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By: Homer The Brave
Date: 2/6/00 2:51:54 AM
# Replies: 47
Absolute luminous poetry.
The best movie I've ever seen.
I'm really, really, REALLY kicking myself for having not seen this one in the theater.
Response #1
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 2/11/00 6:45:32 PM
No, really. It's really good. You should watch it. :-)
Response #2
By: Roxanne
Date: 2/11/00 11:43:12 PM
Sorry, Homer, I haven't seen it yet. But I hate to see a message sub go postless...
Response #3
By: sooz
Date: 2/12/00 12:35:10 AM
Is "postless" related to "pantless"?
Response #4
By: Ralf
Date: 2/12/00 10:08:08 AM
There's a penis joke in there someplace, but I'm too tired...
Response #5
By: Roxanne
Date: 2/12/00 12:23:44 PM
True, Ralf. sooz and I are "postless" and you are just "pantsless".
But we don't have "post envy"!
Response #6
By: Ralf
Date: 2/13/00 10:07:14 AM
THERE it is! See, my instintcs are still solid.
Response #7
By: Roxanne
Date: 2/14/00 4:21:54 PM
But your typing is still weak...
*giggle*
Response #8
By: Ralf
Date: 2/15/00 7:41:58 AM
Hmph. Maybe I can sue that fraud Mavis Beacon...
Response #9
By: Roxanne
Date: 2/15/00 4:28:17 PM
Speaking of suits, I heard today that a woman whose husband was killed in the Alaska Airlines crash a couple of weeks ago is suing because the pilots didn't do everything they "could" to make an emergency landing. Wha?
So, why not? Go ahead and sue Mavis.
Response #10
By: Ralf
Date: 2/16/00 7:03:36 AM
Okay, so the plane's upside down and descending at 3 G's... I'd say there's nothing left for the pilot but to commence screaming.
Based on what they know about the last few minutes of that flight (virtually nothing) Alaska airlines could sue her husband for causing the accident.
"Yep, the black box clearly shows a passenger racing into the cockpit, pulling down his pants, and whizzing on the controls."
Response #11
By: sooz
Date: 2/16/00 9:24:03 AM
I hate ambulance chacers, and that's who's involved here. Scum, I tell you, scum.
Speaking of dumb-ass law suits, remembered the guy that offered Paula Jones a million to drop her suit against Clinton? She and the zillionairre signed on the dotted line, she dropped her suit, and he ain' payin' her. So she's filing suit against HIM. She sucks.
Response #12
By: Roxanne
Date: 2/16/00 3:09:27 PM
No, sooz. Paula Jones *doesn't* suck. That was Monica!
Response #13
By: Ralf
Date: 2/17/00 10:01:22 AM
Why does she suck for suing him? It's definitely breach of contract.
I mean she's an evil detestible tiny little person who will most certainly fry in hell, but the law is clear about breach of contract.
Response #14
By: sooz
Date: 2/17/00 10:43:30 PM
Aw, we ain't seen the contract. He probably hired better lawyers than her, and the contract's prolly got a clause in it that she broke without knowing it or some such.
Meanwhile - did anyone see the question about "Thin Red Line" on "Who Wants To Tolerate Regis?" I only had it on so I could watch ER, I swear!
Response #15
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 2/18/00 2:28:50 AM
What was the question?
('Thin Red Line' still roolz, BTW.)
Response #16
By: sooz
Date: 2/19/00 1:44:05 PM
The question was "Which battle was portrayed in the movie..."
The contestant, a GIRL, of course, winced and said "I hated that movie." She polled the audience and got the answer right, though.
Response #17
By: Ralf
Date: 2/20/00 11:41:17 AM
Girl: What is 'The Battle of Midway'?
Regis: [mildly perplexed] Is that your FINAL answer?
Girl: Yes.
Regis: So "Yes" is your final answer?
Girl: No!
Alex: [standing in front-row audience] But she did phrase the answer in the form of a question. She oughta get points for that.
Regis: Crawl back into your hole, you bastard. This is MY show. [back to GIRL] C'mon, c'mon c'mon... izzat your final answer or not??
Girl: [confused] ..I...that is...
Alex: Hell, *I'LL* give her the money. [Whips out checkbook, writes, rips off a check, tosses it to GIRL] Hereyago sweetheart, 1 MILLION samoleans. Don't spend it all in one place.
Regis: [now standing] Fuck you.
Alex: Hah! What is 'what is the last thing your wife said to me this morning before meeting me for the boinking of her life?' Do I win a million dollars?
[REGIS emits a hypersonic scream and launches himself at ALEX. The two roll around on the floor biting and scratching each other, making feline attack noises. GIRL watches in bewilderment, check clasped weakly in one hand.]
