CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
Well, I say "Eternal Life", what I mean is "Eternal Identity". It's basically the same thing when it comes to spirituality, so let's leave it at that, yeah?
In what will become a theme over these blog posts, this one will be about one of the more controversial changes that Lucasfilm made to the Original Trilogy over the years. As well as the now infamous 'Special Editions' in 1997, more changes were made to the trilogy for the 2004 DVD release. Some tidied up things which weren't quite working in the SE's (Jabba The Hutt in Mos Eisley, Matte-lines still around the Rancor in Jabba’s palace), and others added new things (Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor in tESB, Naboo appearing in the RotJ ending montage). One of the other 'new' things was the Force-ghost of Anakin Skywalker at the end of Return of the Jedi.
In previous versions, the redeemed Anakin Skywalker, having 'brought balance to the Force' by killing the Emperor, appears on Endor as a smiling, robed Sebastian Shaw; the actor who had played Anakin in his de-masking scene earlier. In the 2004 version of the film, Lucasfilm used a shot of prequel-Anakin, Hayden Christensen. Yoda and Ben appear as they always have, but for some reason Anakin appears as a 22yr old Jedi, the age he was when he became Darth Vader. As you can probably imagine, this has sent some fans into an apoplectic rage, as they claim (once again) that Lucas is ruining the saga by changing things with each release.
Out-of-universe: The main reason for this was drawing the two Star Wars trilogies closer together. Few of the 'human' faces from the OT appear in the prequels, largely due to characters not being present, and actors having aged since 1983 (Ian McDiarmid being the awesome exception to that rule), and having Episode III-era Anakin appear at the end of the saga brings things round in a circle for the generation who class Episodes 1-3 as 'their Star Wars'. The fact that Sebastian Shaw was replaced as a Force-ghost but not on the Death Star has a deeper implication, which runs into an in-universe theory.
In-universe: I'll be leaving aside the question of "Well, how does he know that it's Anakin? He wouldn't recognise him!" which usually gets bandied about. Bear in mind that Luke would recognise Anakin however he looked; the impression he creates in the Force is more powerful than his 'physical' ghostly appearance (and it could be argued that Ben, Yoda and Anakin don't actually appear at all, and the scene is a visual representation for the aid of the audience, to let them know of Anakin's redemption). For this entry, I'll be working on the basis that Luke recognises all three figures instantly... Under Scenario 1983, Anakin appears as Luke has recently seen him; a kindly old man (even though he's actually only around 48), who's fulfilled the prophecy and brought balance to the Force, and the least said about the atrocities he committed as Darth Vader, the better. He was only following orders, and yeah, he had to go through the nasty part of the forest to get to the castle, but hey; all is forgiven. Cool? Yeah, I thought so.
Under Scenario 2004, Anakin appears as a young man; wavy hair intact, a sheepish grin on his face at finally having returned to the Light Side. He's fulfilled the prophecy, brought balance to the Force, and appears to have earned a place in the afterlife despite all the acts he brought about as a Sith Lord. It's almost as if he's been forgiven for killing those children in the Jedi Temple 22 years previously, and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights, working for an organisation that's brought tyranny and re-instituted slavery to an entire galaxy.
Actually, I put that under 'Scenario 2004', but Anakin's apparent forgiveness applies to both versions. It's just in the second one, he's suddenly younger. Eight months or so after this release hit DVD, Revenge of the Sith was released in cinemas and, for me at least, something then clicked into place.
After their lightsaber battle on Mustafar, when Anakin (okay, Vader) has been robbed of his three remaining organic limbs by his friend and mentor Obi-Wan, Darth Sidious (Emperor Palpatine) lands on-planet to take his apprentice back to Coruscant and deal with his injuries. As Vader is lying on the lava bank, limbless and burned, Sidious leans over him and places a hand to his temple. It occurred to me afterwards that this gesture by Sidious is almost identical to the one that Ben Kenobi used on Luke Skywalker after he'd been attacked by the Sandpeople in ANH.
What I'm suggesting is that while Ben used the Force to heal Luke, Sidious used a similar technique to keep Vader artificially alive. Vader should have flatlined and died on the lava bank, from his physical traumas alone. Miraculously, he survives (albeit in life-support armour). Now if Palpatine had kept Vader alive using Sith magic, enslaved to the Dark Side, there's a possibility that Anakin's 'soul' is trapped in a limbo for the next 22 years, while the host-body carries out the will of Sidious. This could explain why the spiritual form he takes is 22 years younger.
It also comes full circle and fleshes out the dialogue from Vader's death scene in RotJ:
Vader: Luke... help me take this mask off. Luke: But you'll die... Vader: Nothing can stop that now.
