I found a couple new Tron posters from Korea, all 1024 x 1448. Korean characters make everything look better.
Not long now. Only two weeks! Gotta start convincing my wife that we need to go see it together. It has been a long time in the making.
Looking for the 1980s Tron movie? Or the Tron Legacy Soundtrack? Try Amazon!
Director Irvin Kershner died yesterday, at the age of 87, after a long illness. I doubt I have to tell you that Kershner directed The Empire Strikes Back, generally considered the best of all Star Wars movies, and one of the most important nerd movies of all time.
I like movies. Everyone likes movies. But I really like movies. I’ve liked movies since I can remember. When I was young, like 6 or 8, my mum would take me to the movies and drop me in at the cinema and pick me up afterwards while she did her thing. Since it was the 70s and there were no suburban cinema complexes, we’d have to go into the city to see movies. That usually meant me having to get dressed to the nines because “you can’t go uptown if you’re dressed like that“.
When I was older I’d make my own way into the city to see movies. It was quite an adventure planning a journey myself. I’d have to get the newspaper and find what time the movie was on. Then I’d have to plan it backwards so that I’d get off the train with enough time to buy tickets before the movie started. Which meant that I’d have to get the train that left Midland at this particular time, which in turn meant I’d have to get this particular bus which stopped at Midland interchange and connected with that train.
Later on came the super mega-plexes which dropped 8-16 cinemas within biking distance from home, providing a dizzying choice of movies. Most of the time a pinball parlour was attached to the complex which provided extra skills enhancement opportunities.
Up until the time I was married I usually saw 2 movies a week. Certainly never less than one a week. It didn’t matter if it was a blockbuster, or some obscure art-haus movie. It didn’t matter if I was with friends, or alone. I just had to fulfill the need to go to the movies because I liked it and I dig movies.
The first thing most romantic couples do is go to the movies together, and Suzanne and I were no exception. But one thing that she admitted to me early on in our relationship was that she had never seen Star Wars. This should have set alarm bells off in my mind. I mean, it’s 1999! Who on earth had never seen Star Wars? But I was in love and willing to make exceptions and see past these seemingly unforgivable issues. I decided that we’d have a movie night in at her place and I’d bring my trusty, well worn VHS copies of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. When I got to her place I learned that she had only a small black and white TV. The warning bells became militarygrade claxons, but again I was being led by emotions and not thinking straight. We got through them, but it was like she shrugged and said “Meh”. I bit my lip and hid my shame well.
After we got married our movie-watching habits changed, of course. We’d go out less and less and stay at home with a video more and more. Suzanne usually let me pick the movie to watch at the cinema or the video to watch at home. It’s not like I wanted to maintain control of what we watched or anything like that; Suzanne was often reluctant to pick the movie so it just fell to me to make the decision. But there was one relationship-defining moment in history where Suzanne had her movie-picking privileges revoked forever.
Nobody likes bullies. In all seriousness, bullying is a form of abuse, and usually comprises physical or emotional attacks over time and can lead to trauma or even suicide and nobody should have to deal with bullying. Movies can deal with bullies and bullying more light-heartedly, portraying them ultimately as weak, insecure individuals who always get their comeuppance. Here’s a list of my favourite movie schoolyard bullies.
Biff Tannen from the Back to the Future series (1985-1990). Biff comes from a long line of Tannen bullies. We saw Great Grandfather Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen in Back to the Future 3, and Biff’s grandson Griff in Back to the Future 2. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as all three Tannens use brute force and intimidation. The timeline changes (hey, it’s a time paradox movie) and in part of the movie, at least, he gets humbled but inthe beginning because Biff isn’t all that intelligent he only gets through highschool by forcing George McFly to do his homework. This bulling continues through adulthood as Biff becomes George’s Supervisor at the same company using the same strategy of bullying George into completing his work and taking the credit to get promoted. Like most bullies he’s braver when he’s backed up by thug friends, but crumbles when someone stands up to him.
Johnny Lawrence from The Karate Kid (1984) Johnny is probably the most mindless bully of these five. He’s a Karate expert, leader of his gang who are all members of the Cobra Kai martial arts dojo, and protégé of John Kreese, a Vietnam veteran with no time for feeble concepts like restraint or compassion. “Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy” is his motto. Johnny is the most one dimensional big screen bully and just lets his fists and feet do the talking. If you have something he wants, then he’ll beat you. If he doesn’t like you, then he’ll beat you. If you get up, he’ll beat you again. There’s no way you can beat Johnny and he knows it. Unless, that is, you have a humble, mystic Okinawan immigrant father figure named Miyagi on your side to teach you that belts should only be used to keep your pants up. Johnny redeems himself, somewhat, when he loses the final battle in the conflict with Daniel-san by handing him the tournament trophy himself.
