Fans Spin in the Breeze
Apr. 13th, 2005 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eggwardsYou know, I loved almost everything Star Trek, even as the show(s) declined through the Voyager years and it seemed like they could only get their act together to do one really good Next Gen movie (First Contact) due to the producers need to do "something really big" each time. (Still, I liked Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
I pretty much left Enterprise for dead early on, although this year's shows have been a little better as you know the producers already knew it would be their last season, so they let the writers make every last retcon (change in storyline that "corrects" the story to put the new character into a past they previously weren't in - retroactive continuity) that they could before going off the air. At least it's fun to see how hard they are working trying to come up with excuses for Klingons with no big makeup jobs, even though fans never really cared, and always knew that it was just a deal with a 1960's TV show.
Then of course, there's the new Battlestar Galactica, which totally rocks my world. It's not because it's a Science Fiction show, it's that it's a science fiction show (little letters) that has a great deal of character development, much like the best Star Trek series, Deep Space 9. The fact is, the show is certainly built around a premise, a big one at that, the annihilation of a species, and now the little that's left of it is on the run. Some people have said it's too dark, but think about it, don't you think that the 70's show was actually too damned happy? Disco dancing? Entire planets were destroyed and an enemy (and the fact that the Cylons were created by man - something that wasn't the case on the old show, ratchets it up a smidge), and we have time enough to make a silly Dagget named Moppet?
I digress, It's the people, and their reactions to the situations they have been placed into that make the series work, and it's fascinating. It was also brilliant to make the villain more relatable by making the primary Cylons look like humans, and they, like terrorists, can infiltrate the fleet, further unnerving the human population. I can't wait for the next season of the show - it's definitely improved since the mini-series.
So that brings us to the big dog of all sci-fi fandom, Star Wars. There's plenty of fans out there, and many have said that the fact that there's only five, soon to be six movies helps the series avoid the problems with overexposure that the TV series suffered from (There's been somewhere around 700 episodes of Star Trek). still, the series has come under fire for the lackluster performance of Episodes I and II.
I happen to know a lot of people at work who are really looking forward to this movie. Just a couple of cubicles down from me is Jayme who has been sending trivia emails out since the beginning of the year as he's been counting down to the première. He went out last weekend and bought up every toy that went out onto the shelves, including pregnant Padme, who, he tells me, does not have "incredible birthing action".
Still, I'm left a little cold. I loved Star Wars as a kid. I spent my 10th birthday at the Alabama theater in Houston watching a showing of the original movie in 1977 (before the theater was turned into a bookstore), and within a couple of years I had every toy they could produced. I loved it. I couldn't wait for Empire and Jedi - of course in those days you actually had to wait for the movies to show up in your town.
A few years ago, before the première of Episode I, I saw the original move on TV - probably on TBS, and I was, well, underwhelmed. Suddenly the story wasn't as good as I remembered from my childhood, and the effects were just so-so. I saw it, and the other movies of the original trilogy when they were re-release to theaters, and it was somewhat better, but I knew that the love had diminished some.
The toys were sold a long time ago to play for a semester of college tuition. I still have a few of the action figures, somewhere, but they are far from being in mint condition.
Still, as Episode I approached, I was excited. Too bad it didn't last all the way through the movie. By the time it was over, i thought Lucas had killed it all. Episode II was better, but really, it ended up being a whole bunch of pretty set pieces with a few actors and a lot of digital effects moving in front of it.
Yep, I'm just asking for the hateful comments, aren't I? People live and die for Star Wars, but you know, the magical storyline was just missing in these - plot holes you could drive a truck through, characters flat as their cardboard cutout stand-ins. Why was there any reason to care for the boy/man who would be Darth Vader? What would make this story interesting enough to make it worth making three movies about?
I keep hearing the fun is in the Clone Wars animated series - I may have to go search that out.
So, Episode III is approaching next month and really, I'm not that interested. I'll probably see it in the theater, just because I saw all the others on the big screen, but I think I saw the whole thing the other day - in a movie trailer.
Of course, the problem is, you know who becomes Vader - there's no surprise there, so you would hope that there would be enough that Lucas could surprise us with to make us want to see the movie, right? Well, there in the trailer, is the climatic battle of the Jedi, lots of lava, pregnant Padme, the Chancellor tempting Anakin to the dark side, Anakin getting all pissed off, more lava, hunky Obi Wan, Yoda looking unhappy about something, Mace looking like he wants to be pissed off, but Jedis aren't supposed to be like that, more lava, C3PO being pissy, and then - Darth Vader.
