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| Where is the next book, George? |
(Gaiman was writing in 2009, two years before A Dance With Dragons was published. Plus ça change.)
Here is a less combative analogy, which may help make the point:
Showing posts with label star-wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label star-wars. Show all posts
Friday, 15 June 2018
Entitlement Issues Redux
I've been thinking about entitled fans, in relation to George RR Martin and Star Wars.
Martin's fans have awaited his next book with growing impatience, ever since A Dance With Dragons was published seven years ago this week. With admirable bluntness, Neil Gaiman once pointed out George RR Martin is not your bitch.
(Gaiman was writing in 2009, two years before A Dance With Dragons was published. Plus ça change.)
Here is a less combative analogy, which may help make the point:
(Gaiman was writing in 2009, two years before A Dance With Dragons was published. Plus ça change.)
Here is a less combative analogy, which may help make the point:
Friday, 22 December 2017
The Last Jedi: Review
Yesterday I finally saw The Last Jedi. It was great fun. Thoroughly recommended.
After The Force Awakens and Rogue One, we could be pretty confident the Star Wars franchise is in safe hands at Disney. This film keeps up the trend. I agree with reviews by Mark Kermode and John Scalzi; this is a good, solid, entertaining episode.
Some things I particularly liked about it (with minimal spoilers):
It's surprisingly thoughtful in its treatment of the Star Wars cosmology. Luke Skywalker and others argue about the nature of the Force and the purpose of the Jedi. It was good to finally hear in a Star Wars film a thing I've been pointing out for some time: The Jedi aren't all that great.
After The Force Awakens and Rogue One, we could be pretty confident the Star Wars franchise is in safe hands at Disney. This film keeps up the trend. I agree with reviews by Mark Kermode and John Scalzi; this is a good, solid, entertaining episode.
Some things I particularly liked about it (with minimal spoilers):
It's surprisingly thoughtful in its treatment of the Star Wars cosmology. Luke Skywalker and others argue about the nature of the Force and the purpose of the Jedi. It was good to finally hear in a Star Wars film a thing I've been pointing out for some time: The Jedi aren't all that great.
Thursday, 31 March 2016
The Inner Conflict of Han Solo [SPOILERS]
Obligatory warning!
Major spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Continue at your own risk.
Monday, 21 December 2015
Star Wars, Social Media, and Hiding the Shiny Thing
I went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Saturday. It was great fun.
The last time a Star Wars movie lived up to my expectations, I was five years old and watching Return of the Jedi on its first release. It was such a huge relief to simply enjoy a Star Wars film, instead of cringing at leaden dialogue, incoherent plots and implausible character motivation.
I might do a full review later. Meanwhile, I agree with the SF author John Scalzi's verdict: It's not great art, but it's very enjoyable and entertaining. That's not too surprising, because it's what Disney does best.
I'd add that Star Wars inspired a whole generation of science fiction fans. For the most part, we aren't blind to its flaws, but view it with enormous affection. Even after the appalling prequels, there was a huge reservoir of goodwill and creative talent available to make Episode VII -- not to mention a lot of cold, hard cash. JJ Abrams' job was to marshal those resources and produce something with the same sense of fun and adventure as the original films.
Abrams has done all of the fans proud, and I'm looking forward to the next instalment. This time, the anticipation is uncomplicated: Hey wow, that was great! I want to see more! (Last time, it was more like: Oh, please let Lucas learn from his mistakes and not f**k up the next one so badly.)
The keen of eye might have noticed I didn't see the film until three days after its release. This was forced on me by babysitting logistics, but it presented a dilemma. Did I take the risk of viewing spoilers, or deprive myself of Facebook and Twitter for a few days? I chose the second option, and I'm really glad I did.
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| It's a Star Wars spoiler. (Sorry.) Source: imgur |
Friday, 23 October 2015
Bad Motivator: Star Wars Episode 3
(Following on from Part 1 and Part 2.)
This is the big one. Anakin Skywalker undergoes his final descent into evil and becomes Darth Vader, one of the most iconic villains in cinema history. His motivation had better be good.
Sadly, it isn't.
This is the big one. Anakin Skywalker undergoes his final descent into evil and becomes Darth Vader, one of the most iconic villains in cinema history. His motivation had better be good.
Sadly, it isn't.
