ST So J.J. Abrams wants Star Wars to feel real.

1. That is true. I hope the guy's a good as they say. Still haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine, so I have yet to decide for myself if he's a great writer.
2. One one level, yes, that's more accurate. But in all seriousness, is there ever going to be a truly original concept ever again? Storytelling has been around for centuries, long enough for every conceivable concept to have been thought of by someone. I don't care if it's new; if it's done very well, I will forgive all lack of originality. All we have left is to revisit old ideas and hopefully make them relevant again.
3. Fingers crossed.

In ezekiel22x's defense, that scene in Into Darkness drove me batty with it's total lack of narrative purpose other than to show off Alice Eve's (admittedly stunning) body. At least in Return of the Jedi, Leia's slave costume was justifiable in-story as Jabba deliberately being a disgusting sleazebag showing her off as a sexy toy to demean her. The Carol Marcus underwear scene was infuriatingly sexist.

Though, writer Damon Lindelof has taken responsibility for this scene, but Abrams still approved it, which worries me...

Totally. That's something the prequels lacked: a true Han Solo equivalent to blow us away with his charisma and badassery.

 

On the other hand, Carol Marcus was a strong character. She stood up to her dad and was generally self assured. This is more important to me than the fanservice. In total Padmé is far more sexist than Carol Marcus because she is such a weak and submissive woman, more caricature than a real person.

If we get a shirtless scene of a male main character, is this sexist too? Because I don't mind that kind of scene at all (well, it does depend on the male...).

 

It's only dead when JJ stops using them

 

That's an incredibly silly thing to state. I've seen a lot of stuff thrown at the PT, and Natalie Portman in particular, but I've never seen a criticism of her character as "sexist"??? Carol Marcus was pure fluff in the new Star Trek movie, she was window dressing. Padme Amidala was a central character in all 3 prequels and I don't think Lucas or Portman ever felt compelled to give us a 't*ts out' shot.

 

Okay, we get it, you don't like lens flares. I think this subject has been dissected enough. Move along, move along.

 

Except for when that Nexu ripped her tight shirt to give us some belly-free Padme...

 

Hardly the same as a gratuitous t*ts shot...

 

Double Post

 

Hi Dra – sorry for late response…
For me your argument falls a little short on two counts… 1) That there is some consensus around what constitutes ‘real’ and ‘believable’ for the viewer (and that the criteria involves the ratio of dirt, dust and grease)… and 2) That the PT is devoid of this type of detail. For example, look in the images below. The set designers distressed the flooring to show wear and tear between movies, rubbed oil in between the pipework and added cup marks to the surfaces…





As I mentioned in another thread, I live in a very modern apartment in London. It’s full of clean lines and devoid of clutter and dust. I also work in very swanky offices in London – with designer furniture and bespoke fittings that somewhat resemble the furnishings of Palpatine’s/Padme’s Corsucant apartments. Does this mean that my home and the place I work aren’t real or that it doesn’t look real? No, of course not… that’s why the ‘dirty/lived-in equates to real’ argument is spurious. I think what you’re confusing it with is the ‘micro versus the macro’ view of the Star Wars movies. Generally speaking, the OT (specifically ANH) focuses more on the micro… e.g. a young farmboy goes on an adventure with an old wizard and a space cowboy to rescue a princess etc. The PT has a much more macro view in that it’s more embroiled with the socio/political aspects of that galaxy rather than the micro consequences.

So I understand that one may gravitate more towards the micro view, and obviously a story that focuses on more ‘ordinary’ characters may seem more relatable than a story about palaces, politicians and religious organizations. However, that’s not really about the ‘believability’ of the piece but rather how ‘relatable’ it is. I’m pretty sure they could have covered the Coruscant sets with rust, dirt, grime and clutter and it would be no more relatable to you than if it were pristine (that’s not a criticism of you by the way).

