Monday, December 28
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
42 Days of Summer #5
42 Days of Summer #5
Directed by Irvin Kershner
Written by Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan
Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, David Prowse, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, James Earl Jones, Frank Oz
1980, 124 minutes
As I mentioned in my pre-review, while I'm very very late watching this film, I already knew almost everything about it. I'd read the book, heard the score, seen images and clips and spoofs of the action, listened to entire podcasts about it... I just hadn't seen it.
The good news is that the film holds up both to my expectations and to the 35 years since its release. I watched the Somethingth Anniversary Digital Special Edition Release, which has toned down some of the earlier Lucasic fiddling, and which looks absolutely beautiful.
There's little about this film that doesn't work. The stop-motion AT-ATs look a little odd compared to how polished and fluid the rest of the cinematography is. And Yoda... Okay, I can understand the attachment people have to the physical puppet over the CGI version in the prequels, but he's a puppet.
And the giant space worm is a goddam sock. I'm a little surprised they left that in, but I'm glad they did.
Three and a half star wars out of four. Having watched (or rewatched) the original trilogy, I give them all three and a half stars. There are definitely things the latter two films do better than the first - cinematography, sets, costumes - but they both sag a little in the middle (the Dagobah and Endor parts).
You've probably already seen them, but if you haven't, highly recommended.
I also watched the first half hour of The Phantom Menace. I'll say this: The first eleven minutes are not entirely terrible.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:34 PM
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"The stop-motion AT-ATs look a little odd compared to how polished and fluid the rest of the cinematography is."
That's true, but pretty much all stop-motion animation did at that time, so nobody would've thought it particularly bad.
(In Chrome the entire previous paragraph is underlined even though I highlighted just one word and used the button. The HTML looks right, though, so let's see what happens.)
That's true, but pretty much all stop-motion animation did at that time, so nobody would've thought it particularly bad.
(In Chrome the entire previous paragraph is underlined even though I highlighted just one word and used the button. The HTML looks right, though, so let's see what happens.)
Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, December 29 2015 03:03 PM (FvJAK)
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The editor acts weird under recent versions of Chrome. I'll see if there's an updated version available.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, December 29 2015 03:09 PM (PiXy!)
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I just like how it got the HTML wrong both in preview and when posted, but the "html" button in the editor showed HTML that looked right.
Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, December 31 2015 01:07 AM (FvJAK)
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