..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

“Fasten your seatbelts!”
- deleted scene from “Passion of the Christ” (used in the early summer-action-movie style preview)



i was just starting to watch “Passion of the Christ” and in the opening credits they got this quote about Jesus’ wounds and forgiveness or something and the date on the quote is 700 B.C. now, i ain’t no biblical scholar but i thought “B.C.” meant “Before Christ.” so how does Isaiah write about Jesus 700 years “Before Christ?” maybe i’m missing something here. also, did they refer to the time period before Christ as “B.C.” while they're are living in, and writing about, "B.C." 'cause that would seem like a very good guess? know what i mean? kind of like calling it World War One before you know there's going to be a World War Two. the worst war movies usually fuck that up.

anyway, it sounds like the first Star Wars movie and all that “Episode IV" nonsense where he claimed to have always intended it that way. so, instead of the usual “Real Time Review” i decided to post a review i wrote for Star Wars The Phantom Menace (the fourth film called “Episode 1” for some reason) back when it came out. this made sense when i was thinking about it. okay, before you say it, the only reason i went to see this crap back then was because i had to distract my dad for a couple hours before his surprise party and it was the only thing playing. so hear we go!

The Phantom Menace: Episode One (aka "Star Wars B.C.")

When I saw the preview, I already knew it was going to suck. I was sitting there waiting for some other piece of shit to start and up popped that three minute trailer, that tiny piece of teaser that millions were downloading off the internet and analyzing like the Zapruder film. And the first thing I noticed were those stupid fucking robots. No the other ones, the new "battle droids". Never mind that they had the usual computer generated plastic cartoon look that idiots mistake for great effects. That was expected, people have seemed to accept the fact that digital-effects technology has leveled-off to become as accepted as those stop-motion monsters from the Harryhausen era. It's not what they look like, it's enough just to use them. The effect sticks out as obvious as the darker doors in cartoons (all the kids knew, if it was a different color, it meant it was going to open) but it’s good to notice the strings. It means money was spent, so what if the robots look like every shit monster off cable, it's new technology. Anyway, that's not the problem. The problem is, why is there an army of fucking robots? What happened to those Stormtrooper dudes in the white suits? Forget the fact that this is in the past and why the hell would there be a more advanced droid army then, when that means the Empire must start using men in suits later. Forget all that, if you can. You know the reason why Lucus used the robots? Because he wrote himself into a hole with the lightsabers. In this prequel, the Jedi are their own army, a lame mystic army sure, but they carry a decent weapon. This thing can cut through anything, and any kind of large scale fight would be bloodier than the first battle in “Braveheart” therefore, because this is a children's film (and when did that happen?) he cheats us by making sure no one gets cut. In a battle where the main weapon is a sword, he neuters it. Amazing.

So when did Lucas decide to make a stupid kids movie? If you believe all the bullshit and lying and backpedaling he did in his pre-release interviews, he may have had nine movies planned all along, or maybe not, at least six anyway, maybe not, but there was this “back story” that needed to be told. Why? Who demanded that? Fuck the fans, they just pump money into the machine because they're losers and they want to be part of something, as if the movie setting a box office record means "they won". What kind of idiot decides that "Star Wars" is his/ her "thing" to back no matter what? Even when the franchise turns into kids films? Don't let them fool you, they know it sucks. But they think buying a ticket means they’re accepted in some kind of club. And you know what? When it was being made, the sound guys and the lighting guys and the computer guys all knew it sucked too. The only one who didn't was George Lucas, because, tragically, he's a talentless fuck. He thinks he's made some mythological good vs. evil statement with crap like "chosen ones" and "prophecies" and lots of common sense philosophy with more "nevers" and "always" than I've heard since...hmmm, all that sci-fi/fantasy shit I read as a kid. When did crap science fiction decide it's characters had to talk like mediaeval knights? Is it because the science fiction and romance section are too close together at the book stores? Because all those pink and purple covers are interchangeable, so are the insides? Lucas's imagination knows no bounds, "Let's see...we'll have a desert planet, an ice planet, a metal planet...a tree city, a cloud city, a water city..." Complete shit. Even children are more creative than that. Then the famous twists, "uh, he's his father, and she's his sister, he built that robot...and everything takes place on or around the ass-backwards desert planet cause that's where the first movie started, you see it's all tied together". That's writing in reverse, trying to force meaning where there wasn't any. Another George used to rewrite history, his name was Orwell (the Nazis had “flair”...) and he did it in "1984" to brainwash people into forgetting how hopeless and fucked things really were. That's all he is doing with this "prequel" and "episode one" nonsense desperately trying to convince everyone (himself?) that this "vision" is worth making, again. He's too stupid to realize that it was the effects that saved the original creatively-bankrupt broken-backed script from being laughed out of the theater. Now he thinks it's all because of his brilliant "story", so he digs in deep to find...nothing. He needs to do six more movies worth of this fantasy shit? Dungeons 'N Dragons dialogue, computer effects, and "Wars" with no violence ("let's only use these swords on doors and robots okay, and remember Greedo shot first"). There is no "story" left to stretch, nothing left to say, because there was never anything there. And, violence aside, why can't we count on any action or excitement or fun? Because now it's so serious it has become a children's new-age bible study. Actually George did lean away from that mystical stuff a little bit. He decided that "the force" wasn't all that mysterious anymore. It's actually a kind of biological infection by a telepathic lifeform. What does that remind you of? Try "Star Trek." Lucas spent all these years on his ranch soaking in another pile of shit; all those pseudo-scientific explanations that "Star Trek" substitutes for story every show. Now that non-writing has infected his nonsense. Not just bad to worse, worse to worst.

Oh yeah, how about the goddamn movie? Just saw it. Even the fans can't bullshit around these questions: Little Darth Vader built C-3PO as a servant for his mom right? well, C-3PO said his first job was "programming binary load-lifters" in the original, whatever the fuck that is. All I know is that he said nothing about Vader's mom. And why would the robots be lost on Tatooine when they crash landed there in the first film? Why would they have never seen a Jawa? According to this new movie, one was built there and that's where they both met. Of course they'll write themselves out of this hole with lost memory crap or something (I guess that's easier than actually writing a story) but why the fuck should they have to? Why not just flush it and start over? Some more questions; why does the bad guy have a two-sided lightsaber? New technology in the past? Like that gutless robot army? But who cares, besides one bloodless dramatic stab, he doesn't use the fucking thing, and this bad guy is barely in the flick. When you do see him, it’s on that stupid fuzzy space TV (again, something that was interesting in the 70s, now it’s as high-tech and handy as a tin-can telephone) every time the plot needs to be explained. Why do they keep squinting into the distance and talking to wavy little blue versions of each other and at least use the force to clean up the image? Another question; Obi-Wan and Darkman only free the boy slave (Anakin Skywalker) and not his mother? Because they're not there to interfere with the planet's slave policy (hints of Star Trek prime-directive)? No, it's because there's nothing else for her to do in the "story.” Lucas even made the kid a Jesus-like immaculate conception to cut down on the writing (he must have realized how stupid that sounded late in the game cause he then went on to try to say that the kid was actually the product of those "force-channeling energy beings" or whatever). And you know what? The fans have to admit this, at least, he imitates all the climaxes in his other movies. There's nothing else he can come up with except the same lines, same apprentice/master horseshit, same space battle? What's he doing? Watching the first three movies over and over, convincing himself they're brilliant (maybe not, considering the pathetic way he's been fucking with those effects in his new editions)? And what about the bad guy? Couldn't bother explaining who the "Sith" was? Too much writing you lazy bastard? It's easier to use those same phrases over and over again. Just because he babbles on and on with "blah blah Federation blah blah taxation blah blah Senate" that's a script? That's nonwriting, verbal masturbation, he's imitating Star Trek, the first Star Wars, a slow night on the evening news, and just about every sci-fi fantasy book that's been published since I was in elementary school. There's a reason those books come out as fast as those romance novels. Medieval fantasy speak (chosen ones, prophecies, moronic children's philosophy) and dull political mumbling (galactic congress, ambassadors, trade blockades, you know, like CNN, but in space!) is so much easier than writing. Combine it all and it's still...nothing. You know what though? Fuck this, I'm not going to go through it and tear it down piece by piece. I don't take the time to do that with any other children's film (how does that fucking spider in Charlotte's web even know how to write and remember that nonsense where Strawberry Shortcake....see what I mean? What’s the point?). But look at all the time I've already wasted. More time than anyone spent writing for any of these films. You're just supposed to shrug and forget it. Sling that hash about "you're not supposed to think about it", it's supposed to be "fun." One of them might have been "fun.” Nine? Not a chance. It's the ass-sucking fans that worship this shit, knowing it's shit, ensuring they'll always get more shit, that bring on these kinds of reactions. Hey you fuckin' knobs, the movie sucks! Grow the fuck up and you might force someone to make some good movies with that gargantuan ejaculation of money.

p.s. The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre sucks too. the spooky little devil children interludes are about as scary as the latest Chucky movie. everybody getting all serious about not criticizing it because it’s “true?” hmm, i don’t remember any computer-morphing demon kids in the Bible. dumb shits. i love zealots. choosing their battles so poorly that, if there was a real God, he would shit on all of them for being so fucking stupid.

::: david - 5:01 PM [+] :::
...