Lileks does Star Wars
Lileks' anticipated take on the new Star Wars film is the subject of today's bleat. Here are a couple of my favorite excerpts:
Didn’t see all the political overtones, perhaps because I wasn’t in a mood to look for them. Expecting pithy pointy political insight from Lucas is like reading transcripts of Spongebob episodes to learn about perils and stresses on the marine ecosystem. But before the fight on the Molten Lava Planet – where any metal object exposed 24/7 can nevertheless be firmly grasped without incident – Darth says to Obi: “You’re either with me or you’re my enemy.” Obi sighs. The sun is behind him, so we know he’s in the right here. “Only Siths deal in absolutes,” he says. Well, Obster, you’re not with him, right? And you’ve come to kill him, right? So Darth has a point. One might say that the Jedi failure to deal in absolutes, such as make absolutely sure Vader is absolutely dead instead of leaving him to bake like a tater tot left overnight in the broiler machine, might have served everyone well.
Didn’t completely buy the transition to the dark side for Annakin, and that’s because Hayden didn’t really fit the role for me this time. His boasting and anger still had that sullen petulant edge. Petulance leads to whininess. Whininess leads to slammed doors. Slammed doors lead to cursing. Cursing leads to grounding. By the time Ep 3 rolled around, he should have had more swagger, more dead-eyed grins, more signs of the black sea of pain and fear raging in his heart. As it was, it seemed like he joined the Sith because they had a better medical plan.
Read the whole thing.
Didn’t see all the political overtones, perhaps because I wasn’t in a mood to look for them. Expecting pithy pointy political insight from Lucas is like reading transcripts of Spongebob episodes to learn about perils and stresses on the marine ecosystem. But before the fight on the Molten Lava Planet – where any metal object exposed 24/7 can nevertheless be firmly grasped without incident – Darth says to Obi: “You’re either with me or you’re my enemy.” Obi sighs. The sun is behind him, so we know he’s in the right here. “Only Siths deal in absolutes,” he says. Well, Obster, you’re not with him, right? And you’ve come to kill him, right? So Darth has a point. One might say that the Jedi failure to deal in absolutes, such as make absolutely sure Vader is absolutely dead instead of leaving him to bake like a tater tot left overnight in the broiler machine, might have served everyone well.
Didn’t completely buy the transition to the dark side for Annakin, and that’s because Hayden didn’t really fit the role for me this time. His boasting and anger still had that sullen petulant edge. Petulance leads to whininess. Whininess leads to slammed doors. Slammed doors lead to cursing. Cursing leads to grounding. By the time Ep 3 rolled around, he should have had more swagger, more dead-eyed grins, more signs of the black sea of pain and fear raging in his heart. As it was, it seemed like he joined the Sith because they had a better medical plan.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Wonderdog | 12:06 PM | Permalink
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