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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
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Thursday, May 16, 2002
16:59 - An Army of Chakotays

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Just got back from seeing Episode II, and my sound-bite verdict is that it's very good. Certainly a hell of a lot better than Episode I, though that's not much of a stretch. It's about halfway between Episode I and the other three in "feel", and that's more progress than I'd hoped for.

I won't trouble getting into the plot details (of which there are far too many to deal with anyway-- talk about convoluted storylines); I'll just say one thing: Lucas has finally figured out how to integrate a prequel into a series, and that has made all the difference.

Episode I suffered from repeated plot-point references to other Star Wars movies, but it made the ridiculous mistake of referring to events which would happen later in the series-- the most obvious example being when Qui-Gon tries to use his Jedi mind-tricks to get Watto to sell him that engine or whatever-it was, and Watto said "What, you think you some kind of Jedi or something? You mind tricks don' work on me!" Which only has a place in the script if the honest exchange to which it refers-- the "These aren't the droids you're looking for" scene from Episode IV-- has already taken place in the series. You canNOT do the same scene twice by playing it with a twist the first time and playing it straight the second time. Vice versa is fine. They do it all the time. But not the way they did it in Episode I.

But this time around, while the references to other SW movies abound, they're done properly-- which is to say, they don't detract from the impact of the antecedent scenes in later episodes, and in fact they help to foreshadow them. When Anakin feels that his mother is in pain and rushes off to save her, with all the consequences that ensue, it's not just a pre-reference to Luke rushing off to save Han and Leia and so on in Bespin in Episode V-- but it's a foreshadowing of the event, invoking the same issues. The only difference is in scale (here in Episode II, it's a quick personal vendetta, whereas in Empire it's a much larger-scope decision that results in cataclysmic revelations and so on). First comes the small-scale event, then later there's the large-scale mirroring event. Much better done.

It was good to see the droids back to their familiar selves, but I could have done without C-3PO's ad-libbed quipping. "This is a drag!" "I'm beside myself!" C'mon-- this isn't Nickelodeon. This we don't need.

And as we all noted when coming out of the theater, Episode III is going to have to involve some kind of cataclysmic event that knocks Galactic technology backwards by a couple hundred years before it looks like the stuff in Episode IV. The stuff we're seeing in the early episodes is straight out of Star Trek-- smooth, shiny, aerodynamic, computer-generated. But the stuff that we see in episodes IV through VI are angular, blocky, utilitarian, and heavily detailed in that way that only the hands of skilled model artisans can make it. And going from the insanely fast pace of the battle scenes in Episode II to the leisurely, spare clank of Episode IV will be trippy indeed.

Oh, one other note: Jar-Jar's role in Episode II was blessedly brief. And if he was only there so as to appear as the lone, unexpectedly courageous Senator who makes the audacious proposal to the Senate, then I'll live with it-- as long as we don't ever have to see him again.

Looks like Lucas is back on track. I'm glad to see it.

And the story is getting big now, at last.

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