Terrible Defenses of Good Things Are Still Terrible

Because click-bait and internet capitalism overall functions on a cycle of fashion where cool things must be called uncool to secure status, and vice versa, we're starting to see more defenses of the Prequel Trilogy. Well, a stopped clock still has a non-functioning gear mechanism and we can take it apart even when it happens to point to the right time.

Tor gives us "10 Reasons Why Attack of the Clones Is Better Than You Remember" and they are bad reasons. They are designed to convince with a liberal-humanist outlook towards movies that this movie fits that, rather than convince people that the archetypical storytelling it does really is worthwhile. Which makes them double failures, since no Episode 2 is not a good example of that sort of film making, and that film making is not superior (though there are very good examples like Blade Runner.)

1. The Unseen Adventures of Obi-Wan and Anakin

That doesn't occur in the movie, so you shouldn't be judging the movie by it. It's relying on a hoped for complexity that humanizes the characters and makes them sympathetic to us, when that does not exist and doesn't matter.

2. Count Dooku: It’s Christopher Lee.

Enough said.

While Lee was a good choice to play Count Dracula, you could at least say a lot more about him and his role. Why do you want a face synonymous with arrogant villainy to be the stand in for a dark clone of the good guys?

3. Jedi Noir

While Anakin and Padme were off…er…romancing on Naboo, Obi-Wan was following the trail of the assassin who tried to kill Padme. Like a Jedi Sam Spade, Obi-Wan operates in the shadows as he follows the trail of the assassin and uncovers a plot that’s bigger than he ever could’ve imagined. In the process, he fights Jango Fett in the rain, gets captured by Count Dooku, and come this close to being fed to the arena beasts on Geonosis. All part of the job for Obi-Wan Kenobi, P.I.

Obi-Wan is a bad detective. He ignores Anakin when it's protrayed as obvious that Anakin is correct and something much larger is wrong than just the assassination attempt. He couldn't find a missing planet unless his down-to-earth low-class alien friend told him things that aren't in the Jedi library he relies on. He walks into trap after trap, only to advance the enemy's goal of giving the Jedi an army to fight with. Nothing Obi-Wan does in Episode 2 is supposed to be good. The good part is supposed to be laughing at him.

Though that is still noir in a Chinatown sort of horrific way.

(Hint for viewers of Chinatown: you are not supposed to come away respecting Jake.)

4. The Nuances of Anakin’s Downfall

Just no.

Anakin is a whiny proto-fascist. We are not supposed to sympathize with him. We are supposed to see how badly the Jedi fucked him up and understand how someone could become a tool of dark powers. There's no nuance, it's an ethical pratfall.

5. Those Arena Monsters

Say what you will about the use of CGI in the prequels, but the three monsters who are unleashed on Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme in the arena on Geonosis looked terrific. And that scene is vintage Star Wars.

Okay this point is true, but doesn't explain anything beyond "they look terrific." Like how each monster is a metaphor for the sexuality of the good guy they menace, or how they are homages to film making legend Ray Harryhausen.

6. Jedi Battle

It's an anti-climactic battle that both diagetically serves as set up for a trap, and exegetically as lack of satisfaction so that the real, muscular military fight can feel much more cathartic, and for us to cheer when Anakin fires on and destroys a sheep of fleeing non-combatants.

7. Ewan McGregor

There are a dozen things that people have remembered for fifteen years from the Prequel Trilogy. Jar Jar. Chancellor "I am the Senate!" Palpatine. Mace Windu. CGI Yoda. Even Anakin is memorable. There are reasons no one ever talks about McGregor's performance.

8. Kamino.

Kamino has always stuck out as one of my favorite locations in the Star Wars galaxy. It’s also, to me, the place where the prequel aesthetic—which carried directly into the animated series, The Clone Wars (more on that soon)—really cemented itself. In The Phantom Menace, the universe doesn’t expand all that much. We return to Tatooine, and we’re never given much of a sense of Coruscant. Which leaves us only with Naboo, which was fine, but it was nothing like Kamino. Kamino exposed us to something new and, quite frankly, super weird and cool. That city on stilts in the ocean—occupied by tall, lithe aliens who specialize in making clones—kickstarted a fresher take on the look and feel of the Star Wars galaxy.

Okay yes this is true. Star Wars ultra-homogeous worlds are excellent representations of the characters' internal states.