[Cue flashing lights, "Millionaire" special effects, fade out]
Response #18
By: sooz
Date: 2/26/00 5:27:36 PM
New idea for Fox: "Who Wants To Marry a Million Man March."
Response #19
By: Ralf
Date: 2/27/00 11:15:58 AM
The Honeymoon. I'd buy THAT for a dollar.
Response #20
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 2/27/00 3:01:40 PM
Who wants to marry a Fox executive?
Response #21
By: Roxanne
Date: 4/10/00 2:17:35 PM
Once upon a time, this sub was about the movie "Thin Red Line". I also just recently got the chance to see this as well.
Homer: I must confess, your recommendation is what prompted me to rent this. However, I was unable to finish it! It seemed to go on and on and (yeah, odds are, it's just me) I did not "get" it at all. I could see it for being a study of men in combat all with their own perspectives and experiences and how they were affected by what they were involved in...but it just droned.
What did I do wrong?
Response #22
By: Ralf
Date: 4/11/00 4:46:11 AM
You shoulda rented Muppets in Space.
Response #23
By: Da Sissop
Date: 4/11/00 6:04:40 AM
Or Saving Private Kermit.
Response #24
By: Roxanne
Date: 4/11/00 9:49:35 AM
Maybe I should have served in the military...during WWII...
Response #25
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 4/11/00 12:58:12 PM
It *is* a long movie, Rox.
What I got from it is that it isn't just about men in combat, but also about how we go about ruining the heaven-on-earth we live in. Ambition and fear and nationalistic threats which exist half a world away all drive these men, when they could just strip naked and go native like the main character at the beginning of the film. It makes me think about the things I do to keep myself disconnected from the paradise that's around me, which is why it's great art.
Plus, it's just plain gorgeous.
Response #26
By: Roxanne
Date: 4/16/00 11:07:41 AM
Yes, I did see that aspect of it. And like you said in your original post, it was probably very moving to witness on the big screen. I do know that alot of movies lose something in the translation to "pan and scan".
Thanks for sharing it with us, Homer!
Response #27
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 4/17/00 2:11:18 AM
Thanks for sharing? I thought you didn't like it! :-)
Response #28
By: Tess Trueheart
Date: 4/18/00 3:41:17 AM
She was being p.c. in a very professional way of course. ;>
Response #29
By: Da Sissop
Date: 4/18/00 6:20:06 PM
Damn you Homer, damn you very much.
No, actually, I saw the Thin Red Line on cable, and I thought it was pretty good, in the sense that I think most war movies that don't glorify war are pretty good.
Response #30
By: Roxanne
Date: 4/19/00 1:49:29 PM
No, no, no! I did not mean my "thanks for sharing" comment in any bad way at all! I was merely thanking Homer for giving us his opinion on a movie he thought we should see and might appreciate.
I didn't say I didn't like it...I just didn't *get* it. But after reading Homer's reply, I understand a little more. Perhaps someday I'll try watching it again and it will be clearer to me.
Response #31
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 4/19/00 11:44:45 PM
Yes, for I am the ultimate arbiter of what All Movies Mean! I think it is this role of mine which causes me to end up going to movies alone.
By the way, Buffalo '66 made me happy. Also, I finally saw Episode 1, and I think George Lucas should be shot.
Response #32
By: Ralf
Date: 4/20/00 4:52:27 AM
Yep, The Phantom Menace was a pandering, ridiculous attempt to draw in a younger audience with no artistic integrity whatsoever. Here are just a few of the problems I had with this movie:
(Spoilers galore if you haven't seen this clunker yet...)
1. The Jedi order is supposedly the most powerful, most respected organization in the galaxy. Yet two of them (and the Queen) manage to get marooned on a desert planet, and can't even convince the locals to give them a lift? Why did they whip out their Master-Plutonium Card and charge it to their royal expense account? We're supposed to believe that a junk seller can thwart two Jedis and a shipful of the Queen's bodyguards?
2. But no, these Jedi knights allow a young (slave!) boy to risk his life in a death race, to win the money to buy the part. What kind of a "knight" does that??
3. They're so honorable in fact, that they free the slave boy. But not his mother! No, they'll just leave mom behind on a planet filled with gangsters. She'll be *fine*.
4. And whatthehell are midichlorians? Blood-swarming parasites?! In one fell swoop we've destroyed any mystery about The Force and made it a simple thing to be measured by any yutz with a tricorder.
5. The Trade Federation appears to be run by a bunch of asian stereotypes.
6. Darth Maul is evil.... why? What has he done? Where is the exposition? Except for the face-paint he's got as much screen presence as the robots. He does not appear to be very adept in the Force neither, as he is duped by a lowly Jedi-in-training.
