Talk-Through
“And then you do this Jedi serenity waiting-to-die thing….yeah, that’s it…your eyes closed, waiting for it…and then…no, you won’t be struck or fall…your brown tunic will fall and Obi-Wan will just, y’know, dematerialize. That way he’ll transform rather than die, without actually getting tagged by a light saber. No, I just want it that way. Alec? I don’t care, dammit, if it makes no sense to you. Listen, Alec…I wrote this, I’m the director.”
In other words, the sequels were just an excuse to bash Lucas as you clearly have no respect for any of the films.
Yes, we get it – you have been too old to enjoy pretty much any of the great genre films of the last 30 years. Sucks to be you.
Before the prequels came out I remember reading an interview with Lucas where he stated that we would find out why Obi-Wan and Yoda disappeared when they died, and Vader didn’t.
Instead it was a couple throwaway lines by Yoda about ‘training’.
Disappointing. But part of me is glad he didn’t really try – he probably would have got that wrong too.
Alec – “Just get out of the shot, sonny. I want to get this done in one takes so I can get to the tea cart first.”
This coming from the guy who raved about the gut busting hilarity of hot tub time machine.
i rest my case.
Yes, yes — mock all you want, but this is a GREAT scene in a GREAT film (containing one of his best, if overt, visual Kurosawa homages, to boot).
lucas had one of the great runs of all time from “thx 1138″ to “raiders of the lost ark.”
It’s a shame that Guiness grew to hate the role so much. It made him rich and beloved in ways that Bridge Over The River Kwai never could.
Fortunately he died before he had to witness the prequels. He’d really have a shit-fit then.
Jeff’s a little extreme on this, but on the flip side, doesn’t the opposite EVER GET OLD?
If I have to hear one more aw-shucks 35-year-old aspiring screenwriter/director (usually from USC) describe in moony-eyed detail how their parents took them to see SW or ESB when they were five years old and their face lit up like a constellation and they knew RIGHT THEN AND THERE they wanted to TELL STORIES and they went back to see it (insert number) of times and how it shaped their life…
I mean, isn’t there one 33-47-year-old movie fanatic who saw STAR WARS as a kid and was like, “hey, that was kinda cool” but all things being equal they watched Dirty Harry or Alien or Rocky or Smokey and the Bandit or Stir Crazy or Halloween II just as many if not more times? For me, it was great but it was just another movie, not really much more or less “formative” than Mark Blankfield in “Jekyll and Hyde Together Again” or Robert Hays in “Take This Job and Shove It” or Lee Majors in “The Last Chase.” Obviously those are extreme, ridiculous examples, but I’d have thought other “HBO kids” of the early ’80s would’ve seen so many other classic movies of the era so many dozens of times over, SW would’ve seemed a little dorky by comparison to Michael Myers or Snake Plissken or Zach Mayo.
Luke Skywalker was kinda dorky compared to Deke Da Silva.
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Alec Guinness interviewed in The Times in 1977: “Mark my words”, he said. “This film is going to have distinction.”
The original Star Wars trilogy is fucking great. You don’t need to be a nerd or a fat fanboy or a manchild to agree. It’s just great filmmaking, great storytelling, and full of the absolute JOY that cinema should be about (at least most of the time). To bash the original trilogy because you hate the prequels is daft. It’s like saying The Godfather is shit because Part III wasn’t very good.
And for someone who was glowingly positive about Avatar, it’s kind of absurd to be bashing Star Wars. Avatar was the Emmerich Godzilla to Star Wars’ Jurassic Park. If you catch my drift.
“This coming from the guy who raved about the gut busting hilarity of hot tub time machine.”
Star Wars didn’t pay for banner ads on HE.
While I actually am pretty sure I’d qualify as a guy like what Lex is talking about [though my earliest movie memory is seeing 'Jedi' in a theater, that's only because of the big monster], I still think this post is stupid. Saying that Obi-Wan’s death in ‘Star Wars’ doesn’t make sense to you does not make you look smarter than George Lucas, Jeff. It’s the opposite.
Alec Guiness in 1983: “Get the he’ll away from me, kid. It’s a stupid fucking movie. Go find another hobby and grow up.”
