad dream? Thanks.
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Here we have that kind of movies via satellite channel no. 4, and we call them "Boys' movies". The remote control skips that childish pathetic channel almost automatically.
ReplyDeleteLately it's getting more difficult to find a good movie or TV series. I can say the same about music, at least on radio...
Maybe the muses are sleeping, or dead!
I like the boys' movies! The good ones, at least. Much more so than "chick flicks." I'll take intergalactic zombies or wizards and hobbits over a romantic comedy any day. My real weakness is foreign films. 'Run Lola Run' and 'With A Friend Like Harry' are at the top of the list. Subtitled, of course, because unlike some of us, I don't speak 28 languages. :P
ReplyDeleteI don't think you like the movies I call "boys' movies"!
ReplyDeleteI meant Van Dam, Stallone, Steven Seagal, Chuck Norris, Shwartzenegger and a few more macho merdes of that sort!
I agree with you about the foreign movies though. They are appealing maybe because we get to see a selection of the best (mainly European) productions. I guess they have their shit as well.
Another reason would be their approach to movie making - that is more about art, and less about entertainment.
Hopefully we'll have more co-productions, merging the foreign artistic advantages with American over the top production capabilities.
BTW,I speak 4 languages...none of them good enough!
ReplyDeleteI feel like a dumb tourist most of the time :(
I never even bothered with episodes 1 through 3, so I don't have much authority on this subject.
ReplyDeleteI even found Return of the Jedi to be a little weak. Stupid Ewoks. I would have LOVED to be a fly on the wall at the writers' brainstorming meeting for Return of the Jedi. I mean, how high do you gotta be before "Hey... You know what we need in this movie? Muppets!" seems like a good idea?
I mean, I love the Muppets (who doesn't?) and all, but they don't belong in a Star Wars movie! I kept waiting for Kermit to flash on the screen to sing "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Don't get me wrong... I really liked The Return of the Jedi. The negativity generated by the Ewoks was truly overshadowed by the Princess Leia in that golden bikini. I will spare you the retread of a certain Friends episode that addressed this very special time in my life, though.
And BTW... Although I hated the movie, I will never deny that "Crystal Skull" existed. I kept thinking through the entire movie, "Ok, you go ahead and cash your checks. You'll never get another cent out of me."
I heard somewhere that Endor was originally supposed to be a planet of Wookiees, but they didn't have the budget or technology or something to do it, so they just reversed the syllables in the name and made them shorter as a compromise -- thus, the birth of the Ewoks. Tragic. The Wookiee planet showed up eventually in Revenge Of The Sith, but it was all frickin' CGI. I think I may have a shot of it on my Facebook page, actually. I take a lot of pictures of my cat sitting next to the TV with different movie characters onscreen. Simple minds are easily amused. :)
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