Roger Ebert Answers Star Wars Questions 404
pamri writes "Roger Ebert, in his weekly answer-man column, answers Star War related questions, chief among them being, why he gave the "Revenge of the Sith" 3.5 stars despite his criticism of the acting and whether George Lucas be faulted for violating his own work?"
Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:3, Interesting)
Did a quick google, and couldn't find any critics that panned the movie. It's like they all were afraid - "If I pan the movie, people will reviel me" or some other shit. So here is my review, posted earlier today:
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:4, Informative)
Try the Independent's review [independent.co.uk]
It got a whopping one star out of five. It's an entertaining review, as well. I can't say whether it's accurate or not though, because I haven't seen the film. Ep. I was bad enough that I just rented Ep. II later on. Ep II was dull enough that I haven't bothered with Ep III at all.
Re:SPOILER (Score:3, Interesting)
Just perhaps... (Score:3, Funny)
Just sayin'.
--grendel drago
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who has followed Ebert knows that for decades he has hated the star rating system, but subjects himself to it since its whats expected by newspapers. His 'thumbs up, thumbs down' was an attempt to abstract this a bit, saying "its worth watching on its merits" or not. You can't compare Citizen Kane to Die Hard...both are 'good' movies, but one clearly transcends its medium whereas the other is just good ass-kicking goodness.
Kiss kiss, bang bang.
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:4, Informative)
Excuse Me? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm still standing here, you know.
Re:Excuse Me? (Score:5, Funny)
But (Score:2)
Re:But (Score:5, Funny)
You fast-forwarded the movie? Didn't the other people in the cinema get upset?
Re:But (Score:3, Funny)
Re:But (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But (Score:3, Interesting)
Die Hard as well as Revenge of the Sith was written mediocre at best. These are substance movies with enough machine guns and hype to attract the average crowd. I rarely if ever give credit to Hollywood screenwriting. Where Hollywood always shine is the producing and directing.
Re:But (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the quality of writing in your post, you're clearly an expert in the English language. But I digress
Die hard was well written. It understood its medium and its audience, there were no painful moments of dialog where our hero broke into long winded speeches about man's inhumanity to man, no oddly placed iambic pentameter. It had a simple but classic plot, a NY cop trying to come to grips with his wife's success, goes through an ordeal where he learns how much he really loves his wife.
I've actually seen quite a bit of foreign cinema, and seen very little to make me non US movies are better written than our in general. Are you judging it based on the .05% of foreign films that make it to the US general release? The cream of teh cream of the crop? Or perhaps you are judging based on the fact that they follow different cultural norms? I was a bit shocked to watch a Japanese film whose moral lesson was "Its the kids fault, had he listened to his adoptive family and done what the state wanted hime to do he and his sister would be alive and happy to day. Conform or be miserable!" But I've also seen horrible French, Italian, Soviet, Polish, and Korean cinema.
Or perhaps you're refering to outside Hollywood projects such as "In the Bedroom", a dull, painfully slow moving work that rivals the infamous "Manos: Hands of Fate" for five minute riding in cars peering out the windows segements. Its bad when the high point of a movie is watch the toll bridge guy run around in circles again to move the bridge, punctuated by self-indulgent lines like "It comes in waves, and then nothing... like a rest in music - no sound, but so loud."
Is "Die Hard" superlative writing, like Shakespere's Saint Crispin's Day speech in Henry V? Heck no. It neither tries to be nor should it be.
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:5, Interesting)
Ebert has always said that he hates the "star" ratings, but his newspaper makes him do it. Unfortunately, most readers just want to quickly glance at a rating rather than read a review and draw their conclusions.
Ebert has said before that the ratings are relative in that if the movie is intended to be a popcorn action movie, then he rates the movie compared to that. If it is expected to be art, he rates the movie against that.
Ebert is a very good reviewer, and he really knows his stuff about movies, although the wearing a sweater on TV and doing the thumbs up thing may mask that. I watched the DVD for "Dark City," [amazon.com] and he did a commentary for it, and it was amazing what he drew out of it. Watching it and listening to it, I felt like I was sitting in a graduate level film class.