I swear, if Darth freaking Vader is in the movie for more than three minutes, then Lucas just gave into all of the fanboys who wanted a Vader movie, and you might as well have just given them a new video game the could have drooled on.
The problem is, everything is in the trailer. What little surprise there could have been has been undone by the overzealous people at 20th Century Fox who decided to let everything go, and show it all. The only thing left to go see is the special effects, because you know that the story has already been laid out in front of you. What's left to really make you go to the theater besides seeing the special effects?
Oh, and I may go see it because Ewan McGregor has gotten really good looking as Obi-Won Kenobi.
Still, both Trek and Star Wars have a legacy that has not worn well with time. It's sad to see what's become of these series, and how the wrong cook can truly spoil the broth. Needless to say I won't be spending my time in line waiting for this movie, or the next Trek movie, should they make one. I can wait until the ewok hair has been cleaned out of the theater a few times before I go see the last Lucas film to make a few million.
Catch it in the theater, though, who knows what it might look like on DVD.
I pretty much left Enterprise for dead early on, although this year's shows have been a little better as you know the producers already knew it would be their last season, so they let the writers make every last retcon (change in storyline that "corrects" the story to put the new character into a past they previously weren't in - retroactive continuity) that they could before going off the air. At least it's fun to see how hard they are working trying to come up with excuses for Klingons with no big makeup jobs, even though fans never really cared, and always knew that it was just a deal with a 1960's TV show.
Then of course, there's the new Battlestar Galactica, which totally rocks my world. It's not because it's a Science Fiction show, it's that it's a science fiction show (little letters) that has a great deal of character development, much like the best Star Trek series, Deep Space 9. The fact is, the show is certainly built around a premise, a big one at that, the annihilation of a species, and now the little that's left of it is on the run. Some people have said it's too dark, but think about it, don't you think that the 70's show was actually too damned happy? Disco dancing? Entire planets were destroyed and an enemy (and the fact that the Cylons were created by man - something that wasn't the case on the old show, ratchets it up a smidge), and we have time enough to make a silly Dagget named Moppet?
I digress, It's the people, and their reactions to the situations they have been placed into that make the series work, and it's fascinating. It was also brilliant to make the villain more relatable by making the primary Cylons look like humans, and they, like terrorists, can infiltrate the fleet, further unnerving the human population. I can't wait for the next season of the show - it's definitely improved since the mini-series.
So that brings us to the big dog of all sci-fi fandom, Star Wars. There's plenty of fans out there, and many have said that the fact that there's only five, soon to be six movies helps the series avoid the problems with overexposure that the TV series suffered from (There's been somewhere around 700 episodes of Star Trek). still, the series has come under fire for the lackluster performance of Episodes I and II.
I happen to know a lot of people at work who are really looking forward to this movie. Just a couple of cubicles down from me is Jayme who has been sending trivia emails out since the beginning of the year as he's been counting down to the première. He went out last weekend and bought up every toy that went out onto the shelves, including pregnant Padme, who, he tells me, does not have "incredible birthing action".
Still, I'm left a little cold. I loved Star Wars as a kid. I spent my 10th birthday at the Alabama theater in Houston watching a showing of the original movie in 1977 (before the theater was turned into a bookstore), and within a couple of years I had every toy they could produced. I loved it. I couldn't wait for Empire and Jedi - of course in those days you actually had to wait for the movies to show up in your town.
A few years ago, before the première of Episode I, I saw the original move on TV - probably on TBS, and I was, well, underwhelmed. Suddenly the story wasn't as good as I remembered from my childhood, and the effects were just so-so. I saw it, and the other movies of the original trilogy when they were re-release to theaters, and it was somewhat better, but I knew that the love had diminished some.
The toys were sold a long time ago to play for a semester of college tuition. I still have a few of the action figures, somewhere, but they are far from being in mint condition.
Still, as Episode I approached, I was excited. Too bad it didn't last all the way through the movie. By the time it was over, i thought Lucas had killed it all. Episode II was better, but really, it ended up being a whole bunch of pretty set pieces with a few actors and a lot of digital effects moving in front of it.
Yep, I'm just asking for the hateful comments, aren't I? People live and die for Star Wars, but you know, the magical storyline was just missing in these - plot holes you could drive a truck through, characters flat as their cardboard cutout stand-ins. Why was there any reason to care for the boy/man who would be Darth Vader? What would make this story interesting enough to make it worth making three movies about?
I keep hearing the fun is in the Clone Wars animated series - I may have to go search that out.
