Been a while since I've done one of these ("Under the Hood" columns, not blog entries, although I am aware that I've inexcusably missed an entire entry this week. I'll try to make it up next week, I promise...) Basically, the idea is simple--take a movie that failed on the script level, look at the basic premise, and try to make it all work better. This week, let's look at 'The Wicker Man'.
Not the original with Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward, which was an excellent piece of dark and twisted cinema. (If a bit insensitive to sincere pagans--I don't think it meant to slight the pagan faith, but I know a few people who felt that it was clumsy enough to be insulting.) I mean the genuinely stunningly batshit insane remake with Nicholas Cage, which failed on every possible level. Why, and how can it be improved?
First, you need to understand that the reason the original made use of paganism as the religion of its villain. It wasn't because the screenwriter thought that pagans were evil, it was because paganism is inextricably intertwined with British farming culture, and the film was playing on that fear of being somewhere isolated, well away from "civilization" and its rules, and unable to get in touch with Authority (in whatever form.) Woodward's character isn't faced with creepy pagans, he's faced with people who still follow the Old Ways of the founders of their village the way they always have, and don't have any intention of changing things on behalf of some outsider...even if he does have a badge.
So if you're going to transplant this to America, keeping the pagan thing doesn't make sense. America doesn't have a strong rural pagan tradition. The further out into the country you go, the more Christian you get. So what you'd want is a community that's gone back to the Old Testament, where God demands sacrifice from His people to win His favors...only because these are people, and people can get a little crazy, they've perverted the Old Testament to claim that God wants human sacrifices even more than animal sacrifices. (Yes, this is obviously not supported by scripture. The craziness is not in the faith, it's in the people practicing it, just like the original.)
The community would be in the American Southwest, for two reasons. One, it fits in with the idea from the original that this is a community that lives in marginal farmland, and the "magical thinking" that leads them to sacrifice people to ensure good harvests comes from their inability to control said good harvests. Two, there's less cell phone coverage in the Southwest, and you're going to need that to explain why the cop doesn't just call for back-up.
From there, things unfold pretty straightforwardly. The cop drives out to the middle of nowhere to investigate a mysterious letter about a missing girl. His car runs out of gas, and he can't refill it--the townsfolk don't use modern conveniences like motor vehicles. His concerns go from the girl, to being stranded, to being trapped, to being the potential human sacrifice in a re-enactment of Abraham and Isaac. (Perhaps the girl never even existed in this version--the photograph of her is almost a mystic "artifact" to them, to be kept carefully preserved and used to bring the Lord's bounty to them once again in times of tribulation.) The ending, of course, doesn't go well for the officer.
Probably wouldn't be High Art, but then again, neither was the original. But it has the potential for an effective thriller that wouldn't become legendary for its sheer comical badness, and isn't that something?
Showing posts with label under the hood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label under the hood. Show all posts
Friday, July 09, 2010
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Top Five Movies Due For a Remake
This post is actually coming to you from sunny Texas (OK, rainy Texas, but it beats single-digit Minnesota temperatures.) And I'm stuck for an idea, I'm wasting time that could be spent watching my niece be goofy, and it's only my superhuman dedication to my reading audience that keeps me from just skipping this week. (The smart-alecks among you may point out that I'm "superhumanly" posting this two days late. That's not the point, people, stay focused.)
So I'm just going for the easy post this week: Given that Hollywood seems to be remaking just about everything, why don't we use that power for good and direct them to some movies that need a little remake love? Here's five movies that need to be remade today, and why.
5. The Last Starfighter. This one had it all--a brilliant high concept, action a-plenty, heroes fighting it out for the future of the human race, and some classic one-liners ("What do we do now?" "Die.") But unfortunately, they decided to go with CGI graphics when those were still in their gestation, let alone their infancy, they had a slightly-below-par budget for the flick, and as a result, I don't think it was realized quite as well as it should be. Admittedly, a remake would lose Robert Preston's wonderful performance, but it's not like it erases the original from the shelves.
4. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. No, seriously. Ben Edlund agrees with me, and he made "The Tick"! It's a fun, goofy idea for a kid's movie, with Martians trying to kidnap Santa Claus to make the Martian children happy, but it suffers from several poor performances and the lowest production values of any movie in history. (Seriously, Ed Wood spent more money on his films.) Imagine for about five seconds what Pixar could do with this, and you'll agree it belongs here.
3. The Lost World. Not the "Jurassic Park" sequel, although given how bad that turned out, they could probably stand to take another whack at it. No, I mean the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "hidden valley of dinosaurs" classic, done with reimagined special effects, a huge budget, and not necessarily a slavish devotion to the original like "King Kong" had.
2. All Quiet on the Western Front. This is pretty much here as a representative of all those great classic "should be made into a movie once for every generation, as a lens through which we can examine ourselves" books. The story is about World War I, but so timeless that it always seems to be about the current war, and it'd be nice to see a lavishly produced version by someone like Spielberg. (Think "Saving Private Ryan" in WWI...)
1. The Universal Horror films. I've been going on about this at length for some time now (and I'm not done--next week is "The Invisible Man"), but seriously, these could be evergreen franchises for Universal if they only took the time and effort to develop them. These could be like the James Bond movies, vehicles for unlimited numbers of popular sequels, so long as Universal doesn't make the mistake it did last time of diluting the brand with low-quality, shoddy sequels that they figured would sell simply on the strength of the title. A slick, unpretentious, exciting remake of "Dracula" is always going to work, whether today, tomorrow, or a hundred years from now.
So I'm just going for the easy post this week: Given that Hollywood seems to be remaking just about everything, why don't we use that power for good and direct them to some movies that need a little remake love? Here's five movies that need to be remade today, and why.
5. The Last Starfighter. This one had it all--a brilliant high concept, action a-plenty, heroes fighting it out for the future of the human race, and some classic one-liners ("What do we do now?" "Die.") But unfortunately, they decided to go with CGI graphics when those were still in their gestation, let alone their infancy, they had a slightly-below-par budget for the flick, and as a result, I don't think it was realized quite as well as it should be. Admittedly, a remake would lose Robert Preston's wonderful performance, but it's not like it erases the original from the shelves.
4. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. No, seriously. Ben Edlund agrees with me, and he made "The Tick"! It's a fun, goofy idea for a kid's movie, with Martians trying to kidnap Santa Claus to make the Martian children happy, but it suffers from several poor performances and the lowest production values of any movie in history. (Seriously, Ed Wood spent more money on his films.) Imagine for about five seconds what Pixar could do with this, and you'll agree it belongs here.
3. The Lost World. Not the "Jurassic Park" sequel, although given how bad that turned out, they could probably stand to take another whack at it. No, I mean the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "hidden valley of dinosaurs" classic, done with reimagined special effects, a huge budget, and not necessarily a slavish devotion to the original like "King Kong" had.
2. All Quiet on the Western Front. This is pretty much here as a representative of all those great classic "should be made into a movie once for every generation, as a lens through which we can examine ourselves" books. The story is about World War I, but so timeless that it always seems to be about the current war, and it'd be nice to see a lavishly produced version by someone like Spielberg. (Think "Saving Private Ryan" in WWI...)
1. The Universal Horror films. I've been going on about this at length for some time now (and I'm not done--next week is "The Invisible Man"), but seriously, these could be evergreen franchises for Universal if they only took the time and effort to develop them. These could be like the James Bond movies, vehicles for unlimited numbers of popular sequels, so long as Universal doesn't make the mistake it did last time of diluting the brand with low-quality, shoddy sequels that they figured would sell simply on the strength of the title. A slick, unpretentious, exciting remake of "Dracula" is always going to work, whether today, tomorrow, or a hundred years from now.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Under the Hood: Star Wars, Episode Six
Sorry for the delay, the reasons behind it were a little...complex.
(Well, strictly speaking they were a combination of laziness and absent-mindedness, but working out the exact formula of how the two mixed together is quite, quite complex.)
So when we last left our alternate version of the Star Wars sextet, we'd left it pretty much like the classics you remember, with just a minor difference. Luke already has confirmed with Yoda that Vader is his father, but on the whole, Han is still frozen in carbonite, stolen by Jabba the Hutt, and headed for Tatooine, while Luke recuperates from impromptu surgery at the hands of his own father. We open with Luke getting ready to return to action and join Lando and Chewie in the hunt for Han, when he and Leia receive news from the Rebel leader of a major offensive--in fact, it might just be the end of the Empire. The secret clone factories of the Emperor have finally been located.
(This, by the way, is the reason for the emphasis on the "undisclosed" location of the final battle against the clonemasters of Mandalor in Episode Three. Despite the fact that I have a certain fondness for the Emperor's plan in 'Return'--"My ultimate weapon has been destroyed, due to a tiny, fatal flaw that I overlooked when creating it! You know what? Rather than just abandon that plan, I'm going to do it all over again, only this time without the fatal flaw..." I would, in fact, go with something different. And let's face it, the stormtroopers really are the big advantage the Empire has over the Rebels. Seemingly endless numbers of troops indoctrinated to be loyal unto death to the Emperor? Yeah, that's something you want to take out.)
The ground defenses of the factories are formidable, simply due to the sheer number of troops the Empire is cranking out--but the space defenses are light, since the stormtroopers are ground-pounders and the Emperor doesn't want to station a ton of troops there (due to the need for secrecy.) He instead relies on a deflection shield generated from a nearby forest moon. A sufficiently concentrated Rebel assault could smash the clone factories, and with the Mandalorians exterminated years ago, it's anyone's guess whether he could even repair them. Either way, it would be a major blow to the Empire if the Rebels could succeed. Best of all, the Emperor frequently journeys to the cloneworld, since it's the most secure location in the galaxy apart from the Imperial Palace.
But Luke and Leia want to rescue their friend. Mon Mothma, in a touching scene, lets them go--after all, one ship more or less won't mean much at the battle, but it will make all the difference in saving Han Solo. They head off to Tatooine to rescue Han.
When they get there, they find that Jabba's palace is surprisingly lightly defended--he has his Gamorrean guards, and Boba Fett, but his hordes of mercenaries and bounty hunters have been all hired away. Even so, a good deal of strategy and subterfuge is needed to get into the palace (ie, most of the opening sequence of 'Jedi' would be cannibalized here, leading up to the Sarlacc sequence.) The key difference? Leia finds out, as Jabba's concubine, exactly where those mercenaries have gone--the Emperor has hired every gun he can find, creating a secret army whose movements won't show up when Rebel spies analyze Imperial troop movements. This secret army is lying in wait to ambush the Rebels--it's all part of a trap, you see, to crush the Rebel Alliance once and for all...
At that point, Luke springs his trap, capturing the skiff and duking it out with Jabba's guards. He and Boba Fett battle--the last of the Jedi against the last of the Mandalorians, a brutal coda to the Clone Wars, but Boba's lost a step over the years. In the end, he's just a little too slow to face a Jedi in his prime, and Luke dispatches him to the Sarlacc. (Note the lack of blind guys with sticks in this battle.) They destroy Jabba, rescue Han, and now are faced with the fact that they're the only ones who know the Rebels are heading into a trap...
Contacting the fleet at this point would be difficult at best--they've maneuvered into a secure position, and can only be contacted with a pinpoint-burst coded transmitter. Flying there would give them away, and the only people who have the proper coded transmitter are the commando team on the forest moon whose job it is to take out the shield generator...and needless to say, the Empire won't just let them through that shield to talk to their buddies on Endor, Han points out. Luke, though, has a plan.
A few hours later, the Millennium Falcon arrives at the forest moon of Endor. While the others hide in the smuggling compartments, Luke contacts the garrison on the forest moon. "This is Luke Skywalker," he says, "son of Darth Vader. I have come alone to speak with my father and the Emperor." Within moments, the shield dissolves and the ship is allowed to land.
From there, the two groups split up. Luke goes to the cloneworld, to meet with the Emperor. The others sneak out of the ship into the forest, to try to find the commando group. Instead, they run headlong into a group of cute, furry little aliens (I love the Ewoks. I'd make a slight redesign to them, so that they look more sinuous and otter-like, and less teddy-bear-esque, but the whole "cute" factor would remain...because that was what was so awesome about the Ewoks, that they looked cute and fuzzy and adorably sweet and nice and friendly...and then they turned out to be this vicious, savage, cannibalistic race of guerilla warriors who fearlessly charged stormtrooper detachments and beat them to death with heavy rocks. And then ate the corpses, probably.)
The cute aliens only look cute until they smile, revealing a mouth of needle-sharp teeth, and they quickly surround Han, Chewie, Leia, Lando, R2, and 3P0. They've made necklaces and decorations out of the remains of the commando group, and it looks pretty clear that they plan to do the same with Han and company...until C-3P0 begins to talk to them. He explains their story, the plight of the Empire and the Rebellion, describing the entire situation to the chief of the tribe, and swaying the Ewoks to their cause. (Yes, it's Threepio for the win, here.) The Ewoks agree to help. Han, of course, is a little skeptical of just how much help a few cute fuzzballs can be against a whole garrison of stormtroopers...until he sees the hordes and hordes of silent, vicious Ewok warriors, their siege engines, their cunningly designed traps, and their collection of empty stormtrooper helmets (not even stormtroopers venture into the forest at night on Endor.)
As Luke prepares to face the Emperor, he is met by Yoda and Ben. Or rather, their blue ghost bodies. Yoda has died. Luke is truly the last of the Jedi...but yet, there is another hope. Yoda never told Luke, but he has a sister. If he fails, she will be the last hope of the Jedi Knights. But only by letting go of his attachment to his father and destroying Vader can Luke survive this final trial. Luke refuses. Surely, the three of them together can redeem Vader? Yoda shakes his head sadly. They cannot go into the presence of the Emperor, lest he destroy them. Luke will truly be all alone.
And here we go. Luke battles Vader, with the Emperor and thousands of stormtroopers looking on. Han and the gang attack the shield generator, with an Ewok army backing them up. The Rebel Alliance, led by Wedge, fight an army of bounty hunters, mercenaries, and the scum of the galaxy. The shields come down, the factories get bombed, Luke redeems Vader, who dies stopping the Emperor as the bombs begin to rain down upon them. Luke barely escapes the carnage, the Rebels send the bounty hunters packing, everyone returns for a celebration on Endor where Luke lets Leia know that they're family, which neatly skirts the issue of who she's going to start dating. And with the Emperor lost and the clone factories destroyed, the Empire seems to be finally on the run.
