Welcome back to the Comic Binge everyone! To combat the premature holiday season, I am continuing in the spirit of Halloween with horror in both movies and books. I was forwarded a list in mid-October that stated the 10 scariest manga series in existence. Quite a few of them were impossible to get a physical copy for, but I was able to grab the first five volumes of a series called Dragon Head. Though five volumes is not much for a manga series, I am definitely hooked and have sought out the rest to complete the story. The story starts with a teen boy survivor of what appears to be an entirely fatal train crash. Demolished in the subway, a train full of dead bodies and grave sights is inhabited by our first survivor. As he journeys around the tunnels, of course panicking about his survival and rescue, he stumbles upon another survivor. Once a female survivor who is unconscious and bleeding is placed between them, the book starts to escalate. Our second survivor becomes enthralled with the magic of the caverns that they are now stuck in. A monster lurks in the shadows and the darkness of their trainwreck, and as it starts to take one of the survivors, the girl’s life hangs in the balance between the two. Not until the fifth volume was the Dragon Head aspect touched upon, so I’m really interested to see where it goes. The pacing is a bit slow, but I usually expect that for manga series just because the way the typical stories unfold. However, I did thoroughly enjoy this title. It has it’s messed up moments and I think the evil is definitely heading to unexplored places. I’m really interested to see what happens with our psycho survivor, who continues to haunt the other two from the darkness. This is a good manga read and would probably make a decent movie, especially for horror fans.
Next up this week I dug deep into the list of horror items that I’d been wanting to get my hands on. Creepy magazine surfaced in the early 1960s, and sort of embodies all of what made Twilight Zone and similar shows so great. It was changing storytelling at the time, and highlighting horror and “creepy” as a mainstream source of storytelling. Digging into these Creepy Archives volumes led me to some classic tales, the majority of which I have read or seen at this point in my life. However, knowing that these books are the predecessors to most of what I know, it was entertaining to see how these stories were illustrated and told to audiences 50 years ago. With each volume, the stories got a little more complex and unique, as the first volume with the first five issues contained a lot of classic stories. I enjoyed this about the first book, as it contained retellings of a lot of the classic horror tales like Frankenstein and Tell-Tale Heart. The artwork for the time is also great, and it’s no wonder that these artists came to be well-known names. Usually artwork makes or breaks older comics for me, and black and white ones are really tough reads nowadays. This book on the other hand, was super easy to read and keep up with. They did take a bit of effort to get through, especially in a few sittings, but it was well worth the journey through the experiences of Creepy magazines. They even leave the old advertisement pages in these Creepy Archives volumes, which adds to the retro horror feel of reading these books as presented here. Another must read for die-hard horror fans.
The Phantom Menace exists folks. I know. It is such a crime. It is almost as if people are treating Episode I today like our parents treated Faces of Death back when I was growing up. I know people who want to keep it as far away from their kids as possible. That, my friends, is ridiculous. Acknowledge its faults -which I am going to do here- but do not treat it as a sort of black eye George Lucas gave you when you went to theaters in 1999. Let them decide for themselves.
Whew. Now that I got that out of the way, let’s get to the movie shall we?
Background: After 1983’s Return of the Jedi came and swooped that year’s box office title with a thrilling conclusion, people thought Star Wars was done. However, I remember reading interviews with George Lucas in the weeks leading up to Jedi‘s release (my mom used to get People Magazine and I would, even as a six year old, go through it just looking for movie related articles) and he was saying he still has ideas of stories he would like to tell about that galaxy far, far away. The problem is that effects standards were not up to speed yet. His vision, he proclaimed, was beyond the reach of what modern technology could handle. In other words, let me make Howard The Duck and Willow before I start thinking about how to progress with plans for a new Star Wars story.
Fast forward to 1993. After baring witness -and even helping with post production while his friend Steven Spielberg was out on location with Schindler’s List– to the Spielberg directed epic Jurassic Park, Lucas was convinced the time to start with new Star Wars tales was upon him. Park‘s realistic computer imagery astounded audiences and filmmakers alike, and Lucas decided to test the computer generated imagery -or CGI- standards by fulfilling his ‘true vision’ of what his original trilogy should have been when he originally filmed it with only 70s and 80s technology at his disposal. After audiences showed up to these re-releases in droves, Lucas concluded that he could now start with his telling of Darth Vader’s back story.