Friday, 2 October 2015
Bad Motivator: Star Wars Episode 2
One of the great problems with the Star Wars prequels is the lack of intelligible character motivation. The previous post looked at Episode 1; we now move on to Episode 2.
Episode 2 requires major surgery. A few lines of dialogue won't do it.
There are two parallel plot lines: Obi-Wan's investigation into the attempt on Padmé's life; and Anakin and Padmé hanging out together and supposedly falling in love. The first story is fairly enjoyable, but in the second, the problem of motivation is worse than ever.
Episode 2 requires major surgery. A few lines of dialogue won't do it.
There are two parallel plot lines: Obi-Wan's investigation into the attempt on Padmé's life; and Anakin and Padmé hanging out together and supposedly falling in love. The first story is fairly enjoyable, but in the second, the problem of motivation is worse than ever.
Thursday, 6 August 2015
Bad Motivator: Star Wars Episode 1
The Star Wars prequel trilogy is generally acknowledged to be awful. There are occasional bright spots, helped along by charismatic actors like Ian McDiarmid, Liam Neeson or the late Christopher Lee, but for the most part they're painfully bad. Why is this?
Terrible acting and dialogue are nothing new for Star Wars. If you watch the original trilogy, the script is dreadful and Mark Hamill can't act his way out of a paper bag. I think the prequels really fall down on storytelling, and more specifically on motivation.
We put up with the flaws of the original trilogy because, among other reasons, Luke has compelling motives for his actions. He wants to get away from his uncle's farm and do something heroic; then he wants to become a Jedi, help his friends, and avenge his father; then he wants to defeat the Emperor, redeem his father and save the galaxy. The audience can understand these desires and identify with Luke. It is also pleasing that the stakes get bigger for Luke in each episode.
Leia's motivation? Restore the galactic Senate where she once held a seat, and avenge the destruction of her home planet. Obi-Wan? He feels responsible for the evil of his former apprentice Darth Vader, and wants to make up for old mistakes. Han Solo? At first he's in it for the money, but against his better judgement he comes to believe in the Rebel cause (and gets the hots for Leia). All these stories make sense to the audience.
The villains also have interesting motives. Darth Vader wants to "end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy," but there's more to him than that. He wants to settle old scores with Obi-Wan, and be respected by Tarkin and the other Imperial officers. Later, he wants to make Luke into his ally, or at least stop the Emperor from destroying him. Again, this makes sense.
In the prequels, it doesn't occur to George Lucas to give his characters sensible motivations. The sad thing is, he could have fixed a lot of this with very minor changes, such as a few lines of dialogue. The resulting films would have been vastly more entertaining.
"Uncle Owen? This R2 unit has a bad motivator, look!"
– Luke, Star Wars: Episode IV
Terrible acting and dialogue are nothing new for Star Wars. If you watch the original trilogy, the script is dreadful and Mark Hamill can't act his way out of a paper bag. I think the prequels really fall down on storytelling, and more specifically on motivation.
We put up with the flaws of the original trilogy because, among other reasons, Luke has compelling motives for his actions. He wants to get away from his uncle's farm and do something heroic; then he wants to become a Jedi, help his friends, and avenge his father; then he wants to defeat the Emperor, redeem his father and save the galaxy. The audience can understand these desires and identify with Luke. It is also pleasing that the stakes get bigger for Luke in each episode.
Leia's motivation? Restore the galactic Senate where she once held a seat, and avenge the destruction of her home planet. Obi-Wan? He feels responsible for the evil of his former apprentice Darth Vader, and wants to make up for old mistakes. Han Solo? At first he's in it for the money, but against his better judgement he comes to believe in the Rebel cause (and gets the hots for Leia). All these stories make sense to the audience.
The villains also have interesting motives. Darth Vader wants to "end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy," but there's more to him than that. He wants to settle old scores with Obi-Wan, and be respected by Tarkin and the other Imperial officers. Later, he wants to make Luke into his ally, or at least stop the Emperor from destroying him. Again, this makes sense.
In the prequels, it doesn't occur to George Lucas to give his characters sensible motivations. The sad thing is, he could have fixed a lot of this with very minor changes, such as a few lines of dialogue. The resulting films would have been vastly more entertaining.
Tuesday, 28 July 2015
A good feature of The Phantom Menace
Seriously, I'm not joking.
