There's still a month to go until James Cameron's Avatar hits the screens and despite hating the trailer I find myself checking AICN every few days for updates. Once a geek always a geek I guess. In the meantime I found this mashup of the Spike Jonze/Beastie Boys Sabotage vid and The Empire Strikes Back. Men of a, uhm, certain age will love this, everyone else should give it a miss... I uploaded the High Def version so you might to want to pause it until the whole thing loads before you play.
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53 comments:
Sabotage, one of my Top Ten Fave Songs Ever. Probably. Depends on the mood I'm in.
The Avatar trailer just reminds me that sf in the cinema is still lagging way behind written sf. Which is a crying shame, really.
I saw Empire at the drive-in growing up. Bought that Beastie Boys album just after high school graduation. I have to say that the mash up trailer brightened my morning. Thanks for that.
Adrian,
I have a few important questions to ask you.
1) Have you introduced the girls to the SW universe yet?
2) If so, which trilogy did you start off with?
3) And which version of the saga did you show them?
I'm naturally curious, and of course these questions are weighing heavily upon my mind since I'll have to come up with a game plan in the next few years for Baby Girl O'Rourke.
I agree with Michael that movie SF lags far behind written SF -- but then for the most part I think movie everything lags behind written everything.
It's interesting Brian would mention SW, as Robert J. Sawyer feels it's what destroyed good SF.
I'm so old I can remember that the first Star Wars was a one-off and everything that came later was revisionist history. Before that movie came out there was certainly no talk there would be any more. After the thing was such a hit -- well, that was the era of Jaws 3D.
I may have screwed up that link again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3s2p05OAmU
Mike
Yeah I agree with John. Written everything generally is better.
Except for The Shining.
Did you see the Will Smith version of I Robot? Amazing to me that the family let them associate Asimov's name with it. I also dont understand why Iain Banks's Culture novels havent been translated to the big screen.
Liam
You're welcome mate, although only Han Solo really works. He is and always was a total pimp.
Brian
Not yet. I think maybe Arwynn next year when she's 8. And then I'll start with the original Star Wars without the special additions if its still available.
I'm reading her the Hobbit at the moment and bits of that are a bit scary for her. We're having a family debate at the moment about Where The Wild Things Are. The book is very popular among both my girls but the film seems a bit intense. I dont think like Fantastic Mr Fox that its audience is supposed to be hipster parents not kids but still it looks very intense.
John
Maybe good cinema. When you about what the early 70's gave us and then what the later 70's gave us, its incredible what happened.
I think Jaws is a good film (except for that scene with the little Kitner boy's mother) but Jaws and Star Wars did open the floodgates to Transformers, Transformers II, in fact Michael Bay's whole career.
John that's an excellent rant about Star Wars and a great tribute to Planet of the Apes.
Worth linking to again
Adrian,
That I, Robot bore no resemblance to the stories of Asimov came as no surprise. What really irked me though was that, about halfway through, the film just dropped the Three Laws angle and went with Killer 'Bots on the Rampage!!
And yes, I wish they'd film Banks's Culture. That'd be something, wouldn't it? I reckon Larry Niven's Known Space series would look good on the big screen too. I want to see the Ringworld!
This is a little off-base, but I find that one of the problems with filmed SF is that it's too often, as Sawyer says, fantasy and not SF at all - it often has no roots in science.
There was a weird review in the Toronto Star today which got me thinking about this stuff. Peter Howell has complained that the negative reviews of New Moon are exit because Gone With the Wind wasn't so negatively reviewed.
I thought the main difference was that GWTW was set against real events and not a fantasy world of vampires.
And I'd like to see Iain Banks' Espedair Street made into a movie. As for sci fi books into movies I think I'd like to see Tom Disch's 334.
Yeah, I forgot if it was here or somewhere else I linked to that (me and my busy blog-commenting life).
The scene with the Kitner boy's mother is the reason Spie;berg is a multi-millionaire and you and I can't take our wives out to dinner on what we make from writing.
I know that, I see it, I understand it and then I sit down to write and I hear a voice in my head that says, "Oh, come on," and here I am.
Gone with the Wind is set in the real world?
Next time you'll tell me that Spartacus and Quo Vadis were set in the real Roman Empire ;)
334 is a wonderful novel, but who could make a good film from it?
especially since it's not really a novel but a collection of independent novellas.
Pace John, I remember leaving the theater with a friend after we'd seen Star Wars on its original release and sniffing: "That's nothing but a set-up for a sequel." (This crowd won't need reminding that the movie ends with the future Verizon spokesman escaping into space in a capsule.)
I'm not as attracted to science fiction as some of my fellow commenters, but I'd probably be more open to suggestions of Star Wars' mythical overtones etc. if I were not having it hammered into my head so often that the movie -- oops, I mean, the saga -- is full of mythical overtones etc.
