Redstate

It was how you run a fight scene.

The rest? All right. Until the Ewoks.

The freaking Ewoks.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

they sold billions of those furry little Ewok stuffed animals -- a lot more cuddly then Yoda

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Considering where the good doctor's head was, when practicing medicine, is it any wonder that the man has issues?

for the Ewoks. He liked the idea of a primitive people triumphing over a technological power. Its not surprising there is dislike for those things
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

but pretty much all of Star Wars is a thinly veiled praise of leftist revolutionaries. It got more obvious as the films progressed (perhaps most blatantly when the the evil "Trade Federation" played the villain in Episode I), but Lucas' ideal was always essentially an intergalactic U.N. running the galaxy--an ideal that had been usurped by an evil empire (...I wonder who that could be).

The Ewoks didn't suck because they were based on leftist revolutionaries, plenty of stuff in the Star Wars films had similar origins. They sucked because they were midget-bears with spears who constantly ran into each other in an attempt to inject cuteness and slap-stick comedy into an otherwise awesome film.

...was that said Evil Empire looked better, had better music, and was generally presented in such a positive light that Lucas felt obligated to break the narrative flow with two on-screen atrocities (blowing up a disarmed planet; shooting up a academy full of kids) in order to keep people from rooting for the bad guys.

Because, let's face it: the Jedi sucked as a police force.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

every Star Wars fan I know likes Episode V best precisely because the Empire wins. The only mistake that the Empire made was recruiting whiny little girl-boy Anakin rather than Yoda.

Darth Yoda...my mind wouldn't be able to contain the awesomeness!

http://darthside.blogspot.com/

If not, start from the beginning.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

http://cheeseburgerbrown.com/Darth_Vader/

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

but you've just guaranteed that I will get absolutely no work done this afternoon.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Let's not forget his affinity for elitism. The Jedi Council was the circle of enlightened superiors making the choices for those who simply weren't luminous enough to make their own.

They sucked as a police force because they were philosopher kings.
absentee

Reading philosophy into star wars is like reading judicial thought into the WWF. Six movies of glorious mind boggling eye candy, and a backstory not worthy of being a Harlequin Romance.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

I always said Lucas builds storylines like Raggedy Ann and Andy. It's a patchwork of simplistic ideals, leftist philosophy, American cliches, distorted world history, and random parts of other, better stories.

Overall, though, great flicks. ; )

absentee

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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Were those of science fiction.

At least we didn't have Adam and Eve landing on a planet
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Luke and Leia, the only two remaining Jedi, must rebuild the perfect society, ruling from their state of pure enlightement.

absentee

Its not like at the end of the last movie luke is sent back in time and it turns out not only is Vader his father but he is his own grandfather.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Is that a la Heinlein's Lazarus Long? Or the mighty Fry, who upon finding out that he was the single most important person in the universe uttered that hallowed comment for all time "Aw, Snap!"

absentee

A stitch in time saves nine n/t
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

That is the greatest grandfather paradox story of all time and none has come close since.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

absentee

nt

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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater

The only thing that the Trade Federation and the United Federation of Planets had in common is the word "federation."

Star Trek's Federation is practically identical to Star Wars' Senate (I know I'm inviting lots of nerd quibbling here). The Trade Federation was strictly an economic entity, albeit one with a seat in the Senate.

That said, I'm not sure with what you are disagreeing. Do you not believe a) that Lucas is a leftist or b) that he intentionally wrote it into his movies?

Jabba's palace and sail barge were amazing, not to mention the now famous gold bikini... Pure genius!

But the Ewoks ruined it for me. I honestly cannot believe that anyone thought it was a good idea to give them their own TV movie, "Ewoks: Battle for Endor," along with their own cartoon after the way they ruined Episode VI. Ewoks were the worst thing to hit Star Wars until Jar Jar Binks came along and blew them away in the field of pure craptacularity.

And as the saying goes, you know what you get when you mix a pint of ice cream with a pint of crap...two pints of crap.

