star wars 9 spoilers and postmortem shit talk

I watched about 6 episodes of Rebels last night. It's good, isn't it? A plucky band of rebels having adventures against the Empire, occasionally showing tidbits of what normal life in the Galactic Empire is like. No Death Stars or massive bacterial Star Destroyer fleets.

i watched phantom menace and attack of the clones last night. the scene in attack of the clones where anakin finds his mother is prob my favorite scene in all of star wars, it is so sad and bleak and is filmed in deep shadows; lucas may not know from romance but he knows from grief

also the main criterion by which i defend the prequels is that lucas is no director of actors but he never loses his sense of visual style (even though the digital filming technique/splicing in of artificial backgrounds in attack is so crude that no one feels naturally placed (a feature not a flaw imo, especially in the clone factory, which is truly otherworldly)). there's a scene in the very busy lightsaber duel with dooku where he locks in on anakin's face in the dark, only illuminated in wavering flashes by his lightsaber, and it's a really lovely shot that lasts for all of five seconds

the only cgi that i feel looks very bad and even looked bad at the time are the cgi stunt doubles. just use computer graphics as a living matte painting george, i don't need to see fake jango fett rocketing through the air. (though cgi stunt doubles are also a problem in the matrix reloaded, one of my favorite movies, so whatever)

did they have a lot of cgi stunt doubles in speed racer? I don’t think they did

I feel like George could've spent a couple weeks of preproduction time on watching clips of human beings jumping. Because most filmed instances of such in the first two prequels suggest that he's working from a vague and deeply-flawed recollection of what that looks like.

AOTC in particular has lots of really interesting visual stuff going on.

The visuals improve immensely from the first film to the second imo. Compare the respective scenes on Coruscant, for example. I don't know if Lucas was just making a conscious effort to darken the palette relative to the tone, but it worked.

i think phantom menace looks gorgeous but lucas was right to go full digital bc the main thing keeping phantom menace from looking completely gorgeous is: scenes almost completely rendered in early cgi pasted onto 35mm

all in bright daytime scenes too

all muppets except keep samuel l jackson imo

Yes, in addition to the aborted Lynch SW I wish we'd also gotten a Dark Crystal-esque Henson SW. Just imagine an alternate universe where this cultural behemoth actually lives up to the hype.

oh man i MUCH prefer the look of phantom menace to the other prequels! AOTC especially has this combination of low-res digital video and really flat, even lighting (to make it easy to composite in the CGI) that for me just deadens every frame, even beyond all the flat, lifeless compositions of people standing in rooms talking to each other. whereas at least Phantom has some practical sets, actors being able to interact directly with their scene partners, etc.

love that Brad is a prequel stan though, and i'm with you on the matrix sequels <3

I've still never seen the Matrix sequels. next sick day, maybe

I think the action stuff in AoTC is superior to that in the other prequels.

AOTC especially has this combination of low-res digital video

shot in glorious 720p iirc

Rewatching Phantom Menace, the set design reminded me of nothing so much as The Wiz, with these huge, intricately-decorated expanses that had been inhabited by a sum total of twelve people throughout their existence.

Like we heard a lot about the residents of Naboo but it sure seemed to me that the non-Gungan populace could've fit in a medium-sized VFW.

shot in glorious 720p iirc

― 'Sly Cooper' Movie Breaking Into Theaters In 2016 (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, January 9, 2020 8:44 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's 1080

brad there totally making me want to rewatch all the prequels right now lol (in addition i guess to being on deadline and procrastinating like fvck today)

I think the action stuff in AoTC is superior to that in the other prequels.

― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, January 9, 2020 10:43 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

darth maul lightsaber fight ftw in that regard

the darth maul fight is so fucking good

almost as good as donnie yen in rogue one!

I like AOTC but is her radical message damaging democrat prospects in purple states

darth maul fight obv great but what other worthwhile action setpieces in the first film besides that? I really dig the clone factory fight/ arena/clones vs droids blowout in AoTC.

I actually prefer the quick little sparring match with Maul on Tatooine but .... yeesh even digging into my memory for good stuff in these prequels is exhausting!

i guess i don't really think of phantom menace as much of an action movie. pod racing rivals all of those things tho xp

agreed that the last thirty-forty minutes of aotc are just one cool thing happening after another though

I watched about 6 episodes of Rebels last night. It's good, isn't it? A plucky band of rebels having adventures against the Empire, occasionally showing tidbits of what normal life in the Galactic Empire is like. No Death Stars or massive bacterial Star Destroyer fleets.

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, January 9, 2020 9:13 AM bookmarkflaglink

Yes, absolutely

also the main criterion by which i defend the prequels is that lucas is no director of actors but he never loses his sense of visual style

There's a particular scene in TPM that always stands out to me this way -- it's not the final Darth Maul fight but the one he has on Tatooine with Qui-Gon, and there's a quick sequence -- maybe no more than five, ten seconds at most but surely not that long -- where there's no dialogue, simply a slew of sharply edited cuts in the fight, pulling in closer each time, where pretty much almost all you see is slashing lightsabers, Maul's dark clothes flowing over a backdrop of sand, etc. A more immediately dynamic visual sequence than almost any of the duels in the original trilogy.

Yeah, it's good. Qui-Gon becomes aware of Maul's sudden presence and reacts almost before the audience has a chance to register what happened.

Are...are we spearheading the critical reevaluation of the prequels itt? I certainly think that's what's happening here.

Yousa in deep doodoo, Lunch

People have been pretty consistent in terms of maintaining that the prequels would be much better as silent movies.

And with the power off

I feel like George could've spent a couple weeks of preproduction time on watching clips of human beings jumping.

Look, he knows that human beings are smooth and not rough like sand. What more can we ask of him?

also: Are the people in the Star Wars movies humans?

Look, he knows that human beings are smooth and not rough like sand. What more can we ask of him?

― Drive Like a Demon From Steakhouse to Steakhouse (Old Lunch),

take it to the gay thread, sailor

I like how this thread has reached "huh this latest bowl of shit didn't taste so good, I wonder if that pile of vomit I ate 20 years ago is as bad as I remember it - BETTER REVISIT" territory

a number of people itt actually like the prequel films

TBF, the two I just watched were about as good ('good') as I remember them being the first time around. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that the third is gonna suffer by comparison when I watch after finishing The Clone Wars. Because you'd expect the work of a culturally iconic director to pale when compared to an attendant TV spinoff that looks like a Jak & Daxter cutscene.

Ned and Old Lunch upthread: that's the fight scene I was talking about! Just "Get on the ship!" and a lovely blur of action and then on to the next boring beat.

watching revenge of the sith tonight

https://i.imgur.com/bPBRfck.jpg

from my point of view, the jedi are evil!

Evil is a bit of a stretch, but definitely dickheads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llLKar19XhA

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a Naboo Senator your wife

jeez i really love revenge of the sith

i feel like the whole "you're so beautiful" "it's only because i'm so in love" "no it's because i'm so in love with YOU" exchange got a lot of shit but it's stilted bc they're lying to each other. the scene afterward where anakin tells padme about his prophetic dream of her death is prob the best acting christensen and portman ever did together

i do sometimes wish this movie were 100 percent shots of anakin and/or padme looking at coruscant at night

everyone is so depressed