I think one problem is that Ebert is that he watches too many movies that he must review, and sometimes he glosses over a movie because he expects that he doesn't need to study it at a deeper level.
For example, Ebert's review of Episode II [suntimes.com] was very superficial (to the point that he even misquoted some key dialog in his review). However, on the whole he is probably correct that Episode II does not stand alone as a movie, and must be viewed in the context of the other movies, and his reviews rate movies based on how they stand alone.
In contrast, someone on Slashdot linked to another review of the movie by David Begor [brightlightsfilm.com] where he draws out the symbolism in the movie. The review is quite enlightening, and it changed the way I viewed the movies, as I could recognize the symbolism.
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:3, Funny)
The mere concept rattles me. I must go lay down now.
Re:Use the Force, Ebert! Dark City (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, there was Saving Private Ryan, but otherwise? Yikes!
Shakespeare in Love won the Oscar that year, in spite of being one of the shittiest movies Miramax ever made. Other movies that year included:
Bullworth
Patch Adams
Godzilla (US Version)
Armageddon
Deep Impact
Need I go on?
Dark City was a very good movie in a year which only saw two or three very good movies.
And yes, he does focus on cinematography. He's said many times that film is not a me
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
How about, "Using numbers to rate movies is subjective. That's part of the difficulty of this job." ?
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:3, Interesting)
(Clearly, I have a vested interest in this complaint, but...) I've never understood Ebert's relativity rationale. How are we poor schnook viewers to choose our fare, when Ebert gives 3.5 stars to some mindless b-movie merely for being in focus? It smacks a bit of those "most underrated player" awards...
Re:Ebert: My Job is So Easy (Score:2)
If you want to rely on a numerical rating for a movie review, go ahead, but I think even a non-slashdot reader will understand that it has inherent shortcomings. Furthermore, Ebert's review is only Ebert's opinion. You might find yourself disagreeing with any reviewer.
I think elsewhere in this article's comments, someone mentions that Ebert rates a movie according to its genre, so that a mindless summer action flick that is a *good* mindless summer action flick gets 4 stars,
Re:Ebert Overlooked Major Inconsistency (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ebert Overlooked Major Inconsistency (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't gone back to listen to the movies to see if there is something odd about C-3PO's voice, but Anthony Daniels [imdb.com] has always done his voice.
-prator
Re:Ebert Overlooked Major Inconsistency (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ebert Overlooked Major Inconsistency (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ebert Overlooked Major Inconsistency (Score:3, Insightful)
While your assumption is interesting, it's not necessarily correct. The difference between being shot by a plasma weapon (that uses excited gasses... as opposed to a phaser, which is modulated light) is energy overload. Perhaps the blaster shorted 3p0's head, where an impact would not.
Re:Ebert Overlooked Major Inconsistency (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, in SW II, we see that C3PO loses his head again when an assembly tool knocks it off in the droid factory. However, the head continues to be powered and keeps talking....
One possible explanation: NiCad battery in the head, charger in the torso (where there is some kind of generator.) The battery got fried when he was shot in Empire, so he needed the juice from the charger to power up.
Another: The torso has nothing to do with head power. Chewie just happened to close a broken circuit (or open a short) when he put the head on.
Of all the possible nitpicks I've heard, this isn't really a very big one.
Watch any version of Star Wars prior to the DVD (including a bootleg of the theatrical "Special Edition.")
After killing Ben, Darth walks toward the Falcon and the iris doors close in front of him... They forgot to animate his lightsaber! He's carrying a metal stick.
Not good enough for you? Try this one: In III, Obi-Wan says goodbye to R2 after all they had been through together. In IV, he doesn't recognize him at all. "I don't remember owning a droid."
Still want more? Leia tells Luke about her childhood memories of their mother... but now it turns out that mom died on the delivery room table. Either Leia was never told (and never suspected) that she was adopted, or she sees dead people.
There. That should be enough to fuel your nitpicks for a while.
