Kevin Smith Previews Revenge of the Sith

Eugenia writes "Kevin Smith, the well-known actor/director, was invited by George Lucas to a special advanced screening of the upcoming 'Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith' film and he wrote down his take on the movie. There are some serious spoilers in his article but it's interesting to see his reaction, as a director and Star Wars fan."

Spoiler that eases the mind...

[riptide_dot]

Warning - this is a spoiler. Don't read the italics if you really don't want to know what happens:

At flick's end, Threepio and Artoo are given to Captain Antilles (with the caveat that the Protocol's memory be wiped).

Count me as one fan that's really glad that this little detail was included - I was wondering how they were going to deal with Threepio and R2D2 not recognizing Obi-Wan and others they had met in the prequels. Kind of makes Obi's reaction to seeing the droids in EP4 seem a little more mysterious too, even though that probably wasn't the intention when EP4 was shot ("I don't recall owning any droids").

Re:READ IT!!!

[TheWanderingHermit]

I've expected this movie to be pretty good. Lucas knew what stories he wanted to tell when he first wrote Star Wars, and he started with what he thought was the most exciting one. It was clear, since he started on this trilogy, that the real story he wanted to tell was Anakin going over to the dark side. The other two films were really just setting us up for this one -- he told them because they filled in the background for this movie, the one he wanted to make.

So it seemed to me this is the only one in the prequal trilogy he really wanted to make, and he's been working up to it. When he's excited about a story, Lucas does great. When he's just creating fillter (or, as in Return of the Jedi, tying up loose ends) -- that's when he's weak.

Would he have said it sucked?

[astrashe]

Do we trust him? Would he have really said that it sucked?

I'm not going to this one. Lucas keeps putting crappy movies out there, and I keep going. If I go to this one, it's over, and Lucas wins every time. This is my last chance not to fall for the same old con.

Re:Didn't we see this already

[ackthpt]

Didn't we see this astroturfing "reviews" when the latest episode came out? It was supposed to the best episode ever and when I went to see it, it was fucking crap aimed at 13-year old.

Well, based upon what you're likely to see if you go to this film, you'll see what depths Anakin and Palpatine sink for evil. I mean, this isn't rub your hands and cackle maniacally evil, this is turn on anyone and everyone to settle your scores, while having your strings pulled by a Mighty Evil Master(TM) evil. Darth Vader is supposed to be sinister and all we've really seen up to this point is a kid with some promise, growing up and getting angrier and angrier, sort of like the dark clouds gathering before a good old fashion midwestern thunderstorm which will probably be proceded by some devastating tornadoes. Revenge of the Sith will probably make some people very uneasy and produce some raving reviews 'won't someone please think of the children (yeah, get them GTA:SA instead.)

Sounds like Lucas did a fine job and I'm looking forward to my artery-clogging bucket of popcorn and half gallon of carbonated sugar water while gazing at the screen in total fascination.

Re:I don't trust him

[Omega1045]

Have you seen the director's version? Seriously, it is a completely different movie. It is about 30 minutes longer, has an entire sub-plot that makes much of the stuff in the movie actually make sense ie there are reasons behind Matt Murdoch's actions. I would recommend buying it up or renting it.

Re:I don't trust him

[n0-0p]

I'd switch that one around. Kevin Smith may be the one of the few directors who can cast Affleck well. Honestly, I've really liked the majority roles he's played in Smith's movies.

In general though, I think I can trust Smith's take on Episode 3. The guys a died in the wool geek who's work includes writing on comics like Green Arrow and Daredevil. I'm not saying I like everything he's done, but I respect his geek cred and feel that this review is genuine. That's more than I can say for most reviews I read.

Re:I don't trust him

[supmylO]

If you have seen Chasing Amy then you would know that Ben Affleck is actually _really_ good in that movie. He's also in Mallrats and is also good, although his part is far less significant. I haven't seen Jersey Girl but I know for fact that he has played some quality parts for Kevin Smith in the past.

Re:Reading the book...

[fireduck]

a friend of mine did this as well. His reasoning was that he wanted to experience a (hopefully) decent version of the story prior to the movie, so that he could go into the movie with a sense of whether it was a crap story or just that Lucas was a crap director with some crappy actors. I think its a case of Lucas just setting the bar so low on the first two prequels, that some fans want to raise it up, and if they find it in a novelization, so be it...

Re:Slashdotting Clerks-style

[TheoGB]

So the real question is: If Slashdot provides a portal to websites that then instantly fall over from all the traffic: What's so good about Slashdot that it never falls over from too much traffic.

And: Why doesn't everyone just host with Slashdot.

It's like the old "Why don't they make planes out of the stuff they make the black box recorder out of?" question.

Re:hate of eps I and II was quite genuine

[geekwithsoul]

the Geoge Lucas of the 70's knew about pacing

I've often thought the same thing. In fact in many of the "Making of Star Wars" documentaries it was pointed out how unusual it was for so much attention to detail be paid to models and special effects and then have them fly across the screen in an eye-blink. He wanted it to look cool, but not get wrapped up in pointing out how cool it looked. This definitely changed with the prequels.

