Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

[Club'nBabySeals]

That one with Tom Cruise and the pre-crime ESP people.

Minority Report.

My son bought the Episode 4-6 DVD set, and that opened a whole new set of questions:

1. In ANH, Obi Wan tells Luke that when he first met his father he was already an accomplished pilot, which wasn't true. He was a 10-yr old slave mechanic who could drive a pod racer, not an accomplished pilot.
2. In TESB, Obi Wan tells Luke to go to "Yoda, the Jedi master who trained me." But Yoda didn't train Obi Wan, Qui Gon Jin did.
3. In TESB, when Yoda says that he can't train Luke because he's too reckless, Obi Wan says "So was I if you'll remember." When was Obi Wan ever wreckless? He's always been the poster boy for absolute obedience to the Jedi council. Qui Gon and Anakin were the wreckless ones.
4. In ROTJ, Luke asks Leia "Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?", which implies she knew she was adopted. She says "Just a little bit. She died when I was very young," which doesn't jive with the birth scene on ROTS, unless you count 15 seconds old as "very young." That also implies that Luke thought that Leia had been living with his mom while he was with his Uncle Owen.
5. A minor point, but on the director's commentary that Lucas does on the DVD of ROTJ, he says that the "ghosts" seen at the end of the movie are a result of the technique that Obi Wan and Yoda discovered, but in ROTS Yoda tells Obi Wan that he and Qui Gon discovered it.
6. For anyone who hasn't seen the DVD of ROTJ, at the end of the movie when the "ghosts" appear, the original actor who played Anakin Skywalker has been digitally replaced by Hayden Christensen. Lucas tries to justify this by saying that's what Anakin looked like when he died, but if that's the case Darth Vader should have been 100% machine.

As for Vader knowing that Luke was his son, he doesn't know that until the Emperor tells him in the beginning of TESB.

[Ken King (Premo)]

Originally Posted by Tonio

(Want some good karma? Name the three movies made from Philip K. Dick stories.)

Besides those mentioned, how about Screamers, Imposter, and Paycheck all of which are based on his books.

[SamSpade]

Originally Posted by vraiblonde

That one with Tom Cruise and the pre-crime ESP people.

Blade Runner

Total Recall

Does everyone overlook "Impostor" (with Gary Sinise, one of my all-time favorite actors), "Screamers" (Robocop star Peter Weller) and "Paycheck" (with my alter-ego, ben Affleck).

And look for "A Scanner Darkly" next year.

Dick was an outstanding writer, and had absolutely brilliant story ideas - and a complete nutcase and drug addict. Nearly all of his stories deal with deception, conspiracy and paranoia - the "whole world is out to get you" kind of stuff. A common experience of drug addicted nutcases.

[Ken King (Premo)]

Originally Posted by SamSpade

Does everyone overlook "Impostor" (with Gary Sinise, one of my all-time favorite actors), "Screamers" (Robocop star Peter Weller) and "Paycheck" (with my alter-ego, been Afflicted).

:fixed:

[SamSpade]

Originally Posted by Tonio

And literary science fiction had gone through a New Wave where writers were experimenting with the genre. To these writers, Star Wars was nothing but Flash Gordon with better special effects, a step backward.

That was the point in my life where I was most interested in sci-fi. From the 60's onward, it took a huge detour from the "science"-based type of stories of Clarke and Asimov, or just even the 'fun' type stories of favorites of mine such as Simak or Williamson, into darker stuff like Ellison, LeGuin and maybe Delany. Which was good for sci-fi, really. Previously, sci-fi had been fairly boiler-plate - heroes were usualy nerds and geeks, there was no or very little sex, and the good guys were always moral. They were enjoyable stories but often as predictable as a "Twilight Zone" episode. Storylines revolved around some technical angle, and many of the early writers - like Clarke, Asimov or Anderson - were technical weenies in their own right.

