Subject: Re: Star Wars Episode 2 Mini-Review

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Newsgroups: alt.slack

<dyskolos@menander.org> wrote:

> "Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:

> > I don't have any great spoilers for Star Wars Episode 2 yet because so
> > far in the movie, I haven't seen anything that would surprise anyone.

> You never will.

Ha ha! That's very logical. You should write for The Onion. You know,
where you state a plain simple very mundane fact as if it was "news."

In point of fact, I watched the rest of that new Star Wars movie last
night, and by Gobbs if it didn't surprise the heck out of me after all.
I was surprised at the special effects and the monsters. And the
script! The fx and monsters kept getting better and better, and the
script got dumber and dumber, until I realized that Geroge Lucas must
have snorted, or written, that telltale "ONE LINE TOO MANY," and
decided to create the cliche to end all cliches, so to speak.
Seriously, this level of dialog triteness HAS to be deliberate.

But god DAMN, the monsters...! I was surprised. It was as if a hundred
Ray Harryhausens had been hired. Probably not far from the truth.
Multiply the coolness of the average Harryhausen movie visuals and the
dumbness of the average Harryhausen movie script by about one hundred,
and you have the last half of the new Star Wars movie.

I happen to have a soft spot in my heart for monsters and pure
spectacle, so I ended up enjoying the Bee Jesus out of myself despite
my resistance.

If you like monsters, and fine fantasy graphics, the new StarWar movie
is well worth $8! But you should still plan to wear headphones to blot
out the dialog, and sneak in for a second viewing.

There are more original movies, that's for damn sure, but I never saw
so many monsters at once. This beats "Abbot and Costello Meet
Frankenstein" for multiplicity of monsters.

I enjoyed the 1983 Brian Aldiss sci fi book "An Island Called Moreau"
even better. It's a follow-up to the great H.G. Wells classic, "The
Island of Dr. Moreau," about a bad science guy that makes animal
people. This also has a lot of monsters, and the special effects are
right up there with the Star Wars movie, at least when it's me doing
the reading. It also has a number of plot elements that became movie
cliches during the 90s. But, if you dig the devolution concept, this
book will have you clawing the bark of trees and lapping up water from
the stream.

I just stumbled upon this novel in a used bookstore in the Milwaukee
airport. Had no idea anybody had done a sequel to the Wells Moreau
book. Kicks ass. Actually I have heard tell of a sci fi series by a
local Cleveland writer which features futuristic animal-people called
"Moreaus." Same guy wrote "Dragons of the Cuyahoga," in which fairy tle
magic, elves, dragons, wizards etc., exist in modern day America, but
only in Cleveland.

That novel had pretty good effects too, when I read it.

Dyskolos, I think you would enjoy the new Star Wars movie. In
headphones. It looks as if Paul Mavrides designed the robots, that's
how nutty the robots are. Also, the life story of Darth Vader that is
becoming clarrified in these "prequels" exactly parallels your life
story, with which I am intimately familiar. They haven't gotten to the
part in the chronology where he's disfigured hideously yet, but
otherwise, it's all there. The Tantric Jedi Remote Clit Tickling, the
flying car chases, the Tick Cow rodeo, everything.

Oh my god, I have sat here writing reviews, when my yard needs mowing!
I finished my art assignments though.

Oh yes, and I watched "The 13th Warrior," based on "Eaters of the
Dead," Michael Crichton's one non-clicheic novel, loosely based on the
Beowulf legend, concerning a medieval Persian who helps some Olde
Englishmen fight the last remaining Neanderthals. Antonio Banderas is
the Arab. The gritty Celtic sets, costumes, and general atmosphere are
nifty, like in a well done Western, only grittier.

I could care less about Northmen, but I LOVE Neanderthals. They're My
People.

Unlike the book, the movie is a straightforward action movie period
piece. An unusual period for movies.

One novel aspect of the movie is the "learning the foreign language"
sequence, when the Arab -- initially shown speaking English, since he's
the protagonist -- has to learn the language of the Northmen (Middle
English or Middle Danish or some such).... the transition to everybody
being understandable for movie purposes was pretty cleverly done.
Compared to, say, the apes speaking English in "Planet of the Apes."

I saw "Joe Dirt" on HBO while I was in the motel in Milwaukee. I liked
his hair-do. Hilarious use of incidental music, mostly Southern Rock.
Funny if you're a successful New York actor who looks down on
poebuckers, or, if you're a poebucker. I thought it was half funny.
DON'T pay $ for it.

The yard. Oh. Right.

I saw "Eyes Wide Shut" again in the hotel, too -- liked it better the
second time. The two-note music score was less irritating this time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Star Wars Episode 2 Mini-Review
From: joecosby@mindspring.com (Joe Cosby)

"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com> wrote:

>I happen to have a soft spot in my heart for monsters and pure
>spectacle, so I ended up enjoying the Bee Jesus out of myself despite
>my resistance.

Is that the disco version of Jesus?

>Oh yes, and I watched "The 13th Warrior," based on "Eaters of the
>Dead," Michael Crichton's one non-clicheic novel, loosely based on the
>Beowulf legend, concerning a medieval Persian who helps some Olde
>Englishmen fight the last remaining Neanderthals.

Is THAT what they were? I watched the movie but didn't put two and
two together and realize that's what the little dwarf runt creatures
were supposed to be.

I thought they were medieval oompah-loompahs.

>I saw "Eyes Wide Shut" again in the hotel, too -- liked it better the
>second time. The two-note music score was less irritating this time.

your yard got tired of waiting and ran away.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Star Wars Episode 2 Mini-Review
From: mojo bobo <prevailingmyth@yahoo.com>

Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:

> Beowulf legend, concerning a medieval Persian who helps some Olde
> Englishmen fight the last remaining Neanderthals. Antonio Banderas is
> the Arab. The gritty Celtic sets, costumes, and general atmosphere are

how can he be both Persian and Arabic? was he an Arabic-speaking
Persian? in any case, a Persian is not automatically an Arab (in some
sense an Arab is someone who speaks Arabic or (inclusively) lives in the
now-Saudi desert but Persians are usually understood to be the
inhabitants of what is now called Iran). persians differ from arabs as
much as slavs differ from germanic peoples.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Star Wars Episode 2 Mini-Review
From: joecosby@mindspring.com (Joe Cosby)

mojo bobo wrote:

>Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
>> Beowulf legend, concerning a medieval Persian who helps some Olde
>> Englishmen fight the last remaining Neanderthals. Antonio Banderas is
>> the Arab. The gritty Celtic sets, costumes, and general atmosphere are
>
>how can he be both Persian and Arabic? was he an Arabic-speaking
>Persian? in any case, a Persian is not automatically an Arab (in some
>sense an Arab is someone who speaks Arabic or (inclusively) lives in the
>now-Saudi desert but Persians are usually understood to be the
>inhabitants of what is now called Iran). persians differ from arabs as
>much as slavs differ from germanic peoples.

wwaht were you saiying about ragheads?

"Welcome to Mississippi, please set your watch back 25 years"
- Cosmo Electrolux

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Star Wars Episode 2 Mini-Review
From: "Rabbi Jacklyn Hyde" <rabbs@subgenius.com>

"mojo bobo" wrote:
> Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:

> > Beowulf legend, concerning a medieval Persian who helps some Olde
> > Englishmen fight the last remaining Neanderthals. Antonio Banderas is
> > the Arab. The gritty Celtic sets, costumes, and general atmosphere are
>
> how can he be both Persian and Arabic? was he an Arabic-speaking
> Persian? in any case, a Persian is not automatically an Arab (in some
> sense an Arab is someone who speaks Arabic or (inclusively) lives in the
> now-Saudi desert but Persians are usually understood to be the
> inhabitants of what is now called Iran). persians differ from arabs as
> much as slavs differ from germanic peoples.

I don't even want to think about how much that movie dissapointed me. I was
all set to see the ancient battle with Grendel played out on the screen, and
it turned out to be GUYS IN FUCKING BEAR SUITS! If I wanted that, I would
have rented The Avengers.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Star Wars Episode 2 Mini-Review
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

Ahhh, newsgroup nitpickery!

The movie opens in Bhagdad. I said "Persian" because it invokes
old-timey Moors at the height of civilzation at that time, as opposed
to saying "Iraqi" which would give the wrong impression, based on
current events. The other characters in the movie refer to this main
character by the nickname, "Arab."

I will henceforth try to use the more polite term, "RUG-HEADS", in the
interest of logic, exactness, precision, truth, and general political
correctness on alt.slack.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Star Wars Episode 2 Mini-Review
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

In article <qF6F8.489$cw5.521442@monger.newsread.com>, Rabbi Jacklyn
Hyde <rabbs@subgenius.com> wrote:

> I don't even want to think about how much that movie dissapointed me. I was
> all set to see the ancient battle with Grendel played out on the screen, and
> it turned out to be GUYS IN FUCKING BEAR SUITS! If I wanted that, I would
> have rented The Avengers.

My only concern is that we "Neanderthals," as the humans and rag-heads
refer to us, be depicted fairly in motion pictures in the future.
Certainly, Hollywood's treatment of our people as brutish, bloodthirsty
monsters has burned a trail of shame for 30,000 years. From "The Lost
World" (1925) to "The 13th Warrior," we have been maligned and
misunderstood. "Quest for Fire" made a half-hearted attempt to -- AHEM
-- "humanize" persons of the non-Co-Magnon persuasion, but they got
more wrong than right, and made us appear helpless victims of the
"Waboo" (Homo Erectus, supposedly?) and the Yeti (Gigantopithecus)
rather than brave sexual co-pioneers with them!

The worst aspect of all this is that the Beowulf legend was RIPPED OFF
by the humans from a "Neanderthal" news release concerning the slaying
of a real monster by the great Yetinsyn hero, Ug.

But you don't see UG's on money, or high schools named after him. Well,
I suppose you don't see that for Beowulf either.

My initial point was that the monsters in the new Star Wars movie are
so plentiful and realistic that the almost unimaginable stupidity of
the script is rendered negligible by comparison.

And, I got the front yard mowed, but then it started drizzling so I
finished Hour of Slack 838 instead of doing the back yard.

Down with lackey running dog human Arabs, Persians, White People, Black
People, Pinks, Pew-Packers, Pee-Pee Heads and The Eaters of the Poo.

Viva la Raza de los Extinctos.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Star Wars Episode 2 Mini-Review
From: Her Ladyship Lilith von Fraumench <lilith@ZubJenius.com>

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0120604

Beowulf as science fiction, starring Christopher Lambert. DUMB plot.
GREAT special effects, and lots of Grendel-kicking fun. Turn off the
volume and play Der Ring des Nibelung on the stereo, and have fun.

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Original file name: Re- Star Wars Episode 2 Mini-RE - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:39