As my previous point… I don’t think it has anything to do with Lucas being “more interested in the aesthetics or abstract concepts”, rather that it’s more about him trying to tell a larger, more complex story with more characters. That of course doesn’t make it better, but I think it’s that approach where maybe you (and others) have been turned off by it… that’s not necessarily any fault of your own may I hasten to add… but rather that by focusing on the more ‘holistic’ view of “a galaxy, far, far away” and making the PT much more political, Lucas forfeited some of that audience engagement i.e. the story isn’t as immediate, the machinations of the antagonists aren’t as immediate and the characters are bound up in political shenanigans. I happen to love those elements of the prequels, but I can see why it leaves some cold and unengaged. However, for me, this has nothing to do with how successfully Lucas has applied a sense of ‘realism’, because I think if anything the PT is more real that the OT.

The “copies of copies” thing sounds more like Marxist theories on the ‘mechanical reproduction’ of art than it does the notion of hyperreality. Hypereality, in this instance, is when the auteur builds a seamless world of a reality with the fictional and fantastical e.g. a world of lasersword wielding Jedi, gunslinging “walking carpets” and leviathan spaceships blasting through space. We, the audience, aren’t thinking “this is all possible/probable”… we accept that these impossible and fantastical things can happen in the hyperreality of Lucas’ imaginary world.

As someone who works in film and television, I’m not sure the criticism of “lazy writing” is useful in a critique. If this were something you are leveling at Lucas specifically (and I’m not precious about this), I wouldn’t assume for a second that Lucas et al were watching a baseball game/washing their car etc. whilst writing a draft of a Star Wars movie. In fact I think there’s enough evidence to show that Lucas spent the same amount of time (if not more) on the PT than he did on other scripts… so “lazy” isn’t a word I find useful. Of course I agree that a script, a work of fiction, a film etc. has to have a sense of reality in order for the audience to be engaged. But we’re not saying that Star Wars is surreal are we? I certainly think Star Wars is (and should remain) avent garde. Lucas has always been at the forefront of applying new techniques in new ways (albeit highly commercial).

 

Of all the persons I referred in my post, you chose to mention the only one I wasn't.
I meant on K. K. who said, not directly, we won't focus on CGI because that was Lucas' bad decision for the PT, and on J. J.
I have great faith in Arndt's script and whole ST story, but when I hear that J. J.'s tinkering with it... And, also, has anyone heard any Arndt's comment, interview about Ep 7? I didn't, that's why I left him out of my comment.

 

Dont tell me move along, why dont you move along

 

If you have a problem with me personally, I suggest you send me private messages. Don't derail this thread any more.

 

I have a problem with you being rude like you are but otherwise you mean nothing to me

 

Oh dear

 

Padmè: A supposedly principled woman who throws all her ideals overboard when her boyfriend slaughters an entire tribe of natives. A Person who loses her will to live because she can't be with man. Then there is also the clichè and problematic "no means yes" sillyness in AOTC.

Carol wasn't just fluff. She was the one who saved the Enterprise against her fathers wishes, someone who had to chose between her own conscience and family. She is an interesting character and I am already curious what will happen to her in Star Trek 3.

 

Really? I mean really? Yep - Carol Marcus is up there with such strong characters as Elinor Dashwood, Lisbeth Salander and Jane Eyre. I'm sure it's only moments until she gets her own cinematic and literary spin offs... and that's "spin offs" and not "breasts out".

 

She's only a side character. What more do you want from her? She definitely had a more interesting role than Sulu or Chekov in Into Darkness.

 

Not that ANY of this has to do with Episode VII "feeling real"...

But yes, when set against Padme' Amidala, Carol Marcus comes out looking at least slightly more competent, intelligent, observant, and believable as a person. It has nothing to do with whether I see any part of her skin, breasts or otherwise; it has nothing to do with whether she is a major character in three movies or a supporting character in just one. It has everything to do with whether she comes across as someone with a clue who doesn't insult the intelligence of females in the audience. In both cases, we're talking about a female character forced to take drastic action when it's clear that someone they really care about has gone off the rails. How did they each approach the problem?

Carol started by investigating on her own, insinuating herself onto the Enterprise at the risk of arrest or worse, then she actually did something as intelligent as talking to other people to confide in them, then taking definitive action such as willfully putting herself between her father and his enemies, getting up in his face and calling him out for the bad guy he'd become. She had the guts to take a moral stand and look her father in the face when she did so, unflinchingly and without reservation: she slapped him right in the face and said she was ashamed to be his daughter. Yes, she also participated in a clearly unnecessary scene, in which she stripped down to her bra to change into an environment suit, when that scene could have been done in any number of other ways that didn't reduce the scene to an obligatory skin-shot. But that aside, Carol Marcus came across to me as easily more human, more relatable, and more possessed of simple common sense; in short, she made sense to me as a person.

So how does Padme' fare in the same circumstance? Padme' did nothing substantive to find out what was wrong, did not confide with anyone she could trust when it was perfectly clear there WERE people she could trust, and when it all hit the fan, this supposed avatar of moral courage couldn't summon the courage or outrage to side openly with the good guys against her husband at clear personal risk to herself when it was clear he'd done things that were blatantly morally wrong; at best, she tearfully pleaded with him to stop, rather than getting up in his face and MAKING him see what he'd been doing wrong. Both characters were risking death just by opposing either Admiral Marcus OR Anakin Skywalker, so what could she have hoped to gain by sadly begging Anakin to stop when she should have been angrily DEMANDING that he stop? Padme' did not slap Anakin in the face; she barely slapped him on the wrist. She did not say she was ashamed to be his wife; she behaved shamefully herself by displaying no true moral courage at all when it mattered. I'm a man and I can't respect that kind of person; I can't imagine any self-respecting woman would either.

No real mother of Leia Organa would have been caught dead acting in such a humiliating and dishonorable fashion, and the writers should never have written Padme' in that fashion, not when the Saga has spent a great deal of time (by which I mean DECADES) in constructing belieavable female characters that aren't weak, mewling kittens who have no personal courage and need men to save them. Darth Pevra has every right to say what she said; when the principal female character, in a film that women are supposed to like as well as men, disgusts that film's female audience, what's a girl to do? Say it was all great when it wasn't? Say it didn't insult her intelligence when it did? As I said, I'm no woman myself, but I'd like to think I know them well enough to know they don't like having a character that offends them at every turn held in front of them as the person they're meant to identify with.

 

My thoughts exactly. And I think it would have been wiser to have let Padme survive for a few years, taking care of Leia on Alderaan, instead of coming up with two names and then losing her will to live. If you take into account that Anakin's motivation for his fall was changed at the last minute from wanting more power and becoming estranged ti Padme to fear of loosing Padme in childbirth, then it was a bad decision all around. Becoming seduced by the quicker, more aggressive dark side as was hinted in the OT would have IMHO a more powerfull and fitting way for Anakin to fall, than sweatdrenched dreams and fear of loosing mommy and Padme....

And Carol Marcus role/acting was fine and I had no problem with her bra...

 

It's worth noting that Padme was actually cool and a strong female character in Episode 1. I like Revenge of the Sith, but in my head I just pretend that what "really" happened was Padme dying due to physical injuries from Vader.

 

Padme (and Anakin) were actually cool in TCW as well, but from AOTC to ROTS it went downhill...

 

For the most part, I disagree with the idea that Padme lacks moral courage.

Episode I: Padme leads an armed attack against an army vastly outnumbering her own at the age of fourteen. She has the option of hiding safely on Coruscant, but chooses to go back to Naboo to fight, purely because it's the right thing to do.

Episode II: Padme is opposed to the idea of leaving Coruscant and going into hiding, despite the assassination plot against her. This is a matter of principle - she is determined to stay to participate in a vote she considers important. Granted, she folds, but only when it's a common sense decision to do so.

Later, she decides to rescue Obi-Wan from an apparent attack by Droidekas that could well have killed him. She fearlessly walks into a highly uncertain combat situation to help a friend that she has barely seen in ten years because it is the right thing to do.

Episode III: She''s comparatively passive in this one, but three years of warfare can break a person's spirit. She's carrying a child (well, two, but she doesn't know that) so it's understandable that she takes it easy on the aggressive negotiations. She's responsible for more than just her own life in this film.