I continue to post minor things over the holiday break, such as old YouTube clips that did their rounds a while ago. This is funny, and it is also fairly insightful about what is wrong with Star Wars episodes 1, 2, and 3.
*sigh* so easy to hate on the prequels... but his point is totally valid: delving too much into the origins of iconic characters can serve to de-mystify them.
Hey, but what about all the fan boy stuff he followed through on!
Seeing Jedi in their prime, Anakin and Obi-Wan side by side, seeing the clone wars, the fall of the Jedi, Jedi generals leading armies... Yoda fighting with a light saber (granted this does kind of fall under that whold 'de-mystifying' thing... but c'mon... that totally kicked ass!)
Episode I is truly, truly terrible though...
Speaking of demystification... following up on Geoff's post about the next big DC event (That is Mongul with the rings, not Darkseid) I noticed that he had a red ring... apparently, it's been revealed at the end of the Sinestro Corp war that there are all these OTHER colored rings... each witha different aspect attached to them. Some were previously established- Green= Willpower, Yellow = Fear, Violet (star sapphire)= Love. Others were new: Red = Rage, Indigo = Compassion, Blue = Hope, Orange = Greed and I think Brown indicates poor hygiene or something...
Anyway, I'm not sure where I stand on this. Twelve-year old me would ahve loved this; I would already be imagining all the new lanter costumes, drawing them... inventing my own stories... However, adult me wonders if making so many different kinds of rings takes away from the uniqueness of the GL ring? It's supposed to be the most powerful weapon in the universe but with all these other variations, doesn't it kind of lose some of that prestige. And what, exactly, is it that makes will-power the ultimate form of the ring? Hey, I'd say hope is pretty powerful too wouldn't you (and how exactly does hope + fear = Willpower... think about it for a sec)
Okay... going to answer my own question... Willpower is capable of controlling fear, greed and rage... and without the will to act upon them; hope, compassion, and love are pretty useless. Did I just spoil a major DC secret?
Oh, by the way... I did scope out Mongul's induction into the Sinestro Corp at the end of the latest issue of GLC; it was pretty cool... it was a twisted version of the Hal Jordan origin.
"And what, exactly, is it that makes will-power the ultimate form of the ring? Hey, I'd say hope is pretty powerful too wouldn't you (and how exactly does hope + fear = Willpower... think about it for a sec)"
Do what Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole of the Law. ;)
"And what, exactly, is it that makes will-power the ultimate form of the ring? Hey, I'd say hope is pretty powerful too wouldn't you (and how exactly does hope + fear = Willpower... think about it for a sec)"
Blue + yellow = green is a truism only when it comes to pigment. It doesn't hold true for light.
I say that with all the authority of someone who read it once when he was twelve years old and has never since followed up to see if it's actually correct.
Oswalt's takedown of Lucas can be taken further. The whole unnecessary backstory is part of the larger act of demystification associated with Lucas and his outfit's obsessive handling of the same spent cast of characters. One of the nice things about the first (two) movies is that they showed a sprawling galaxy. The prequels obviously needed to focus on Anakin, Obi-wan, Palpatine, etc. But who needs to know that Chewbacca acted as Yoda's bodyguard? The Lucasverse is as insular and inbred as a bad mainstream superhero comic.
It's not just that we don't care about Bobba Fett as a kid: we don't need to see him, period. We don't need to know that he's effectively the older brother of your standard stormtrooper. In "The Empire Strikes Back" he was great because he was just this fearsome bounty hunter plucked out of the blue, left field of possibility, who was introduced with other freaky ne'er-do-wells whose brief cameos must have surely become bloated backstories in the "expanded universe".
It seems that there were even plans to show a pre-pubescent Han Solo as a ward of the Wookies on Wookie Planet, for fuck's sake.
This arguably started with RotJ (a pretty lousy movie, if one removes the rose-tinted spectacles), when Leia was nominated for membership in the Skywalker family. It was unnecessary, and a pretty cheap way to relieve the tension that had built up in the Han-Leia-Luke triangle. It would have been way smarter to just wryly suggest that, as he progressed along the Jedi path, Luke had just sort of lost interest in girls. This would have tweaked many of Lucas's half-digested pulp influences: the return of the Jedi, not the return of the macho, or, what do I care about my dick when I have a light sabre and a father to beat up?
But I'm ranting. Do keep up the GL discussion. It's pretty enjoyable.
Wow. I just sprayed coffee all over my keyboard.
