Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Today's movie is real bad one...maybe the worst I've ever seen. It was the brain child of this guy named George Lucas. Apparently this Lucas  made a few go-no-where movies in the 70's and 80's. Course Lucas only came up with the story. It was directed by this fella Steven Spielberg, who is best know for directing the 1971 made for TV movie Duel. He probably should have stopped there, but he didn't.

Synopsis: A college professor of archeology, is contracted out by the U.S. government to stop the Nazi's from getting their hand on the lost Ark of the Covenant in 1936.

All you have to do is read what I wrote above and know this movie has some major problems. Alright, a college professor is going to fight Nazis. I've seen college professors before and most look like they couldn't fight off a bad cold, let alone the entire Third Reich. And get this, he fights them with ....wait for it....A WHIP! So I guess he is also into some kind of weird S&M stuff. Oh he's gonna punish those Nazis good...and well they are German, so they might like it. Germans are into weird stuff.

I mean I guess this movie hold together OK, but geez this dude is getting into a fight with someone every five minutes it seems. No one can actually kill the guy,though. I guess having bad aim is required to be part of the Nazis. The ending is also kinda anti-climatic and reeks of Deus Ex Machina. And I was hoping for a big finish, but it wasn't to be found in this movie.I guess that truck chase was big, but it was like way back near the end of the 2nd act!

It's kinda sad...I mean if these two guys could have made a good movie, then I'm sure they'd both have long careers. And I don't think they'd be like some writers or directors who start to lose their touch and stop listening to their fans. Then start mucking with their perfectly fine movies, and making these movies that only they really like, but since they are so rich they don't care if anyone else likes them or not. No, I'm sure they'd have long careers and many many happy fans.

There were a couple of sequels to this movie, but I'd never heard of them before I stumbled on this one. They probably went straight to video. So I popped them in and the next two are just as bad as this one, but the fourth one was alright. Too bad it didn't have more to work with. I might review those at some point too if I can sit through them.

Raiders of the Lost Ark gets a 1 out 5 on the Cheese-O-Meter.

Until next time, see you on the front line.

-Matt

Blitzkrieg Intermisson: The Star Wars Inconsistency Part 2:The Empire Strikes Back.

Last time we looked at what A New Hope has to say about the prequels. Today we take on one of the best sequels to ever come out of Hollywood: The Empire Strikes Back.

If you ask me which Star Wars movie I like best I will tell you The Empire Strikes Back. However this isn't always the case. I seem to flux between which one of these films is my favorite. For a long time when I was a kid Return of the Jedi was my favorite. This, however, was more due to the ROTJ being the only movie that actually had a presence when I was younger. I saw ROTJ in the theater, I bought ROTJ figures. So of course it was my favorite.

When I got older and more cynical, The Empire Strikes Back took over as my favorite of the films. I think this is just because there was less aliens, less flash, and more substance then ROTJ could offer, and that held with my maturing mind better.

Now an odd thing is happening. ESB is still my favorite, but now A New Hope is starting make steps to taking it's place. I think now, as I seem to be feeling my age that I want to return to simpler things. Why I don't just got back to ROTJ? I have no idea. What does this have to do with what The Empire Strikes Back has to tell us about the Prequels? Nothing. So let's get into that.








BEN: Luke...Luke.

LUKE: Ben?

BEN: You will go to the Dagobah system.

LUKE: Dagobah system?

BEN: There you will learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed
me.

We come to one of the most notable of inconsistency between the Prequels and the Original Trilogy. Who trained Obi-Wan? In The Phantom Menace were are shown that Obi-Wan Kenobi is the Padawan Learner of Qui-Gon Jinn, not Yoda as this scene in tells us. The damage control for this inconsistency starts almost as soon as we are presented with it. Young Obi-Wan utters the line "But Master Yoda told me to mindful of the Future." I'm guessing this throw away line was suppose to appease us that at some point maybe Yoda taught Obi-Wan something. But really Obi-Wan didn't say "You will learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master that gave me a few pointers one time." No, he said "who instructed him". And that person is clearly Qui-Gon Jinn here.

