Ippoippo

Today, we visited Meguro (目黒) to take a peek at the Art of Star Wars display. No photos, as cameras were not allowed. There was a large section dedicated to Episode 3, but there was also a room with stuff from Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. Together with some prints of concept art work, there were some props, models and costumes from the films.
Most impressive was seeing Peter Mayhew’s Chewbacca costume. Feck… that man was tall!! Likewise, Ian McDirmid seems to be a bit of a shorty. His Emperor Palpatine grey cloak seemed pretty short to me.

There is also another show over at Tokyo’s International Forum (東京国際フォーラム), which we will visit tomorrow. We had planned on going today, but on the way we got distracted by a pub! Damn hot weather, and needed a nice cool beer!

Rather bizarre. George Lucas and gang have showed up in Tokyo to promote Star Wars Episode 3. Just seems wierd because, I saw it almost two weeks ago now, there were more preview showings last Saturday as well I believe. Surely, they should have been here for the first of the preview showings???

Well, it’s not doing it now, but from about 19:00 last night until 10 minutes ago, its been tipping it down here.
Temperature has come down a bit as well, only 23 degrees (C) today! Got summer type temperature for the UK, but more like a mid-May temperature in this part of the world.

It’s certainly very different to the weather this time one year ago! (Let me see, about this time last year, I was down in Toi with the in-laws, on a “Welcome to Japan” holiday… sweating like a horrible sweaty thing!).

Yesterday was kinda cool. Yuko’s mum and dad came over to visit, as they Yuko’s mum wanted to return her kimono (and also a box full of Yuko’s football shirts from World Cup 2002!). Yuko however, made me cook Roast Chicken for them, so thank goodness it wasn’t as hot as it would normally be at this time of year.

Star Wars Episode 4 was on Japanese TV last night, so we thought we’d watch it with Japanese dubbing. Actually, I did laugh during the opening. Quite often on Japanese TV, they’ll stick up the main Cast list in both katakana script and romaji, and usually they dispense with the end credits for Western films (since not many people can read them). How I chuckled to see Obi-Wan Kenobi was acted by a chap called “Arec Guiness”. Me, childish, yep!
For some other reason they’d edited parts of the film as well. The sequence when Beru calls over to Luke to make sure the droids can speak “Botchi” disappeared. So did the horrible whining of Luke, “But I was going to Toshi station to pick up some Power Convertors”. Hell, I worried myself when I actually noticing these bits missing as well. Feck, I’m a geek!
What was fun, was seeing how much of the Japanese I could actually understand. It helped a lot knowing what they were saying anyway in English.

Finally, I got to watch Episode 3 last night. My thoughts and comments on this will probably contain spoilers for those who have not yet seen the film. Do not read on if you do not wish to spoil things.

OK. Lets have a go and putting my thoughts into words.

First up, some comments on when I arrived at the cinema. Initial thoughts. “There seems to be more foreigners here than the last time I came to the cinema!” A lot of Western looking families, sometimes families where the wife was Japanese, man western, but again bringing their kids. A lot of mixed couples like myself and Yuko. Its seems a fair proportion of us Gaijin turned up to watch Star Wars. They weren’t watching anything else, as 8 of the 9 screens were showing Star Wars all day.
Compared to the UK (and certainly from what I’ve seen of the US), there were less ‘geeks in costumes’. On arrival, there was a guy dressed up as General Grievous. On leaving the cinema, we saw a Darth Maul and an Obi-Wan Kenobi (or some other random Jedi?) Certainly no huge groups of Jedi’s or Stormtroopers!

OK. The film. As I had heard, a vast improvement on Episode 1 and 2. Yuko and I watched Ep1 on Japanese TV on Friday night, before watching Ep2 on DVD. Although still different in feel to the Episodes 4, 5 and 6, it felt more like them. The dialogue, was bad as usual. But this time, only as bad as Episodes 4-6, not truly awful like Episodes 1 and 2.
The most fun I had though was watching Anakin’s descent to the Dark Side. A lot of people complained that it was ‘too quick’, believing that his turn is just those 2 minutes or so during and just after Mace Windu’s fight with Palpatine. But it’s not. It started really, in Episode 2 (continued on into the Clone Wars cartoons if you’ve seen them. I recommend, tells why General Greivous is asthmatic for start), and really starts building right from the start of Episode 3. In fact, his fall just keeps going after the initiation of Order 66. Once the killing spree begins he just keeps getting more evil.
Ian McDiarmid was fantastic as Palpatine in this film, and really came to stand out as one of the most enjoyable characters to watch. A reminder of his acting in Episode 6, where again, he was one of the best bits about that film!
This time as well, Ewan McGregor was perfect as Obi-Wan. Watching Episode 1 and 2 on Friday though, I feel complaints about his performance are misguided. However, in Episode 3, you started to see how Obi-wan and Anakin were friends. This was never apparent in Episode 2.
Hayden Christensen has improved (or maybe the direction given to him had improved, with a better script). Although the romantic segment between him and Padme (Natalie Portman) was still a little clunky, it was not as bad as Episode 2, and mercifully short. Anakin’s (now Darth Vader) ranting when on Mustafar is great (I loved the “If you not with me, you are my enemy” line… hmmm, reminds me of a certain President )
The other bit I loved was that satisfying “uuussshhhhh, clunk” noise when Vader finally get’s his helmet attached for the first time. Ahhh, just like in Episode 5 Boy, I’m such a geek sometimes.

