(no subject)

[ebonlock]

First, a PSA for those who might not have caught tersa's posting of this and are local to the Bay Area:

[Books Inc. is holding a] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince party Friday, July 15th at 11pm, complete with costume contest and prizes, and with 20% of all sales of the book that night going to a local arts charity.

I'm so there and kickin' it as Trelawney, I need to memorize her speech to Hermione about her soul being all withered up like the books to which she so desperately clings. I have a feeling I'll need it. I'll pick up a copy of the book that night to tide me over until my real one comes from England. The money's going to charity and I can always find a home for it afterwards.

Had a great time getting to see jakejr and elo_sf this weekend, it seems like forever since I spent time with either and I've missed them both. And I got an early birthday dinner to boot, go me! :) Aelf gifted me with the coolest Dominion t-shirt with Odo, the Female Changeling, a Jem'Hadar warrior and my beloved Weyoun plus an entire Dominion fleet on it. I'm pretending it's the one that wiped out the Obsidian Order and Tal Shi'ar because I'm a flaming geek girl and it amuses me to do so.



First, I'd like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Joss Whedon for having the "Serenity" trailer on before this film. I felt it kind of eased me into the crap that was to come by being such a steaming pile in and of itself. A few thoughts that occurred to me while watching it:

"Gosh, the costumes look even sillier on a big screen."

"The captain really does have only one expression, doesn't he? Oh, right, Shane in space, I forgot."

"Wow, crazy chick doing wildly improbable things, undoubtedly because the plot demands it. Never saw that coming..."

"Did he just say, 'Let's go be bad guys'? He did. Well I now have a groan-worthy line equal to Data's 'Lock and load' from that awful Next Gen movie. Oddly I find some comfort in that."

At least there was only a quick flash of the evil that is Kayleigh, I could pretend that maybe she'd died in the vacuum of space early on in the film. I lovingly clutched that thought to my breast for the duration of the trailer.

Ah, then we moved on to the time when George Lucas ripped out my heart, spat on it, and then fed it to a wild Bantha. When the word crawl starts with "War!" I defy a single person not to have at least passingly thought, "Huh, good god, y'all. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!" Aelf and I fell over laughing from the first word on...not a good sign.

Allow me to say a few good things about it before I dive any further into the bad stuff. Ewan's Alec Guinness impersonation was superb, right down to the mannerisms, bravo sir. Second, I liked cgi Yoda and wanted to see more of him and his adventures. Third, lots o' lightsaber fighting which always makes me happy. Fourth, the little nods to the fanbase like having them spend some time on Captain Antilles' ship from "A New Hope", the fake Tarkin, the beginnings of X Wings and Tie fighters, the costumes that would morph into those recognizable from the later films, etc. Fifth, it could've been longer.

Now, I've been told that Hayden can actually act, and I know Natalie can, but you certainly couldn't tell in this film. Padme's entire point in the movie was apparently to gestate and change clothing. She had like 50 nighties. WTF? My sister assures me that in the book she actually did stuff like help found the Rebellion, but George apparently didn't see any reason to include that in the film version. Instead it was chock full of "Oh how I love you, Anakin!" "Oh how I love *you*, Padme!" Do you suppose George let one of his kids write it? It would explain so much.

Leaving out the glaring physics errors and the fact that Anakin shouldn't have been able to do that crossed lightsabers move he did (they should've been repelling each other not sliding together like a pair of swords), the acting was wretched, the writing even worse, and the continuity errors between it and A New Hope, wrenching in the extreme. John Williams just phoned in his contribution by dredging up all the stuff he'd written for the other films and throwing it all together in a half dash manner. Hey I liked "Duel of the Fates" as much as anyone, but using it again for the Emperor vs. Yoda was just lame. And don't even get me started on James Earl Jones, his "Noooooooooo!" in the context of the scene was overwhelmingly voted unintentionally funniest scene in a recent film, hands down.

The movie needs the MST3k treatment so badly that I had to bite my tongue several times during the film to keep from doing it. The internal dialogue with Mace Windo facing down Palpatine alone had my brain racing. Ditto on Yoda/Palpatine, those his slow standing up after P- slaps him down was so obviously, "Bitch, you did not just call me 'small'" that it was barely worth saying.

Apparently in the book Dooku actually had some brains and wanted to keep the Jedi kids (I will not call them "younglings", I just won't) alive and subvert them to the Dark Side. That's thinking ahead. So of course he had to go. And according to my sis Grievous actually had a reason to be coughing, if you'd watched the animated "Clone Wars" series you'd have seen Obi-Wan punk him and crush his lungs. Of course how he managed to survive in the vacuum of space is anyone's guess.

Also, apparently there was more to Anakin's fall than "Must..save..wife!" But George doesn't believe in all those subtle character motivation things, nope, just throw in a lightsaber battle over a lava flow and the fans will eat it right up. Sure, why not?

Gah. Suffice to say Aelf and I had to go home and cleanse our palate with A New Hope and Empire, which made us feel a bit better. I think tonight it shall be Jedi and then I may feel complete again.

Fun games day over at E-'s yesterday, I quite liked "Eye to Eye", and "Linkity" wasn't bad either. If I actually had friends who enjoyed sitting down and playing games fairly regularly aside from E- it'd be worth picking one up. Of course it would also mean taking time away from crafting and costume work, which I can't afford to do at the moment.

Also colored my hair last night, I refuse to face 36 with gray.

And tomorrow the Comcast tech doesn't get to leave until I have internet, dammit.

Comments

[missjones.livejournal.com]

I will so send you my copy of the book as soon as I get it back. How many times have I told you *never* go see an SW prequel without first reading the book? Waaaaaaaay too much gets left out in the final screen version.

Frickin Lucas.