TOP 10 CHANGES I WOULD MAKE TO THE STAR WARS SAGA

The Star Wars movies are a work in progress. Lucas has been tweaking them and making changes from the re-release of the original movie in the late '70's through the recent Bluray editions of the saga. With the upcoming 3D versions of the movies, it's likely that he will continue to refine his movies to more fully realize his vision, for better or worse.

As Anakin's mom says in Episode I, "You can't stop change." As a long-time Star Wars fan, I'm mostly okay with the changes, many of which are subtle and actually improve and enrich the visual world of the movies. A few changes don't really work (Jabba's scene in A New Hope). And some are just weird and unnecessary (Vader's "Noooo!" in Jedi and his shuttle trip in Empire).

If you hate the changes made to the movies, you should go back and look at the originals some time. We take for granted some of the more subtle improvements that have been made to these movies. Thanks to the Special Editions we are spared the awful landspeeder effects, flimsy light sabers, and the atrocious Rancor blue screening.

Knowing that Lucas will continue to make updates, here's my list of changes I think should be made.

Just because you can show us an alien's tonsils, doesn't mean you should.

1. Fix Some of the 1990's CGI (Original Trilogy): If it's going to be in there, at least bring it into the 21st Century. Whether it be the dodgy compositioning and texturing (Sarlacc beak) or the overly ostentatious CGI in the Max Reebo Band number, it's time to go back and do some much needed touch-ups to the early generation digital effects.

2. Add Some Battle Droids to the Background Inside the Sandcrawler (A New Hope). The Battle Droids were ubiquitous in the Prequels but are totally absent from the original trilogy. It would be great to see some old rusted Battle Droids in the background inside the Sandcrawler or even replacing one of the robots in the droid sale. This would be a nice way to visually tie the trilogies together and some evidence of some Clone Wars action that might have happened on Tattooine, which would give some context to the Cantina bartender's line, "Your droids will have to wait outside! We don't serve their kind here."


3. Vader and the Blast Door (A New Hope): Before the Millennium Falcon escapes the Death Star and right after Obi-Wan sacrifices himself, Luke shoots a wall panel causing a door to shut on Vader, locking him out of the hangar. The way I see it, Vader is not going to wait for someone to fix the door, nor is he going to walk around. We need to see his red light saber poke through the door and begin cutting its way into the hangar. This helps establish Vader as an unstoppable bad-ass.

We could even see him step through in time to see the Falcon leave. This would be a nice call-back to The Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon attempts to cut through the door on the Federation cruiser and it also recalls moments when Darth Maul watches the Naboo ship escape on Tattooine and when the Falcon narrowly escapes Vader twice in Empire. (Come to think of it, there are lots of shots in Star Wars in which people frustratedly watch ships take off.)


3. Add Count Dooku to the Jedi Council (The Phantom Menace): One of the problems with Count Dooku as a villain is that he comes out of nowhere in Episode II and we have to listen to a lot of people talk about his backstory. He plays such a major part in the prequels that he should really be visually established prior to Episode II. Since we hear that he is an important Jedi prior to the Clone Wars, why not see him on the Council in Episode I?

Digitally put him in place of the "conehead" Jedi Ki-Adi Mundi and give him that character's one line and then at least we are introduced to him and we actually see that he was an important Jedi rather than having to take Mace Windu's word for it. It gives him a clearer character arc and makes him a more effective villain.

4. Fix Some of the Bad Puppet/Mask Work (Original Trilogy): This is sacrilege for some people, but the Special Editions were not ambitious enough when it came to improving on the bad mask and puppet work throughout the Original Trilogy. I'm surprised Lucas didn't remove more of the cheap masked characters from the Cantina scene with digital characters. Now that the Prequels are over, it would be nice to see some Prequel aliens represented in there. Also in Jabba's Palace, Max Reebo looks like a big ole Muppet.

It's time to play the music...it's time to light the lights...

5. Fix Yoda. (Throughout) I'm a bit dissatisfied with Yoda in both trilogies. I like his range of movement and performance in the Prequels but there was something very plastic about his skin. It was a bit too shiny and translucent. I'd really like to see him "reskinned" with a duller tone that is more like the puppet used in Empire and Jedi.

Yoda was never the same after the stroke...

