So after being unwell for a week with a veritable cornucopia of different symptoms, I went to the Doctor. He said “Well, it’s a virus of some kind. Keep doing what you’re doing and it’ll come right.”
I gave up my decade-plus streak of not going to the Doctor for this? I feel disappointed. I was hoping to get a syndrome named after me at least.
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Saw Star Wars Episode 3 last night. In a word: unnecessary. In a few more words: [spoilers, mind] the first thing Anakin does after signing on to the bad guys is go and murder children? Wha huh?
In other words, I didn’t like it, and I didn’t like it way more than I didn’t like Eps 1 and 2 the day after I saw them. It was fanfic.
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Doctor Who, meanwhile, continues to be wonderful.
29 thoughts on “Revenge of the Virus”
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The murdering children thing IS a common mythological theme… didn’t King Arthur try to kill Mordred by having every baby in Orkney murdered… and he wasn’t even a dark-side-dude. And there was Herod… Murdering children is a bit passe perhaps, but not completely unbeievable if you’ve just sold your soul to a dark emperor…
Was he trying to off his own babes perchance?
Nige is desperate to see it… I may have to send him alone )-:
P.S. Get well soon!
I don’t think he went looking for the children as such: he went up the Jedi temple and found them there (which is a separate “huh? wtf?” moment), and then grabbed the opportunity to take them out.
PS “It was fanfic”? Ouch. What did George L ever do to you?
George LucA$$ stole my childhood!!1one!
It wasn’t the youngling-slaying per se that got me – it was that this was the *first step in his descent*. It’s the single most horrible thing Darth Vader ever does and he does it *first*. Straight from ‘tortured decision to protect Sidious from Mace Windu’ to ‘chop up lots of kids’? No way, man, that’s screwed up storytelling.
It was fanfic. The Death Star callout at the end? The Chewbacca gratuitous cameo? The Qui-Gon reference? This is how fanfic works – obsessively filling in gaps.
I’m really surprised how much I didn’t like it, actually.
I haven’t seen it, but I’ve long said that what Hollywood movies need is more murdered children.
You’re the first negative review I’ve heard of the new film. Everyone else has been gently pleased with it, so I’m going to be really interested to see what its like for me. I HATED the last two.
Weird. A synchronicity and a disparity.
I too went over a decade without going to a doctor. But I really enjoyed SW3.
[probable spoilers]
It helped that they’d showed Ep2 on TV the week before, since I hadn’t bothered seeing it after Ep1, and that I was stressed and wanting escapism when I saw it.
Within the constraints of Lucas’ particular ineptitudes – which I was prepared for going in – it was lots of fun. I really enjoyed it on a mythological motif level. This is the stuff that normally gets skipped – eg how many Arthurian movies show the slaughter of the children, or even allude to it?
I’m looking forward to rewatching the original trilogy, just to see what resonance it adds to the same tired dialogue, and how characters play differently.
And, in possible evidence that I’ve completely lost my mind, I thought Ewan McGregor was mostly really good as Obi Wan.
I enjoyed Episode 3 as a pretty, spectacular film with lots of cool stuff in it. At the end it was all connected to a different series of films I saw when I was a kid that I really liked.
There was highly cringemaking dialogue, and a few unnecessary scenes (like the whole wookie planet thing), but what was there was pretty cool.
I did like the develpment of Anikin from Sandperson women and child murderer to little Anikin-types killer. It was perhaps a little abrupt, but the series as a whole has a pretty epic style, and you can excuse a lot of jumps by throwing a sideways wipe across the screen and saying, “what the hell, it’s Star Wars”.
I agree with most of what you say about it, those things didn’t bother me overly.
Ahhh, don’t listen to me. I like Titanic. And Deep Blue Sea. I even kinda liked John Carpenter’s Vampires.
(All of you are wrong and I am right.)
I liked Titanic too 😀
I liked RotS. My view is that GL can’t compete with people’s nostaglia. In some ways the RotJ showed about the same level of abrupt changes in character development that RotS did. However, being 10 helped see past all that 🙂
Rediscover your inner child 😉
Morgue sez: “I even kinda liked John Carpenter’s Vampires.”
Bride of Chucky was better. 😉
But Bride of Chucky is better than most films. While Vampires is not.
I guess we should be thankful that RotS was only fanfic, not slash.
I had a moment of stupidity there when I expected Rot to stand for the same thing in both and couldn’t compute… I need sleep!
I never liked RotJ anywhere near as much as the others in the original sequence. I was both too old and too young for teddy bears when I 1st saw it!
I forgot Anakin had already killed children… so maybe they had to do something to show just how unspeakably evil he’d become. And presumably he didn’t yet have the wherewithal for planetary destruction yet.
There was the part wherethe Emperor says to Anakin at the start of RotS “I know what you did on Tatooine” accompanied by the screams of sandpeople.
