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Sorry, couldn't resist this one. It's what I thought the original thread was about when I first saw it.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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OSC is rough, sheesh. Episode One was better than he gave it credit for. If you ask me though, he analyzes too much into things that need to be taken as a given, just take it on good faith that this is happening in a movie, don't rip it apart looking for something to smash.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Sure... Darth Maul was a legitimately cool character, and he didn't mention that. It would have raised the average. Every Maul-less scene in the movie, though... if anything, he was being too kind.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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quote: Darth Maul only had, like, six words. How cool could he be?
That's part of what made him menacing. The other part was that he was played by an undiscovered martial artist who was a genius in both choreography and execution. Jet Li couldn't have done those fight scenes better, but the beauty of Ray Park is that no one had ever heard of him, so seeing something like that at the end of the most anticlimactic two hours of my life completely caught me off guard. Shyamalan has never made a film whose ending surprised me more than that did. That scene had no business being in a movie that bad. In fact, it only made Yoda's fight scene in Episode II seem that much goofier in comparison, so George may have been well served in leaving Darth Maul out.
quote: I want to be cool. I think I'll paint my face red and black and wear funky contacts.
Yes, the makeup may have been goofy, but I found every move he made and every word he refrained from speaking totally threatening. Like any trained martial artist, his movements even when he wasn't fighting conveyed enormous power. He played his role much better than Lucas had any right to expect and was by far the most compelling character in that entire film. Just because it was an obviously terrible movie doesn't mean that it was completely devoid of redeeming factors, and in this case, Darth Maul was it.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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I thought Darth Maul was dumb. He reminded me of an angsty thirty year old who lives in his mom's basement cosplaying.
I actually laughed at him! Usually my favorite characters are the ones with the most to say and who say the least. Darth Maul... he just had nothing to say so when he did talk, it was unnecessary.
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Darth Maul was a non-character. A throwaway. It's really too bad that it was written like that, because as a character, he had promise.
I don't see him exuding coolness, as Speed does. I certainly thought Boba Fett was a cooler character than Maul, even though he said less and his name is mentioned all of once in RotJ.
Posts: 903 | Registered: May 2003
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Well I guess if you don't like Darth Maul or Episode One, that's your opinion. But I liked the movie, and refuse to rip it to shreds like the majority of people out there.
Sometimes you just have to enjoy something for what it is.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I'm with you, Lyrhawn. Sure, TPM wasn't the greatest movie ever made - in fact, far from it - but that didn't stop me from liking it. It's Star Wars. There doesn't need to be a reason anymore (unless they make 7, 8, or 9 - in that case, I'm done). It is what it is and some of us like it. Things don't have to be "good" in order to like them. Deal.
I liked Darth Maul as well. That end fight was the best part of the movie and almost-but-not-really made up for the lack of anything else. I guess that puts me in the minority, but I'm over it. In fact, I was over it almost 5 and a half years ago.
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I know it's obvious that people were likely going to have too high of expectations for episode one because of the popularity of the earlier movies, but to belabor the point:
I love the Star Wars movies, and there are certain characteristics of the movies that make a lot of us like them, but the original ones had a ton of flaws too. Harrison Ford was great, but most of the other acting was pretty bad (I'm no movie critic, but their subsequent careers speak for themselves). I don't think the lines were much better. And the ewoks? Don't hate me because they are lovable, but they were as absurd as the Jar-Jar character.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I heard George Lucas was going to lock away the story for the last three films. Is that true? I think he should have a competition: let the Wachowski brothers do #7, and Peter Jackson do #8, and whoever makes the best film does the last one.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I like Toys. I didn't think it tried to be funny, so it worked. And even if I didn't particularly care about the characters in Mouse Hunt or It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, I still laughed a ton. You just have to roll with the movies.
Posts: 2292 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I watched 'Starship Troopers' yesterday and thought it was very funny. I think that if you've never read the original book and view it as a parody of all those dreadful, mindless shoot'em up space invader movies and games which have appeared in the last thirty years, rather than serious sci-fi you can appreciate that movie. It's not a work of art, but it's okay.
If you want a really bad sci-fi movie, try 'Lost in Space'. Someone made me pay to see that one.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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