That's not to say that I am a huge fan of the puppet. There are some scenes where he works well and some scenes that are painful, such as when he is "emoting" surprise when Luke manages to lift the X-Wing from the swamp. Or the awful Yoda dummy that was in Luke's backpack. Or his death scene in Jedi where Luke pulls a blanket over him, which gets caught on his rubber toe and pulls it back like an empty glove. If there ever comes a day when they can create a CGI Yoda that is indistinguishable from the puppet Yoda, they should go in an fix a few scenes to make Yoda more expressive and lifelike.

Hellooooo dear!

6. Fix The Emperor (The Empire Strikes Back): Re-doing the Emperor's sole scene in The Empire Strikes Back with Ian McDiarmid was a great move. The only problem was that he was wearing his weird Mrs. Doubtfire makeup from Revenge of the Sith. Let's fix this so that he looks more like his appearance in Return of the Jedi.

7. Tweak a Few Lines in Jedi: After Sith, there are some lines in Return of the Jedi that stick out as not being very accurate. After Luke expresses his intent to redeem his father, Vader says, "Obi-Wan once thought as you do."

The only problem is that Obi-Wan pretty much had made up his mind to kill Anakin before he even got to Mustafar. It's actually Padme who wants to take Anakin away in the same way that Luke does, so the line could be changed to, "Your mother once thought as you do." This change makes the line more accurate and also more emotionally powerful. With the return of his son, there is no doubt that thoughts of Padme are running around inside Vader's head as he struggles to turn back.

Also, when Luke asks Leia about her "real" mother, she gives a description of her as a beautiful but sad woman which begs the question, who is she talking about? To simplify this, the word "real" should be removed and we can just assume that she is talking about her adopted mother, the one we see her with at the end of Sith, and Luke, trying to ease into the topic, doesn't bother to correct her.

8. Diversify the Rebels (Original Trilogy): It seems like the Rebels are a pretty homogeneous bunch. In the first couple of movies, Chewie is the only alien in their ranks. By the time we get to Jedi, we see some Mon Calamari and some other aliens but it still doesn't seem very representative. I'd like them to make it a little less human-centric to contrast better with the Empire, which is supposed to be the undiverse faction (being diverse in the Empire means you don't have a British accent.) Let's actually see some of those Bothans that Mon Mothma is all broken up about. The Star Wars Galaxy is a pretty diverse place, let's show it off.

And give Chewie his damn metal.

9. Fix the Tauntauns (Empire Strikes Back): While the stop motion work that you see is not too bad, the Tauntauns look much worse when you see them in close and medium shots when they are dead-eyed animatronics. Even worse, when you see them in Echo Base they are often hiding behind ice columns to hide their puppet mechanisms. I'd like to see some CGI in these shots, to make them more convincing and lifelike in the background.

10. Give Ahsoka Tano A Cameo In Sith: As a nod to the popular The Clone Wars series that has brought a whole new generation to Star Wars and is set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, let's have a quick cameo from one of its protagonists, Anakin's Padawan Ahsoka Tano. She could be simply strolling down the hallway in the Jedi Temple or otherwise in the background, but it would be a treat to work her into the live action movies.

Here's a bonus one:

11. Take Out The "Nooooo" and "She's Lost The Will to Live." (Revenge of the Sith): There you were in 2005. It was the movie you had been waiting for forever. For the most part, Lucas had not screwed it up. There was no Jar Jar, very fewAnakin/Padme scenes, it was a legitimately satisfying Star Wars prequel, with some of the best scenes and sequences of the entire saga.

You were at the end and Anakin had been rescued from his brutal defeat at the hands of Obi-Wan, in a scene that was surprisingly intense and graphic. Intercut with a scene of Padme dying while giving birth to the twins is a sequence in which Darth Vader is born.

Intertwining these two scenes was a brilliant and haunting choice. Then we get the one-two punch. First, some Jaialai-handed robot tells Obi-Wan that Padme is dying because, "She has lost the will to live." The droid is practically shrugging as it gives this half-assed diagnosis. You just wished Obi-Wan would have split it in half and said, "No dumbass, she was Force Choked!" It was a stupid, awkward moment.

