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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 22, 2019 17:44:14 GMT -5
Star Wars is an absurd farce. Original, prequel, or sequel trilogies, it doesn't matter — it's all one great heap of consumerist trash undeserving of reverence, worthy only of mockery. There, I said it. That’s pretty much what I think of today’s phenomenon, dating back to the years that followed the end of the Marvel series. But once upon a time, it was an exhilarating and joyful romp into the magical world of pulpy American science-fiction, mixing Asimov, Herbert, Flash Gordon, John Wayne and Bruce Lee! Ah, to live again through those days of February 1978, when Star Wars finally made it to our local movie house... Making lightsabers out of white golf club protectors, making stormtroopers helmet out of hockey equipment, and reliving all the wonders of a galaxy far, far away... ‘tis a consumation devoutly to be wished!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Jun 22, 2019 18:18:15 GMT -5
The Phantom Menace is the most satisfying of the first three Star Wars prequels. It has heroes we can root for: the brave and well-meaning kid, the wise father figure, the dashing older brother figure, the beautiful damsel. It has supporting characters we can root for: the kind of goofy but brave and proud Gungans; the outgunned but unyielding Naboo guards, the self-sacrificing mother. It has a political situation that sparks my interest: the subversion of a decent but overly procedural political system that has painted itself in a corner. It has nice lightsaber action, stuff blowing up and dogfights. It has an awesome-looking villain who can literally dance around and over our old Darth Vader. Darth Maul might not have much depth, but he sure has moves!!! It has a satisfying ending where we mourn some characters, cheer for others and look forward to the next chapter. Attack of the Clones was marred by having Anakin described as a whiny self-centered brat who sounds like a bloody rapist. I expect to be rooting for the hero, not want to slap him. Revenge of the Sith started well but shot itself in both feet when Anakin did a 180 degrees turn and became an absolute bastard for the flimsiest of excuses, just because the plot required him to. Blech. Of the three, Phantom Menace strikes me as the most balanced and satisfying film. It’s not in Rogue One’s league, but at least it doesn’t have me rolling my eyes every so often. There. I said it! Totally agree. As flawed as it is, TPM is the best of the prequels. While AOTC is not only a badly acted, badly written, and badly thought out Star Wars movie...it's also, objectively, one of the worst films I've ever had to sit through. ROTS isn't much better.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2019 22:47:07 GMT -5
Negativity and positivity are a choice, and a zero sum game. Every moment you choose to waste on negativity is one that cannot be spent on positivity, and we only have so many moments in our lifetime. There is a lot of negative things in the world already, why add to it? Celebrate the positive, the things that bring you joy, and if there is something negative, do something positive about it and don't waste time complaining about it and adding to the overall negativity. This applies to life as well as comics. Make better choices.
There I said it.
-M
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,627
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Post by Confessor on Jun 27, 2019 7:02:04 GMT -5
Negativity and positivity are a choice, and a zero sum game. Every moment you choose to waste on negativity is one that cannot be spent on positivity, and we only have so many moments in our lifetime. There is a lot of negative things in the world already, why add to it? Celebrate the positive, the things that bring you joy, and if there is something negative, do something positive about it and don't waste time complaining about it and adding to the overall negativity. This applies to life as well as comics. Make better choices. There I said it. I'm not arguing with the sentiment, mrp, but this reminds me of one of those insufferable motivational graphics you see on Facebook, with some new age image of a man silhouetted on top of a mountain, with the sun rising in front of him. If you're never negative about anything, then you're basically just a grinning idiot. If you lose your job, or get diagnosed with some hellish disease, or your child is stillborn, or your entire family is wiped out in a car crash, it's a perfectly natural response to feel negativity about the situation. Even at a smaller, shallower level, being negative about every day things, like missing your bus, or how shitty your job is, or how little money you have, or even that the new Star Trek comic sucks, is a perfectly human response to unsatisfactory situations. Without negativity in your life, you cannot properly evaluate the positive experiences you live through and therefore you'll never get a true sense of satisfaction when life is on the upswing. In fact, these days there are actually quite a few mental health studies that suggest that negative thoughts are vital to our well-being and peace of mind. Emotions like anger, disappointment and sadness are perfectly natural reactions to life's ups and downs, and ignoring or suppressing those thoughts can induce a range of unwanted effects on our mental health. Also, from a biological standpoint, negative emotions or thoughts are likely to be important for our survival. And speaking personally, I've always found negativity, if properly channeled, to be a tremendous engine for change. To be negative sometimes is to be an intelligent human being.