But come on, I'd take 1000 ewoks to 1 Jar Jar Binks.

Fight On!

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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

What a horrific thought.

I'll take 2000 tribbles over either.

absentee

You'll have 2000 in a day or two.

That's what you think. Those ears would take a whole division of storm troopers and Lucas was just bring him back as Tupperware Tupperware Binks.

Fight On!

Best part: Luke trades in his Tatooine duds and blue lightsaber for an all-black ensemble and a green lightsaber. Oh, and he Force chokes those Gamorreans.

Worst part: The Ewoks. But honestly, I always found the Jawas more annoying anyway.

The Rancor pit fight and the sail barge battle...sigh, you know, I could never shake the "B-movie" feel of the whole thing. Having to battle a giant monster in a pit in order to rescue a bikini-clad princess? I'm pretty sure Kirk already did that.

As for the rest of the film, I still allege that the battle of Endor is the greatest space combat scene ever made for the silver screen. And who among you wasn't shocked when Palpatine shot Force lightning from his fingertips? BAMF.

But that's only because they haven't shown the mini-series and season one of BSG on the big screen yet.

absentee

The big problem with CGI is that anyone is that the novelty has worn off. Sure, you can now do some really cool things with it, but in terms of looking real, it doesn't fool my brain any more than standard animation. If I'm watching anything CGI, there is a little voice at the back of my head going "This is fake, it looks fake, it isn't real," Totally ruins the suspension-of-disbelief.

RotJ, because it still uses actual, physical models, doesn't have that problem. My brain interprets the images as real, because, well, they are real! BSG is CGI, and hence, inferior, IMNSHO.

By the way, on the original topic of this thread, what worries me most about this new movie is that Lucas and Speilburg and going to overuse CGI in such a way as to render totally unbelieveable half the stuff that Indy does. The same thing happened in Live Free Or Die Hard. I think with a lot of this new technology, directors just get lazy about plot and substance and try to make up for it with cheap thrills that are a detriment, not just to the film, but to that film's worthier predecesessors.

As an archaeophile of sorts -- my academic specialty is, after all, Classical Archaeology -- I'm naturally drawn to this franchise. After all, it's a world-saving, action-hero archaeologist; what's not to like? That being said, the films that worked in the past featured two major things: a Harrison Ford in his Han Solo, action-hero prime, and a Biblical artifact-based storyline. A title like "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" sounds to me like something that will be far closer to "Temple of Doom" than to "Raiders" or "The Last Crusade."

To the overall trailer, my first reaction was: he looks -- and especially sounds -- really, really old. My overall first thought was, "Meh." I know, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Here's hoping I'm wrong, though, and that it's great.

...and they account for Harrison Ford's increase in age in the movie. He is an older, wiser Dr. Jones in this sequel.

“.....women and minorities hardest hit”

This movie is set in the 1950s and his chief enemy in this movie are Soviet communists.

“.....women and minorities hardest hit”

although I guess it would be a bit odd to make WWII last 20 years just to account for Indiana's aging.

I won't lie, it is disappointing to see Indy not going after a Biblical artifact. But they've done the Ark and the Grail? What left? The Shroud of Turin? The True Cross?

absentee

They were the magical stones that the High Priest of Israel used to divine God's will/the future/etc.

What villain wouldn't want to get their hands on them?

“.....women and minorities hardest hit”

And we saw how that movie turned out.

"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid." --Friedrich Nietzsche

Back when there were 10 teams in the Big Ten and Michigan State was not.

of having those ideas copyrighted. This movie might not be called Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the enlarged prostate, or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Geritol but both movies COULD be in the shooting stages and could be worth millions to you.

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This post has been brought to by Thorazyne and other pychotropic drugs -- better living through chemistry

Last years is arguably the best of the three and Matt Damon is well-suited to keeping it running for a while.

I saw that one just after the 2000 election. :)

Moe

PS: Whoever wrote it has a point about #15.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

...like that.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

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