(Until the endless parade of tie-in novels, that is...)
(Well, strictly speaking they were a combination of laziness and absent-mindedness, but working out the exact formula of how the two mixed together is quite, quite complex.)
So when we last left our alternate version of the Star Wars sextet, we'd left it pretty much like the classics you remember, with just a minor difference. Luke already has confirmed with Yoda that Vader is his father, but on the whole, Han is still frozen in carbonite, stolen by Jabba the Hutt, and headed for Tatooine, while Luke recuperates from impromptu surgery at the hands of his own father. We open with Luke getting ready to return to action and join Lando and Chewie in the hunt for Han, when he and Leia receive news from the Rebel leader of a major offensive--in fact, it might just be the end of the Empire. The secret clone factories of the Emperor have finally been located.
(This, by the way, is the reason for the emphasis on the "undisclosed" location of the final battle against the clonemasters of Mandalor in Episode Three. Despite the fact that I have a certain fondness for the Emperor's plan in 'Return'--"My ultimate weapon has been destroyed, due to a tiny, fatal flaw that I overlooked when creating it! You know what? Rather than just abandon that plan, I'm going to do it all over again, only this time without the fatal flaw..." I would, in fact, go with something different. And let's face it, the stormtroopers really are the big advantage the Empire has over the Rebels. Seemingly endless numbers of troops indoctrinated to be loyal unto death to the Emperor? Yeah, that's something you want to take out.)
The ground defenses of the factories are formidable, simply due to the sheer number of troops the Empire is cranking out--but the space defenses are light, since the stormtroopers are ground-pounders and the Emperor doesn't want to station a ton of troops there (due to the need for secrecy.) He instead relies on a deflection shield generated from a nearby forest moon. A sufficiently concentrated Rebel assault could smash the clone factories, and with the Mandalorians exterminated years ago, it's anyone's guess whether he could even repair them. Either way, it would be a major blow to the Empire if the Rebels could succeed. Best of all, the Emperor frequently journeys to the cloneworld, since it's the most secure location in the galaxy apart from the Imperial Palace.
But Luke and Leia want to rescue their friend. Mon Mothma, in a touching scene, lets them go--after all, one ship more or less won't mean much at the battle, but it will make all the difference in saving Han Solo. They head off to Tatooine to rescue Han.
When they get there, they find that Jabba's palace is surprisingly lightly defended--he has his Gamorrean guards, and Boba Fett, but his hordes of mercenaries and bounty hunters have been all hired away. Even so, a good deal of strategy and subterfuge is needed to get into the palace (ie, most of the opening sequence of 'Jedi' would be cannibalized here, leading up to the Sarlacc sequence.) The key difference? Leia finds out, as Jabba's concubine, exactly where those mercenaries have gone--the Emperor has hired every gun he can find, creating a secret army whose movements won't show up when Rebel spies analyze Imperial troop movements. This secret army is lying in wait to ambush the Rebels--it's all part of a trap, you see, to crush the Rebel Alliance once and for all...
At that point, Luke springs his trap, capturing the skiff and duking it out with Jabba's guards. He and Boba Fett battle--the last of the Jedi against the last of the Mandalorians, a brutal coda to the Clone Wars, but Boba's lost a step over the years. In the end, he's just a little too slow to face a Jedi in his prime, and Luke dispatches him to the Sarlacc. (Note the lack of blind guys with sticks in this battle.) They destroy Jabba, rescue Han, and now are faced with the fact that they're the only ones who know the Rebels are heading into a trap...
Contacting the fleet at this point would be difficult at best--they've maneuvered into a secure position, and can only be contacted with a pinpoint-burst coded transmitter. Flying there would give them away, and the only people who have the proper coded transmitter are the commando team on the forest moon whose job it is to take out the shield generator...and needless to say, the Empire won't just let them through that shield to talk to their buddies on Endor, Han points out. Luke, though, has a plan.
A few hours later, the Millennium Falcon arrives at the forest moon of Endor. While the others hide in the smuggling compartments, Luke contacts the garrison on the forest moon. "This is Luke Skywalker," he says, "son of Darth Vader. I have come alone to speak with my father and the Emperor." Within moments, the shield dissolves and the ship is allowed to land.
From there, the two groups split up. Luke goes to the cloneworld, to meet with the Emperor. The others sneak out of the ship into the forest, to try to find the commando group. Instead, they run headlong into a group of cute, furry little aliens (I love the Ewoks. I'd make a slight redesign to them, so that they look more sinuous and otter-like, and less teddy-bear-esque, but the whole "cute" factor would remain...because that was what was so awesome about the Ewoks, that they looked cute and fuzzy and adorably sweet and nice and friendly...and then they turned out to be this vicious, savage, cannibalistic race of guerilla warriors who fearlessly charged stormtrooper detachments and beat them to death with heavy rocks. And then ate the corpses, probably.)
The cute aliens only look cute until they smile, revealing a mouth of needle-sharp teeth, and they quickly surround Han, Chewie, Leia, Lando, R2, and 3P0. They've made necklaces and decorations out of the remains of the commando group, and it looks pretty clear that they plan to do the same with Han and company...until C-3P0 begins to talk to them. He explains their story, the plight of the Empire and the Rebellion, describing the entire situation to the chief of the tribe, and swaying the Ewoks to their cause. (Yes, it's Threepio for the win, here.) The Ewoks agree to help. Han, of course, is a little skeptical of just how much help a few cute fuzzballs can be against a whole garrison of stormtroopers...until he sees the hordes and hordes of silent, vicious Ewok warriors, their siege engines, their cunningly designed traps, and their collection of empty stormtrooper helmets (not even stormtroopers venture into the forest at night on Endor.)
As Luke prepares to face the Emperor, he is met by Yoda and Ben. Or rather, their blue ghost bodies. Yoda has died. Luke is truly the last of the Jedi...but yet, there is another hope. Yoda never told Luke, but he has a sister. If he fails, she will be the last hope of the Jedi Knights. But only by letting go of his attachment to his father and destroying Vader can Luke survive this final trial. Luke refuses. Surely, the three of them together can redeem Vader? Yoda shakes his head sadly. They cannot go into the presence of the Emperor, lest he destroy them. Luke will truly be all alone.
And here we go. Luke battles Vader, with the Emperor and thousands of stormtroopers looking on. Han and the gang attack the shield generator, with an Ewok army backing them up. The Rebel Alliance, led by Wedge, fight an army of bounty hunters, mercenaries, and the scum of the galaxy. The shields come down, the factories get bombed, Luke redeems Vader, who dies stopping the Emperor as the bombs begin to rain down upon them. Luke barely escapes the carnage, the Rebels send the bounty hunters packing, everyone returns for a celebration on Endor where Luke lets Leia know that they're family, which neatly skirts the issue of who she's going to start dating. And with the Emperor lost and the clone factories destroyed, the Empire seems to be finally on the run.
(Until the endless parade of tie-in novels, that is...)
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Under the Hood: Star Wars, Episode Five
This one actually changed in my head as I was planning to write it down, to be honest (he says as he continues his tale of how to rework the scripts of the six Star Wars films into a more consistent epic.) Originally, it was going to be a case of, "Don't change a thing," like Episode Four, but there's something that's nagged me about this movie ever since I saw the prequels, and that's Yoda. Because the whole point of the series is that Yoda is wrong. His philosophy is ultimately sterile, with no room for love or redemption. He's not the Wise Old Mentor, he's stern and unbending and ultimately, Luke proves him wrong by redeeming Anakin with the same love that Yoda insists is selfish and destructive. And that doesn't come across as well as it could, because Yoda's so awesome and well-done as the Wise Old Mentor that we just naturally want to believe him. (Look at all the Expanded Universe material. Everything from the RPG to the post-Star Wars novels uses Yoda's portrayal of a Manichean struggle between the Light and Dark Sides, not Luke's ability to love and fear and hate and grieve. Luke is balanced, that's what the prophecy that Lucas never really explained very well is all about.)
So the change that brings all that into sharp relief? When Vader lands his ship on Hoth, Luke is still there, moving from his snowspeeder to his X-Wing. The hangar is blocked off by an ice fall, and while he's using the Force to clear it, he tells Luke, "Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father, did he?"
Changes the film a bit, doesn't it? Suddenly, Luke isn't just a passive student accepting Yoda's philosphy, he's wondering why his father can't be saved. He isn't just blindly refusing to listen when Yoda tells him to abandon his friends, he's telling Yoda that the empty, sterile philosophy of placing a higher value on causes than on people is as wrong as Vader's desire for total control. His fight with Vader takes on a whole new dimension, as he tries to find a spark of good in his father while defending himself and instead ends up injured, weakened, clinging to the edge of the abyss in Bespin as Vader tells him that his only options are to give into his rage and fight, join Vader as his new apprentice, or be destroyed. And instead of simply falling, Luke's last gesture takes on a whole different meaning as he chooses to fall, rather than fight his father.
It does ruin the cliffhanger, of course, but by this point, anyone who's watched the films 1-6 knows that Vader is Luke's father anyway. (Just witness the torturous reworking of the scene between Vader and the Emperor in the DVD edition of the film, where Vader and the Emperor both try to avoid saying what they both know: "Oh, by the way, Luke's your kid!") Might as well let that bit go and try for the extra tension in the Dagobah scenes.
So the change that brings all that into sharp relief? When Vader lands his ship on Hoth, Luke is still there, moving from his snowspeeder to his X-Wing. The hangar is blocked off by an ice fall, and while he's using the Force to clear it, he tells Luke, "Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father, did he?"
Changes the film a bit, doesn't it? Suddenly, Luke isn't just a passive student accepting Yoda's philosphy, he's wondering why his father can't be saved. He isn't just blindly refusing to listen when Yoda tells him to abandon his friends, he's telling Yoda that the empty, sterile philosophy of placing a higher value on causes than on people is as wrong as Vader's desire for total control. His fight with Vader takes on a whole new dimension, as he tries to find a spark of good in his father while defending himself and instead ends up injured, weakened, clinging to the edge of the abyss in Bespin as Vader tells him that his only options are to give into his rage and fight, join Vader as his new apprentice, or be destroyed. And instead of simply falling, Luke's last gesture takes on a whole different meaning as he chooses to fall, rather than fight his father.
It does ruin the cliffhanger, of course, but by this point, anyone who's watched the films 1-6 knows that Vader is Luke's father anyway. (Just witness the torturous reworking of the scene between Vader and the Emperor in the DVD edition of the film, where Vader and the Emperor both try to avoid saying what they both know: "Oh, by the way, Luke's your kid!") Might as well let that bit go and try for the extra tension in the Dagobah scenes.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Under the Hood: Star Wars, Episode Four
Alright, maybe it's my inner child speaking, but the movie is nearly perfect as is. The only things I'd change, script-wise, in all of 'Star Wars: A New Hope', involve Greedo and Obi-Wan.
No, no, not the "Han shot first" thing. That's a given. But that scene could stand to make it clearer that Greedo is acting on a private grudge and exceeding the orders Jabba gave him, and that Jabba's still got some mercy left in him. Otherwise Han has no motive to flee the Battle of Yavin--why would he go back to Jabba if he's been explicitly told, "It's too late [to give him the money]." Plus, it makes the scene with Jabba less redundant--if you leave that scene out, Han should just stay the hell away. If you leave it in with both scenes as scripted, you're being told twice in ten minutes that Jabba's pissed, and that Han needs to get back in his good books. The Greedo scene is all about Han's willingness to play dirty if he has to in order to win the fight, nothing more. (Which is why it's even dumber to make Greedo shoot first.)
The other thing I'd change? The fight scene between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader now looks radically out of place next to the elaborate, choreographed sequences of the other movies. Every other film, Jedi are hyper-acrobatic wuxia masters who dazzle us with epic fight sequences...in Episode Four, it's two guys anemically clashing sabers together. Sure, they're both well past their prime, but...it could use work.
Other than that, every frame is perfect.
No, no, not the "Han shot first" thing. That's a given. But that scene could stand to make it clearer that Greedo is acting on a private grudge and exceeding the orders Jabba gave him, and that Jabba's still got some mercy left in him. Otherwise Han has no motive to flee the Battle of Yavin--why would he go back to Jabba if he's been explicitly told, "It's too late [to give him the money]." Plus, it makes the scene with Jabba less redundant--if you leave that scene out, Han should just stay the hell away. If you leave it in with both scenes as scripted, you're being told twice in ten minutes that Jabba's pissed, and that Han needs to get back in his good books. The Greedo scene is all about Han's willingness to play dirty if he has to in order to win the fight, nothing more. (Which is why it's even dumber to make Greedo shoot first.)
The other thing I'd change? The fight scene between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader now looks radically out of place next to the elaborate, choreographed sequences of the other movies. Every other film, Jedi are hyper-acrobatic wuxia masters who dazzle us with epic fight sequences...in Episode Four, it's two guys anemically clashing sabers together. Sure, they're both well past their prime, but...it could use work.
Other than that, every frame is perfect.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Under the Hood: Star Wars, Episode Three
Don't worry, the post about Doctor Who didn't replace this week's entry, it just added to it. I will continue with my quest to rework the Star Wars saga from the script up, in preparation for the inevitable cash-in remakes engineered by George Lucas' family once he dies! Whenever that might be, of course. Look, I'm not suggesting by any means that my readers should go kill George Lucas. And certainly not by using the swift, undetectable poison known as curare!
...but I'm rambling. Let's open this up, shall we?
At the start of 'Revenge of the Sith', Coruscant is now a much darker place. The Clone Wars have splintered the Republic, with the Separatist forces fighting a guerilla war against the powerful Republic Army. Chancellor Palpatine has been given virtually unlimited power to bring the Republic back together again, and the Senate is now stripped of much of its authority. Every day, Palpatine gives speeches from an undisclosed location (with the civil war going on, he's been targeted for assassination dozens of times) warning of the need for vigilance and unity among the peoples of the Republic.
