Well, Halloween may be over, but yesterday's remarkable news about Disney buying LucasFilms gives us an opportunity to spring another top 10 list on you. Today, we're going to explore how the Star Wars legacy ought to be continued. Some might say that we need Mr. Lucas, the man who started it all for it to be legitimate, but we disagree. Star Wars is likely to become a bit more like Star Trek in that it is now a multi-generational affair - where every 10 years or so the franchise gets expanded or re-imagined a bit. There is no shortage of directions it might be steered; one of our personal favorites is the notion that perhaps parts of Asimov's Foundation series could be mixed into the larger Star Wars Universe of tales (although Roland Emmerich bought the rights to Foundation several ago, nothing has been done yet). Who hasn't watched the magnificently computer-modeled Coruscant and not thought of Trantor? Perhaps it may be best to keep these alternate realities separate; who's to say how many galactic republic turned empire story-lines we could support?
Star Wars merged with the Foundation Trilogy? Probably not.
That still leaves us without a premise to launch the next generation of Star Wars films, so we're going to propose our top ten recommendations for new episodes that may fit well within the Disney pantheon of characters below:
Episode 7 - The Ewok Menace: The unsuspecting and cuddly Ewoks suffer as fall-out from the exploded Death Star leads to strange ailments and behaviors among them. Eventually, they grow (more) menacing fangs and develop a thirst for blood and power, but still remain cute. The Ewoks turn to the dark side and threaten the newly formed rebel republic.
For those of you who thought the original episodes were cloaked in integrity, remember this?
Episode 8 - Jar Jar's Revenge: Jar Jar Binx catapulted to power in episodes 1-3, and was almost single-highhandedly responsible for plunging the Republic into war. He was the G.W. Bush of his time with Darth Cheney in the background pulling the strings. But what happened after the empire took over? Jar Jar became a shrewd and ruthless politician who sought out and destroyed the rebels (the formers friends who had mocked him). He also targeted all of the other cute and cuddly characters that had proved more lovable and less offensive than himself - Jar Jar puts an end to the Ewok Menace.
Despite many scandals with college interns, nothing stopped Jar Jar's rise to power
Episode 9 - Hope and Change: Many politicians vie for the chancellor's seat, including Jar Jar. Yet none of them proves to be that different from the others and despite their calls for reform, the Republic sinks deeper into an Imperial system. This is the beginning of the "Drone Wars."
Episode -1 The Umpire Strikes Out: Baseball is banned in the Republic after a lot of very questionable calls are made. The Jedi take over officiating for all other professional sports in the Galaxy.
Mickey-wan was defeated in Episode -2, right?
Episode -2 Return of the Rat: Mickey-wan-Mousey is the one - the one who will bring balance to the force - except that there is much fear in him. He sees - cats - coming from all directions and all the powers he has learned to harness are now turning against him. Master Yoda is forced to lure him into a giant trap, baited with peanut butter. The Rat is defeated, but not before fighting an epic battle with the muppets.
Yoda's family reunion.
Episode -3 The Jedi's Apprentice: A rodent with an extraordinary level of miti-clorians in its blood is found by the found by the Jedi and raised by master Yoda. This Rodent is known as Mickey-wan-Mousey.
May the force by with you - as you wait in line for Space Mountain
Episode Emc2 - The Return of Einstein's Brain: Children on Tatooine come across Einstein's brain and bring it to their biology class to use in an experiment. They place the brain in a droid but something goes terribly awry and the new super-brilliant droid, known as EMC2 - launches a Spartacus-like droid rebellion only to be later defeated by Jar Jar Binx.
He is almost as cute as an Ewok
Episode Chapter 11 - The Insolvency: LucasFilms without Lucas is like an ocean without water - or maybe a desert without sand or perhaps even Abbott without Costello. At any rate, Disney forgot to read the fine print where Lucas kept all the merchandising rights and the rest is, history...
Episode W-D 40 - Attack of the Rust: C3PO and R2D2 end up in an assisted living facility for droids, but the all they get is a steady diet of used oil which gums up their works and slows them down. Nurse Rivets has it in for them but finally they manage to escape after Chewbaca (who is in the facility with them for some unknown reason) throws a refrigerator through the window. This all sounds like its happened before - in galaxy far, far away.
Episode 1972 - It's a Small Universe: Luke Skywalker is transported back to the early 1970's on Earth where becomes a Disney Imagineer and creates theme-park rides for DisneyWorld. After coming up with "It's a Small World" he is fired.
These dolls were in some horror film, right? or was that just the ride, or the music?
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We went to see Tron Legacy 3D yesterday - we were both amazed and disappointed at the same time - overall our impression was favorable but this movie certainly squandered an opportunity to become a classic.
First things first - you'll note at the beginning of the film that some of it is in 2D and some of it is 3D. We're not sure why this happened, but we're guessing that it partly had to do with Jeff Bridges animated alter-ego, Clu as well as a strategy change after Avatar's box office results last year. The film would have been better had it been filmed entirely in 3D - perhaps they'll have a chance to change that later.
The story is not a revisioning - but an actual sequel - 28 years in the making. In that time the vast majority of the personal computer, internet and mobile technology revolutions happened - so comparisons to the original film are hard to make given our hindsight. The plot seemed terribly thin throughout the movie and the actors had a hard time making the most of it. We never quite understood the references to the first Tron because quite frankly we forgot most of it and the effort to faithfully connect the two films may have been a wasted effort for most of us.
