I sense great fear in you, Skywalker. You have hate. You have anger. But you don't use them.

No 330 - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Director - George Lucas

Episode 3 is the prequel which finally (at times) looks like Star Wars. Episodes 1 and 2 are all taking place in the grand old palaces of Naboo or the super busy super-city of a Coruscant - places which are massively different from the general aesthetic of the original trilogy. However, after the scroll of episode 3, we get to see the old school Star Destroyers back in action. We're beginning with an inter-galactic dog fight and it all feels like star wars.
And yet, what Lucas has managed to do is take the basic designs of Star Wars and use CGI to make it feel wrong. Lets start out with that initial dog fight.

The action is big and dramatic, but there is so much CGI thrown into the sequence that it just becomes a bit of a mess and difficult to follow.
But CGI is a bit of a curse for the film. Everything has been replaced with CGI. Every single shot has CGI in it.
Let IMDB put it into context with some of their hot trivia.
All shots of C-3PO had the entire green screen set reflecting in his shiny gold armor, so digital effects artists in post-production had to digitally repaint C-3PO's armor frame by frame to remove any traces of the set

Seems a bit ridiculous.....
But then, it becomes a lot worse when you realise how all of the characters have been replaced with CGI.
R2D2 is replaced with CGI at times and given so many cool new functions you have to wonder why he never uses them in the future. In fact R2D2 in the time of the Empire is a bit rubbish when compared to the bells and whistles of R2D2 during the time of the senate....
Christopher Lee's Count Dooku is replaced with CGI to give him mad ninja skills during fight scenes - which seems lazy and disrespectful to the grand master that is Lee
Yoda has been entirely replaced with CGI. For everything. Maybe it is the warm fuzz of nostalgia but I find CGI Yoda quite cold and depressing compared to the puppet, and of course it removes any opportunity for Frank Oz's excellent performance.

It seems that George Lucas' unlimited budget has allowed him to think that CGI is the answer to everything. The film suffers from too much CGI.... but the film really suffers from a character who is very much real. Who is, in fact, integral to the series. Hayden Christensen. He is a really bad actor and considering he is supposed to portray the turmoil and downfall of Darth Vader he manages to cheapen 6 films.
Hayden Christensen's portrayal of evil is entirely down to how furrowed his brow is, not only that but the entire fall to evil takes about 30 seconds. At the beginning of a scene he is mourning his attack on Mace Windu (I'll get to this in a sec) but by the end of the scene he is killing children in cold blood. THERE IS NO ARC! It is just BAM! I'm a Baddie! And even after he's got all burnt up, and John Williams' music swells, and the mask goes down, and the first wheezing breath raises the hairs on your arms.... he still manages to fuck it up. Fuck up Darth Vader as a character. Forever.....
I fucking hate you....

I also fucking hate you for killing off Mace Windu in such a weak way.
I hate you for wiping C3PO's memory at the end of the film in order to messily tie up the loose ends.

And yet, there are two defining moments which save the film from being infuriating. Firstly, the Jedi death montage of Order 66 is the Prequel trilogy's closest point to the darkness of Empire. It is bleak, it is emotional, it is gloriously hopeless.
And finally.... the final scenes. We're inside of a ship and we're back in the stark white 70's sci fi interiors. The final separation of the twins and the final moment as Obi Wan passes Luke to Owen and Beru may be the best bit of the entire prequel trilogy. The last shot of Owen and Beru feels exactly like the original trilogy. The strain of the original theme kicks in and I have a wonderful smile on my face.

In the final seconds of the film, Lucas has made me forgive almost everything that went before.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering

No 449 - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Director - George Lucas

This may be controversial, but you know what?

Whilst there are some massive MASSIVE flaws with the film (which I'll discuss in a bit) - there are some really exciting bits. Lets focus on the positive shall we. Firstly, there is something which I've omitted from my previous Star Wars blogs - John Williams' excellent score. It is always a dramatic highlight of every film, underpinning the action with a real sense of drama and excitement. When it comes to the new trilogy, the score has been dramatically improved. I mean, cast your ear holes over at the frankly amazing 'Duel of the Fates' which acts as Darth Maul's theme. It is a frankly epic and terrific piece of music. John Williams is an amazing composer (it is such lazy blogging to continuously point to another person's blog.... but still).

In fact, besides John Williams score, Darth Maul is probably the saving grace of the first film, his growly voice and his domineering presence just ripples through the film and lifts it above the problems which are littered throughout. Incidentally, whats happened to Ray Park? He's vanished off the map a bit hasn't he? His fight scenes are really exciting, and inject action into the film - and he has a duel ended lightsaber, which is pretty fucking cool! Who wouldn't want one.