ReplyDelete*sigh* so easy to hate on the prequels... but his point is totally valid: delving too much into the origins of iconic characters can serve to de-mystify them.
ReplyDeleteHey, but what about all the fan boy stuff he followed through on!
Seeing Jedi in their prime, Anakin and Obi-Wan side by side, seeing the clone wars, the fall of the Jedi, Jedi generals leading armies... Yoda fighting with a light saber (granted this does kind of fall under that whold 'de-mystifying' thing... but c'mon... that totally kicked ass!)
Episode I is truly, truly terrible though...
Speaking of demystification... following up on Geoff's post about
the next big DC event (That is Mongul with the rings, not Darkseid) I noticed that he had a red ring... apparently, it's been revealed at the end of the Sinestro Corp war that there are all these OTHER colored rings... each witha different aspect attached to them. Some were previously established- Green= Willpower, Yellow = Fear, Violet (star sapphire)= Love. Others were new: Red = Rage, Indigo = Compassion, Blue = Hope, Orange = Greed and I think Brown indicates poor hygiene or something...
Anyway, I'm not sure where I stand on this. Twelve-year old me would ahve loved this; I would already be imagining all the new lanter costumes, drawing them... inventing my own stories... However, adult me wonders if making so many different kinds of rings takes away from the uniqueness of the GL ring? It's supposed to be the most powerful weapon in the universe but with all these other variations, doesn't it kind of lose some of that prestige. And what, exactly, is it that makes will-power the ultimate form of the ring? Hey, I'd say hope is pretty powerful too wouldn't you (and how exactly does hope + fear = Willpower... think about it for a sec)
Okay... going to answer my own question... Willpower is capable of controlling fear, greed and rage... and without the will to act upon them; hope, compassion, and love are pretty useless. Did I just spoil a major DC secret?
ReplyDeleteOh, by the way... I did scope out Mongul's induction into the Sinestro Corp at the end of the latest issue of GLC; it was pretty cool... it was a twisted version of the Hal Jordan origin.
"And what, exactly, is it that makes will-power the ultimate form of the ring? Hey, I'd say hope is pretty powerful too wouldn't you (and how exactly does hope + fear = Willpower... think about it for a sec)"
ReplyDeleteDo what Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole of the Law. ;)
Aleister Crowley is totally a Guardian.
"And what, exactly, is it that makes will-power the ultimate form of the ring? Hey, I'd say hope is pretty powerful too wouldn't you (and how exactly does hope + fear = Willpower... think about it for a sec)"
ReplyDeleteBlue + yellow = green is a truism only when it comes to pigment. It doesn't hold true for light.
I say that with all the authority of someone who read it once when he was twelve years old and has never since followed up to see if it's actually correct.
Oswalt's takedown of Lucas can be taken further. The whole unnecessary backstory is part of the larger act of demystification associated with Lucas and his outfit's obsessive handling of the same spent cast of characters. One of the nice things about the first (two) movies is that they showed a sprawling galaxy. The prequels obviously needed to focus on Anakin, Obi-wan, Palpatine, etc. But who needs to know that Chewbacca acted as Yoda's bodyguard? The Lucasverse is as insular and inbred as a bad mainstream superhero comic.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just that we don't care about Bobba Fett as a kid: we don't need to see him, period. We don't need to know that he's effectively the older brother of your standard stormtrooper. In "The Empire Strikes Back" he was great because he was just this fearsome bounty hunter plucked out of the blue, left field of possibility, who was introduced with other freaky ne'er-do-wells whose brief cameos must have surely become bloated backstories in the "expanded universe".
It seems that there were even plans to show a pre-pubescent Han Solo as a ward of the Wookies on Wookie Planet, for fuck's sake.
This arguably started with RotJ (a pretty lousy movie, if one removes the rose-tinted spectacles), when Leia was nominated for membership in the Skywalker family. It was unnecessary, and a pretty cheap way to relieve the tension that had built up in the Han-Leia-Luke triangle. It would have been way smarter to just wryly suggest that, as he progressed along the Jedi path, Luke had just sort of lost interest in girls. This would have tweaked many of Lucas's half-digested pulp influences: the return of the Jedi, not the return of the macho, or, what do I care about my dick when I have a light sabre and a father to beat up?
But I'm ranting. Do keep up the GL discussion. It's pretty enjoyable.
Oh, and all the best for 2008, obvs.
ReplyDelete