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Our Star Wars Rewatch Project: Episode II

Erik

The rewatch continues with Episode II—Attack of the Clones.

1. Best Fight

Eppu: Obi-Wan and Jango Fett on Kamino. It’s cool to have an encounter where a bounty hunter uses their wits and gear to successfully counter the skills of a Jedi, and takes advantage of the various structures on the landing platform (and the sides of the buildings!) during the fight.

151119JediErik: The Jedi vs. the battle droids in the Geonosian arena. The first time we’ve ever gotten to see Jedi in mass combat.

2. Best Line

Erik: “Life seems so much simpler when you’re fixing things.” Anakin in the Lars homestead garage on Tatooine. This line sums up so much about Anakin’s arc as a tragic hero. He wants to fix the world, and the dark side seems like the simplest way of doing it.

Eppu: “Jar-Jar, I don’t wish to hold you up. I’m sure you have a great deal to do.” Amidala’s the only one anywhere, ever, to tell Jar-Jar to shut up!

3. Best Minor Character

Eppu: Taun We on Kamino because of her(?) picture perfect professionalism.

Erik: Lama Su, prime minister of Kamino. Both the animation and the voice work are just a little unnerving without ever being overtly threatening. Excellently done.

4. Best Reveal

Erik: The strains of the “Imperial March” sliding into the soundtrack as the clones assemble. Just a few notes can say so much.

Eppu: This is a little meta, but: Christopher Lee in the movie!

5. Best Save

Jeditemplearchives Padme Geonosis Pillar

Eppu: Padmé climbing on top of the pillar in the Geonosis arena prior to some aggressive negotiations. That’s a tough senator!

Erik: Yoda and the clone troops landing in the Geonosian arena in the nick of time.

6. Best Visual

Star Wars Approaching Coruscant

Erik: Senator Amidala’s ship approaching Coruscant at the beginning of the movie. Such a gorgeous ship and planet.

Eppu: Agreed so much!

Extra: Best Foot in Mouth

Eppu: “So have you. Grown more beautiful, I mean. Well, f-for a senator, I mean.” Anakin to Padmé in response to her comment “My goodness, you’ve grown.” Fortunately Anakin’s manner improves after, otherwise we might not have had the romance that gave us Luke and Leia.

Erik: “Meesa acecpt this with mooie mooie humility and, uh…” Jar-Jar Binks, Destroyer of the Galactic Republic

Images: Jedi vs. droids via StarWars.com. Padmé on Geonosis via JediTempleArchives.com. Coruscant via StarWars.com

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Some Mockingjay – Part 2 Prep

Eppu

Almost time!

TheWrap Mockingjay Pt2 Poster

A roundup of random Hunger Games stuff (but no reviews, so no spoilers) to prepare for the Mockingjay – Part 2 premier:

Image: Mockingjay – Part 2 poster via The Wrap

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

The Phantom Mousse

Erik

To accompany the first of our Star Wars rewatches, I made a dark chocolate mousse. As rich as Queen Amidala’s wardrobe and as dark as Senator Palpatine’s heart, this mousse kept us happy through the podrace and droid battles.

The Phantom Mousse

Ingredients

  • 7 oz dark chocolate
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 4 tablespoons dark rum
  • 3 eggs

Melt the chocolate, butter, and rum together in a double boiler over barely simmering water

Separate the eggs

Remove the melted chocolate from the heat and whisk in the egg yolks

Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks

Whisk the egg whites into the chocolate mixture

Spoon into dishes and chill for an hour

 

Image by Eppu Jensen

Geeks eat, too! Second Breakfast is an occasional feature in which we talk about food with geeky connections and maybe make some of our own. Yum!

Our Star Wars Rewatch Project: Episode I

Eppu

Our Star Wars rewatch project begins a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away with Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

1. Best fight

151112JediEppu: Darth Maul vs. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on Naboo, hands down. This is how the Jedi fight, not the staid fop-fop-tap of Episode IV!

Erik: Agreed. Whatever else you may say about Phantom Menace, we finally got to see Jedi in their prime fighting a worthy adversary.

2. Best line

Erik: “Her Highness commands you to take her handmaiden with you.” Captain Panaka to Qui-Gon setting out on Tatooine. Less for the line itself than for how Hugh Quarshie delivers it. You can tell that he thinks this is a really, really bad idea, but he’s doing his job of helping the queen do what she wants to do.

Eppu: “What, you think you’re some sort of Jedi, waving your hand around like that?” Watto to Qui-Gon. Delivered in Watto’s bone-dry style, too, it’s hilarious.

3. Best minor character

Pomegranate Seeds Kitster

Eppu: Kitster, one of Anakin’s friends on Tatooine. Very sympathetic young man.

Erik: TC-14, the protocol droid on the trade federation ship. Like C-3P0, more personality than you would expect a droid to have.

4. Best reveal

Erik: When the hangar doors on Naboo open on Darth Maul.