I can understand (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I can understand (Score:3, Funny)
I still have a problem with Ewan McGregor. For me he'll always be Renton from Trainspotting. I spent much of the film waiting for him to come out with something like 'Master Yoda, I want a fucking hit now!'.
Re:I can understand (Score:2)
Nerd vs. idea (Score:2)
Re:Nerd vs. idea (Score:2)
Re:I can understand (Score:4, Funny)
Oh goody, a polished Lump-O-Coal.
KFG
The Bell Curve? (Score:5, Interesting)
Riley - "I am a nice, normal guy."
Buffy - "Maybe by this town's standards, but I'm not grading on a curve."
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Like Buffy's love life, movie reviews should be on an absolute scale, not comparing a film to previous films of the same series. Because, quite frankly, I'm sure ROTS is f**king brilliant compared to the previous two. That doesn't make it a good movie, it makes it "less sucky".
Re:The Bell Curve? (Score:2)
Kind of like Doom 3 which was for all intents and purposes in my eyes a great game , but i couldnt help feeling that it just didn't live up to the memory of doom which partialy ruined it for me..
Im fairly sure this is why alot of folks also dislike ROTS , because it does not live up to the origional trillogy.
I still think it sucks (Score:2)
No, I am really sure it doesn't work as a movie. And I am sure if hadn't Vader and Chewie in it, that you would hate it. In fact the prequels made me look at the OT with different eyes and these days I think that ROTJ was already shit. In fact I had that feeling when I left the cinema that night in 1983. Then i was thinking if we just saw a remake of ep IV, with it starting on Tattoine. Aga
Re:The Bell Curve? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is to say, you don't take Who Framed Roger Rabbit and say that it's a failure because the dramatic tension isn't up to the standards of The Godfather.
Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is one of the best space operas to hit the movie screen, IMHO. That doesn't mean it has great dialog because dialog isn't what that genre is abo
Re:The Bell Curve? (Score:3, Insightful)
At one time, it was thought that especially serious movies should have some kind of comic relief, either a character that's so stupid you wonder how he breathes or some kind of happy fun dance at the end. This appears campy by today's standards.
Today films have ever more realistic special effects and are getting better at avoiding the
"alltogether" (Score:2)
Re:I can understand (Score:2, Insightful)
The plot had a hole you could drive a death star through without scraping chrome off the fenders.
<SPOILER WARNING>
When Vader got fried on the volcano planet Obi Wan just walked away. This is an act of extreme cruelty unworthy of a Jedi! Any Jedi worthy of the name would have put the poor lump of melted flesh out of its misery. This would have negated the existence of movies IV - VI.
Re:I can understand (Score:2)
Re:I can understand (Score:2)
Re:I can understand (Score:2, Insightful)
A plot hole his him not remembering ever owning a droid when R2 shows up at his home in the next movie claiming to be his property.
While you're at it... (Score:3, Funny)
But yeah, the Yoda thing bugged me.
Yoda: Into exile, I must go.
Senator Organa: Dude, he's right back there. You were way ahead.
Yoda: No.
Senator Organa: You could totally kick his ass.
Yoda: To the starting line, we must get.
Senator Organa: Then why'd you fight him, if you were just going to run like a little green bitch?
Yoda: A flying muppet, the
Re:I can understand (Score:2, Insightful)
Ebert is a funny liberal (Score:5, Funny)
Q. I greatly enjoy your reviews and the thoughtful observations they contain. However, I get a little worried about the strength of your argument in your review of "Unleashed," when you make the case for women being able to stir a man's humanity by using Ann Coulter as your example. That is the same person who claimed women should bear arms but not be able to vote.
C. Perla, Miami
A. Wouldn't you sleep more soundly at night knowing Ann Coulter was in the Army and not in a voting booth?
If you like laughing at Ann Coulter, please don't miss these stories:
http://ifuckedanncoulterintheasshard.blogspot.com
http://backinanncoultersasssaddleagain.blogspot.c
(bye karma...)
