Posts Tagged ‘push’
3 items.
Part of me feels that making a comic that criticizes George Lucas’ choices in the Star Wars prequels is kind of like sitting in a rocking chair – it gives you something to do, but you don’t go anywhere.
However, the idea of Anakin pushing General Grievous over the back of Obi Wan, leading to a dramatic explosion, was too funny to me. As you can see, I tried to play up the cartoon outlandishness to the hilt.
In the vein of characters muttering “I have a bad feeling about this.” and lightsaber adversaries losing limbs left, right and center – quickly and unoriginally disposing of cool-looking secondary vilians has becomes something of a Star Wars tradition.
It’s frustrating to a degree because Lucas’ art direction team has it in them to invent some incredible baddies. They build them up so that we think they are the most heinous, devious, impervious challenges our heroes will ever face. Then they are quickly disposed of in undignified ways. It seems like such wasted potential.
Naturally, the first victim to this folly was Boba Fett way back in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. Absent-mindedly knocked into the Pit of Sarlacc, he was left to digest for 1,000 years. The biggest, baddest bounty hunter in the galaxy – SO TOUGH HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO TALK! – dies in a way so undignified, Lucas might as well had him slip on a banana peel and split his head open on a rock.
Now we can kind of let this one slide, because at the time the original trilogy came out, he didn’t realize that Boba would capture people’s imagination so thoroughly. He envisioned him as this kind of background character. Totally disposable. Okay, fine. We’re not weeping into our Cheerio’s for that random Gamorrean guard who is fed to the Rancor.
However, this doesn’t absolve him from the absolute disregard for the great villians created for the prequels – Darth Maul, Jango Fett and General Grievous. Each one of these creations is billed as a major threat, but are removed from the equation in the lamest ways possible.
Darth Maul? The first Sith seen in 1,000 years. Proves his bad-assery by ventilating Qui Gon Jinn, but plucky young padawan Obi Wan Kenobi takes a lucky swipe and separates his legs from his torso. Enjoy your ride into obscurity down that random, bottomless shaft!
Jango Fett? First off, he’s a Mandalorian. Their reputation proceeds them. Second, he’s chosen as the template for the Clone Army. There must be something special about him, right? Wrong!
He barely gets out alive after a clumsy tussle with Obi Wan on Kamino and gets his head sliced off by Mace Windu without the erstwhile Jules Winnfield breaking his stride. Perhaps this is why the Stormtroopers are such a terrible shot?
Finally, General Grievous. The metaphorical alpha version of Darth Vader. An alien who swapped out most of his organic parts for mechanical substitutes. This guy kills Jedi FOR FUN and takes their lightsabres as keepsakes.
When he was introduced in the Star Wars: Clone Wars mini-series on Cartoon Network, he was a grisly, swift spectre of death, able to take out four Jedi all by his lonesome.
Too bad he didn’t employ the foresight to forge a more durable carapace. One that wouldn’t crack like a lobster shell when Obi Wan crams his hands into the opening between his chest plates, exposing his weakened heart and lungs to “uncivilized” blaster fire.
What recourse do these indelible characters have when their creator tosses them aside so readily? I mean, it makes sense to a degree because you want to introduce as many new, exciting visuals for each movie. If Darth Maul had been running rampant through all three prequels, it might have become stale. And certainly there would be less merchandising opportunities!
Lucky for us there is the Expanded Universe. The comic books and novels where writers who understand what it means to cherish an original character will flesh out their back stories and give them the respect they deserve.
Except R.A. Salvatore. I still haven’t forgiven him for killing off Chewbacca in Vector Prime…
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I realize that the punchline of today’s comic is a cheap bit of slapstick, but I can’t resist when things start getting serious.
Can you tell that Jimmy is hurting? And not just from the door swinging open at 20 miles per hour (who knew the bathroom door was on a double-hinge?) I’m drawing things out a little bit, but Jimmy’s fear of the women’s restroom has less to do with a nervous Nellie insecurity around the fairer sex than one might have previously assumed.
I think you guys are really going to like where I go with this next. The challenge for me at this moment is to move past the exposition and start digging deeper into Jimmy’s past.
I’m not usually very graceful when it comes to these transitions. I have to take the Band-Aid approach to them: Just rip it off and get it over with. The Band-Aid in this case would be my propensity to keep the characters in one place doing the talking head’s routine before one of them slips on a banana peel.
I was able to get out of the house this weekend and see Liam Neeson in Taken. I had a lot of fun at this movie. It’s a solid B-action thriller. What’s great about it, I think, is that 1.) It is absolutely cut-throat and 2.) Liam Neeson is pretty much unstoppable.
It’s funny. If it were a Tom Cruise movie featuring some square-jawed action guy dodging a hail of bullets and kicking ass, I would reject it. But because it’s Neeson, I totally buy it. That guy brings so much authority and command to everything he does. There’s not an “actory” bone in his body. He just… does the work and makes it look real.