Vader knows (irrespective of the damage his life-support suit has taken) now that Palpatine is dead, his hold over Vader is finished, and there's no longer anything keeping him alive. Dying, he realises this is why he was bound to Sidious, unable to leave by choice. Now Anakin's returned to the Light-Side, he can't even hope to use the Sith magic on himself.
This links the two triloges (and generations) together. This is why Hayden as Anakin's Force-ghost is justified. Discuss.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Photos and videos appearing in this blog post are for informational and reference purposes only, and no ownership of copyright is claimed or implied by me. The intellectual and physical copyright of such material belongs to its creators and owners.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
• Hot chicks with guns and katanas • Steampunk zombies • Chrome assassin droids • Giant Samurai robots • Industrial grunge soundtrack • Zack Snyder directing
What's not to love? ...right?
Scenario A: This is a two hour tour-de-force fairytale, with multiple layers of metaphor and symbolism, working together and independently, to create a story exploring the nature of reality, consciousness and escapism through female empowerment.
Scenario B: This is two hours of visually stunning, but thematically bereft, misogynistic drivel, set to a soundtrack of remixes and cover versions, aimed squarely at the 16-25 male demographic, who value being sensorially bludgeoned to the point of not having to think about what's happening on-screen, with a bucketload of very prominent callbacks to make viewers feel better about themselves.
It's at least one of those two. Quite possibly both. Like Brazil for the Xbox generation. If you're going to watch it, see it at the cinema. The spectacle will be greatly diminished on DVD.
This looks like one of the best films I've ever seen. But if feels like one of the worst.
7 for the visuals. 1 for the content. Snyder can do (and has done) so much better than this.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Plot: Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is part of a military system to send a consciousness back in time (well, kinda), to the examine evidence of a terrorist attack so that a future one can be prevented. On his travels, he meets Christina (Michelle Monaghan), who becomes another reason to keep going back.
I haven't read any reviews of this (deliberately), but the general buzz I'm hearing is that it's being compared (for better or worse) to Inception. I've no idea why that is because if anything, it screams of Groundhog Day and Quantum Leap*1. And I mean that in a good way. While I'm on with geek references, it also reminded me a lot of Goliath, the Neil Gaiman story in The Matrix Comics, but to reveal why would go into serious spoiler territory.
So, if you've seen the trailer, you pretty much know what's going to happen, if not how, exactly. The execution of the film is fairly standard, but its strength lies in creating characters you care about. Gyllenhaal and Monaghan pull this off perfectly, as does Vera Farmiga as Goodwin, the 'mission control', and even Jeffrey Wright's grumpy Dr. Rutledge (who seems to be doing his best Darth Vader voice for most of the film*2).
Like most films with this amount of spectacle, it's worth seeing on the big screen, but you probably won't lose too much if you wait for the DVD. That said, I'm always going to recommend the cinema, because that's where most films are designed to be watched. It gets a little preachy in the closing minutes, but no worse than The Adjustment Bureau, and the message is a sound enough one, so I'll give it props for that.
There's tension, explosions (well, one explosion, many times), a race against the clock and a little romance. Pretty much everything you expect, but it also delivers more if you look closer.
Subtle points: (containing spoilers - highlight to read) The shots of Chicago in the opening titles seem to have been tilt-shifted to look like models. Given that we find out it is a simulation, this makes sense. The Chicago we see at the end of the film (the same Chicago, no less) no longer looks this way, implying that we (the audience) are within the simulation that's created at the end of the film. A bit like how you never see the sun within The Matrix, until the end of the third movie, when Sati creates the program for the sunrise, implying that we're living in the seventh and final iteration of the Matrix. I just wanted to point that out so that when someone says to you it's a dumb action flick, you can lay some metaphysical shit on them.
Geek points: Not to give too much away, but I'd have been annoyed if the bomber had been the guy in the Star Wars t-shirt.
All in all: Awesome. Plenty to watch, plenty to think about. Should stand up well to repeat viewings.
I'd quite happily have watched a longer version, with more exploration of what can and can't be done within the experiment.
*1Quantum Leap's Scott Bakula plays the father of Colter Stevens, albeit just as a voice on the phone. That made me grin. *2 I would seriously love to hear Jeffrey Wright's lines synthesised the way James Earl Jones' are when he plays Vader. I'm sure someone will do that sooner or later.
DISCLAIMERS: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
This entry takes place directly after C is for Cockney. Chronologically, alphabetically, in every sense.
Ealing Studios, London. 6th April 2001. Before I get to detailing the conveyor belt properly, I'll finish what I was saying previously about Christopher Lee. In the afternoon, we'd all had lunch, and I was a little calmer (other than being wired on caffeine)...