As for me, by the time The Phantom Menace had started production, I kind of wavered in my Star Wars fandom. My toys were put away in the garage, I had just graduated high school, and I was starting to tip my toes in the waters of real life. Believe me, I was in no hurry to grow up. But with filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, M Night Shamylan, and David Fincher out there, at the cusp of their primes and setting new standards with their storytelling ways, Star Wars just wasn’t ‘cool’ to me anymore. Goodbye Star Wars. Hello Pulp Fiction.
I would go to friends’ houses and they would scoop up every magazine cover featuring that spiked red headed figure that they could. But I would turn a blind eye to all of them. I would skim the Star Wars articles to see what this new science fiction story featuring a main character named Neo was all about. Or how a low budget horror movie about a group of kids getting lost in the woods had captured the pulses of audiences so many other directors could not even dream of finding. It was a new era of film, and I still say to this day that has a lot to do with how The Phantom Menace is perceived today.
Still, even with all that ambivalent energy leading up to Star Wars Episode I, I remember seeing its trailer before Wing Commander and Meet Joe Black, and finding that as much as I did not want to admit it, I WAS looking forward to The Phantom Menace. As was my father. So on one hot April day, I approached the box office of our recently opened movie theater and bought two advanced tickets. One for my father and one for me, with a little gold plated heart that I got for a $2.00 donation to charity. There was no escaping now. We wouldn’t be waiting in lines for weeks. But a smile creased my face as I felt a tinge of that excitement I had as a child enter my body like a sneaky thirst.
What I Thought Then: Going into the theater that May evening was sheer excitement. I did not read reviews of the film going in. Though I was a huge Howard Stern listener back then, and as you’d imagine, his on air review of the film the week before its release was not overwhelmingly positive. In fact, it was just the opposite. Yet, this was a night out at the movies with my father. Lightsaber battles were breaking out in the staging area in front of the screen. My father looked at me and thanked me that I was not out there with them. I looked at him and expressed a hearty ‘you’re welcome.’ also exclaiming I would never do that. But something deep down inside REALLY wanted to!
The movie started and when that theme hit those speakers, I was in awe. Here I was, on the first day of The Phantom Menace‘s release, and I was seeing a brand new Star Wars vision onscreen! It was at that moment I felt like the kid I was at Return of the Jedi. Wide eyed, I took in the CGI’d elements, and didn’t even have too much a grip on what the story was. I was enlightened by all the battles, the way the Jedi took out droids with kicks and strokes. It felt like magic had befallen us, and even as a little character named Binks permeated a lot of frames, I was taken into Lucas’s mind of what he envisioned Vader being as a child. The final frames hit, and Dad and I had left, still talking about the awe inspiring images we had seen.
As we left the theater, we came upon a couple college friends of mine who were also in the theater with us. We spoke about what we had seen, and they were convinced it was everything they envisioned and more. I honestly do not remember what we spoke about that day in the car on the way home. But I do remember thinking, something is just not right. Especially when my father brought up the fact that he didn’t remember midichlorians ever coming up in the last trilogy.
I saw The Phantom Menace two other times in theaters. Once with a huge Star Wars fan whose wedding I was three years away from being in. Bet you can’t guess what their theme was? And it was on this viewing where I had the ET scene pointed out to me. Very cool callback to your buddy, George.
Though it was the third and final time I saw it in theaters which told me the most about the film and how much it had failed at what it was trying to do. Though he is now, my (at the time) six year old brother was not a huge Star Wars fan. I took him to theaters to see The Phantom Menace, thinking it was going to be a fun time at the movies for both of us. We stopped by Taco Bell, grabbed some lunch, and sat down to watch the movie. Around the time the story moved to Tatooine, I looked at my brother, the core aimed at audience, and he was fast asleep. The audience Lucas had tried so hard to reach, millennials if you will, had been sleeping away as his new creation Jar Jar Binks was yukking it up onscreen. Here is when it finally hit me. Lucas, for all intents and purposes, had failed in his attempt to reach in and grab the hearts of a brand new audience. Instead, he put them to sleep.
