Will's Red Letter

Sometimes you wakeup and got nuthin' to say. So you start typing and hope by the time you finish what you're typing your brain will get to where it needs to be and you can start putting together a well written and insightful post.

Nuthin'.

Oh there it is.

Red Letter Media is filming a series about their favorite Star Trek TNG episodes. We strongly suggest them, as we watch Mr. Plinkett's Star Wars Prequel reviews once a year as kind of a warning. One can learn a lot by watching people who actually understand movies take apart the work of a man who does not.* One can glean many creative insights from Red Letter Media. They're a big influence.

And so is Star Trek: TNG. During the summer of 1984 we'd stay up late and watch the old Trek on WPIX Channel 11. We were a fan of the original but ignored TNG for the first few seasons. A good thing actually, because the two seasons run by Gene Roddenberry totally sucked. Roddenberry pretty much just got the band back together, and they wrote episodes like it was 1967. The results were out of place, disastrous cringe-fests.  

Thing really got good during season three. One evening in 1990 we turned on the TV and saw was a bunch of people standing on the lip of a crater. This was the first episode in TNG's two part Best of Both Worlds, in which The Federation fights off a Borg invasion. We were hooked. But more importantly, we were inspired.

That was the moment, the spark across the sky. That's when we saw something we liked so much we wish we had written it. That's when we knew we wanted to write for a living. And so we do.

*George Lucas is a talentless pudge-boy who made an awful movie that was saved in editing by his wife and Richard Chew, who won and Oscar for his trouble. Lucas mostly stayed away from Empire and Jedi, which explains why they're so good. God bless Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand.

Happy Birthday George Lucas...

...We guess.

Once a year we watch the Red Letter Media reviews of the Star Wars prequels and suggest all aspiring writers do the same.

Now is a day for Pizza Rolls. Post in this webzone if you want a pizza roll.

We've noted with shame, from time to time, that when we first saw The Phantom Menace we were enchanted. We don't recall exactly when we decided the Prequels sucked, but know we went into the last movie hoping the series could be salvaged. It couldn't.

Happy birthday, Mr. Lucas. We shake our head in confusion, befuddlement, bewilderment, loathing, depression, sorrow-not anger, anger, more anger, tears, sadness.... 

Battle Extraordinaire

We give you the first attack run from The Dam Busters:

The stakes, 'Stand by to pull me out of my seat if I get hit', the chatter and crosstalk, the release of tension.

Just perfect.

Alert reader(s), for that matter anyone paying any attention at all should recognize where they saw this sequence later in film history.

And there ain't nuthin wrong with that.

As Lemmy once said, it's all derivative.

More than that, it's tribute and dedication.

We've ripped scenes from movies and put them in our own books. If reader(s) can find them, I'll send 'em a copy.

Star Wars...Star Great

We can talk endlessly about Star Wars and having re-watched the film (original VHS version), we are intrigued about what makes the movie so good.

Let's get this out of the way. The acting in Star Wars ain't much to look at and some of the lines are delivered with the skill of a high school drama club sophomore, (cough! Harrison Ford cough!).

So what make the film so great?

First, the editing. Editor's Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew saved this film from George Lucas by cutting unnecessary scenes and reordering the opening scenes. The result is an engrossing, fast paced film.

Second, the special effects. Come on, fellow Generation Xrs, remember what a big deal that was? Star Wars was so cool becuase it looked real. Watching the attack on the Death Star, after decades of being bombarded by cheap CGI, really makes one appreciate the time and skill of Lucas's SFX department.

Third, John Williams and his score. Just brilliant. An excellent choice, recommended to Lucas by Steven Spielberg.

For all the grief Lucas gets, and he deserves every bit of it, for Star Wars and the subsequent films he surrounded himself with talented people.

Fourth, the writing, yes the writing. Lucas gathers a host of relatable and knowable characters: the frustrated young man, the old sage, the rogue, the princess, the arch villain. His ideas here are really perfect. Can anyone do better?

Fifth, Star Wars looks like 1977. Everything is beat up, run down, warn out. Tatooine* could be the Bronx.

Six, timing. Had Star Wars been released five years before the nation is still embroiled in the Vietnam War and doesn't want a tale of good vs evil. Five years later we're in the Reagan era and critics are saying the Empire as a metaphor for the US and Darth Vader is Ronald Reagan.

In 1977 the nation needed Star Wars.

*Hah! spellcheck recognizes Tatooine!

The Austrian Painter: George Lucas Phase

The Austrian Painter is now in the George Lucas Phase of the editorial process.

Regular reader(s) will recognize the George Lucas phase of our editorial process.

See Are we George Lucas? and Operation Eastern Storm or...I am George Lucas

Right now various parts of the Austrian Painter are a disorganized mess, just like the Star Wars prequels. Unlike George Lucas we are trying to fix these problems.

