Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering"

So back in 1999 Star Wars fans alike were all greatly anticipating the first Star Wars film in 16 years. I was also looking forward to it, but I wasn't as familiar with the series. My first experience seeing the films was with the 1997 Special Edition re-releases, nevertheless a new film was coming and everyone was excited. What they eventually saw would go down in history as one of the crappiest films ever made.

The first teaser trailer made everyone believe the film was to be about Anakin Skywalker's beginnings, you know Darth Vader as a little kid! Well, the actually film wasn't too much about him. The film was more about the early days of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his trainer or whatever, Qui-Gon Jinn. They are basically trying to help out the planet of Naboo from an illegal blockade from the Trade Federation. They end up finding Anakin on the planet of Tatooine where he is living as a slave. After an incredibly long and unnecessary podrace scene Anakin is granted his freedom and accompanies Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan to Courasant where he is presented to the Jedi Counsel. They agree he might be the "chosen one" but he can't be trained because of the dark feelings Yoda senses in him. Everyone decides to go back Naboo and fight the good fight. There Anakin somehow is able to "accidentally" destroy the Trade Federation mother ship and in turn saves the day.

Obviously I left some stuff out but for the most part that's the plot of the film. There were a lot of problems myself and many others had with this film. The biggest problem was Jar Jar Binks. Some weird looking fish type creature who's more annoying than anything else. There was really no reason for his character whatsoever. From what I've read Lucas created that character to try and draw in more kids or some crap. If I was a younger kid (I was 15 at the time) I'd probably hate him even more than I originally did!

The main problem I had with this movie and the prequels in general was the terrible acting and dialogue. The dialogue wasn't too bad in this one but the acting sucked ass, especially that from Jake Lloyd, the little kid who (horribly) played Anakin. If you want a good example of the terrible acting take a look at the scene where Qui-Gon and Padme first meet Anakin.

And then comes the contradictions made with the original trilogy. The big one being that in "The Empire Strikes Back" Obi-Wan said that Yoda was the Jedi Master who trained him, and then in this film it was Qui-Gon-Jinn who trained Obi-Wan. In "A New Hope" R2-D2 says that he used to belong to Obi-Wan Kenobi but he reacts as saying "I don't ever remember owning a droid", and yet in the prequels R2-D2 is with Obi-Wan all the fucking time!

Overall the movie is decent but goofy at the same time. The amount of time spent on the podrace is completely insane. The characters are annoying and the contradictions kind of ruin the other films for you. I saw the movies the way they were made, Episode IV through VI and then the prequels, I'd really like to meet someone who never saw any of them and saw them Episode I through VI.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)

"It's a boy!"

By 1989 the slasher era had, for the most part, died. Gone were the days of crappy “massacre” films. What was left? D-rated sequels to the popular slashers of the early 1980s. By 1989, Jason had been to the screen 8 times, Michael Myers, 5 times and Freddy with 4 times, now was a good time to have Freddy back for his fifth time. In 1989 there was Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and of course A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. Why not? The Dream Master was the highest grossing Nightmare film out of the original 4, so why not make yet another sequel?

Again, they spent little to no time working out any problems in the script. All they knew was to have a group of teenagers killed off by Freddy, who cares about the details of the script? This movie includes those survivors of the last film (which I always like). We find Alice (Wilcox) finally with her dream man Dan (Hassel) as they are about to graduate. But Freddy is still around and this time he needs to be reborn. Alice witnesses Freddy’s odd birth, and finally he is back. He begins to kill people, but this time he is able to kill people without Alice dragging people into her dreams, they are killed while she is still awake, which she can’t figure out why. Well, Dan is killed and she discovers she is pregnant with his child. The child is dreaming and that is causing the dreams to help Freddy kill.

This film is down there with Freddy’s Revenge and Freddy’s Dead. Simply because it seems that the script was written over a weekend. And again, I go back to the first film, since when has Freddy needed help getting into people’s dreams? I never really understood this. I got it in Dream Warriors it simply gave him more victims at the time, but I never got the idea that he couldn’t get into other people’s dreams. Was he only allowed to kill off the children of the people who killed him? And if that is the case what’s up with Freddy’s Dead and Freddy vs. Jason? Anyway, it’s always enjoyable to see characters from a previous film back for another one. Also, Lisa Wilcox is actually a good actress and it’s nice to see her character get developed more.

