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SEPT 2015 MOVIE THREAD


RIPPA

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Watched Episode 3 the other day with a friend. She have never seen any of the of the movies something I couldn't believe. So I got her to watch the rest of the movies. We had the same rankings

1. Empire

2. ROTS

3. ROTJ

4. TPM

5. ANH

6. AOTC

You should probably try and wife this girl, because you will never find another person who will rank those movies that way.

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Seems like you tend to enjoy more cerebral, "hard scifi" sort of stuff which prioritizes more practical ideas and "holy shit, space is BIG" atmosphere. Which is great; I love all the stuff you said you enjoyed. But I also do enjoy some goofy-ass space opera (LITERAL opera, in Fifth Element's case) and have no problem with telling the laws of physics to go fuck themselves if they're getting in the way of a good story or a great action scene.

Have you seen the show Firefly? Just curious, since it's sort of an all-inclusive hybrid which hits up All Of The Above at one point or another.

 

I've thought about the 'hard sci fi' vs 'PEW PEW LASERS sci fi' idea, but that isn't necessarily the case with me. I think it comes down to me having a big dislike of needless romance and comedy. I enjoy lightheartedness (think the Ocean's Eleven movies and Lucky Number Slevin), but outright comedy annoys me in movies that are 'supposed to be' comedies. The same goes with romance. If romance is an integral part of the plot, then I of course will have no problems with it. But if it is additional to the plot, then it just annoys me. I do love the lightsaber battles and spaceship battles in Star Wars, but that's as far as it goes.

 

I have watched Firefly (and Serenity). I liked it, but I was certainly not blown away by it. It was fun, but nowhere near as close as the seemingly limitless horde of fans make it out to be. I don't know. I think I'm just hard to please.

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A NEW HOPE is a perfect movie.  It ranking so low confuses me.

 

It doesn't even fall into the the usual 1970s "first generation film school graduate" trap of being completely depressing~!

A NEW HOPE would be #2 on my list after EMPIRE with JEDI a some-what distant #3. Then I would probably make a Star Wars rip-off like Battle Beyond the Stars my #4, and then I would stop writing.

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The thing about Star Wars (not A New Hope; It was called Star Wars when I first watched it, so that's the bloody title as far as I'm concerned) is, it was supposed to be the film that ushered in the new blockbuster era when films no longer had that languorous 70s pacing but instead went Wham! Bam! from action set piece to action set piece without any time for reflection, or explaining the plot or developing the characters. But if you compare it to something like a Michael Bay movie, it feels really slow paced and characterful by comparison.

 

Also, I'm one of those guys with false memories of the Biggs/ Luke scene on Tattooine, that was cut from (not filmed) the movie but included in the comic adaptation. Because you could see the movie in the cinema in 1977, and again the next summer, but it wasn't on TV until 1980, and then it'd be on TV once a year. And we didn't own a VCR until 1985-ish... but I re-read the comic dozens of times. So in my brain that scene always was, and still should be, in the movie. Only it never was.

 

Everyone who's not pretty much my exact age won't understand that last paragraph.

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My list:

1: Empire(anyone who does not have this at number one needs professional help)

2: Jedi(star wars is probably "better" but I prefer this)

3. Star Wars(though the gap between this and sith is narrow)

4. ROTS(then a HUGE gap)

5. Phantom, I guess.(the podrace and anakin are SO fucking bad. . .)

6. Clones(but the romance is so much worse, and the battle scene is flat).

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Empire

Star Wars (It's fucking STAR WARS. Not A New Hope. I don't care what anybody else says)

Jedi

Sith

Clones

Menace

 

I can alternate between Jedi and Sith on my list. They're about at the same level overall, I think. With Jedi, I could constantly watch the first third of the film from the beginning up to where they are flying away from Jabba's barge exploding and never tire of it, but after that I tune out a bit. Sith, I actually haven't watched in quite some time, but I remember thinking it was at least on the level of Jedi immediately after watching it. It has some great action pieces and progresses the overall story quite well, and much better than the previous two films. The main problem with it (as with ALL the prequels) is the horribly written dialogue. You can argue that all the Star Wars movies have some poor dialogue, but nothing like "From MY point of view the Jedi are evil". Just BAD.

 

Clones has the absolutely horrid "love story" between Anakin and Padme between two actors who share zero on-screen chemistry at all. Take out all that stuff, like them rolling around giggling in a field with alien creatures or sitting around a fire, and it's not too bad. Y'know, now that I think about it, I can't really think of anything memorable from Clones. There was the huge coliseum fight where all the Jedi show up. There's the opening chase of the bounty hunter through Coruscant. And....hmmm...what else? Maybe I should swap my last two. Menace at least has the opening 10 minutes, the podrace, and the killer Duel of the Fates fight scene, but it is completely destroyed by Jar Jar and Jake Lloyd's atrocious "acting". I tried watching Menace again for the first time in many years not too far back and just couldn't get through it. I should try watching Clones and Sith again, too, because it really has been a long time since I've seen either. Maybe that will change my listing again somehow, but I doubt it.

 

Unless Force Awakens is just atrocious on all levels, which I really can't fathom happening, I have a feeling it's going to be, at worst, an immediate #3 on the overall list.

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Personally, I've never been quiiiiite as high on Empire as everyone else, so my list looks like this:

Hope

Jedi

Sith

Empire

Clones

Menace

Personally, I think Attack of the Clones had several different really good action scenes; and honestly, that's all I need for a good Star Wars movie. Meanwhile, the only thing I liked in The Phantom Menace was the handicap lightsaber duel at the end; I'm in the camp that found the podracing to be overlong, too cluttered, and very goofily-edited. Also: as mediocre as Hayden Christensen was as Anakin, he looked like fuckin' James Earl Jones when compared to the horror that was Jake Lloyd. Plus: have y'all "Menace > Clones" lunatics just totally forgotten JAR JAR!?

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I'll refrain from ranking Star Wars films, as it's been an eternity since I've seen Jedi. I also don't think I've watched Clones since it came to DVD.

 

Anyways, who would be interested in doing a best of the half decade poll (2010 - 2014)?

 

I know Caley threw this out a few months ago, and it has been back on my mind as I have read and listened to a few lists the last couple of weeks.

 

If so, how long would everyone need to get a ballot done?

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Whedon, Eli Roth and (lately) Tarantino have all fallen into the pastiche form of movie making. When they began their careers they put their love of a variety of things they grew up with into their scripts and films without falling into the FAMILY GUY-esque "'member this thing? that was awesome!"

FIREFLY takes a whole bunch of ideas, barely strings them together coherently, and the Whedonites jump on it hard because Joss is playing his greatest hits. The damn show has been off the air for nearly 15 years, and people still will not shut up about it. In the meantime hundreds of MUCH BETTER shows have come and gone.

Name 12.

I'm curious.

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