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2019 10:14:31 GMT -5
I don't care for all Star Wars prequels including Phantom Menace.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 27, 2019 13:29:16 GMT -5
Battle Beyond the Stars is a better Star Wars movie than all of the prequels
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Post by brutalis on Jun 27, 2019 13:44:06 GMT -5
Battle Beyond the Stars is a better Star Wars movie than all of the prequels Battlestar Galactica the Original is a better Star Wars movie than the prequels. And Mel Brook's Spaceballs is a better Star Wars movie than the Prequels Beastmaster is a better Conan sequel than Conan the Destroyer. Captain America is a better Superman sequel than Superman 3 and 4. Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is a better Doc Savage than the original Doc Savage (and don't hate me, I adore the Ron Ely version in all of its goofy glory) Mel Brooks Robin Hood: Men in Tights is a better Robin Hood than the last several Hollywood versions! And does Galaxina count as a Barbarella sequel? Lord knows the list can go on and on! But: There I said it!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 27, 2019 13:59:49 GMT -5
Battle Beyond the Stars is a better Star Wars movie than all of the prequels Mel Brooks Robin Hood: Men in Tights is a better Robin Hood than the last several Hollywood versions! It's not like it's a lot of competition. And Men in Tights is still a garbage movie.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2019 14:31:30 GMT -5
Negativity and positivity are a choice, and a zero sum game. Every moment you choose to waste on negativity is one that cannot be spent on positivity, and we only have so many moments in our lifetime. There is a lot of negative things in the world already, why add to it? Celebrate the positive, the things that bring you joy, and if there is something negative, do something positive about it and don't waste time complaining about it and adding to the overall negativity. This applies to life as well as comics. Make better choices. There I said it. I'm not arguing with the sentiment, mrp, but this reminds me of one of those insufferable motivational graphics you see on Facebook, with some new age image of a man silhouetted on top of a mountain, with the sun rising in front of him. If you're never negative about anything, then you're basically just a grinning idiot. If you lose your job, or get diagnosed with some hellish disease, or your child is stillborn, or your entire family is wiped out in a car crash, it's a perfectly natural response to feel negativity about the situation. Even at a smaller, shallower level, being negative about every day things, like missing your bus, or how shitty your job is, or how little money you have, or even that the new Star Trek comic sucks, is a perfectly human response to unsatisfactory situations. Without negativity in your life, you cannot properly evaluate the positive experiences you live through and therefore you'll never get a true sense of satisfaction when life is on the upswing. In fact, these days there are actually quite a few mental health studies that suggest that negative thoughts are vital to our well-being and peace of mind. Emotions like anger, disappointment and sadness are perfectly natural reactions to life's ups and downs, and ignoring or suppressing those thoughts can induce a range of unwanted effects on our mental health. Also, from a biological standpoint, negative emotions or thoughts are likely to be important for our survival. And speaking personally, I've always found negativity, if properly channeled, to be a tremendous engine for change. To be negative sometimes is to be an intelligent human being. There's a difference between experiencing grief or loss or frustration and engaging in negativity. Negativity is a choice-looking to find flaws in things, looking for reasons not to like things, looking for things to complain about, looking for excuses not to do the right thing or the positive thing, looking for someone to blame when things don't go your way, experiencing a bad Star Trek comic and choosing to let that ruin your experience of Star Trek overall and invalidate the things you liked about Star Trek to begin with, etc. There's also a difference