Then we cut back to Vader and he looks a little terrified as that mask is lowered onto his face. sealing him into his suit. There is a beat and then we hear that infamous breathing and we see it displace the mist that his hanging over him. In a clear visual allusion to Frankenstein, his operating table is straightened and he takes his first awkward steps, while telekinetically crushing the droids and equipment around him. He asks, what has become of Padme and when he is told, he lets loose an awful melodramatic "Noooooo!" while the camera slowly zooms out and Palpatine looks on, pleased. This moment ruins the otherwise perfect scene, which was to be the tragic summation of the entire prequel trilogy.

Both of these moments can be easily fixed. First, cut the droid's line and the shot entirely. We already know what happened to Padme. It's goofy and unnecessary.

Second, I agree with the sentiment of "Noooooo!" but not the execution. This is a Tragedy after all, so it's okay that emotions run big but the combination of the line and the camera zooming out is a huge cliche. Let's replace the "Nooooo!" with a scream of rage and loose the zoom out. I would even have him crush the droids after he finds out about Padme, like he's letting loose some kind of Force storm, letting the Dark Side give him power, which pleases Palpy.





Patrick Garone
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Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

Monster Movie of the Week: Mimic (1997)

MIMIC (1997)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Genre: Horror/Survival

THE MOVIE

Horror movies are like icebergs of which we only normally see the tip. The rest of it is generally too unpleasant to show on screen. And I’m not talking about violence or gore, that’s evolved into its own genre: the sadistic torture porn movies that are so popular now. I’m talking about horror movies that identify people’s phobic pressure points and hammer away at them. Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly and Ridley Scott’s Alien both do this. Mimic is nowhere near as good as those movies but is stylish and effective and doesn’t pull any punches: kids and animals are fair game. In fact, the movie opens with a scene in a children’s hospital in which we see a very sick child struggling to stay alive. Although, children are commonly present in movies like this there is a convention that, although they maybe in dangerous situations, nothing is really going to happen to them. You knew Ripley was going to go back and rescue Newt and everything would be okay (well until David Fincher got a hold of them), you knew Timmy and Lex really weren’t going to get eaten by Velociraptors in that kitchen. In fact, there is a pair of kids in The Relic not unlike the bug collecting kids from Mimic but the only difference is that the filmmakers in The Relic chose an unrealistic but less disturbing fate for their two kids.

Of course, if you are scared of bugs then Mimic will probably freak you out. Myself, I grew up in apartments in Chicago, so I’ve had some run-ins with cockroaches. What the production design of Mimic does very well is capture the kinds of places where you are likely to run into bugs. Everything is dark and shadowy and wet and grimy. Urban decay is the overriding design theme. The movie even ventures into the legendary subterranean New York, where the subway tunnels meet once-elegant but long-abandoned train stations from the turn of the last century.


Mimic was one of the first English-language films from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, who has given us such great genre movies as Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth. Mimic fits well into his fascination with insects and monsters and underground places. The movie also as a subtle Latin American aesthetic to it in its Catholic imagery and especially in the way that the insects cowls close to form a face resembling Mexican folk art.

In the movie’s opening scenes, we learn that a deadly plague has swept New York’s children. The disease is carried by cockroaches who have survived all conventional attempts to eliminate them. An entomologist has genetically engineered a hybrid insect species to eliminate the cockroach infestation. The new species, the “Judas Breed” was engineered to be sterile and die out after a short period of time. We jump forward several years and there are several mysterious and violent murders happening in or near the entrances to the underground. We see fleeting glimpses of a tall figure that seems to be wearing a long cloak. Meanwhile, a couple of kids bring the entomologist a mysterious bug, resembling the Judas Breed insect but larger and more highly evolved. Several groups of characters go investigating the subway for various reasons and end up trapped and trying to escape the infested tunnels.

Mira Sorvino plays the entomologist. My first problem with this is that every time I see her I think of Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion which makes me giggle. It doesn’t help that she’s about nine feet tall and has a weird tranny voice. On top of that, her character is written as a one of a long line of movie scientists who adhere to hare-brained theories with absolute certainty. In this case, she tells a bunch of people to smear insect guts all over themselves because “they’ll think you’re one of them!” That’s right up there with “Don’t move! It can’t see you if you don’t move!”

