Jeremy's $5.50 Review : Episode III
May. 20th, 2005 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackshoegazerIf you haven't seen it and don't want things spoiled for you, don't peek under the cut...
I have been in a remarkably amazing mood for days and days now, weeks perhaps, I'm not sure, I'm not keeping count. Star Wars Episode III : Revenge of the Sith has killed my happy streak... Here's the problem: The movie was fantastic. It was by far the best of the new trilogy and arguably as good as The Empire Strikes Back. Why is it the dark movies are the best ones?
It killed my mood because it was such a downer, it was sad and heart-breaking (and the heartbreak had nothing to do with the Anakin/Padme scenes.) I knew from the get-go that it was going to be a dark and brooding movie, filled with enough tragedy to make Titus look like Meet the Parents. However, I wasn't quite prepared as I thought I was.
Young Anakin, who put on 25 pounds of muscle between Episodes II and III, attaining quite the manly buff-dom, going absolutely ape-shit. What's the phrase, oh yes, crazier than a shit-house rat. The guy fucking LOSES IT. He kills little kids. He tries to kill Padme even though he went lost his marbles in his attempts to save her. I almost bawled, tears welled in my eyes and I couldn't breathe as Obi Wan left Anakin for dead, declaiming to him "You were the chosen one! You were like my brother. I loved you!" Ewan McGregor has always been one of my favorite actors and his acting in this is superb, even if Lucas can't write dialogue that doesn’t sound like it's from an 1940's soap.
In general, all the acting was great. Now I hear the groans of those who thought the Anakin/Padme scenes were trite and lacking in chemistry. To be truthful, the did the best they could under the circumstances of Lucas' dismal writing. The man can whip up a Universe pancake easier that Aunt Jemima and weave a tale better that what's his name's wife who kept undoing her woom, but the man is useless when it comes to romantic conversations.
And to be perfectly honest, I never, never liked Natalie Portman as Padme/Amidala. I love her as an actress, ever since The Professional and concretized by Garden State, but I just felt she was wrong for this role. Especially in III, she was whiny and weak. It took all powers of my vast imagination (which also outdoes Aunt Jemima in the Universe pancake business) to picture her as the mother of the Queen Badass of Strong Female Archetypes that is Princess Leia.
Anakin, especially after losing most of his appendages and burning alive in (insert Dr. Evil voice) Liquid-Hot-Mag-Ma, looked so eerily like the old and wrinkly Anakin we know from the end of Return of the Jedi that it took no processor time at all to see him as Vader after his reconstruction. Actually Anakin's physical transformation into Vader is agonizing to watch, but more so is the Frankenstein-is-alive clunky first steps he takes after he's officially Helmeted.
My only continuity issue is R2-D2. Why is he flying around like the star of Crouching Tiger in the prequels, but needs hoists and pulleys to move him around in the original films? I thought maybe, just maybe, it's like an old car. By Episodes IV, V, & VI, R2 is OLD like almost 40 years old or so, and maybe, just maybe, replacement parts for his model are a bit hard to come across. So maybe jet boosters for R2 are like trying to find the power window motor for my 1993 Infiniti.
Episode III is also a VERY thinly veiled analogy for the political state of America right now. Under the threat of "war", we are giving obscene amounts of power to an evil dictator, transferring too much influence to the Executive branch; stacking the courts in their favor, attempting to put strangle hold on the entire governmental process. When Palpatine announced that the Republic would become an Empire, it reminded me of Bush's remarks about how being President would be easier if we were a dictatorship. And when Padme said, "This is how Liberty falls, with thunderous applause," I was reminded of Bush's Sate of the Union address wherein he said emphatically, "We Will be Attacked Again!" and almost the entire erupted in heartfelt applause. WHAT THE FUCK!? It's so important a WHAT-THE-FUCK that I can't even abbreviate it to WTF. Our leaders are APPLAUDING that we're going to be attacked? Jesus-fucking-Christ and his black brother Harry! The biggest lesson is one our forefathers tried to remind us, that anyone willing to give up freedom for safety will have neither.
And the big, big implications, the light this movie sheds upon my spiritual quest, my Great Work. In Episode III, it is revealed that the Sith are selfish, inward-focused, thinking only of themselves, whereas the Jedi are selfless, outward-focused, thinking only of others. When I first, for lack of a better term, 'woke up', I was immediately seized by the desire to spread what had been revealed to me, to help the world, communicate the wisdom that had awoken me from my robotic slumber. However the more I studied, the deeper I dove into my spiritual quest, the more I realized that it is impossible to change the world by intending to change the world. My conclusion was that the best thing I could do for the Universe at large was to fix myself, to clean up my little corner of it, my unique perceptions. (As I've said before, to remake myself into a super-human pattern through which the Divine may more clearly shine.) In the long run, I've become a practitioner of the Golden Pillar, the mystic path, simultaneously balancing both the White and the Black Pillars. So very Taoist of me, I'm all about balance. Palpatine tells Anakin during one of the Dark-side seduction scenes, (mental and emotional, not sexual, you pervs!) that one must study both halves of the Force (in my case, the Universe) in order to have the fullest understanding of it and oneself. I have always found Star Wars to be a spiritually enriching series, Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter and so on, and often I've wondered how much of my spiritual outlook has been programmed by my early viewings of Star Wars (I saw all three originals in the theatre.) After all, Lucas basically crib-noted Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces for his scripts and Campbell is of course America's top Jungian, a system I absolutely adore.
To sum up, I loved it, and now that I've purged most of it onto the screen and into your minds, I feel infinitely better and I absolutely cannot wait for the opportunity to watch all the Episodes, I through VI in order. I hereby give Star Wars Episode III : Revenge of the Sith 93 Divine Sparks, 73 Chokmah Days and a 3-month Supply of Prozac.
