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sophia_sol) wrote2016-01-03 11:18 am
sophia_sol) wrote2016-01-03 11:18 am
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Star Wars original trilogy!
OKAY THERE I have now watched the original trilogy of star wars as well! I had a deadline for myself: I'm seeing The Force Awakens again on Monday (my dad wants to see it, and I was totally amenable to seeing it twice) so I wanted to see the originals before then, to be able to understand the new movie with the depth of context.
This meant I have watched a lot of movies in one week! Which is PRETTY WEIRD for me.
At any rate, I really did enjoy the original trilogy, and more than I expected to? There were some tedious bits (eg the entire opening sequence of Episode VI with Jabba the Hutt, and all the extended fighting sequences in the movies) but overall they were really enjoyable.
I came into these movies with a lot of pop culture informing me what to expect. But pop culture didn't tell me everything! The five things that surprised me most about the original trilogy:
1. Darth Vader is not in fact the person in charge of his side of the conflict; he's working for an emperor! This feels weird and wrong; he's the big bad our heroes have to face and destroy, and the emperor is almost an afterthought, but Vader is doing nothing but following the emperor's instructions. Okay then.
2. Relatedly, Vader gets turned to the side of the light at the end! He's not actually an embodiment of pure evil, but is tempted by the light!
3. The "I love you" / "I know" dialogue happens in both directions between Han and Leia! I like this a lot better than what I thought their whole romance would be like.
4. The whole business with the Death Star happens twice in three movies! Seems a little silly to me.
5. Apparently droids - despite their clear sentience - all belong to people and don't get to have independent existence. This....is really uncomfortable. Basically droids are slaves then? Our heroes keep sentient beings as possessions? ugh.
My most important thoughts/feels about these movies, though, are how much I now care about the characters??? I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Even Luke, who definitely took a while to grow on me. As I told twitter, "2 movies in, apparently Luke Skywalker's growing on me. He's still too much a generic everyman mc of a bildungsroman but I like him anyway?" Which pretty much sums up my feels. I don't know why I'm fond of him! But I am. What an earnest impulsive naive dorkface.
I was also surprised by how much I liked Han! I went in expecting to like him, but then in the first couple movies I kept being annoyed by how strong he was coming on to Leia, and not really respecting her. But he came around to being a reasonable person on the subject of Leia, and continued being his amazingly ridiculous self in all other ways (THIS GIFSET OMG), and now I'm fully on board with him.
Leia I also went in expecting to like, and expectations were correct there! She's so great. (and she has so many great hairstyles over the course of the movies! WHAT, HAIR IS IMPORTANT.) It was interesting, though, seeing how the movies treated her: there was the expected sexism, but also unexpected allowances of strength and agency from her. The movies couldn't decide how sexist to be, I guess!
I wasn't expecting the droids to be such a major presence in the movies, and I found them kind of annoying? But this might be in part because C3PO was the character I most identify with....... constantly worried about what's going on, not particularly brave, and clever but hardly ever saying the right thing.
Yoda is REALLY annoying.
Lando was a completely unexpected character - he's got a fairly major role in the second and third movies, and yet I never heard of him? But I was super fond of him! He's great.
Chewbacca was everything I'd hoped for, based on that one Chewbacca/Jack Harkness fic (you know the one. shut up.). I love HOW OFTEN he's making loud commentary that's clearly unimpressed that nobody but Han can understand! Probably he feels free to say as much as he does because he's got the security of knowing no one else will understand. And yet despite how unimpressed with Han's everything he is, the two of them really genuinely care about each other.
I really liked that brief humanizing moment (iirc in Empire Strikes Back) where a captain of the empire tells his co-officer something like, "I will apologize to Vader and accept responsibility" after they fail to do something Vader had commanded. And you can tell that both he and the dude he's talking to know that this means the captain's death and both of them are too stoic to say anything about it. I like that this person on the side of evil gets to have this brief moment of honour and self-sacrifice on behalf of his men. (also it's a great indication of HOW MUCH it must suck to work under Vader. Vader's such a bad leader!)
In thoughts that aren't related to characters, I really enjoyed that there was a theme in the soundtrack that I could reliably recognise (the imperial march) because it was super fun playing attention to all the different ways it shows up, and how different it can sound. There's even a brief bit of a remarkably sad/quiet version at Vader's death scene! It makes me wish I were better at recognising recurring themes in soundtracks in general.
In conclusion: practically everyone has told me firmly to avoid the prequels so....I'm definitely going to watch the prequels. Probably not with nearly as much speed as I watched the original trilogy, though, since I don't have a deadline! Stay tuned for my opinions there.
This meant I have watched a lot of movies in one week! Which is PRETTY WEIRD for me.
At any rate, I really did enjoy the original trilogy, and more than I expected to? There were some tedious bits (eg the entire opening sequence of Episode VI with Jabba the Hutt, and all the extended fighting sequences in the movies) but overall they were really enjoyable.