Obi-Wan, as one of the dwindling numbers of Jedi, is working with the Republic Army to help root out traitors at home, under the command of an ambitious young Captain Tarkin. Tarkin has sent him after Senator Bail Organa, an Alderaanian who has been discovered to be secretly aiding the Separatists. But when Obi-Wan surprises the Senator at his apartments, Bail insists he has been framed. He doesn't want independence for Alderaan, he merely wants to end this war. Palpatine has gone too far, his zeal conceals a secret lust for power, and he's willing to go to any lengths to eliminate all challenges to his authority.
Even the Jedi, once the peacekeepers of the Republic, are now just one more obstacle to Palpatine's quest for absolute power...and he's eliminating them, silently and subtly. Jedi-led units have been sent into the worst of the fighting, they have taken the greatest casualties, and now only a few remain. By continuing to fight Palpatine's usurpation of power, Organa is a threat, and Tarkin hopes to curry favor with Palpatine by getting rid of him. Troubled by these words, and recognizing the truth of them, Obi-Wan decides to look the other way and allow Organa to escape, giving him time enough to prove his innocence.
Meanwhile, off near the Outer Rim, Palpatine personally directs the final assault on the secret Mandalorian clone factories from his personal command ship (the "undisclosed location" mentioned above.) His trusted general, Anakin Skywalker, leads the ground forces in a grim and bloody battle to take the cloneworld despite the hordes of Mandalorian soldiers pouring from the factories. In a final desperate tactic to hold the cloneworld, the Mandalorians send out wave after wave of unarmed clones as fast as the factories can crank them out, hoping to overwhelm the Republic's forces through sheer weight of numbers. But Anakin reaches the command center and shuts off the flow of clones, personally capturing the clonemasters and delivering them to Chancellor Palpatine.
The Chancellor returns to Coruscant in triumph, holding a victory celebration in which he announces the end of major military operations in the Clone Wars. The back of the Separatists have been broken, he announces. No longer can they hope to achieve a military victory. But this is not truly the end. The forces that seek to splinter the Great Republic will now attempt to achieve victory through subterfuge, treachery, and stealth. Now, the duty of the Republic must be to root out the traitors within. Now, the trusted few who have proven their loyalty (he here gestures to Anakin, standing at his right hand) will help to find these traitors, root them out, and destroy them. And they will be helped by the new Army of the Republic, the incorruptible army, the army that knows nothing but loyalty! With those words, ships land, and seemingly endless platoons of clone soldiers march out from them, all wearing white armor. The cloneworld's location remains a secret, but now a Republic state secret. And the clones have been reprogrammed to serve the Republic. (They've also been more or less lobotomized to ensure loyalty. The Mandalorian elite troopers are no more.)
Returning home to his wife, Queen Amidala, Anakin announces his big news. He's been promoted to Grand General! The Chancellor will be placing the occupied Separatist planets under the direct control of Republic governors, called "Moffs"--purely as a temporary measure, of course, until things return to normal. He doesn't understand why Amidala seems so upset about it all. She should be happy! She's expecting, he's rising in the Republic hierarchy, why can't she understand? Amidala tries to explain her fears of the death of freedom, but all Anakin can think of is that she's starting to sound like one of "them". Has she been speaking with Obi-Wan? She shouldn't associate with him. Palpatine has shown him evidence, proof of corruption within the heart of the Jedi order. Obi-Wan's behavior has been most suspicious. He may be a traitor. She shouldn't trust him.
Amidala tries to defend their old friend, which just drives Anakin to greater anger. Why would she possibly sympathize with a traitor to the Republic? Did she not understand the sacrifices Anakin has made for her, for the Republic itself? She's starting to sound like a traitor herself. What has she been doing these last eight months since he was last on Coruscant on leave? Has she been corrupted by Obi-Wan, perhaps gotten too close to him? How close? He's always known that she almost chose Obi-Wan over him, perhaps while he was off saving the galaxy, she's been cozying up to her old boyfriend! How does he even really know the baby is his? Perhaps she's a traitor and a whore both! The words spill into actions, as Anakin strikes his wife. Shocked with himself and with the welling fury that months and years of war have stoked, Anakin flees for guidance.
Anakin heads to Yoda, but ashamed of his actions, he discusses the events only in vague and hypothetical terms. Yoda, an unflinching absolutist, presents things in clear terms. The Light Side is harmony, the Dark Side is evil and chaos. Once you tread the path of the Dark Side, forever will it dominate your destiny. Anger and hatred cannot be contained, cannot be channeled. They must never be allowed to take root, or they will consume you. Needless to say, this is advice that seems to suggest to Anakin that he's already beyond hope. Thanking Yoda, he goes to his other spiritual mentor, Chancellor Palpatine, for guidance.
Meanwhile, Obi-Wan returns to his quarters, his mind troubled. The war has ended, but why then does the darkness seem to be encircling the Jedi order worse than ever? He wishes his old friend and former padawan was there to talk to. His relationship with Anakin may have become strained over the course of the war, but he knows that deep down, his old friend understands him. That's when he hears a knock at the door, and answers it to see a heavily-pregnant Amidala standing in the rain, a swelling bruise on her cheek, tears streaming down her face.
They talk, and Obi-Wan agrees that Anakin needs help and understanding, not confrontation. Many people have been changed by the worse in the war, but peace might bring healing. They just need to--Obi-Wan breaks off his speech, his Jedi senses suggesting something wrong. He races back to the outer room of his quarters, and sees that the door has been forced. Someone is in his quarters. Amidala worries that it might be Anakin--in his current mental state, if he sees the two of them together, he might reach a disastrously wrong conclusion. As the tension builds, Obi-Wan searches his apartments, and finds...
Count Dooku, also known as Darth Tyrannus, Leader of the Separatist Movement and Public Enemy Number One. Obi-Wan draws his lightsaber, but Dooku is there to talk. He explains the full truth--some time ago, after his retirement (and just after the events of Episode One), he met Chancellor Palpatine, and discovered that he was actually one of a secret order known as the Sith. These Sith were once Jedi, but they gave themselves wholly over to the Dark Side of the Force, and learned true greatness from it. True strength must always come from anger. True power comes from our fear, our hatred. Without it, we will always be pale shadows of those who possess it. The Sith spread like a virus before the Jedi decided, long long ago, to dispassionately exterminate them.
Ever since, the remaining Sith have operated in secret. A Sith only takes one apprentice at a time, teaching him until the apprentice has gained the skill to murder the master...or until they fail. Failure has only one punishment for a Sith apprentice. This cannibalistic duo has existed in secret for thousands of years, honing their skills, biding their time, master killing apprentice or apprentice killing master, waiting for their chance to gain the power to exterminate the Jedi order. Waiting for their revenge. Dooku learned from Palpatine, or as he is secretly known, Darth Sidious. He became his apprentice, and the two of them planned to foment a war that would allow them to consolidate the entire power of the Republic under one man, all the better to wipe out the Jedi with.
But now, Dooku has realized that he has been outgamed. His forces have been defeated, as they had planned all along (who else could have leaked the location of the cloneworld to the Republic Army?)...but he has become the public face of the Separatist Movement, the disposable scapegoat for all the crimes of the war. Worse still, he knows too much about Palpatine's manipulations. Palpatine has to kill him, Dooku realizes that now. Sidious has chosen a new apprentice, a new vessel for the Sith. One who has grown powerful with hatred over the course of the war, one whom Sidious has groomed to stand at his right hand. Amidala asks who it is, but she already knows the answer in her heart...
And that's when Anakin arrives in person, having been warned by Palpatine that his friends and lovers are traitors to the cause. He'd come to give them one final chance to deny it, but seeing Obi-Wan and Amidala together, and together with the head of the Separatists, well...that's enough to spark his fury. He duels with Obi-Wan, who's unwilling to truly fight his old friend. Dooku doesn't mind, though, kicking Anakin's ass and preparing to kill him before Obi-Wan and Amidala demand he be spared. They decide to flee Coruscant, instead, heading for the Outer Rim where Obi-Wan can lose pursuit among the sparsely-settled planets beyond the Republic.
On regaining consciousness, Anakin returns to Palpatine to admit his failure. Palpatine understands, though. He was duped by trust, kindness, love...the fool's emotions. Emotions he has grown beyond, emotions he must purge. Palpatine can help. He knows the truth of the Dark Side, has known it all along and was merely waiting for Anakin to advance far enough along the path to be able to see it. He will show Anakin the path of the Sith...and together, they will destroy all the traitors to the Republic. They will crush the disloyal Jedi, Darth Sidious...and Darth Vader.
Vader and Palpatine march on the Jedi temple, an army of stormtroopers at their back. They demand that the Jedi give up all the traitors, or be considered enemies of the state in their entirety. Yoda scoffs at the demand, sensing anger, hatred, greed...the Dark Side no longer concealed in their enemies, but open and unbound. He denounces Palpatine as the true evil at the heart of the Republic. Hearing that is enough for Vader--denouncing the Chancellor? Treachery! A massive battle breaks out, and Yoda orders all Jedi to flee as best they can. In the fray, most Jedi are killed, and the survivors routed--Yoda remains as the last defender of the temple, and he and Palpatine do battle with lightsabers, telekinesis, force lightning, the whole works. Yoda even seems to be winning, until Palpatine pulls out his trump card. The planet Kashyyyk. Occupied by a full garrison of Republic clone troops...with orders to kill every inhabitant, should the Chancellor die. Palpatine offers Yoda a bargain. He may live, as may the wookies of Kashyyyk...but he must go into exile. The moment he is heard from again, anywhere in the Republic, a world dies. Saddened and shamed, Yoda must nonetheless acquiesce.
Finally, Darth Sidious strides into the Jedi temple, the revenge of the Sith complete. "Long have we waited for this day," he says to Vader. "Your triumph can never be complete," Qui-Gon Jinn says, his spirit form appearing along with those of all the deceased Jedi. "Our flesh may have perished, but a true Jedi is more than mere flesh. We are spirit, eternal. You cannot destroy that." Sidious smiles. "You don't know the power of the Dark Side," he says, and red force lighting boils from his fingertips, annhilating the souls of the Jedi, their ancient wisdom and timeless knowledge. Even the spirits of the Jedi perish, this dark day.
Obi-Wan feels this agony even from light-years away, and knows that Sidious and Vader will come for them. They've been moving slowly, carefully, trying to avoid the well-traveled spacelanes to keep free of Republic entanglements, but there's one last checkpoint that will be difficult to avoid; the primordial world of Mustafar, whose geothermal energy is converted into fuel for thousands of starships. They will have to pass through there before they can get to the Outer Rim.
In a tense sequence, Obi-Wan and Dooku leave to get supplies and equipment after concealing their ship in a crater on the far side of a lava sea. They dodge patrols, use Jedi powers to cloud the weak minds of the stormtroopers, and barely get what they need without being discovered...but on their return, Vader and Sidious await them on the bridge over the lava sea that leads back to their ship. The final battle of the Clone Wars begins.
Dooku takes on Palpatine, Anakin fights Obi-Wan. Both masters fight their own apprentices, and both lose. Dooku is no match for the greatest master of the Dark Side the Sith has ever known, and although he is skilled and powerful, Sidious is clearly toying with him, mocking him. Anakin fights with fury and rage, and Obi-Wan can't help but see his own failures as a teacher when he looks at the twisted hatred on his former friend's face...but when Amidala arrives to see what's become of the others, Anakin is tempted with one last chance to turn to the Light.
But no. It's too late for him now. Yoda was right. There is no redemption. He turns on Obi-Wan with savage fury, destroying his lightsaber, forcing him to the very edge of the rock bridge over a sea of lava. Obi-Wan asks one final time, is there nothing left of his friend? Anakin snarls out, "Anakin Skywalker is dead." "I know," Obi-Wan says. "And I'm sorry." And with that, he gestures, pulling a geyser of lava up from below with his telekinesis and splashing it into Vader's face. Vader screams and drops his lightsaber, staggers backwards, and a force push sends him hurtling back into the lava. Amidala collapses in shock and sorrow...and perhaps something else?
Obi-Wan turns to help Dooku, but he's clearly beyond help. He's on his last legs, barely alive, but determined to gain a final pyrrhic victory. He grabs Palpatine and sends them both on a suicidal plunge into the lava below. The Sith seem, at last, to be gone. Obi-Wan races to Amidala's side, and there, at the scene of the death of her husband, she gives birth to her children--the second one surprising everyone. (Hey, it happens sometimes. Doctors can make mistakes.) Obi-Wan takes Anakin's lightsaber, and the four of them depart.
And Palpatine rises up from the lava below, holding it back with nothing but the power of the Force. He carries Vader's burnt and blackened body in his arms, walking out of the lava, the stress aging him with every moment, but refusing to give in to death. After all, he has an Empire to run...
But Amidala and Obi-Wan escape. They decide to split the children up--Bail Organa, now exonerated, agrees to hide Amidala and Leia with him; he will raise Leia as his own daughter, and hide Amidala in the guise of his governess. Obi-Wan takes Luke out to the Outer Rim, to be raised by an old friend of his, Owen Lars, on the desolate planet of Tatooine. Anakin Skywalker might remember that planet, might even look for his son there. But Anakin Skywalker is dead now. Only Darth Vader remains.
...but I'm rambling. Let's open this up, shall we?
At the start of 'Revenge of the Sith', Coruscant is now a much darker place. The Clone Wars have splintered the Republic, with the Separatist forces fighting a guerilla war against the powerful Republic Army. Chancellor Palpatine has been given virtually unlimited power to bring the Republic back together again, and the Senate is now stripped of much of its authority. Every day, Palpatine gives speeches from an undisclosed location (with the civil war going on, he's been targeted for assassination dozens of times) warning of the need for vigilance and unity among the peoples of the Republic.
Obi-Wan, as one of the dwindling numbers of Jedi, is working with the Republic Army to help root out traitors at home, under the command of an ambitious young Captain Tarkin. Tarkin has sent him after Senator Bail Organa, an Alderaanian who has been discovered to be secretly aiding the Separatists. But when Obi-Wan surprises the Senator at his apartments, Bail insists he has been framed. He doesn't want independence for Alderaan, he merely wants to end this war. Palpatine has gone too far, his zeal conceals a secret lust for power, and he's willing to go to any lengths to eliminate all challenges to his authority.
