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Random Entertainment Notes

November 18, 2008, 5:20 pm

I feel I need to clarify one thing.  I am a huge fan of the old Bond movies.  Goldfinger, Thunderball, Diamonds are Forever, Goldeneye -- all great.  Despite my comments above, I even like most of the Roger Moore films, though you have to take a different approach to them.  But the formula was tired.  The Survivor formula was hugely popular at first, but in season 9 or 10 or whatever, it's just done.  You either are repeating the same tired cliches, because you feel locked into a formula by your fans who will get pissed (as they did with Casino Royale) when you violate any minute detail the Formula, or you fall into the trap of trying to top yourself with goofier and goofier plots.  I actually thought the series was dead around about View to a Kill, but Pierce Brosnan really brought new life to the series for a while.

Oh, and I wanted to really make fun of the plot in the new movie, because it really is a great WTF moment, but I didn't want to include a spoiler, since there is some mis-direction in the movie.  However, the spoilers have already come out in the comments, so if you are interested, I reveal the incredible world-shaking evil plot around comment #6 here.

  • I saw a trailer for the upcoming Star Trek movie, which could essentially be called "young Spock and Kirk."  It could be good.  Talk about a franchise, though, that has been milked to death.  A new take would be refreshing.  We'll see.  Never forget Battlestar Galactica - from the ultimate in goofiness came one of the better science fiction series to hit television.
  • The note above reminds me of an idea I have for a movie that I think would be a no-brainer.  The Star Wars clone wars stuff has pretty much lost me  (actually the dialog in episodes 1-3 pretty much lost me).  But I always thought a young Han and Chewie movie - how they met, various pirate adventures, young Lando, etc.  would be almost a layup to make succesful.  I am increasingly convinced that that the Star Wars movies were good almost in direct proportion to how much Han Solo was on the screen  (well, maybe pre-dryfreeze Han Solo -- after he was unfrozen, he was a little goody-two-shoes for my taste.)
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Category: Movies & Entertainment

6 Comments

  1. Chris:

    I saw, in one documentary or another, that Han Solo was supposed to stay dead. At one point Harrison Ford insisted that he stayed dead, but Lucas overruled him and due to contractual stuff Ford had to come back.

    November 18, 2008, 9:47 pm

  2. ErikTheRed:

    We all speculate about what a cinematic necrophiliac George Lucas is, but if half the stuff in the "bonus features" included with the Indiana Jones IV disc are true, it's much worse than we think. He wanted to make it - even cheezier.

    November 18, 2008, 11:58 pm

  3. Timer:

    Heading off to see Bond tomorrow night, so I'll pass on the spoilers - but I have to say, the Young Chewy/Han/Lando idea is quite cool!

    November 19, 2008, 3:51 am

  4. Rick C:

    Young Han/Chewie's been done as books. Young Lando has been sort of done. Well, the period of time approximately from getting the Falcon to sometime before losing it.

    As for the Star Trek trailer, all I can say is "Big Gay Star Trek(not that there's anything wrong with that)"

    November 19, 2008, 11:03 am

  5. Craig:

    Hollywood is clearly going to focus on sex and action in the Star Trek movie and ignore any kind of plot or moral theme to ponder, like they do for all movies now.

    November 19, 2008, 6:17 pm

  6. Les:

    Actually I found a correlation between Star Wars and lack of suckitude to be the ammount of direct involvment George Lucas had. Of the original trilogy most fans agree that Empire Strikes Back was the best and Return of the Jedi was the worst, Empire was the installment of the movie franchise with the least direct input from Lucas while RotJ much much more.

    Also, the original Clone Wars animated shorts were Awesome (not to mention explained Anakin's fall from grace through metaphoric cave-paintings far more effectively than Revenge of the Sith did IMO), these were made pretty-much by Gennedy Tatroznsky almost all on his own with minimal attention from Lucas. The new 'in-house' Lucasart CG Clone Wars franchise? ..not so much.

    November 23, 2008, 7:32 pm