But what I was thinking, is maybe you could fix up the new ones a little, too. I liked the All New Adventures Of Star Wars films, especially the second one, but I'd be lying through my teeth if I told you I'd be jumping at the chance to see Star Wars 4 - The Phantom Menace again. I'd be lying if I told you it would be my choice of Part 4's to watch of an evening. If I said anything other than how I'd much rather throw on Freddy 4, where he turned the woman into a cockroach and broke her arms off and there was cockroach arms underneath, if I tried to fob that shit off on you, you'd see right through it, because I'd be a stinking lying bastard. I'd shoot myself in the nuts before I'd say that kinda toss to you. If I told you I relished the thought of watching Star Wars 4, I would be doing you, and myself, a disservice. I'd be pissing on us both, and not in a sexy way like in Pepi, Luci, Bon, but in a dirty way, like maybe a tramp standing on top of a bus-shelter pissing onto people walking by on account of he's so fucking cracked on the whiskey.
Now I know a few years back somebody did their own edit of Star Wars 4 and put it on the internet, and I know you got that shit taken off the net ASAMFP. I'm thinking that you probably did that right there because it'll make it all the more surprising when you bring out your own all-new version.
And I know, too, that you already tinkered with it a little when you put out the DVD, like for example making the pod race even longer and much, much worse. I think, though, to be honest, that was probably a stupid fucking idea.
What I suggest, is that when it comes to fixing Star Wars 4 - The Phantom Menace, you take these ideas into consideration.
1 - Replace Jar-Jar with GG Allin. Let's be straight-up here, Mr Lucas, like Paula Abdul and the animated cat advised back in the day. Nobody wants to see Jar-Jar. If you said to them, oh, what I'll do is make you watch those Jar-Jar scenes just the one time, or strap you to a chair made from live piranhas with a thing for genitals, I think you'd find a queue for the piranha chair. That's just my thinking. On the other hand, with some minor digital alterations, some GGI perhaps, those scenes that were once insufferable can now become the best in the whole film, most likely.
Article comments
1 - Joel Caris
Damn it, Duke, those are the fucking Star Wars movies I want to see. Brilliant.
Except, while I love me some Kirsten Dunst, I wouldn't replace Natalie Portman with her. I'd keep them both in there, on screen, together, in about the dirtiest ways I could imagine.
Now that would be a shit hot Star Wars movie.
2 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
joel, i can only hope Mr Lucas shares your good sense. Maybe he could replace Ewan with Kirsten, then.
and i do believe there should be some more Uncle Tupelo on the soundtrack.
3 - Joel Caris
I don't know Uncle Tupelo, but I'm going to trust your judgement on this one. I think John Williams can make room for a bit more variety.
4 - Eric Berlin
Kirsten Dunst, Star Wars, Uncle Buck, and well-timed use of ASAMFP -- all in all another classic post, Duke.
My take: dump Portman, keep Dunst, add the chick from Lost, dump Uncle Tupelo, add all old-school Sonic Youth and Pavement soundtrack.
Now, that's just me.
5 - alienboy
Great post!
Let's face it, the original Star Wars was always the best and the whole idea of turning it into a 9 movie epic always sucked, bigtime.
Lucas is a passable storyteller with a nasty control freak side to his personality, a classic case of a little success going a long way to ruin another personality.
Lucas doesn't have the depth to produce Sci-Fi on an epic scale, and even if he did, there's a host of classic SF novels that would make far better epic stories.
Plus which, he's way too uptight about copyrights and control and is meanly legalistic, which is always boring and tedious.
Why hasn't anybody made movies out of the epic Asimov Foundation books or even something really old school like the EE "Doc" Smith "Lensman" series?
Anybody else got any epic Sci-Fi they'd like to see mande....
6 - DrPat
Yeah! David Weber's Honor Harrington series. Not classic yet, just damn good.
Or maybe Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksennarion. Post LOTR, that would do really well. Needs a Valkyrie kind of blond to play Paks, though, no Kirsten Dunst. (Sorry, Aaman...)
7 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
hmmm, i don't read much epic SF type stuff, so i don't know what i'd wanna see. Certainly there are some Philip K Dick things i'd like to see done in a more Charlie Kaufman manner, as opposed to the Action Extravaganza approach. The one where the fella finds out that the bible has been mistranslated for thousands of years, and that the word GOD actually refers to a kind of magic mushroom. That's be something worth seeing. With Kirsten as the magic mushroom, and also the person who discovers said revelation.
