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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

Star Wars Retrospective in NY Times 53

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Lazy sunday Afternoon? Not for me. I'm fixing and scrubbing code clean (it almost doesn't look like a certain italian dinner in parts now). But If you need a break, (I do!) check out the link that desslok sent us: its a nifty Star Wars Retrospective over at the NY Times. Its quite excellent. Articles all the way back to 1971. Worth a read for any self respecting SW fan.
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Star Wars Retrospective in NY Times More

Star Wars Retrospective in NY Times

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  • Admit it! You're worried. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I looked through the times piece today, and my fear was reinforced... There is a picture of natalie portman with some alien standing beside her. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like an alien: it looks like a blank space with a phototraced alien awkwardly smushed in. I saw the CG Jabba too, and to me, it looks stupid. I know foam rubber isn't the height of nerd-cool, but at least it displaces air and actors can look at it.

    I have a hunch this movie will suck. Flame all you want, but I know alot of you have the same sinking feeling in your gut. Uh-oh, someone finally said it. Yes, call me pessimistic, call me flame-bait...
  • Not cyBerpHunks, cyPHerpunks

  • And in recent versions, you can even check and cull your cookie jar (by pressing =, I think...). Pretty spiffy. And it's smarter about asking for confirmation that either NSC or MSIE: you can choose "yes, allow all cookies from this domain" and "no, forbid all cookies from this domain" instead of just yes/no each time, if you like.

  • They had the trailer tonight at a late-afternoon showing of "The Corruptor". If that wasn't enough, there was a trailer for The Matrix directly following. Life is good.

    Oh yeah, anyway, The Corruptor was good. Lots of explosions and stuff. And it has a cool car chase. See it if you like that kind of stuff.

  • Posted by Windigo The Feral (NYAR!):

    You're making a typo. :)

    The login is cypherpunks/cypherpunks, not cyberpunks/cyberpunks. (Think crypto and it helps ;)

  • I must admit, I found the pre-Star Wars-release articles quite funny when they tried to describe "Force", "Jedi Knight" and "wookie."
  • This is from the 2nd link from the top...

    • I'm a cynical optimist [laughs].

      I'm a cynic who has hope for the human race, although I look at human folly and sometimes I get very frustrated.
    Wow... that's me that is. First time I've seen someone else describe themselves that way. Must have happened somewhere though...
  • Obviously he doesn't deserve to be flamed for an article he wrote 20 years ago, but I'd really like to email him to find out if he would still stand by such a misguided review.

    Obviously, everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion, but if I were recruiting film critics for my paper, I would probably test them to see how they rate The Empire Strikes Back relative to Star Wars. If anyone shared the views of that NYT guy, he/she would have a hard time convincing me that he/she wasn't clueless.

    Ryano - film buff, Star Wars fan, in that order.

  • Canby's job was to review the film as a film (and not as a link between SW and Jedi). And face it, Empire was just a link between SW and Jedi. Criminy, do you think that anybody's going to be 100% satisfied with a Star Wars movie if the rebels don't get to blow up the Death Star? 8-)

    In the Star Wars series, Han Solo isn't supposed to grok what's going on. That, of course, plants Harrison Ford squarely in B-movie territory.

    And Canby did say that Hamill may one day be a movie star. (He caught adamwestitis instead, but that's not such a bad thing either (unless you want to be a Shakespearean actor).)
    -----

  • Ok, I just read the review [nytimes.com] of Empire Strikes Back. I can't believe he hated it! He gave a glowing review to Star Wars too.

    Now, what I'm wondering is, is it still within the realm of common decency to send him a little email about what I think of his review?

    I better read his review of Jedi first I guess...

  • Hey, I'd forgotten about that! See, now that I can respect. Randall (aka GWNICR) is obviously a thinking man and has some genuine concerns for the working spaceman.

  • Well, the article from 1987 reminded me again of Lucas' Willow, which I had completely forgotten. Lucas *can* make lame movies. We'll just have to wait and see on "The Phantom Menace". I think I'll let our heroic CmdrTaco go first and report back.
  • Yes, the story is strong in these articles, hmm. Fascinating, yes. Read it you must, if you wish to know the future. Starwars is calm, peaceful.
  • It's clearly divided between prequel stuff and the old stuff, so you won't have to worry about clicking on the wrong link. There is an image there which I believe is from the episode 1 poster though.

  • Login/Password combo (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Sunday March 21, 1999 @10:49AM (#1969765)
    Login: slashdot_effect pass: slashdot be sure to send flames to the webmaster [mailto] for having to "login" to view anything.