I didn’t flip for Hot Tub Time Machine because of the ads on the site, and I’m now thinking that Eloi Manning may have to move on to other pastures. The HE rule is that personal slander will get you banned, and strongly inferring that I have no integrity when it comes to the dichotomy between ads and reviews comes pretty close to slander, I think. I know he’s been a steady HE presence, but the rules are the rules.
Alec Guinness made fucking shitloads from Star Wars. The people who claim he was some kind of exploited genius, forced to toil away on a silly film when there were dozens of Ealing farces to made, are ignoring the fact that George Lucas basically gave this guy a hugely wealthy retirement.
Jeff: Fair enough. See you soon!
lol Jeff. A: He was being satirical and B: As a lawyer even if he wasn’t, I can tell you it is nothing close to slander.
“strongly inferring that I have no integrity when it comes to the dichotomy between ads and reviews comes pretty close to slander”
Boy, would I love to see *that* court battle. I have never really paid attention to it, but it sure seems like, whenever there’s a movie that it surprises you that Jeff likes, there’s somebody else pointing out that there’s an ad for it on the site. (Granted, they’re not always correct.)
Thought I read a long tie ago, that it was Guiness himself who came up with the idea of his character getting bumped off while they were filming the Death Star scenes. Guiness sold Lucas on the notion that one of the group “needing” to die at that point to maximize the seriousness of the threat and increase the dramatic weight resting on the protagonist’s shoulders; the most dramatic death at that point would be Obi-wan.
And thus from that decision, Yoda had to be created for the sequel.
Oh come on, A New Hope isn’t bad. Granted, it’s a fluke and was basically rescued by the editors who made the film cut together — apparently Lucas’ first cut wasn’t much better than the prequels — but it works, it really does.
“Oh, and just to let you know, Alec. After you’re dead, and when it’s more convenient, I’ll do a different version of Jedi where I have your after-image posing with the projection of some teen nitwit I’m trying to retcon as the new Darth Vader. Hope you don’t mind, but Prowse’s scarred face just doesn’t have the same appeal with little girls as some emo douchebag.”
Anyway, if there’s no reason for Roman to be extradited, then Demjanjuk should be allowed to go free, too.
Kind of old, but this link I got off deadline hollywood seems like a small take, given Avatar’s earning power, especially when he just paid off half a billion in fines.
Anyway, how is a landfill of first-edition Avatar dvds and BDs good for the environment, Jimmy?
Where the hell was she in Meat Train?
Congrats, Mel.
Sorta true.
“Where the hell was she in Meat Train?”
DeeZee, did you even see the movie? (Likely answer: no.) Brooke Shields was most definitely in at as the chic, sleazy cougar-like agent or editor who took a look at Bradley Cooper’s photographers and encouraged him to do edgier work, which is way he was out and about late at night shooting when he started tracking Vinnie Jones.
I remember this from seeing the movie, once, in a drunk stupor, on DVD at 1am. So clearly you’re asking having never seen it and, as usual, assuming you’re an authority based on tenth-hand information and preconceived notions.
Lex: Wow, it’s been so long since that shitty sitcom, I forgot what she looked like.
Eloi Manning is dead….banned from these parts.
I remember that scene didn’t make any sense to me when I watched it as a kid. And since Vader looked surprised that he disappeared I assumed Obi didn’t really die but will turn up somewhere else.
Whatever the logic of the scene, the point made above is correct: while Guinness was no fan of how he became known to a whole generation as Obi Wan, as opposed to his work with David Lean or the Ealing comedies, he made a boatload. And, frankly, if anything, seeing him here was what made me eventually want to see him in The Ladykillers or Bridge on the River Kwai. So, there’s that.
Jesus Christ! You ban him because he bruised your ego ever so slightly, but DeeZee gets to run rampant? You need a serious priority-adjustment. This is beyond absurd!
DZ is an HE insider. That’s the only explanation for being allowed to continue while others get banned.
Careful Chinaski, you’re gonna get banned.
The entire Star Wars canon is absurd, boring, and complete trash. A cinematic Big Mac. I prefer Filet Mignon. This is why film criticism is dying, because everything is good.. everything gets a rave, everything gets a pass, and very few people take film seriously as an art form. I expect rave reviews of Iron Man 2 when its out in a few weeks to illustrate the “everything gets a pass” theory.
