TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

The Sword of Doom (1966).  Tastsuya Nakadai is a sociopathic samurai who kills men and exploits (and kills) women and when this turns out not to be the kind of employee respectable lords are looking for, he winds up working for what is either a patriotic insurgent group or a criminal gang, though it's kind of hard to tell.

The movie is terribly paced, often a bit boring, and filled with confusing cutaways to characters that seem to have no bearing at all on Nakadai's story.  Toshiro Mifune is in this but he and Nakadai don't fight... Nakadai just stares at him, while he kills about fifteen of his compatriots.  Nakadai himself, usually somewhere between solid and amazing, ramps up his laconic demeanor to new heights here, playing "evil" in an unending single note that isn't much fun to hear.  His emotional climax, a guilty breakdown, is entirely unearned.  Finally, the film spends a solid thirty minutes building up Mifune's protege as a character in his own right, who will, we're promised, fight Nakadai in a duel to avenge his brother... and this never happens.

In fact, the film ends as suddenly and abruptly as any movie this side of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, conking out in the midst of an (admittedly) pretty awesome fight sequence.  The result is a move that wastes perhaps as much as an entire hour on ancillary characters' whose plots have no resolution or meaning.

It is, in a walk, the worst samurai movie I've ever seen.

D

[Savonarola]

The Sword of Doom (1966).  Tastsuya Nakadai is a sociopathic samurai who kills men and exploits (and kills) women and when this turns out not to be the kind of employee respectable lords are looking for, he winds up working for what is either a patriotic insurgent group or a criminal gang, though it's kind of hard to tell.

The movie is terribly paced, often a bit boring, and filled with confusing cutaways to characters that seem to have no bearing at all on Nakadai's story.  Toshiro Mifune is in this but he and Nakadai don't fight... Nakadai just stares at him, while he kills about fifteen of his compatriots.  Nakadai himself, usually somewhere between solid and amazing, ramps up his laconic demeanor to new heights here, playing "evil" in an unending single note that isn't much fun to hear.  His emotional climax, a guilty breakdown, is entirely unearned.  Finally, the film spends a solid thirty minutes building up Mifune's protege as a character in his own right, who will, we're promised, fight Nakadai in a duel to avenge his brother... and this never happens.

In fact, the film ends as suddenly and abruptly as any movie this side of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, conking out in the midst of an (admittedly) pretty awesome fight sequence.  The result is a move that wastes perhaps as much as an entire hour on ancillary characters' whose plots have no resolution or meaning.

It is, in a walk, the worst samurai movie I've ever seen.

D

It was supposed to be a trilogy, but the other films were never shot.  That's why there are so many unresolved plot points.  IIRC the individual chapters of the movie end abruptly and we start the next chapter in media res, so we have to work out what happened between.  I thought that was a clever technique.  Presumably the opening of the next film would have been similar, but since it wasn't made, the ending really doesn't work.

Complain about Ewoks all you want, at least Lucas gave us closure.   

[Valmy]

My problem was not the Ewoks themselves, the problem is I never understood what Lukas' concept was.  He said he envisioned a primitive people overthrowing the Empire, and that he originally meant it to be the Wookies but then he established Chewbacca as being too sophisticated (and Ewoks were probably better toys anyway).

That concept is weird, why would anybody want to see a space faring galactic empire overthrown by a primitive race?  What was the artistic point of that?  Especially one introduced at the very last moment who have no reason to do so.  Maybe I am dense but I miss the symbolism or grand narrative device there.

And when watching it I was just sorta 'huh?  Whaaaa?  Ok...'

[Barrister]

My problem was not the Ewoks themselves, the problem is I never understood what Lukas' concept was.  He said he envisioned a primitive people overthrowing the Empire, and that he originally meant it to be the Wookies but then he established Chewbacca as being too sophisticated (and Ewoks were probably better toys anyway).

That concept is weird, why would anybody want to see a space faring galactic empire overthrown by a primitive race?  What was the artistic point of that?  Especially one introduced at the very last moment who have no reason to do so.  Maybe I am dense but I miss the symbolism or grand narrative device there.

And when watching it I was just sorta 'huh?  Whaaaa?  Ok...'

It's Star Wars.  It's not about making an artistic point.  But instead that kind of asymmetrical warfare gave us a bunch of cool visuals which were different from any battle scene we'd seen it Star Wars before.

I'm unable to separate my emotional perspective on Jedi (it was one of the first movies I ever remember seeing in the theatre when it was released, and thus it was AWESOME) from a coldly logical analysis, but I still don't understand the complaint about the ewoks...