Even the Jedi, once the peacekeepers of the Republic, are now just one more obstacle to Palpatine's quest for absolute power...and he's eliminating them, silently and subtly. Jedi-led units have been sent into the worst of the fighting, they have taken the greatest casualties, and now only a few remain. By continuing to fight Palpatine's usurpation of power, Organa is a threat, and Tarkin hopes to curry favor with Palpatine by getting rid of him. Troubled by these words, and recognizing the truth of them, Obi-Wan decides to look the other way and allow Organa to escape, giving him time enough to prove his innocence.
Meanwhile, off near the Outer Rim, Palpatine personally directs the final assault on the secret Mandalorian clone factories from his personal command ship (the "undisclosed location" mentioned above.) His trusted general, Anakin Skywalker, leads the ground forces in a grim and bloody battle to take the cloneworld despite the hordes of Mandalorian soldiers pouring from the factories. In a final desperate tactic to hold the cloneworld, the Mandalorians send out wave after wave of unarmed clones as fast as the factories can crank them out, hoping to overwhelm the Republic's forces through sheer weight of numbers. But Anakin reaches the command center and shuts off the flow of clones, personally capturing the clonemasters and delivering them to Chancellor Palpatine.
The Chancellor returns to Coruscant in triumph, holding a victory celebration in which he announces the end of major military operations in the Clone Wars. The back of the Separatists have been broken, he announces. No longer can they hope to achieve a military victory. But this is not truly the end. The forces that seek to splinter the Great Republic will now attempt to achieve victory through subterfuge, treachery, and stealth. Now, the duty of the Republic must be to root out the traitors within. Now, the trusted few who have proven their loyalty (he here gestures to Anakin, standing at his right hand) will help to find these traitors, root them out, and destroy them. And they will be helped by the new Army of the Republic, the incorruptible army, the army that knows nothing but loyalty! With those words, ships land, and seemingly endless platoons of clone soldiers march out from them, all wearing white armor. The cloneworld's location remains a secret, but now a Republic state secret. And the clones have been reprogrammed to serve the Republic. (They've also been more or less lobotomized to ensure loyalty. The Mandalorian elite troopers are no more.)
Returning home to his wife, Queen Amidala, Anakin announces his big news. He's been promoted to Grand General! The Chancellor will be placing the occupied Separatist planets under the direct control of Republic governors, called "Moffs"--purely as a temporary measure, of course, until things return to normal. He doesn't understand why Amidala seems so upset about it all. She should be happy! She's expecting, he's rising in the Republic hierarchy, why can't she understand? Amidala tries to explain her fears of the death of freedom, but all Anakin can think of is that she's starting to sound like one of "them". Has she been speaking with Obi-Wan? She shouldn't associate with him. Palpatine has shown him evidence, proof of corruption within the heart of the Jedi order. Obi-Wan's behavior has been most suspicious. He may be a traitor. She shouldn't trust him.
Amidala tries to defend their old friend, which just drives Anakin to greater anger. Why would she possibly sympathize with a traitor to the Republic? Did she not understand the sacrifices Anakin has made for her, for the Republic itself? She's starting to sound like a traitor herself. What has she been doing these last eight months since he was last on Coruscant on leave? Has she been corrupted by Obi-Wan, perhaps gotten too close to him? How close? He's always known that she almost chose Obi-Wan over him, perhaps while he was off saving the galaxy, she's been cozying up to her old boyfriend! How does he even really know the baby is his? Perhaps she's a traitor and a whore both! The words spill into actions, as Anakin strikes his wife. Shocked with himself and with the welling fury that months and years of war have stoked, Anakin flees for guidance.
Anakin heads to Yoda, but ashamed of his actions, he discusses the events only in vague and hypothetical terms. Yoda, an unflinching absolutist, presents things in clear terms. The Light Side is harmony, the Dark Side is evil and chaos. Once you tread the path of the Dark Side, forever will it dominate your destiny. Anger and hatred cannot be contained, cannot be channeled. They must never be allowed to take root, or they will consume you. Needless to say, this is advice that seems to suggest to Anakin that he's already beyond hope. Thanking Yoda, he goes to his other spiritual mentor, Chancellor Palpatine, for guidance.
Meanwhile, Obi-Wan returns to his quarters, his mind troubled. The war has ended, but why then does the darkness seem to be encircling the Jedi order worse than ever? He wishes his old friend and former padawan was there to talk to. His relationship with Anakin may have become strained over the course of the war, but he knows that deep down, his old friend understands him. That's when he hears a knock at the door, and answers it to see a heavily-pregnant Amidala standing in the rain, a swelling bruise on her cheek, tears streaming down her face.
They talk, and Obi-Wan agrees that Anakin needs help and understanding, not confrontation. Many people have been changed by the worse in the war, but peace might bring healing. They just need to--Obi-Wan breaks off his speech, his Jedi senses suggesting something wrong. He races back to the outer room of his quarters, and sees that the door has been forced. Someone is in his quarters. Amidala worries that it might be Anakin--in his current mental state, if he sees the two of them together, he might reach a disastrously wrong conclusion. As the tension builds, Obi-Wan searches his apartments, and finds...
Count Dooku, also known as Darth Tyrannus, Leader of the Separatist Movement and Public Enemy Number One. Obi-Wan draws his lightsaber, but Dooku is there to talk. He explains the full truth--some time ago, after his retirement (and just after the events of Episode One), he met Chancellor Palpatine, and discovered that he was actually one of a secret order known as the Sith. These Sith were once Jedi, but they gave themselves wholly over to the Dark Side of the Force, and learned true greatness from it. True strength must always come from anger. True power comes from our fear, our hatred. Without it, we will always be pale shadows of those who possess it. The Sith spread like a virus before the Jedi decided, long long ago, to dispassionately exterminate them.
Ever since, the remaining Sith have operated in secret. A Sith only takes one apprentice at a time, teaching him until the apprentice has gained the skill to murder the master...or until they fail. Failure has only one punishment for a Sith apprentice. This cannibalistic duo has existed in secret for thousands of years, honing their skills, biding their time, master killing apprentice or apprentice killing master, waiting for their chance to gain the power to exterminate the Jedi order. Waiting for their revenge. Dooku learned from Palpatine, or as he is secretly known, Darth Sidious. He became his apprentice, and the two of them planned to foment a war that would allow them to consolidate the entire power of the Republic under one man, all the better to wipe out the Jedi with.
But now, Dooku has realized that he has been outgamed. His forces have been defeated, as they had planned all along (who else could have leaked the location of the cloneworld to the Republic Army?)...but he has become the public face of the Separatist Movement, the disposable scapegoat for all the crimes of the war. Worse still, he knows too much about Palpatine's manipulations. Palpatine has to kill him, Dooku realizes that now. Sidious has chosen a new apprentice, a new vessel for the Sith. One who has grown powerful with hatred over the course of the war, one whom Sidious has groomed to stand at his right hand. Amidala asks who it is, but she already knows the answer in her heart...
And that's when Anakin arrives in person, having been warned by Palpatine that his friends and lovers are traitors to the cause. He'd come to give them one final chance to deny it, but seeing Obi-Wan and Amidala together, and together with the head of the Separatists, well...that's enough to spark his fury. He duels with Obi-Wan, who's unwilling to truly fight his old friend. Dooku doesn't mind, though, kicking Anakin's ass and preparing to kill him before Obi-Wan and Amidala demand he be spared. They decide to flee Coruscant, instead, heading for the Outer Rim where Obi-Wan can lose pursuit among the sparsely-settled planets beyond the Republic.
On regaining consciousness, Anakin returns to Palpatine to admit his failure. Palpatine understands, though. He was duped by trust, kindness, love...the fool's emotions. Emotions he has grown beyond, emotions he must purge. Palpatine can help. He knows the truth of the Dark Side, has known it all along and was merely waiting for Anakin to advance far enough along the path to be able to see it. He will show Anakin the path of the Sith...and together, they will destroy all the traitors to the Republic. They will crush the disloyal Jedi, Darth Sidious...and Darth Vader.
Vader and Palpatine march on the Jedi temple, an army of stormtroopers at their back. They demand that the Jedi give up all the traitors, or be considered enemies of the state in their entirety. Yoda scoffs at the demand, sensing anger, hatred, greed...the Dark Side no longer concealed in their enemies, but open and unbound. He denounces Palpatine as the true evil at the heart of the Republic. Hearing that is enough for Vader--denouncing the Chancellor? Treachery! A massive battle breaks out, and Yoda orders all Jedi to flee as best they can. In the fray, most Jedi are killed, and the survivors routed--Yoda remains as the last defender of the temple, and he and Palpatine do battle with lightsabers, telekinesis, force lightning, the whole works. Yoda even seems to be winning, until Palpatine pulls out his trump card. The planet Kashyyyk. Occupied by a full garrison of Republic clone troops...with orders to kill every inhabitant, should the Chancellor die. Palpatine offers Yoda a bargain. He may live, as may the wookies of Kashyyyk...but he must go into exile. The moment he is heard from again, anywhere in the Republic, a world dies. Saddened and shamed, Yoda must nonetheless acquiesce.
Finally, Darth Sidious strides into the Jedi temple, the revenge of the Sith complete. "Long have we waited for this day," he says to Vader. "Your triumph can never be complete," Qui-Gon Jinn says, his spirit form appearing along with those of all the deceased Jedi. "Our flesh may have perished, but a true Jedi is more than mere flesh. We are spirit, eternal. You cannot destroy that." Sidious smiles. "You don't know the power of the Dark Side," he says, and red force lighting boils from his fingertips, annhilating the souls of the Jedi, their ancient wisdom and timeless knowledge. Even the spirits of the Jedi perish, this dark day.
Obi-Wan feels this agony even from light-years away, and knows that Sidious and Vader will come for them. They've been moving slowly, carefully, trying to avoid the well-traveled spacelanes to keep free of Republic entanglements, but there's one last checkpoint that will be difficult to avoid; the primordial world of Mustafar, whose geothermal energy is converted into fuel for thousands of starships. They will have to pass through there before they can get to the Outer Rim.
In a tense sequence, Obi-Wan and Dooku leave to get supplies and equipment after concealing their ship in a crater on the far side of a lava sea. They dodge patrols, use Jedi powers to cloud the weak minds of the stormtroopers, and barely get what they need without being discovered...but on their return, Vader and Sidious await them on the bridge over the lava sea that leads back to their ship. The final battle of the Clone Wars begins.
Dooku takes on Palpatine, Anakin fights Obi-Wan. Both masters fight their own apprentices, and both lose. Dooku is no match for the greatest master of the Dark Side the Sith has ever known, and although he is skilled and powerful, Sidious is clearly toying with him, mocking him. Anakin fights with fury and rage, and Obi-Wan can't help but see his own failures as a teacher when he looks at the twisted hatred on his former friend's face...but when Amidala arrives to see what's become of the others, Anakin is tempted with one last chance to turn to the Light.
But no. It's too late for him now. Yoda was right. There is no redemption. He turns on Obi-Wan with savage fury, destroying his lightsaber, forcing him to the very edge of the rock bridge over a sea of lava. Obi-Wan asks one final time, is there nothing left of his friend? Anakin snarls out, "Anakin Skywalker is dead." "I know," Obi-Wan says. "And I'm sorry." And with that, he gestures, pulling a geyser of lava up from below with his telekinesis and splashing it into Vader's face. Vader screams and drops his lightsaber, staggers backwards, and a force push sends him hurtling back into the lava. Amidala collapses in shock and sorrow...and perhaps something else?
Obi-Wan turns to help Dooku, but he's clearly beyond help. He's on his last legs, barely alive, but determined to gain a final pyrrhic victory. He grabs Palpatine and sends them both on a suicidal plunge into the lava below. The Sith seem, at last, to be gone. Obi-Wan races to Amidala's side, and there, at the scene of the death of her husband, she gives birth to her children--the second one surprising everyone. (Hey, it happens sometimes. Doctors can make mistakes.) Obi-Wan takes Anakin's lightsaber, and the four of them depart.
And Palpatine rises up from the lava below, holding it back with nothing but the power of the Force. He carries Vader's burnt and blackened body in his arms, walking out of the lava, the stress aging him with every moment, but refusing to give in to death. After all, he has an Empire to run...
But Amidala and Obi-Wan escape. They decide to split the children up--Bail Organa, now exonerated, agrees to hide Amidala and Leia with him; he will raise Leia as his own daughter, and hide Amidala in the guise of his governess. Obi-Wan takes Luke out to the Outer Rim, to be raised by an old friend of his, Owen Lars, on the desolate planet of Tatooine. Anakin Skywalker might remember that planet, might even look for his son there. But Anakin Skywalker is dead now. Only Darth Vader remains.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Under the Hood: Star Wars, Episode Two
So where were we? Ah, yes. 'Attack of the Clones'. The one title that everyone really hates. Everyone wanted this one to be called 'The Clone Wars', but it doesn't really sound as "Saturday morning serial" as the other five films. Even so, it's a title that doesn't suck, which puts it head and shoulders above the one Lucas used.
We pick up the action a few years after the events of 'The Phantom Menace', on Coruscant. Queen Amidala has come to the Republic's heart to try to find some way out of what seems to be a brewing civil war; although their attempt to seize Naboo failed, the Trade Federation continues to foment unrest throughout the Republic. Although the Queen doesn't want to see chaos spread, she also believes that Chancellor Palpatine's heavy-handed methods are making the situation worse. She's hoping to speak privately to him, and convince him to find common cause with the Separatists.
Her attempt fails almost before it's begun, as her ship is destroyed by a Separatist bomb just moments after she leaves it. Even here, on the Republic homeworld, Separatist threats lurk. The Jedi assign her two old friends to protect her, Obi-Wan Kenobi and his padawan, Anakin Skywalker, both recently returned from an extended peacekeeping mission on the Outer Rim of the galaxy. But Amidala is shocked to find that during the period she's been separated from her friends, Obi-Wan's relationship with Anakin has deteriorated. Obi-Wan is scarcely older than his student, and Anakin has proved to be powerful in the ways of the Force. Anakin challenges his mentor's every decision, and Obi-Wan over-exerts his authority in an attempt to get his student to listen. And far from smoothing things over, Amidala's return makes things worse...Anakin seems to remember all too well that he had a friendly rivalry with Obi-Wan over her affections.