Its the nerds fault. They need to be mocked, they need to be told that Star Wars is idiotic over and over to crush their fanboy universe. Nerds like to have it both ways.. its the Tarantino effect, sure he likes Godard, but he also loves a lot of shitty movies. The dude loves everything. Thats what nerds do. It renders criticism completely irrelevant. Until there is open hostility and outright mockery of the Tarantino effect… it will continue to ruin movies.
Even the original trilogy. Fuck your childhood. Your childhood was misspent youth glued to the television set being marketed to in every facet of your existence to perpetuate the great american disaster. Star Wars sucks.
That’s a chickenshit coward move Wells. Pure chickenshit.
Jesus H. Christ, nightheat, I’m usually the grouchy critic ’round these parts. In three small paragraphs, you’ve managed to slag off Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds, and — sight unseen — Iron Man 2.
So, you know, congratulations?
Wait a minute here… 33 messages in, and no one’s brought up the fact that Wells isn’t even correct?
“…no, you won’t be struck…”
“…he can transform rather [than] die, without actually getting tagged by the lightsaber…”
The whole *point* of the moment — hell, he even SAYS it to Vader — is that he must be “struck down.” In fact, nothing happens until Vader slices into Obi-Wan, after which the cloak falls. None of this “Obi-Wan can just transform into a spirit whenever he feels like it, like a beautiful butterfly…” You gotta watch the scene again, man!
Yeah, I’m a dork. But seriously, it’s not supposed to be a confusing moment…
Eloi should have been sent to the penalty box for two reasons:
1) Falling for such and obvious trollbomb from JW
2) Going to the cheap, easy and below the belt well of “JW bought and paid for in banner ads.”
Come on.
Also, DZ has likely been banned a few times, gets around it and there is probably an “i’ll ignore you if you ignore me” plan in place. It doesn’t look good to have to ban someone every single day that gets around it. Also, if you chumps can’t ignore the people you want to ignore, you have some serious probs.
If DZ took shots at JW, he’d get it. He doesn’t. I wonder if he is really just doing this stuff to create trackback links to HE. Then there would be a reason.
“nightheat” doesn’t know much about nerds. “Love everything” is about the least accurate descriptive of a nerd/geek/whatever possible: nerds are the PICKIEST fucking people on the planet – there’s no hate like nerd hate, especially in regards to movies, TV, etc. Hell, it’s been over a DECADE and they’re STILL not done finding things wrong with The Phantom Menace.
It’s not that they give a “pass” to stuff like Iron Man, it’s that they don’t have the arbitrary “class” filter that makes non-nerds disregard it. That thing that goes off in your head that makes you incapable of even considering that genre fare like that or Star Wars or whatever is worthy of taking seriously on some cinematic level? They don’t have that.
THAT’S your “Tarantino effect:” It’s not being unable to see the difference between Godard and a grindhouse exploitation flick; it’s recognizing that there ISN’T an innate difference – that they’re both worth considering with the same attention and respect.
Guinness is on record saying that he talked Lucas into killing off Obi-Wan Kenobi, ostensibly for dramatic reasons, but really to kill off any chance of Guinness appearing in any sequels.
“What I didn’t tell him was that I just couldn’t go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I’d had enough of the mumbo jumbo,” he told Talk interviewer Fintan O’Toole.
I remember reading the interview in print in the now-defunct Talk magazine. Not available online, but cited at:
http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/guinness.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Guinness
“The entire Star Wars canon is absurd, boring, and complete trash.”
You’ve got that right. Even the “good” installments.
‘”The entire Star Wars canon is absurd, boring, and complete trash.”
You’ve got that right. Even the “good” installments. ‘
Since Star Wars was a wholesale ripoff of The Hidden Fortress, I would have y’all banned for even hinting at a disparagement of Kurosawa.
But Guinness did appear in the sequels (as a ghost) and had a fair amount of dialogue in The Empire Strikes Back.
In the Star Wars commentary track, Lucas said it was his idea to kill Obi-wan and that Guinness wasn’t happy about it.
Nemo: after all these years since he gave those interviews… I’ve never understood Guinness’s grand scheme that you mention. In a movie that saw Guinness, after his character’s death, continue to have a role (speaking in voiceover to the lead character and guiding him)… why would his death keep him from being involved at all in the sequels?
