The Blue Screen Trap

~ Laura

I finally got around to seeing Star Wars, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (Widescreen Edition). I’m a pretty hard core geek, but George Lucas has already let me down in Episodes I and II. I was in no hurry to rush out to see this one.

This movie sucked for so many reasons — the acting, the two dimension characters — but the original Star Wars also had those problems. I’ll still watch Star Wars, if I find it while surfing around on lazy Sunday afternoons. But I’ll click on by the more recent episodes without pausing.

The last three Star Wars episodes have suffered from excessive blue screen action. Too much with the computer animation. The actors either look disoriented or trapped. Padme barely budges from her sofa lest she distract from the fantastic scene outside her picture window. The biggest problem is that it’s just boring.

In the openings scenes of the original Star Wars, Luke flies around in a flying equivilent of a Dodge Dart. It’s actually filmed on location, so you see the desert winds whipping around Mark Hamill’s 70s hairdo. Atmosphere is a key thing in a movie. When Luke and Obi-Wan go into the bar to meet Harrison Ford, it’s very familiar. Sure, there’s a guy dressed up with an elephant nose at the bar, but it feels normal, because of the smoke, the snotty bartender, and the fact that the actors can acutally press up against the elephant nosed guy at the bar. And then there’s the Millenium Falcon — it’s a piece of crap that has actual parts that pop out and require a hard punch to get moving. Thump. There’s real muck in the trash compactor scene. Splish.

The trouble with the new Star Wars movies is that there is no thump, splish, bump, or swish.
There is nothing familiar to hold on to as we attempt to care about these wooden actors and their woes. If the Star Wars franchise is going to carry on, someone should cut their computer budget and make them construct a space ship out of vacuum tubes and old sheet metal. Then maybe I’ll go to the theater.

David Denby also thinks that computerization interfered with the new Kong movie.

Published by Laura

2 thoughts on “The Blue Screen Trap”

  1. I HATE the overuse of CGI – it’s a huge pet peeve of mine. You are so right about the actuality of the pre-digital animated Star Wars and other films. Far preferable, in my eyes.

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  2. One of the ways directors and producers can overcome the CGI problem is to use British stage actors instead of American method actors. A stage actor is better prepared and better trained at acting without a lot of surroundings. Compare Lord of the Rings to Star Wars.

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