Category: Asides

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Star Wars: Phantom Menace comments and questions

I have heard that making the Trade Federation characters as Japanese was racist- particularly when Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn was extremely dismissive of them, saying “These Federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short.”
But maybe rather than calling the screenwriter a racist, it is showing the viewer how racist and extremely arrogant the current crop of Jedi are. You go in the movie assuming, with a nudge from the opening crawl, that the Jedi are awesome- but maybe there is nuance in there. Gray areas you didn’t think of before.

Jar Jar Binks is the most annoying character in the Star Wars universe. It goes without saying, but I’m saying it to lead into a favorite fan theory that really he was meant to be a dark side Sith Lord- above Darth Sidius! If it would have played out in Episodes II and III that Jar Jar was either working for or even the master of Sidius, then THAT would have been worth wading through his annoyances. But since his annoying behavior doesn’t lead to any payoff, it has no reason to be. It’s just annoying, and George Lucas is a coward for removing Jar Jar’s reveal as a Zui Quan (drunken boxing) style Sith master from the storyline. Jar Jar is either the true Count Dooku or even the Supreme Leader Snoke!

So when they enter the underwater Gunga City, they just pass through a force field separating water vs air. So…what happens when a fish swims through? This would probably happen every minute. Do they have like an automatic squeegee or something to sweep them back into the water?

Wow, the Boss was really trying to kill them by making them go through the planet core!
It sounds like Sith Jar Jar was trying to kill Boss Nass. It didn’t work. He got off as just clumsy and banished instead of evil and executed.

Why does Lucas do the small fish, bigger fish thing twice in a row?

Is R2-D2 a Zui Quan jedi droid?

These hologram teleconferences always have the audio breaking up to show the large distance involved in transmissions across the galaxy (I guess?), but my experience is the high bandwidth of a hologram video would probably freeze or break up before the audio would.

Are we ever going to see the Angels from the moons of Lego?

So slaves have their own, off-site apartment. Just like me!

What revenge against the Jedi is Darth Maul talking about? What did the Jedi do to the Sith?

Shmi Skywalker has a Swedish accent. Why doesn’t her son Anakin have the same accent? (I know. That’s nit-picky.)

So slaves have their own podracer. Just like I have a car!

What were all those midi-chlorians doing in one of Shmi’s fallopian tubes?

No Jedi has a midi-chlorian count as high as little Ani, but then rather than assume “it’s A Force Miracle!” I would guess there is some technology involved since midi-chlorians are a physical life force measurable in a blood test. The question would be did a Sith Lord do this with a dastardly plan or did a Jedi with all of our best interests at heart and know-better-than-us-what-is-good-for-us do this? They would have made her unconscious (or cause to forget?), kidnapped her, knocked her up in a lab, and set her loose on Tatooine (so-to-speak, relatively- for a slave. Not actually set loose).
Which high level Sith or Jedi keeps tabs on the goings-on in Tatooine? Which one has connections with Gardulla the Hutt and could grab one of her slaves for a lab project? (BTW my money is on Darth Plagueis, who had power over life and death, and Gardulla is mentioned in the book.)

God, this podrace is sooooo long.

So Qui-Gon Jinn can jump up into a moving ship, but Darth Maul can’t?

Having an entire planet turn into one big city is MESSED UP! I’d guess a civilization with such a thing would be messed up also.

Jar Jar telling Ani that the Queen is “pitty hot” is pretty gross. But he is Sith, so…

I don’t understand why Queen Amidala believes Senator Palpatine’s view of the scenario. Why not at least get a second opinion? I’m sure she could even take a meeting with Chancellor Valorum himself since he was already magnanimous enough to send two Jedi to help the Naboo and meet her at her ship when she arrived at Coruscant.

So during this assembly, we can pause for a vote of no confidence in the supreme chancellor, but not introduce evidence of an invasion?

Yoda is a hard-ass.

So if Obi-Wan has to face the trials before becoming a Jedi knight, what did Luke do for this since the Jedi Council was no more?

Huh, they took the photo of Microsoft Windows XP desktop background just before the battle of Naboo started.

The Gungans have HUGE feathers on the back of the mount for the animals they ride. I wonder what ginormous bird they killed to put three feathers on each saddle.

Wait, at the beginning of the movie, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon did some kind of lightning-fast, Force run down a hallway to escape the droidikas, but now Obi-Wan can’t run fast enough to reach Qui-Gon fighting Darth Maul when the forcefield-doors-hallway separated them?

Why is Darth Maul flat footed with Obi-Wan jumps right over him?

Palpatine knew Anikan would have a “career he would watch with great interest.” That tells me he already knew about him, so probably a Sith engineered Anikan.

The actor who plays little Ani is remarkably believable in this role. Good job. What ever happened to his career? (Yes, I could look it up on IMDB before writing this down, but I’m just sayin’ off the top of my head I have no idea.)

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Return of Jedi Comments and Questions

Jabba the Hutt in the desert.