Something else to bring up is the rebirth. Why is this in here? Freddy has never needed to be reborn, so why all of a sudden now? It feels to me that they used this as a metaphor to the later pregnancy announcement. Also, audiences knew it was called The Dream Child and the teaser trailer showed a very grotesque, gothic looking stroller that had Freddy’s arm pop out of at the end. So maybe people were expecting some kind of crazy Freddy birth or something. Regardless, it seems very out of place and pointless.

Something they had started a while back but I still liked to see is that Freddy kills people either by their biggest fear or by something they enjoy a bit too much. For example, Greta (Anderson) has an eating complex, so she is killed by being force fed until she chokes. Mark (Seely) loves to draw comic books, so he is killed in a comic book world. However, I did not care to see Alice’s unborn child come to her and tell her things about Freddy. First off, she is still in her first trimester yet the child she sees is like 5 or 6 years old in the dream world. Freddy is trying to coax an unreal, representation of Alice’s unborn child into his world. It makes no sense to me, if Freddy had won did that mean that when the child was born it would be Freddy? Or that she would miscarry? I didn’t really understand what would have happened if he had won the fight.

Anyway, with all these quips, the movie failed. It made only $22 million, a very sad take in, seeing how the previous film made double that. So, it seemed to most people that Freddy was most likely gone, just as Jason and Michael died at the box office that same year, it seemed very likely that the slasher era had finally died for good. But, that was not the case, Jason, Michael and Freddy would be back again in the 1990s.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

"Jesus Christmas! Holy Jesus goddamn! Holy Jesus jumping Christmas shit!"

The Friday the 13^th series proved to be quite successful for Paramount during the 1980s, but they also knew when it was getting old and so in 1984 they decided to kill off the franchise, or so we thought. Calling the film The Final Chapter as opposed to Friday the 13^th Part 4 was a marketing technique, make the audiences think that this is the end and more people will come to see the movie.

Again, the film has very little to do with the original film. In fact in this case the film has nothing to do with the original film, aside from Jason being in the movie. The hockey mask is back and is now a trademark of Jason’s even appearing on the theatrical poster in a puddle of blood with a knife through the eye. Tommy Jarvis (Feldman) is now the main character, a young boy who loves making scary masks. They live out in the woods somewhere, him, his sister Trish (Beck) and their mother (Freeman). A house across the way is rented out by a bunch of horny teenagers and let the killings begin! The movie begins right where the last one left off, Jason’s body is taken from the farmhouse seen in part 3 to a morgue where he quickly offs the mortician and a nurse to escape. Everything else plays out like a common Friday the 13^th film until the end, when young Tommy shaves his head to make himself look like Jason then quickly takes care of Jason ending the carnage.

This is one of the more entertaining Friday films, Corey Feldman was huge at the time and really brought something to the series. Parts 4, 5 and 6 proved that a woman need not headline the film for a slasher film to become successful. Part 4 also saw the return of makeup wizard Tom Savini. In interviews he claimed he created the monster, now let him destroy him. And so they did, however not for long since the following year, Friday the 13^th Part V: A New Beginning was released. I think that calling it The Final Chapter brought in quite a bit more audience and the studio saw that as a positive.

Friday the 13th Part 3 3D (1982)

"No! You CAN'T be alive!"

With one great film, another must follow, or so is the case with slasher films. Friday the 13^th Part 2 did so well, why not make another one? But, there was something that was coming back into light during the 1980s, it had been a big thing in the 1950s and it was about to have a come back in the 1980s and that thing was 3D films. Why not try it out with what was becoming America’s favorite killer?

