I was interested to hear that Rolf Harris impersonator, George Lucas was planning to "remake" The Phantom Menace in 2012 on the news today. "Hooray" I thought, they are going to rewrite the awful dialogue of the prequels, we won't hear the kid who became Vader saying "yippee", and with luck Jar Jar Binks would die horribly at the hands of the Trade Federation, preferably hoisted ny his own glowing blue balls (watch the film.), and watch Annakin and Padme babble godawful romantic non sequiters at each other, whilst seemingly monged up to their tits with Stacey's Mum of Eastenders medication for her nerves. But no, Lucas just plans to re release the films concurrently on an annual basis so they can be seen in 3-d. Lucas was apparently Luke warm (see what I did there!) about 3D films, but when James Cameron did Avatar, he felt he had to respond, and that lays bare the sad reality of popular film making today. It ain't about making good movies so much as shoving as much CGI and other visual wizardry onscreen in order to make loads of cash with your blockbuster. Sad to say that making pots of cash is still the primary ambition in the world of film. A good film may stir the heart, and rattle the senses, and raise a question or two in the viewer, but does that flog loads of popcorn as easily as just sticking a load of fake looking space battles and blue people who live on a planet with bullshit physics and can plug their psychic tails in a spacehorses anus (no really). It can be disheartening to see films like the Star Wars prequels, which while visually (and George certainly has the scope for visual direction) stunning, have lame stories, which wilt under the sheer volume of CGI per frame. How Avatars visually rich visuals disguised a simplistic and cliched central plot. Other directors are guilty of papering over the cracks of weak stories with loads of CGI'ery too, but because I'm nice I won't name names, even though Michael Bay is guilty of doing this ...... Oh all the fucking time!
No I was disappointed to discover that the "remake" of Episode I, TPM - was a cosmetic one. Because IT IS THE WRONG FLIPPIN DIRECTION!! WRONG! With a bit of work (start by getting Jar Jar Abomination off the screen) there was a trilogy of decent films in there to be teased out by a decent writer. Look at Empire and A New Hope, the ones that; from a writing point - Lucas had the least influence on and especially Empire, the greatest of all the Star Wars films. Lucas is not really a good screenwriter, but with good writers to do that and articulate this excellent visual and conceptual artists ideas to a tight and pathos laden teleplay, his visions came alive so memorably as they did in those excellent films. The core concept of the prequels was a good one, the secret sith baddy conspires to usurp control of the galaxy by bringing about its downfall, and civil war by playing both sides against the other - whilst corrupting the protagonist to the final conclusion thrown in too. I'd say it was almost foolproof and a good series of films could have been made from it. But this was squandered by over reliance on visual shit that was just there for the hell of it, and Lucas letting his ego take priority into not subconsciously facing up to his poor writing and [especially] dialogue skills, and subcontracting them to a co-writer, or fully separate writing team. You're not telling me that those three prequel films were ever script edited at all!! (or even looked over by a friendly team member who could offer a bit of kind advice) The amount of plot holes and leaps of logic that made it to the final product itself. It was kind of the reverse of the Star Trek films, where a preposterous core story was made good by a strong script. It was a good (I'd cautiously, almost say foolproof) central story was let down by a bad script.
And that was why my heart sank just that little bit further today. We had the chance to make something out of the prequels and instead all we'll get in 2012 is to have to wear some stupid spectacles at the cinema, to have remade scenes of pod racers whiz past our heads, Darth Mauls red pole being waved in our face, and Jar Jars ears smacking us in the chops when he treads in some shit in the Tatooine ghetto. Sadly a step back really.
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