Re:Ebert is a funny liberal (Score:2)
Re:Ebert is a funny liberal (Score:2)
He didn't answer the question on "tampering" (Score:2)
My Favorite Question (Score:4, Funny)
The box-office take was $158.5 million. That leaves a $468.5 cost to the U.S. Economy. But that's not the end of the loss. Each day, Lucas is losing $1.5 million to pirates -- a capital cost to his investors of $6 million in four days and climbing. The loss could and should have been avoided by release on a Saturday or Sunday, and Simultaneous Distribution to Television, Sales and Rentals. The question becomes, would George Lucas really damage the economy to make a point of his hate for the Republican Party and President George Bush?
D.L. Graham, San Diego
Re:My Favorite Question (Score:2)
Let's suppose Lucas was in the business of selling DVDs. A disk costs say, $10 to produce and sells for $20 (not real numbers, but will work for the sake of example). If $20M was needed to produce the movie, then 2M disks need to be sold to pay for the production costs. Say he sells 3M disks, so now he's $10 M richer than when he began.
Now, the difference:
If people stole 2M disks, then Lucas would face a $20M loss due
Re:My Favorite Question (Score:2, Funny)
"And what did happen to Padme's pants?"
Re:My Favorite Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Poor calculations (Score:2)
But to offset that only by ticket sales misses the big picture. What about related food sales alone from people going to see the movie? And to some extent, even related toy sales which are of course monstrous. That's keeping a lot of people employed, I'd say a lot more than the ecenomic loss generated from people taking an afternoon off to see a movie.
The original question was obviiously meant to be funny but to me it just seemed overly simplistic.
More like... (Score:2)
Not Worth Reading (Score:3, Insightful)
Q. There is a pants/no-pants continuity error in Padme's maternity getup when she arrives on the lava planet. How do such errors creep into movies made with such budgets and so many eyes checking and approving things?
Mark Suszko, Springfield, Ill.
A. I cannot recall this detail, but as you describe it, it certainly sounds like the kind of detail that should be noticed.
Gee, thanks Roger... you really put your advanced film knowledge to good use there.
Re:Not Worth Reading (Score:2)
PANTS/NO PANTS?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:PANTS/NO PANTS?! (Score:2)
Re:PANTS/NO PANTS?! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:PANTS/NO PANTS?! (Score:2)
And if it were Natalie Portman, let's just say there'd be some serious petrification and hot grits going on.
Re:Not Worth Reading (Score:2)
Many of these errors are so minor I don't think they deserve any note whatsoever.
The way film sets typically deal with this is that they hire one person to be in charge of conti
Re:Not Worth Reading (Score:2)
Re:Not Worth Reading (Score:2)
Re:Not Worth Reading (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not Worth Reading (Score:2)
A. And what happened to Padme's pants?
Ebert's just one of many (Score:4, Interesting)
There seems to be a disconnect between critics and just about everyone I've talked to about the movie. Just about every review has overlooked the awful dialog, bad editing, and crappy sructure/pacing and praised the movie as one of the best, I'm sorry but in a post-B5, Firefly world, my Sci-Fi (or Sci-Fantasy, if you prefer) requires MUCH better dialog than 14 characters commenting on how much STRESS Annakin is under. F-in STRESS! As though the Republic could have been saved if the Jedi had had a better insurance program that had covered counciling!
Someone needs to stand up and hit Lucas with a rolled up newspaper, hopefully it'll be #2 this weekend and some lesson will be learned (though they'll probably blame it on poor elitetorrents and their crappy workprint).
Re:Ebert's just one of many (Score:2, Insightful)
Boxofficemojo [boxofficemojo.com] is showing that on Friday ROTS was beaten out by "The longest yard".
Way to go Sandler and Kid Rock.
You know, I stood in the lines for both of the previous sequels for both tickets and seats, but I don't think I'm gonna see this one.
And no, I won't torrent it either. I'm just not that interested in it, and know that Lucas couldn't present a believable story about the origins of Darth Vader...
