lazypadawan's Holocron

TFN's Jimmy Mac (also co-host of The Force-Cast) let Roger Ebert have it after Ebert derided the "idiotic lifestyle" of Fanboys' main protagonists. He sent this missive along to Ebert's website (which Ebert posted):

( That's gonna leave a mark )

Maybe I'll make SWPAS t-shirts with "The PT is Forever" on the front and "and you can suck it!" on the back. Though I have to credit Roger Ebert for having the guts to post Jimmy Mac's letter, threats and accusations all. There's more about Jimmy Mac's rant here:

http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/Jimmy_Macs_Rant_On_RogerEbertcom_121206.asp

Now to be fair and balanced, I read on Ebert's site his review of Fanboys, where he plays a bit of pop psychology into fandom. While he does point out some things fen do not like admitting about themselves or their lifestyle, I also think he is being a bit harsh and like a lot of people Who Don't Get Media Fandom, makes assumptions about fans that aren't true. The guys in Fanboys might be idiotic; I have yet to see the movie. But being a fan doesn't necessarily mean "it saves you from having to know about anything else." And will someone please explain why being a diehard sports fan or even a music geek like the characters in High Fidelity is perfectly acceptable as an obsession, but not this?

darth_pipes sent me a link to this insane article. Just like a journo to get all excited over the idea of Anakin committing adultery with an underage alien chick:

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20080818/121907106000.html

*Shudder.*

The main disadvantage of having seen CW already is that it is killing me I can't discuss it with you guys yet! However, I was able to go through my trading cards and start reading the book ;).

Poking around online, I've seen stuff on how George Lucas is in it just for the money or this is just to sell toys or lure children to Satanism or whatever. I don't get it. What's wrong with making money? *Shrug.*

As predicted, some critics have just downloaded their old reviews and changed the names. Others seem to have missed the point: this isn't meant to be a New SW Movie, it's promoting a t.v. show (I'm looking at you, Empire and Harry Knowles). For that reason, part of me wonders if it really was smart to subject what was originally conceived as a t.v. pilot to film critics. It doesn't help there's an entrenched internet movie/geek culture that loathes George Lucas, SW, and most of you reading this and they've been doing everything to talk this down. It's going to be up to SW fans, the kids, and their parents who don't base their opinions on what the online "tastemakers" say. (The $64,000 question is where EW will fall in its review. It hates SW, especially recent SW, yet CW is under the same conglomerate umbrella as EW. Talk about a dilemma.)

Speaking of which, I heard that Lucasfilm made AICN remove their reviews. Other sources have posted their reviews and so far, no C&D for me. I didn't sign anything, so there. I have no idea what went on with AICN or why, but it isn't because Knowles didn't like CW since Moriarty's positive review was also taken down.

Concerning T.V. Guide's multi-cover CW extravaganza, I knew somehow deep in my gut they'd pull a fast one. The article on CW itself is fine. But flip a few pages before the article and there's the Cheers & Jeers column. After mentioning Natalie Portman's recent turn on "Project Runway" as a judge and her no-critters-used shoe line, out of nowhere they make a lame comment on how she must know how to work with natural materials given her wooden dialogue in SW. I bet it took all day for Mr. Cheers & Jeers to think of that one :/. Suckazz.

Well, on the positive side, here's coverage of the L.A. premiere yesterday:

http://www.starwars.com/theclonewars/news20080810.html

Apparently Janet Jackson was there as well.

And I hear there's Clone Wars Lunchables available at your local supermarket.

Recently there has been a script purportedly by Frank Darabont circulating around the internet, a draft of Indy IV (called The City of the Gods) that was ultimately rejected, supposedly by George Lucas. Looky here, just three weeks after KOTCS comes out, this mystical script magically appears. The usual suspects of course are hopping up and down and flinging monkey poo over the "Darabont" script and how much better it is and blah, blah, blah.

Vanity Fair, taking a break from publishing photos of teen starlets only Roman Polanski and those polygamists in Texas could love, posts a review of the script on its website (conveniently linked from TFN). Let me reiterate that NO ONE has authenticated the script. We don't even know if it's a forgery or not! But that won't stop VF from treating it as though it is real:

As with anything that surfaces on the Internet, there is a chance that the screenplay is a hoax. Judging from typos and awkward dialogue, it is most likely an early draft, but it’s too professionally written to be a piece of fan-fiction, and too Indy-savvy to be a professional screenwriter’s stunt. (Darabont has written several episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.) So it’s probably real.

Well, thanks for that compelling evidence!

Naturally, this VF moron and those who are all atwitter over this script love how it conveniently "solves" things they didn't like about KOTCS:

The fun part, however, is the differences. Indy’s son (played in the new movie by Shia Labeouf) isn’t a character in IJATCOTG, which leaves more room for Indy to develop as a character, and for the love story between Indy and Marion—the greatest onscreen couple since Tracy and Hepburn—to rekindle and smolder over time. Instead of reuniting immediately, Indy has to win Marion back from her husband of suspicious allegiances, the more chivalrous, more polished archaeologist leading the expedition. Secondly, and thankfully, there’s no Mac character, the superfluous Cockney triple-crosser played by Ray Winstone. As for Indy himself, while he is arguably more passive throughout the movie (and does even less actual archaeology than usual), he plays a more central role in the final showdown with the aliens by shooting their crystal brains out to save humanity. There are also better, longer action sequences, such as a death-defying biplane chase that reads like a mile-high version of the iconic Raiders truck chase. Finally, there are fewer cute, Jar-Jar Binksy touches.

The VF post pays lip service to how the script isn't perfect ("It might have worked 15 years ago, when Harrison Ford was merely 50, but Darabont’s screenplay barely deals with Indy’s age") but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the real agenda here is...blaming a guy named George and I ain't talking about W. Bush:

In the end, though, the least compelling elements are the ones that seeped into David Koepp’s script, most likely the ones that Lucas called for. Oh, George, why must you ruin your gifts to us?

How does this a$$hat even know that?? The fact is, he DOESN'T (isn't a guy named Steven Spielberg also responsible for this movie?) and "least compelling elements" is just his opinion in the first place. He's just operating under the fanboy assumption that if he didn't like something, it must be Lucas's fault.

And that my little Smurfs is the agenda behind this whole script. I think that it's in all likelihood another forgery like Fall of the Republic. In this day and age, it's way too easy to cook up something that seems real. There are enough people out there who could feasibly pull it off. This is the Indiana Jones version of "The Phantom Edit." And if the off-off chance it was a stolen draft, I hope the thief's butt is tossed into jail alongside the people who pirated ROTS. If in the really off-off-off chance Frank Darabont himself leaked his draft to try and show up Lucas out of resentment and spite, well, that makes him an a-hole and I hope his career crashes and burns like the Hindenburg.

Whatever the case, it's yet another one-two attack on Lucas by Darth Fanboy and Darth Media. Notice how from the get-go, this rumor sets Lucas up as the "villain" who rejected the script in the first place. He then discarded all of these wonderful ideas, kept the lame ones, and gave the rest to a no-good hack like David Koepp. Spielberg and Ford must've been kept tied up in a room and fed roofies to accept the final script, right?

I really hope this is the last time Lucas plays rope-a-dope with VF.

Harrison Ford, in an interview with McPaper a couple of days ago, had this to say about the character who ended his full-time career as a carpenter:

"He gives "no credit to the culture for embracing (Han) as a hero. He's dumb as a stump! He's certainly got a good heart, but I think he's certainly a much less interesting character than Indiana Jones.

"The breadth of his story utility was never extensive. He was the foil between the other more compelling elements of the film. There's not breadth of character to explore beyond what we got out of him."'

For us long-time SW fans, this is nothing new. Ford has expounded on the shallowness of Han Solo for at least 25 years if not longer. I just don't know why he thinks Indy is somehow more complex than Han, except for perhaps the fact that Indy is the main character while Han is not. I realize Han isn't packing a lot of PhDs and he's one of those guys who acts first and thinks about it later, but I don't think he's dumb as a stump either. Moreover, people like him for the following reasons:

1. He holds his own even with characters who have powers and abilities he doesn't have.

2. He has his own ship.

3. His best bud is Chewbacca, and everybody loves Chewbacca.

4. He's not entirely good, but not evil or a heartless son of a bantha like Boba Fett.

5. He is snarky.

Bonus like: Women think he is hot.

I know Josh Holloway (Sawyer on Lost) has said that his character is inspired in part by Han, but while watching ANH, ROTJ, and part of TESB last weekend, it's really obvious that it is the case. I sort of expected Han to call Leia "Freckles." Although she isn't as freckle-y as Kate.

In any case, TFN linked to a thing on that bastion of excellence in journalism, contactmusic.com about Lucas's hopes and dreams for Indy IV:

We're not gonna have adoring fans sending us e-mails saying how much they loved the movie. We're gonna have a bunch of angry people saying, 'You're a bunch of a**holes, you should never have done this. You've ruined my life forever.'"

Don't forget about raped childhoods! From my standpoint, of course there are people who are going to complain no matter what, but I don't foresee a backlash a la post-TPM. There isn't the same crazy buildup to the movie nor is there as many people who have pinned their whole lives on Indy. The worst it'll get is whining over Ford's age or the way Shia LeBeouf's hair is parted.

But it does show how much the overdone hatefest on the part of a vocal minority really got to Papa George. Geez, if it bothered me, I can't imagine how it felt to the guy who created the whole thing, even with the money it made.

Indy stuff has been hitting the stores too. The LEGOs came out a while ago, now I'm finding Dr. Pepper with Indy boxes. Good thing I'm not much of an Indy collector!

Stare in disbelief here:

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20186285,00.html

Remember the story from a month or two ago about Ewan McGregor supposedly telling a kid on his sick bed that the SW films were the worst he's ever worked on?

Well, ContactMusic enters the fray with this inflammatory headline:

JACKSON SLAMS MCGREGOR'S STAR WARS RANT

And here's Samuel L. Jackson's alleged beatdown of his former co-star:

Actor SAMUEL L. JACKSON is baffled by STAR WARS co-star EWAN MCGREGOR's recent attack on the sci-fi franchise - insisting his role was a dream come true. McGregor claimed the prequels were the worst films he has ever made, but Jackson can't understand the reasoning behind his statement. Jackson says, "I'm sorry Ewan feels that way. I always loved those movies; I always wanted to be in one."

Oooh, burn! Betcha Ewan's just shaking in his kilt over that one.

Naturally, TFN reports on this as though it was all fact. Here's what Lucasfilm's Pablo Hidalgo had to say on his starwars.com blog:

Ohhh... BOOM goes the dynamite! SLAM simply doesn't cover it. Not since that meteor PLOWED into those dinosaurs has there been a roundhouse so powerful. Can't you just feel the blistering heat coming off that cannon-lobbed "I'm sorry". Man, Ewan is gonna think twice before ever having a quote (or, as is known in some periodicals as a "rant" apparently) attributed to him by a third person like in this story.

Nevertheless, it's great SLJ has a positive attitude toward the movies. He's grateful for being given the chance to make a fan geek dream come true. Go check out the trailer for his new movie with Hayden Christensen, Jumper. It looks really good:

http://www.jumperthemovie.com