Taken is the kind of movie Harrison Ford would have done 10 years ago. Except this time instead of a missing wife, Neeson is searching for his missing daughter who has been kidnapped and sold into the sex trade by Albanian thugs in Paris.
Watching this movie reminded me when I went to Edinburgh with a friend in 1999. My Dad warned me about strange people and (without getting into it) basically told me to keep my wits about me so I don’t get raped.
I don’t know if he was confused for a minute or if what he said came out wrong, but my family and I have been torturing him about it ever since.
Thankfully, I wasn’t raped by a Scottish highlander on my excusion, but I understand a little more clearly his parental concern after watching Taken.
Should I have been taken advantage of in some way 10 years ago, I’m not sure my Dad would travel over half the globe to put a massive smackdown on a network of European criminals… but stranger things have happened.
I think what I love about Taken is that it goes to NO effort toward making Neeson into a hero. This guy kills EVERYONE. He doesn’t negotiate. He shoots people in the back! He’ll graze your wife with a .45 slug if it gets him closer to finding his daughter!
I don’t know if I’ve been asked to sympathize with a remoresless protagonist in this way before. I wasn’t bothered by it. I think they were pretty much counting on the audience to give Neeson’s character full reign because – hey – his daughted had been kidnapped and sold into the sex trade! That pretty much excuses any bloody mess you start to stir up in a foreign city.
What’s crazy is that this movie has been out in Austrailia for over a year before we got a chance to see it here in America. Usually, it’s the other way around. I’m not even entirely sure at what point it came up on my radar. But I saw the riviting trailer at some point (“This is the important part (pause) They are going to take you.”) and knew it was a must-see for me.
He’s what’s even crazier… Taken took the box office crown this weekend earning nearly $25 million in ticket sales! That’s Paul Blart money we’re talking about here, folks.
Frankly, I’m glad Neeson put a movie like this under his belt. For too long I think audiences have viewed him as a the firm but kind fatherly type and it was a pleasure to see him put that on it’s ear. Neeson’s performance in Taken reminded me of another film where he was a complete bad-ass. One of my favorites, actually, Rob Roy.
Waitaminute… Neeson played a Scottish highlander in that movie! OH, DEAR GOD! I CAN SEE THROUGH TIME!
I’m really excited to talk about Taken tonight at 9:00 PM CST when we record our weekly podcast, The Triple Feature. Did you know we record it over at TalkShoe.com? Because we do.
This was a movie that all three of us agreed to see last week and I think we actually made it happen – which is kind of rare since I don’t leave the house much anymore. I think we’re at our best when the three of us have all seen the same thing, so if you listen live tonight, I think you’ll be in for a treat.
In the meantime, who else here saw Taken this weekend? What did you think? Leave your comments below!
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Oh, noes! What’s Charlie gonna do?
I’ve been setting up more than a few of this Friday cliffhangers during this storyline, haven’t I?
Well, once you see what Charlie does on Friday, we’ll catch up with everyone in the present next week. Hopefully, we’ll learn more about why Jimmy is still hanging around. Stay tuned, people! We’re in the home stretch!
Not much for me to talk about today. Well, except that maybe my Netflix experience. Still goin’ strong!
I realize that I didn’t talk about Man on Wire when I said I would last week. Man on Wire was the first film I rented from Netflix and also happened to be the winner of the Best Documentary award at the Oscars on Sunday.
I liked the movie a lot. It was arranged with a very tight narrative with a great blend of reenactments, interviews and original footage.
In case you’re not familiar, the subject of the film is Philippe Petit, a French tightrope walker who walked the span between the twin towers of the World Trade Center shortly after they were completed in 1974.
The movie is more about the planning stages of the walk more than the walk itself. So the filmmakers are able to milk a lot of tension our of the reenactments as the original parties explain their actions as if it were happening in real time. The walk itself feels like some kind of hazy dream, but certainly a one-of-a-kind moment that seemed to impress and capture the imagination of everyone involved – even the authorities, who could do no better than to charge Petit with trespassing
Petit comes off like an eccentric in his interviews or perhaps a hyperactive child. But I admire anyone who feels compelled to create art to serve a higher purpose. He performs his walk not for profit or fame (although those things come later), but to inspire others to dream. Ah, existentialism as only the French can make it!
I kind of wonder if hanging around Petit in real life would be exhausting. But I have to admit I was charmed with his magic trick and balancing act at the Oscar’s when he delivered his acceptance speech.
In the words of Best Week Ever, “please be in our lives every day.”
As for the next movie in our queue, Cami reserved Henry Poole Is Here. I’m not sure why. I thought we were being diplomatic with our choices. I rent one, then she rents one — back and forth and so on. She says she rented it for me! I don’t anything about the film, but I’m happy to watch it all the same. It has Luke Wilson in it, so how bad can it be?
Don’t answer that.
I’ll be back later in the day to pose a question to everyone about contributing transcripts of the comics to the site. Until then, talk amongst yourselves. Who here has seen Man on Wire? What were your thoughts?
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