Despite this, the two work together elegantly to stop another attack on her life, this one from an assassin equipped with strange weaponry. He fails in the attempt, but ominously, he manages to hold off two well-trained Jedi and make his escape using a jetpack device unknown to the Republic before now. This new development prompts Chancellor Palpatine to postpone his meeting with the Queen; two attempts on her life in as many days makes it clear that Coruscant is not safe for her. He confers with the Jedi Council, and they agree to send Amidala into hiding, with Anakin as her bodyguard, while Obi-Wan (as the more experienced of the two) tracks down these killers and ensures the Queen's safety on a more permanent level.
Obi-Wan takes the clues (a tiny dart left by the mysterious assailant, and his description of the attacker) to the Jedi Archives, but finds nothing. To all the recorded histories of the Jedi, it is as if the attacker never existed. Frustrated, he turns to the Jedi Spirit Halls, where the Jedi whose physical forms have died rest in spiritual form, dispensing advice to the living Jedi. Sure enough, his old mentor, Qui-Gon Jinn, recognizes the dart as an artifact of the legendary Mandalorian technocrats, a species from the Outer Rim who are experts in every kind of science. But Qui-Gon is puzzled...the Mandalorians have been reclusive for some time, but the Archive should have records of them. It doesn't seem possible, but the Jedi Archives might have been tampered with. This revelation unsettles Obi-Wan more than any mystery assassin could as he sets off for Mandalor.
Meanwhile, Anakin takes Amidala off to the more obscure parts of the Republic. But the assassin follows them everywhere--Anakin does battle with him on the forest world of Yavin, and finds that this mysterious "Boba Fett" is the equal of a Jedi in combat. Anakin hadn't even imagined this to be possible; the Jedi are supposed to be warriors without compare, the elite defence forces of the Republic. A lone Jedi is as great a threat as a company of soldiers...but Boba Fett is as great a threat as a Jedi.
Obi-Wan arrives at Mandalor to find it the center of a convocation of Separatist forces. Pretty much every known Separatist planet has representatives here; Obi-Wan even spots some aliens he had no idea were preparing to defect. Clearly, the Mandalorians are a major part of the conspiracy against the Republic. Obi-Wan sends a signal back to Coruscant, then goes to investigate further. He soon finds that he's not alone; he senses the presence of a familiar Jedi, the aged (but spry) Count...oh, does he have to be called "Dooku"? It really sounds like a Muppet of some sort. Perhaps "Doku", or "Doka." (As with "Jar Jar", we'll stick with the movie name to avoid confusion for now.) In any event, his mentor's mentor, Qui-Gon's teacher. Dooku also discovered the Mandalorians' involvement, and came to this planet to find out what the Mandalorians are providing the Separatists. He may be old, but an old Jedi is a Jedi nonetheless.
Anakin and Amidala have fled further out from Boba Fett's pursuit, out near the Outer Rim (where Anakin and Obi-Wan have just spent the last few years, learning the territory almost as well as a native.) Despite the danger, or perhaps because of it, the two are drawn together and Amidala admits that she missed him more than she's been willing to say. He suggests that maybe, when the danger is over, they could have a real relationship, as man and woman instead of Queen and Jedi...but Amidala doubts it would ever happen. She cannot stop being a queen (because they're not elected...) and his commitment to the Jedi order is not lightly broken. Anakin refuses to give up his dreams, but the conversation remains unfinished as they pick up a signal from a Republic ship, a rarity in this sector of space. The transmission was intended for Coruscant, but it has been partially blocked, its signal strength reduced to the point where it could never have reached the Republic homeworld. (Yeah, one guess as to who it's from. Look one paragraph up.)
Obi-Wan and Dooku continue searching for the Mandalorians' secret, and they find it. Oh, wow do they find it...an entire army of clones, produced on a secret clone factory elsewhere in the Outer Rim, and all equipped with Mandalorian weaponry. Turns out Boba Fett is just the most accomplished Mandalorian warrior, not the only one by far. Obi-Wan tells Dooku that they need to find the location of the Mandalorian cloneworld, or the Republic may be in dire peril. Dooku spins, placing his lightsaber against Obi-Wan's throat. "I know exactly where it is," he says.
Now a captive, Obi-Wan rails against Dooku's betrayal. Dooku explains that the Republic has grown corrupt, that sinister forces have gained play even in its very heart. He believes that Obi-Wan can help, though. If Obi-Wan agrees to become his apprentice, to learn new, secret techniques that Dooku has mastered, perhaps they can together rebuild the Republic as something worth fighting for. Obi-Wan refuses, but Dooku points out that he has nothing but time to consider the offer, now.
Things more or less follow the original movie from here. Anakin and Amidala go to rescue Obi-Wan, and get in over their heads. (No giant Roman gladiatorial arena, though. Just an increasingly desperate series of battles, as Amidala finds out that she's a target due to her symbolic value as Queen of Naboo, where the civil war first began.) Anakin reveals that he called for reinforcements before going to help Obi-Wan, and Jedi show up to save the day. Then the Jedi get in over their heads, and the entire Republic army shows up to save the day. Dooku escapes after a battle with Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda (yes, I'm keeping the Yoda battle; I'm a huge Hong Kong movie fan, and the whole "old master looks frail and feeble but seriously kicks ass" trope is one of my favorites.) The Republic wins a battle, but much of the Separatist army manages to retreat, and no prisoners seem to know the location of the secret cloneworld. The Clone Wars begin.
And back on Coruscant, Dooku lands a secret craft in the heart of the Republic. He confers with Darth Sidious, who calls him "Darth Tyrannus" and compares notes with him on their plan to create a civil war in the Republic. "Soon, the Jedi will fall..." Sidious notes, taking off his hood, "and the dominion of the Sith will be complete." And Dooku smiles as he and Chancellor Palpatine part ways to plot the downfall of a Republic.
We pick up the action a few years after the events of 'The Phantom Menace', on Coruscant. Queen Amidala has come to the Republic's heart to try to find some way out of what seems to be a brewing civil war; although their attempt to seize Naboo failed, the Trade Federation continues to foment unrest throughout the Republic. Although the Queen doesn't want to see chaos spread, she also believes that Chancellor Palpatine's heavy-handed methods are making the situation worse. She's hoping to speak privately to him, and convince him to find common cause with the Separatists.
Her attempt fails almost before it's begun, as her ship is destroyed by a Separatist bomb just moments after she leaves it. Even here, on the Republic homeworld, Separatist threats lurk. The Jedi assign her two old friends to protect her, Obi-Wan Kenobi and his padawan, Anakin Skywalker, both recently returned from an extended peacekeeping mission on the Outer Rim of the galaxy. But Amidala is shocked to find that during the period she's been separated from her friends, Obi-Wan's relationship with Anakin has deteriorated. Obi-Wan is scarcely older than his student, and Anakin has proved to be powerful in the ways of the Force. Anakin challenges his mentor's every decision, and Obi-Wan over-exerts his authority in an attempt to get his student to listen. And far from smoothing things over, Amidala's return makes things worse...Anakin seems to remember all too well that he had a friendly rivalry with Obi-Wan over her affections.
Despite this, the two work together elegantly to stop another attack on her life, this one from an assassin equipped with strange weaponry. He fails in the attempt, but ominously, he manages to hold off two well-trained Jedi and make his escape using a jetpack device unknown to the Republic before now. This new development prompts Chancellor Palpatine to postpone his meeting with the Queen; two attempts on her life in as many days makes it clear that Coruscant is not safe for her. He confers with the Jedi Council, and they agree to send Amidala into hiding, with Anakin as her bodyguard, while Obi-Wan (as the more experienced of the two) tracks down these killers and ensures the Queen's safety on a more permanent level.
Obi-Wan takes the clues (a tiny dart left by the mysterious assailant, and his description of the attacker) to the Jedi Archives, but finds nothing. To all the recorded histories of the Jedi, it is as if the attacker never existed. Frustrated, he turns to the Jedi Spirit Halls, where the Jedi whose physical forms have died rest in spiritual form, dispensing advice to the living Jedi. Sure enough, his old mentor, Qui-Gon Jinn, recognizes the dart as an artifact of the legendary Mandalorian technocrats, a species from the Outer Rim who are experts in every kind of science. But Qui-Gon is puzzled...the Mandalorians have been reclusive for some time, but the Archive should have records of them. It doesn't seem possible, but the Jedi Archives might have been tampered with. This revelation unsettles Obi-Wan more than any mystery assassin could as he sets off for Mandalor.
Meanwhile, Anakin takes Amidala off to the more obscure parts of the Republic. But the assassin follows them everywhere--Anakin does battle with him on the forest world of Yavin, and finds that this mysterious "Boba Fett" is the equal of a Jedi in combat. Anakin hadn't even imagined this to be possible; the Jedi are supposed to be warriors without compare, the elite defence forces of the Republic. A lone Jedi is as great a threat as a company of soldiers...but Boba Fett is as great a threat as a Jedi.
Obi-Wan arrives at Mandalor to find it the center of a convocation of Separatist forces. Pretty much every known Separatist planet has representatives here; Obi-Wan even spots some aliens he had no idea were preparing to defect. Clearly, the Mandalorians are a major part of the conspiracy against the Republic. Obi-Wan sends a signal back to Coruscant, then goes to investigate further. He soon finds that he's not alone; he senses the presence of a familiar Jedi, the aged (but spry) Count...oh, does he have to be called "Dooku"? It really sounds like a Muppet of some sort. Perhaps "Doku", or "Doka." (As with "Jar Jar", we'll stick with the movie name to avoid confusion for now.) In any event, his mentor's mentor, Qui-Gon's teacher. Dooku also discovered the Mandalorians' involvement, and came to this planet to find out what the Mandalorians are providing the Separatists. He may be old, but an old Jedi is a Jedi nonetheless.
Anakin and Amidala have fled further out from Boba Fett's pursuit, out near the Outer Rim (where Anakin and Obi-Wan have just spent the last few years, learning the territory almost as well as a native.) Despite the danger, or perhaps because of it, the two are drawn together and Amidala admits that she missed him more than she's been willing to say. He suggests that maybe, when the danger is over, they could have a real relationship, as man and woman instead of Queen and Jedi...but Amidala doubts it would ever happen. She cannot stop being a queen (because they're not elected...) and his commitment to the Jedi order is not lightly broken. Anakin refuses to give up his dreams, but the conversation remains unfinished as they pick up a signal from a Republic ship, a rarity in this sector of space. The transmission was intended for Coruscant, but it has been partially blocked, its signal strength reduced to the point where it could never have reached the Republic homeworld. (Yeah, one guess as to who it's from. Look one paragraph up.)
Obi-Wan and Dooku continue searching for the Mandalorians' secret, and they find it. Oh, wow do they find it...an entire army of clones, produced on a secret clone factory elsewhere in the Outer Rim, and all equipped with Mandalorian weaponry. Turns out Boba Fett is just the most accomplished Mandalorian warrior, not the only one by far. Obi-Wan tells Dooku that they need to find the location of the Mandalorian cloneworld, or the Republic may be in dire peril. Dooku spins, placing his lightsaber against Obi-Wan's throat. "I know exactly where it is," he says.
Now a captive, Obi-Wan rails against Dooku's betrayal. Dooku explains that the Republic has grown corrupt, that sinister forces have gained play even in its very heart. He believes that Obi-Wan can help, though. If Obi-Wan agrees to become his apprentice, to learn new, secret techniques that Dooku has mastered, perhaps they can together rebuild the Republic as something worth fighting for. Obi-Wan refuses, but Dooku points out that he has nothing but time to consider the offer, now.
Things more or less follow the original movie from here. Anakin and Amidala go to rescue Obi-Wan, and get in over their heads. (No giant Roman gladiatorial arena, though. Just an increasingly desperate series of battles, as Amidala finds out that she's a target due to her symbolic value as Queen of Naboo, where the civil war first began.) Anakin reveals that he called for reinforcements before going to help Obi-Wan, and Jedi show up to save the day. Then the Jedi get in over their heads, and the entire Republic army shows up to save the day. Dooku escapes after a battle with Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda (yes, I'm keeping the Yoda battle; I'm a huge Hong Kong movie fan, and the whole "old master looks frail and feeble but seriously kicks ass" trope is one of my favorites.) The Republic wins a battle, but much of the Separatist army manages to retreat, and no prisoners seem to know the location of the secret cloneworld. The Clone Wars begin.
And back on Coruscant, Dooku lands a secret craft in the heart of the Republic. He confers with Darth Sidious, who calls him "Darth Tyrannus" and compares notes with him on their plan to create a civil war in the Republic. "Soon, the Jedi will fall..." Sidious notes, taking off his hood, "and the dominion of the Sith will be complete." And Dooku smiles as he and Chancellor Palpatine part ways to plot the downfall of a Republic.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Under the Hood: Star Wars, Episode One
So at this point, my computer refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Internet, which means I can't surf the web, check my email, or illegally download Doctor Who. (I'm typing this on my room-mate's computer; he will be handling the illegal-download duties this week.) But you didn't come here to hear about my problems, you came here to listen to me yammer about random stuff!
A few years back, I found myself discussing the Star Wars prequels with a friend I've unfortunately lost touch with. We were talking about how much they sucked, to be specific, and how easy it would be to rework them into something better. We came up with plans for revised versions of all six movies (as we pretty much took it as a given, even back in 2002, that Episode Three wasn't going to be a classic.) Today, I'm going to share with you our views on what needed to happen to Episode One, the Phantom Menace!
First, the story needed to begin in mid-battle. We never see the droid troopers in battle against anything other than Jedi for the first three-quarters of the movie, and the Jedi basically school them. Which makes the battle droids appear weak and unthreatening (and their spindly design and comedy voices don't help.) So our Episode One opens with the Trade Federation fleets (and needless to say, our Trade Federation aliens would have their own language, with subtitles) attacking the peaceful planet of Naboo (except that Naboo would probably have a less silly name in our version.) Droid soldiers (who would look more like the droids in Episode Two, with stockier bodies and deeper voices) overwhelm the Naboo soldiers, and all appears lost...