Chris Hargensen from Carrie (1976) Chris Hargensen is beautiful, rebellious and manipulative. She’s the opposite of the timid, plain, inexperienced Carrie and takes great delight at initiating a humiliating and frightening ordeal for Carrie in the showers. Chris is forced to serve detention and is also barred from attending the upcoming prom as punishment and the rest of the movie revolves around plotting revenge on Carrie by manipulating her friends and the school hunk to set her up for a shocking prank at the prom. This is a different style of bullying to most of the other characters. None of it is physical, it’s all behind the scenes and unknown to Carrie.
Regina George from Mean Girls (2004) With girls like Regina stalking the halls of our modern schools, all I can say is that I’m glad I attended high school in the 80s as a male rather than in the 2000′s as a girl. It would be easy and simplistic to describe Regina as a bitch. She’s so much more than that. She is pure evil in the form of a hot blonde. She wields multiple bullying weapons in her reign of terror. In fact she has stocked up on the whole arsenal: verbal sniping, emotional sieging, tactical threats and intimidation, nuclear tipped slander and other devious or more direct bullying methods to put others down and keep herself on a pedestal where she can hog the spotlight. I’m scared of her.
Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter series (2001-2009). If you had a name like Draco you’d be have a chip on your shoulder too. Even his surname makes it sound like he a maladjusted little prick. He’s the main antagonist in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince employs bigotry and snobbery in addition to devious, cunning use of magic to make life hell for Harry, who he feels isn’t of the right lineage to attend Wizard school. The son of Lucious and Narcissa he was raised to believe in the importance of “Blood Purity”, and Muggle-born wizards and witches simply do not belong at Hogwarts and should be denied education in magical practices. He uses psychological means and verbal taunts to demean and denigrate his victims rather than physical thuggery, which he leaves up to his accomplices.
This is an article I wrote at a Star Wars collecting forum in September 2008, discussing the release of The Clone Wars animated movie. I’ve been reflecting lately on the quality of what my kids watch and comparing it to what I used to watch. With my kids now coming to better appreciate Star Wars, should I introduce them to The Clone Wars movie and the animated series? Read on!
Kids shows are often written poorly, and the excuse is that kids don’t need good plots, just smarmy messages. And if they aren’t exposed to quality stuff, then they pretty much expect everything is supposed to be that bad, and think of it as normal.
When you consider how many kids (including me) were raised to think so many bad shows from the 70s and 80s are “classics” despite them being essentially just advertising disguised with some minimal plot elements, it shows part of the problem that film goers and TV audiences accept the poor state of film and TV writing as normal. They simply do not know any better.
Which, I suppose, is part of the point. Why would you invest in decent shows and writers if you didn’t have to? Why break away from the formulaic style if people don’t expect anything different?
Yet, then we decry the state of TV, and the horrible films, and the tissue thin plots and barely cognizant themes. People are willing to accept bad film and television, because they just don’t know that there can be anything better. Part of the problem is also Political Conservatism. Kids movies can’t have swear words now, or nudity let alone an intricate story line. Some of the best movies of my childhood have naughty words and boobies.
Childrens’ literature is fine wire to walk. You have to have plots and characters that resonate, and that are understandable, and expose kids to good writing. Reading well, they will be able to have a bar set to shoot for themselves. Same with TV and film. If you hold that bar low, that’s what they’ll shoot for. They may extend beyond it eventually, but the bulk is going to be mediocre at best, and if the bar is set low to begin with, then that is where it will stay.
As far as the animation goes, Pixar and old-school Disney (the original movies up to the early 90′s. None of the direct-to-video sequel garbage, certainly almost none of the new stuff) prove that childrens’ movies can be excellently made on almost all levels. When the possibility for quality is proven, it leaves studios no excuse for sub-standard crap, even if it’s sub-standard crap for kids.
Compare the Pixar movies to the Dreamworks /everyone else releases that inevitably copy them. Both studios ostensibly make kids’ movies, but Pixar produces wholly excellent stuff like clockwork, while Dreamworks’ films are all over the place and are sometimes quite amazingly shitty.
Clone Wars comes from Lucas’ inability to put together a compelling narrative or create characters we can sympathize with. It’s just another example of Lucas losing all track of what made Star Wars great to begin with. That Lucas used the same excuses for Clone Wars as he did for the prequel trilogy, and that the Clone Wars suffers from the same weaknesses as the prequel trilogy, indicates that it’s a failing of a movie as a movie, not just as a childrens‘ movie.