I came into these movies with a lot of pop culture informing me what to expect. But pop culture didn't tell me everything! The five things that surprised me most about the original trilogy:
1. Darth Vader is not in fact the person in charge of his side of the conflict; he's working for an emperor! This feels weird and wrong; he's the big bad our heroes have to face and destroy, and the emperor is almost an afterthought, but Vader is doing nothing but following the emperor's instructions. Okay then.
2. Relatedly, Vader gets turned to the side of the light at the end! He's not actually an embodiment of pure evil, but is tempted by the light!
3. The "I love you" / "I know" dialogue happens in both directions between Han and Leia! I like this a lot better than what I thought their whole romance would be like.
4. The whole business with the Death Star happens twice in three movies! Seems a little silly to me.
5. Apparently droids - despite their clear sentience - all belong to people and don't get to have independent existence. This....is really uncomfortable. Basically droids are slaves then? Our heroes keep sentient beings as possessions? ugh.
My most important thoughts/feels about these movies, though, are how much I now care about the characters??? I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Even Luke, who definitely took a while to grow on me. As I told twitter, "2 movies in, apparently Luke Skywalker's growing on me. He's still too much a generic everyman mc of a bildungsroman but I like him anyway?" Which pretty much sums up my feels. I don't know why I'm fond of him! But I am. What an earnest impulsive naive dorkface.
I was also surprised by how much I liked Han! I went in expecting to like him, but then in the first couple movies I kept being annoyed by how strong he was coming on to Leia, and not really respecting her. But he came around to being a reasonable person on the subject of Leia, and continued being his amazingly ridiculous self in all other ways (THIS GIFSET OMG), and now I'm fully on board with him.
Leia I also went in expecting to like, and expectations were correct there! She's so great. (and she has so many great hairstyles over the course of the movies! WHAT, HAIR IS IMPORTANT.) It was interesting, though, seeing how the movies treated her: there was the expected sexism, but also unexpected allowances of strength and agency from her. The movies couldn't decide how sexist to be, I guess!
I wasn't expecting the droids to be such a major presence in the movies, and I found them kind of annoying? But this might be in part because C3PO was the character I most identify with....... constantly worried about what's going on, not particularly brave, and clever but hardly ever saying the right thing.
Yoda is REALLY annoying.
Lando was a completely unexpected character - he's got a fairly major role in the second and third movies, and yet I never heard of him? But I was super fond of him! He's great.
Chewbacca was everything I'd hoped for, based on that one Chewbacca/Jack Harkness fic (you know the one. shut up.). I love HOW OFTEN he's making loud commentary that's clearly unimpressed that nobody but Han can understand! Probably he feels free to say as much as he does because he's got the security of knowing no one else will understand. And yet despite how unimpressed with Han's everything he is, the two of them really genuinely care about each other.
I really liked that brief humanizing moment (iirc in Empire Strikes Back) where a captain of the empire tells his co-officer something like, "I will apologize to Vader and accept responsibility" after they fail to do something Vader had commanded. And you can tell that both he and the dude he's talking to know that this means the captain's death and both of them are too stoic to say anything about it. I like that this person on the side of evil gets to have this brief moment of honour and self-sacrifice on behalf of his men. (also it's a great indication of HOW MUCH it must suck to work under Vader. Vader's such a bad leader!)
In thoughts that aren't related to characters, I really enjoyed that there was a theme in the soundtrack that I could reliably recognise (the imperial march) because it was super fun playing attention to all the different ways it shows up, and how different it can sound. There's even a brief bit of a remarkably sad/quiet version at Vader's death scene! It makes me wish I were better at recognising recurring themes in soundtracks in general.
In conclusion: practically everyone has told me firmly to avoid the prequels so....I'm definitely going to watch the prequels. Probably not with nearly as much speed as I watched the original trilogy, though, since I don't have a deadline! Stay tuned for my opinions there.
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Yeah, the thing with the droids is really weird. I think it's a collision between "non-living things are property, like cars" and "say, wouldn't it be cool if your car could talk?" And then the actual movies came down so far on the side of the latter that the droids are obviously sentient living beings… who are still owned. Talk about unfortunate implications!
I feel like a bad person saying this, but I actually do hope you watch the prequel trilogies so I can read your reactions. They really aren't the sort of movies that many people dislike but others adore. They are bad in a way that is impossible to comprehend by means of mere second-hand description. You have to actually see them to understand how bad they are.
(Also, I realized why only two of them made my top five worst movies ever list. It's because I never saw Attack of the Clones. I saw fifteen minutes of it on TV, which was sufficient to convince me that it was exactly as bad as I expected.)
ETA: BEST GIFSET EVER. Yeah, that is why people love Han. He is cool the way a real person who is a giant weirdo nerd who is a really good martial artist and owns a super-awesome car is cool. That is to say, he is cool the way that many people who love Star Wars are cool.