The monsters in Mimic are man-sized insects with the ability to rearrange their bodies into a vaguely human shape, thus they are the titular “mimics.” If you see them in silhouette or without your glasses on they look like people, otherwise, they don’t exactly pass. The whole mimic thing is really just a nice little visual subplot in this movie which is more concerned with big scary man eating bugs (the movie has about as much to do with mimics as Signs has to do with crop circles). The visual style serves to cover up a pretty typical monster movie plot that is fairly derivative of other movies such as Aliens. This was a troubled production and del Torro was fired and rehired by the producers over creative disagreements.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

Good effects all around. There is actually a surprising amount of practical effects, handled by the great Rob Bottin.

MONSTERS

Female drones and one big giant male “king bug.”

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Widely available in a 1st generation DVD with few features.

As of this writing a nifty director's cut has been made available on Bluray with a digital copy. In truth, the Director's cut is not THAT different but it does restore some interesting subplots to the movie. If you were ever wondering what the deal was with the mysterious abandoned church where the Asian priest was killed near the beginning of the movie, a major scene is restored which shows the place to have been a front for a sweatshop. Also more prominent is the subplot involving Sorvino's character's attempt to become pregnant.

The set has some nice featurettes about the making of the movie. Refreshingly, del Torro speaks frankly and directly to the camera for an extended chat about the difficulties making the movie and his original vision for it. More generally he talks about the craft of filmmaking and horror filmmaking in particular, especially the studio pressures to reach the lowest common denominator. I was struck by something the director said, which was to the effect that some of his best movies are the ones he never got to make, referring to some of his famously unfulfilled projects like At The Mountain of Madness. He's currently working on Pacific Rim but has had a bad bit of luck over the last few years with projects falling through, starting with his involvement with The Hobbit.

The set has some of the usual stuff, such as a few deleted scenes and even a gag reel. They did a decent job cleaning up the picture but, it is a dark murky movie from 1997 so it's only going to look so good. It's actually pretty cheap at the moment and definitely worth picking up for fans of the movie or del Torro.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

None in particular.

SEQUELS

There have been two direct to DVD sequels, one crappy, one surprisingly good.

MINORITY REPORT

This is an ongoing feature in which we look at Race and Survival in monster movies.

The veridict:

It should be noted the director is not American but that doesn’t mean the genre trends don’t apply. That being said, he first dude to die is an Asian Catholic priest. Read whatever you want into that.

The wonderful Charles S. Dutton, an African American actor probably best known for the TV show “Rock” and his role in Alien 3 is one of a small group of survivors in the last act that consists of a black dude a Latino(?) dude and a white couple. The Latino dude gets it first. Then Dutton basically sacrifices himself so that the white people can get away (sort of like his death in Alien 3.) This is a movie stereotype I like to call the Sacrificial Negro. Ultimately the survivors are a white couple and an orphaned autistic Latino kid.

TRIVIA

The Assistant Director on this movie was none other than Robert Rodriguez.

TRAILER

Monster Movie of the Week: Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris

GAMERA: REVENGE OF IRIS (1999)

aka Gamera 3,

Gamera: The Awakening of Irys

Gamera: The Incomplete Struggle

Director: Shusuke Kaneko

Genre: Kaiju Eiga

THE MOVIE

Japanese director Shusuke Kaneko is the modern master of the kaiju eiga genre. With Gamera: Revenge of Iris, he surpasses the high benchmark he had set in the great Gamera: Attack of Legion. In the twisted destinies of the Gamera and Godzilla franchises he manages to make a movie that is far superior not only to any Heisei Godzilla movie but possibly to any Godzilla movie up until that time. This is ironic for several reasons. First, Gamera was created as a cheap Godzilla knock off with a reputation for poorly produced kid-oriented movies (although the Godzilla movies would eventually embrace this more profitable approach in the 1960’s). So the fact that a modern Gamera series would be relaunched which employed modern near-Hollywood quality special effects at a time when the Godzilla series gave us such non-classics as Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla was a serious challenge to the always competitive Toho Studios. I personally believe that the success, acclaim and quality of the ‘90’s Gamera movies as well as the horrible reception of the American Godzilla movie both led directly to Toho’s decision to bring the Godzilla series back in 1999 and they informed the kinds of movies that we saw in the the Millenium Series.

