#i just rewatched saw iii and thought of this silly little thing.

[rowangrayy]

do you think that when amanda was reaching out for john after she got shot how the warmth of the blood felt on her hand momentarily reminded her of how the blood felt like of the man she had to kill in her first trap? did she realize that her life started and ended with blood on her hands? did she even think about it at all?

[redtutel]

Rewatching Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Now I am watching Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I’m not as nostalgically attached to this movie as I am to the other two prequels, and I only saw it on TV once many years ago. I thought it was brilliant back then, but will I still feel that way now? The other two prequels don’t have the best track record, so I’m hoping this will be different. I’m writing this as I watch, so this might be a bit disorganized with some tangents.

The CGI is a LOT better, and the acting is a bit better too. It can still be a little awkward, but it’s at least up there with the original movie. The chemistry between the characters is good too.

The opening action scene is fantastic. It’s fun and exciting. There’s some silly moments, but I think it helps balance out a very serious movie. Although it makes me further dislike the claim that Last Jedi had too much comedy. People who hate Last Jedi’s comedy often love this movie, which has some pretty silly scenes too, and even some slapstick from the mascot droids.

General Grievous looks awesome, although he’s sillier then I remember him. Although the same’s true in Dave Filoni’s Clone Wars. I guess Genndy Tartakovsky’s version is the only one that’s truly cool.

Paulpatine’s sitting the same way he did in Return of the Jedi. Nice call forward. Also, this time around, the hero actualy does murder the villain. Although Dooku’s no Vader, at least not in the movies. I guess that’s kind of the point, since the only real villain in the prequels is Paulaptine. And since I watched quit of Clone Wars before I saw this movie for the first time, I actually did have an attachment to Dooku as a villain, so to see him killed did leave an emotional impact on me back then.

It’s pretty cool that the beginning of III is a reference to the climax of VI. Star Wars movies to have an obsession with referencing older Star Wars movies, so I do like shaking things up by having the references occur in an abnormal order.

Anakin and Padme’s romantic chemistry is a lot better too. Although some of the dialogue is still a bit awkward. Especially in terms of physical acting. The announcement that Padme’s pregnant is a fantastic mix of joy and concern (both for the challenge of parenthood and the scandal of a Jedi in love).

In general, I am fascinated with the concept that trying to run from destiny will lead you to run toward it. Then again, last time Anakin ignored his visions, he was too late to have his mother. 

The Jedi are beginning to put two and two together about Palpatine, but then Palpatine makes sure to butter Anakin up so that he’ll take his side. I love Palpatine, he’s such a great manipulator.

Anakin really needs to be more expressive in the “we do not grant you the title of master” scene. Maybe I spoke a bit too soon about the improved acting

I find it interesting that both Anakin and Padme notice that the government, but they have very different ideas on how to fix it. Anakin wants to create a strong centralized government to fix things, and Padme wants to prevent facism and promote compromise.

I assumed preventing death was just something Paulpatine made up to manipulate Anakin, but what if it was true, and he used that method to come back in Rise of Skywalker? There are rumors of Force horcruxes, which I honestly think is a solid idea for a perversion of the Light Side’s Force Ghosts. 

The subplots wrapping up the Clone Wars (like killing Grievous and helping the Wookies) are a bit pointless, and this is coming from a defender of Finn’s subplot in Last Jedi. I guess it’s because the experiences don’t grow Obi-Wan or Yoda as characters. Then again, it does add some fun space opera action to this movie, which is mostly dialogue and character driven. And it does get Obi Wan and Yoda out of the way when they need to be out of the way

Cody was in the movies? I had no idea

Anakin is a character is motivated by the refusal to lose his family. When he did love family, he got incredibly violent. And to save his wife, he’ll even turn to the darkside.

Despite that, he still draws his weapon when Paulpatine explicitly mentions being Sith. It shows that he did fall down the slippery slope TOO fast.

Palpatine’s idea that learning both the dark and the light side of the force is an interesting concept. I wonder if they’ll look into it in the future.

