David Brin on "Attack of the Clones" 538
dpt writes "Science fiction author and scientist David Brin caused quite a stir at the time with his article on The Phantom Menace, and now here are his thoughts on Episode II. Not being as harsh, it hasn't received much attention, but it's an interesting read anyway."
The Biggest Problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
The only new crime of the new trilogy is the over-reliance on CGI.
PS this isnt a troll I actually love Star Wars
Hes right but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, shouldnt a critique of the movie be out, say, within a month or two of the movie being released??
It is just a movie... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Blah (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? Brin is most definitely not in the "can't do" category. He's a fantastic author who's won a stack of awards for his Science Fiction writing. I'll admit that the one movie [imdb.com] made from one of his books was awful, but the blame for that lies clearly on Kevin Costner's shoulders, not Brin's.
Re:Twinge[...] Yeah, but read his 3-paragraphs (Score:2, Insightful)
In space, no one can hear you snore... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey, Star Wars is a space soap opera (sorta like Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers). 2001 is hard-core science fiction. Two distinct genres.
Please don't place a burden on something that doesn't deserve it.
Getting angry can turn you evil (Score:2, Insightful)
The one thing that I couldn't agree with was when he said getting angry can turn you evil is a down right lie. He then brings up an obligatory Hitler reference. A better example would be if, say a military group attacked you, and you decided to completely annihliate everyone who is from their country. You fighting the group is not evil, but you going overboard and killing everyone is! Of course you would have had no reason to fight them at all, but you were mad at what they did to you.
Hope that makes sense!
Re:The Biggest Problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dissent is Good (Score:4, Insightful)
If more people step up and speak the truth about how much of a "let down" both of the "new" Star Wars films have been, maybe George will spend a little more time writing the third and less time worrying about the CGI.
Re:Good vs Evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Reading this guy's article, I was amazed at how seriously he took SWII. Taking entire paragraphs to point out plot inconsistencies, complaining about the simplistic notion of Jedi thoughts on anger, Anakin's mother, etc., etc. makes me wonder if he doesn't realize that for George Lucas, this whole Star Wars thing is pure escapism - a giddy, whimsical throwback to B-grade kiddie serial flicks from another time. Of course there's no Spielbergian display of 'inner conflict of the human hero' - that's how the genre works. The Lone Ranger would have been out of place in Saving Private Ryan but he'd be in familiar company in a Star Wars flick. Even special moments of angst (Luke looking at setting twin suns, Han contemplating a return to attack the original Death Star) are stock B-movie cheesy moments. It's What Makes Star Wars Fun.
Don't get me wrong - the guy's allowed to take Star Wars seriously. But this whole 'disgruntled fan-boy' criticism just seems like a waste of time, kind of like posting about it on Slashdot.
Hey, wait a minute...
Re:The Biggest Problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. The original trilogy had character. Without a Han Solo'ish character, Jedi are quite boring.
Plot is nowhere near as important as the characters. Don't belive me? Ask people why they like Monsters Inc. 0 people will say "Because I think it's cool how Sully provided power to the Monster world without scaring children!"
brass tacks (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh, and I save my religous devotion for Star Trek and Vi.
That aside, I think the real problem is that we're quibbling over subplot and subtext in a place it doesn't belong. The original appeal of the space opera in New Hope was that the story arc - moronic, cheesy, and poorly constructed as it might be, IANA writer just an engineer - was epic (insert sound effect for listeners of the Tony Kornheiser show). Whats killed Eps I and II is that we have time to consider the finer, or not so fine, plot components because the story line is so darn boring. As much as it might be a subtle introduction into the making of an emperor, a story arc about a trade dispute pales in comparison to saving the universe from destruction.
Save the intellectualism for Trek and Battlestar Gallactica, and give me more epic space opera in my Ep III, and I'll be happy.
Re:Meaning what...? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you think it's just coincidence, or lack of foresight or something, that LucasFilm is notorious for releasing not one, not two, not three, but *four or more* versions of each film to the home video market? The initial ones being downright crippled, then gradually getting better?