Re:Ebert's just one of many (Score:5, Insightful)
The backstory between Vader and Obi-wan was much, much more interesting to have to imagine yourself than Lucas' fluid, undulating, oscillating animation and flat story, characters and acting.
You know what? The special effects in the original, non-special edition Star Wars movies looks cheesy. You know what? It doesn't matter. I don't care that I can't see the ice creature on Hoth very well. Does the fact that we can't see Vader's ships landing on Hoth affect our enjoyment of the movie? No! You know what? HUMAN IMAGINATION IS BETTER THAN ANY CGI. If you can imply something, fine, sometimes it's actually as good as spending a cajillion dollars on the CGI.
What imagination needs is compelling, interesting characters. And story. If you can make the audience want to imagine the characters, they will. And that's as good, if not better, as rendering the same thing in CGI.
The prequels made the characters worse. Pah.
Someone needs to go back in time to 1986 QUICK and kill George Lucas. OR, for the faint of heart, convince him that it would be really cool if he made the prequels using ONLY 1978 technology. I guarantee that would have made a much more interesting movie.
Re:Ebert's just one of many (Score:2)
If anyone else were to direct them and write the screenplay I'd agree it could turn into something magnificent. However, strong direction and dialogue, both of which would be vitally important to such a venture IMO are Lucas's absolute weakest points. I'm
Re:Ebert's just one of many (Score:2)
Re:Ebert's just one of many (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been thinking something like this, myself. When someone said, "We should see all six movies in the order they were meant to be seen," I surprised myself by snapping out, "No!"
Part of what made the original three movies enjoyable was the mystery and the discovery through the characters. Either Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker encounter is not as tense if you know what to expect. Okay, so we know now, but experiencing the stor
Oh, come on. (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on. Lucas invented most of the technologies used to make the original Star Wars. He founded companies to provide the sound and special effects that he wanted - and now you complain that he's too focused on the special effects?
Please. Star Wars was always about special effects and nothing else. I remember an entire issue of Time magazine discussing how Lucas had revolutionized the industry with his use of computer controlled models to automate the stop-motion techniques already in use. I remember articles discussing the chess game between Chewbacca and R2D2 and how Lucas created the effect and whether such a thing could actually exist.
Lucas took the state of the art, pushed it to it's utter limits and beyond. Stop judging them as an adult and watch them in the manner they were meant to be watched - with the eyes and heart of child.
Re:Oh, come on. (Score:5, Interesting)
The first Star Wars was nominated for Best Picture in the Oscars of that year. It did not do so because of only technical acheivement. It was because it had compelling story and characters.
Look at Chewbacca. He can only speak in unintelligible grunts, yet he is a complex character with conflicting traits whom we end up caring about by the end of of the movie. Look at Jar-Jar Binks. His only trait is that he's annoying, and by the end of the story the audience wants him dead.
There are scenes in Star Wars that are so memorable that they've become shared cultural cliches. The garbage-smasher scene. Luke's swing across the abyss. They Cantina scene, or Leia as Jabba the Hutt's slave. These scenes have been parodied countless, countless times in other contexts. It's hard to imagine any such equivalent in the Phantom Menace.
Look at the Imperial Walkers. We first see them as tiny, blurry ants through the underpowered lens of a rebel infantrymen's binoculars. We see them growing larger until they're huge and seemingly unstoppable, all the while moving slowly and formidably. This is dramatic structure. You find yourself caring about whether or not the rebels win, you feel their frustration along with them, and the slow unveiling of the walkers makes it more believable -- not the beautiful CGI. They're actually ugly, industrial-looking, rigid and inflexible.
Try to think of anything like this in the prequels.
The millenium falcoln. The Death Star. The Imperial Walkers. They are cool not because of the fantastic rendering. They are cool because they are scary, or dramatic, and their properties are interesting and novel even if only in a purely theoretical way, not simply because of how realistic they look.
Star Wars was always about the human imagination. The special effects were always only a medium for that imagination. You cannot capture the human imagination with wooden characters doing uninteresting things. Chewbacca is a 8 foot tall hairy monster that can't speak English but we end up caring about him because of his human-like complexities. Without stuff like that, all that animation is like a math textbook with a pretty dust jacket.