    --
  • I thought, from the scenes in the trailer, that Mickey Rooney was playing Yoda.



  • It was also interesting to see how Baron(?) Tarkin was replaced by (or conflated with) the Black Knight to become Darth Vader.

  • maybe (Score:1)

    by Stalke ( 20083 )
    I don't mind if the cg is a bit bad. You will only notice is much in the still pictures, in the moving pictures it is a lot better ( I saw a pic of the battle droids in wired (I didn't buy it but I'm sure that there are some who bought it for that pic, it was two pages wide), but you could tell were the droids stopped and the real image began (not to lucas for future: droids have mas as well and when they stand on grass they will depress it instead of floating above it). But that's not what I think will be bad.

    From what I've heard the acting of that boy (anakin (sp)) is really bad. The boy sucks, he's worse that mccalley calkin (sp; and I don't care). I just hope that the majority of the movie has more scenes with the true jedi's.

    Oh, btw: Notice in the pre-quel trailer that the boy has a 50/50 polyester/cotton blend backback (including plastic buckle staps, etc; the kind that you'd buy for $20) but his closes are rugged knit cotton, ie circa 1800's peasant clothes. A bit of a blooper there...

  • maybe (Score:1)

    by zagmar ( 20261 )
    From what I've heard the acting of that boy (anakin (sp)) is really bad. The boy sucks, he's worse that mccalley calkin (sp; and I don't care). I just hope that
    the majority of the movie has more scenes with the true jedi's.

    Of course, you realize that his acting has to be bad, to match Mark Hamill's. I just hope my dream of playing Anakin in the sequels comes true.

    Flame Away!!

  • See, what I think is great is stuff like Clerks:

    Guy whose name I can't remember:"I don't know, I liked Empire."

    Dante: "WHAT? What about Jedi?"

    GWNICR: "Well, y'see, in Star Wars, you had the death star all finished. Nothing but storm troopers and empire types on the thing. So when Luke blows it up, it's like 'great!'"

    Dante: "Yeah, so?"

    GWNICR: "So in Jedi, the death star wasn't finished. I mean, there must have been all kinds of independent contractors and so on working on the thing. Guys with families and stuff. So when they blow it up..."

    I can't remember the rest.

    Anyway. What I found funny about the review was the comment that he could imagine Mark Hamill being a big star, but not Harrison Ford.

  • Ah, grasshopper, you seem to have a lack of understanding. People generally do not remember movie critics.

  • I read enough of his review of jedi. Lets leave him hanging from a fire escape.

  • 37!
  • a great article. points out (hopefully, for the last time), that SW isn't science fiction, but more akin to mythology or a fairy tale.
    his vision for this film promises to make it great. although they help, i think he could tell this story without any special effects (i think they are called books?), and it would still be great.
    i plan to enjoy the countdown, and suspend disbelief, and to fight the tempation to critize.
  • not really.
    in the article, lucas correctly points out, that the special effects aren't going to be the deciding factor for this movie; that's not what it is about.
    hell, i thought "Wing Commander" looked like it had good special effects, but I don't think anyone is rushing out to see that movie more than once.
    by todays standard, the orginal SW's special effects are bad, and I will watch that movie ten times before I would go see a newer movie with better special effects, like "Independence Day".
    plus, i think the special effects are going to be incredible...
  • Wow. That's a LOT of stuff to read. This will keep me up all night. *grin*
  • is: http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/061580empire.h tml

    I'm trying to imagine a worse fate than being known for ages at That Guy
    Who Panned 'The Empire Strikes Back'. The guy who pointed out that it was
    'nice and inoffensive,' although 'not, by any means, as nice as Star Wars.'
    The guy who claims that the only redeeming feature of this boring and
    apathetic film is Yoda. The guy who describes Harrison Ford as 'cheerfully
    nondescript,' but assures us that Mark Hamill will one day become a real
    movie star.

  • user: cyberphunks
    pwd: cyberphunks doesn't seem to work.

    Or am i making a typo?
  • Does this page have anything to do with the prequels? Like some other people, I refuse to have anything to do with the prequels until they actually come out. I want my prequel experience to be 100% fresh, new, different, and exciting, so I'm wondering whether this page is safe for me to read.
  • Yes I am. Goerge Lucas used his 2nd trilogy for the original Stars Wars for a reason. And I'm sorry, but yoda's gotta a look a little slinky like most CG. The really ironic thing though: Even if this movie really sucked, it would still make many truckloads of money in the box office.

    --

  • This is really cool. The old articles are great!

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