between venting and expressing sorrow, disappointment, etc. and whining and being negative. Emotions like anger, disappointment and sadness exist, no doubt but they are not negative things. What you choose to do because of those emotions can be though and that is where the choice comes in We all feel anger, but what you do with that anger is a choice and can be positive or negative. We all feel loss, what we choose to do when we feel loss is the difference. If I am having a bad day, I can choose to try to do something to make it better or I can choose to take it out on other people. I can look at what I maybe can do differently to make it better, or I can blame everyone else for my bad day. Choosing to do negative things is just that a choice. You cannot control what happens to you all of the time, but you have choices in how you react to it and what you do about it. I find people don't channel negativity to do positive things, they take the experiences which could lead to negativity and choose to do positive things instead while others wallow in the negativity and play the blame and whine woe is me game. Sometimes it takes time-loss of a loved one isn't something you bounce back from in a day for certain, and the loss will always be with you and affect you, but as time passes you will have to make choices and what choices you make in that situation is the kind of choices I am talking about. Yes,losing a job sucks, and it makes one angry and sad and can make you question your worth-but what then? What do you choose to do next? That defines negativity and positivity. Some people look for solutions while others look for excuses. Some people choose negativity instead of choosing to channel those experiences into something positive. For those that choose to try to do something positive, that's not channeling the negativity, that's choosing to do something positive about the situation and rejecting the negativity. And yes, there are those who have difficulty in making those choices or are incapable of it because of mental health issues. These are the people who need to get help and treatment, and sometimes (not always) getting that hep starts with a choice, and sometimes that choice is rendered moot because of institutional failure or other reasons, I get that, but mental health in many ways is just like physical health, when you are healthy you make choices about the health of your lifestyle, when you are ill your choices can be limited. -M
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 27, 2019 14:45:53 GMT -5
Mel Brooks Robin Hood: Men in Tights is a better Robin Hood than the last several Hollywood versions! It's not like it's a lot of competition. And Men in Tights is still a garbage movie. Eh, it's about 1/3 a decent movie, 1/3 an "ok" movie and 1/3 crap. I've never been able to get through Buckaroo Banzai, after 3 tries, yet I have gotten through Doc Savage 3 times. Peter Weller is the main thing that holds me back. His wooden delivery worked better in Robocop. With Buckaroo, I am falling asleep and never get into the meat of the film before I give up. Maybe some day. Galaxy Quest was a better Trek film than any of the Next Gen films and all of the Abrams (qualified with the fact I still haven't watched the third one), and a portion of TOS films.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 27, 2019 15:01:02 GMT -5
Mel Brooks Robin Hood: Men in Tights is a better Robin Hood than the last several Hollywood versions! It's not like it's a lot of competition. And Men in Tights is still a garbage movie. The winner and still cham-peen is the 1938 Flynn-DeHavilland-Curtiz, than which there is none better. "Why, you speak treason!" "Fluently."
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 27, 2019 21:39:22 GMT -5
Battle Beyond the Stars is a better Star Wars movie than all of the prequels Now you're just getting nasty...
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 27, 2019 22:01:19 GMT -5
Battle Beyond the Stars is a better Star Wars movie than all of the prequels Now you're just getting nasty... Nah, then I'd say Star Crash had better acting than Jake Lloyd (or Hayden Christensen). I will say that Lucas' tinkering improved THX 1138, over the original version.
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Post by berkley on Jun 27, 2019 23:24:55 GMT -5
Battle Beyond the Stars is a better Star Wars movie than all of the prequels Now you're just getting nasty...
I don't remember much about it apart from Sybil Danning's Space Valkyrie, or whatever they called her, but I could probably watch a good 2 hours straight of her in that outfit, just standing around and pointing and saying "Attack!".
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jun 28, 2019 3:25:34 GMT -5
Battle Beyond the Stars is campy and silly, but it's a damn entertaining movie. I'd watch that over any of the SW prequels any day. ...And Danning's space Valkyrie character is named 'Saint-Exmin.'
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