Secondly, Shusuke Kaneko is a lifelong fan of Godzilla and never particularly cared for the old Gamera movies. He had lobbied in the early 1990’s to direct a Godzilla movie and was declined. After the success of the Gamera movies, he was finally given his chance to take on Godzilla and gave us the great Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack, which many consider to be the finest Godzilla movie to date and, like Gamera 3, is a certain contender for best kaiju film of all time.

Iris takes place a few years after Legion and features some returning characters from Gamera: Guardian of the Universe as well as some new characters. Mayumi Nagamine, the ornithologist from the first movie returns as do the giant Gyaos monsters which are popping up with increasing frequency around the world. The movie also introduces us to Ayana, a young girl whose parents were killed during the battle between Gamera and Gyaos in the first movie and who also harbors a deep hatred of Gamera because of this. This is an interesting storyline as it puts a face on the all of the people that are killed off screen during a kaiju battle. One of the things that this movie does very well is remind us that even though Gamera may be “heroic," he is still a monster and he causes a great deal of death and destruction where ever he goes. Ayana eventually comes across a mystical Japanese artifact that hatches into a strange creature that she names Iris, after her cat that was along with her parents. Iris grows into a giant monster that Ayana raises to battle Gamera, developing a dark version of the bond shared by Gamera and Asagi from the previous movies.

Gamera 3 is a millennial movie and like many movies made in the late ‘90’s , there is a feeling that the world is out of balance and that disaster is just around the corner. This aspect of the movie is not developed as much as I would like and raises more questions than is satisfactorily answers. For example, early in the movie a submarine discovers a graveyard of fossilized Gameras on the seafloor. This is a really striking image but what does it really mean, other than that the ancients created “beta versions” as one character explains. The return of the Gyaos seems to be related to environmental collapse (as determined by a “game” run on a Sega Dreamcast of all things) and somehow this is related to Japan’s consumption of “mana.” Maybe one day we'll get a sequel trilogy that addresses some of these plot issues.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

Gamera gets a slight redesign here continuing the trend of making him darker and meaner looking. Compared to the relatively cuddly costume from Guardian, this Gamera has lots ridges frills and dangerous bits. He really looks good in this movie.

There is even a special “Nightmare Gamera” that is featured a couple of times in this movie when Ayana flashes back to when her parents were killed we see what Gamera looks like in her memories and we see a version of the character that is even dark, white-eyed and evil looking. This Gamera is a visual cousin to the Godzilla featured in Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah.

Iris, is a bit of a mixed bag. The final form of Iris is an anthropomorphic collection of biomechanical blades and tentacles. My biggest complaint is that Iris lacks a real “face” with eyes we can identify with. However, he is a striking monster particularly when it is able to take flight on membranous wings.

The Gyaos get a great makeover in this movie and their flying scenes are done digitally and they look amazing (no more Rodanitis.) One thing that the movie really succeeds at is unobtrusively using CGI to supplement the suitmation effects, which is something Toho has historically been shy about (or possibly cheap about) in their Godzilla movies, insisting on exclusively using the old techniques to bring their characters to life.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

Gamera battles a pair of Gyaos in and above Tokyo’s Shibuya district. This is perhaps the greatest and most exciting kaiju action sequence ever, probably rivaled only by Rodan’s attack on New York in Godzilla Final Wars.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

No too hard to get. You can get it individually or in a three pack. There are some good interviews and stuff on the DVD, including some scenes from the movie redubbed for comic effect.

Gamera 3 has also been recently released on Bluray. Unfortunately, it is being treated as a budget release and has not been restored or cleaned up for its HD release and the image quality is only marginally better than the DVD release. On the up-side, you can get the whole trilogy on Bluray for less than $15 on Amazon.

SEQUELS

This movie ended the Heisei cycle of Gamera movies. Gamera: The Brave was released in 2006 and brings the series back to its roots in a pretty solid kids movie.

SEE ALSO

Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack (2001)

Patrick Garone
Follow Me On Twitter
Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

Star Wars Bluray Review, Part 1: The Prequels

I grew up on the original trilogy of Star Wars. Like many other people my age, it was a HUGE part of my childhood. Like many others from my generation, my interest in Star Wars dipped in the mid eighties and then spiked again with the re-release of the movies on video in the mid 1990's, which coincided with new novels, comics, toys and the eventual release of the Special Editions. Like many other Star Wars fans, I was psyched about the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999 but unlike many other fans, I actually enjoyed it. My point is, despite my affinity for the original movies, I am not an Original Trilogy partisan. I like to take Star Wars as a series of six movies that are all pretty flawed but each of which has their own strengths and weaknesses.