What I Think Now: Look. I am not going to sit here and try convincing people how misunderstood a masterpiece The Phantom Menace is. It has almost none of the magic I would widely relate to while watching the other trilogy. It had none of the characters I loved so much. Oh yeah. Ewan McGregor was lingering around as Obi Wan. But does a new audience really CARE how these people from a trilogy made in the 70s and 80s came to be? I feel that is a massive part of the prequel trilogy’s overall biggest issue. It did not tell us anything we did not already know. Except, of course, for the fact that midichlorians determine a biological reason why you are either born a Jedi or not. So how many midichlorians does Luke have?
Watching The Phantom Menace today, I can still get past a lot of the complaints people have against it. Taken in context of the entire saga itself, I think the film fits in rather well. It certainly has some awesome battles -though I still find some big issues with the final space battle- and seeing the inner workings of how the Empire came to power gets more interesting the more times I watch it. In the final act of Return of the Jedi, we were treated to a ground, a lightsaber, and a space battle. We get all of those once again in The Phantom Menace. You can’t fault Lucas for going for a formula that didn’t carry results.
I still take a lot more positives out of the film than most. I find the podrace to be an exciting and innovative way of showing Anakin’s ability to think his way out of any situation no matter what it may be. I enjoyed seeing Artoo spreading his heroic wings earlier than we had imagined. I enjoyed seeing the magnificent final lightsaber duel, where Obi Wan learns to control his emotions, therefore defeating Darth Maul and saving the galaxy from more of his menace. And before people start messaging me about how Maul should have lived, I will just say let it go. This was not a story about Maul. It was about Palpatine’s imperial plan to rule the galaxy. So, stop with that movement. I don’t care what canon says he has lived, he is done. Enough.
In Conclusion: All of the things people criticize about The Phantom Menace -and all the prequels as a whole- I can certainly make cases for existing the entire saga. It’s just, after a decade and a half, Lucas’s world was now mixed with the likes of Tarantino, Fincher, Zemeckis, Jackson…..
The list goes on and on. But seeing The Phantom Menace today is not the horrible experience people make it out to be. Sure, Jar Jar gets some very uninspired comedy in, and there are not any of the heart tugging moments we saw so many of in The Empire Strikes Back. But seeing Darth Vader as a child, one who rests with the entire galaxy fifteen years away from being his for the taking, is not nearly as bad an experience as, say, a movie featuring autobots and decepticons.
The one where Ammon sets the time and thinks he’s running shit. Jack Valley is on the case.
0:00:00-Here we fucking go.
0:01:24-Ammon is on time? What the hell is this horseshit? Moreno is off playing extreme Monopoly but he’ll be on later. Fucking asshole. Episode IV aka Jack Valley shows up. Star Wars Commentaries are coming at you like tie fighters, dawg, so check them out. Hottie Fantasy League analysis because it’s goddamn important.
0:27:45-TV ROUND UP. Valley has a hard on for The Flash. Fargo discussion. Law is giddy like a five year old over Ash vs. Evil Dead. Jack is pretty much the same. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Casting as Negan on The Walking Dead is debated. With Bob and David? Yeah.
0:54:55-GOOGLE VOICE. So loist toime I cawlled
1:23:53-LITERALLY LITERARY. Ammon covers Stephen King’s book of short stories, called The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. Law is almost interesting with David Spade’s Almost Interesting. Jack alerts you all that’s he’s got a lot of articles coming to the site. Moreno shows up. Jesus.
1:45:40-WHAT DID YOU WATCH? Episode IV gets shit going with The Right Stuff. He also tackles Spectre, which has gotten severely bitched about in the past couple of weeks. Law checked out Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of National Lampoon. He laments Robin William’s last movie, Absolutely Anything. Ammon gets his ass to Mars with The Martian. It all ends with discussion of the best movie ever, which is goddamn motherfucking titty sucking chicken clucking Blue Crush. YES.
Well another EA title, and another opportunity to play it before anyone else. This time it is the much anticipated (at least for me) Star Wars Battlefront. I played the Demo/Beta a few weeks back and was immediately blown away by the graphics. The game is absolutely stunning and I frequently found myself taking in the atmosphere, unfortunately that usually meant I was seconds away from getting taken out by enemy AI or some 12 yr old in Wyoming.
