Jim Raynor wrote:
Being kind, soft spoken, nurturing, trusting, independent, and strong-willed doesn't describe his personality?
I didn't get any of that from his character. "Stern" was used in the review because that's how he talks. His line delivery is terse and matter-of-fact. "Stoic" was used because he just stands around most of the time. Almost all of the characters are stoic. If you got more than that from the film, then it's no surprise that you think he's a great character. Do you think that's the fault of all of the various people who saw the film and didn't like his character, or is that a problem with the writing?
His winnings were the parts he needed, and Anakin's freedom. Anakin's mother didn't figure into that, and Watto outright refused to bet her in addition to her son.
Yeah, but see, he left Watto ruined. He could have gotten his mother at some point and never did. Why not pick up some cash at Coruscant and rescue her on the way back to Naboo? Or after they save the day?
It's really character stuff if he decides to beat the people he can, and run away from massive armies instead of "fighting all of them." I hate the way certain people look at characterization, and think that a character has to do everything in a certain exactly according to their assigned "personality." Real people are not like that.
You don't have to have them behave in exactly the same way, but you have to give them characteristics and then make those characteristics visible. Otherwise you can't write a good, complex, interesting character. When Han shows up at the end of ANH and takes out Vader, it's something that his character wouldn't have typically done, but that out of character moment shows us that he's grown to care about Luke, and to a lesser extent maybe the rebellion. I don't feel that any of the characters in TPM could ever have a moment like that because I personally don't really feel like I know anything about any of them aside from the fact that they're jedi or a queen or whatever.
These are OK subjective points, but I will disagree that "it's relevant here." Because the scope of my essay was his Episode I review. If he didn't say it in his Episode I review, then I don't have to give him credit for that when responding to just that review.
The fact that there's no subtext and that characters just stand around not doing anything IS relevant because it happens in this movie.
2)No, the taxes were a near irrelevant MacGuffin and nothing more. It's really strange how you put so much emphasis on the taxes, going so far as to label them "the basic plot of the film," when the actual movie practically dispenses with them within the opening crawl. Because by the end of the crawl, the Jedi are sent to deal with the blockade, not the taxes. The Jedi were not there to discuss tax laws, as Stoklasa tried to make things look. They were there to intimidate the Trade Federation into backing down from their aggressive actions. The movie is about those aggressive actions getting out of hand, and a small group of heroes who try to fix things.
Uh, it's really not that hard to guess that the treaty that was explicitly intended to make things legal would hamper prosecution against the Trade Federation.
What? You're smarter than this. Don't make up stupid questions when you know damn well that the treaty is to cover the Trade Federation's butt and keep them from facing the consequences of their invasion.
Oh no. The Trade Federation is hindering prosecution and thus it will be difficult for us to punish them for the invasion of Naboo... Riveting stuff. I'm at the edge of my seat. Why were they invading Naboo again?
I've dealt with this dumb question again and again on this very forum. They want to get their version of the "word" out there, after they have the butt-covering treaty.
So what's their version of "the word" and how is it different from... Naboo's? The Senate's? I still don't see how Naboo is involved in this at all.
The Trade Federation is in deep water because they just invaded a planet. It's already been done. No, the MacGuffin isn't "discarded," because they still want the Queen to legitimize it.
How are they supposed to legitimize it after the queen has escaped? She can't sign the treaty if she's not there. She's at the senate complaining about the invading forces. The only way they can stone wall her is apparently to question the validity of the invasion, but that whole plot point makes no sense because there were jedi there who told the Chancellor that the TF had invaded. Regardless, the Trade Fed can't just assume she's going to come back because, frankly, it would be kind of dumb. The only way the good guys were able to win at the end is because for some reason the Trade Fed decided that pulling all of their blockade ships off the planet would be smart, leaving only one ship to attack. If they hadn't made that stupid decision then there would have been no way for such a small force to destroy the control ship. Another instance of the villain making some huge mistake because the plot requires them to do that because otherwise there would be no possible way for the good guys to win.
Frankly, putting all of this Galactic Senate stuff in the film is just a way to make the movie look more complicated than it is. There's no way you would want to end this movie with some kind of legislative victory where they vote to pass sanctions against the Trade Federation and/or call for an investigation into the incident and put out warrants for Gunray's arrest. That would be a boring resolution. If they really wanted all of this senate / treaty stuff to pay off then that's how the movie should have ended. If you're not gonna pay off all that stuff, then why bother crafting the plot around it in the first place?
It's stupid and idiotic for the Trade Federation to do, even before the decision to kill the Jedi.