7. Jar-Jar Binks. What a collossal mis-step THIS was for Lucas. Instead of a cute, loveable comedic foil for all the manufactured evil, we have the world's most annoying CGI effect. The medium is not to blame -- Toy Story certainly has cute characters I enjoy watching. No, it's the relentless stupidity of the character, the inexplicable fact that he's just *accepted* instead of light-sabred down upon first sight. That none of the other characters are alarmed enough by his "bumbling" to DO anything just damages credibility even more. He's even a bad role model for kids: sticking his tongue in electrical sockets, grabbing food off others' plates, shoplifting, feet-on-the-furniture... oh, what a loathesome, loathesome creature.
8. *All* the robots on the surface were controlled by *one* computer in orbit? How stupid is THAT? This is MILITARY hardware! But even assuming all the brains WERE on that ship-what-went-boom: the robots aren't autonomous? At least a little? C'mon, every droid in the Lucas universe has had a freekin PERSONALITY, and now we're supposed to believe these elite fighting droids can't even stand up without their mothership?
9. Plot: Jedi picks up boy from Tattooine, takes him off to see The Galaxy, only to be involved in fierce space battles, which culminates in the destruction of a large, spherical ship. Hmm... seems familiar. C'mon, Lucas, you had 15 years to think things through, and took for goddam ever to make The Phantom Menace, and all you can come up with is a recycled plot?
To be fair, there was stuff I liked: the pod race, the music, the non-Jar-Jar CGI, the costumes.
Lucas should just turn the whole franchise over to Tim Burton.
Response #33
By: rorschach
Date: 4/20/00 10:40:12 AM
i got the distinct impression that this movie was just a way of introducing some characters for the second and third episodes, and not really intended to be much more than eye candy for the rest of it. the mitochondrites I assume are to mean what science calls mitochondria, which are essentially single celled organisms that became symbiotic with all living things so long ago that the only structures that are left are the dna strands themselves. so they are saying that non-sentient dna strands are able to generate this all pervasive force that even inhabits non-living stone and metal? sorry.... WRONG answer....
obviously it was never intended to be critically disected in this manner because it obviously falls apart easily.....
Response #34
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 4/21/00 10:02:14 PM
Gee, what do you think might happen in episode 2? Let's put on our thinking caps, drink some ginkgo biloba, and try to ascertain...
A young anakin returns to tatooine to save his mother, accompanied by queen amidala. he succeeds, but AT WHAT PRICE?
Response #35
By: Ralf
Date: 4/22/00 7:12:49 AM
OR, his mom has already been nabbed/killed and he stands in the smouldering wreckage of his house vowing to turn evil and stuff.
Given the obvious faults in Ep1, what would you do to fix them? Short of a complete rewrite, that is. Keep the basic story intact.
Response #36
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 4/23/00 12:02:03 PM
SPOILERS AHEAD. If you care.
Racial stereotypes evaporate in my version. There's no jar jar binks, but instead a hardened criminal gungan who really actually deserves banishment. He seems dangerous.
The huge underwater cities aren't in a tiny lake. We don't waste a bunch of time going 'through the planet's core.' The escape from Naboo goes pretty much the same, except the the robot soldiers never say 'roger roger.'
The princess and the Jedis and Jar jar FINK end up on Tatooine, have the money to buy the hyperdrive, but it takes time to fix. Meanwhile, they meet Annakin, who's going to be in the pod race to raise money to buy his mother out of slavery. They recognize the force in him, and offer to take him away. He wins the race, but the thug he bet with won't pay up cuz he's a little kid. Jedi mind tricks ensue, and the thug pays. Annakin's mom, however, wants Annakin to be free to leave with the Jedi, instead of staying with her, so she manages to sneak the money out to buy Annakin's freedom. Meanwhile Maul shows up on Tatooine, has an ass-kicking swordfight with Liam Neeson, who shames him, instead of the lame escape as in the movie. At no point in my movie is Annakin referred to as 'Anny.'
Our intrepid party leave Tatooine and head for Bureaucracy Planet. Things go pretty much the same there, except the Jedi tests are much more interesting than guess-the-picture-I'm-looking-at. Like, Yoda asks the kid to read his mind, and the kid reveals all kinds of embarrasing things. Or the kid has to make things levitate and predict the future and all the other cool Jedi things. The council is much more visibly impressed with Annakin, and there's more debate over whether he should be trained or not. In the end, tho, he isn't, cuz otherwise how would the sith lord get ahold of him in subsequent movies?
The big battles on Naboo are pretty much the same, too, except that the gungans win by drawing the robot army into the jungle and using guerilla tactics. I *did* like the idea of Annakin winning the war by accident, though.