The rumblings about this didn't end after The Phantom Menace, enter Attack of the Clones. In Attack of the Clones we are shown Yoda instructing young Jedi. Again I think this is way of George Lucas showing that Obi-Wan must also have gone through this training with Yoda. I have to wonder if this scene would even have been in the movie if people hadn't thrown a fit about Yoda not being Obi-Wan's master. I actually think it wouldn't have been. Also later in the movie we learn that Qui-Gon was trained by Count Dooku, who was trained by Yoda. So now we are playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to prove that in some way Yoda trained Obi-Wan?

At the end of day I just have to feel that Lucas failed here. He wanted Qui-Gon in there as Obi-Wan's master and what came before didn't matter. He could have wrote himself out of it, I can think of a few ways to make it work without contradicting what was said in The Empire Strikes Back, but George instead went the route he did. In my opinion Lucas just couldn't be bothered with making this work.





YODA: Not far. Yoda not far. Patience. Soon you will be with him. Rootleaf, I cook. Why wish you become Jedi? Hm?

LUKE: Mostly because of my father, I guess.

YODA: Ah, your father. Powerful Jedi was he, powerful Jedi, mmm.

Anakin was shown to be a powerful Jedi in his time in the prequels. From his abilities as Pod Racer, to his exploits during the war, Anakin is shown to be very powerful in the Force. Lucas is good here.





LUKE: Oh, come on. How could you know my father? You don't even know who I am. Oh, I don't even know what I'm doing here. We're wasting our time.

YODA: I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience.

BEN'S VOICE: He will learn patience.

YODA: Much anger in him, like his father.

Anakin is shown always trying to control his anger in the Prequels. From his removal from his mother at such young age, to her death at the hands of Sandpeople. His having to keep his relationship with Padme secret, to the fact that the council refused to make him a Master. Anakin always seems to be angry about something in the Prequels. An anger that when bottled up exploded outwards, like when he killed the Sandpeople. Lucas was very good at showing where the anger that finally consumed Anakin came from, even Hayden wasn't the best at conveying it.





BEN'S VOICE: Was I any different when you taught me?

YODA: Hah. He is not ready.

LUKE: Yoda! I am ready. I...Ben! I can be a Jedi. Ben, tell him I'm ready.

YODA: Ready, are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained! A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life as he looked away. To the future, the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh! Excitement. Heh! A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless!

BEN'S VOICE: So was I, if you'll remember.

Again we have Obi-Wan confirming that Yoda was in fact his Master, but we covered that above. Just to say this seems to indicate a much more involved Master/Pupil relationship then what is show in the Prequels.





BEN: Luke, I don't want to lose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader.

LUKE: You won't.

In Revenge of the Sith the Palpatine seduced Anakin away from the light with promises of the power to save Padme. He abandoned the teachings of Obi-Wan and followed the Emperor instead. Obi-Wan lost Anakin to the Darkside, and here is fearful that the same may happen with Luke. This matches up pretty well.





YODA: Stopped they must be. On this depends. Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor. If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil.

I don't know if Vader really picked the quick and easy path. He picked the path that he thought would save Padme. A path that the Jedi couldn't teach him. I guess you could say that such a path was part of the Darkside and the Darkside is easier and quicker way to power. So I can give a pass on this one.





VADER: If you only knew the power of the dark side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.

LUKE: He told me enough! He told me you killed him.

VADER: No. I am your father.

LUKE: No. No. That's not true! That's impossible!

VADER: Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

LUKE: No! No! No!

And the big reveal. If you had watched the prequels first, this would have been totally ruined for you. Luckily, hardly anyone did that. So no problems here.

In Revenge of the Sith Padme reveals to Anakin that is pregnant with his child. By the end of the movie Anakin thinks that his child had died with it's mother. So he must have been surprised when he found out that the Rebel that blew up the Death Star and was causing the Emperor to get his panties all in a bunch was in fact his son. This matches up pretty good. So nothing really of note here.

Well that does it for The Empire Strikes Back. Next we will be looking at Return of the Jedi. Jedi has a very interesting deleted scene from the script. Also will look at all the people and creatures we lost due to the Special Editions.

Until next time, I'll see you on the font line.

-Matt

Blitzkrieg Intermisson: The Star Wars Inconsistency Part 1: A New Hope.

Today we will are taking a break from reviewing bad movies and TV shows, to talk about well...movies. Some are really good, some are really bad. All are Star Wars.

There was a time in my life when I was a Star Wars fanatic. I admit this freely. Honestly, I wish I still was. But my love was put to the test and I guess it wasn't as strong as I thought it was. You see something started in 1997 and ended in 2005 that showed me that Star Wars and myself should just be friends. Friends with the benefits, but still just friends. The thing that happened where two fold, the first was called the Special Edtions. Greedo shooting first, CGI Jabba, the whole works. It started to put doubt in my mind and then the Prequels came.

I know at this point bashing the prequels has become a little cliché. So that's not what I will be doing here, at least not in the fan boy "KILL JAR JAR" kinda way. Instead what I'm going to look at today is what the original three movies have to say about the time before the events of A New Hope took place and how well they match up with what we finally saw on the big screen. A little spoiler here... sometimes not very well, other times a little better. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Instead we will start at the beginning... a little film called STAR WARS.









LUKE: But what if this Obi-Wan comes looking for him?

OWEN: He won't, I don't think he exists any more. He died about the same time as your father.

This is the first mention in the film of anything that might have taken place before the events of the movie. This does mesh pretty well will what is shown in the Prequels, but there is little, to no, specific information here either. If you take the "certain point of view" to heart then both these men did "die" around the same time. Anakin became Darth Vader, and Obi-Wan went into hiding adopting the name Ben. So far so good.





AUNT BERU: Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him.

OWEN: That's what I'm afraid of.

Likewise here we see that the Prequels do match up well. Owen would have no doubt heard what had become of Anakin when Obi-Wan brought Luke to him. He'd know of his fall to the Darkside and wouldn't want his nephew, really his adopted son, to follow his father down that same path.





LUKE: This little droid. I think he's searching for his former master...I've never seen such devotion in a droid before. He claims to be the property of an Obi-Wan Kenobi. Is he a relative of yours? Do you know who he's talking about?

BEN: Obi-Wan Kenobi...Obi-Wan? Now that's a name I haven't heard in a
long time... a long time.

LUKE: I think my uncle knew him. He said he was dead.

BEN: Oh, he's not dead...not yet.

LUKE: You know him!

BEN: Well of course I know him. He's me! I haven't gone by
the name Obi-Wan since oh, before you were born.

This is Luke's first meeting, that he remembers anyway, with Obi-Wan Kenobi. It also contains the first inconsistency, with the Prequels. Although, it is a small one. Ben claims that he hasn't used the name Obi-Wan since before Luke was born. In fact the way he said implies that he had adopted the name Ben awhile before Luke was born. In the Prequels Ben uses the name Obi-Wan right up till the end. It really is a small thing though in the end and something that is easy to just shrug off. I wish the others where this easy as well, but they aren't

LUKE: No, my father didn't fight in the wars. He was a navigator on a spice freighter.

BEN: That's what your uncle told you. He didn't hold with your father's ideals. Thought he should have stayed here and not gotten involved.

The events that Ben is speaking of here were never shown in the prequels at all. In fact Owen and Anakin barely know each other. This seems to speak of a much more familiar relationship then is shown in Attack of the Clones. A debate, a difference in ideology ,and a concern for Anakin and what he might be getting himself into. In Attack of the Clones we see Anakin arrive at the Lars homestead looking for his mother, then he makes is way to the Sandpeople camp, and then back to the Lars homestead and then away to save Obi-Wan. Anakin and Owen's interaction is very limited and none of the above conversation seems to take place.





LUKE: You fought in the Clone Wars?

BEN: Yes, I was once a Jedi Knight the same as your father.

LUKE: I wish I'd known him.

BEN: He was the best star-pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior. I understand you've become quite a good pilot yourself. And he was a good friend. Which reminds me...I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damned-fool idealistic crusade like your father did.

The fact that Anakin was the best star-pilot in the galaxy was shown to some extent in Revenge of the Sith. So at least this first line of Obi-Wan recounting tales of his father to Luke was shown in the Prequels.

Then we come to the Lightsaber. Obi-Wan tells Luke that his father wanted him to have it when he was old enough. This never took place, in fact Obi-Wan took the saber from Anakin after cutting his arms and legs off and leaving him to burn to death. You could rationalize that Obi-Wan wanted to glass this over and maybe that is why he told Luke this. And had the Prequels been made first I would have bought that too. Problem is they weren't, and it was George's responsibility to work some these scenes into these movies in order to connect them to what came before.