Lee, dressed as Count Dooku / Darth Tyranus, stood on a static conveyor belt, the cameras facing him at an upward angle from below (to capture Yoda's point of view), surrounded by blue-screens.
A few defensive swings of his curve-handled lightsaber, then he stops and looks down at the diminutive Jedi Master, his old teacher...
"Oh, the battle is far from over... this is just the beginning!"
Dooku looks up to the roof of the hangar they're standing in and makes a gesture with his hand...
And cut.
This was a pick-up shot for after the saber battle, when Dooku brings the hangar ceiling apparatus down onto the Jedi, and Yoda is forced to save them while the Count flees. It was supposed to be a quick shot. In the film, it is a quick shot. I lost count of how many times it was filmed.
There was nothing 'wrong' with Lee's performance that anyone could see, George Lucas wasn't rude or discourteous about re-taking it again and again, and Christopher Lee's professionalism kept him subtly changing it each time, as requested. But the poor old bugger was knackered by the time George approved the final take! He was physically shaking, bless him.
This is probably standard (the number of takes, not making an old man shake), but the key part of the take was the transition between swinging the saber, and beginning the line. In the finished film, it cuts straight to Dooku saying "...this is just the beginning!", so most of that work turned out to be for the cutting room floor (digitally speaking). Still, I got to watch a master at work for an hour or so.
Meanwhile - Erm, earlier that day...
So, there was a big conveyor belt. Raised about 2 feet from the floor, about 12 feet deep and 60 feet long. The control-panel for this was very simple. A master on/off power button, and a dial which controls the speed from off-to-maximum. Primarily, the belt was used for the conveyor sequence in the Geonosis Droid Factory (with most things being bluescreened in apart from the actors and basic props). But it was also used for tracking shots in the Arena, and as a static soundstage for shots in the afternoon.
The main shot of the morning was Anakin being dragged along on a chain by the Reek. The conveyor was used so that you can get a shot containing steady movement, but from a static camera. The idea was very simple and was explained by a chap called Nick, who I seem to recall was the production supervisor for the day*...
Nick:"Hi guys, you are..?" BFF:"Paul." Me:"Ian." Nick:"Okay, Ian. Here's the idea. There's a large creature at the other end of the conveyor, where we've hooked the chain to a post. On my mark, I want you to start the conveyor and turn it up to 4. The creature will be dragging Anakin through the dirt, and he's going to use the Force to slow it down. Watch him carefully, and when we waves his hand at the post, bring the conveyor to a standstill over about two to three seconds, as if the creature's slowing down. Can you do that for me, Ian?" Me:"...yes." Nick:"Great, thanks..." *Nick proceeds to wander off and organise something else*
…What I didn't say was: Me:Hang on just a minute. I'm here to watch. He's the machine operator here. He was here last week. I'm his assistant. I'm fairly nervous, and if I mess this up, I could potentially ruin the day’s shooting and delay the release of the film, even though that's over a year away. Do you have any idea what that would mean to me? Knowing I've ruined the day of the people I admire professionally the most in the world, and having deprived fellow geeks of the new Star Wars film for God knows how long, just because you assumed that I know what I'm doing here? I have no clue what I’m doing here! Get him to do it."
But obviously, I didn't say that. I said "yes", then delegated the task to Paul. For the reasons I've stated just there.
My best buddy in the whole wide world made it happen. It worked well enough, as it should have, and the shot was approved. Although, if I'm being honest, there's little indication in the film that the Reek is slowing down due to anything Anakin's doing. Combined with the rest of the action at that point, it just sort of happens. But I was there when it did.
I would dearly love to tell you that I personally contributed to this small piece of Star Wars canon. But that'd be a lie. I didn't want to mess up, so I stood back and let a trained (okay, experienced) technician turn the dial. I'm not ashamed, and I'm not regretful.
Various other shots were taken that day. Mainly reaction shots from the principal cast members, and all for the arena/hangar sequence since that’s what everyone was wardrobed up for.
It’s since been pointed out to me what a ‘dream come true’ day it was. I think I took it more or less in my stride because I knew it could go belly-up at any moment, before or during. But it didn’t.
Did I mention that George Lucas said hello to me on his way to the toilet?
* I could be wrong about Nick. He may have been the stunt co-ordinator. But it wasn't Nick Gillard, because I know who he is, and this wasn't him.
Disclaimers: • ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Photos and videos appearing in this blog post are for informational and reference purposes only, and no ownership of copyright is claimed or implied by me. The intellectual and physical copyright of such material belongs to its creators and owners.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