“The only thing I saw this weekend was Revenge of the Sith. Filmmakers should be required to stand one foot away from a sea of lava before being certified to make films with lava in them. Duh.”
– Mildred Perkins
Honestly, the lava is the least of the “unrealistic” elements in Star Wars. I can’t remember people saying after A New Hope:
“The only thing I saw this weekend was A New Hope. Filmmakers should be required to float in space with hearing aids before being certified to make films with noisy space explosions in them. Duh.” 😉
I can’t even remember similar comments about Frodo and Sam in Mordor.
I do remember people moaning about the sounds in space thing in Star Wars (they didn’t know to call it “A New Hope” until 1981 😉 – but even so, it’s not a totally intuitive concept; how many people do you know who’ve been to space?
Meanwhile, anyone who’s stood near a fire for more than 30 seconds should be able to figure out that something so hot it’s effectively LIQUID ROCK is not easy to get near to.
There’s “unrealistic” in scare quotes, and then there’s “it’s obviously unrealistic to anyone who expends one iota of thought on it.”
So if it’s the LEAST unrealistic element, I can’t wait to see the rest of the movie! 😉
Hey man they are Jedi. They have Kewl Powerz which obvioucly include being able to fight stylishly near extrememly hot molten rock.
I mean really, it is a hugh epic fantasy movie. If you are going to pick one reality hoel in it why not pick them all.
I mean light sabers, what’s with that?
Telekinesis, thought control, hokey psychic powers.
I guess it bothers me when people pick reality holes in movies that are clearly, though implicitly, labeled *suspend disbelief*.
Haven’t seen it yet. Looking forard to it (with suitably low expecations) and will probably enjoy it as I make a point of trying to enjoy movies. But maybe not.
“I guess it bothers me when people pick reality holes in movies that are clearly, though implicitly, labeled *suspend disbelief*.”
All fictional movies require the suspension of disbelief. I don’t have a problem with suspending disbelief, but I do have a problem with suspending common sense.
Light sabers are explained by “future tech” and telekinesis, thought control etc are explained by “the force is like magic”. None of these are real things that exist in the real world. (Some will argue about telekinesis etc, to which I say “Show it to me and I’ll believe it.”)
Lava is a real thing in the real world, and if you have someone standing really close to lava without even getting sooty (much less their clothes and hair catching on fire) and don’t even attempt to explain it, then you’ve goofed.
“It’s fantasy” can only go so far.
Personally, I always thought the most important, and overlooked, words in each movie were “Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away”. Thus anyone tempted to pick “reality holes” has seriously mythed something. 😉
And, hey, Pearce, shouldn’t you at least *see* it first? I mean [REALLY REALLY REALLY BIG ASS MOVIE ENDING SPOILER] it’s not like Anakin doesn’t get completely burned by being by the lava, and that jedi don’t consistently perform highly improbable physical acts.
Yeah, I probably should see it first, Mystery Commenter. Should probably see episode 2 even firster.
I didn’t realise that the myth-like structure of Star Wars was license to spew drivel. Mt mistake. 😉
actually, you’re the one spewing drivel, in that the quote you provide above, without context or a link, for those who have seen the movie in question, would actually seem to be arguing the exact opposite of the points you are trying to argue – that spontaneously combusting a foot away from a lava flow is stupid.
anyway. stupid stupid internet arguments.
“(they didn’t know to call it “A New Hope” until 1981 ;-)”
As you can appreciate, using Star Wars can be a little confusing when you are referring to just Ep4.
“- but even so, it’s not a totally intuitive concept; how many people do you know who’ve been to space?”
About as many people as I know who have been next to lava. Honestly, I know about as many people, read about the same amount of material and watch about the same amount of information on being in space as I do being near lava. I don’t see a distinction.
The cool imagery of fighting close to lava is the same as the cool imagery of having noises in space.
“All fictional movies require the suspension of disbelief. I don’t have a problem with suspending disbelief, but I do have a problem with suspending common sense.”
Even the early SW movies require a certain suspension of common sense for what was a fun and cool story. The only real difference with Ep3 to Eps 4 to 6 is a growing and (arguably) more sophisticated audience. I agree GL has lost his touch with today’s youth but I don’t think Ep3 is of a substantially lesser quality that Eps 4 to 6.
Can we all agree that Pearce is wrong about the lava but right about Tom Waits? (Just picking one thing at random he is right about.)
Only if we agree that Deep Blue Sea was cool. I liked it, Morgue liked it… anyone else? 🙂
Giant smart sharks are kewl.
(PS, who says it was lava like we have on earth? It might have been space lava!)
“(PS, who says it was lava like we have on earth? It might have been space lava!)”
I prefer magic lava 🙂 Actually, on a rewatch it seems GL may have thought about this issue as the lava floating platforms show signs of being shielded. So, not magic lava but magic platforms 😉
“Space Lava” needs to be the name of a band.