The most impressive thing I've heard about Star Wars is that Lucas used a full orchestra for the scoring.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
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Mike
And I Robot the film actually didnt make any logical sense.
A robot has a vision and it comes true? Whats all that about?
John
I think Spielberg's fatal is his high tolerance for all forms of sentimentality.
Everyone talks about how difficult the first five minutes of Saving Private Ryan are. I agree because the first five minutes is that terrible weepy scene in the cemetary. Its so excrutiating to watch that Omaha beach comes as a relief.
Marco
334, I'll go along with that too.
Some unfilmable films do get filmed though.
I've heard about a film version of If On a Winter's Night A Traveller for years.
Peter
You'd probably enjoy Pauline Kael's take on Star Wars. I couldnt agree less but I liked her angle.
Incidentally this mash up is from The Empire Strikes Back, the best of the 6 films and not directed by George Lucas.
Pauline Kael was always good for a dose of zest. I'll look for her discussion of Star Wars. Thanks.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
I did try to link to it, but the New Yorker rigorously defends its copyright. Kael's a nut but the Star Wars review is a good one.
I did find this excerpt from what I presume is her "Star Wars" Review:
"One of the biggest box-office successes in movie history — probably because for young audiences it's like getting a box of Cracker Jack that is all prizes. Written and directed by George Lucas, the film is enjoyable in its own terms, but it's exhausting, too: like taking a pack of kids to the circus. There's no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the image of a double sunset. The loudness, the smash-and-grab editing, and the relentless pacing drive every idea out of your head, and even if you've been entertained, you may feel cheated of some dimension — a sense of wonder, perhaps. It's an epic without a dream."
I also like this, from another Kael piece:
"I regard criticism as an art, and if in this country and in this age it is practiced with honesty, it is no more remunerative than the work of an avant-garde film artist. My dear anonymous letter writers, if you think it is so easy to be a critic, so difficult to be a poet or a painter or film experimenter, may I suggest you try both? You may discover why there are so few critics, so many poets."
Since many idiots these days would have us believe that all opinions are equal -- you know, the Internet is a force for democracy, and all -- I'd say that's a pretty valuable sentiment.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I remember being going to see the original Star Wars with a friend who had first been my teaching assistant and his girl friend. He was very insistent that we see it, so as obliging young women we did. I found it quite entertaining, and I did go on to see all the rest. But it was never anything I focussed on, or built any kind of elaborate inner life around.
When the first of the 'prequels' came out, we had a woman who was a teaching assistant and she had a student who missed his exams during that time, in order to see Star Wars. She asked him why, and he explained to her that it was a religious holiday he'd had to observe. When she asked, what religious holiday, he said nothing but lifted up his shirt, revealing that his back was covered with a tattoo of the Millennium Falcon.
Nuf said.
I'd like to think the geek was given a failing grade in the course. All religions have their martyrs, after all.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I actually do not remember what the result of all that was. As it would have been a highlight of his life to be failed for the Star Wars cause, I think it would probably have been a better idea to just let him quietly retake the test.
I always enjoyed that Back to the Future rap video.
Seana
I liked the bit in 30 Rock where she tried to get out of Jury Duty by dressing up in a Star Trek uniform only to find that everyone had dressed up in Stark Trek or Star Wars costumes.
Peter
She's right about that, but wrong I think about Star Wars and Last Tango in Paris etc. etc.
I thought Jar Jar Binks was the first Star Wars martyr.
Oh, you probably dont know who that is. Trust me it was funny.
Matt
Uhm, link please?
I heard Christopher Loyd on the radio this week talking about BTTF. Very interesting guy. Its amazing to me that were only five years from thirty years in the future. NOTHING HAS COME TRUE. It completely sucks.
Jar Jar Binks is the big fat guy, isn't he?
Do you remember the old Parkay margarine television commercials, where a human would insist, "Butter," then lift the margarine lid, and a humorously squeaky voice would say, "Parkay"? I always thought Maria Schneider and Marlon Brando should have filmed one of those spots.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Is this you in today's Age?
Peter
Or I cant believe its not butter.
I also read Kael's The Citizen Kane Book and I think she was completely off base about Orson W's contribution to the screenplay. She says it was zero with very little evidence to back this up.
Jar Jar was the Jamaican donkey looking guy who appeared in Phantom Menace was universally reviled and never really appeared again.
John and Adrian,
Sawyer has some great things to say about sci-fi, but I'm gonna be the geek here who argues that Star Wars isn't really sci-fi at all. I think Sawyer's too preoccupied by the fact there's space ships, FTL, lasers, and aliens in the SW universe. SW does not hinge on science, like science-fiction does. If you took the "science" of SW away, it'd just be a cross between Lord of the Rings and Arthurian legend. Even the opening lines "A long time ago," as Sawyer mentions, are pulled straight from the fairy tale tradition.
That's why I think SW falls in the fantasy genre.
