05-18-2002, 05:09 AM
Star Wars II short review. do not read if you don't want to know anything. i won't give anything away, but you may prefer to see the movie first. i posted this brief bit on another site i frequent. hope y'all don't mind the cut and paste.
bad dialogue - Lucas has never gotten this part right, and now its become part of the charm. don't expect any Oscars folks.
foreshadowing - i don't think im giving anything away here, because these movies come before, hence they lead into the story we already know. i think that this is done pretty decently, all told.
effects/CGI/animation - blended better than Phantom. cool new ships, yoda has more facial expression now. go figure.
love scenes - contrived, bad teen-emotion love story. i wasn't thrilled with the way this worked. it could have been (despite lucas' best intentions) really good.
aliens - I have a personal thing against S.F. movies and their depiction of aliens. not ALL S.F. movies fall under this stigma, but there are too many that do. these are beings that evolved in a totally different environment, with a totally different ecosphere, atmosphere, planetary history, etc. yet somehow they are all humanoid. by humanoid i mean 2 eyes, 4 limbs, walking upright, head-on-neck-on-shoulders, faces arranged eyes-nose-mouth, digits on 'hands' and 'feet' etc. SW doesn't completely follow this, but mostly. there are a couple exceptions. Jabba, Wattoo, the other creatures on the planet where the clonewars start, and the cook in the diner (who has 4 arms, but is so utterly a human caricature that it completely offsets any points for the 4-arm thing). and this doesn't apply to the 'Beasts' of the movies. but they are just that, beasts, in the service of the bad guys or the good. but not really sentient rational creatures themselves. more like pets. for once i'd like to see aliens with their faces arranged on their torsos, or smell-organs like pores all over their skin, or that have no legs, but propel themselves by a sort of oozing forth. maybe something with a lot of eyes, on the front and back of its body, with a mouth to differentiate front and back.
bad dialogue - Lucas has never gotten this part right, and now its become part of the charm. don't expect any Oscars folks.
foreshadowing - i don't think im giving anything away here, because these movies come before, hence they lead into the story we already know. i think that this is done pretty decently, all told.
effects/CGI/animation - blended better than Phantom. cool new ships, yoda has more facial expression now. go figure.
love scenes - contrived, bad teen-emotion love story. i wasn't thrilled with the way this worked. it could have been (despite lucas' best intentions) really good.
aliens - I have a personal thing against S.F. movies and their depiction of aliens. not ALL S.F. movies fall under this stigma, but there are too many that do. these are beings that evolved in a totally different environment, with a totally different ecosphere, atmosphere, planetary history, etc. yet somehow they are all humanoid. by humanoid i mean 2 eyes, 4 limbs, walking upright, head-on-neck-on-shoulders, faces arranged eyes-nose-mouth, digits on 'hands' and 'feet' etc. SW doesn't completely follow this, but mostly. there are a couple exceptions. Jabba, Wattoo, the other creatures on the planet where the clonewars start, and the cook in the diner (who has 4 arms, but is so utterly a human caricature that it completely offsets any points for the 4-arm thing). and this doesn't apply to the 'Beasts' of the movies. but they are just that, beasts, in the service of the bad guys or the good. but not really sentient rational creatures themselves. more like pets. for once i'd like to see aliens with their faces arranged on their torsos, or smell-organs like pores all over their skin, or that have no legs, but propel themselves by a sort of oozing forth. maybe something with a lot of eyes, on the front and back of its body, with a mouth to differentiate front and back.