Until two Jedi arrive. Qui-Gon Jinn and his rebellious student, Obi-Wan Kenobi, show up to negotiate (and if necessary, enforce) a peace. The Trade Federation are expected to toe the line--the Jedi are, after all, respected for over a thousand years as the peacekeepers of the Republic. (There's a hint of something unsavory about this, here. Many of the species outside of the Republic, on the Outer Rim, are immune to Jedi powers, and there's definitely an undercurrent of an idea that maybe the Republic was founded when the Jedi kicked out the people they couldn't control. But Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are decent men, even if Obi-Wan is a bit of a hellraiser.)
But this time, the Trade Federation refuses to kowtow. They instead take the unprecedented step of attacking the Jedi, insinuating that they have the patronage of something darker, more ancient, something that even the Jedi must fear. Qui-Gon is worried and wants to find out more, but first, he and his apprentice have to fight a world of killer robots, free Queen Amidala (who isn't elected, because Queens tend not to be) and get back to Coruscant, the capital of the Republic to warn everyone.
For two Jedi, this is easier than it looks. They get the help of a native of the planet, whose name isn't Jar Jar Binks, who isn't clumsy, and who is actually useful in a fight. Think an amphibious version of Chewbacca, rather than the CGI mess we got. Sort of if the Creature From the Black Lagoon was a nice guy. But we'll continue to call him Jar Jar here, just to make it clear who we're talking about. They save Jar Jar, and Jar Jar repays the favor by helping them rescue the Queen and get everyone off-planet.
The Trade Federation give chase. Conversations with their secret master, Darth Sidious, make it clear that this is just the first step in a plan to split the Republic apart, and he needs Naboo's resources to make it happen. It's clear that while the Trade Federation isn't afraid of the Jedi anymore, they're very afraid of him. The Jedi's ship gives the Trade Federation the slip by escaping past the Outer Rim, into the frontier territory controlled by the Hutts, but their ship is damaged and they must put down for repairs on a backwater planet. (Not Tatooine. No Tatooine until the end of Episode Three, that's my motto. This is another part of the Hutt territory, a few systems away from Tatooine.)
While the Queen's people are fixing and Qui-Gon is meditating, Obi-Wan sneaks off. (Hellraiser, remember?) He winds up meeting an orphaned teen just a year or so younger than him (say, seventeen to Obi-Wan's eighteen), who's in the middle of an illegal swoop race with a bunch of alien bikers. (For the non-Star Wars literate, swoops are to the speeder bikes in 'Return to the Jedi' as Harleys are to those little crotch-rocket motorcycles.) The teen, one Anakin Skywalker, is racing for money, and wins...and as a Jedi, Obi-Wan can tell that this kid is using the Force to help him race on a scale that staggers Obi-Wan's imagination. Meanwhile, Qui-Gon winds up having his meditation interrupted by a force of one hundred armed guards, sent by the Hutts.
While all this is going on, Darth Sidious sends his apprentice, Darth Maul, to apprehend the Queen personally should the Trade Federation fail. Maul lands on the planet, and begins seeking his quarry out...and the first thing that attracts his attention is an apocalyptic bar fight between several dozen disgruntled alien bikers convinced that Anakin was cheating, and Anakin and Obi-Wan, who become instant friends while slicing, dicing, and shooting aliens. But Darth Maul is watching them...
The Hutts, meanwhile, have summoned Qui-Gon to ask him exactly who this "Trade Federation" is that's just landed a battlefleet right above their planet, and why they want this Queen. (They're not angry. The Hutts merely sent a hundred armed men to fetch him merely as a sign of respect for his abilities as a Jedi. To send just one armed goon would be a grave insult.) Qui-Gon explains the situation, and while the Hutts have no interest on either side, the Trade Federation's presumption and demanding attitude alienates them.
A major battle follows. In space, Hutt battleships fight the Trade Federation's forces, and the Hutts fight dirty. On the planet, Qui-Gon returns to find that Obi-Wan and Anakin have dragged a whole army of lowlifes to their hangar. He gets everyone on board the ship and prepares for lift-off, when Darth Maul shows up. Maul cuts a swathe through the angry mob, and very nearly through Qui-Gon as well. He's very well-trained, and uses the Dark Side of the Force in a way that hasn't been seen in centuries...not since the founding of the Republic, in fact.
Qui-Gon holds his own just long enough to get to the ship, which takes off and weaves its way through the space battle, finally getting clear of the planet and jumping into hyperspace. Next stop, Coruscant! ...where Queen Amidala finds little sympathy for her cause in the gridlocked Senate. Her personal Senator, Palpatine, manipulates her into putting him forward as a candidate for Chancellor.
That night, Obi-Wan goes to see Amidala in her quarters. (Because, y'know, grrrrowlll! Jedi are discouraged from forming relationships, but it's not forbidden.) He finds her there, but he also finds Darth Maul. A lightsaber duel follows, with Obi-Wan handling Maul better than Qui-Gon, but still not well enough. The two combatants trash the room, slowly destroying power couplings and lighting fixtures over the course of their fight so that the room gradually darkens, eventually lit only by their twin lightsabers. Then, Maul manages to disarm Obi-Wan, and the room is lit only by one saber, gradually inching down towards Obi-Wan's face...
And then, behind Maul, there's the trademark sound of lightsabers turning on, one after another after another until the entire Jedi Council stands illuminated. In the center of them stands Yoda, who's not wielding anything. He's just staring at Maul with a little scowl on his face. Maul sees that, and runs for it. He slices open a wall and jumps out into Coruscant hover-traffic, leaping from car to car until he's just a spot in the distance.
With that, Amidala decides to return to her homeworld. She's no safer on Coruscant than anywhere else, and Jar Jar has pledged the help of his people against the droid armies. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Anakin decide to accompany them--Anakin wants to become a Jedi, and although Yoda insists he's too old to begin the training, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are both open to the idea. (Yoda, meanwhile, warns Qui-Gon that the power, the darkness he felt in Maul is reminiscent of the ancient warnings, the legends of the Sith. He urges the utmost caution. If the Sith have returned, dark times may lie ahead for the entire galaxy.)
The heroes' forces run the blockade surrounding Naboo, and Queen Amidala allies herself with the Gungan armies for a showdown. They free many of the captured Naboo pilots and a handful of ships, and Anakin volunteers to help fly a risky assault on the Trade Federation's co-ordinator ships (which enable their droids and starships to act in unison.) He's hoping the Queen will be at least a little impressed with this show of bravery...after all, grrrrowlll!
Gungans fight droids (more competently than in the movie, which made it look like a sort of Special Olympics of war), Anakin heroically destroys the co-ordinator ship, and Darth Maul battles both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon dies, Darth Maul dies, but even without the co-ordinator ship, the Trade Federation's forces are overwhelming, and defeat seems certain...until Chancellor Palpatine arrives with the Republic's forces to save the day! Huzzah!
Or, at least, sort of huzzah. Qui-Gon is dead, and without him, Anakin's dream of becoming a Jedi seems stillborn. Not to mention, the captured Trade Federation leaders mention a further Sith Lord in the shadows, the master to Maul's apprentice, one they only know as Darth Sidious...and on mentioning his name, they immediately drop dead in agony. Yoda fears the worst. Even with all his misgivings, though, he cannot deny Obi-Wan his ascension to Jedi Knight. And as a full Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan may take an apprentice. He chooses his fast friend, Anakin Skywalker. And at the awards ceremony, Amidala delivers a kiss that makes it pretty clear that she, too, chooses Anakin.
A few years back, I found myself discussing the Star Wars prequels with a friend I've unfortunately lost touch with. We were talking about how much they sucked, to be specific, and how easy it would be to rework them into something better. We came up with plans for revised versions of all six movies (as we pretty much took it as a given, even back in 2002, that Episode Three wasn't going to be a classic.) Today, I'm going to share with you our views on what needed to happen to Episode One, the Phantom Menace!
First, the story needed to begin in mid-battle. We never see the droid troopers in battle against anything other than Jedi for the first three-quarters of the movie, and the Jedi basically school them. Which makes the battle droids appear weak and unthreatening (and their spindly design and comedy voices don't help.) So our Episode One opens with the Trade Federation fleets (and needless to say, our Trade Federation aliens would have their own language, with subtitles) attacking the peaceful planet of Naboo (except that Naboo would probably have a less silly name in our version.) Droid soldiers (who would look more like the droids in Episode Two, with stockier bodies and deeper voices) overwhelm the Naboo soldiers, and all appears lost...
Until two Jedi arrive. Qui-Gon Jinn and his rebellious student, Obi-Wan Kenobi, show up to negotiate (and if necessary, enforce) a peace. The Trade Federation are expected to toe the line--the Jedi are, after all, respected for over a thousand years as the peacekeepers of the Republic. (There's a hint of something unsavory about this, here. Many of the species outside of the Republic, on the Outer Rim, are immune to Jedi powers, and there's definitely an undercurrent of an idea that maybe the Republic was founded when the Jedi kicked out the people they couldn't control. But Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are decent men, even if Obi-Wan is a bit of a hellraiser.)
But this time, the Trade Federation refuses to kowtow. They instead take the unprecedented step of attacking the Jedi, insinuating that they have the patronage of something darker, more ancient, something that even the Jedi must fear. Qui-Gon is worried and wants to find out more, but first, he and his apprentice have to fight a world of killer robots, free Queen Amidala (who isn't elected, because Queens tend not to be) and get back to Coruscant, the capital of the Republic to warn everyone.
For two Jedi, this is easier than it looks. They get the help of a native of the planet, whose name isn't Jar Jar Binks, who isn't clumsy, and who is actually useful in a fight. Think an amphibious version of Chewbacca, rather than the CGI mess we got. Sort of if the Creature From the Black Lagoon was a nice guy. But we'll continue to call him Jar Jar here, just to make it clear who we're talking about. They save Jar Jar, and Jar Jar repays the favor by helping them rescue the Queen and get everyone off-planet.
The Trade Federation give chase. Conversations with their secret master, Darth Sidious, make it clear that this is just the first step in a plan to split the Republic apart, and he needs Naboo's resources to make it happen. It's clear that while the Trade Federation isn't afraid of the Jedi anymore, they're very afraid of him. The Jedi's ship gives the Trade Federation the slip by escaping past the Outer Rim, into the frontier territory controlled by the Hutts, but their ship is damaged and they must put down for repairs on a backwater planet. (Not Tatooine. No Tatooine until the end of Episode Three, that's my motto. This is another part of the Hutt territory, a few systems away from Tatooine.)
While the Queen's people are fixing and Qui-Gon is meditating, Obi-Wan sneaks off. (Hellraiser, remember?) He winds up meeting an orphaned teen just a year or so younger than him (say, seventeen to Obi-Wan's eighteen), who's in the middle of an illegal swoop race with a bunch of alien bikers. (For the non-Star Wars literate, swoops are to the speeder bikes in 'Return to the Jedi' as Harleys are to those little crotch-rocket motorcycles.) The teen, one Anakin Skywalker, is racing for money, and wins...and as a Jedi, Obi-Wan can tell that this kid is using the Force to help him race on a scale that staggers Obi-Wan's imagination. Meanwhile, Qui-Gon winds up having his meditation interrupted by a force of one hundred armed guards, sent by the Hutts.
While all this is going on, Darth Sidious sends his apprentice, Darth Maul, to apprehend the Queen personally should the Trade Federation fail. Maul lands on the planet, and begins seeking his quarry out...and the first thing that attracts his attention is an apocalyptic bar fight between several dozen disgruntled alien bikers convinced that Anakin was cheating, and Anakin and Obi-Wan, who become instant friends while slicing, dicing, and shooting aliens. But Darth Maul is watching them...
The Hutts, meanwhile, have summoned Qui-Gon to ask him exactly who this "Trade Federation" is that's just landed a battlefleet right above their planet, and why they want this Queen. (They're not angry. The Hutts merely sent a hundred armed men to fetch him merely as a sign of respect for his abilities as a Jedi. To send just one armed goon would be a grave insult.) Qui-Gon explains the situation, and while the Hutts have no interest on either side, the Trade Federation's presumption and demanding attitude alienates them.
A major battle follows. In space, Hutt battleships fight the Trade Federation's forces, and the Hutts fight dirty. On the planet, Qui-Gon returns to find that Obi-Wan and Anakin have dragged a whole army of lowlifes to their hangar. He gets everyone on board the ship and prepares for lift-off, when Darth Maul shows up. Maul cuts a swathe through the angry mob, and very nearly through Qui-Gon as well. He's very well-trained, and uses the Dark Side of the Force in a way that hasn't been seen in centuries...not since the founding of the Republic, in fact.
Qui-Gon holds his own just long enough to get to the ship, which takes off and weaves its way through the space battle, finally getting clear of the planet and jumping into hyperspace. Next stop, Coruscant! ...where Queen Amidala finds little sympathy for her cause in the gridlocked Senate. Her personal Senator, Palpatine, manipulates her into putting him forward as a candidate for Chancellor.
That night, Obi-Wan goes to see Amidala in her quarters. (Because, y'know, grrrrowlll! Jedi are discouraged from forming relationships, but it's not forbidden.) He finds her there, but he also finds Darth Maul. A lightsaber duel follows, with Obi-Wan handling Maul better than Qui-Gon, but still not well enough. The two combatants trash the room, slowly destroying power couplings and lighting fixtures over the course of their fight so that the room gradually darkens, eventually lit only by their twin lightsabers. Then, Maul manages to disarm Obi-Wan, and the room is lit only by one saber, gradually inching down towards Obi-Wan's face...
And then, behind Maul, there's the trademark sound of lightsabers turning on, one after another after another until the entire Jedi Council stands illuminated. In the center of them stands Yoda, who's not wielding anything. He's just staring at Maul with a little scowl on his face. Maul sees that, and runs for it. He slices open a wall and jumps out into Coruscant hover-traffic, leaping from car to car until he's just a spot in the distance.