First off there are 2 game modes, multiplayer and single player. As with most FPS/TPS these days, the focus here isn’t on the solo stuff. Here you get three single player (up to 2 people online or splitscreen) modes, Training, Battles, and Survival. Training is, well, training. Battles are your standard score to 100 fare, however there are 2 modes, regular and Hero mode. Hero mode puts you in the shoes of Luke, Han, or Leia or Vader, Palpatine, or Fett, depending on which side you are playing on. You can also choose to have friendly AI support or if you want to play the Hero side completely solo. There are also 3 levels of difficulty to choose from with higher rewards for each tier. Then there is the Survival mode which is essentially Horde mode Star Wars Style.
The multiplayer mode is where the variety lies with 9 different game modes, which are: Supremacy, Walker Assault, Fighter Squadron, Blast, Cargo, Drop Zone, Droid Run, Hero Hunt, and Heroes Vs Villians. The battlefield ranges from 6-40 depending on game mode so things can get pretty intense. I have only so far played Blast (Team Deathmatch) but had a ton of fun doing it, even when I was getting smoked. Playing multiplayer will allow you to accumulate credits which you can use to unlock character skins and weapons. 187 usable unlocks and 20 collectible unlocks at launch. Your XP turns into credits which you can use to purchase the majority of these items, there is also a companion app which you can link to accumulate credits or inspect your career stats.
As with every game these days people are going to complain about lack of content and variety. Personally I’m fine with what is available at launch, then again I also don’t have the time to immerse myself in 5 different games at any one moment so that may be why. Either way you get 4 maps for the single player stuff and 9 for the multiplayer with more coming way of DLC. Currently the Season pass is $50 which means purchasing that plus the deluxe version of the game will set you back about $120. Crazy it seems but until people stop paying it I don’t see that changing. Ever. I will be waiting for a deep DLC discount, the other option is to wait for the eventual GOTY edition but who wants to wait that long? While I was going to pick this up for the PC, enough of my gaming companions will be playing the console version so you can find me battling against (or for) the Empire on my Xbox.
Battlefront releases this Tuesday November 17th or you can start playing today via EA Access.
Welcome to week two of Binge Sports’ Luke Norris and me sitting and commiserating about the Rocky franchise. One thing I want to say right off the bat. In week one, we went over Rockys I and II, going over each plot point. We ended up going just under two hours. Here, we hit the two ‘popcorn flicks’ of the series, Rocky III and IV. While doing two of the films with the least amount of plot, what do us two assholes do? Go OVER two hours. Oscars, Schoscars. Let’s talk about Rocky ending communism!
Some of the things gone over in this epic podcast:
Why does Paulie waste a good bottle of liquor by throwing it into a cool Rocky pinball machine?
Why is Sly so damn handsome?
What the hell does Rocky say when Mickey dies?
Just what did Paulie do with that robot?
Why didn’t Rocky turn around and run after Drago says ‘I must break you?’
What Rocky IV moment actually got me to get up and cheer like an asshole in the theater?
How much of Rocky IV‘s budget was spent on the James Brown production?
Why was Hogan FIRED for doing Rocky III?
How the hell did Sly include Christ metaphors in the ultra montage heavy Rocky IV?
Why isn’t Rocky’s eye a concern anymore?
How did Dolph Lundgren scare home invaders away, without even being there?
Why haven’t we christened Rocky for ending Communism?
Thanks once again to Luke for coming on this run down Rocky memory lane with me. Keep coming back week after week until we get to Creed, the upcoming Rocky spin-off film being released November 25th from Warner Brothers.
Starring: Christopher Abbot, Cynthia Nixon, Scott Mescudi, Ron Livingston, Makenzie Leigh, David Call, and David Cale
James White, the outstanding directorial debut of Josh Mond, is an integral look at how familial loss can warrant a change in one’s life and persona. It is about an unwillingness to grow up even when the most outstanding of circumstances requires you to do so. It is also about the title character’s struggles, both mentally and physically, to accept what his real lot in life consists of. In short, however, James White is one of the most involving character studies of the past year. If you have any heart left by the time the film is over, you will more than likely use that last ounce to tell your loved ones just how much you love them. I sure did. But I am telling you right now. I also loved this film.
James White is about a New York slacker of the same name. He does not have too many goals in life, other than partying it up with friends and not getting home until the dawn hours of the morning. When he attends the service of his recently deceased father, he slowly realizes his cancer stricken mother Gail (Nixon) might not be far behind. Uncomfortable with any realm of responsibility, White goes to the comfort of his friend since childhood Nick (Mescudi), and together they embark in bar brawls and other feelings of heightened masculinity. Amongst all of this, Gail’s once remissed cancer returns, leaving James no choice but to grow up. Otherwise his mother will die knowing she never got to see her son become a man.
James White is not a film as grief stricken as its plot suggests. It is filled with fun anecdotes and feelings of positive energy throughout. But where White truly excels is in its unwillingness to cater to its audience. There is an audience friendly film waiting to come out of this smartly written seeming real life situation. But Mond keeps the film grounded, vigorously using hand held camera angles to propel his film’s realness to the audience.
As far as performances go, across the board James White excels. White as a character could come across as a jerk whose unwillingness to grow up and stare life in the face should make us hate him. But Abbot has a way of glaring and making us see the adulthood waiting to explode out his body that makes us love him in return. On the other side of the coin, a cancer stricken role would seem to be an easy Oscar nomination grabbing attempt by anyone in the business. But whether it was or wasn’t, Nixon is superb in the role of Gail. Always on the mend but never too weak to look as if she is trying too hard, Nixon finds a balance that makes the role work miles ahead of how it should. Livingston, who has quietly been making quite a name for himself in little indie roles such as this, is excellent as a family friend who offers White a chance to interview at a New York magazine. Mescudi (who also composed the score) does a great job as the friend who is holding Jack down without him knowing it.
James White works due to its unpredictable and well acted energy. It is a movie I would recommend watching and showing to anybody of a young adult age. It seems growing up is not in the cards for many people roaming around New York, or life in general. But Mond is not talking down to those who don’t. He is simply pointing out the circumstances that warrant what could happen if you can’t, and how someone could possibly reach down deep enough to make it so. James White is not only my favorite movie of the year. It is also the most palpable. I recommend seeing it as soon as you can, and then putting all energies into becoming who you truly are, as opposed to who you want to be.
MovieFreak told us to fuck off again (that guy’s a dick) so Batch and I talked about his love of Fallout 4, my disdain for short video games, our mutual liking of Battlefield Hardline and much, much more. This week we started a fresh game of Borderlands: The Pre Sequel. You can watch and listen below.
1983 was the peak of my Star Wars fan craze. I was six years old, watching Saturday morning cartoons on an everlasting loop, and playing with Star Wars toys. I also had the books, the records -sometimes combined- and the wallpaper. I was not the mostly cynic person you know today. Advertisers, seeing the money to be had, would advertise Return of the Jedi every other commercial break. You could not watch The Smurfs without seeing a series of moving images involving Luke with a green lightsaber hacking away on Jabba’s barge. THIS, as they said, would be it.
Background: Raking in the benefits of spearheading two huge franchises (Star Wars and Indiana Jones) George Lucas was nonetheless in a stressful time of his life. He was coming off a divorce from the person many say saved Star Wars from obscurity, film editor Marcia Lucas, and still wanted to hand his series off to other directors so that he would not put up with the ‘burden’ of working with actors. After his war with the Director’s Guild forebode him from hiring his friend Steven Spielberg, Lucas asked The Empire Strikes Back‘s Irvin Kershner to come back for a second go around. But the former university professor turned Lucas down, citing a massively stressful shoot and mounting pressures that he did not want to live up to again. Lucas even famously had a meeting with a hot at the time commodity known as David Lynch. Lynch was coming off his hugely successful, Oscar nominated film The Elephant Man and was looking to do something in the science fiction realm. But something tells me the quirky Lynch did not see himself meshing well with the visionary but very hands on Lucas, and passed on the project. The fact he decided to take Dune instead is a topic to be discussed another day.
Less famously, Lucas took a meeting with Canadian B movie schlock director David Cronenberg. Now THERE’S a match made in hell if I ever saw one, and reports indicate that meeting didn’t get much past the hand shaking/greeting phase.
Enter Welsh filmmaker Richard Marquand. Coming off the character drama Eye of the Needle, in Marquand Lucas saw a man who knew how to work with actors and would allow Lucas to concentrate on the technical aspect of the film. Though future recounts by actors and crew members on the film say Lucas ended up doing a lot of the film’s directing. If he wasn’t telling Marquand how the Ewoks walk, he was getting in arguments with him over the film’s overall vision. Now there is a line a producer walks when producing a film. But you have to remember. This was Lucas’s baby (as Steven Spielberg will point out to him while the prequels were in the planning stage), and his hands on approach might be looked at as a filmmaking version of bullying. But if this indeed was going to be the series’ swan song, I don’t blame the man for wanting to get it right.