There was even a rumor that George had not even had Obi-wan retrieve Anakin's Lightsaber during their duel, and thus there was no way he could have it to give to Luke in ANH, and had to correct that with re-shoots. No idea if that actually happened, but it wouldn't have shocked me. In the end one of two things could have happened here, and both are troubling. One, Lucas could have thought this little scene wouldn't fit with what he wanted to do when writing the Prequels and thus just disregarded it completely, or he simply forgot what he wrote back then and didn't bother to check before writing the Prequels. Both are scary thoughts, but explain much.

We also get another mention of Uncle Owen here fearing that Luke would follow Obi-Wan like his father did on some idealistic crusade. Again we are hinted at a deeper relationship between Owen and Anakin. And since he is Uncle Owen, one would assume that they were in fact brothers even though they do not share the same last name. It could also be possible that Owen was in fact Anakin's brother-in-law and that Beru could have been Anakin's sister. Whatever the case, it seems that Anakin and Owen did not agree on things and that Anakin followed a path that Owen did not agree with when he went with Obi-Wan. That much is clear here.

Again nothing like this is shown in Prequels. Anakin does not follow Obi-Wan on an idealistic crusade. He is rescued from slavery by Qui-Gon Jinn before he ever met Owen, and follows him to become a Jedi. He only meets Obi-Wan after he has already made up his mind to leave. When Anakin finally meets Owen he is already a almost fully trained Jedi Knight, and when he leaves he doesn't follow Obi-Wan, instead he leaves to rescue Obi-Wan. It's likely that Owen didn't even know who Obi-Wan was until he dropped baby Luke off on his doorstep.

I'll be honest, I like the idea of a 16-17 year old Anakin working in his Brother-in-Law Owen's shop in Mos Espa. Doing space runs for Jabba or whoever will hire him on the side for a little extra cash. He is also caught up in Pod Racing. Which of course his Brother-In-Law Owen, who is just trying to save enough money to buy his own moisture farm and get out of the dangerous city, doesn't approve of. Anakin is feeling his life couldn't get anymore boring when in walks Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padme looking to buy a new Hyperdrive for the Naboo starship. That at least makes some sense and keeps most of the TPM story intact.





BEN: An elegant weapon for a more civilized time. For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times, before the Empire.

LUKE: How did my father die?

BEN: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force.

Now George comes back to actually staying close to his own source material. All of this was shown in the Prequels. The Jedi keep the peace, and fight to protect the Republic in times of war. The role of the Jedi is shown through out The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.

Likewise Anakin is shown helping the Emperor hunt down and kill Jedi when he assaults the Jedi Temple. We also are shown Anakin's seduction and fall to the Darkside of the Force. Before this Anakin was in fact Obi-Wan's pupil. So these lines are pretty much in line with what we are shown.





LEIA: General Kenobi, years ago you served my father in the Clone
Wars.

This single line spoken by Leia hints at a connection between her father, who later we will know as Bail Organa, and Obi-Wan Kenobi during the Clone Wars. I guess this one is up for debate on if it's actually shown or not. I know before the Prequels the impression I got was that Leia's father had been a military commander during the war and that Obi-Wan in his duties as Jedi Knight had served under him. This wasn't the case in the movies, as Bail was shown as Senator. Not really a mistake, but more something that didn't live up to my preconceived notion. And while Obi-Wan is not shown serving Bail directly it's clear in Revenge of the Sith that they know each other, and it's not hard to think that maybe Obi-Wan had worked with Bail in the past. I think this could have been shown more clearly in order to connect these movies better, but it doesn't really contradict anything from the Prequels either.





VADER: I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.

Ben: Only a master of evil, Darth.

Not much here, but what is said here did happen in the Prequels. The last time Obi-Wan and Anakin met it was in a fight to the death. At the time Anakin had just begun his path down the Darkside. He was still a student of the teachings of the Sith. After 20 years of training by Palpatine I'm sure Darth Vader believed himself to be a master of the Darkside. The Darkside that Obi-Wan says is evil. So this all checks out pretty well.

This wraps up what A New Hope can tell us of the past. Next time we will come to A New Hope's sequel and what many consider to be the best of all the Star Wars films: The Empire Strikes Back and see what it can tell use about the Prequel times.

Until then. See you next time, on the front line.

-Matt