Lucas did the shot reverse shot Last Jedi thing first. Good for him. Although I do like where Last Jedi goes with it, but I’ll get into that later

I remember being so shocked when Anakin got Master Windu killed. He was always such a cool character, and I was shocked to see him go. It's definitely one of Anakin’s biggest steps into the Dark Side. Although the acting in that scene is not as good as I remember (although Paulpatine’s great)

Seeing Palpatine go full Emperor for the first time is fantastic.

Order 66 is so devastating to watch. Especially if you watched Clone Wars beforehand

I will admit that going from being guilty over Windu’s death to murdering children is a very abrupt leap. Although that could be the Dark Side messing with his brain

I really wish Owen, Buru and General Organa got more screen time in this trilogy

I have a lot of Episode I and II nostalgia, so seeing the Trade Federation murdered was also very shocking the first time. They weren’t amazing villains, but it was a huge sign of an end of an era.

“This is how liberty ends, with thunderous applause.” A powerful line thats relevant to this day.

3CPO likes flying in this movie, and hates it later on. That’s a cute joke.

Even back then, Anakin was thinking about overthrowing Palpatine and ruling with his family.

Seeing how he attacked Padme for siding with Obi Wan, maybe I’m right in thinking that the Dark Side is corrupting his mind and making him fall down the slippery slope faster then you’d expect. Plus his first thoughts after the fight is if Padme is okay. And he’s devastated to find out that he killed her

“Only a Sith deals in absolutes” Awkward Writing or proof of hypocrisy. Who knows?

Mustafar is such a cool planet, and a great set up for Obi Wan vs Anakin. Obi Wan vs Anakin is such an awesome fight, and an awesome birthplace for Darth Vader

Yoda vs Palpatine is pretty awesome too. I aways loved the Senate setting, so to see it used in an action scene, with the floating seats being moved around with the force is pretty awesome

Jedi deal with failure pretty poorly, namely by going into exile. I’m glad Yoda figured out the proper way to deal with failure in the Last Jedi

Obi Wan has a history of ending things with one last strike, like he would do to Darth Maul in Rebels

Seeing Anakin gain Darth Vader’s burns for the first time, and Obi Wan’s speech is such an intense scene. 

Padme’s death is kind of poorly handled. It seems kind of weak for her to lose the will to live when there’s twins to raise and a rebellion to found. Maybe if it was as simple as: her wounds would make childbirth fatal, but she insisted on given birth anyway. But I don’t like the idea of backseat script doctoring, so I’ll stop this train of thought.

I don’t remember Luke and Leia being born at the same time Darth Vader’s armor and life support are being attached. It’s a nice touch. That first Darth Vader breath is awesome. 

I like the idea behind the big “NO!” but I admit the execution is a bit off.

For some reason, I remembered the movie ending with the “NO!” Maybe that’s where the TV version ended or something. S

So R2-D2 Remembers the events of the prequls, but 3-CPO doesn’t. I never knew that.

Ending the Prequel trilogy on the twin sunsets, and a sign of hope. Fantastic.

Overall, I consider this a legitimately good (but not flawless) movie, and I’m honestly not sure where it ranks in comparison to the remaining 5 movies. Looks like I’ll find out in the next few weeks

[douxreviews]

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) Review

Spock: "I am well versed in the classics, doctor." McCoy: "Then how come you don't know 'Row row row your boat'?"

When I rewatched Star Trek III: The Search for Spock recently in order to review it, I hadn't seen it in a long time and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. I was hoping for the same thing to happen with Star Trek V. Unfortunately, no. Big time.

This movie is awful on pretty much every level. In fact, it is so appallingly bad that we stopped watching half-way through, and I only went back and finished it alone a few days later so that I could write a complete review.

It's even hard to figure out what is the worst thing about it, because there is so much badness to choose from. Spock's messianic half brother whose existence had never been mentioned before? (Isn't a sibling coming out of nowhere a "jump the shark" moment?) The search for God, who turned out to be a cruel, petty alien? Mountain climbing as a numbingly obvious metaphor for religious seeking? Come on, people. Star Trek is so much better than this.

When something doesn't work for me, I usually list what was good about it, and try to figure out what might have made it better. I doubt that anything could have made this movie better. Instead, I kept coming up with more reasons why it sucked. In general, it was like poorly written fan fiction with juvenile humor. It ripped off Star Wars several times, with the new Enterprise falling apart like the Millennium Falcon, Nimbus III scenes that looked uncomfortably like Tatooine, and Paradise City again much like Mos Eisley. (A three-breasted cat as a stripper? Really?) Spock neck-pinching a horse was right out of Blazing Saddles, and his rocket shoes belonged in a bad episode of Flash Gordon.

Even the funnier moments didn't work and occasionally made me cringe. The camping scenes could have been cool, but were just too silly and went on too long. I especially hated the little shout-out to slash fandom when Kirk started to hug Spock and Spock said, "Please Captain, not in front of the Klingons." And Uhura's hoochie coochie moment had Dan saying, "That could very well be the stupidest moment in the entire series."

And the serious attempts at drama were just embarrassing. Sybok, the anti-Surak, rode into the city on a donkey (okay, a blue horse with horns) and wearing white, just so that we wouldn't miss the Christ symbolism. How Sybok managed to brainwash members of the crew was never satisfactorily explained. The flashback/hallucination of McCoy euthanizing his father just made me angry; you need to do some background in order to make a scene like that work. And then there was the discussion about the deeper meaning of "Row Row Row Your Boat." I can't believe I just wrote that sentence about my beloved Star Trek.

The only things I found interesting or forward-thinking were Kirk taking steps toward diplomatic ties with the Klingons, and saying that he had always believed he'd die alone. But these two little things weren't enough to make this movie palatable.

Star Trek V was William Shatner's baby; he directed and co-wrote. I'm not a fan of his, but he's a good actor, he wrote (or got credit for) an entire science fiction book series, and he was such a strong lead for the original series. His work in the previous movies was excellent, too. But given his prominent role behind the scenes, this movie did make me think. Is this how Shatner saw Star Trek, as action/adventure with fights and explosions, complemented by transparent and simplistic symbolism? Is this how Shatner saw the character of Kirk, as a stubborn super-athlete climbing a mountain alone without an anchor rope?

For me, this movie was the franchise equivalent of Superman 3, Alien 4, or Terminator Salvation. After the exceptional trilogy that preceded it, Star Trek V was an insult to the audience and a disappointment to the fans. And that's sad.

Bits and pieces:

-- Stardate: 8454.1. Nimbus III, the Planet of Galactic Peace, in the Neutral Zone; Yosemite National Park, Shaka-Ri whatever on the other side of the "boundary."

-- The music was from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and was also used as the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation.

-- Lawrence Luckinbill actually did a decent job as Sybok. Not his fault that the movie was so bad. The wonderful David Warner got very little to do; maybe that's why they gave him a slightly better part in Star Trek VI.

-- They didn't quite tell us what happened to Sybok, but the visuals reminded me of the terrible original series episode, "The Alternative Factor."

-- Scotty and Uhura as a couple. Noooooo. Please, no.

-- I remember many discussions about Roddenberry saying Star Trek V wasn't "canon." Apparently, though, he did that a lot. 

-- The lounge, sort of Ten Forward-like, had a decorative ship's wheel standing alone in front of the viewport. I'm assuming it was so that the actors had something to stand around while doing dialogue.

Quotes:

Spock: "Perhaps 'because it is there' is not sufficient reason for climbing a mountain."

Kirk: "Bourbon and beans. An explosive combination." And I thought, thank god they didn't do the obvious Blazing Saddles scene.

Spock: "Were we having a good time?" McCoy: "I liked him better before he died."

Kirk: "I could use a shower." Spock: "Yes."

One out of four absolutely pointless ship wheels.

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.