The special effects however were quite extraordinary. Not since Blade Runner have we run across a film that looked this interesting - if only it had sounded half as interesting it would have been an instant classic.
Jeff Bridges gets animated in Tron Legacy - Too bad his acting was less animated
We like Jeff Bridges, a lot. But we were a bit confused about his performance in Tron Legacy. At times he seemed as though he were phoning it in while practicing his new John Wayne trumping western character for the soon to be release True Grit. The fact that he was playing two characters, one a computer animated version of his younger self, points to a future in Hollywood where no actor will ever grow old again and some actors may come back from beyond. That's both cool and creepy at the same time. In this film the animation was close, but still not 100% lifelike - we watched Against All Odds (from 1984) last night to make comparisons and the virtual Jeff didn't quite match the real one.
The rest of the cast was adequate, but just. It was great to see Bruce Boxleitner again - in anything - but Flynn's son was kind of boring and the cyber babes while undeniably hot were somewhat two dimensional even when they were 3D. Michael Sheen made an odd and flashy appearance which seemed reminiscent of a mix between the Matrix and David Bowie - his attempt at breathing life into the plot was ultimately unsuccessful.
We still enjoyed the movie for the sheer visual, visceral experience of it - the characters were an afterthought - the story relatively unimportant. Those who make movies ought to have some vision... (the folks who made the original Tron did to some extent but that didn't carry over this time).
We vote that the screenwriters for this Tron be "DeRezzed"
Well, I finally got around to buying a DVD of the Disney movie “up.” It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. In fact, I guess you could say there's something to depress every age group and this film. The movie starts off well enough, with the story of a boy and a girl he meets who both share a sense of adventure. At this stage of the movie, things are pretty optimistic. It seems as though we've entered the beginning of some magical adventure which may lead our two main characters to some lost faraway exotic location in search of their childhood hero. That hero is an explorer who travels to deepest darkest South America in a magnificent dirigible seeking to find the rarest of all creatures.
Very quickly, we begin to discover that things aren’t going to go as expected. Time passes and our protagonists begin to age very quickly. Before we know it, the story that we expected seems as though it can never occur because the two main characters become senior citizens in the first 10 minutes of the movie. As if that wasn't bad enough, every time it seems as though they might have had a chance for adventure they have to raid the piggy bank for funds and never seem to have the money to realize their dream. Then of course one of the two protagonists now a wife an old woman, dies. Once she's gone, we realize the idyllic home and environment that they had been living in is now surrounded by an urban jungle. Evil developers wearing ‘men in black’ shades are trying to tear down the home where there was at least some happiness if not any adventure.
10 foot tall Blue Birds and Talking Dogs couldn't save this movie
The main character in the movie is portrayed by Ed Asner, who must be at least as old as the character he was playing on film. At this stage in his life, the main character has lost his wife, had zero adventures and has become a bit of a curmudgeon. Ed Asner has always been adept at playing curmudgeons, even when he wasn't very old. Once I realized who the actor was supplying the voice for the animated character, I couldn't get the image out of my mind of the character he played in “JFK.” I was expecting the animated old curmudgeon to start drinking and talking about Operation Mongoose and then pistol whip the other characters. I think that would have been more interesting than the plot line that was actually followed.
Without giving too much away, the curmudgeon and a stowaway Boy Scout escape the urban jungle utilizing homegrown dirigible technology (shades of Balloon Boy) and head to that faraway fantasy adventure land known as Venezuela. The animators apparently spent an incredible amount of time and effort to accurately recreate the environment in Venezuela where the actual adventure finally takes place. It all centers around a place called Angel falls. And of course I know all about it now because I watched the special feature that came with the DVD showing how all the animators and filmmakers trekked around the jungles near Angel falls so that they could become inspired by the natural landscape and incorporate that realism into their animations. The one thought that kept going through my head though while I was watching that, was that once they had visited the place they would likely be a few of the only several hundred people on the planet who actually knew what the place looked like. So it begs the question, why the big focus on accuracy in depicting Angel falls, and why the relative lack of focus on the plot line?
As an animation production, the film is technically very rich and generally pleasant to watch. However the hallmark of many recent Disney and Pixar films has not been the excellent animation per se, it's been the ever-improving storylines associated with animated movies. Aspects of this movie's plot seemed disjointed, hard to follow and not particularly appealing. The plot line revolving the movie's villain who at one point was the movie's hero is particularly confusing and disappointing. Populating the movie with talking dogs didn't seem to further the plot line any and made me wonder whether or not somebody had pitched this as pandering recognition to an audience primarily populated by children who might find talking dogs cool.
All in all, I wouldn't recommend this DVD. The conclusion of the movie wasn't particularly satisfying and for all you women out there the only real female character got killed off in the first 15 minutes, so no matter what happened afterwards the movie remains depressing from that perspective. The one thing I'm inspired to do after watching this film is to make sure I go out and live my life a little more before all the people I love are dead and I'm an invalid.
The Raving Reviews Blog is dedicated to the convergence of popular and critical review of the motion picture art - that and taking a sometimes irreverent view of popular culture.