The inevitable swordfight between Maul and the Jedis is far more protracted, to the point that they're all visibly exhausted. Maul actually talks to them, while they're fighting, and we learn what makes Darth Maul tick. We also get a preview of where Annakin's headed, since he's about to become a Darth, himself. Maul gets his revenge on Liam Neeson, and then Obi-Wan kills him, but now we know who he's killed, and who these Sith really are.
Big party in the streets, more obvious connections are drawn between the Sith lord and Palpatine, and the unification of humans and gungans on naboo is made abundantly obvious as well, through the interplay between the princess and the hardened criminal jar jar binks. This would be something more substantial than 'We-sa be friends now.'
-----
That took me about 15 minutes to come up with. It has all the hooks for merchandising, it would make just as much money, and would be a substantially better movie. The question is: Who's this lamer George Lucas?
Response #37
By: Gowan McGland
Date: 4/23/00 2:28:03 PM
If all the aliens sounded like you or me, Lucas would have instead been accused of not being racially equivalent. Granted, they went TOO far by using stereotypes, but I can definitely see WHY it was done.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. (Doesn't THAT sound familiar?)
Response #38
By: Ralf
Date: 4/24/00 4:59:37 AM
Oooohhh. I'd LOVE to hear the dialog between Darth Maul and the two Jedis as they fight. It'd be a kind of grudgingly respectful taunting. After all, Jedis feel most comfortable about letting their hair down while waving dangerous energy swords around.
Perhaps Goi-Gon and Obi-Wan tempt Darth with leaving the dark side? "Come, join us. Together we can rule the universe."[tm]
I agree about your Jar-Jar FINK transformation. Absolutely necessary. But perhaps if we made him a kind of crusty, not-so-dangerous rougue rather than outrightly dangerous... we still need a cutesy toy tie-in for the kids. I mean, Han Solo worked out well as an action figure.
Also, Annakin should be about 6 years older, so the quasi-sexual tension between him and the princess isn't so... creepy. It would also lessen their age-difference some.
And what if Annakin so blows away the Jedi council that they feel obligated to teach him, if only to keep control of this powerful little guy? Then, a few years down the road, Annakin gets pissed off at all the "baby stuff" they insist on shoving down his throat and makes a break for it. Lord Palpatine has had his eye on this one anyway, and has been feeding his disquiet.
Response #39
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 4/24/00 4:02:44 PM
I'd thought about having the Jedis train him just to keep him in their line of sight, but you wanted the story to be roughly similar to the movie that got made.
In my movie that's nothing like the move that got made, Jar Jar gets shot, and CGI guts pour out of his belly, even though he got shot in the head.
Also, Darth Maul isn't completely evil yet. He's the opposite of Annakin, in that he goes to the good side, leaving a vacancy which could be easily filled.
But who am I? Some immensely-talented loser who posts to web-based BBSes.
George Lucas lost it after THX 1138. All downhill after that.
Response #40
By: Da Sissop
Date: 4/24/00 4:33:27 PM
Maybe if we all pony up a few bucks you can make that movie.
Response #41
By: Roxanne
Date: 4/24/00 7:44:54 PM
I want to see Homer's "Director's Cut" of Epi Uno! That's a much better storyline than Georgie Boy came up with!
Response #42
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 4/25/00 2:04:24 AM
I think Lucas was too busy figuring out how to make astonishingly beautiful imaginary landscapes for shallow and uninteresting characters to inhabit, to get around to anything so annoying as a storyline.
Damn. I'm getting so catty in my old age.
Oh, and here's a teaser about my movie: Darth Maul... Boba Fett... Could it be?
And if you want to see what some really talented people did with the Star Wars mythos, find the quicktime of 'Troops' on the web somewhere. It's a spoof of Cops on Tatooine with stormtroopers.
Response #43
By: Roxanne
Date: 4/25/00 5:13:03 PM
Just what are you insinuating about Darth Maul and Boba Fett?
Of course, now that I type that, Darth Maul is kind of dressed like a sci-fi drag queen...tee hee
Response #44
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 2/16/01 12:31:05 AM
Meanwhile.. 10 months later...
What a great thread. Mostly because I posted to it a lot. :-)
Response #45
By: Capt. Spastic
Date: 2/16/01 5:44:42 AM
There should be more posting on here!
Response #46
By: bob
Date: 7/25/01 12:01:46 PM
since i have not been here that long, i read all these posts. these are quite funny. i agree with all the low points, but i liked the movie if for nothing other than the double bladed light saber. where the hell can i get one of those.
Response #47
By: sooz
Date: 7/25/01 12:25:51 PM
I'm sure Radio Shack has a model.