[Ideologue]

The Sword of Doom (1966).  Tastsuya Nakadai is a sociopathic samurai who kills men and exploits (and kills) women and when this turns out not to be the kind of employee respectable lords are looking for, he winds up working for what is either a patriotic insurgent group or a criminal gang, though it's kind of hard to tell.

The movie is terribly paced, often a bit boring, and filled with confusing cutaways to characters that seem to have no bearing at all on Nakadai's story.  Toshiro Mifune is in this but he and Nakadai don't fight... Nakadai just stares at him, while he kills about fifteen of his compatriots.  Nakadai himself, usually somewhere between solid and amazing, ramps up his laconic demeanor to new heights here, playing "evil" in an unending single note that isn't much fun to hear.  His emotional climax, a guilty breakdown, is entirely unearned.  Finally, the film spends a solid thirty minutes building up Mifune's protege as a character in his own right, who will, we're promised, fight Nakadai in a duel to avenge his brother... and this never happens.

In fact, the film ends as suddenly and abruptly as any movie this side of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, conking out in the midst of an (admittedly) pretty awesome fight sequence.  The result is a move that wastes perhaps as much as an entire hour on ancillary characters' whose plots have no resolution or meaning.

It is, in a walk, the worst samurai movie I've ever seen.

D

It was supposed to be a trilogy, but the other films were never shot.  That's why there are so many unresolved plot points.  IIRC the individual chapters of the movie end abruptly and we start the next chapter in media res, so we have to work out what happened between.  I thought that was a clever technique.  Presumably the opening of the next film would have been similar, but since it wasn't made, the ending really doesn't work.

Complain about Ewoks all you want, at least Lucas gave us closure.   

Yeah, that helps sort of explain the ending--and I thought perhaps that might be it.

That actually makes it worse.  The arrogance of it is staggering.  The only other example I can think of is Fellowship of the Ring, and even that ends when a scene ends.

My understanding is that The Desolation of Smaug has a similar ending, though.

But Star Wars, Raiders, and Star Trek II end properly.  Hell, even Twilight and The Hunger Games have endings.

That concept is weird, why would anybody want to see a space faring galactic empire overthrown by a primitive race?  What was the artistic point of that?  Especially one introduced at the very last moment who have no reason to do so.  Maybe I am dense but I miss the symbolism or grand narrative device there.

Vietnam.

I agree the Wookies would've been way cooler, but that would've obviated the neat scenes where they make Threepio pretend to be a god.

Plus, they are used primarily as cannon fodder.  And for what?  The Empire wasn't really bothering them; the Ewoks paint a terrifying picture of the New Republic's willingness to exploit people, don't you think?

[Valmy]

It's Star Wars.  It's not about making an artistic point.  But instead that kind of asymmetrical warfare gave us a bunch of cool visuals which were different from any battle scene we'd seen it Star Wars before.

Precisely.  It's Star Wars.  Everything up until that point really tapped into the tradition of serials and story tropes.  The characters all had a specific vision and the story employed lots of story elements that resonated.  Suddenly Lukas went in a direction I didn't get.  Very uncharacteristic to the rest of the trilogy so far as I could tell.

But are throwing rocks on futuristic super soldiers really that amazing a visual?  The Imperial Walkers were awesome and symbolized the inexorable power of the Empire in the second one.  Here you throw a log at them and they blow up. 

I'm unable to separate my emotional perspective on Jedi (it was one of the first movies I ever remember seeing in the theatre when it was released, and thus it was AWESOME) from a coldly logical analysis, but I still don't understand the complaint about the ewoks...

I saw it in the theatre as well.  But I was five years old and I just found the post-Jaba the Hutt scenes baffling.  I did love the stuff on the futuristic bikes.  Which, you know, I liked Star Wars for not rocks and logs and spears.

But I am not talking about that really but what they were supposed to accomplish.

[Valmy]

Vietnam.

That is kind of a big insult to the Vietnamese isn't it? 

Lukas was trying to make the US the Evil Empire?  Whoa since I thought he was making the UK the evil empire and the US as the scrappy rebels.  DAMN YOU LUKAS!

But I guess that is as good an explanation as any.

Plus, they are used primarily as cannon fodder.  And for what?  The Empire wasn't really bothering them; the Ewoks paint a terrifying picture of the New Republic's willingness to exploit people, don't you think?

Well yeah that was the weirdest part from a narrative point of view.  There was not really a motivation for the Ewoks to risk their lives beyond a general fondness for Han Solo and company.  To be fair, they are a pretty charming bunch of scoundrels.