As for me personally, I believe I already outlined what my expectations were going in. I was all set to see Return of the Jedi on the big screen, and NOTHING was going to stop me. My father seemed to be almost as anxious as I was, and we were all set to see the movie we had waited three years to see. You have to remember. The end of Empire was a HUGE cliffhanger. I still was trying to wrap my head around whether Darth Vader was telling the truth about his father’s true fate, and we had no idea how -or if- Han was going to be fully rescued. Though I DO specifically remember a TV ad that had the funny exchange with Han and Luke in Jabba’s palace which goes like this:
Han: Together again huh?
Luke: Wouldn’t miss it.
Han: How we doin?
Luke: Same as always.
Han: That bad huh?
But this time, we were not going to the film alone. We dragged my mom to the movies with us. Now I was too young to know under what circumstances my father was finally able to get my mother to see the film with us. But I know for a fact she was not as excited as we were. Maybe it was sheer curiosity. No matter the circumstances, I have not heard the last of how she felt afterward.
What I Thought Then: Though I didn’t realize it at the time, Return of the Jedi was everything I could have asked for and more. It was bigger than life. It had huge space dog fights. It had massive amounts of new characters (MERCHANDISING!). And it had Luke being the one who brings balance to the Force. It was a tour de force (rim shot) of everything Star Wars. I don’t remember much about that late 1983 night at the movies. But I DO remember nudging my mother every thirty minutes or so asking when they were going to finally use lightsabers. The lightsaber battles were so exciting to me, that I did not care about Luke’s emotional tug of war with the Emporer.
I also had a love/hate relationship with the Ewoks. Though not in the way most do. They were some of the funniest things about the film to me. But one thing always disturbed me. People like to remember the Ewoks as being ‘cute,’ and ‘cuddly.’ However, I remember being traumatized by the fact that these ‘cute’ and ‘cuddly’ things were about to roast our heroes for dinner. It wasn’t until I saw the future Ewok movies and indulged in some book and record stories containing the furry creatures that I finally was able to accept them. Of course, the fact they helped our heroes in the end also helped.
As far as my immediate thoughts after seeing the movie, I don’t think I was really able to process what I had just seen. A fact which is startling to me, because three years earlier, at the ripe old age of three, I had questions galore. As I said in my last column, I could not stop talking about Empire in its aftermath. Here, I had underlining feelings, no doubt. But Return didn’t really register with me until months later, when I would read about it and process it. I am not sure if that makes it good or bad. All I knew was that Darth Vader ended up being something I was not sure I liked. What did I do right after the movie was over? Well, I slept like I was supposed to (we ended up going to a late showing.) And then, got up early to watch Empire on our front room VHS. Because I wanted to remember Vader as the bad ass he was.
What I Think Now: On its surface, Return of the Jedi isn’t any more complicated than the first two Star Wars films. But it took awhile for me to understand that there is something deep past its surface which makes it something so much more. Though I will say, in watching it now, I can point out one thing I think almost kills it, and that’s its acting.
Last week, I could not stop praising how good a job Carrie Fisher did in Empire‘s most dramatic scenes. She had to do a lot of acting with her eyes, and she did it well. It is a skill in acting which is harder than you might think. Having said that, the difference between her then and here is astounding. Fisher is terrible in Jedi. Don’t get me wrong. I am not discounting the work she does in Jabba’s palace. From being Jabba’s destroyer to having another swinging moment with Luke (of course, the slave outfit too), Leia has some fine moments. But after these scenes, Fisher is merely background noise. She has an embarrassing few lines when Luke is getting ready to leave to confront Vader, and her recount of the ‘I know’ line from Empire is cringe inducing.
Across the board, Return‘s acting is pretty insufferable. Though I don’t think it is all the actors’ fault. You need a sturdy hand when it comes to pulling off a science fiction storyline. It isn’t too often that you can see a behind the scenes tug of war come across onscreen. But I feel it is pretty evident the more you watch Return. Lucas is feeling forced to direct scenes he did not deem filmmable, and the result is not too pretty.