9. Coruscant Nightlife

Eh? The point of this glitzy portrayal is that it's all a mask. Real Coruscant isn't like this - it's either halls of power, or the dingy underclass at the bottom of all those vaulting buildings. The nightlife act is full of fakery - it's a wild goose chase for a false lead, there's even a shapeshifter. Everything's not real and this is the sort of hyperreal CGI world the trilogy is mocking (which match its references to Blade Runner aesthetic.)

10. The Clone Wars

Again, you are talking about things outside the movie, hoping they add depth and complexity to things the movie specifically chose not to.

Prometheus: QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED, AND YOU WILL BE LEFT HIGHLY UNSATISFIED BECAUSE WHAT YOU REALLY WANTED WAS LOVE.

Since the transformers.pdf went around recently, this reminded me that my favorite film analysis was by SMG on Ridley Scott's Prometheus. (paywalled link, but the relevant text is pasted below so don't worry.)

This is an insanely good thread about existentialism, horror, and simulation, which made me really appreciate the movie more and was largely responsible for my thoughts about horror and meaning (and of course my previous post on the movie.)

I've gone through the thread and selected the posts that present this analysis. It's very long, and you have to get used to the in-media-res of assuming SMG is responding to some argument without seeing it yourself, but it lays out the connections between film-making and how we define our own reality with clarity and wit. It's also incredibly arrogant and ungenerous to his interolocutors, but it's better to have an opinion strongly represented that lets the audience choose for itself whether and where it is correct.

Watching the film first is helpful, but not necessary.

Everything below here is written by SMG, who is not me. "***" separate different posts.

The Last Jedi

Some movies to see

Your Name

Colossal

Both explore very personal and quotidian issues of identity using extremely blatant metaphors. It's not even worth dissecting, but if you like "high brow cinema that is trying to be entertaining" then see these.

The Sources of All Our Troubles

"The Girl with All the Gifts" is a zombie story by Mike Carey. It takes the common themes about zombies, and is in no way subtle. So they made an incredibly faithful translation of it.

It was only available for a very brief time in theaters, but fortunately you can watch it now.

It's interpretation of zombies, as the degraded subject, is excellent but there's little analysis to do. It's so straightforward that reviewing it would be like the clown car theory of mockery. Just go watch it.

(Do you see the muzzle on the child in the poster? There, you've captured the entire movie in a nutshell.)

What's funny is that the other big work by Mike Carey, was the comic Lucifer.

Which was also translated, into the pseudo-detective television series Lucifer.

Whereas this interpretation is the complete opposite, throwing out the major storylines and the sacred tone of the comic for something completely different. And it is glorious. Lucifer here is a sort of super-slick deity in the sense of nothing in the world affects him, and he only intervenes out of a sense of boredom. It's a detective show where half of every episode is spent convincing the Deus ex Machina to even care. I don't even know what I'm watching, or that I could recommend it, but it's different in a totally fantastic way.

Teenagers... With Attitude!?

The new Power Rangers movie is fine. It's pretty good even. If you want a modern tale of Breakfast Club-like diversity with DCU style cinematography and imagery choice, dealing with the current social and economic issues facing kids (in this case autism, caregiving, helicopter parents), then you're all set.

But if you want those things, you'll get them more and better just watching Chronicle.

This isn't a callow observation. The first half of the movie was pleasant reminiscence of the exact same style in Chronicle, and since I liked both movies, it's just fun to have more of. But a good reminder to go watch Chronicle.

Really all you get from Power Rangers above that in Haim Saban fan service, and Rita Repulsa.

The fan service is real. And not even inelegant. Of particular note was the reinterpretation where Zordon is semi-villainous, and Rita is a rogue Green Ranger, who has some pretty legitimate grievances against Zordon, that parallel the modern day Ranger's own problems with him and team building.

And Rita, cartoonish as ever, drips with a visceral intimacy. Low bar, but she's still a more engaging villain than anyone in the MCU. So if Enchantress and Harley Quinn weren't enough for you, you can buy the ticket to see this weird combination of them.

Logan: Review

Logan, the final Wolverine movie, was first introduced with a tone-perfect trailer that matched Johnny Cash music to the painful decay of an old warrior, called into battle one last time to protect a young girl. It hit the cultural moment just right, and like many trailers, worked well as a movie all by itself.

The actual movie was completely different from this. Full spoilers below the cut.