A Meaningless Title

1. We shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age.

2. I felt as though I was unable to wake up, slowly sinking deeper and deeper into madness.

3. If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!

4. Our best bet is to pack it into a crate lost deep within a warehouse next to all the other dangerous artifacts man was not meant to tamper with, before it kills us all.

5. Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way.

6. I felt myself on the edge of the world; peering over the rim into a fathomless chaos of eternal night.

7. I felt the light inside me slowly fading.

8. I have seen sights no human should see.

9. I have looked upon all the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me.

10. Oh God, my eyes!

( Answers: )

We need to give George Lucas and the prequels more credit. Sure, nobody liked Jar-Jar Binks, but that was because of his dialogue and actions - not because the CGI set off an instinctive "Kill it with fire!" response. If Star Wars could do it twenty years ago, you'd think modern film-makers could manage the same thing...

Thinking some more about The Last Jedi, now I've had a few weeks to digest it – and gotten back from my holidays. Indonesia's national parks are beautiful!

I think there's two main issues I have with it. One's somewhat unavoidable and unintentional, but the other is a real weakness of the film as it stands.
( Spoilers Within )

So, the alternating pattern continues, as the abysmal “Into Darkness” is followed up by... hell, probably the best Trek film since Undiscovered Country? The reboot finally steps out of the shadow of the original series, and is all the better for it, finally feeling fresh and exciting. Hell, that's practically one of the movie's themes, letting go of the past, and I can only hope that carries through from now on.


Spoilers and specific comments below:
( Read more... )

The title is still terrible and means nothing, though.

So, general thoughts? I'm not exactly disapointed, but I can't help but be reminded of the quote about someone's work being both good and original, but the parts that are good are not original and the original parts are not good...

Alright, maybe that's a bit unfair, but the movie really struggles when it's not following A New Hope beat for beat.

( The Good, the Not-So-Good, and the Baffling (Contains Spoilers) )

Was thinking about Star Trek 5 – because somebody has to, right? And it occurred to me – why is it a terrible Star Trek movie? Because it’s actually a Star Wars movie!

Think about it. Who’s the villain? Well, he’s a renegade from the group of powerful psychics who repress their emotions and avoid strong attachments. He’s been cast out because he delved into ancient forbidden philosophies, and decided to follow a different path, one all about gaining strength through embracing pain and revelling in emotions. Using this power, he gains power over the minds of the weak-willed and forms an army to carry out his monomaniacal obsession.

The plot draws everyone inexorably to the desert planet with the city full of scum and villainy that is somehow both a total backwater and also the most important location in the galaxy. Everything’s sort of worn out looking and broken down – even the good guy’s ship is a malfunctioning, unreliable hunk of junk.

There’s a lot of weird mystical babble going on as our heroes fly across the galaxy. The villain tries to tempt the good guy psychic into joining him, but fails, even after a contrived family relationship is revealed. Eventually, however, the villain sees the light and sacrifices himself to save the heroes from the real evil, who at the time was busy shooting lightning at everyone.

The movie ends with our heroes celebrating as night falls over a Californian national park, and a childish song wraps up the adventure!

It's long overdue, but it's good to finally have a decent sequel to The Matrix.

A quick comment on getting back from Into Darkness: Can someone please, PLEASE, turn off the recording of Wrath of Khan that seems to have been stuck on loop at the Paramount writer's studio for the last decade or so? Why not rehash Undiscovered Country or the Voyage Home for once? Or try doing the Motion Picture or Final Frontier properly?

You're never going to top the original Wrath of Khan, please stop trying...

An odd thought: I was still in my mid-teens when I saw Fellowship. I’ll be thirty when the last Hobbit film comes out…

Anyway, I liked the film. Compared to Lord of the Rings, it seemed a little more… light-hearted isn’t exactly the right word, but certainly a fair bit less serious or weighty – which fits the difference between the books. I thought the film handled the difference in tone quite nicely by framing it as Bilbo’s account of his adventure, and much of the early scenes is word-for-word from the book. I do hope the rest of the trilogy keeps up that mood, and the attempt to expand the story into a trilogy doesn’t result in attempts to make it too serious or ‘epic’. I liked the cameos from Galadriel and Saruman, but I wouldn’t want the movers and shakers of Middle-Earth to overshadow Thorin and company…

Regarding Thorin and the dwarves – I found it interesting that the film seemed to take Tolkien’s comment that his dwarves are vaguely analogous to Jews and ran with it – some of Thorin’s company seemed to have a very eastern/central European look to them, there were a lot of references to Dwarves as a people in exile, victims of an involuntary diaspora, outsiders wherever they go. Of course, there’s problematic attitudes in associating dwarves with Jews – but, on the other hand, it’s pretty much impossible to adapt Tolkien’s works without carrying over some problematic content, and a fantasy film with Eastern-European Jewish analogues as the heroes makes for a nice change from the usual Anglo/Nordic cultures. And the Hobbit ends with everyone consumed with greed for Smaug’s hoard, not just the Dwarves…

There’s also a nice sense that Thorin’s band are fairly ordinary people – not as unaccustomed to adventure as Bilbo, of course, but hardly on the level of Aragorn or Legolas. A few orcs on wargs is treated as a serious threat, and they avoid combat whenever possible. I liked that – Smaug should be an utterly terrifying threat once we get to see him in full, a year or two down the line.

Things I disliked – Radagast was a bit too goofy for my tastes, and seemed rather supurflous. Everything he said was repeated by Gandalf a few scenes later anyway, his appearance seemed more to make up for him being cut from Fellowship, less a useful addition in its own right. The escape from the stone giants dragged a little too – then again, they’re slightly out of place even in the novel, never being so much as referenced again anywhere else…

An odd realisation – outside of the brief glimpse of Dale-town at the beginning, I don’t think there was a single human onscreen in the entire film. Certainly none with lines…

Anyway, bring on the Desolation of Smaug! Next year in Erebor!