Why would that be a stupid way to kill the jedi? Or are you saying that the act of killing the jedi itself is stupid? Or that everything the trade federation has done is stupid? Also, the guy says "They must be dead by now"... if we've established that they've got cameras and sensors all over the ship, why can't they just peek in there or scan for life signs or whatever? Or ask the droid. "Hey silver 3PO lady! Are they dead yet?"
Stoklasa's own alternative suggestions were far worse - the Trade Fed admitting its wrongdoing to the Senate, and the Jedi going Rambo through the ship. He has nothing to stand on.
I'm not really trying to defend RLM's review. The rebuttal you wrote seems to suggest that what he's saying - that the trade federation are morons - is incorrect. The film doesn't demonstrate this. Regardless of whether he's right or wrong, it damages the movie. The bad guys are incompetent, their armies are ineffective, their motivations are unclear. There's no fear of them at all.
If the American colonists had a problem with taxes, why wouldn't they take it up with the British Parliament? Why would they resort to rebellion and war?
These guy's aren't "attacking britain" tho. It would be like the American colonists have a problem with british taxes, so they attack the smallest, furthest british colony they could. In that scenario, tho, I doubt the americans could have them sign a treaty that would make the invasion legal.
I don't know about you, but when I watch movies I don't want every insignificant stupid detail spelled out for me as if I'm stupid. They're on a ship with numerous crewmembers and battledroids, and we just saw the Jedi on a security camera!
Yeah, the movie would have been better served with some pointless scenes of the no-name Trade Fed henchman looking into some computer monitors first in order to justify a throwaway line that had no effect on the plot either way.
Maybe you want things spelled out for you.
That's what Lucas is doing throughout the entire film, tho. He's constantly having characters blatantly say things that a good writer would let the audience figure out through visuals and context. He DID spell it out for you. He had a character say "They went up the ventilation shaft" instead of showing a couple of robed figures jump into some kind of duct. Granted, I haven't seen the film in a long time, so maybe he did show them going into a duct. If he did, tho, then that line is even worse.
Qui-Gon said that R2 had the readout on the parts, then Qui-Gon and R2 go out with Watto to look for parts. It's obvious...nevermind that the 3D picture device that Stoklasa based his criticism on didn't even show up until later in the movie. There was absolutely nothing casting doubt on the idea that R2 was used for the purpose that Qui-Gon said he would be used for.
You don't think he could have used some kind of little hand-held device to bring that information with him, tho? My point is that they only said that to justify R2 being in those scenes. Otherwise, why bring him in to town?
Are you kidding me? Running the blockade was about R2, and couldn't have been in the movie for any other reason? Such as providing another action scene, in an action movie?
I'll guarantee you that Lucas had a list of scenes he wanted in the film. He wanted the podrace scene. He therefore needed to get to Tatooine to have that scene. Sure it could have taken place on some other planet, but Tatooine was a pre-existing star-warsy planet that fit the bill. So he had to write some crap to justify them going to Tatooine. Remove Tatoine from the story entirely and have them meet Anakin on Naboo. I just cut 20-30 minutes from the film without affecting the plot or character development or anything at all.
If all you're trying to do is shoehorn scenes and characters into a movie, then the logistics of that become far more important than telling a good story. I don't know for certain, but the way the trade federation had a ton of blockade ships at the beginning, and then one ship at the end of the film tells me that they added the blockade scene to generate some reason to have their ship get damaged and thus require fixing - intro R2D2. What were all of those other ships there for in the story otherwise? What did they do with them beyond the blockade run? Nothing.
Wait. You did not just say that. Anakin's only a kid to justify him building C-3PO as a gift for his mom? WHAT?! He's not a kid to show the character's humble beginnings, or the childhood dreams that would eventually lead to his downfall. He's not a cheery, idealistic kid to contrast with the monster that he would be as Darth Vader. He's not a kid to be a surrogate son for Qui-Gon, or to write a story about a mother letting go of her son so he can move on to greater things. He's not even a kid to appeal to a big target audience of kids...Lucas just made Anakin a kid because of some irrelevant, minute-long cameo for C-3PO. Give me a break.
I don't think that's the only reason Anakin is a kid in this movie, but I don't think Lucas was writing his movie to make Anakin some surrogate son for Qui-Gon or to show how innocent and wide-eyed Vader was when he was a kid. The target audience thing is a likely argument. 3PO was probably more of an afterthought in the film. "oh, I know! I'll have him making 3PO! Then we can have 3PO in the movie! People will love that!" He probably pegged Anakin as a kid from the get go, cause that would make for an awesome poster image, you know. But that's who the guy writes. He's not really trying to tell a story here; That's my point. He's just got stuff he wants to put in the movie and then he fills in all the gaps and tries to fix any glaringly obvious plot holes with glaringly obvious crutches like "Bombs in your brain", convenient sand storms, pilots being held in the hangar bay cause he forgot he needed some pilots, guns in the throne cause they needed some convenient guns, etc.