There are two main things that let this film down though. The first is the saber fights. Despite the fact that the saber fight in Episode 4 is very slow, and the other one’s weren’t as complicated to watch as the prequel fights, there seemed to be a lot more emotion in them!
In fact, Episode 1′s three way fight with Maul, still stands out as being the best one in the prequels. I was amazed when I first saw it. I still am. Compare that with Episode 2. Dooku vs Anakin. It’s useless, because it’s just a bunch of waving lights in the darkness. Yoda vs Dooku was great when I saw it the first time (I was delirious watching that, because it was so crazy). Now I just find it rediculous. In Episode 3, Dooku vs Anakin is too short (though I loved seeing Palpatine smirking away in the background, foreshadowing Episode 6). Mace-Palpatine was not so great. I guess this was because this was the first time McDiarmid has been asked to do any sword work. Having said that, his Yoda-Palpatine fight was a lot better and probably the second best fight. So, that leaves us with the duel we’d been waiting for. Obi-Wan vs Vader. Well, certainly the best of Episode 3. The verbal sparing that was going on was fantastic, and yet something was missing.

This leads me onto the second disappointment. Was what was missing the music, or lets say, memorable music? That’s what made the three way fight in Episode 1 so fantastic. Its what made the death of Kenobi in Episode 4 so moving. It’s what made the end of the fight in Episode 6 so fantastic. The Music! I somehow think that John Williams just didn’t put the same effort into this film as the others. Maybe he couldn’t be arsed because it would be likely that it would be torn to shreds like it was in Episode 1, and how it certainly was in Episode 2. Maybe after Episode 2, Williams thought fuck this!
In fact, the other thing I sense is that Ben Burt got a lot of praise for removing the music in the Kenobi-chasing-Jango through asteroid field scene, and the introduction of the sonic charge sound effect. I think it really massaged Burts ego too much, and there a many sequences in Episode 3 that have no music when it was required.
Having said that, the music used in the Opera house scene and during the Order 66 sequence was great.

OK, other niggles, and minor ones at that. What was the point of having the planet full of Wookies? Having said that, as Order 66 is being carried out, going back to the planet and seeing Yoda’s reaction to sensing it all was brilliantly moving. Otherwise, it just seemed to be a pointless link between the trilogies.
Also, Portman was as beautiful as ever in this film, except for one scene (The “I love you”, “No I love you”, “Love is blind” one).
Was this done in a pickup afterwards? She certainly looked different, and very emaciated. Was it because she had lost some weight for here next film role (she doesn’t need to do that, she was petit enough as it was).

My final thought though goes to the character I never thought was going to work, after seeing the performance in Episode 1 and 2… Mace Windu. Somehow in this film, his character seems to work. Why?
It’s all to do with Paplatine’s speaches about wanting more and more power. His claims, although driven my evil motives, about the Jedi themselves being unable to control themselves are justified! Although Yoda and Kenobi seem benevolent, you never get the same feeling with Windu. He seemed awfully quick to suggest that the Jedi Council take control after the arrest of Papltine for example ehhh?! He was also rather keen to kill Palpatine!
As the opening scroll said “There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.” It really does depend on your point of view.
Was this intentionally by Lucas, or even Sam Jackson’s portrayal. Who knows?

Well, this has certainly been a long rant. My final thought. I want to see this film again, soon! Despite the problems, it equals Episode 4 and 6. It also changes my rating of Episode 1 and 2. If you watch them all in quick succession, 1 and 2 do improve.
Overall scores are now.
Episode 4 : 8
Episode 5 : 9.5 (Always will be the best it seems, the only one with minimal direction from Lucas, enough said!)
Episode 6 : 8 (seeing Vader as a pathetic man in Episode 3 increases the impact of the Vader-Luke stuff, and negates the badness of those damn Ewoks)
Episode 1: 6
Episode 2: 7
Episode 3: 8

What would have been better was if 1 and 2 were condensed into a single film or 1 and 1/2 films. Then Episode 3 becoming the second half of Episode 2 as well.