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The Great Prequel Revival - Is It Real? Is it Happening?


BLUMENKOHL

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You all know I've spoken fondly of Star Wars music, quite a bit recently in fact.  

 

But it can never be on the same level as some other film music for one reason: the franchise itself.  

 

It's nothing to do with Williams' ability.  He can and does write at an absurd level.  But you can't truly separate a score from its film, and Star Wars films will always be second rate material.

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Perhaps the skeleton is comparable in that way, but the execution, and inclusion of the world's leading scientific authority on the subject, push it far beyond.

 

Lucas tried to take Star Wars beyond its monomyth roots, and look how that turned out.  It is, and always will be, just another iteration of the same old story we've been telling since we had big enough brains.  There's nothing wrong with that, but let's not kid ourselves about what it is.  And for the style over substance crowd: even the style isn't really all that original, is it?

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I find 'Interstellar' far from exceptional - agreeable is more like it - but in a thread packed with the usual Star Wars (plus prequels, yuck!) sad sacks with the intellectual curiosity of paramecia (how many times can you obsess over something as trivial ?) i stand behind TGP.

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I loved Interstellar, and liked it much better than Gravity, which was stunning when I saw it in 3D at Leister Square, but like Avatar didn't hold up as well on home viewing. But that said, I'd put Interstellar behind Contact, one of my all time favourites.

 

Contact, like Interstellar, also steered into overt sentimentality, but handled it a little more adeptly I think.

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I thought Interstellar was an exceptional film; sure, the actual scientific evidence behind the movie is pretty shaky, but it makes for an entertaining and thought-provoking film.

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2 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Well of course, JWFan Pretension must present a united front.  Those who make assumptions and generalizations about people they don't know to feel superior must survive through unity!

 

You shut the fuck up!

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I like lots of sci-fi films and don't spend my time ranking them against each other, nor telling others how they should feel about them.

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

I like lots of sci-fi films and don't spend my time ranking them against each other, nor telling others how they should feel about them.

 

Isn't that pretty much what 99% of sci-fi/fantasy forums are?  Ranking films and telling everyone else why their opinion sucks? ;)

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9 minutes ago, JohnSolo said:

 the actual scientific evidence behind the movie is pretty shaky, 

 

Sigh.

 

9 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

Trick question: where would you place Arrival in all that?

 

I've warmed up to that one a bit.

 

It's certainly better than the filmed amusement park ride that is Gravity.

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8 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

 

Trick question: where would you place Arrival in all that?

 

 

I wouldn't.  Then again, I wasn't as taken with Arrival as a lot of people were.  It was more a psychological drama with a trick ending then a film about first contact, and I found its maudlin tone a bit off putting. Wasn't a bad film, but I was expecting to be blown away based on all the hype and I left with sort of a shrug.

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I loved Arrival for Adams' performance.  Something about her face that's so emotionally open, yet strong.  I find it fascinating.  She's a master of the close-up performance.

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There's still so much sci-fi that is excellent and not as grazed as i. e. Dick - be it Lem, Asimov and and and - that here should be no dearth of such movies in years to come. 'Arrival' certainly wasn't a step in the wrong direction though i wish filmmakers would allow for bolder scores nowadays.

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3 minutes ago, Nick1066 said:

I wouldn't. Then again, I wasn't as taken with Arrival as a lot of people were.  It was more a psychological drama with a trick ending then a film about first contact, and I found its maudlin tone a bit off putting. Wasn't a bad film, but I was expecting to be blown away based on all the hype and I left with sort of a shrug.

 

Good answer!

 

Just now, Disco Stu said:

I loved Arrival for Adams' performance.  Something about her face that's so emotionally open, yet strong.  I find it fascinating.  She's a master of the close-up performance.

 

That's a reasonable justification. OK, we won't tell you to change your opinion on that, Mr. Stu!

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3 hours ago, Alexcremers said:

I love Star Wars but the classical pieces that Stanley placed under those images is still stunning to me today. It's not an original score, of course, but the effect it achieves is more original or less conventional than Stars Wars (which does what 99% of all movies do).  

 

I recently rewatched 2001 and the lack of music as Dave lobotomizes Hal is superb. 

 

P.S. I enjoy 2001 and Star Wars. Am I a supremely enlightened being above all of you in camp one or the other?

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Of course Han Solo was a grey character and so was Darth Vader.

 

When we first meet Han, you get the sense that our heroes might be in peril. They're trusting a criminal out to make a profit that coldly murders a fellow criminal in the bar because he owes a crimelord money. He only gets involved for money and he only rescues the Princess for money. When he returns at the end to help Luke, he redeems himself. It's the first time in the entire film we see him do anything for someone other than himself.

 

Darth Vader becomes grey from the moment we learn he's Luke's father. The villain of the OT also redeems himself at the end. There's even a brief moment where Luke seems to embrace the dark side and unleashes his rage on his father. Some of the characters are a bit more complicated than you would believe, apparently.

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I notice that people now sell the OT short in order to bash the prequels. It used to be the other way around? We can't have complicated characters and storylines, it has to be stupid! Then we get TFA...

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4 hours ago, Blumenkohl said:

 

I recently rewatched 2001 and the lack of music as Dave lobotomizes Hal is superb. 

 

P.S. I enjoy 2001 and Star Wars. Am I a supremely enlightened being above all of you in camp one or the other?


No, the best among us like both.  You must know which is the True Way, though....

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Exactly! ;)

 

Seriously, even if Han shot first (which he did) it was basically an act of self-defence...he knew Greedo was about to fry him.

 

Jamie Lannister, for example, is a grey character.  He does genuinely good, and evil things, throughout the course of that show, and we wonder which way he could go in any situation.

 

Han Solo is basically a roguish good guy, in a very long line of roguish good guys in cinema. 

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13 hours ago, publicist said:

And you're such a good person for it!

 

Good people can also mean bland and uninteresting though can't it. 

 

 

 

Quintus - only ever listens to the original STAR WARS score these days. Hasn't seen Interstellar

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I recently re-watched ESB. I had watched ANH fairly recently, ROTJ not for a while so I can't comment on that at the moment, but ESB was one I hadn't watched in ages. 

 

I'm sorry but it absolutely deserves its classic status. I was smiling ear-to-ear almost the whole time because it's just so god damn fun, and genuinely funny - I have no idea how they made the humour feel so natural. I like that we get time to see these very well fleshed out characters interact, very satisfying pay-offs for things hinted at in the first movie. it really is the perfect sequel. in fact it's ruined movies for me as of recent because nothing has made me feel that I really know the characters or feel that their interactions almost give a transcendent feeling. Yoda and the wondrous force stuff was just the icing on the cake as well. I suppose the closest I came to that feeling of watching the ESB characters was a nice little moment in Logan with Wolverine and Professor X on the road, an interaction that didn't feel like it was spouting boring exposition or really obviously stating how each character felt - it felt real and it endeared me to both characters. dialogue was also a big part, I really like the touch of naturalism in both that moment in Logan and ESB where it's not incredibly obvious this dialogue was designed to expose or show more about the character, or be this big epic cinema one-liner.

 

I've found very little movies get the aspect of characters and dialogue right and it really is a make or break for me these days. it's the only thing that was holding Rogue One back from being truly great in my opinion.

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On 4/19/2017 at 5:30 AM, Nick1066 said:

Jamie Lannister, for example, is a grey character.  He does genuinely good, and evil things, throughout the course of that show, and we wonder which way he could go in any situation.

 

Han Solo is basically a roguish good guy, in a very long line of roguish good guys in cinema. 

 

Spot on!

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