The film's biggest crime is that for large amounts of time it is quite boring, and that's mainly down to the code of the protagonists. Jedis are boring. The reason that the original trilogy works is that Luke doesn't know how a Jedi should act, Vader and the Emperor are evil and Yoda has gone a bit nuts. It is only Obi Wan who plays the wise sage and he is only fleetingly in the series. With the prequels we have a series of films entirely populated by wise and emotionless sages. It means we have a phenomenal cast of people speaking in a gentle monotone and not showing any emotion. Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, even Samuel L Jackson spends the film sitting and nodding sagely. SAMUEL L JACKSON?!

So, naturally you welcome the moments of action in the film which lift the tedium of politics, and jedis, and borderline racist aliens. The lightsaber fights are one part of it, but the pod race is another example of dramatic tension and pacing. It shows that Lucas can still shoot big action set pieces. He just chooses not to.
There are two other things of note within the pod race sequence. Firstly, CGI Jabba has none of the presence or icky slimy realness of his puppet self and what is Warwick Davies doing as an extra?

So, I find the dullness of Episode 1 a great crime, but there are also the two grievances which are frequently raised by the fanboys. Firstly the retconning. The fact that by introducing Midi-chlorians, Lucas manages to cheapen the idea of The Force to nothing but a biological oddity. But also, his inclusion of C3PO and R2D2 is actually detrimental to the series. Obi Wan spends an entire trilogy having massive adventures with the droids, and then come ep 4 he states that he's never seen them before. Yeah, they're only robots but you'd still remember them from all your big adventures.

Finally though. We have the Gungans. And I refused to believe that they were as bad as I remembered them being. However, after 30 seconds of Jar Jar lowering the quality of the film i wanted to just kill him. His arrival comes along with jokes about farts and poo and slapstick and the most annoying voice since Chris Tucker in the Fifth Element.

Even Brian Blessed can't save the Gungans.... and he is almost pure undiluted awesomeness.

EDIT

Shit.....
I forgot something.
Basically you can get a whole better idea of The Phantom Menace by watching this instead:

I know it hurts. That's life. If nothing else, It's life. It's real, and sometimes it fuckin' hurts, but it's sort of all we have.

No 393 - Garden State

Director - Zach Braff

This is what the film challenge is about, it is about discovery. Or, in the case of this particular film, rediscovery.

I think I Garden State has suffered because it came out, and I saw it, around the time I first discovered Wes Anderson and I thusly spent the whole time comparing it to The Royal Tenenbaums - which is probably my favourite film in the world. I admit that this is an unfair thing to do, however Braff hardly makes matters easy for himself. The films share a lot of common ground:

• The Comi-tragic tone which leans a lot more towards tragic.
• The sense of existential ennui
• Father Issues
• Visual Quirks

But, whilst I'm searching the film for these similarities, I miss out on what made this film good, and there are some really great moments in it. Things that need to be lauded and celebrated. Let us begin which some of the visual choices that Zach Braff has chosen. There are some wonderful moments such as motion sensors triggering a line of taps that go off as Zach Braff's Largeman walks past them. Or the doctor who has so many qualifications that the final one is attached to the ceiling, having run out of wall space. These little genuinely inspired moments are placed between some very deft camera moves (watch as they scream.... just amazing) and transitions which prove that Braff has a lot of talent as a director - he has some impressive ideas.

He also has great taste in music. And whilst I don't think the Shins will change your life (although New Slang is a lovely song), I will always appreciate any situation which plays me the Iron and Wine cover of Such Great Heights. It is a beautiful song made even more beautifuller - and that is coming from someone with an unhealthy love of plinky plonky synth (still prefer the original though).

And when you factor in some of the casting decisions (you have to love Ian Holm - he narrated one of the best things ever), you'd think you'd have a classic film which I'd adore for all eternity.

But the thing is, whilst the film is much better than I had given it credit for in the past, it still leaves me a bit cold. This is because, I do sometimes think that it tries to hard. Especially with our two main characters.

Sam, can be quite annoying at times. There are moments (such as her family life) which are warm and adorable, but there are moments (such as her 'original dance') which feel cringe-worthily forced and unnatural. Like they are trying to pull out every last possible drop of kooky, and occasionally they are just left with someone being a bit weird. Or worse.... a bit wacky. Luckily, Natalie Portman is insanely cute and charming. So she manages to pull it off and make Same a likable character.

Whereas Largemean suffers from the opposite - I just find him (for most of the film) whiny and narcissistic. A bit like JD in scrubs who I've never really liked because he is a self centred git. Now, I'm aware that in Garden state he is supposed to be whiny and narcissistic - that it is his journey, but these things do make me naturally a bit 'meh' about Zach Braff (The Last Kiss is the only film I've ever walked out of at the cinema) - as he seems to play a lot of characters who whine about their wonderful lives.

The fact that this film manages to get through my preconceptions and prejudiced apathy shows just how good it must be. And although elements do feel forced, and although none of the characters who appear frequently will match the warmth and joy seen in the short appearance of Albert's boat based family, it is still quite a touching drama that manages to address that modern phenomenon of the quarter life crisis, and give us jokes about dogs masturbating.