Though the good news is there is still plenty to love about Jedi without having to dwell on its inadequacies. The Emporer, a character we had heard about for two straight films, finally makes his presence known in Return of the Jedi. Played by Ian Mcdiarmid, the evil ruler is scary and menacing. He also has a laugh that is as maniacal as it is gleeful. The folly artists did a great job of echoing it every single time he uses it. The entire triangle storyline with him, Vader, and Luke is magnificent filmmaking, as the drama between them builds and builds until its climax. As a child, I did not understand that Luke was not going to fight his father unless he absolutely had to. I also did not understand how the evil one sitting in the chair wanted it to happen just as much as I did.
There are also quite a few subtle moments I did not pick up on before that I did in this last viewing. For example, right after Luke is captured and brought before his father, they have a discussion about how Vader is hiding the fact he was once Anakin Skywalker. The conversation ends with Vader sending Luke away, and there is a slight moment of what seems to be reflection. Vader, by himself, stands and looks into what seems to be nothingness, almost as if he is contemplating what he is eventually going to end up doing at the film’s climax.
There is also a slight bit of symbolism here that I had not noticed before. Right after Luke cuts off his father’s hand (following the best crescendo John Williams has ever composed), Luke is congratulated by the Emporer, and slowly looks at his own hand. As he does this, it is in the red lights of the throne room itself, symbolizing blood and the blood lines at war. I have no idea why it took this long for me to notice that, and whether it was Lucas or Marquand (or screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan), it is an outstanding way of outlining a family plight.
Earlier I dogged the scene with Luke & Leia when Luke reveals he has to leave. But there is one moment in that series of scenes which I love. After Luke leaves, Leia is crying and greeted by Han Solo, who comes out to see what is going on. After asking her if she is ok, she tells him she cannot tell him what was said. Han implies she told Luke, therefore showing a hint of jealousy. Seeing the situation as being hopeless, he throws his hand in the air and makes like he is going to walk off. Now the old Han, the one we met in Star Wars, would do exactly that. But this time, he turns back, and softly tells Leia that he is sorry. It is here that we know he is in love with her, and that he has in fact changed. I guess being encompassed in carbonite will do that to someone.
Overall, a revisit to Return of the Jedi merited a lot more positive feelings this time than bad. Despite some pretty bad acting, I still enjoy the hell out of it. It is a fitting conclusion to a series that indeed revolutionized cinema. Wait, were there more?
In Conclusion:Return of the Jedi marked the end of an era. Yes, there were more Star Wars movies to come. But I would never again be that innocent six year old child waiting with baited breath to see the characters I had followed for so long be either christened or damned onscreen. It marked a family outing that I still remember to this day, and isn’t that truly what going to the movies are all about? Memorable experiences?
I will get into my feelings about Star Wars leading up to Episode I: The Phantom Menace in next week’s column. But for now, I will say Star Wars defined so many childhoods I don’t feel one column each about all the films is enough. The Jedi would return. But the feelings of astonishment that came with being a child would not.
Ammon keeps showing up later and later. I’m pretty sure he will eventually just stop calling and we won’t even notice. So sad.
0:00:00-Shit gets started
0:01:55-Ammon is….? The fuck if we know. Law talks about attending church. Holy fuck. Get it? Star Wars commentaries are plugged. Listen to them cause you have nothing better to do, right? Apparently a new segment is back that is loathed by the Bingecast boys. GODDAMNIT.
0:09:15-TV ROUND UP. Season Finale of Project Greenlight and the movie tie in The Leisure Class get discussed. Both are rated. Fargo is still amazing. Aziz Ansari’s new show Master of None is pretty damn good. The boys bitch about Ammon and Sundays/they get off tangent so fuck TV round up.
1:02:39-Pete MC makes a cameo on the Binge!
1:11:22 Sounder drop wars begin, bitch.
1:24:06-GOOGLE VOICE. 5 fucking voicemails. New sounder to start the segment, yo!
1:55:53-Ammon finally fucking shows up. Google Voice presses on. Project Greenlight gets brought up again. Jesus Christ.
2:36:11-RECAP OF BINGE BULLSHIT
2:43:00-MOVIE HOMEWORK: Sam Raimi’s The Gift. Gotta love those Katie Holmes tittays
3:08:11 WHAT DID YOU WATCH? Ammon dissects Spectre. Law checked out I Smile Back. There’s more Star Wars talk because it takes precedence over all other life matters. Don’t stop get it get it.