Maybe we all look at the original trilogy through rosy glasses, but I can still watch the first three films and enjoy them, and also the prequel trilogy though I accept some can’t stomach them. The special effects hold up, the lines are more memorable, the pacing is generally better, and it generally just felt… more cohesive. Not some hastily cobbled together mess which turns Star Wars into a horrendous whirling abyss of sulphurous feces. I maintain that the six movies by themselves are great. It’s every other SW movie which is bringing things down – Ewoks, Caravan of Courage, The Holiday Special, and the special editions. Those animated Cartoon Network SW CW cartoons do have some merit, at least for me.
You could argue “Well, you’re an adult. Your opinion doesn’t matter because it was made for kids.”
In conversations about movies, there is nothing that pisses me off more than a statement like this. (Well, if you were to say Keira Knightly is unattractive you’d see me go all Hulk on yo ass). What you’re saying is that if a movie is made for kids, then nobody need bother trying to make it good as long as kids enjoy it.
It’s this attitude that leads to cheap, crappy, mind-numbing, toy-selling Saturday morning cartoons and pure shit movies like “Shark Tale” and “The Country Bears” that have no standards beyond keeping kids still for 90 minutes.
Anyone setting out to make a kids movie should be aiming for Pixar/”The Iron Giant” quality. If you don’t get there, at least you tried. But the people who make kids movies without any ambition toward doing quality work that stands up to scrutiny are just out to make money off the fact that most parents have very low standards for their children’s entertainment.
Of course, in a world where “reality” shows and talent competitions dominate pop culture, these same parents clearly have low standards for their own entertainment too.
The point is, kids are not dumb, and adults shouldn’t underestimate their intellect. Being a “kid’s movie” is no excuse for lazy movie-making, something Pixar has proven over and over again. Dreamworks frankly just doesn’t “get it” – they think the key to success is running formulaic franchises into the ground (Shrek 3 anyone?). But Pixar enjoys massive commercial and artistic success by purposely avoiding formula, being inventive and original and talking to kids like real people (something Walt Disney used to do). I find it difficult to truly classify their movies as “kid’s films”, because actually, they’re not – they’re just great films that also happen to be very kid-friendly. Maybe that’s the example Dreamworks and Lucas should follow.
As for George Lucas, I give him all the credit in the world for being a great visionary and bringing the original Star Wars to life. At the same time, it’s very clear he’s lost his way these last 20 years, and he’s only a shadow of the artist he once was. In a funny way, the independence he so boldly sought was his undoing once it was granted.
I’ve been watching the Star Wars saga with the kids over the last couple weeks, starting with A New Hope through to Return of the Jedi, and starting again with The Phantom Menace through to Revenge of the Sith. You know, the way the maker intended.
Seeing them all one after the other has been very entertaining and refreshing, and has reinforced the reasons I love Star Wars.
Let’s get this straight: Star Wars is the story of Anakin Skywalker. Sure, there’s lots of other characters including heroes and villains. Even the most obscure characters have their own legion of fans, for instance Bespin’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-him “Ice Cream Maker Guy”. But take away Anakin Skywalker (and therefore Darth Vader) and you have nothing. Star Wars would be a mere shell of a story with no real beginning, no middle and certainly no ending.
But, worthy of mention and indeed of study is the story of the rise of Emperor Palpatine, including the downfall of the Republic and the inception of the First Galactic Empire. As we shall see, Palpatine applied some very simple rules in order not just take power, but to have the power given to him.
Two books I read a while ago and still own are “None Dare Call It Conspiracy
1) The events overwhelmed them, and could not have been prevented; or
2) The events were allowed to occur because the officials wanted them to occur.
Granted, Palpatine and the Galactic Empire are fictitious but the methods he used in his rise to power aren’t completely unbelievable. Epperson quotes a 1951 book by Jan Kozak, who details a five part program to seize control of a government, and illustrates how a slight variation of this program was used by Adolf Hitler. Yes, I Godwinned my own article.
The program goes like this:
1) The first step consisted of having the conspiracy’s own people infiltrate the government (the “pressure from above”)
2) The second step was to create a real or alleged grievance, usually through either an action of government of through some situation where the government should have acted but didn’t
3) The third step consisted in having a mob created by the real or alleged grievance that the government or the conspiracy caused demand that the problem be solved by a governmental action (the “pressure from below”)
4) The fourth step consisted in having the conspirators in the government remedy the real or alleged situation with some oppressive legislation.