Re:Ebert's just one of many (Score:2)
It's down to 203 as of Sunday. Around 30% were bad reviews (7 or less) a week ago, now its at about 37%.
Hopefully it will be off the top 250 list by next weekend!
Funeral Procession (Score:2, Interesting)
With thRevenge of the Sith, people filed out of the packed theater *without a sound.* It was like leaving a funeral.
Re:Funeral Procession (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, the reason that this movie is a lot more successful than the others(IMHO), is that it plays a lot on nostalgia, it has some pretty good effects, and it answers a lot of questions that we all had.
Oh, before I forget about it
Anybody else remember in Empire when Ghost Obi Wan is talking about "he is our last hope" and Yoda says... "No, their is another". Exactly why was Obi Wan so clueless!!!! That was the first thing that po
Re:Funeral Procession (Score:5, Interesting)
> talking about "he is our last hope" and Yoda says... "No, their
> is another". Exactly why was Obi Wan so clueless!!!! That was
> the first thing that popped in my head when I saw Obi Wan
> hearing the names of the two kids and seeing them off.
It's the difference between hope and despair.
I know that some people are desperate to find plot continuity errors between Episodes I/II/III and IV/V/VI in hope to justify some sort of emotional reason to reject the latter produced episodes -- "See! Obi-Wan has a different mole in Episode IV than in Episode III, so the prequels don't count!!1!" However, this isn't the case.
This isn't simply a matter of hunting down the second twin and starting her training. Remember, Palpatine and Vader killed all the other Jedi. Palpatine defeated Yoda who was the strongest Jedi (after Anakin lost his limbs). Vader struck down Obi-Wan. In short, Sideous and Vader were tough to beat.
Obi-Wan had lost hope and he really thought that Luke was going to fail. Just like Anakin's love for Padme sent him to the Dark Side, Obi-Wan thought that Luke's love for his friends would send him to the Dark Side. Obi-Wan was feeling despair and he couldn't imagine they would succeed by starting over with the other twin. He had simply given up hope.
Yoda clearly was upset, but he was optimistic enough to at least try to start over. "There is another." I guess when you're ~800 years old, you have tremendous patience, and you're willing to fail 99 times and still start over for the 100th time. So while Obi-Wan lost hope, Yoda didn't.
However, in Episode V, Yoda and Obi-Wan both failed again the same way they did in Episode III; they gave up on their friends too easily. Remember how Yoda told Luke it was okay to let his friends die? Didn't he tell Anakin the same thing in Episode III? That's one of the things that drove Anakin to the Dark Side.
The reason for this is related to a flaw in the Jedi order. The Jedi knew that passions (like hatred and anger) lead to the Dark Side. Their answer was to eschew emotions. I believe one of Lucas's themes is that their choice was wrong.
Jedi weren't allow to have attachments or to love (Episode II). The Jedi were so afraid of using the Dark Side, that they went the wrong way and became unemotional. Lucas's point is that is wrong. Love and friendship were the right course of action. That's why the Force had to be brought back into balance. In their own way, the unemotional Jedi were as bad (okay, almost as bad) as the hate-filled Sith.
Luke on the other hand felt emotion. His love for his friends brought him to rescue Han Solo and eventually save his father. So emotions were not to be eschewed, but were to be used constructively. Was there a danger to allowing love to lead to the Dark Side? Of course (case in point: Anakin). But the risk of not feeling love at all was worse.
Re:Funeral Procession (Score:3, Insightful)
The real question is: Why did Obi Wan have to talk Yoda into training Luke? Why not 'Waiting for you, I have been. Late you are; your training we must start.' What's with the 'no, he's too old' stuff?
Re:Funeral Procession (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I think you've done an excellent job retro-conning the concept.
Myself, I'd say that Obi-Wan and Yoda didn't want Luke to know that he had this grand role to play; they were more or less using him for their own devices. Which is understandable, in war and what not. Note that Vader later plays on this to try to divide Luke from Obi and Yoda.
