Revenge of the… Fly?
Happy New Year! We hope you all have a super-awesome-productive year ahead of you! 2011 = TESB. ;=
On New Year’s Eve Red Letter Media debuted it’s long anticipated video review of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. If you read Blue Milk Special then chances are that you probably have a pretty relaxed view of all things Star Wars and most importantly a sense of humor. There’s also probably a large portion of our readers who, like ourselves, have never been able to enjoy the Prequel Trilogy. Consider these therapeutic Prequel Trilogy reviews our group Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Red Letter Media’s fictional (we hope) Harry Plinkett produces video reviews of films with a grasp of storytelling basics that helps highlight where movies sometimes stray from the tracks. In the case of the Prequel Trilogy reviews Mr. Plinkett has a lot to talk about. The process is hilarious and cathartic and reassures that the few of us that didn’t join the bandwagon aren’t entirely alone.
All the key points are made far more eloquently than I could summarize in this blog and it is far better for you to simply watch the reviews yourself. I may not have made out with Lucas, like Mr. Plinkett had the good fortune to do, but I can still objectively say that Orson Welles and George Lucas may indeed have had a hell of a lot in common when approaching Citizen Kane / The Star Wars Prequels. Also, Plinkett mentioned the whole Jedi Robes / Tattooine Farmer Robe thing I covered back in this old post.
You can watch the excellently put together reviews of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones by following the links. These reviews are even more entertaining than those by Confused Matthew (less shouty).
Last Wednesday we tweeted about the new voting incentive strip up at TopWebComics.com starring Figrin D’ann and the Cantina Band “the Modal Nodes”. Below are some pinups from our recent Cantina Band spin-offs. See the current incentive strip here.
I’ve been watching Indiana Jones movies (with the boys) and assembling milk cartons all day, finally a vacation I can enjoy!
(I’ll send pics of the cartons).
Oh well back to the grind tomorrow.
Can’t wait for Empire!
Now here is the ultimate question, did you watch Kindom ?
Yep. We went to the theater to see it. It had a few good moments of humor, but it was waaaaaaayyyyyyy out there in terms of the original Indy trilogy. I would have thought if anyone could have challenged Lucas (in a positive constructive way) it would have been Steven Spielburg. But… I guess not.
I loved the movie even if a lot of it was a little ridiculous ,even for an Indy movie. To be fare to Lucas its hard to bring the same magic back after almost 20 years away from the series.
It wasn’t a lack of magic… it was just the plot.
Some buddies of mine were discussing future movies, and he says that in order to make that work, they would have to redo episodes 4, 5, and 6. Blasphemy aside, who do you think would be able to pull off replacing the old cast? Ewan McGregor can stay to do Obi-Wan.
Ewen and a cast of completely (or retevly) unknown actors.
I doubt Ewan would do it. I hear that he found the Prequels very tedious to work on.
Ha!! I love the album cover art!!!
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
No idea who the middle is
Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell
The Beatles – Help!
I almost spit out my drink on this one! Great strip!
I first saw Star Wars 1, the Phantom Menace as a kid, so maybe that explains it, but I don’t think the prequels were really that bad. I mean, Jar Jar gave us so many parodies! Google “Jar Jar, you’re a Genius!” The webcomic it came from is a pretty good spoof of the prequels(so far), and has some explanations for some of the more childish moments. It’s a DND version of Star Wars.
There’s a joke here somewhere that incorporates a wasp, Luke and a yellow jacket – but I’m too tired to put it together.
Them damn space-wasps! :<
Guilt, guilt… Overwhelming guilt. I’ve been real busy; and I haven’t had much time to work on Tatooinian Rhapsody. Sorry, Rod. 🙁
The review was hilarious. It also perfectly summed up my dissatisfaction with the prequels, I just don’t care about any of the characters. The characters in the originals are actually people that you can emotionally invest in.
Was watchng Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ last night. I was stunned at how believable every character was. Like in the cafe/diner/bar scene. Every one of them felt as if they had a real history and personality.
Believable, but in the case of the chick, also very retarded. Why go into that room up stairs other than for blatant suspense? I actually can’t stand The Birds. Everyone always raves about it, but as Hitchcock films go I don’t see how it can compare to The Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rear Window etc. I do like Vertigo, though more for mood and theme than plot. The Birds just made no fricking sense at all. It was too open to interpretation and supernatural for me. Too full of illogical actions done purely to create a suspense situation. Perhaps it was deliberately meant as a parody of B-horror films at the time? Anyway, I’d say The Birds actually has a lot in common with the PT.
You might want to be careful going outside in the near future, after what happened in Arkansas, they might know you said that. 😉
Appairently 1,000+ blackbirds were found dead in about a mile radius, on New Years, and word is they were not fans of “The Birds” either, cause of death unknown. 🙁
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blackbirds-20110103,0,7965604.story
My animation prof used to show The Birds as an example of good sound design (plus the Ub Iwerks animated birds) – and then he would take the piss out of Tippi Hedren, much to my chagrin as she was one of my first crushes 🙂
I got to meet Tippi Hedren at Screamfest in Orlando a few years back. I got to joke with her, Kane Hodder (Jason-Friday the 13th) and John Landus (Animal House) after Her Q&A. Her and Landus were telling off color jokes and Had Kane Hodder choking with laughter.
Yes! Rear window is such an unbelievably awesome film. The way it was implemented was fantastic.