And Sawyer's bit about Obi-Wan not standing up for the droids in the bar is a little ham-fisted, considering what's going on in the story at that point: the Empire is on their ass and they have to maintain as low a profile as possible.
BTW, where's the love for The Twilight Zone? That show explored issues like race, nuclear armageddon, war, human nature, etc. a few years before Star Trek came along.
Bronwyn
Well the picture's not me but the article is by me.
I tried to do a post about this but Blogger isnt working properly.
I just looked up Jar Jar Binks before I read your comment, and I realized I recognized the character -- a cool-lookign character.
There's a dropped letter in that piece in the Age: omertà, not omert. But that's a nice lede, though. I've printed out the piece, and I'm going to read the whole thing.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Brian
I wonder though at the end of Jedi. Havent they just replaced one royal house with another? Princess Leia and her cronies in charge instead of the Emperor and Lord Vader.
Even in the Republic we've got a Queen representing Naboo.
I liked that Death Star 9/11 video because it showed you that no matter who was in charge the ordinary joes will keep getting shafted. Terry Pratchett wrote a little book on this theme called Guards, Guards! about the extras - the guards - who always run in to get killed by the hero.
Peter
Their mistake, I know my omertas, with the appropriate accent. Its an interesting story, although these two arent necessarily the best to tell it.
Peter
Lucas always denies in interviews that Jar Jar is a hated character, but after Phantom Menace he sliced his role from the next two films.
The Simpsons and South Park and many others have had a field day with Lucas's butchering of the Star Wars mythology. I'd love to the iconoclast who defends the prequels, but I cant, they're terrible.
I thought all of you who are males of a certain age, ie, any age, were supposed to be opining about Avatar, leaving any women here basically free to post whatever they feel like.
What I always heard about Jar Jar was that his speech pattern was what drove everyone crazy. I don't actually remember all that much about what he contributed contentwise.
The two actors who were plowed under by the prequels were Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman. Having seen Christiansen in Shattered Glass and Portman in Closer, I know that they are the real deal, and suffered in the Star Wars experience from having to talk to Jar Jar Binks.
No, just kidding. All I can attribute their woodenness to is extremely bad direction.
Seana
Keira Knightley was in Phantom Menace too and she's done ok.
Marco, John
334 could be done the way Altman did Shortcuts.
Except that Altman's dead.
Maybe John Sayles could do it.
John Sayles is terrific. I'm one of the few people who love Limbo, I think. IIRC the poor guy is an honest-to-God Pittsburgh Pirates fan.
I didn't like the SW prequels, but I did like that by the 3rd film Ewan McGregor finally figured out how the heck to make Obi-Wan's character work. He didn't quite seem to have the character nailed in the first two films (had a similar problem with Viggo as Aragorn in LOTR - since when was Aragorn a reluctant hero? It seems to me Viggo never actually read the books). The final fight between Kenobi and Anakin was pretty solid, however.
Here's the Back to the Future video. Some foul language, why I was reluctant to post it the first time - please don't think less of me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etGAMudQl8Q
Matt
Its funny I hated Phantom Menace but I'm a completist so of course I went to see 2 and 3. My eye rolling missus asked how 3 was when I got back from the cinema and I found myself saying "you know it wasn't terrible." I thought some of the stuff in there was interesting and perhaps with a better director it could have made an excellent addition to the series. And I wish we could have had more of the Wookie planet...
Dug the BTTF rap. I'll never forgive Rush Limbaugh for dissing one of my boyhood idols: Marty McFly.
Nice pic of 3/4ths of the family, by the way. Although two of you look like you've been hiding out from the law, and one looks like she's saying "Mom, I mean anonymous photographer, am I glad to see you!"
Seana
One thing about living in your own house is that you can paint the walls any colour you like. I suppose for the next decade I'm going to have to look at cream.
Well, maybe. But you aren't factoring in the kid's preferences. One of my friends, who is definitely on the cream end of the spectrum just painted the whole outside of her house by herself. Unlike me, this actually got her quite in the mood for painting. She decided to paint her ten year old daughter's room, and was promptly asked to paint each wall and the ceiling in different colors. Her daughter loves it, but my friend isn't sure how often she'll be able to bear to go in there.
That blue would definitely show up in a Santa Cruz rental, though.
who's that creepy guy with your daughters? ...er I mean, yes, good picture.
Seana
I think we painted the walls before we went to Frida Kahlo's house, but after we went there we decided that we weren't alone in our primary colour fetish.
Marco
If you ever have kids someday you too will get that "yes, this is fun but my God I'm exhausted" expression.
I should have pegged that Kahlo. That's probably where most of Santa Cruz got the idea too, come to think of it.
Marco, you don't have to become a parent to have this experience. Just offer to babysit for a couple of hours. Fun,yes, but kids do have a way of draining your living substance out of you.
Or spend a couple of days with friends who have kids.
Nice.
Malachy
Its pretty cool aint it?
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