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I am looking forward to seeing what I think of the prequel trilogies after the dire way people keep talking about them!
YEAH the Han of that gifset is the best, I love that kind of characterization. Giant weirdo nerd with some strong capabilities and some strong fail ftw!
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It's been so long since I've seen the original trilogy, that I've forgotten how big a role Lando plays, but Billy Dee Williams turned up in an episode of White Collar, so I have additional feelings for him because of that.
I've never seen the prequels, so I'll be curious to read your reactions.
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And WAIT, Lando's actor played FORD on white collar?? I think I remember him! Did I watch that far into the show? I can't remember if I remember him from watching, or from your recaps, or from fic, or what.
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(Based on our discussion here, I don't think you watched that far.)
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The prequels ... you know, honestly, for all the grief they get in SW fandom, you might like them? I know a couple of people who like them better than the originals, mostly people who didn't grow up with the original movies and saw the prequels first, so they didn't come into it with the same expectations as people who were already fans of the original movies. (Okay, Revenge of the Sith is basically terrible by any standard -- husband to me while watching it: "Even Samuel L. Jackson is terrible in this, and it's SAMUEL L. JACKSON!" -- but the others might be better now than they seemed to a lot of people at the time. And the pairings/fanfic for them are HUGE.)
ETA: I basically adored Lando when I saw these movies as a teenager -- Lando and Han were my favorites, so as you can see I had a type. But like you, even though I'd seen them before I was surprised on my rewatch that his role in the movies was as big as it is. I thought I'd just latched onto a minor character and blown up his importance in the movie. But no! He's a major character! He flies the Millennium Falcon and leads the big attack at the end! But fandom treats him like a minor bit character; wtf, fandom.
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I am certainly very interested in seeing what I will think of the prequels, given the general discourse around them. What're the main ships for the prequels?
Lando IS a major character! Oh fandom. I can't help but wonder if fandom's long-term ignoring of him has been about him being the only major person of colour in the trilogy, as far as I can remember. (if that's the case, reaction to the new movie's people of colour indicates a really positive shift in reactions to race in fandom over the past decades!) At any rate: has there ever been shipping of Lando/Han? Because that seems like a super obvious ship option to me.
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The prequels… yeah, I know some people like them, but they are objectively terrible. Like, the editing is terrible! The way the scenes are structured is terrible! Even normal bad movies at least have scenes that have a structure. It is really rare to see that done wrong in any Hollywood movie, no mater how bad it is otherwise.
"The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute. Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo."
Darth Vader is repeatedly called "Annie."
JAR JAR BINKS.
"She has gone to gather mushrooms." [Cut to vast desert of sand dunes with no vegetation whatsoever.] WHAT MUSHROOMS?
Also, the Jedi come across as real assholes. Annie comes to Yoda upset because someone he loves might die, and Yoda basically says, "You're being a bad Jedi. Jedi shouldn't get attached to people." WHAT THE HELL. No wonder he went Dark Side! If this was deliberate I'd think it was an interesting choice, but in context, it's pure WTF.
Did I mention Jar Jar Binks?
THE POD RACE. SO BORING.
The astounding lack of chemistry between literally everyone.
The nearly-visible thought balloons above all the actors' heads saying "I NEED DIRECTION. HELP ME, GEORGE LUCAS! YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE! OH, FUCK, NO HELP THERE."
There is a possibly apocryphal story that most of the actors were acting alone in front of a green screen, speaking their lines to a stage hand holding a broomstick with a baseball attached to show them where their co-star's head was supposed to be. This may not be true, but it certainly seems plausible given the universally stilted performances. THEY ARE TALKING TO A BASEBALL. (I realize that Tom Hanks made people cry by talking to a volleyball, but he was obviously getting some direction.)
JAR JAR BINKS.
GALACTIC TAX CODES.
The only good thing about the prequels is that they inspired a really funny web comic called "Darth and Droids."
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The nearly-visible thought balloons above all the actors' heads saying "I NEED DIRECTION. HELP ME, GEORGE LUCAS! YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE! OH, FUCK, NO HELP THERE."
hahahahaaaa. This is what made the Samuel L. Jackson thing such a fascinating reality check, because, okay, everyone else is wandering around through these movies with a blank-eyed stare, woodenly announcing their lines, but ... maybe they're just terrible actors? But we've all seen him in other things! HE CAN ACTUALLY ACT! He's GOOD at acting! And he's doing it too!
(ANNIE. I had forgotten about that.)
ETA: We're currently playing through the Lego Star Wars game, and a) there is no in-game penalty for accidentally ("accidentally") killing one of the NPCs on your own side, and b) Jar Jar makes a very satisfying (and hilarious) scream when you kill him, which I think cannot be an accident. Sadly he respawns every time, of course.
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and that fic, dude. THAT FIC.
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