Also, I think it was a function of money and timing. There was never enough of either (until ROTJ) to really give Lucas full reign on "implementing his vision" and for the most part that actually worked in favor of the films being tight, fast-paced and exciting. Just look at what he's done with the re-releases and you'll see why sometimes being creative under tremendous pressure gets better results.

Re:Who is Kevin Smith

[gstoddart]

Is he someone who'se opinion we trust.

Whose opinions you trust is up to you. I trust him to have an opinion and be intelligent about it.

here [imdb.com] you can decide if you would trust his opinions or not from seeing what his other works are.

Cheers

Re:His biggest problem with the film

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, nobody serves popcorn with butter. The popcorn "butter" is a vegatable oil(Usually soy bean oil). Some theatres mix in a little butter for flavor but many don't use any butter at all. Real butter cannot be kept at a high enough temperature to comply with health codes without separating.

A blowjob from one has-been to another

[Edmund Blackadder]

Imagine two people waist deep in a swamp. One of them tries to lift the other by the hair hoping that the other will eventually be able to lift him off. Meanwhile both of them tragically and comically keep sinking. This is what this review is like.

Both Smith and Lucas once made decent movies and then were completely destroyed by their egos which were much bigger than their talents. The moment of destruction for each of them came when they thought they knew marketing.

Lucas made some decent action flicks but then he reaslized that he made more money on toys than movies, so he decided "gee, why don't I substitute a three hour toy and video game commercial for my next movie". Never did he realize that people don't enjoy paying $10 to see a commercial.

I used to like Smith a lot because he made good movies about teenagers, something that is very rare. But then he too decided he knew about marketing. He decided to make "grown up" movies that are more "serious" and "intelligent" so he can target a bigger demographic and get more respect in hollywood. And then, when everybody told him point blanc that his movies suck, he said : "you are so immature, why don't you like my deep intelligent movies". SOrry Kevin your movies are not intelligent, they are fucking stupid. All he does is bring up controvercial subjects (lesbians!, race !, bitchy women !, that are lesbians!) that are guaranteed to get him press without having anything remotely intelligent to say about them. Don't get me started about the whole Ben-JLo thing. Smith pretended he was an innocent victim of that disaster (counting of course on Americanss' notoriously short memories). Well I am one American that remembers shit and let me tell Smith engineered the whole fucking thing himself and then scheduled 2 movies in a way so he can take advantage of it. (afterwards when the scope of the disaster was obvious to everyone, he rescheduled the movies so they don't open within the same two month period). There he goes again thinking he knows about marketing. Thinking that he can make a huge blockbuster movie by manipulating the public perception.

There is one thing about modern marketing -- if you are into it you must hate people. It is a requirement for the job. The premise of modern marketing is that people are dumb sheep whoose opinions can be molded like slabs of clay. And you can easily see from their movies how both Smith and Lucas hate their fans. Just watching their movies you see them talking down to you. Well George, Kevin people are sometimes not as stupid as you take them to be, and we tend to notice these things.

And now Lucas has very little credibility left (Smith essentially has none)so now Smith tries to make himself look better by attempting to lift Lucas out of the swamp. Ain't gonna happen -- I will never see either of your movies again. There are too many good movies nowadays to waste my time on you two.

Re:Spoiler that eases the mind...

[kin_korn_karn]

Or, Obi-Wan could have been lying to Luke when he said he didn't know the droids. Or if you're into psychobabble, maybe it's a represssed memory, since the droids were associated in obi-wan's mind with a horrible tragic event.

Re:His biggest problem with the film

[throughthewire]

Actually, nobody serves popcorn with butter.

Alamo Drafthouse Theater [alamodrafthouse.com] serves real butter on their popcorn - one of several reasons why I prefer to see movies there.

Re:READ IT!!!

[TheWanderingHermit]

Maybe you're too young to remember, or just didn't care, but I remember when Empire came out, in 1980, Lucas talked about it in interviews. He had said he had an entire backstory, but he started in the middle because the other story wasn't as exciting, and was more about spying and plotting, so it would not be as good or interesting. (Yes! He really said all that as early as 1980 or so -- I remember reading it while in high school, in something like Time or Starlog.)

He also said, after Return was released, that he had a prequal storyline, but he wasn't going to do it for years because there were a lot of things he wanted to do that the fx of the day couldn't do, and that he wouldn't do the prequal until the start of the art fx work caught up to what he wanted to do.

Yes, I know it's fun to bash and denigrate and trash an icon. If you don't believe me, see how much fun you had doing it in your post. But it doesn't work when there are people who remember his original comments in interviews that are pre-web, so theyr'e not likely to be found in Google, and those comments basically say a lot about the two movies we've already seen.

Yes, Star Wars was revised. How many plot points were changed (other than Han not firing first)? How many of the changes were adding shots and scenes that were too expensive to include when it was originally shot -- or, in the case of the Jabba/Han scene in the first one, a scene that didn't contribute directly to the storyline of the particular film it was in (that scene, in it self, should show you that Lucas had planned more than we originally saw).