Rope was terrific Rod. I was just struck by those characters in the cafe. Even the Fisherman. Within a minute or so he felt more real than any of the PT characters. One could argue that he’s a real world/earth person so it’s easier for the viewer to project a character and history onto him – but then what about the characters in the original SW? I really believed in Luke, Ben and Solo. Perhaps because Lucas had written back-stories for all of them during the years of rewrites and had a crystal clear vision of them, that could be communicated to the actors.
That guy’s excellent Ep.1 review gave me real food for thought when he asked people to describe the characters. They were almost lost for any idea of how to describe them. Not so with the original film.
Exactly. Yes, in that respect, The Birds is a better film. I’d definitely watch the Birds over any of the PT.
I’m glad you posted about that; I’ve been waiting for the RotS review. Too bad I’ll have to wait till this weekend to watch it. Those things are long!
This is the perfect place to show off my dorkiness: The guy was wrong, the Millennium Falcon was in RotS, albeit in a quick blink in the corner of the screen, and yes, flown by a previous owner. The back story is in the book “Millennium Falcon.” In fact, if you go to a certain website (one that doesn’t feel BMS has significance) they have a screen grab for you. I’ll give him wiggle room, though, because I believe the book came out well after the movie and likely could have been tied in by an eagle-eyed author. Besides, the YT-1300’s are supposed to have been pretty common place, so it could have been anybody’s ship. Good link though, the “Little Han” gag made me laugh pretty good!
Yeah, I thought Lucas had pretty much covered the background of everything or given a cameo to everything. Still, I guess Plinkett’s point is that the Falcon wasn’t ‘tainted’ and neither was Han Solo. The irony is that a character like Han Solo is desperately missing from the PT and part of its problem.
Plinkett cactured Lucas’ lack of creativity well by repeating the clip of George claiming everything “rhymed”. And to be fair, that in and of itself wasn’t so bad, it was the utterly pedestrian directing and dialogue that killed it long before then. A/B camera switching, with too much reliance upon CGI and “gee look at this” effects becoming the whole point of the show.
I really suspect even the first Star Wars would have been better using the Biggs footage, since we are introduced to this whole galaxy through Luke’s eyes. Young George, though, was still hooked on Japanese movies and still thought the ‘droid POV was the only important angle.
Welcome nordius. Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your journal.
Agreed. The POV is really important. I’d like to know what the POV is supposed to be in Phantom Menace? We start off with two cardboard Jedi and for a minute I feel like we’re following Obi-Wan… but it doesn’t center on any single character. ANH had not only the droids, but also Luke. Phantom Menace doesn’t introduce that little shit head Anakin until well into the film and doesn’t spend a whole lot of time centering on who he is or making us like him. Unless you’re some 40 something mom whose not really into Sci-Fi in the first place, what’s to like about Jake Lloyd’s Anakin? The weird thing is, Obi-Wan is the protege at the beginning of the film and Obi-Wan is the one whose master is slain before he defeats the bad guy. It really feels like it would have been his movie, as it seems like he’s the only one who really goes through anything resembling growth or transformation, although even that feels limp and lifeless.
That guy (whoever he is) does a really good job analyzing films but I could have done without the creepy serial killers cut ins within the reviews. The other thing is there is such a thing as overanalyzing something. As I’ve said to people when discussing the Twilight books, if I had written that it would have been 1 book. The other 3 books are a result of all the stupid decisions the characters make. Plinkett would rip those books/movies apart if he ever did review them.
Thanks for linking those reviews though. I enjoyed watching/listening to them as I did other things.
Yeah, some of the humor is a little crude for my liking and a lot of the original linking material surrounding the geek/serial killer thing often gets a little too drawn out. I’m sure for fans of those types of movies this would be funnier. Unfortunately when it comes to those cutaway moments in the review I’m more of a Groundhog Day, Galaxy Quest, Star Wars type of guy. I’ve never watched much of the horror / slasher genre.
Now BMS is just getting silly. I mean, this is totally ridiculous. What would a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant be doing on the other side of the glass?
Probably making $ as the director?
You know, I kinda hope BMS does riff off of a three-way between Young Lucas, Kasdan and Old Lucas finding too few places to leverage his CGI in.
YGL: George, you’re not going to ruin this movie like you did the last!
OGL: Oh yeah? Just whose vision is it anyway?
LK: Mine.
I would think if any real world character was added to the BMS cast in TESB it would be Gary Kurtz, not Kasdan. Do you think Kasdan would provide enough gag worthy material for BMS to include him?
I think Lucas made me gag quite enough, on his own, with the remakes thank you.
The prequels by-passed gagging, and went straight to vomit!
Wait just a gosh-darned minute. How does the straw poke through Vader’s grill?
Very carefully.
Hey, real quick- apparently there ARE Space Wasps in Star Wars.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Colossus_wasp Eu sucks, amirite?
YOU MUST SHOW PIX OF THE SPACE-FLY!
I’VE NEVER SEEN IT, AND IT’S TOO LATE TO TURN ON STAR WARS RIGHT NOW!
Okay… okay… not sure where this myth came from, but we did not parody an actual appearance of a fly in Star Wars. I just randomly made that up. I was staring at the production stills of Vader staring out the glass of the Star Destroyer bridge and the idea hit me. As far as I know there is no anecdote about a persistent fly on the window during filming. But it would be funny.
D’oh! I should have known you would have sen the Red Letter reviews!
Thankfully the serial killer shtick is at the end of most of the segments and can easily be skipped…
Wasps! Those beasts are indestructible!…