5) the fifth step is a repeat of the last three.
Examining the first three movies of the Star Wars Saga, we know that Palpatine started off as a Senator in the Galactic Republic, representing Naboo. He was careful not to advance his career too quickly, content to be seen as a petty and small provincial and mostly flying under the radar. The first step of infiltrating the existing government had been achieved.
Palpatine used his Sith Lord alter ego, Darth Sidious, to create a crisis between the Trade Federation and his home planet of Naboo. Revealing himself as a Sith Lord to the Nemoidians, and making it quite clear that he held some power over the Senate, he orchestrated a blockade and invasion of Naboo requiring intervention. Step two, the real or alleged grievance, was in play.
This is where Palpatine’s path from the described method varies a little. As we see in The Phantom Menace, Sidious was surprised and disappointed that the Jedi were involved so quickly by Chancellor Valorum in this struggle and it upset his plans. Knowing how the Senate operated and that they would be bogged down in negotiations, innuendo and bickering about the allegations against the Trade Federation, he manipulated the young Queen Amidala into moving for a Vote of No Confidence in Chancellor Valorum. Unfortunately for Palpatine, Amidala ultimately succeeded in taking back control of Naboo, and he’d lost his apprentice, Darth Maul, to the Jedi but by the end of The Phantom Menace, Palpatine had succeeded in replacing Valorum as Chancellor.
If Palpatine was going to take control of the entire galaxy, he needed a way to enforce the control. But the Republic had never possessed or needed an army. He needed a way to get this army, so as Darth Sidious and with the aid of his new apprentice Count Dooku he created a Separatist Movement. Dooku united several commercial organizations and star systems to revolt and form a Confederacy. These pledged their armies to Dooku, and made the Confederacy a threat able to overthrow the Republic which would never allow the creation of their own army. Simple-minded Jar Jar Binks was manipulated into moving for a vote to give emergency powers to Palpatine, which Palpatine “reluctantly” agreed to. His first act with this new authority was to “create a Grand Army of the Republic to counter the increasing threats of the Separatists”. This army had already conveniently been created on Kamino. The third step in subverting the government was complete: the senate begged Palpatine to solve the Separatist threat (the real or alleged grievance) by governmental action.
The fourth step was to conduct the Clone Wars, playing both sides. Eventually the army was told to execute “Order 66″, a secret command to exterminate the Jedi. Remember, the Clones were loyal to Palpatine, not the Republic. He rinsed and repeated the steps to create the First Galactic Empire to the thunderous applause of the Senate after demonstrating that the Jedi were the enemy. He used a variation on these steps to seduce Anakin to the Dark side, offering his knowledge to allow Anakin to save Amidala’s life. He used his new apprentice Darth Vader to assassinate the Separatist leadership to bring peace to the galaxy. Of course Palpatine could bring peace to the galaxy, since he was the one who created the strife! In A New Hope, the Emperor dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic had been swept away. The Galaxy was under control of the Sith with Darth Vader and the Imperial Navy/Army as enforcer and Palpatine alone on the Emperor’s throne.
Could this happen in our own country? In our own workplace? Perhaps in our own families? Has it already happened? Keep your eyes open and see who has the most to gain from strife and why people ally themselves the way they do. Why do these events continually happen? Cue Mr X from the Oliver Stone movie, “JFK”:
That’s the real question, isn’t it – “Why?” – the “how” is just “scenery” for the suckers … Oswald, Ruby, Cuba, Mafia, it keeps people guessing like a parlor game, but it prevents them from asking the most important question – Why? Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefitted? Who has the power to cover it up? …
Here’s a list of dialog we hear more than once in the Star Wars Saga
The Star Wars Saga
, during the briefing in A New Hope
, in the Yavin hangar in A New Hope
, to Lando and Chewbacca departing from the medical frigate at the end of The Empire Strikes Back
says “May the Force be with us, on the bridge of the rebel starcruiser in Return of the Jedi
, to Anakin Skywalker before the start of the Pod Race in The Phantom Menace
and Yoda, in the Jedi Council Chambers after discussing the possible discovery of a Sith Lord in The Phantom Menace
to Qui-Gon, after instructing him to go to Naboo to find the identity of the “dark warrior” encountered on Tatooine in The Phantom Menace
and Anakin Skywalker to each other, after Anakin is given the assignment to accompany Padme to Naboo in Attack of the Clones
and Obi-Wan to each other, before parting to their assignments on the landing platform in Revenge of the Sith
