Star Wars: Episode III

I read this entry on MSNBC today and mostly walked away thinking that Christopher Bahn doesn't get it. I called my brother to find out that he's already blogged on it. Here's my take.

Most of the criticisms Bahn makes just make no sense. Complaining about special effects being overwhelming in a Star Wars film is like complining about all the violence in a slasher film. Its what wow'd us the first time and what keeps us comming back. Complaining that Greg McEwan (sic) doesn't emote is just a failure to make sense of his serenity and centeredness. It may make it harder to punch the emotions of an audience, but the same could be said about Buddhists or Stoics. Maybe that's why movies aren't made about those guys either. Either way, its part of the intellectual content of the picture, the jedi embrace ataraxia.

There were however, a few good ideas. The key paragraph is this:
"It’s no slur on the genuinely great first “Star Wars” that much of the plotline and characterization was lifted straight out of Akira Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress.” Reusing older plotlines is a terrific way to shore up the fact that you have no interesting plots of your own. And after all, the extremely talented Kurosawa dipped into Shakespeare’s well of ideas more than once — and Shakespeare himself lifted many of his plots from earlier plays. For Episode III, rip off Kurosawa’s ripoff of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” and retell the “Throne of Blood” storyline as Darth Vader’s journey into evil."

That's really the only good idea in the peice, but its a heck of a good idea.