[Barrister]

I'm not expert, but I'd be shocked (shocked!) if some serials didn't have the hero venturing into the jungle and making allies with the native tribes to defeat the enemy.  It's a pretty common trope as well.

Plus early on the Ewoks are getting slaughtered (which also nicely drives home how the Empire are the bad guys), until ingenuity prevails and the ewoks (together with Chewie) figure out how to effectively fight their death machines.

[Scipio]

Noble savagery is noble savagery. It's a great white-man hero-myth.

[Savonarola]

Yeah, that helps sort of explain the ending--and I thought perhaps that might be it.

That actually makes it worse.  The arrogance of it is staggering.

One doesn't become an auteur without some amount of ego.   

Assuming that the director had reason to believe that the next two films were to be made; I think the ending was worth the risk.  Giving the film a tidy resolution or spoon feeding the viewer what happened would have been completely out of place in how the rest of "Sword of Doom" went.  If the next film had been made it would have began with Tastsuya Nakadai off on another murderous adventure and the viewer with only a few clues as to how he survived.  I think that's brilliant storytelling, and it fits perfectly into the narrative structure of the first film.  Obviously that risk didn't pay off; but I don't think playing it safe would have led to a satisfying film either.

[CountDeMoney]

Precisely.  It's Star Wars.  Everything up until that point really tapped into the tradition of serials and story tropes.

Up to that point, yeah.  But by then, Lucas was balls-deep in the merchandise game, and Wookies-as-originally-planned turned into Ewoks.
I posted an article on it ages ago, but in the first script treatment, Han was supposed to die in the shootout at the bunker.  Pfft. 

This is why people like Lucas, Roddenberry and even Spielberg are their vision's own worst enemies.  Taking the guns out of the hands of the Feds in the original ET, and putting radios in? 

Dude, this is THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF COURSE THEY WOULD DRAW DOWN ON CHILDREN YOU FUCKING MORON



But at least Spielberg was smart enough to realize he made a mistake:
https://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/the-projector/steven-spielberg-finally-admits-walkie-talkies-were-mistake-142746809.html

Nooooo, not Lucas.  We have to destroy what we created.  1977, everybody was about the Force...anybody could possibly have it--even you, YES YOU--and that was what was so fucking great about it.  Han sheepishly saying, "May the Force be with you' to Luke as he saddled up to bomb the Japanese task force steaming towards Midway;  fast-forward to the Prequels, and "The Force" is a fucking prenatal congenital birth defect.  Way to go, George, you fucking ass hack.

Fucking RotJ.  An entire legion of the Emperor's finest, complete with mechanized forces.  Fucking teddy bears would've been genocided all to fuck and back inside of an afternoon.

Fuck you, George fucking Lucas.

[Ideologue]

I'm not expert, but I'd be shocked (shocked!) if some serials didn't have the hero venturing into the jungle and making allies with the native tribes to defeat the enemy.  It's a pretty common trope as well.

Well, it happens in Apocalypse Now.

Assuming that the director had reason to believe that the next two films were to be made; I think the ending was worth the risk.  Giving the film a tidy resolution or spoon feeding the viewer what happened would have been completely out of place in how the rest of "Sword of Doom" went.  If the next film had been made it would have began with Tastsuya Nakadai off on another murderous adventure and the viewer with only a few clues as to how he survived.  I think that's brilliant storytelling, and it fits perfectly into the narrative structure of the first film.  Obviously that risk didn't pay off; but I don't think playing it safe would have led to a satisfying film either.

Stop being so avant-garde.   Narrative rules are narrative rules.

***

Of course, rules are made to be broken:

I watched the adaptation of another Irvine Welsh novel, Filth (2014), starring James McAvoy, who's really starting to become one of my favorites.  It's insanity on film--or some kind of digital medium anyway.

Worse lieutenant

B+

[viper37]

Maybe I am dense but I miss the symbolism or grand narrative device there.

Don't be too proud of your techonoligical marvel.  The power to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
See, it was foreshadowed since the first movie.  Besides, you got the Rebel Alliance, with a bunch of old fighters made for a war 30 years in the past destroying the latest & brightest of the Empire.

In #2, the good guys are essentially defeated by a meat freezer.  They hack at each other with swords like medieval knights out of an Indiana Jones movie.

In #3, you only see the continuation of that.

[CountDeMoney]

Hey Ide, you ever catch up to the Daimajin trilogy like I fucking told you to?

[Ed Anger]

He's watching Pain and Gain for the 50th time.