Friday the 13^th Part 3 3D (as it was originally titled) followed the character of Chris (Kimmell) and her friends as they take a trip to her parent’s farm for the weekend. Chris is a little on edge, but doesn’t let on why. There she finds Rick (Kratka) her old boyfriend, but he can’t figure out what is going on with her either. Finally she cracks and admits that Jason attacked her once after she had had a fight with her parents (though she doesn’t refer to him as Jason). But, little to her knowledge, Jason is at the farm stalking and killing her friends. In the end it is up to Chris, as our final girl, to save the day.

In 2009, Paramount Pictures finally released the movie on DVD (and eventually Blu-Ray) in 3D! Even though it's standard red/blue 3D, it works and I think it works much better on Blu-Ray! That being said, I think this movie could have been better if it weren’t for the 3D. Seeing it in 2D is annoying because they have so many things being thrown at or passed to the camera, and without the 3D it’s extremely annoying and stupid. The film is entertaining, which is what these films should be doing, but there are a lot of problems as well with this film. First off, the stoner characters were not needed. They were second rate rip offs of Cheech and Chong, who were popular at the time. Since Crazy Ralph was killed off in the last film they decided to try and bring another “prophet of doom” into this movie, with some crazy old guy who just happens to be sleeping in the middle of the road with a severed eye ball (which he quickly holds close to the screen, for that creepy 3D effect).

The ending to this movie is probably the dumbest of them yet. After Chris supposedly kills Jason, by hanging him from the barn, she decides to take a boat out into the lake (just like the first film), there she sees Jason losing his mind inside one of the buildings, he quickly breaks through a wooden door and comes after her, but she awakens from a nightmare only to find herself in another nightmare, this time having Mrs. Voorhees jump out of the water (just like Jason did in the first film). Then she awakens for real where we find her strapped to a gurney being placed inside an ambulance. Okay, the problem I have with this is first off, why did they feel like trying to end the movie like the first one? It wasn’t really paying homage to the first one, it was more like they were making fun of it. Second, why would Mrs. Voorhees be in Chris’s dream in the first place? She never knew anything about her, nor had she ever seen her. But, in her nightmare she was wearing the sweater from the first film and even had the same hair do. And why was her head reattached to her body? This ending was terrible.

Overall, it’s an enjoyable film. If you can ever see it in 3D I would suggest it over the 2D version. It’s still a decent film, but much more entertaining in 3D.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

"Great, my secret weapon is PMS. That's just terrific. Thanks for telling me!"

So back when I was a kid I actually enjoyed this movie. I was only 8 years old when this movie came out. 5 years later a TV series based on the movie premiered and I avoided it like the plague! 5 years after THAT, I caved in and watched it and loved it! The TV series was very well done, it was dark with a hint of comedy but it was much more serious than the 1992 film. After having seen the film again recently I realized how absolutely awful the film really is.

The movie plays out very much like the pilot of the TV series played out. It's about a girl, Buffy Summers, the popular cheerleader who is "the chosen one", the slayer. She is contacted by her watcher, who goes by a different name in the film than the TV series, played by Donald Sutherland. He shows her how to prefect the art and become the slayer. Not much more to it than that.

This movie is poorly put together, there's no time between scenes it immediately jumps from the last line of one scene to the first line of the next scene. Buffy is made out to be an empty headed "OMG" teenage girl who is, for lack of a better word, stupid. I believe this was their attempt to capture that "Clueless" like girl (I am aware that "Clueless" came out 3 years after this film, but I couldn't think of a better way to explain it). On the TV series Buffy was a former cheerleader and a carefree girl, but never was she really portrayed as stupid as she is in the film. To prove how stupid they really make her, at one point in the movie someone asks her what's wrong with the environment, her response is to get rid of the ozone layer. Really? I mean even the dumbest people in the world aren't THAT stupid! But the problem is that she is presented as stupid but when she meets up with her watcher she all of a sudden she becomes someone who cares about other people and apparently meeting him has raised her I.Q. as well.

The TV series is so much more well done, it's an intelligent series done the way creator/writer Joss Whedon wanted the movie done. The cast is better and Sarah Michelle Gellar is much more likable than Kristy Swanson. This movie is so lost it can't be found again. After seeing the TV series, this movie could have been so much better if they had just let Whedon do what he wanted to do.

