Showing posts with label Ralph McQuarrie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ralph McQuarrie. Show all posts

Monday, May 4, 2020

Empire Of Dreams

I'm running out of Star Wars stuff.



Literally, after season 7 of Clone Wars and an In Retrospect of The Rise Of Skywalker, that's it for Star Wars here until season 2 of The Mandalorian. I am not brave enough to watch the Ewok stuff so this is the end. But I have to say this is a fine documentary, the first I ever watched concerning my favorite movies. It only centers on the first trilogy, mainly the first film, and with a run time of 2 and a half hours the information that you get is good and seeing the formation of this franchise is entertaining, enlightening, and really puts this whole series in perspective. I am going to say this once and only once, I hate how people take Star Wars for granted. I could rant for hours about how people take this so seriously, and this is coming from a die hard Star Wars fan. This really and truly does put the entire franchise into perspective, people always assume, oh Star Wars was planned from episodes 1 to 6 immediately and never had to be revised or changed, oh Star Wars was widely accepted during production and didn't have any problems or trials to overcome, oh the special effects were done with a mass of materials to be used. No! Noooo!! Damn you a thousand times no! This might be an odd thing to say but this is a documentary that flat out tells you the truth, there is no bullshit here and they tell you how Star Wars came to be in the most un-dramatic, straightforward, and sometimes even humorous way. The "script" for Star Wars was a very basic cliffnotes version of the story we know that was radically different than what we got on screen, the production was a huge hassle that hardly anybody believed it would have even gotten half of it's money back, the special effects guys for this film are absurd with how they didn't have a single thing to work on beyond sketches and artwork and made some of the best special effects ever like friggin' EVER, the imagination and creativity they had to make this passion project a reality is nothing short of unbelievable. Like man, if one single aspect of that finished film was off....Star Wars would not be here today. It would have come and went with zero fanfare, zero fans, zero recognition. And you know, there are some unsung heroes in this that deserve recognition, Alan Ladd Jr. is the man who made Star Wars possible cause without that guy George Lucas could have never made the movie. Period. Not with the kind of budget he got. Ralph McQuarrie has been getting more recognition through the years but it was his initial paintings and artwork that got people onboard for this science fiction movie in a time where such a film would have been laughed out of every studio and theater in America. Just...I have to give props to the editors, producer, and visual effects team so much for getting this film finished. Yes George Lucas deserves huge recognition for his ideas, ambition, and the scale he wanted this movie to be but I really, truly, very much believe this film wouldn't have gotten anywhere without these people. Star Wars didn't have a road map, not really, because as time progressed ideas and concepts changed, shifted, were dropped, or improved as the scripts were being rewritten and all for the better in my opinion. In fact there is a comic series I believe it is just called The Star Wars where the original original story that George Lucas penned, design choices and all, was published and booooy is it out there. Thankfully you can find the documentary totally free on YouTube, and it is worth the time to watch. I got a little choked up seeing Carrie again, just being her ridiculous awesome self and it brought up points I knew, I never knew, I knew but then I forgot, it's absurd how much this simple story grew in now over 40 years. It's a big reason why I think people need to chill the f*** out over the sequel trilogy, it really ain't all that bad when you get right down to it. We've seen worse in this series and The Last Jedi ain't one of them examples and I'm talking everything here, not just the films. But what the hell do I know? Maybe I'll make a review in 10 years time that will start something like this: "Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker was the most disappointing thing since my son. I mean how much more could you possibly f*** up the entire finale to Star Wars? And while the prequels aren't bad on paper, the unfortunate reality is that the sequels will be around. Forever. It will never go away, it can never be undone. If you're someone under the age of 20 and say you don't remember a time when Disney didn't own Star Wars and that you thought all of them were good, then I suggest you turn this review off right now before I carefully explain how much of a f***ing idiot you are.". But as of now, I very much like the sequels, I love the original trilogy, and I like...parts of the prequels. But Star Wars is bigger than that and no doubt will entertain the world for decades to come. But take a look at the source and how it all came to be, if only to appreciate where we are now. May the Force be with you always.

Friday, January 6, 2017

Star Wars Rebels: Season 1

I didn't have high hopes, but by God it's not half bad.

So Star Wars Rebels takes place a few years before Rogue One (I love how I can say that now.) following a group of smugglers who slowly transform from mercenaries/smugglers to freedom fighters battling against the Empire and creating the spark of rebellion. So the story starts off with this kid Ezra he just lives his life on his home planet until he runs across this crew sabotaging Imperial supply routes and this crew is very unique in the Star Wars universe, we have a Twi'lek pilot named Hera who pilots their ship the Ghost, Kanan who seems to be the leader of the group and has a bit of a past to him, a Mandalorian explosives expert who is a young girl named Sabine, a Lasat called Zeb who is like if Wolverine was an alien in Star Wars, and their astromech droid named Chopper who is a bit of a wise ass. Ezra soon joins the team as they go through a mish-mash of different missions almost all around being a nuisance to the Galactic Empire. It has interesting and unique character development which appears every now and then, granting significant growth as characters and not just being like, oh yeah Hera's just a pilot and that's about it. No, they build on them slowly but satisfyingly. Now the story follows in direct correlation with the previous animated series Clone Wars, now it's not pertinent to watch Clone Wars but it does help in the long run with this series. Now one thing I cannot avoid talking about is the art design. It is like a love letter to Ralph McQuarrie who did all the conceptual art to the original Star Wars movie, the series could not adapt it more if it tried. And I have seen many of the conceptual artwork of the original movie, and I greatly appreciate the look of it all. Now I have to admit, I did not start watching Rebels until this week, I thought it was just a dumb kid cash in on Star Wars on the Disney Channel, but when I saw the trailer to season 3 and heard much fan talk about it I decided to take a look. It's a kid show without a doubt, whereas Clone Wars was aimed more towards early pre-teen to teenagers (I was a teenager by the time Clone Wars really took off) and yet I never watched that show until a few years after it ended, because I watched the original Clone Wars mini series that came out between Episode 2 and before Episode 3 even hit theaters and I thought it was an unnecesary remake. My God, was I wrong. So wrong. I apologize to Lucasfilm and Cartoon Network. So yeah, I wasn't expecting greatness but I got a decent show and it got really good a few episodes before the end of the season. If you like Star Wars or have kids that enjoy Star Wars this is a decent show to put on.

As of today I am almost finished season 2 and will have the review up next week. I won't do just one review a week when it comes to television shows, so no worries about lack of content but I will probably have to cut it back to two reviews a week. Yeah, material is running thin but not entirely gone. Merely a setback but it does not dampen my spirits, I shall persevere and continue bringing you more recommendations and opinions. See you next week.