cymbaljack

Part 1: Why you should not go to see War of the Worlds

It completely sucks.

I will elaborate only a little, because this movie is not worth much of my time or energy, and I want to stop thinking about it as soon as possible. Yes, there is a lot of spectacle, so some people will probably be very excited about it. Yes, Tom Cruise is in it, which will cause another group of people to be excited. That's about all that you can say that's neutral about the movie. There's nothing to say positive.

On the negative side, it's a bleak, anxiety-producing, implausible, and depressing stream of dreck. At its best moments it is stupid and tedious. At its worst, it made me feel sick with anxiety and revulsion. I thought about leaving about a third of the way in. I didn't, but now wish I had.

Most the film is two hours of watching a little girl suffer unbearable psychological trauma, occasionally "lightened" by a plot point so ridiculous you will laugh out loud. (Like the magic van that somehow always has a path available to drive through huge traffic jams or whole neighborhoods reduced to piles of debris.) Some people will probably try to defend the film as being an admirable story of determination to survive, the only problems with that being:

1) "determination to survive" is hardly noble or uplifting and
2) the characters who do survive do so by a combination of dumb luck and the writers cheating to help them out.

In short, I have seen horror movies that are more uplifting and have a more positive view of humanity. Seriously, don't give Spielberg any of your money. Don't reward him for churning out this crap.

Part 2: a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Star Wars III: Such as it is opened, and last week I finally got to see it. And everybody's right: it's the best of 1-3, which isn't hard to do. It won that award just by virute of "Jar Jar Binks is barely in it at all." It's fun to see the circle completed. The dialogue is terrible, and "lost the will to live" is the weakest explanation anybody's ever likely to hear.

I was confused about one thing, though. Maybe it happened when I was in the bathroom, but when does Obi-Wan Kenobi receive the severe head injury? I know he must get whacked on the head pretty hard at some point, because that's the only explanation for why, in movies 4-6, he can't remember anything that happened in movies 1-3.

Example, from episode 4:
Kenobi: I don't remember ever owning any droids.

Hello, Mr. Head Injury Patient, you don't remember the astrodroids that tried to keep you alive during the Clone War? You don't remember these two droids in particular--the one who repeatedly saved your life, and the one that Annikin Skywalker made? You know, your prized student, who you hacked three limbs off of and left for dead? The father of the guy you're talking to right now? You'd think some of this would make an impression.

But the damage to Kenobi's memory is quite severe, as it perseveres even after he is dead.

Example, from episode 5:
Luke is flying away.
Ghostly-Kenobi: That boy is our last hope.
Yoda: No. There is another.
Ghostly-Kenobi (thinking): That's funny. Why didn't Yoda say, "No. Another, there is"?
Yoda (thinking): That's funny. Why doesn't remember that he was there when the twins were born, and he was part of the whole plan to hide the kids from Annikin? But then, why did I agree to let him "hide" Luke from Annikin on Annikin's home world, with Annikin's family? I must be getting too old for this. I mean, too old for this I must be getting. When younger I was, more consistently inverted my speech patterns were.

Anyway, dumb as it was, I have no regrets about paying money to see Star Warts. Not so with Spielberg's War on Good Taste.