Rented several movies last weekend to try out our new DVD player. We’d been using the PS2 for a long time to watch movies, but the jet-turbine noise from the fan and its general persnicketiness at playing less-than-pristine discs prompted us to buy a new, cheap player. I had bought a cheap GE DVD player a couple of years ago, but returned it almost immediately. It exhibited all the classic DVD problems: audio synch, freezing, etc.
The new Toshiba we bought seems perfect so far, and even plays Video-CDs, which is nice, because I use that format to produce slide shows in iMovie. It’s a whole lot better than home movies, and easier to edit, too.
Anyway, just wanted to state for the record how Unforgivably Bad ‘Star Wars Episode II’ is. I saw it at the theater (in digital), too. I rented it again just to see if my initial impression might have been hasty. It wasn’t. It’s impossible for me not to be nostaligic about the original Star Wars movies. They are as much a part of my childhood mythology as Santa Claus and Moses. Nostalgia aside, the new SW offerings are just awful. I think the key to their badness is that the actors are not playing adult roles; they are acting to the level of Saturday morning cartoons, with none of the depth of the originals.
The other major problem I have with the new movies is they spend too much time fleshing out every minor character. Sells more action figures, I guess, but it makes the landscape too crowded. As an epic, the original Star Wars was successful because it was able to translate large-scale conflicts through the skilled interaction of a few good characters. Lucas’ ego-driven shotgun approach tries to make up for lack of strong characters by giving the viewer hundreds of weak ones.
Oh yeah, the acting was bad, too. Wooden, uninspired, and no one seemed to be having any fun.
I wish they’d stop making Star Wars movies. Really. It’s that bad.