8 - Eric Berlin
I'll be super-uber-amped if ever Stephen King's Dark Tower series is turned into filmdom. It would take some super-epicness a la Peter Jackson times seven (seven books you see) to pull it off proper like.
9 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
i must have a look at those Dark Tower things one of these days. certainly i love his regular ol' horror bunkum. I'd love to see a proper version of The Dark Half. romero's sucked, incredible as such a sentiment may seem. It would need to be as hilarious as it is grotesque.
And i do believe Terry Gilliam and Terry pratchett need to get some work done together. That would be utterly wonderful.
10 - Wxyz
Suggestion for The Duke (and others who's "lives" revolve around movies):
1. Go to park and play a sport. There are rumors that this helps your body and keeps you healthy.
2. Go on a date. Ask a woman or man to go a place for dinner or recreation. Just dont go see a film. Esp. a Lucasfilm.
3. Replace your Star Wars DVDs with novels. I suggest novels by Richard Wright,William Faulkner,James Baldwin or John Grisham. And the novelization of the Empire Strikes Back DOES NOT count.
4. Go out and help someone. There are plenty of people on Earth who need help. You can start with yourself.
and finally
5. Make your own movie. All you need is a camera and talent. Well...you can buy a camera.
11 - Eric Berlin
"Wxyz": Working on your punctuation is also a wonderful pastime, don't you agree?
What's your elitist coolguy ass doing slumming it on a pop culture blog anyway?
12 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
WXYZ.
I just wanted to thank you so, so much for what you did. Would you believe i was just about to watch a movie? can you BELIEVE that shit. I was just about to put in this flick by the name of Persona (it's this cat Bergman, but what does it matter. i mean come on, it's hardly a NOVEL. unless maybe foreign movies are ok. sorry, foreign "films". does it help if it's black and white? how does this elitism work, anyhow?) when i thought, wait a minute, what was it WXYZ advised?
I remembered, and what i did was i picked up a novel. It was a novel by John Grisham and it was fucking shit. I set it down, and went ahead and read some Shakespeare. turned out to be that one about THE RAPE OF SOMEBODY OR OTHER. i didn't like it very much. So then i thought does any book at all count, or does it have to be a good one? cause really, if just any old book counted, well then that would be fucking stupid, to be honest. Really, that'd be like assuming the best Woody Allen picture is inferior to, say, The Turner Diaries. I'm sorry WXYZ but i can't bring myself to assume that kinda nonsense.
And then i figured, well, i'll go do that other thing. Get a date, maybe. So what i did was i went and had a five year relationship, got engaged and then watched it crumble to fuck. Thanks a fucking bunch WXYZ.
And then i noted that probably, if caring about film is an incredibly pointless pursuit, then really, Plato, Socarates, all those fuckers who waxed on and off about drama and catharsis and so on, they were just wasting their time. And inadvertendly, the wasted MY time, since i went and picked up a couple of their books on your reccomendation.
Then i thought about the people i had councelled here and there. That reccomendation was pretty good, WXYZ, and thank fuck the folks who in turn helped sort me out read it also.
In conculsion, thank you for making my life that bit more meaningful. And to think, i could've been watching Citizen Kane or Crossfire or some shit while all this was going on. I could've been writing another one of those NOVELS you mention, like the three i did a while back. I could've been doing all sortsa shit. Thank fuck my existence is summed up in its entirity by this here hilarious post, so that you were able to correct it bit by bit.
Thank you.
13 - Temple Stark
No Aaron, thank U. :-)
I could understand if was talking about (most) TV, however. And I'm a great books kind of guy. But, not all the time.
14 - HW Saxton
Did Wxyz really just put John Grisham on
par with William Faulkner,James Baldwin
& Richard Wright ??? Ya gotta be fuckin'
kidding right Wxyz ? Thats like putting
Jason Bateman on par with Orson Welles
or Garth Brooks on par with Hank W. Sr
or any number of ridiculous analogies.
Besides all that why can't someone enjoy
Cinema going as much as a football game
or reading O'Henry anyway? Dude ya lost
me in your muddled "Logic".
15 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
heh you're welcome Temple. ;)
I like reading also. Reading the story of Viz Comic at the minute, very inspiring, and there's also a history of the taliban on the go.
it's WXYZ's assumption that someone who would take the time to give opinions on films must be unaware of any other thing in the culture around them that pissed me off some.
16 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
"Did Wxyz really just put John Grisham on
par with William Faulkner,James Baldwin
& Richard Wright ???"
HW, that stumped me too. but then what the hell do i know?