How about the fact that they had to scale back the number of merchandising tie-ins for AotC because there was so much press about how TPM was basically a 2 hour vehicle for cross-promotions of toys, ties, and KFC [homestead.com]
His lifestyle, which you point out, actually argues my point: when people are greedy, they often *don't* have mansions, yachts, harems, etc, because it isn't about enjoying wealth, but rather accumulating it.
George Lucas definitely had some potential, but speaking in present tense, he's about as much of an "artist" as Brittney Spears -- he may be in complete technical control of movies, but he is absolutely a slave to public opinion when it comes to what to make, because he's greedy and the primary interest is in maximizing revenue, not producing quality movies. Sometimes it works in our favor (everyone hates Jar-Jar, we get less Jar-Jar), sometimes it works against us (must include a cheesy romance to capture the female demographic). That's par for the course in Hollywood, I know, but my point is that he's no exception... and that, with customer-abusive attitudes in video release and merchandising, he is actually one of the worst.
Cheers
-b
Re:The Biggest Problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
The suckage of AotC goes way beyond "not living up to the nostalgia." If the originals had been this bad, they would have been consigned to the trash heap, and these new ones would have never been made.
And no, I have no intentions of wasting my five dollars and three hours on the third movie. I'll find a decent book to read and do something enjoyable with my time.
Re:Star What? (Score:5, Insightful)
We'd been conditioned to see space as an antiseptic place, full of glaring bright light, shiny technology, and alien experiences. The original thing about the first SW movie was the way it visually reimagined space to be grungy, bange-up, and lived-in, full of low life characters who were perfectly comprehensible even if they spoke some weird electronic lanuge and looked like a pile of congealed excrement. Star Wars opened up outer space to the great unwashed.
Lucas wants it both ways (Score:4, Insightful)
So Brin is critiqeing from the view that Lucas does want to be taken seriously.
I happen to agree that Lucas just wants to make a bunch of money and play with some cool new digital toys & that he is using Campbellian patterns in his stories because they are recepies for popularity, not because he actually wants or expects his stories to teach or shape the culture.
But a central theme to Campbell's work was that popular myths _do_ shape and teach...
Re:The Biggest Problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but recognize that "Star Wars" was superior to almost any other science fiction/space opera out at that time. The special effects alone deserved accolades, and some of them still do. The concept of the Force was something the non-book-reading public had yet to encounter in sci-fi.
Up until then, sci-fi in tv and movies was almost all about robots, aliens, spaceships, invasions, monsters and laboratory experiments gone awry. All the general public had to know about sci-fi was the original "Star Trek", "Battlestar Galactica", "Space 1999", "Buck Rogers". Nothing too cerebral there.
The Force was a good concept to add to an otherwise pretty, but ordinary movie like "Star Wars", and "The Empire Strikes Back" made it even better with some clever plot twists and delightful character development that was ten times deeper than what "Star Wars" had bothered with. "Return of the Jedi" tied it all up with by far the best F/X of the trilogy and lots of great action.
We expected too much from the new trilogy, is the problem -- the basic story is good, but the acting just isn't there and the digital special effects have overwhelmed the characters completely. Plus there's been a decade and a half with some really good science fiction since then. "The Matrix" alone, which opened mere weeks before "The Phantom Menace," showed everyone that sci-fi didn't have to be about spaceships and aliens in order to kick butt.
Re:What AotC Needed... (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, I was really hoping/expecting that he'd be killed at the end, and his dying words would be, "You've just destroyed the only force in the galaxy that could have stopped the Sith...."
I love the idea of Palpatine manipulating his enemies into destroying eachother so that he could seize control. Kind of nihilistic, I know, but it lays a far richer foundation for Episode 3.
Terrorists (Score:2, Insightful)
Bitter much? (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, Brin is fond of pointing out how unhealthy it is to repress your emotions -- something he claims the Jedi faith is based on. The problem is that the Jedi have no problems with the existence of negative emotions -- merely with acting on them. Controlling yourself to the point where you don't even have any negative emotions is nigh-impossible; but recognizing when you are having those emotions, and waiting until you are calm before you act, is where the wisdom lies.