So, Episode III is approaching next month and really, I'm not that interested. I'll probably see it in the theater, just because I saw all the others on the big screen, but I think I saw the whole thing the other day - in a movie trailer.
Of course, the problem is, you know who becomes Vader - there's no surprise there, so you would hope that there would be enough that Lucas could surprise us with to make us want to see the movie, right? Well, there in the trailer, is the climatic battle of the Jedi, lots of lava, pregnant Padme, the Chancellor tempting Anakin to the dark side, Anakin getting all pissed off, more lava, hunky Obi Wan, Yoda looking unhappy about something, Mace looking like he wants to be pissed off, but Jedis aren't supposed to be like that, more lava, C3PO being pissy, and then - Darth Vader.
I swear, if Darth freaking Vader is in the movie for more than three minutes, then Lucas just gave into all of the fanboys who wanted a Vader movie, and you might as well have just given them a new video game the could have drooled on.
The problem is, everything is in the trailer. What little surprise there could have been has been undone by the overzealous people at 20th Century Fox who decided to let everything go, and show it all. The only thing left to go see is the special effects, because you know that the story has already been laid out in front of you. What's left to really make you go to the theater besides seeing the special effects?
Oh, and I may go see it because Ewan McGregor has gotten really good looking as Obi-Won Kenobi.
Still, both Trek and Star Wars have a legacy that has not worn well with time. It's sad to see what's become of these series, and how the wrong cook can truly spoil the broth. Needless to say I won't be spending my time in line waiting for this movie, or the next Trek movie, should they make one. I can wait until the ewok hair has been cleaned out of the theater a few times before I go see the last Lucas film to make a few million.
Catch it in the theater, though, who knows what it might look like on DVD.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 05:55 am (UTC)Yeah, well, I wasn't gonna go,...
Date: 2005-04-14 07:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 08:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 08:54 am (UTC)I may have asked already and forgotten, but have you seen Firefly yet?
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 11:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 12:50 pm (UTC)I thought Episode 1 (and albeit somewhat less) Episode 2 were rushed, giant marketing schemes to sell more Star Wars toys to get the story around to what everyone wanted -- Darth Vader.
And the inclusion of like, EVERY character from the original movies (C3P0 and R2D2) was just gratuitous.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 12:52 pm (UTC)I have to disagree. Yeah, it does lose something on TV, but for a movie made in 1977, I thought the effects held up quite well, and the story is just that...a story. Unlike many other movies out today where it's all about the effects.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 01:34 pm (UTC)Having the new Cylons look like humans? It's a low budget solution to the fact that the series couldn't (or wouldn't) afford to do the robots!
Oh, and Ewan McGregor? Interesting how much he looks like Richard Chamberlain in that photo.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 02:09 pm (UTC)On a coincidential note, I just started watching Firefly on DVD. OMG, is that show great! Its one of the few pilots for a sci-fi show that I've actually liked!!
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 05:08 pm (UTC)I'm having a great day.
I clearly DID watch the show and didn't like it.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 05:13 pm (UTC)Funny you mention 2001. I just watched it again on TV the other night, and was struck as well with how well the effects held up over time, remembering it was a movie made in 1968. It didn't have the hyperrealism that Starwhatever has; it fit much more with my perception of Clarke as a "hard" sci-fi author (when he wants to be), and the scenes of Discovery en route to Jupiter were real -- no fake "warp drive" sounds that you wouldn't hear from the POV of watching a ship pass in space.
I wonder though how much of that goes to the fact that 2001 has a pretty solid story behind it, and the effects were more there because they had to be, rather than the focal point of the movie?
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 05:19 pm (UTC)I've liked Star Wars just purly as a movie to be entertained by. I will be seeing episode III with my husbear.
Actually one movie that I'm really looking forward to seeing is the "Hitchhikers Guide". I loved reading many of Douglas Adams books and the trailers to the "Hitchhikers Guide" movie looked very interesting.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 12:52 am (UTC)I really like BattleStar Galactica too. This cylon thing has mucho potential - they look human, from a medical standpoint they are human, they feel emotion, they have religion, they can get pregnant from humans... so what criteria is left for the humans to distinguish themselves as superior (or even separate)? This has overtones of "test tube baby" hysteria from twenty-some years ago, and look what a non-issue that is today.
Also, the writers get to work a racism angle, and the whole terrorism-vs-democracy angle. Definitely a show with interesting writing.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-15 04:02 am (UTC)Oh, and I may go see it because Ewan McGregor has gotten really good looking as Obi-Won Kenobi.
Yeah, but they still won't let him whip out his Light Saber…