Eppu: The droid army unpacked from the bowels of the transportation drones, unfolding into their full size. I still remember seeing it for the first time.

5. Best save

Eppu: During Queen Amidala’s attack on the palace, Captain Panaka shoots out a window, the group steps out to the ledge, and uses their fancy handguns-cum-harpoon-and-line-shooters to skip to the next floor.

Erik: When Watto tries to back out of a bet, Qui-Gon casually suggests taking the matter up with the Hutts. That’s enough to convince Watto to pay up.

6. Best visual

151112TheedErik: Theed, the capital city on Naboo. Gorgeous landscape and architectural detail.

Star Wars Otoh GungaEppu: The approach to the underwater Gungan city. One of my favorite scenic scenes in the Star Wars universe.

Extra question: Best misdirect

Eppu: Palpatine’s plotting, all of it. Plotwise it’s a step up from the original trilogy, just like the Jedi fights are.

Erik: The opening crawl about conflict over the taxation of outlying trade routes. One of the themes of the prequel trilogy is how momentous events can have tiny beginnings. The taxation of trade routes sounds like the most boring subject for a movie ever, but it leads to the fall of the galactic republic.

Your turn – what’s your Best list for Episode I?

Images: Lightsaber fight via Giphy; Kitster: via fialleril on Pomegranate Seeds; Theed: wookiepedia;  Gungan city: StarWars.com.

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

 

Our Star Wars Rewatch Project: Introduction

Eppu

To prepare for Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, we’re Doing a Project. We’ll see all six Star Wars movies in order, roughly one a week, and for each movie, we’ll give our opinion on the following:

  1. Best fight
  2. Best line
  3. Best minor character
  4. Best reveal
  5. Best save
  6. Best visual

For extra fun, Erik decided to make a dessert to go with each movie. We’ll share photos of those, too. Follow the posts with the SW rewatch tag.

And please join us – leave a link for your own posts, or comment with your own Best list!

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Headcanon: Underground Hydroponics in The Hunger Games World

Eppu

From time to time, I get sucked into thinking about the pragmatics of fictional worlds. By that I mean all the mundane details of how people lead their everyday lives, starting from the very basic human (or creature) needs like food, clothing, waste management, and social interaction. Not just who takes care of, say, the laundry and when, but where do they go to do it, how do they get there, what kinds of implements are they expected to bring in themselves and what is shared, how long does it take, what physical motions do they go through, is it a solo activity or a joint effort, and the like.

For me as a visual person, often thinking about everyday activities and movement through spaces tumbles into thinking about what exactly do these various spaces look like. It’s a way to add depth and realism into a story – we are physical beings who love tactile experiences and accumulate all sorts of personal possessions, and if a fictional world ignores that, it makes that world fall flat for me. (Hello, Star Trek!)

The Hunger Games is one of the current ones in my mind because of the approaching Mockingjay – Part 2 premiere and because of an article on Colossal I saw about a World War II era bomb shelter in London that has been turned into an underground farm.

Growing Underground Forgotten Heritage Photo Shoot
Growing Underground on Instagram.

The company running the operation, Growing Underground, produces leafy greens like watercress, basil, coriander, and radish in hydroponic beds lit by LED lamps.

Growing Underground Beds Homepage
Growing Underground.

In the The Hunger Games world, the population of District 13 lives in underground bunkers; the above-ground structures were destroyed by the Capitol. In the Mockingjay novel, Collins mentions various spaces like the armory, the laundry, labs, testing ranges, and farms in passing. She describes these spaces mostly just in very generic terms; e.g., the color of the living compartments is white, and we hear of furniture like dressers and conference tables with individual screens, but that’s about the extent of the detail.

Scenes in the movie Mockingjay – Part 1 show the special weapons lab with a shooting range, the hangar, the bunker, and some hospital and apartment rooms, among others, but I don’t think we’ve seen any underground farms of any kind, nor the poultry farm, for example, that was destroyed in the book version of the bombing of 13 by the Capitol.

Mockingjay1 D13 Collage
Clockwise from top: living quarters, cafeteria, and infirmary at District 13. Images via Jabberjays.net.

The Growing Underground photos of their growing beds fit quite well with Collins’s carefully frugal description and the established Hunger Games visual style. So, in my headcanon, even if we haven’t seen them on screen, District 13’s underground hydroponics now look very much like those of Growing Underground.

Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

Three Mockingjay – Part 2 Trailers

Eppu

The Mockingjay – Part 2 premier is approaching! I just finished rereading the novel; now it’s time for rewatching. Here are three trailers:

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Official Trailer – “We March Together”

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Official Trailer – “For Prim”

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Official Trailer – “Welcome To The 76th Hunger Games”

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies Trailer

Eppu2 Comments

The first Pride & Prejudice & Zombies trailer has been out for a while, and it’s kicking butt bonnet!