The movies are all out on Bluray in either a set of two trilogies or a mammoth boxed set which includes all six movies and three discs of bonus materials. I've managed to make my way through all the prequels thus far and will be looking at the other three movies at a later date. If you are interested in my thoughts on the bonus materials check out this entry.

It's hard to believe its been over a decade since the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. This was perhaps the most hyped movie of all time and was released to strong negative reaction by fanboys and people who grew up on the original trilogy, so objective reactions to the movie are relatively hard to come by. It will always be judged in comparison to people's impressions of the movies that came before it. However, Roger Ebert gave the movie a clear-eyed review and three and a half stars. In his review he called it, "an astonishing achievement in imaginative filmmaking." Prior to the movie's release, Steven Spielberg saw the film and said that Star Wars fans were in for a "treat." The movie was a massive hit and audiences flocked to it. For a whole generation of children, The Phantom Menace is their Star Wars.

So how does the movie hold up twelve years later? Episode I is a solid piece of pop entertainment, with lots of excitement and spectacle. The movie's 3D release is right around the corner, and watching it again at home it seems almost like The Phantom Menace was made with 3D in mind. The podrace sequence, in particular, is going to be a lot of fun and the novelty of seeing it in 3D will actually justify its length.

Star Wars to me has always been about a great story and, for me, this is where Episode I and the other prequels really outshine the Original Trilogy. While Lucas often fumbles the specifics of cinematic storytelling (dialogue and directing actors) his visual storytelling and the overarching plot and themes make the prequels really resonate. Lucas is telling the story of the fall of a democracy which parallels the story of the fall of his hero. The prequels are political allegory and much more ambitious than the simplistic rebels vs. evil empire story of the original movies.

Attack of the Clones was released three years later and, in some ways gave audiences a little more of what they were expecting to see in the previous movie. We have Anakin in his prime, lots of Jedi action, the Clone Wars, Mandalorians, stormtroopers, less Jar Jar, etc. But it also devoted an inordinate about of time to an absolutely painful-to-watch love story. Clones features some of the absolute best and worst moments in Star Wars. The last forty minutes of the movie are amazing fun.

Three years later, Revenge of the Sith was released. In many ways, this was the movie that fans had been waiting for. It featured the rise of the empire, the Jedi purge, the creation of Darth Vader and birth of Luke and Leia. Sith is a dark piece of pop tragedy and actually a pretty solid movie. For my money, it is tied with The Empire Strikes Back as the best of the six movies. Whereas with the previous two prequels, I would cut whole scenes and sequences, in Revenge of the Sith I would only cut some dialogue here and there which diminish otherwise strong scenes.

Even the performances are better, as the actors have more to do (although Natalie Portman is still basically furniture. Being a heroine in Star Wars is a thankless task) and Hayden Christiansen's descent into evil mostly works, although the movie could have used another scene connecting how he went from assisting in the murder of Mace Windu to killing children. Ian McDiarmid, who had hovered in the sidelines for two movies as the slimy politician Palpatine here gets to complete his journey to power in grand fashion. He has some great moments in Sith, especially the chilling story he tells Anakin in the opera scene about the fallen Sith Lord, Darth Plagueis.

As far as their transition to Bluray, the movies are a mixed bag. The Phantom Menace is the only one of the three not to be shot digitally and the transfer is not up to part with the others I've seen snippets of the movie broadcast in HD on cable and the Bluray version is not a whole lot better. Revenge of the Sith is the most recent movie (2005) and it is absolutely beautiful on Bluray. It feels like there is almost nothing between you and what you are looking at on screen and the level of detail on costumes and sets is amazing. If nothing else, the set is worth it just for Sith. The presentation on Attack of the Clones is better than Phantom but not quite as good as Sith.

The prequels are flawed movies but, realistically, so are the originals. You can't fault the new movies for their lackluster performances, wooden dialogue, and inappropriate comic relief without holding the original movies to the same standard. Again, I look at Star Wars as a six movie series with an epic, multi-generational story about fall and redemption. It is a story that is much better and more resonant than the medium in which it is told.



Patrick Garone
Follow Me On Twitter
Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl