“Holy crap. You’re worth every penny.”
The Scoop: 2005 PG, directed by Clare Kilner and starring Debra Messing, some guy named “Dermot”, and Amy Adams
Tagline: Love doesn’t come cheap.
Summary Capsule: I mean, seriously, “Dermot”? How very much did his parents want him beaten up every day at school?
The topic for today’s Saturday Roundtable is this: If you could go back in time and be in charge of running the three Star Wars prequel movies (episodes 1-3), what would you do different? This is assuming that you HAVE to do them as prequels, you have to do three, and you can’t give a dismissive comment like “throw them in the trash”.
Start the discussion!
KYLE: First off, I certainly would NOT have wanted to see any of the cherished Original Trilogy characters as kids or anything ridiculous like that. But that doesn’t mean I would have cast Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru as young action heroes. Each prequel film would have taken place in a different era, ranging from thousands to finally maybe a hundred years prior to Episode IV. I would have been a lot more interested in the very beginning of the Jedi and Sith orders, early on as prophecies are made and tenets to operate by are devised. That way you can still have occasional hints towards what will come later (”No one will EVER make this Kessel Run in less than 18 parsecs!” and “One Sith will walk openly, his master will remain in shadows; no one will suspect their identity until it is TOO LATE!” and so on). I would be a lot more interested in the universe at large versus the origins of the handful of heroes and villains that decided the fate of their galaxy. I’m sure to play to the fans slightly that third prequel film would namedrop a couple lineages, or more likely show the origins of the man who would become Emperor Palpatine. Lots more moral gray areas and suspicious motivations, rather than the bland ineptness of the Jedi Order and far-too-easy manipulations of the Sith. How about you?
“I’ll be back, Bennett.”
The Scoop: 1985 R, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rae Dawn Chong and Alyssa Milano
Tagline: Somewhere… somehow… someone’s going to pay!
Summary Capsule: Ahnold snaps and kills half of the western hemisphere when his daughter is kidnapped. Overreact much?
“I like this ship! It’s exciting!”
The Scoop: 2009 PG-13, directed by J.J. Abrams and starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban
Tagline: The future begins.
Summary Capsule: Star Trek gets a reboot/prequel/sequel of sorts… but it’s all good (mostly).
“You hear that? Sounds like somebody’s sheering.”
The Scoop: 2006 NR, directed by Jonathan King and starring Nathan Meister, Tammy Davis and Peter Feeney
Tagline: There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand… and they’re pissed off!
Summary Capsule: Genetic tinkering results in a woolly revolt
“You’re crazier’n a road lizard!”
The Scoop: 2009 PG, directed by Shawn Levy and starring Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Hank Azaria and Owen Wilson
Tagline: When the lights go off, the battle is on.
Summary Capsule: It’s up to Larry to rescue his friends from the evil clutches of Moe! I mean, Kahmunrah!
One of the most aggravating tropes in movies — at least to me — is the oh-so-noble hero who, after engaging in a life-or-death battle with a villain, decides at the last possible second to spare his life. Mind you, this guy’s been trying to kill to the good fella, and they haven’t been pulling punches in the past five, ten minutes. But we all know that nobody really gets killed during the end of the film fights; sure, there’s some wounding, a moment where the hero looks doomed and stages a comeback, but it’s not like either the good or bad guy get in a lucky blow that happens to go through the other guy’s head.
There’s some bizarre unwritten rule in Hollywood that it’s not just enough for the good guy to win, but he has to win in this precise order:
“Oh my God, he’s in love with a… dummy.”
The Scoop: 1991 PG, directed by Stewart Raffill and starring Kristy Swanson, William Ragsdale and Meshach Taylor
Tagline: A lively comedy about a living doll.
Summary Capsule: If you thought there wasn’t enough material for TWO films about mannequins… you were right.
So I was watching the MTV Movie Awards the other night, and while the Twilight cast swept every category possible (Kristen Stewart over Kate Winslet? Really? Do the voters actually watch movies?) I realized that I had written a Mutant Viewing for the film weeks and weeks ago and never finished it. I’m blaming premature senioritis. Anywho, after watching Twilight win the award for Best Movie of the Year over Slumdog Millionaire, The Dark Knight, and High School Musical 3 (which was totally underrated, but that’s a rant for a different day,) I set out to finish what I started… two months ago.
Let’s start with the necessary introduction for any of you sane/lucky enough to steer clear from the Twilight trend: it’s a crappy romance between a high school girl and a century-old vampire I’m calling Cedward for obvious reasons. I got dragged into it by a couple friends who insisted I give it a chance. And I gave it a very generous chance. Because I read the whole dang series, which is pure crap. The first book is crap, each book after that is crap, and the movie is crap. I mean, it’s not just that Stephanie Meyer is a terrible writer and the story sucks; I was actually deeply offended by it’s message. But it’s got some great comedy material, so I think this is going to actually be fun!
Sci-fi (or Sy-Fy, as a certain channel would have us believe, because it’s “less geeky”) is one of those genres that just seems to produce cult gems and mockworthy spectacles. Either movies are brilliant or flat out terrible, it seems like there’s very little middle ground.
With that in mind, I decided to undertake watching the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I’ve never seen the original, but this one has Keanu Reeves! (Unless he’s playing Ted, this does the opposite of impressing me.) Because the thing is, good movies can get boring to review, unless I find a good hook. I was going to do this one night when I was alone, but last night Duckie and I decided we were in the mood for “mindless”. What could be more mindless than a Keanu Reeves movie?