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES – Official UK Trailer #1

The movie will be released on February 05, 2016. I’m generally turned off by zombies, but even still, I’ll certainly go see this one. And I’m looking forward to seeing Lily James (whom I know from Downton Abbey) and Lena Heady (Cersei in Game of Thrones) in action. Matt Smith’s Mr. Collins should also be something to see! 🙂

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Superfluous Ghosts

Erik

It is odd to find oneself arguing that a ghost story would be better without the ghosts, but that’s how I felt coming away from Crimson Peak.

Crimson Peak, as others have noted, is a Gothic romance. Ghosts are de rigeur for the genre. They give form to emotional traumas and compel the hero or heroine to uncover the horrible secrets behind them. The ghosts of Crimson Peak fulfill this role and prod the film’s heroine to expose the dark past in the house. Eventually. She takes an awful lot of prodding. In the meantime, the ghosts just take up screen time being ghostly and doing ghost stuff, none of it terribly interesting.

151029Crimson

“The ghosts are a metaphor,” we are told early in the film, except they aren’t. A metaphor is when one thing stands for or represents another, but there is nothing metaphorical about the ghosts of Crimson Peak. The ghost of the old woman in the bathtub with a meat cleaver in her head does not represent the lingering traumas of the past or the madness of the characters. It represents the fact that an old woman was killed in that bathtub with a meat cleaver to the head. The crumbling, bleeding house is a metaphor for the unraveling of the family that dwells there, but the ghosts are the most literal ghosts you have ever met.

The only purpose the ghosts serve in the narrative is to nudge our heroine Edith into uncovering the truth. They might as well just be standing in the hallway holding signs that say “PLOT-RELEVANT INFORMATION IN THIS CLOSET” or “ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS BATHROOM.” They are narrative shortcuts that save the heroine the bother of actually having to do much thinking. The most interesting part of the story is when Edith finally does a little investigating, but the ghosts do most of the uncovering for her and rob the story of complexity. I would rather have watched Edith do the work of piecing together what was going on at Allerdale Hall without the ghosts standing around holding their “THIS WAY TO THE PLOT” signs.

“It’s not a ghost story,” we are also told early in the film. “It’s a story with ghosts.” I give the movie enormous credit for its gorgeous visual design and for showing how well a period piece can incorporate active and effective female characters. But maybe it should have been a story without ghosts.

Image: Crimson Peak, (c) Universal Pictures 2015 via imdb

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

The Myth Is Strong With This One

Erik1 Comment

It’s well known that George Lucas drew inspiration from mythology when writing Star Wars. Luke Skywalker, the young hero from the planet farthest from the bright center of the universe, gets the call to adventure delivered by droid and goes off on a Campbellian journey to rescue a princess, seek out an ancient mentor, and finally confront his fallen father. The prequel trilogy gave us the tragic version in which Anakin, the great warrior, was driven to madness and destroyed the things he loved the most.

1501022lightsaber

There are smaller touches of myth throughout the Star Wars hexalogy. Luke receives his father’s lightsaber like King Arthur drawing his father’s sword from the stone. The escape from the imperial garbage masher has hints of Jonah and the whale. Luke in the Wampa’s cave has shades of Beowulf.

151022wampa

Like most of the rest of geeky internet, I’ve been watching the trailers for The Force Awakens with excitement. I’ve been struck by something, especially in the latest trailer. The mythology that this latest iteration of Star Wars is working hardest to evoke is… Star Wars.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer (Official) via Star Wars

Star Wars has transcended being a movie franchise or even an expanded universe. It has reached the point where we can speak of it in terms of mythology.

One of the definitions of myth is that it is a story you know even if you can’t recall ever being told it. Star Wars has that. It is part of our cultural consciousness to the point that even people who haven’t seen the movies (yes, they exist) recognize the sound of a lightsaber and the cadences of the imperial march. Star Wars was all over my childhood, and even though I didn’t get around to seeing the movies until I was a teen (I was a Star Trek fan and young and dumb enough to think that I had to pick one over the other), I recognized Darth Vader, Princess Leia and Yoda on my friends’ lunchboxes.

Another characteristic of myth is that all myths are versions. There is no original, no canon. Though some may disagree on whether this is a good thing, Star Wars has always been an evolving story, getting new versions from small tweaks to big changes. (Yes, I see you in the back in the “Han Shot First” shirt, you can put your hand down.) The new wave of Star Wars movies leaves the old hexalogy alone but reboots the post-Return-of-the-Jedi expanded universe.

For those of us who grew up in the world of Star Wars, it is hard to imagine a time when these stories were not a part of the popular culture, yet there was a time when no one had heard Darth Vader’s breathing or Yoda’s grammar, when no one knew what a lightsaber or a Death Star was. By connecting to the ancient stories we already knew, Star Wars made itself feel timeless. Now it has become a part of that universal memory to be played upon and invoked in its own right.

Images: “This is the weapon of a Jedi knight” via The Film Fatale; wampa via giphy.com

Post edited for style.

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.