Due to the impending release of Episode VII, my plan to write some other blog posts on Star Wars, and beer on Friday lunchtime impeding my higher brain functions, I decided to re-watch Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
In the third act of this film, Queen Amidala is a strong, independent, heroic character. She defies pressure from old men (Palpatine, Qui-Gon Jinn) to stay safely in exile on Coruscant. Instead, she forms a plan, makes an alliance with old rivals, leads her forces in battle, takes back her planet and frees her people.
I really do like that. The battle plan is kind of stupid, but this is Star Wars, so I'm willing to cut them some slack and give credit for a good idea. Natalie Portman's wooden performance is unhelpful, but better actors than her have struggled to make George Lucas' dialogue sound like something a human being might say. The real problem is that Lucas doesn't give this story any space to breathe.
Instead of giving Portman a chance, we are subjected to lots of time with Jar-Jar Binks and Anakin Skywalker. Jar-Jar is so unbelievably irritating, he manages to overshadow the annoying qualities of Anakin, who for some reason has tagged along. What the hell was Qui-Gon thinking, taking a nine year-old boy into the middle of a battle, then leaving him to sit around unsupervised while he heads off to duel with Darth Maul? I wouldn't leave a child that age alone at a football match, never mind a combat zone.
Anakin goes joyriding in a fighter craft. (Bizarrely, there was an Anakin-sized helmet left in the cockpit; I guess the regular pilot has a really small head.) By a combination of dumb luck, supernatural piloting skills, and help from the long-suffering R2-D2, he flies around making idiotic cutesy remarks, before blowing up the Trade Federation control ship, killing everyone on board. Maybe thousands of them, from the size of that ship.
They were all funny-looking aliens who speak with a ridiculous mock-Japanese accent, and pawns in Darth Sidious' evil plan, so they had it coming, right?
Seriously though, a nine year-old boy kills thousands of people. What kind of horrifying Ender's Game shit is that? As a reward, they have a big party, Amidala smiles at him, and then he gets taken away by Obi-Wan for Jedi training, leaving his mother as a slave back on Tattooine. A nine year-old boy, remember. I'm amazed he didn't turn to the Dark Side sooner.
Still, credit where it's due, Amidala taking back her throne is pretty cool.
Due to the impending release of Episode VII, my plan to write some other blog posts on Star Wars, and beer on Friday lunchtime impeding my higher brain functions, I decided to re-watch Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
In the third act of this film, Queen Amidala is a strong, independent, heroic character. She defies pressure from old men (Palpatine, Qui-Gon Jinn) to stay safely in exile on Coruscant. Instead, she forms a plan, makes an alliance with old rivals, leads her forces in battle, takes back her planet and frees her people.
I really do like that. The battle plan is kind of stupid, but this is Star Wars, so I'm willing to cut them some slack and give credit for a good idea. Natalie Portman's wooden performance is unhelpful, but better actors than her have struggled to make George Lucas' dialogue sound like something a human being might say. The real problem is that Lucas doesn't give this story any space to breathe.
Instead of giving Portman a chance, we are subjected to lots of time with Jar-Jar Binks and Anakin Skywalker. Jar-Jar is so unbelievably irritating, he manages to overshadow the annoying qualities of Anakin, who for some reason has tagged along. What the hell was Qui-Gon thinking, taking a nine year-old boy into the middle of a battle, then leaving him to sit around unsupervised while he heads off to duel with Darth Maul? I wouldn't leave a child that age alone at a football match, never mind a combat zone.
Anakin goes joyriding in a fighter craft. (Bizarrely, there was an Anakin-sized helmet left in the cockpit; I guess the regular pilot has a really small head.) By a combination of dumb luck, supernatural piloting skills, and help from the long-suffering R2-D2, he flies around making idiotic cutesy remarks, before blowing up the Trade Federation control ship, killing everyone on board. Maybe thousands of them, from the size of that ship.
They were all funny-looking aliens who speak with a ridiculous mock-Japanese accent, and pawns in Darth Sidious' evil plan, so they had it coming, right?
Seriously though, a nine year-old boy kills thousands of people. What kind of horrifying Ender's Game shit is that? As a reward, they have a big party, Amidala smiles at him, and then he gets taken away by Obi-Wan for Jedi training, leaving his mother as a slave back on Tattooine. A nine year-old boy, remember. I'm amazed he didn't turn to the Dark Side sooner.
Still, credit where it's due, Amidala taking back her throne is pretty cool.
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