Not to mention the more salient fact that Obi-Wan’s death was included in a draft of the script… before they had ever shot a single frame of footage. So what exactly does Guinness mean when he says “I couldn’t go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines”?! He hadn’t been on set for one minute when Obi-Wan’s death had made the script. (I tend to give Lucas the benefit of the doubt: in the original drafts, after everyone — including Obi-Wan — made it off the Death Star, he had absolutely nothing to do for the rest of the movie, which weakened him as one of the most important characters in the movie. So Lucas decided he’d be better off dead.)
And of course, as we all know… Guinness signed up to appear in not one, but TWO sequels. So there are three options: Guinness was a liar… or a whore… or both. Given that he made a ridiculous amount of money for appearing in the movies, yet complained about it every step of the way… I’d say “both.” I just wish he had been up front about it.
Mr. F – it’s always seemed to me like, with twenty years of ‘Star Wars’ fans approaching him, tracking down his house, etc., he got really tired of the whole thing, and it filtered his memories.
It’s that or believe that, somehow, ‘Star Wars’ stood out as a worse script than ‘Murder By Death’, ‘Lovesick’, ‘Raise the Titanic’, and a few others he did over the years. It wouldn’t, if he didn’t have to keep being reminded of it.
As for “whore”, he’s always said he did the movie for money, and he made enough that he never *needed* to take another role again, so he is honest about it.
Occam’s razor, people: Guiness probably came to resent being hounded about Star Wars and only Star Wars at the tail-end of his life.
The #1 thing people manage to forget when regarding reactions to Star Wars was that it was – by definition – the LAST movie ever to exist before Star Wars changed everything. All the stuff that “comes with the territory now” had no “playbook” back then – up to and including how to react when one has essentially already CONCLUDED a career as a bona-fide movie star and respected actor and then gets a “second life” as the cool old guy in a genre blockbuster. Granted, he could probably have stood to be less of a twit about it, but there’s no way Guiness was expecting that 90% of the attention paid him in his final years would be fanmail about Jedi trivium.
Now, of course, we’re all “used to” the fact that going out HUGE playing “Obi Wan parts” in geek epics is the “big payoff” for toiling through the British theater system in youth – look how Ian McKellan RELISHES his third-act Gandalf/Magneto demigod-hood.
Gordn — I totally get that…
What’s frustrating is that it would have been honest — not to mention simple — for him to say “These aren’t my kinds of movies, but people enjoy them and they make me a lot of money. So as long as they want me I’ll do them.” Instead, he comes up with some absurd story about how he had always hated the original script. As if, when Empire started production, Lucas kidnapped his family and was going to murder them if he didn’t appear in the sequels.
The other interesting fact is that everyone — to a man — has said in interviews over the years that Guinness was pleasant to work and spend time with on the set(s), was always in good humor, and got along with everyone in the cast and crew. Kind of an odd way for someone who, years later, would claim that they were miserable the whole time they were filming and wanted more than anything to get out of the movie…
(Finally, I was a Star Wars fan as a kid, and loved Obi-Wan… while I’m sure Guinness came to resent the fact that my generation only knew him as Obi-Wan, he should have been grateful that some of us liked his acting enough to seek out other movies in which he appeared. I tracked down Kind Hearts & Coronets and Ladykillers at a young age, and came to David Lean’s movies much earlier, thanks to him… and I know I wasn’t the only one.)
I saw ‘Star Wars’ when I was really young, and thought it was fine. Then, years later, I watched ‘The Ladykillers’ because Peter Sellers *and* Herbert Lom, how could you go wrong? (I had probably seen ‘Murder By Death’ by that point too, for Sellers again.) That set me off on a Guinness run, and I watched some stinkers, but ‘Tunes of Glory’ made it all worth it.
Anyway, the point is, I finally got around to watching ‘Star Wars’ at an age where I was old enough to, you know, remember it and understand it and all that, because I was watching all the Guinness stuff.
Bob: “”nightheat” doesn’t know much about nerds. “Love everything” is about the least accurate descriptive of a nerd/geek/whatever possible:”
So explain the second half of Buffy and Dollhouse.
