tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22073066.post6134916981695894437..comments2023-06-03T06:16:38.027-04:00Comments on Estoreal: Whirling transient nodes of thought careening thru a cosmic vapor of inventionRichardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01714171897239398438noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22073066.post-80180269698148709072008-06-01T23:22:00.000-04:002008-06-01T23:22:00.000-04:00>>Frankly, I'd rather see the Holiday Special one ...>>Frankly, I'd rather see the Holiday Special one more time than rewatch anything with Anakin Skywalker in it.<<<BR/><BR/>you know, there's some wisdom in that statement.rob!https://www.blogger.com/profile/17556471244882205031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22073066.post-49148283033968221952008-05-31T14:53:00.000-04:002008-05-31T14:53:00.000-04:00Yeah. Not wanting to get too far away from Mr. Ko...Yeah. Not wanting to get too far away from Mr. Korman here, but...there was a fundamental difference in the way people responded to Star Wars based on what age they were when it first appeared. Forget Kurosawa: if you recognized the cinematic quotes from <I>The Thief of Baghdad</I> and similar desert adventures, westerns, WWII aerial dogfight footage, Saturday afternoon serials -- at least enough to tell these things were all being referenced -- you understood the movie as an extended homage or pastiche. Jedi philosophy or the backstory of the characters or the basis of the interstellar culture from the films doesn't survive close scrutiny, but it was never <I>intended</I> to stand up to such close reading. By analogy, the original audience for <I>American Graffiti</I> was the same generation as Lucas himself, and they could recognize it as a cute, affectionate homage to the pop culture of the time...but if you were to study it as a serious anthropological documentary you'd be totally misusing it and getting bad information in the process.<BR/><BR/>What I particularly like about the Bea Arthur sequence in the SWHS is that it recognizes the original nature of SW as quoting 1940s escapist entertainment in a lighthearted way and uses that same technique. That sense of riffing on the Forties has gotten lost from the mythos since then, and the result became so pompous and self-important.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01714171897239398438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22073066.post-7533153392181584082008-05-31T10:36:00.000-04:002008-05-31T10:36:00.000-04:00The SWHS is very hard for most of us to watch thes...The SWHS is very hard for most of us to watch these days, although in my case it's more the disturbing nature of many of the inclusions. (Really? 15 minutes of wookies talking without even subtitles? That hellish flap of skin that's grandpa wookie's mouth? And how about that VR machine Granpappy Bearsuit dons, what Bill Corbett calls an "autowanker"?)<BR/><BR/>I don't share the reverence for Star Wars that many of the others of my generation have. In some ways I hate it. Objectively, it has ruined movies. Its massive success led directly to the blockbuster philosophy that has given us many, and the most visible, of the cinematic travesties of the past three decades. It has ruined popular culture by creating a legion of obsessive fans worshiping its Joseph Campbell stylings, the whole "hero's journey" story structure that has probably produced more narrative crap than anything else. It's not impossible to make a heroic journey story that doesn't suck, but it certainly doesn't seem to happen that often.<BR/><BR/>So in this way, the SWHS is good, because it abandons all that stuff so utterly. And yet, to see poor Art Carney having to put up with Imperial Stormtroopers is heartbreaking. Ed Norton should not have had to have put up with this stuff! He should have been left to va-va-va-voom in peace.Rodneyliveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03476187929555342435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22073066.post-59079901240949218852008-05-31T01:35:00.000-04:002008-05-31T01:35:00.000-04:00You're about to lose whatever respect you still ha...You're about to lose whatever respect you still have for me... <BR/><BR/>I enjoy that special now even more than I did when it first aired. Really. It reminds me of a time when <I>Star Wars</I> was just a bit of entertaining fun, not an oppressively deep cultural phenomenon taken far too seriously by its fandom and its creators with its ersatz mysticism solemnly enshrined as holy writ. The scene I linked to in the post was fun. I like it a lot. <BR/><BR/>Frankly, I'd rather see the Holiday Special one more time than rewatch anything with Anakin Skywalker in it.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01714171897239398438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22073066.post-31561146090091456432008-05-30T23:04:00.000-04:002008-05-30T23:04:00.000-04:00that Holiday Special never gets any easier to watc...that Holiday Special never gets any easier to watch.<BR/><BR/>rip, Harvey.rob!https://www.blogger.com/profile/17556471244882205031noreply@blogger.com