It would take people like Ellison to write "Star Trek" episodes about drug-running on the Enterprise (a script that NEVER was made) to break the squeaky clean mold. For the next ten years or more, sf tries so hard to be like the other genres - more realism, drama, hard-hitting and ground-breaking.

And then "Star Wars" comes along and pushes it all back to the Flash Gordon days.

I remember the reaction, which was why my *first* reaction to Star Wars before I saw it, was complete, utter revulsion. I remember thinking "why can't they make 'Dune' or 'Foundation', for crap's sake?".

[SamSpade]

Originally Posted by Ken King

:fixed:

Ben Affleck is a kind of running gag with my wife, family and friends. I once had an old girlfriend I met online, who made the comment that I looked like him based on a couple of pictures. When I actually *protested*, she sent a side-by-side comparison of like-angled shots of him, and me.

Ironically, about twenty years ago, she would have been about right.

But I still persist in the gag - when I'm given a nametag, I invariably put Ben's name on it.

[Tonio]

Originally Posted by SamSpade

Does everyone overlook "Impostor" (with Gary Sinise, one of my all-time favorite actors), "Screamers" (Robocop star Peter Weller) and "Paycheck" (with my alter-ego, ben Affleck).

Thanks. I wasn't aware of Dick's connection with those movies. Was the connection explicit, meaning the filmmakers bought the rights to the stories from the writer's literary estate? Or was it like the first Terminator, which James Cameron cribbed from two episodes of the Outer Limits and was sued for it? Even with Total Recall, the writers took a lot of liberties with the original story.

[SamSpade]

Originally Posted by Tonio

Thanks. I wasn't aware of Dick's connection with those movies. Was the connection explicit, meaning the filmmakers bought the rights to the stories from the writer's literary estate? Or was it like the first Terminator, which James Cameron cribbed from two episodes of the Outer Limits and was sued for it? Even with Total Recall, the writers took a lot of liberties with the original story.

They always will. I'm of the opinion that film adaptations of books and stories are perfectly ok to take liberties with the storyline, because it's a different media, and has different limitations. The filmmaker has to tell as much of the story within two hours, with the cast, location, production schedule and budget he has. So some stories which make fascinating reading might require beefing up to make them visually stimulating.

I've read any number of books where huge portions are nothing more than LOOOOOOOONG dialogue between the main characters. NOBODY will go to a film where people just talk about their ideas.

Take space, for example. Basically, it's silent - and BLACK. No starry skies with stars whooshing by - what you see mainly, is NIGHT. Spaceships fighting would be *miles* apart from one another. They'd be silent - lasers and missiles would launch silently, and you'd never hear an explosion - or even see much of one. Space fighter would fly like - well, space ships. They'd roll, pitch and have momentum - but they would not "bank" like planes have to do in an atmosphere. They would not curve around with wings to slow and turn them - they'd have retros to spin them about.

Basically, a "real" space battle would be boring as hell.

I've emerged from tons of movies based on books I'd read, only to realize - there's probably no way on earth to make a FUN movie out of the story I read, make it under budget and tell it in two hours.

The most faithful adaptation of any story I ever read that became a movie was Barry Longyear's "Enemy Mine". Even THEN, they took liberties - but much of the dialogue was directly from the story. The ending was brighter, and not as cynical as the story's.

I don't want to be saying - "the book was better" - the book will *always* be 'better' to some, because they're not giving the filmmaker credit for what he has to do - entertain and tell a story visually in two hours - NOT faithfully follow the book.

[Tonio]

Originally Posted by SamSpade

I've read any number of books where huge portions are nothing more than LOOOOOOOONG dialogue between the main characters. NOBODY will go to a film where people just talk about their ideas.

I've read some Heinlein, who I don't think ever had any of his books turned into movies. Your description sounds like his '70s novels like Time Enough for Love, which were long on philosophizing and short on storytelling. I'd like to see a movie version of Job: A Comedy of Justice.