Brin also makes the odd assumption that just because Lucas shows a character doing something in a movie, means that Lucas thinks that real people should act that way in real life. His quote from Orwell is almost apropos, except that a movie is different enough from a gas chamber that the comparison is silly. I'm not saying Brin has to like Lucas's beliefs or philosophy, but to claim that there's some crime being perpetrated against humanity because of the entirely fictional things that happen in a movie, is just dumb. Criticizing a movie for bad writing, bad direction, and bad acting is certainly fine, but why does Brin see such a threat against real adult morality from these films?
Re:Hes right but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Literary criticism can actually get more interesting as time goes on. What if anything does "Blade Runner" have to say now that we have cloning? Does "Seven Samurai" or "Magnificent Seven" inform the debate on terrorism today? How does a character like Charles Foster Kane illustrate what we now see in people like Rupert Murdoch or, for that matter, Bill Clinton?
Every generation gets to reintrepret stories, whether those stories are Star Wars movies, Shakespeare's plays, or the epics of the Greeks & Romans. The first generation gets a first crack at such review, but really it takes time for the first wave of interesting stuff to fall out, and the revisionism that later generations can bring can be even more interesting, even if it makes purists wince. Compared to that slower, more thoughtful criticism, the puff pieces you get to see right when the movie/book/etc comes out are for the most part pretty boring & useless.
Brin is right (Score:3, Insightful)
What Lucas is good at is production-value overload. In Episode I, there's a new major set every 90 seconds. That's really what keeps people from being bothered by the bad dialogue and inept action.
Yes, it makes money, but so does Pokemon.
Re:Getting angry can turn you evil (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Beauty is only skin deep... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beauty is only skin deep... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think part of the real irony of people bashing the romance between Anakin and Padme is that they are holding these characters up to a higher level than what the characters should be at in real life. Anakin is late teens, Padme is early/mid 20's. They play the romance exactly as it would be in real life. You have Anakin who has never loved before all of a sudden getting this rush of feelings (remember your first HS crush? compare...). Add Padme, a 20-something who doesn't take this kid seriously and attempts to brush off his advances. Mind you that she has never loved before either since her life has been spent in the political spotlight. Two first loves in the later part of their life? Come on, you can't tell me that half the 20-something computer geek virgins wouldn't have a romance dialogue similar or WORSE than what AOTC had.
--trb
Re:The Biggest Problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Aristotle is talking about stories and storytelling, is he not? The nature of stories is timeless, and while storytelling techniques may have changed since Aristotle's time, storytelling principles--being closely bound to the nature of stories--have not.
Since Aristotle is talking about things that don't change over time (the nature of stories and the principles of storytelling), if his advice is not valid today, it must never have been valid. He was just as wrong about stories "hundreds of years" ago as you say he is today.
Advice doesn't have to be contemporary to be valid. "Don't murder people" has been around far longer than you or I (or Aristotle), but just because we've forgotten who "supposedly" said it first, that doesn't mean it's suddenly now bad advice.
As for the question of whether Aristotle really said it or not is irrelevant to your argument: the wisdom of the statement can easily be tested without resorting to argument by authority. In fact, arguing that it must be good advice because "Aristotle said it" is just as foolish as arguing that it must be bad advice because "Aristotle is dead now". But I digress.
Re:The Biggest Problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
But what is the nature of stories, anyway? A simple answer might be that the nature of stories is to communicate. This seems like a reasonable answer, and if we look into the past we see that it applies just as much to pre-historic cave paintings as to the contemporary novel. Looking forward, it's reasonable to assume that this nature will not change in the future. Likewise, the nature of storytelling is to communicate the story. A storyteller of any age, using any technique, can be judged against this standard. The thing being communicated is different in different times and places, but the fundamental principle of communication that defines a "story" does not.
If we take "communication" as the unchanging nature of stories, then we can interpret Aristotle as follows: "Plot is more important than character, in order to successfully communicate the story." The question then becomes "is Aristotle correct?"--and this question can be applied just as appropriately to modern stories as ancient ones. By the same token, his assertion will be just as correct in the ancient context as in the modern one, so if he's wrong today, then he was wrong back then, and if he was right back then, he will be right today.
Unless, of course, he has also confused implementation with design: his audience might have better received plot-driven communication than character-driven, leading him to believe that the implementation of his time was inherent to the nature of stories themselves. If he is wrong at all, I suspect that he is wrong in this way--and that he always has been wrong.