I have been in a remarkably amazing mood for days and days now, weeks perhaps, I'm not sure, I'm not keeping count. Star Wars Episode III : Revenge of the Sith has killed my happy streak... Here's the problem: The movie was fantastic. It was by far the best of the new trilogy and arguably as good as The Empire Strikes Back. Why is it the dark movies are the best ones?
It killed my mood because it was such a downer, it was sad and heart-breaking (and the heartbreak had nothing to do with the Anakin/Padme scenes.) I knew from the get-go that it was going to be a dark and brooding movie, filled with enough tragedy to make Titus look like Meet the Parents. However, I wasn't quite prepared as I thought I was.
Young Anakin, who put on 25 pounds of muscle between Episodes II and III, attaining quite the manly buff-dom, going absolutely ape-shit. What's the phrase, oh yes, crazier than a shit-house rat. The guy fucking LOSES IT. He kills little kids. He tries to kill Padme even though he went lost his marbles in his attempts to save her. I almost bawled, tears welled in my eyes and I couldn't breathe as Obi Wan left Anakin for dead, declaiming to him "You were the chosen one! You were like my brother. I loved you!" Ewan McGregor has always been one of my favorite actors and his acting in this is superb, even if Lucas can't write dialogue that doesn’t sound like it's from an 1940's soap.
In general, all the acting was great. Now I hear the groans of those who thought the Anakin/Padme scenes were trite and lacking in chemistry. To be truthful, the did the best they could under the circumstances of Lucas' dismal writing. The man can whip up a Universe pancake easier that Aunt Jemima and weave a tale better that what's his name's wife who kept undoing her woom, but the man is useless when it comes to romantic conversations.
And to be perfectly honest, I never, never liked Natalie Portman as Padme/Amidala. I love her as an actress, ever since The Professional and concretized by Garden State, but I just felt she was wrong for this role. Especially in III, she was whiny and weak. It took all powers of my vast imagination (which also outdoes Aunt Jemima in the Universe pancake business) to picture her as the mother of the Queen Badass of Strong Female Archetypes that is Princess Leia.
Anakin, especially after losing most of his appendages and burning alive in (insert Dr. Evil voice) Liquid-Hot-Mag-Ma, looked so eerily like the old and wrinkly Anakin we know from the end of Return of the Jedi that it took no processor time at all to see him as Vader after his reconstruction. Actually Anakin's physical transformation into Vader is agonizing to watch, but more so is the Frankenstein-is-alive clunky first steps he takes after he's officially Helmeted.
My only continuity issue is R2-D2. Why is he flying around like the star of Crouching Tiger in the prequels, but needs hoists and pulleys to move him around in the original films? I thought maybe, just maybe, it's like an old car. By Episodes IV, V, & VI, R2 is OLD like almost 40 years old or so, and maybe, just maybe, replacement parts for his model are a bit hard to come across. So maybe jet boosters for R2 are like trying to find the power window motor for my 1993 Infiniti.
Episode III is also a VERY thinly veiled analogy for the political state of America right now. Under the threat of "war", we are giving obscene amounts of power to an evil dictator, transferring too much influence to the Executive branch; stacking the courts in their favor, attempting to put strangle hold on the entire governmental process. When Palpatine announced that the Republic would become an Empire, it reminded me of Bush's remarks about how being President would be easier if we were a dictatorship. And when Padme said, "This is how Liberty falls, with thunderous applause," I was reminded of Bush's Sate of the Union address wherein he said emphatically, "We Will be Attacked Again!" and almost the entire erupted in heartfelt applause. WHAT THE FUCK!? It's so important a WHAT-THE-FUCK that I can't even abbreviate it to WTF. Our leaders are APPLAUDING that we're going to be attacked? Jesus-fucking-Christ and his black brother Harry! The biggest lesson is one our forefathers tried to remind us, that anyone willing to give up freedom for safety will have neither.
And the big, big implications, the light this movie sheds upon my spiritual quest, my Great Work. In Episode III, it is revealed that the Sith are selfish, inward-focused, thinking only of themselves, whereas the Jedi are selfless, outward-focused, thinking only of others. When I first, for lack of a better term, 'woke up', I was immediately seized by the desire to spread what had been revealed to me, to help the world, communicate the wisdom that had awoken me from my robotic slumber. However the more I studied, the deeper I dove into my spiritual quest, the more I realized that it is impossible to change the world by intending to change the world. My conclusion was that the best thing I could do for the Universe at large was to fix myself, to clean up my little corner of it, my unique perceptions. (As I've said before, to remake myself into a super-human pattern through which the Divine may more clearly shine.) In the long run, I've become a practitioner of the Golden Pillar, the mystic path, simultaneously balancing both the White and the Black Pillars. So very Taoist of me, I'm all about balance. Palpatine tells Anakin during one of the Dark-side seduction scenes, (mental and emotional, not sexual, you pervs!) that one must study both halves of the Force (in my case, the Universe) in order to have the fullest understanding of it and oneself. I have always found Star Wars to be a spiritually enriching series, Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter and so on, and often I've wondered how much of my spiritual outlook has been programmed by my early viewings of Star Wars (I saw all three originals in the theatre.) After all, Lucas basically crib-noted Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces for his scripts and Campbell is of course America's top Jungian, a system I absolutely adore.
To sum up, I loved it, and now that I've purged most of it onto the screen and into your minds, I feel infinitely better and I absolutely cannot wait for the opportunity to watch all the Episodes, I through VI in order. I hereby give Star Wars Episode III : Revenge of the Sith 93 Divine Sparks, 73 Chokmah Days and a 3-month Supply of Prozac.