Oh Please! The algorithm for a movie critic is ... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, you ask yourself "Was this film made for movie critics?" - in other words, lots of "character development" (i.e. pointless talking that does not REALLY develop the character), lots of "stunning camera work" (e.g. artsy shots of rotting fruit), and so on. If yes, then you blither on about the film, and how it is a shame that nobody in "the mainstream" will "get it" - thus assuring your street cred with other movie critics. The people who make your column pay (the common man) won't care. Next movie.
Failing that, you ask yourself "Is this film likely to be a popular success?" - such as a Terminator movie, or Back to the Future. If so, you give it a good review, so that the people who actually make your column a success won't stop reading you. It won't hurt your movie critic street cred: the other movie critics will understand - they will be doing the same thing. Next movie.
Lastly, if there is some question as to whether the movie will be a success, you do one of two things: You either give it
- a glowing write-up but a poor numerical rating, or
- a high numerical rating but a poor write-up.
That way, you are covered no matter what: if the movie is a success, you point to your glowing review (or high rating), and say "See! I told you this was a good movie!". If it is a total flop at the box office, you point to your poor rating (or bad review), and say "See! I told you this was going to be a flop!" Either way, you conveniently ignore the part of your review that was incorrect.So, Ebert just did the third option: he knows the movie will be a box office success, but he doesn't know what the fans will say after they've seen the movie, especially a few months afterwards, when the blush is off the rose. So, he gives the movie a good numerical rating, but then gives it a poor review. So, right now, when the movie is popular, he can point to the high rating and say "See! I know what I am talking about - you want to read ALL my reviews, and my web site, and my books, and....". Months from now, when rationality rears its unwelcome head and people start saying "Yes, the visuals were stunning, but I've heard more convincing delivery of dialog in pornos" he can point to his text reviews and say "See! I know what I am talking about - you want to read ALL my reviews, and my web site, and my books, and....".
Re:Oh Please! The algorithm for a movie critic is (Score:2)
A good critic has to understand not just that a movie is good or bad, but WHY. This means they need to understand the roles of director, writer, producer, editor, actor, costumer, etc... and the effect each has on the final product.
Unfortunately, when you understand those things significantly better than the average person, you start to appreciate them for their own sake instead of for their effective co
Re:Oh Please! The algorithm for a movie critic is (Score:3, Funny)
Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] are, as always, right on the money.
Obligatory Penny-Arcade Quote (Score:3, Funny)
It's not for you. [penny-arcade.com]
meaning of 3 and 4 stars (Score:2)
3 stars is for an all around solid movie. An above average movie that is well worth your time.
2 stars is for something that's "ok" or average. Not great, but has some elements that make it good enough as to be worth seeing.
1 star is a failure.
Half-stars, in my mind, are cop-out ratings. Stick to solid numbers.
It all started with the flying yellow text (Score:2)
WTF!!?! Sounds like something Lucas thumbtyped on his Blackberry when some assisstant reminded him that they needed some yellow pseudo 3D words for the start.
That set the scene for the rest of the 'dialogue', if they just took 1million from the SE budget and gave it to a 1/2 way competant writer, my it would have been a decent movie.
I mean, the dialogue was Power Rangers bad, I can't fault the actors, IMO they mostly did a great job of not looking to
The Art Of Sucking Less (Score:2)
I think one of the pitfalls that film makers fall into is that they try to DO too much. They can't make something entertaining and it winds up being stupid. Or they try to make something artisti
F-Ebert (Score:2)
The next week, they actually felt like they had to justify their negative rating on the show.
In retrospect the movie was only OK, but I couldn't care less for Ebert's opinion of any film.
LK
Everyone's missing the point of this movie (Score:5, Funny)
Tired of anti-movie pop bashing (Score:5, Insightful)
When I went to see the movie, my entire experience was completely ruined by hecklers. People who went on opening night with the sole purpose of making fun of the movie. Laughing at Palpatine's makeup, booing when Anakin first appears, shouting "LOG!" whenever Padme shows up.