For example, after the war The Austrian Painter paints a lot of grim war-time scenes. We use this to show that all is not well with The Austrian Painter. The grim wartime paintings are essential to the character's development. Later as he is trying to deal with his combat fatigue, another artist friend suggests the Austrian Painter could find solace in painting grim wartime scenes, and he does.

See the problem?

There must be a dozen contradictions like that.

So we're fixing things up and getting the plot presentable for editing.

Don't worry.

[whose worried-Ed?]

This is all normal,

[Awww, I bet that's what mummy told you when you noticed hair in funny places-Ed]

The George Lucas Phase is all part of the process and a sign that things are moving along properly.

Are we George Lucas?

In a previous post we remarked that we write what we want and no one tells us different.

Of course George Lucas films what he wants and no one tells him different. It shows, doesn't it.

Now, George Lucas came up with a great idea with Star Wars, but the movie is so good because he was surrounded by film pros, like editor Richard Chiu, who knew how to make films. Also, Lucas didn't have a lot of juice yet and there were people around and above him that could tell him no.

If only someone had been able to say, 'George, enough with the stupid flying cars'.

So why aren't we George Lucas?

Simple. We don't live on a yuuge ranch in California like Lucas.

We live in a nice four bedroom home in a pleasant New Jersey suburb. We are surrounded by real people, none of whom think we are a deity to our craft. When one lives with three precocious blondes and a corporate exec suit, one learns one's place.

So we are firmly grounded in reality.

[Really, you think so?-Ed]

Ok, ok, Ed tells me no, but Ed is also the line editor. And I leaned a long time ago not mess with Ed. Ed can really punch.

Tuesday Tally

Things about the Star Wars Prequels (fuck you, George Lucas) that don't Suck

Like all right thinking humans I know and understand that George Lucas' prequels are an affront to the very concept of film and the very idea of their being. 

[When you saw The Phantom Menace the day it came out, you were enchanted-ed]

Yeah, yeah, and I cried when I saw Titanic, cried like a 13 year old girl who just got her first period in gym class....

[You admit that?-ed]

Mmmmmm Kate Winslet's  breasts....*

Anyway, here are some of the things about the Phantom Menace that make it not the worst thing ever:

John William's Score: Duel of the Fates (the big light saber duel score) is well done, as is the Droid Army Overture. And I like the end parade music. [You just came out of the closet -ed]
Quai Gon Gin: We liked this stoic character and we enjoyed Liam Neason's portrayal. He had a very together-zen feel and it worked for a Jedi.
The Light Sabre Duels: The heavy choreographing got old as the series slogged on, but the final three-way battle was well done. At the time we had never seen anything like it.
The Droid-Gungen Battle: Another one-fer. We'd never seen anything quite like that battle.

Look, don't get us wrong. We're not saying that this 'film' such as it is, is anything but a disorganized, incoherent mess that makes no sense. But of the three prequels, The Phantom Menace is the least worst; the most not unwatchable.

The above are the reasons why.

*If you want to see more of Kate Winslet's breasts watch Little Children

Star Wars: The Evolution of Thinking the Prequels Suck

The loyal but sadly misguided Marky Mark (please tell me you are actually Mark Wahlberg) made reference to something called Episode II in our previous post about the best scenes in the Star Wars universe.

Like all right-thinking, decent humans we loath the prequels. We loath George Lucas for retroactively fucking up Episodes IV, V, and VI (go on try to watch the scene where Vader kills the Emperor, I dare you).

George Lucas not only raped William Stroock's childhood Star Wars memories, he sold them to a Mexican narco-cartel who put them in a cheap Juarez brothel where they serve Carlos Slim and his fellow Yellow King cultists. Only Mathew McConaughy and Woody Harelson aren't coming to the rescue.

Time is a flat circle, indeed. [Is that Netzsche? Shut the fuck up-ed.]

I'll leave it to Red Letter Media to explain why these movies suck, and why George Lucas should be deported back to Mexico [back? -ed].

Today we'd like to confess something.

We saw Star Wars: George Lucas Sucks his own Ass [you mean The Phantom Menace ?-ed] the day it came out. We wish we could say we thought it sucked, or sucked George Lucas' Ass [what is it with you this morning? -ed]. But this is not the case.

We were enthralled, enraptured, enchanted. We felt our imagination had been recaptured. George Lucas held us by the fire and subtly undid the back of our dress and we felt his hands on our shoulders gently but instantly pressing down...[dude, you really need to get laid -ed].

We loved the Phantom Menace.

A few days after our mother-in-law died, and needing to get away, my sister-in-law, her husband and I saw Attack of the Clones the midnight it opened. We thought it was long [oh I bet you did, homo -ed] but liked it. After all, there were a lot of things in there we never thought we'd see, like Marky Mark's giant Vietnam like battle, Yoda in the light saber duel, etc.

Now, we're not sure what happened between 2002 and 2005, but we know we went into Revenge of the Sith thinking 'Ok, one good movie can save this entire effort'. We came out of the theater thinking, 'Alas it is not to be'.

Any questions? [Yes, when do you get the reassignment surgery? -ed]