“So explain the second half of Buffy and Dollhouse.”
Breasts.
and in chimes the nerd to prove that Bob was right. Nobody hates Whedon more than the people who loved him until season ___ of ____.
I can’t believe this gets to almost 50 comments and nobody tells DZ to get his “facts” straight – it wasn’t David Prowse’s face under Vader’s helmet in JEDI – it was Sebastian Shaw. So not only is he annoying, he can’t even bother to look up the right trivia while gathering useless knowledge.
Actually, I think Avatar was the Jurassic Park to everyone else’s Godzilla. Lest we forget, Jurassic Park had a pretty turgid, exposition heavy screenplay too. It, like Avatar, was just so bloody well made though that no one cared.
Can’t believe it took that long for someone to mention Sebastian Shaw.
You’re a fucking idiot, D.Z.
And Jeff, it’s pretty cowardly to not come out and explain to your readers why a worthless troll is allowed to pollute your site day after day with zero punishment while at the same time you have no problem announcing the people you ARE banning, and for what reason.
Gordon: I’m not actually a Whedon fan, mostly because he keeps acting like he’s gonna cross over into the bigtime, like Singer and Abrams. But what stops him is his overreliance on trying to spin third-rate geek porn into first-rate event shows and films.
Sane: Oh, well. It’s Prowse in spirit.
Fortune: I thought JP was crappily made, too. But it was coming off of Hook, so everyone liked it more by default.
Wiggumx – as long as I have the negatives of Jeff and what went on in that cabana at the Bel Air in ’89, my ass ain’t going nowhere.
Eloi Manning was a good commenter, and a good man. He was one of us. He was a man who loved… the outdoors… and commenting. He died, like so many young men of his generation, he died before his time. You took him, Jeff, as you have taken so many others. Those young men gave their lives. And so did Eloi. Eloi, who loved commenting.
Sincerely, Eloi is/was one of the great commenters on this site–on both its virtues and absurdities–and as an infrequent commenter and mostly looker-on, I for one would be happy to go down in a great “I am Spartacus” spamming kamikaze in his support. Just puttin’ that out there.
I can’t believe this gets to almost 50 comments and nobody tells DZ to get his “facts” straight – it wasn’t David Prowse’s face under Vader’s helmet in JEDI – it was Sebastian Shaw. So not only is he annoying, he can’t even bother to look up the right trivia while gathering useless knowledge.
Eloi Manning’s next name:
Yellow Sneakers? Jess Weixler?
Everytime someone moans about deezee and another argument begins, Jeff gets loads of hits. Why do you thunk the Christians have stopped complaining about Family Guy? Because it was just free advertising for Family Guy. Jeff must love DeeZee, you can’t buy that stuff…unless they’re the same person!…anyone seen them in a room together?
nightheat:
Thank you for the enlightenment, O Elite One.
Wow…there ARE a lot of high horses on the Internet, aren’t there? I hear you can buy them cheap. Who says there’s no intellectual snobbery on Hollywood Elsewhere?
The HE rule is that personal slander will get you banned, and strongly inferring that I have no integrity when it comes to the dichotomy between ads and reviews comes pretty close to slander, I think. I know he’s been a steady HE presence, but the rules are the rules.
I, for one, would love to see an outlined copy of these rules hotlinked from the main page.
My guess is, the health care bill is like a pamphlet on famous Jewish sports legends in comparison to the HE Rules, a.k.a. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
I will never stop respecting the chutzpah Lucas displayed in making Star Wars. Have you ever seen footage of it without the sound effects and score put in? It looks absolutely laughable, ridiculous. The clarity of vision he was able to sustain through a very difficult shoot — kudos to him. Say what you will about what Lucas did in subsequent years, but to make Star Wars as he did the guy had brass balls.
>The entire Star Wars canon is absurd, boring, and complete trash. A cinematic Big Mac.
It is absurd, but not boring. And there’s room in a cinematic palate for Big Macs, if they are sufficiently tasty.
There comes a time when one must outgrow pulp, but I don’t think you should forget the lift it gives you, the quickening of the heart, when you’re in your formative years. Star Wars is superlative pulp — like Curtiz’s Robin Hood, or Cooper’s King Kong.
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