4/26/05

Wow, it's been awhile since I've blogged. Oh well, the blogging community is becoming less important in my life. I used to read up at least once a day, sometimes more. For me, it was really unhealthy. I was thinking about just shutting this thing down. But I decided, what the heck, I won't feel pressure to put up entries, I'll just do it whenever I feel like it.

So I have Star Wars on the brain right now. I was kind of thinking about going to watch one of the 12:01 showings, but my brother is coming into town later on the 19th, and I'd like to watch it with him. I like doing stuff like that with Jungho. Anyway, so it was also really important to me to watch at a digital screening. But it turns out the shows we can make are already sold out online. So we'll see, I may still be able to see it on DLP, but we may just go watch it on a regular screen, and I'll see it digitally later. Oh, I will be watching it multiple times.

So I've also decided to try to watch everything again, within reasonable proximity to Ep. III coming out. I've been watching all the documentaries on the last two, and watched the whole original trilogy recently. One great thing is that Miriam got pretty into it, and she's excited for Episode III too. I don't know, it's one of those things where it just makes me feel better when she's into it too, like we're sharing the experience. Now, I don't think it's quite as bad when I pour out new insights into various characters into her unsuspecting ears. Well, maybe it is.

I also watched the Clone Wars that Cartoon Network put out in association with LucasFilm. I pretty much wanted to watch everything that was in the Star Wars "canon," meaning everything that is pretty much approved by Lucas. The Clone Wars volume 1 is about an hour and 15 minutes, and they recently released volume 2 which is about 45 I would guess. Anyway, they fill in the space between Episodes II and III, and the last short of the cartoons leads straight into the new movie. It's pretty interesting, and you get to see a bit more of Jedi training, things like that. Obi-wan says some stuff in the last short that is pretty insightful into Anakin's eventual journey, so I'd say if you're a fan, you have to watch it to get a full idea of the story arc leading into Ep. III.

Anyway, the documentaries are pretty interesting, as most documentaries are. I like how in every film (beyond Star Wars too), the people in the documentaries talk about how everything is brilliant, the film is so awesome, the director is the best ever. Seriously, it's hilarious. Watch the commentaries on Mission Impossible 2. It's hilarious. Anyway, in Star Wars, Rick McCallum, the producer, is my favorite. Everything has a tremendous beauty or some incredibly deep insight into human character. He's a riot.

But there are good things in the documentaries too. You get kind of a sense of what George Lucas is like as a director, what he values in the movie making process, that sort of stuff. It kind of makes the movies make more sense. Danny thinks the whole pod race scene is kind of pointless in Episode I, but for Lucas, it was one of the, if not the most important sequence in the movie. He REALLY wanted to do this whole action sequence that is almost all made through computer imaging. It's actually pretty amazing, I think it looks better than a lot of the computer imaging done in the second one. Anyway, not that the scene has to be important to other people, but you get a sense of why it was important to him.

One thing I've observed while reviewing all things Star Wars.

I think Hayden Christensen is a great Anakin, and I think he will become a fantastic actor, one of the best of his generation. In 5 years or so, he may win an Oscar. Now, some might think this is preposterous, but you know, he's been pretty critically acclaimed in other films he's been in, and oustide of Star Wars, he's also had stints on the stage, which shows he's pretty interested in the craft. He could have tried to parlay his fame into some lame Ashton Kutcher type movie. Now, granted, his performance in Ep. II was fair. A LOT of this, I think, is the Lucas/Star Wars effect. But I think he had some tremendous moments too, and he definitely had an idea of how he wanted to craft the character. Now, if all you remember of his performance is when he says "I hate the sand..." then I think you're doing him and the character a disservice. Yes, there were some absolutely atrocious scenes, but there were also some good ones. Here's the thing - I feel like through his performance, and what little I've gleaned from the Ep. III trailers, that I watch Darth Vader differently now in the original trilogy. And I can imagine that it's the Anakin that Hayden has portrayed under the mask. This is why I've mentioned in the past that you have to look at the whole arc of all the movies. Like it or not, the prequel trilogy changes the original because it gives you more information and backstory of the same universe. Anyway, if you listen to what Hayden says regarding the character and how he's trying to play him, I think it's pretty insightful, especially considering he was pretty young and green while filming Episode II. So anyway, yeah, I think Hayden's a fantastic actor, and I think he'll have an outstanding career if he doesn't implode, Hollywood style. Okay, I also think he looks pretty cool in the new movie.

Anyway, as you can tell, I'm pretty Star Wars-blitzed right now. I'll try not to bore my 5 readers with another entry about it. Maybe the next time I write about Star Wars will be my "Fathers and Sons" entry. I am currently reading The Hero With A Thousand Faces.