With that, Amidala decides to return to her homeworld. She's no safer on Coruscant than anywhere else, and Jar Jar has pledged the help of his people against the droid armies. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Anakin decide to accompany them--Anakin wants to become a Jedi, and although Yoda insists he's too old to begin the training, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are both open to the idea. (Yoda, meanwhile, warns Qui-Gon that the power, the darkness he felt in Maul is reminiscent of the ancient warnings, the legends of the Sith. He urges the utmost caution. If the Sith have returned, dark times may lie ahead for the entire galaxy.)
The heroes' forces run the blockade surrounding Naboo, and Queen Amidala allies herself with the Gungan armies for a showdown. They free many of the captured Naboo pilots and a handful of ships, and Anakin volunteers to help fly a risky assault on the Trade Federation's co-ordinator ships (which enable their droids and starships to act in unison.) He's hoping the Queen will be at least a little impressed with this show of bravery...after all, grrrrowlll!
Gungans fight droids (more competently than in the movie, which made it look like a sort of Special Olympics of war), Anakin heroically destroys the co-ordinator ship, and Darth Maul battles both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon dies, Darth Maul dies, but even without the co-ordinator ship, the Trade Federation's forces are overwhelming, and defeat seems certain...until Chancellor Palpatine arrives with the Republic's forces to save the day! Huzzah!
Or, at least, sort of huzzah. Qui-Gon is dead, and without him, Anakin's dream of becoming a Jedi seems stillborn. Not to mention, the captured Trade Federation leaders mention a further Sith Lord in the shadows, the master to Maul's apprentice, one they only know as Darth Sidious...and on mentioning his name, they immediately drop dead in agony. Yoda fears the worst. Even with all his misgivings, though, he cannot deny Obi-Wan his ascension to Jedi Knight. And as a full Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan may take an apprentice. He chooses his fast friend, Anakin Skywalker. And at the awards ceremony, Amidala delivers a kiss that makes it pretty clear that she, too, chooses Anakin.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Under the Hood: Manos
Yes, I know it's insane, but if you're talking about remaking and improving bad movies, then certainly you have to talk about one that actually has attained a perverse fame as the Worst Movie Ever Made. So let's discuss Manos--the Hands of Fate.
For starters, let's recap what we laughably refer to as "the plot". A couple vacationing with their child and dog get lost (in a long, dialogue-free sequence) and winds up at a mysterious ranch home run by a weird guy named Torgo with big knees. Torgo takes care of the place "while the Master is away". Oddly, the couple sweet-talk Torgo into spending the night there, then change their mind, then have to stay there anyway because their car won't start. Then Torgo makes a pass at the wife, the kid finds a room full of sleeping women (and a sleeping guy, the Master), the girls wake up and start wrestling, Torgo gets his hand cut off, and finally the Master enslaves the wife and daughter (which is really icky, because she's about eight.) And the husband becomes the sort of New Torgo for the next batch of unlucky travelers. All this is intercut with scenes of two cops chasing necking teenagers.
So, OK, let's go back to square one, and improve the budget, production values, acting, and keep the skeleton of the plot. A couple is on vacation with their teenage daughter (we'll push her age up about ten years, to make that less weird.) They get lost, in a much shorter scene, and wind up stopping at a house in the desert to ask directions. Their passing is witnessed by two teenagers, who wonder why anyone would drive down a road that leads nowhere.
As soon as they stop the car, it dies and won't restart. They're forced to ask the caretaker for a place to stay for the night. Still Torgo, still with the lumpy and unusual body, but this time we're actually going with the production team's original intent, which is that it's lumpy because he's not human anymore. Manos, the god of primal darkness, slowly changes anyone who stays too long in this sacred place, and Torgo's body is metamorphosizing.
They bring their stuff to their rooms and Torgo insists that they have to leave in the morning, and shouldn't poke around. The parents agree (because they're sensible), the daughter doesn't (because she's rebellious.) She sneaks off to take a look around. She goes down into the basement, and finds that there's more basement...and more, and more, and more. And at the heart of all this, she finds a black altar with a sinister man lying on it, completely immobile, and several women, all also immobile, on altars of their own. The women are all in various states of transformation--all beautiful, in their own way, but many in a fashion that's clearly no longer human. The daughter's approach awakens them, and their inhuman eyes snap open...
Meanwhile, the cops come to harass the two teenagers, and the teenagers give them attitude about how they should maybe go harass that other couple that drove up the road with the teenage girl. The cops call their bluff, and tell the teens to show them where they went.
Back at the house, Torgo lures Dad away with the promise of finding them something to eat in the kitchen, then knocks him out and stuffs him in the pantry. He then goes back and starts macking on the mom, with promises that are (to her) nonsensical, promises of finding a way to escape the house together. (He realizes that with Dad here, Torgo's now redundant.) She freaks when he takes his shirt off and she sees that a) he's not human under all that, and b) he's seriously macking on her and she doesn't know where her husband or daughter is. She flees deeper into the house.
Daughter, meanwhile, is fleeing out of the house. The Master has awakened, and he's planning to add her to his collection of "brides of Manos". He's struck a deal with the dark god; he procures fresh brides, and he gets to stay immune to the corruption that affects everyone else. The god's power makes it more difficult to leave the longer you stay; after a while, you just can't bring yourself to leave, no matter how urgent it seems. Once the Master leaves, the women discuss whether it would be more merciful to just kill the new arrivals. This discussion gets violent, as one of the "eldest" brides, who is furthest along in her corruption, insists that although they can't rebel, the new brides still might have the strength.
The Master bumps into Torgo, and decides to take this opportunity to deliver his termination papers. He accelerates the corruption until Torgo's nothing more than a misshapen beast, then sends the beast to hunt the girls. They, meanwhile, have bumped into each other, and are looking for Dad. Instead, they find the cops and the teens, who are fairly surprised to see a decades-old house where there was nothing but desert a few days previously. The cops deal with the Torgo-beast, and go looking for Dad.
Dad, meanwhile, has been released from the pantry...by the Master. He's already been corrupted, just slightly, and feels compelled to obey. He sets about luring the group deeper into the house.
At the edge of the basement, though, Daughter panics. She's been there, she knows what's down there, and she's not going any further. She runs back for the cars. Mother is torn between following her daughter and finding her husband; the other teenage girl, though, makes it easy for her by offering to follow Daughter and make sure she's OK.
The remaining four descend into the basement, where the Master has re-established his hold on his brides. Dad is by his side as his new servant, and all around him, the darkness rustles with the sounds of movement. See, he has room for any number of brides in the harem, but he only needs one caretaker...
From out of the darkness, dozens of fully-corrupted brides spring forth. They drag the teenage boy into the shadows and consume him--one of the cops, though, manages to get a shot off at the Master. He falls, dead. The brides, all of them, stop their assault. They smile. Could it be that they're free?
Nope. From out of the Master's corpse, darkness boils up--Manos itself, god of primal darkness. It flows into one of the cops, entering through his mouth, nose, and eyes, and when he looks up, he's filled with dark power. He commands the brides, and they rip apart his former partner. Then he sends them after the two remaining girls.
Back upstairs, the girls are headed out...except that one of them can't seem to make herself leave. She sees Daughter crossing the threshold, running for the car, but...she just can't do it herself. Behind her, she hears the brides coming for her. Daughter encourages, pleads, even grabs her arm and yanks, but it's of no use. She's been trapped here. She hands the keys to Daughter and tells her to go and don't look back. Daughter, being no dummy, does exactly that.
The epilogue is substantially as in the original: A new set of victims drives up to the same house, and we see Dad at the steps, wearing baggy clothes that conceal his transformation, explaining that "he takes care of the place while the Master is away." In the basement, we see Mom and the teenaged girl, asleep and already some distance along in their transformation...
Of them all, I think this is the one that has the best chance of actually getting made--after all, you make remakes to capitalize on the notoriety of the original, and if there's one movie that has plenty of "notoriety", it's 'Manos'.
For starters, let's recap what we laughably refer to as "the plot". A couple vacationing with their child and dog get lost (in a long, dialogue-free sequence) and winds up at a mysterious ranch home run by a weird guy named Torgo with big knees. Torgo takes care of the place "while the Master is away". Oddly, the couple sweet-talk Torgo into spending the night there, then change their mind, then have to stay there anyway because their car won't start. Then Torgo makes a pass at the wife, the kid finds a room full of sleeping women (and a sleeping guy, the Master), the girls wake up and start wrestling, Torgo gets his hand cut off, and finally the Master enslaves the wife and daughter (which is really icky, because she's about eight.) And the husband becomes the sort of New Torgo for the next batch of unlucky travelers. All this is intercut with scenes of two cops chasing necking teenagers.
So, OK, let's go back to square one, and improve the budget, production values, acting, and keep the skeleton of the plot. A couple is on vacation with their teenage daughter (we'll push her age up about ten years, to make that less weird.) They get lost, in a much shorter scene, and wind up stopping at a house in the desert to ask directions. Their passing is witnessed by two teenagers, who wonder why anyone would drive down a road that leads nowhere.
As soon as they stop the car, it dies and won't restart. They're forced to ask the caretaker for a place to stay for the night. Still Torgo, still with the lumpy and unusual body, but this time we're actually going with the production team's original intent, which is that it's lumpy because he's not human anymore. Manos, the god of primal darkness, slowly changes anyone who stays too long in this sacred place, and Torgo's body is metamorphosizing.
They bring their stuff to their rooms and Torgo insists that they have to leave in the morning, and shouldn't poke around. The parents agree (because they're sensible), the daughter doesn't (because she's rebellious.) She sneaks off to take a look around. She goes down into the basement, and finds that there's more basement...and more, and more, and more. And at the heart of all this, she finds a black altar with a sinister man lying on it, completely immobile, and several women, all also immobile, on altars of their own. The women are all in various states of transformation--all beautiful, in their own way, but many in a fashion that's clearly no longer human. The daughter's approach awakens them, and their inhuman eyes snap open...
Meanwhile, the cops come to harass the two teenagers, and the teenagers give them attitude about how they should maybe go harass that other couple that drove up the road with the teenage girl. The cops call their bluff, and tell the teens to show them where they went.
Back at the house, Torgo lures Dad away with the promise of finding them something to eat in the kitchen, then knocks him out and stuffs him in the pantry. He then goes back and starts macking on the mom, with promises that are (to her) nonsensical, promises of finding a way to escape the house together. (He realizes that with Dad here, Torgo's now redundant.) She freaks when he takes his shirt off and she sees that a) he's not human under all that, and b) he's seriously macking on her and she doesn't know where her husband or daughter is. She flees deeper into the house.
Daughter, meanwhile, is fleeing out of the house. The Master has awakened, and he's planning to add her to his collection of "brides of Manos". He's struck a deal with the dark god; he procures fresh brides, and he gets to stay immune to the corruption that affects everyone else. The god's power makes it more difficult to leave the longer you stay; after a while, you just can't bring yourself to leave, no matter how urgent it seems. Once the Master leaves, the women discuss whether it would be more merciful to just kill the new arrivals. This discussion gets violent, as one of the "eldest" brides, who is furthest along in her corruption, insists that although they can't rebel, the new brides still might have the strength.
The Master bumps into Torgo, and decides to take this opportunity to deliver his termination papers. He accelerates the corruption until Torgo's nothing more than a misshapen beast, then sends the beast to hunt the girls. They, meanwhile, have bumped into each other, and are looking for Dad. Instead, they find the cops and the teens, who are fairly surprised to see a decades-old house where there was nothing but desert a few days previously. The cops deal with the Torgo-beast, and go looking for Dad.
Dad, meanwhile, has been released from the pantry...by the Master. He's already been corrupted, just slightly, and feels compelled to obey. He sets about luring the group deeper into the house.
At the edge of the basement, though, Daughter panics. She's been there, she knows what's down there, and she's not going any further. She runs back for the cars. Mother is torn between following her daughter and finding her husband; the other teenage girl, though, makes it easy for her by offering to follow Daughter and make sure she's OK.
The remaining four descend into the basement, where the Master has re-established his hold on his brides. Dad is by his side as his new servant, and all around him, the darkness rustles with the sounds of movement. See, he has room for any number of brides in the harem, but he only needs one caretaker...
From out of the darkness, dozens of fully-corrupted brides spring forth. They drag the teenage boy into the shadows and consume him--one of the cops, though, manages to get a shot off at the Master. He falls, dead. The brides, all of them, stop their assault. They smile. Could it be that they're free?
Nope. From out of the Master's corpse, darkness boils up--Manos itself, god of primal darkness. It flows into one of the cops, entering through his mouth, nose, and eyes, and when he looks up, he's filled with dark power. He commands the brides, and they rip apart his former partner. Then he sends them after the two remaining girls.
Back upstairs, the girls are headed out...except that one of them can't seem to make herself leave. She sees Daughter crossing the threshold, running for the car, but...she just can't do it herself. Behind her, she hears the brides coming for her. Daughter encourages, pleads, even grabs her arm and yanks, but it's of no use. She's been trapped here. She hands the keys to Daughter and tells her to go and don't look back. Daughter, being no dummy, does exactly that.
The epilogue is substantially as in the original: A new set of victims drives up to the same house, and we see Dad at the steps, wearing baggy clothes that conceal his transformation, explaining that "he takes care of the place while the Master is away." In the basement, we see Mom and the teenaged girl, asleep and already some distance along in their transformation...
Of them all, I think this is the one that has the best chance of actually getting made--after all, you make remakes to capitalize on the notoriety of the original, and if there's one movie that has plenty of "notoriety", it's 'Manos'.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Under the Hood: Quest of the Delta Knights
Now this time on 'Under the Hood' (an irregular feature in which we examine how to remake and improve MST3K staples), we'll be looking at a movie that gets more airtime on the Sci-Fi channel than 'Stargate' repeats and made-for-TV movies about giant animals combined: Quest of the Delta Knights. For those of you who haven't seen it, this is a movie about a young boy/man/quite-possibly-girl who's mentored by a wise old David Warner until he's of age to find the Lost Storehouse of Archimedes (because this really all takes place in the real world, honest) with the aid of Leonardo da Vinci (because again, this really all takes place in the real world, truly) before the evil David Warner and the wicked queen he's pledged his service to (queen of where? Of somewhere in the very, very real world, because that's what this takes place in) can find it and use the Doomsday Device Archimedes apparently invented. (Oh yeah--the whole 'Delta Knights' thing is a secret society that all the good guys belong to.)
