Eleanor's Dad Camp movies so far this week: Pom Poko, Golden Compass, Return of the Jedi.
It's the "improved" Return of the Jedi. I didn't think that would matter since it's, uh, not a great film to begin with. But oh man, that new ending with everyone celebrating in the streets across the whole darn galaxy? I'd rather hear the Ewok song than hear
Jar Jar Binks (or his countryman) yelling "weesa FREE!"
Also, didn't they just screw themselves out of a plot for movies seven, eight and nine if everybody instantly accepts that the emperor is dead and openly celebrates without repercussions? Maybe in all those Star Wars novels I don't have time or inclination to read Jar Jar gets strung up by the authorities five minutes later. We can hope.
Something I'd forgotten about Jedi, though, is that it's not meant to be taken seriously. It's a campy collection of "once more for the memories" moments with a good cast and on that level it works.
Pom Poko is of course wacky enviroprop and pretty fun. Golden Compass is much more faithful to the book than I'd been lead to believe and by and large I enjoyed it, but yes, they blew it when they tried to remove all religious commentary and wound up just disappointing everybody instead of just pissing off Pullman's critics. They also choose a very flat place to end the movie, but you really can't end a Hollywood movie where that book ends. They didn't change it, they just stopped short of it, leaving open the possibility that the sequel would begin with some pretty scary stuff. Of course, it seems unlikely that
The Subtle Knife will ever be filmed. And how the hell do you script a watered-down version of
Amber Spyglass?
Tags: eleanor, movies, star wars
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