Showing posts with label JUSTICE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JUSTICE. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Speak Up, Speak Out!

(Originally Written for Jedi News)



So it’s been a while since I typed anything out. I will admit that everything about Force Awakens kind of burnt me out on Star Wars for a while, for the second time. Not to mention a couple of major personal upheavals that I won’t bother you with.

I will say that in general, it’s becoming increasingly difficult not to retread old ground when I talk about Star Wars. I’ve mentioned many times, in fact, that sometimes I feel like I’ve said what I had to say. Unfortunately, while there is still hate against George Lucas and his vision from those who claim to be fans of Star Wars, and even within his own former company, I can’t just stay quiet.

Well, I should just say “WE” can’t stay quiet. Because it’s really not about me, is it?

Friday, January 8, 2016

The Tao of Binks

(Originally Written for Jedi News)



Much news has come forth since I last decided to type down my thoughts on the Star Wars Saga, and one reason I haven’t done since until now is that many of these stories have made me feel negative emotions towards the new film I haven’t even seen yet, and I already said I wasn’t doing that. “Easier and More Seductive” indeed (for the record, I will still give TFA it’s fair shake and go in with a relatively open mind, but I am purposely not going out of my way to see it the first week or so due to the mishandled marketing throwing George and his fans under the bus. Expect my first impressions sometime in January).

So I’m going to attack the silly “Darth Binks” thing that went around about a month back instead.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Jar Jar Lives!

(Originally Written for Jedi News, and thanks to my editor Mark Newbold for choosing 90% of the pictures when I didn't have to time)



I tried. I really did. I’ve tried talking about other things. Giving the Saga as a whole and equal share of the time. I figured “Hey, everyone already knows who my favorite character is. Let’s leave that be for a while.” I even managed to get through an article about the Gungans while barely mentioning him.

Then J.J. Abrams has to go and “joke” with Vanity Fair last month about how tempted he is to put Jar Jar Binks’ bleached skeleton in the desert in “The Force Awakens.”

Ha. Very funny. Wait, no it’s not. 

"THIS is funny. That...not so much."

Friday, May 1, 2015

Monday, September 1, 2014

Quadruple-Feature/The RULES

This post is two-fold. The first is to announce that I've seen four movies in the last two weeks and I now have the time to review them, so those'll be coming once a day for the next week.

The second, after the break, is to remind everyone what we're doing here



Friday, June 20, 2014

Without Computers Redux

(Originally Written for Jedi News)



I haven’t spoken much about the developing details of Episode VII, and I will discuss the very real reasons for this in an upcoming article. With that being said, one thing that Star Wars communities keep talking about for the last month or so is the glut of photos of practical effects, sets, and creature puppets that J.J. Abrams and his team are showing to get the fans excited. The clear meme here being: “We’re using good old-fashioned elbow grease with this film, not like those OTHER movies that were mainly CGI.”

Surprisingly, many sections of the fanbase have actually wizened up. First of all correctly saying how laughable the idea is that a big-budget director in this day and age will avoid using CGI entirely (especially J.J. “Cloverfield/Star Trek” Abrams). But more to the point, there have now been several incredible editorials, even from people who don’t like Episodes I-III, that are showing photo galleries of the myriad of practical effects used in those films in spite of hater party line we’ve been hearing since 1999.

EXCEPT I TOTALLY DID IT FIRST, YOU GUYS!

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Leave Jake Alone!

[So sorry about not delivering on those other things I promised this week, and that this one's a day late. Things are still hectic over here!]

(Originally Written for Jedi News)



Seriously, folks. Don’t make me cry this to a camcorder.

Leave Jake Lloyd alone already.

"Seriously"


Friday, April 5, 2013

Never Give Up, Never Surrender

(Originally Written for Jedi News)

I had another article planned for this week. It’ll still get here, but I’m pushing it to next week because there’s a very important topic I want to discuss.

Those of us who are true, true Saga fans are being beaten down left and right. Our morale is weak anyway due to Disney not taking the Marvel/Pixar “hands-off” approach we had hoped for and instead gutting Star Wars and Lucasfilm like a boned fish (Disney, I grew up with you, but you’re making it really really hard to say anything nice about you right now). But with the sale, the haters have come out of the woodwork anew. That’s why I wrote the post that landed me this column in the first place.