We've got our work cut out for us today, boys and girls.
In terms of production values, this one actually ain't too horrible. They filmed it at (possibly several) Renaissance Fairs, so it has somewhat of an authentically medieval look to it. However, we can use some serious acting upgrades, since they blew their entire budget on David Warner. In fact, they blew so much of their budget on David Warner that he winds up playing both the good guy and the bad guy--yet there's no reason for it in the script at all. So our first step is, charisma transfusions to both our leading men, stat, and toss out one of the two David Warners (probably the villainous one, because Warner does amazingly well at playing the Wise Old Mentor role.)
The next step is, actually ground this sucker in some history, or else give up the whole "historical setting" idea. In the movie as it's currently constituted, the name of the kingdom/state/country/land/place they're in is never given, no ruler is ever named, and the only things that wind up being from real history are Leonardo and Archimedes. Oh, and their "journey" to find the Lost Storehouse looks like it takes about fifteen minutes, because they don't have the money for two units' worth of location filming.
So let's see--if Leonardo was a young man, that'd put this at about 1470. During that time, the English were involved in a nasty and protracted war between the descendants of the House of Lancaster and the House of York, known as the Wars of the Roses. Sounds like a good starting point for a bad guy. Henry VI, who was Lancastrian, was unpopular, hung out with unpopular nobles, and was mentally unstable to boot. Sounds like a better point. So we've got our evil monarch, Henry VI. Our hero is raised and mentored by the Delta Knights (still not crazy about that name) to go find the Lost Storehouse of Archimedes and retrieve its knowledge for the enlightenment of mankind (since this is after all the Renaissance, and rediscovering the knowledge of the ancient Greeks was huge back then.) Leonardo, who's also secretly a member of the Knights, agrees to help him on their trek to Greece. But Henry captures the Wise Old Mentor and extracts the information from him. He then sends one of those aforementioned "unpopular nobles" off to trail him to the Storehouse, and seize anything good out of it.
From there, it's a good old-fashioned road movie. There's loads of real estate between England and Greece, and travel back in the 1470s was the kind of thing you did if you were rich, crazy, desperate, foolhardy, or some combination of the four. We can ditch the horrible subplot about the barmaid/whore who turns out to be the Princess of Thieves (which didn't make it into my above summary because, well, it doesn't have a goddamned thing to do with the plot) and focus more on our heroes' journey, and on the people who aid/hinder them along the way. Eventually, our heroes find the Storehouse which contains anachronistically high levels of technology, the evil noble (who we won't bother making historically authentic, because let's face it, who cares about every single minor noble?) realizes that this can turn the tide of the war, and our heroes have to make a choice--give a mad king the power over life or death for an entire country, or destroy discoveries that could revolutionize the world?
They choose the latter, blow up the Storehouse and the noble with it, and Leo goes on to paint seven Mona Lisas and write backwards, while Henry the Sixth dies in the tower of London in 1471.
It's still a little vague, but compared to the original, it's Waterford fucking Crystal.
We've got our work cut out for us today, boys and girls.
In terms of production values, this one actually ain't too horrible. They filmed it at (possibly several) Renaissance Fairs, so it has somewhat of an authentically medieval look to it. However, we can use some serious acting upgrades, since they blew their entire budget on David Warner. In fact, they blew so much of their budget on David Warner that he winds up playing both the good guy and the bad guy--yet there's no reason for it in the script at all. So our first step is, charisma transfusions to both our leading men, stat, and toss out one of the two David Warners (probably the villainous one, because Warner does amazingly well at playing the Wise Old Mentor role.)
The next step is, actually ground this sucker in some history, or else give up the whole "historical setting" idea. In the movie as it's currently constituted, the name of the kingdom/state/country/land/place they're in is never given, no ruler is ever named, and the only things that wind up being from real history are Leonardo and Archimedes. Oh, and their "journey" to find the Lost Storehouse looks like it takes about fifteen minutes, because they don't have the money for two units' worth of location filming.
So let's see--if Leonardo was a young man, that'd put this at about 1470. During that time, the English were involved in a nasty and protracted war between the descendants of the House of Lancaster and the House of York, known as the Wars of the Roses. Sounds like a good starting point for a bad guy. Henry VI, who was Lancastrian, was unpopular, hung out with unpopular nobles, and was mentally unstable to boot. Sounds like a better point. So we've got our evil monarch, Henry VI. Our hero is raised and mentored by the Delta Knights (still not crazy about that name) to go find the Lost Storehouse of Archimedes and retrieve its knowledge for the enlightenment of mankind (since this is after all the Renaissance, and rediscovering the knowledge of the ancient Greeks was huge back then.) Leonardo, who's also secretly a member of the Knights, agrees to help him on their trek to Greece. But Henry captures the Wise Old Mentor and extracts the information from him. He then sends one of those aforementioned "unpopular nobles" off to trail him to the Storehouse, and seize anything good out of it.
From there, it's a good old-fashioned road movie. There's loads of real estate between England and Greece, and travel back in the 1470s was the kind of thing you did if you were rich, crazy, desperate, foolhardy, or some combination of the four. We can ditch the horrible subplot about the barmaid/whore who turns out to be the Princess of Thieves (which didn't make it into my above summary because, well, it doesn't have a goddamned thing to do with the plot) and focus more on our heroes' journey, and on the people who aid/hinder them along the way. Eventually, our heroes find the Storehouse which contains anachronistically high levels of technology, the evil noble (who we won't bother making historically authentic, because let's face it, who cares about every single minor noble?) realizes that this can turn the tide of the war, and our heroes have to make a choice--give a mad king the power over life or death for an entire country, or destroy discoveries that could revolutionize the world?
They choose the latter, blow up the Storehouse and the noble with it, and Leo goes on to paint seven Mona Lisas and write backwards, while Henry the Sixth dies in the tower of London in 1471.
It's still a little vague, but compared to the original, it's Waterford fucking Crystal.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Under the Hood: Time Chasers
This is a thought I've had from time to time: Why does Hollywood always remake good movies? Surely, the movies that most deserve to be remade are the ones that were bad, since they got it wrong on the first try. This is the first in an intermittent series of attempts to look at bad movies and see how they could be made good.
Time Chasers, for those of you unfamiliar with the Mystery Science Theater 3000 classic, is a film about a science teacher named Nick who invents a time machine, installs it in a light plane, and then sells it to an evil company called GenCorp. GenCorp makes its own version of the time machine (in another light plane), and before long, Nick's discovered that the beautiful utopian future of recycling and fuel efficiency he once visited has been replaced by a back alley somewhere in Vermont that's meant to represent a post-apocalyptic dystopia. So he has to go back in time and convince himself to keep the secrets of time travel secret, lest evil GenCorp CEO JK Robertson use it for...well, evil.
The first thing the movie needs, and the most obvious, is a budget upgrade. Because, wow, is it cheap. The time machines are, as previously noted, light planes. The evil GenCorp is represented in the exterior shots as what looks to be a VoTech college and by the interior shots as what looks to be a local library. Electric drills are pressed into service as guns and nobody seems to notice. The actors are...well, they're not the worst. They're reasonable. But I'm sure that even they would agree that replacing them with Tom Cruise and Maura Tierney would be fair.
The second thing it needs is a logic overhaul for the main plot device--namely, that Nick has managed to develop a home time machine, but that he needs a little spare cash and has to sell the rights to EvilCorp. There's a scene that practically rubs your face in the number of ways you could make insane amounts of money with a functioning time machine, and it occurs before Nick sells the rights. I'd change GenCorp from an evil corporation to a humanitarian foundation, and instead of Nick wanting to make a little spare cash, he thinks that the awesome responsibility of time travel needs to be considered by more than just a high school science teacher. JK could go from being a slick, oily, evil CEO to a Palpatine-style manipulator who tells Nick everything he wants to hear until he can get the time machine for his own personal gain.
The budget upgrade also allows us to highlight something they didn't have the budget to really show in the initial version: It's not that GenCorp does something awful that wrecks the future, it's that they commercialize time travel in ways that cause catastrophic problems. You could get into this a lot more in the high-budget version--our version of JK has sold various time travel applications to major corporations, allowing them to steal their own future patents, dump waste in the far future, and other things that are short-sighted but profitable. (He's been able to do all this in the span of a few days because for him, it's been a year--he's just been taking the time machine and traveling back over the same span of days over and over again in order to get all this done before Nick even knows about it.) JK's being careful not to use the time machine to change history, he's not that insane, but he's perfectly willing to sabotage the future. After all, it's years away. Plenty of time to fix it.
But the future is fighting back. The movie, due to its low budget, could only function with two light planes, but our hypothetical high-budget version could see people from the future with pirated time technology willing to wreck the "no changing history" rule. Nick is the target, not JK, because JK is careful to keep a scapegoat handy. In order to find out why crazy people from the future are targeting him, he zips out there, and sees the devastation first-hand.
Then, things pretty much head along the same track as the film, but higher budget. After a confrontation and narrow escape from JK, Nick decides that the only way to stop things now is to visit his own past self and make sure he doesn't give the technology to JK. JK, in turn, decides that it's time to take Nick out of the picture. The two of them have a "time chase" (you'd probably want to establish, unlike the actual film, that one time craft can track another), which ends with Nick crashing his light plane and JK capturing Nick with the intent of taking him back to the Revolutionary War and killing him 200 years before anyone might find the death suspicious. (He's at this point desperate enough to slightly bend the "no changing history" rule.) The actual sequence in the film is a little weak, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a higher budget and better staging.
However, past Nick finds the ruins of present Nick's light plane, and deduces that his future self had something to tell him. He tracks JK's craft, gets a group of Minutemen to help turn the tide against JK, saves his own future self, and agrees to destroy all info on the time machine. JK tries to escape and keep the technology, but present Nick manages to get on board his time craft and crash it in Revolutionary days, killing both of them. Past Nick, though, refuses to turn over the time tech, and inadvertently saves both his own life and JK's, while preserving the utopia he's seen come to pass.
It'd certainly be better...
Time Chasers, for those of you unfamiliar with the Mystery Science Theater 3000 classic, is a film about a science teacher named Nick who invents a time machine, installs it in a light plane, and then sells it to an evil company called GenCorp. GenCorp makes its own version of the time machine (in another light plane), and before long, Nick's discovered that the beautiful utopian future of recycling and fuel efficiency he once visited has been replaced by a back alley somewhere in Vermont that's meant to represent a post-apocalyptic dystopia. So he has to go back in time and convince himself to keep the secrets of time travel secret, lest evil GenCorp CEO JK Robertson use it for...well, evil.
The first thing the movie needs, and the most obvious, is a budget upgrade. Because, wow, is it cheap. The time machines are, as previously noted, light planes. The evil GenCorp is represented in the exterior shots as what looks to be a VoTech college and by the interior shots as what looks to be a local library. Electric drills are pressed into service as guns and nobody seems to notice. The actors are...well, they're not the worst. They're reasonable. But I'm sure that even they would agree that replacing them with Tom Cruise and Maura Tierney would be fair.
The second thing it needs is a logic overhaul for the main plot device--namely, that Nick has managed to develop a home time machine, but that he needs a little spare cash and has to sell the rights to EvilCorp. There's a scene that practically rubs your face in the number of ways you could make insane amounts of money with a functioning time machine, and it occurs before Nick sells the rights. I'd change GenCorp from an evil corporation to a humanitarian foundation, and instead of Nick wanting to make a little spare cash, he thinks that the awesome responsibility of time travel needs to be considered by more than just a high school science teacher. JK could go from being a slick, oily, evil CEO to a Palpatine-style manipulator who tells Nick everything he wants to hear until he can get the time machine for his own personal gain.
The budget upgrade also allows us to highlight something they didn't have the budget to really show in the initial version: It's not that GenCorp does something awful that wrecks the future, it's that they commercialize time travel in ways that cause catastrophic problems. You could get into this a lot more in the high-budget version--our version of JK has sold various time travel applications to major corporations, allowing them to steal their own future patents, dump waste in the far future, and other things that are short-sighted but profitable. (He's been able to do all this in the span of a few days because for him, it's been a year--he's just been taking the time machine and traveling back over the same span of days over and over again in order to get all this done before Nick even knows about it.) JK's being careful not to use the time machine to change history, he's not that insane, but he's perfectly willing to sabotage the future. After all, it's years away. Plenty of time to fix it.
But the future is fighting back. The movie, due to its low budget, could only function with two light planes, but our hypothetical high-budget version could see people from the future with pirated time technology willing to wreck the "no changing history" rule. Nick is the target, not JK, because JK is careful to keep a scapegoat handy. In order to find out why crazy people from the future are targeting him, he zips out there, and sees the devastation first-hand.
Then, things pretty much head along the same track as the film, but higher budget. After a confrontation and narrow escape from JK, Nick decides that the only way to stop things now is to visit his own past self and make sure he doesn't give the technology to JK. JK, in turn, decides that it's time to take Nick out of the picture. The two of them have a "time chase" (you'd probably want to establish, unlike the actual film, that one time craft can track another), which ends with Nick crashing his light plane and JK capturing Nick with the intent of taking him back to the Revolutionary War and killing him 200 years before anyone might find the death suspicious. (He's at this point desperate enough to slightly bend the "no changing history" rule.) The actual sequence in the film is a little weak, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a higher budget and better staging.
However, past Nick finds the ruins of present Nick's light plane, and deduces that his future self had something to tell him. He tracks JK's craft, gets a group of Minutemen to help turn the tide against JK, saves his own future self, and agrees to destroy all info on the time machine. JK tries to escape and keep the technology, but present Nick manages to get on board his time craft and crash it in Revolutionary days, killing both of them. Past Nick, though, refuses to turn over the time tech, and inadvertently saves both his own life and JK's, while preserving the utopia he's seen come to pass.
It'd certainly be better...
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