I watched Return of the Jedi again for the first time in about 20 years. I have some thoughts and questions:

  • If R2-D2, an “R2” unit, goes around telling people that’s his name, does that mean there were only 260 R2 units ever made? From R2-A0 to R2-Z9?
  • I feel like the aliens weren’t given enough thought.
    • How do those bipedal, green-skinned hippo guards survive in Tatooine? Their drool alone would require its own Hoover Dam!
    • What is the natural food source for a very large, immobile sarlacc nested in the middle of a big sand dune?
    • What are the chances of a squid species eventually becoming bipedal?
  • There must have been several hours of conference room meetings about how to portray Jabba’s place as super sleazy, but still retain a PG mpaa rating.
  • How is being threatened to die by digestion over a thousand years a threat when your typical lifespan is <10% of that?
  • R2-D2 was SELLING drinks aboard the sail barge. Jabba is a cheap bastard.
  • Since Jabba is apparently also a sex slave trafficker, and he was killed by choking…did he find it pleasurable? I am not familiar with hutt anatomy and physiology.
  • I believe we saw Jabba’s wife in Episode 1 at the pod races. Where is she in Episode 6? What does she think about Jabba’s bipedal, chained sex slaves?
  • I am not attracted to hutts AT ALL, so why would Jabba be excited by humanoids?
  • Luke is introduced as a jedi knight in the opening title crawl and at Jabba’s palace, but then he talks with Yoda and THEN realizes that he is finally going to be a Jedi Knight after facing Vader? Continuity problem?
  • What real mom is Leia taking about? Another continuity problem, psychology snafu, or Mandela effect?
  • If you ever think the Ewoks are adorable, just remember that they worshiped as a god the 3rd-most annoying character in the Star Wars universe.  (The first goes without saying. I think the second is that Rizzo-the-rat-like creature that pecks out C3PO’s “eye” aboard Jabba’s sail barge.  Wow, Threepio is a pansy.)
  • Ewoks are boring. I am falling asleep.
  • Sorry, no way the emperor survived that.
  • Come to think of it, I am not familiar with the sex anatomy of Ewoks and Wookies. I presume their anatomical textbooks have multiple instances of prefixes beginning with “crypto” and “endo.”
  • The music is the best thing about Star Wars.
  • Bipedal is a fun word.
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Godzilla 2014 and my Visceral Hatred of its Choices

WARNING: *Spoilers*

As I mentioned before, I saw Godzilla (2014) in 3D with my son in the movie theater. At the time, I was disappointed with the story choices they made regarding killing the father off early on.

I saw the movie again on BluRay with the entire family, and I felt felt a strong, visceral hatred of the storyline- made worse by the fact that everyone was board. My girls fell asleep. My son was on the laptop Googling Minecraft stuff. My wife was into the movie at the start, but after the Hawaii sequence (the one right after he dies), she started shopping on her phone! I had to tell her to look up every once in a while so that she wouldn’t miss a nice shot, like when the son jumps out of the airplane or when Godzilla opens the mouth of the female monster and breathes fire into her. (“Why didn’t he just do that at the beginning instead of destroying the city,” she said.)

I just wasted my family’s entire evening! It was a gigantic waste of potential in exploring the divide between a father and son after the death of the wife/mother as well as the decisions military commanders and scientists make. After the father dies, I no longer care about the human story and keep looking at my watch waiting for the monsters to fight so we can get this movie over with.

I will propose ways the story could have kept me entertained, but first let me go beyond my visceral response and repeat and expound logically about the flaws in the story of Godzilla (2014):

…the Godzilla movie left me emotionally unsatisfied for 3 reasons:

  1. I thought the movie was about the father, but then they take a turn, and I guess we follow the son the rest of the movie even though the father had all the emotion in the first act.
  2. Everyone knows you don’t kill the mentor until the end of the second act.  If the father isn’t going to play the hero, then I guess he is the mentor.  They kill the father in the early second act.
  3. Fine, you kill the father early on, but you’re not going to let us see any catharsis with the father and son? Seriously, the closing image should have been the son at the father’s grave or something. Emotionally I want to see the son reconcile with his father.

Further, killing the father eliminated the only character I cared about. He’s the only character the story explored, and they don’t even reference him at all the rest of the film! His death meant nothing to anyone, not even his own son as far as we can tell.

The son is just a punk who barely says anything. He’s too quiet. Sure, he’s got a wife and kid and just came back from the Sand Box, but big deal. Why should I care about him when I just watched his father close the blast door on his mother.

Also, the filmmakers missed a great promotional opportunity with Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, played by Ken Watanabe. In every scene, he should have been carrying a bottle of Jack Daniels (or whatever brand of alcohol that would pay the most to be in the film). That’s the best way to explain his character’s broodiness.

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Fun Fact #001

The phrase “apple of thine eye” is really a mistranslation. We should be saying “Little Man of the Eye” or “Little Doll of the eye.”
If you are the little man in God’s eye that means He is watching over you so closely that whoever looks at His eyes will see you in His cornea’s reflection.

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The Problem with Godzilla (2014)

I took my son to see Godzilla in 3D on opening night. It was great that we shared the experience, but the Godzilla movie left me emotionally unsatisfied for 3 reasons:

(Spoilers ahead)

 

  1. I thought the movie was about the father, but then they take a turn, and I guess we follow the son the rest of the movie even though the father had all the emotion in the first act.
  2. Everyone knows you don’t kill the mentor until the end of the second act.  If the father isn’t going to play the hero, then I guess he is the mentor.  They kill the father in the early second act.
  3. Fine, you kill the father early on, but you’re not going to let us see any catharsis with the father and son? Seriously, the closing image should have been the son at the father’s grave or something. Emotionally I want to see the son reconcile with his father.

Anyway, other than not being emotionally satisfying, Godzilla 2014 was…fine.

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Napoleon Dynamite Goes to Mutual

We made a movie for a church talent show activity. I think it’s funny.

Make sure you watch past the closing credits for a bonus.

In case you are wondering, I wrote the script in Celtx, filmed with my 9 year old Sony Digital8 camcorder (hence the not-so-great sound), and edited it with Corel Video Studio X2.