Everyone here is so quick to dismiss the movie on the simple things (like if Samuel delivered his lines well) or tries to focus on bad interpretations of the themes (oh yeah, G. Lucas hates women because Padme is ineffectual in the last movie) or claim that the movie was high-schoolish (erhem, this is Star Wars, what did you expect?). People who complain this movie is campy seem to forget that the Star Wars trilogy is part of what helped us define what campy meant. It wouldn't be true to its roots if it didn't sound campy!
I wish people could just accept movies for what they are, appreciate the hard work that went into them, and enjoy them. Given the cost of movie tickets today. If you aren't ready to enjoy the movie, why fork over your $10 for it in the first place?
I have the feeling that Slashdot is full of people (Score:3, Insightful)
That might give them the perspective they need to enjoy Ep3 for what it is instead of complaining that it doesn't measure up to something that actually never was.
1,2,3 and "the acting" (Score:5, Insightful)
My two cents (Score:4, Interesting)
I was sat with a group of five or six friends watching it, some of whom weren't really massive fans of the Star Wars series and hadn't seen Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, and I was actually embarassed by the quality of this movie.
It's let down by the script to some degree, but I think what really killed it was the direction. Actors never seem to know what they're doing, where they are, or what they're supposed to be feeling and this makes their delivery poor and wooden. When Anakin (Hayden Christensen) turns to the dark side, he's clearly been directed to be "mad, insane, confused, evil". And here he excels; it's easy to be mad and evil. However, in the more delicate scenes he's hopeless and swimming around without direction.
Excellent examples of awesome direction are the "SHE'S LOST THE WILL TO LIVE!" line announced by a med-bot. What sort of diagnosis is that? Rather convenient. It's as if whoever voiced that line had no idea that Anakin/Vader had actually killed her with the dark force. Another is the "Noooooooo!" that Vader screams when discovering this fact. No self respecting director would use such a dreadful cliché. He might as well have added "WHY, GOD? WHY!!!?" to the end of it. It's almost as bad a cliché as the "Oh no we are approaching a perilous waterfall of lava" bit. There's also the whole wordless ending segment where Luke's foster parents just get handed a child without question and look a bit bemused, then just gaze at the sun. What?
A few things are left unexplained too. The Death Star. Why? I was desperate to find out more about the Death Star but it's just presented as a matter of course. Slapped into the film like an afterthought. All in all, I left the theatre without the sensation of awe that I'd hoped for.
In summary: cut out a few of those massive "let's have a fight on a volcano planet" bits and wrap up the end of the film a little better.
People take Star Wars sequels too seriously (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the original Star Wars had ground breaking special effects. The special effects were not only a cut above the state of art at the time, they were a flight of stairs above the state of the art at the time.
It took tremendous talent to pull that off and George Lucas had it. The movie blew people from all walks of life away. It made Lucas rich enough to complain about Bill Gates playing his stereo too loud and elements of Star Wars have become an enduring part of the culture.
No critic can take any of that away.
However all of that was nearly 30 years ago.
Once people become accustomed to a certain quality of special effects it is no longer enough to entertain them, to blow them away.
People remember being blown away by the original Star Wars, that is why they keep going to see the sequels. They are hoping for that same experience.
Most of the time mere mortals, if they get to make a huge splash, only get to do so once.
It is unlikely that George Lucas will make a movie again that will break ground in cinematic special effects with the same magnitude that the original Star Wars did.
It is also unlikely that at this stage in his life he will sprout new talent for writing an directing _stories_. It can happen, some writers, actors, directors etc have started late in life, but it is rare.
A slashdot article earlier this week suggested that someone other than Lucas might make another Star Wars movie.
That could be the most awesome thing that would happen. The special effects are here. If someone could attach that to the devastating writing, acting and directing talent that is out there we would have a film that could blow people totally away like the original Star Wars did all those years ago in the 1970s.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hayden is just a terrible actor. (Score:2)