With all this hatred and ignorance, it seems that many of us are starting to bend. Many of us are being beaten down by the storm that we’re devolving.

We’re becoming apologists.

Well, no, I’m sorry. I’m not going to apologize. I have nothing to apologize for. Neither does George Lucas or the cast and crew of any of the Star Wars films.

Am I willing to concede that I-III aren’t perfect? Well, it is the truth. Nothing IS perfect, after all. But…screw it. I won’t concede. In my eyes, they ARE perfect. Or as near to as can be achieved. I might be persuaded to concede that point if everyone else concedes that IV-VI weren’t perfect either, and for all the same reasons. In fact, I’ll go into much more detail on that in a month’s time (stay tuned).

People who love I-III and the Saga as a whole may very well have their own problems with them. But by giving the rabid haters an inch, we’re allowing them to take a mile and still be the dominant thought process. History is written by the winners. It doesn’t matter that all the films were box office smashes. It doesn’t matter that all the films had as many good reviews as bad ones. It doesn’t matter that a new generation grew up loving all of Star Wars. By conceding in any of these points, even if we can see where they’re coming from, we’re allowing the “OT = Perfect, PT = Garbage” fallacy to live on and become validated. And as I and many others have pointed out for the last fourteen years or so, all the complaints are shaky at best and come down entirely to personal tastes.

I will say again and again, to all the armchair critics, pretentious auteur-wannabies, hipsters, cynics, trolls, and executives: All of the Star Wars films are good movies. I’m even done with “if you find X a bad thing then they’re all bad” line. No, they’re good, well-made movies. You don’t have to like them, hell there are plenty of objectively good movies I can’t stand because they’re not my style. But you can’t deny the hard work that went into all six Star Wars films, nor the fact that they all continue to succeed in striking a chord with their intended audiences. Anyone who does is either completely ignorant or lying through their teeth, and nobody will ever be able to convince me otherwise. Those of you who praise IV-VI for their direction, cinematography, effects, and performance should see the same caliber in I-III because it’s there. If your “trained eyes” can’t see it, then you are blinded by something I can’t begin to imagine and nothing I say will make you see what’s in front of your face, so I’ll no longer waste my breath. You know what to look for, so you find it. It’s there, I swear.

And before you start calling me a hypocrite, I never ever state something is a fact without empirical proof, either from what the movies are saying or what Lucas and the cast and crew have said in the myriad of books, interviews, and making-of documentaries. Any time I present a debatable interpretation, I do try to label it as such. I’m also stressing that I’m not trying to force anyone to think exactly as I think, merely to intelligently examine the material before putting someone else down for liking it.

I love Star Wars. There is no such thing as an “Original Trilogy.” There is no such thing as a “Prequel Trilogy.” There is no such thing as “Special Editions” or “Expanded Universe” or “Clone Wars.” There is simply the Star Wars Saga. And I love the Star Wars Saga truly, deeply, unabashedly.

No apologies. Not now, not ever.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Why I Am A Star Wars Activist

(Originally written for Jedi News)

For a large part of my life, I have been a Star Wars fan. In the last two years, I have also become what I like to call a Star Wars Activist. What exactly is that? I’m dedicated to seeing all of Star Wars, on film at least, to be looked at as the classics they are.

One of the many commenters on my post from this weekend asked me a simple question. Why? Why do I feel the need to beat my chest and blow the horn? Why am I so passionate about it?

Well, in this post I hope to tell you why. And the answer is far from simple.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth About Star Wars

This is it. This is my major post. This is everything. Anytime somebody posts anything anti-I, II, III, or anti-GL, or anti-Star Wars in general, I will simply reply with a link to this very post. I warn any longtime readers that I will repeat myself in this manifesto, but it's good to have all the information here.

Also, this post will be very very VERY long. However, if you really care about this subject, then you'll read the whole thing. A response of TL;DR will only show me that I have no reason to take you or your arguments seriously on this matter, since the hate machine has been on diatribes this long or longer for years and I'm merely now fighting back.

Haters, prepare to take the left-hand evacuation procedure as I lay some truthiness down upon thee.