My Feelings Toward 3D in General

Back in 2003 I remember going to see "Spy Kids 3D: Game Over", it was the first movie I got to see in the theater (or at all) in 3D! I went into the theater all happy with my crappy cardboard red/blue 3D glasses and waited for the fun to begin. And then I kept waiting.... and waiting.... and waiting... The fun never began because the 3D sucked. It didn't look like 3D at all. Years passed and I finally saw a 2nd film in the theater in 3D. This time around it was boasting the all mighty "Disney Digital 3D" and the film was a re-release of the 1993 film "The Nightmare Before Christmas". The 3D was much better, but about 5 minutes into the film I sat there wondering, "why the hell is this in 3D?"

Little did I know that 3D was going to become the norm. Since that theater experience 3D has continued to grow and now it's becoming almost impossible to NOT see a film in 3D. But why is 3D so big now and when it was first tried in the 1950s it failed? Well, obviously technology is the answer but why do people clamor for it? Why do people go running for the theater when they hear a movie is in 3D? I honestly have no clue. For some instances 3D works and if it's done well it works well, but for the most part there's no reason for it. 3D works alright in action films and horror films, but what's the point? 3D is nothing more than a novelty act. It's a way to have fun for a certain amount of time, but why would you want to watch every film or TV show in 3D?

When 3D TVs and blu-ray players began selling I figured it would die and I still feel that way. I stand there watching people shell out $3000+ for this crap and can't figure out why. In my opinion the 3D technology will die out eventually, because people are not going to wear big ass 3D glasses on their face for an entire movie or TV show. I've had people tell me "can you imagine watching football with this?" and all I can say is "yes, I can, getting headaches and neck aches from wearing glasses on my face for 4 hours!" 3D is stupid, nothing more, and what really drives me nuts is when they post convert movies into 3D. Meaning the film wasn't shot in 3D but was put through a process so it's in 3D later. What is the point of 3D if you're not specifically shooting FOR 3D? All it does is give the movie depth, that is all, is that really worth an extra $2 per movie ticket?

Another thing I noticed is that eventually the 3D effect wears off. Your eyes become desensitized to the effect causing you to have to take your glasses off for a moment then put them back on to get the effect again. I just don't get the excitement over it. 3D is nothing more than a way to get stupid people to go see a movie they probably didn't want to see in the first place.

Final Destination (2000)

"Carter, you dick!"

In 2000 the slasher genre which had truly began in the late 1970s and ended badly in the mid 1980s and reborn in the mid 1990s, had died down again. The horror genre was looking for something new, something fresh. Then came along a little film called "Final Destination". Looking back at the film now it's hard to believe how original it was. We have known seen 4 sequels to the film and it's getting a bit tired, but at the time the film was something new and interesting.

The film follows a group of students who are on their way to their senior trip to Paris, France. But, Alex (Devon Sawa) has a premonition about the plane blowing up and gets himself and a small group of people off the plane before it actually blows up. Something interesting happens then when those who got off the plane begin dying and in the order they died on the plane! From that point each of the characters tries to escape death.

Again with these films people are really just looking for the death scenes and not really the movie itself. In this film, since it was the first, there is much more character and story development than the other films had. The character of Bludworth (brilliantly played by Tony Todd) is a character that gives the audience all the exposition and it's done very well. Each of the death scenes is unique and that's what makes the FD films so popular. It's not a slasher film, it's a unique horror film that has the characters die off in interesting ways. And, unlike a lot of horror films, this one doesn't actually have an antagonist. The antagonist is death itself, but death is never seen.

The film is very entertaining because of the build up they use with each death. This is a tradition that is used in every FD film to follow. It gets better with each film but this one is fun because the film isn't making fun of it yet, there's tons of build up especially with the death of the teacher (badly played by Kristen Cloke), simply because the death scene is so involved. So much happens in that death scene and it's really exciting to see how they play everything out. The film is a popcorn flick and it's fun to watch!