And today's Word is FRUSTRATING. As in, Episode 3 was really fucking FRUSTRATING.

[ink_n_imp]

Or, I'm geeking out over here!


Back when there was a movie theater in the Smithhaven Mall, and when the price of a matinee ticket was still less than $5 (In Fact, I think I only paid $4.25), and, if my memory is not complete shit, this would have been around '97. More or less. It must have been for I was still a measly middle schooler...

BUT back WHEN all of these were true, I saw "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" for the first time in Smithhaven mall theater. I had seen bits of "A New Hope" on TV. I had devoured the single bound, 3 book novelization in a single week at Disney World. I had ridden on the Star Wars ride at Disney's MGM park more times than I could recall. And on that day, I got my first taste of Star Wars.

I admit I was hooked. I watched Return of the Jedi on TV and tried to get my hands on as many Star Wars novels as I could. I drooled over the Star Wars Visual Dictionaries. I read pithy, rather confusing books chronicling the adventures of Luke, Leia and Han after RotJ. I even read the "Young Jedi Knights" series.


Hence why "Revenge of the Sith" was so FUCKING frustrating.

Now, most movies would KILL for a plot like the one in Episode 3. Even though I (and every other mother's son) knew how it had to end, I was dying to see how it would go down. I'm all for elaborate fight scenes. I heart them. Two crazy jedi's duking it out over molten lava? BOO YEA! So in that regard, I was deliriously pleased.

BUT...I was also FRUSTRATED out of my MIND, and from the moment the word "WAR!" appeared at the beginning of the movie. (Which got a LOT of half-groans, half snickers from our geek audience).

The problem my friends, was that the dialogue was so forced.

Pun.

Ok, now that I've gotten the word play out of my system, I'm serious. Hayden and the gang must have crawled into their trailers with each rewrite they got so that they could drown their woes. With such winners as "Your breaking my HEART Ani!" and "Hold me like you did on the lakes of" etc etc, CAMPY was not the problem. CAMPY was Obi-Wan, and I heart my Obi-Wan, and someone needed to be Han-ish. No, my friends, the PROBLEM is that, in the words of my esteemed former roommate singealiene, whoever wrote the dialogue must have been exiled from all human contact for the last 30 years. Only feasible explain for how SOMEONE could think that that CRAP was a good idea.

Oh, and only last thing...LOST the fucking WILL to LIVE? What pregnant woman DOES THAT? How the FUCK did Padme become so FUCKING PASSIVE? And how is that the kick-your-ass-and-fly-a-ship-and-smuggle-enemy-plans-and-shoot-your-sorry-ass-while-I'm-at-it-bitch Leia came from the womb of such a SIMPERING GIRL?!? Who's with me on this, that Padme couldn't have gotten ANY MORE BORING?


*SIGH*

But my friends, good has come from this frustrating darkness. This weekend, singealiene, muneybags6 and I gathered around the DVD player and watched Episodes 4-6.

And they were GLORIOUS.

Thank you Episode 3. Because you frustrated me SOOOOO much, I have rediscovered the magic and the sheer JOY of the original movies. The characters, the dialogue, the plot, the mythology...even though you pained me, Episode 3, you some how STILL managed to make these 3 RICHER. Darth Vader became THAT much more bad ass. Luke and Leia became THAT much more deeper. Obi-Wan's twinkle in his eye meant something WONDROUS! And Han became a welcome, long, refreshing, campy and sexy drink of cold water after crawling through the desert.

Episodes 1-3, dare I say it, were not for naught.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I still have some Star Wars novels upstairs in my room.

Comments

[hiroyuki-samson.livejournal.com]

No no no... do NOT embrace the DVDs... get the 20th anniversary 'black box' VHS boxed set, or, if it is truly necessary, the special edition.

I still, however, say that it is better than RotJ, if only because the story was just so much stronger. There was just as bad lovey dialoge, just a whole lot less of it. We need to go break George Lucas's fingers.

Hayden, was so much better (not to mention cut as hell, nevermind that that was a completely gratuitous muscular cut shot of him getting out of bed... they also managed to make Natalie Portman look not good, something i thought difficult.

[ink-n-imp.livejournal.com]

I agree that a lot of the digital remastering was gratuitious, but eh, you watch what you've got. And there I agree, about the RofJ. The plot was to DIE for. I always had issues with the Return of the Jedi plot for it's "Oh look, ANOTHER deathstar! Welph, we better go and destroy it AGAIN!". I wasn't much for "return". Though the Luke/Vader is PRICELESS! How you emote through a mask, I donno, but Vader seemed to do alright with the camera zooms and the cuts back and forth. (teehee...that made me giggle so much.) But in conclusion, Empire Strikes Back was my crack.

And isn't it ODD that Lucas is better at writing sound than dialogue? I swear to god that R2 has the best lines.

But, I think Lucas' fingers should be broken for the sheer DULLNESS of Padme. For the love of CHRIST, she spends the MAJORITY of that movie in a ROOM. A fucking ROOM. At least when Leia was stuck in that room in the cloud city, she was fuming, and plotting.

Ah....Leia.

Hurm...I should just go and make another Star Wars post...

[tloz-link5.livejournal.com]

At least in the first two prequel movies Padme was going around shooting up bad guys. Plus she was pregnant, though I agree that the whole "lost her will to live" bullshit was really contrived. I guess it was for the best, though, because Vader would have gone looking for her if she'd survived.

Two plot holes from the original trilogy remain open thanks to the twins' birth scene:

In ESB, Luke says that he finds something familiar about Dagobah. You'd think that this was supposed to be a hint that he was born on Dagobah, but in Episode III the birth scene is in a secret base on a fucking asteroid. So he's never been to Dagobah, yet he finds something about it familiar. Wha?

In RotJ, when Luke asks Leia about her "real" mother, she says she only remembers her a little bit because she died when Leia was very young. She then goes on to explain how her "real" mother was beautiful, kind, but sad. I guess that fits Padme's description, but how the fuck does Leia know that when Padme died when Leia wasn't even thirty seconds old? Or does she mean Bail Organa's wife on Alderaan?

Note to self: Bail Organa, and by extension Jimmy Smits, kicks ass. Too bad he's almost completely mute in Episode II and gets blown up offscreen with the rest of Alderaan in Episode IV.

Second note to self: At least at the end we get to see what Alderaan looks like.

[eliblues.livejournal.com]

Couple of thoughts. Leia was raised by leaders and founders of the rebellion that's where she gets her kick-ass nature from. The fact Padme lost the will to live is not contrived. It is either unnecessary or not, but Hayden's death grip could easily have been explained to her demise if they wanted to. It's more of a poetic gesture that either works for you or doesn't. Padme was never Leia, in episodes I and II, she was was much weaker than Leia would eventually be. She still fought, she still had bravery, gumption etc. But never to the extent that Leia did. As far as Luke finding Dagobah familiar, not only is Yoda present, but so is Kenobi, you don't have to accept it but my personal interpretation has always been that his feelings come from the presence of the jedi on the planet not the planet itself and he mistakes it as thus.