You can try to explain away all of this stuff, but it's still blatantly obvious convenience. It's lazy writing.
You said it yourself. Movies are intentionally written not to be weird and boring. And what flaw in logic are you talking about? Qui-Gon clearly states that he doesn't want to go around town talking to the big dealers and attracting attention. Despite that he is shown walking around town trying to find other ways to get his needed parts, after leaving Watto's shop. This was already dealt with in my PDF.
It's just incredibly convenient is all.
Don't make better arguments for Stoklasa than he actually did. He made stupid nitpicks, as far as I can see. Also, I love how you say that "the ENTIRE FILM is wrong" because it used a chance occurence to put Qui-Gon and Anakin together. It was a reason that made sense, and every movie comes up with reasons to have things happen the way it wants.
No, this one thing isn't the reason the entire film is wrong. The entire film is wrong because it wasn't written to be a film. It was written to be a series of engaging action sequences with some kind of dumb plot sorta squeezed in there to try to make all of it kinda make sense somehow. Anakin should not be a kid, the trade federation is a boring impotent villain, the political 'intrigue' is not intriguing, the characters are shallow, the dialogue is 90% exposition and 9% annoying crap that Jar Jar says, the action sequences accomplish nothing at all, the film's style is generic blandness, the CG backgrounds are lifeless.... the movie is a train wreck.
You want to know contrived? R2-D2 being captured by desert midgets, who just so happen to sell them to Luke's family, who just so happens to come across Obi-Wan Kenobi while looking for R2 later. What horrible writing.
They could have sold R2 to anyone, and that anyone could have assumed the role that Luke plays in the movie.
R2 was in the process of trying to find Kenobi, thus it makes sense that Kenobi would be in the neighborhood when Luke was attacked.
Neither of these are contrivances.
In fact, Luke's uncle wasn't going to buy R2 until 3PO suggested he get him.
Besides, I'm not arguing that the original films were flawlessly executed works of brilliance.
So...action scenes in an action movie are pointless...If you and Stoklasa think that, then fine it's your opinion. Most people do not think like that, at all.
There are certain action films that most people absolutely love, and action films that most people absolutely hate. If you take these two types of films and compare them, one of the most common differences is going to be how they handle their action sequences. Look at films like The Matrix, the original Star Wars films, Fight Club, Inception, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Die Hard, etc... Almost all of the action sequences in these films drastically alter the characters, their predicaments or their relationships to each other. The action bits have a specific reason to exist in the context of the plot and character development of the films.
Now look at some terrible movies like Last Airbender, Jumper, Clash of the Titans, Boondock Saints (both of them, but the second especially), the Transformers films, 2012, etc... You see a lot of action set pieces that don't really have any effect on the characters. Their relationships aren't challenged or strengthened by them, they don't change the way they see anything, they don't learn anything, the story isn't really affected much by them... You could probably cut the action scenes out of the movie and replace it with a bit of narration that says "and then there was an action sequence" and people would still be able to follow right along. I'm speaking generally, here, and you can probably point out a scene or three that have some dramatic impact (Jumper has a couple useful sequences), but hopefully you get my point.
Editors usually look at a movie, find all the stuff that doesn't add anything to the film and try to cut it out. If they were being honest, most of them would probably insist on cutting out action sequences that don't add anything to the film, but as you say, it's hard to make an action movie sell if there's no action involved.
Anyway, I'm not going to convince you that this movie is bad any more than you can convince me that it's great, and I don't want you to think that's what I'm doing. I just want you - and others - to understand that the RLM reviews illustrate pretty well the reasons that people don't like these movies. There may be some very subtle things in the films that most people don't pick up on, but if those things are relevant and necessary for the enjoyment of the film, then they are too subtle. It's not about being smart enough to 'get' the movie, it's about successful communication of ideas. Some films are purposefully obtuse, like cinematic riddles. TPM isn't one of those films, in my opinion. It just doesn't communicate it's ideas well enough.
I'm not saying that you're wrong or that I'm right or that RLM is right or whatever. I'm just disagreeing with you. It's all opinion. I've never seen someone articulate this particular opinion of TPM with this much detail, so I found it hard to NOT try to debate it.
Actually, I forgot to mention before, but the captions on some of the pictures in your rebuttal are friggin hilarious.
"I find your lack of customer service disturbing"