Wednesday, 05 January 2011
Owen and I watched Revenge of the Sith this evening. So now he’s seen all six movies. This was only my second time seeing Episode III. The other time was over five years ago, at the theater.
After re-watching the prequels, I had to open up my list of films I’ve seen and adjust my ratings. In short, I lowered my ratings on all three movies. I’m sorry, but they are just terrible.
Even Episode III, which, from what I could tell, had no Jar-Jar dialogue, was just so poorly done. There’s no question that the special effects are amazing, but there’s not much else good to be said. The dialogue is so bad as to be embarrassing, the parts that are supposed to be ‘epic’ just come off as ridiculous, and worst, it doesn’t even line up with Episode IV very well. How did that happen? It’s got to be one of the most inexplicable conundrums in the history of cinema.
Think about it: George Lucas could have put the word out to just about anyone and said: “Hey, I have the script here for the Star Wars prequels. If you want to pay me $1,000, I’ll let you read the scripts and you can give me suggestions.” And, guess what, he would have made a million bucks off of fanboys flying in on their own buck to read the scripts in advance and see what they thought of them. You’d think someone would have said: “Um, maybe you should take out the part here where C-3PO lives with Owen and Beru for years. Because, you see, that would conflict with Episode IV, where Owen’s so against Luke getting involved with the rebellion – it’s hard to believe he would purposely bring that droid back into their lives.”
Some dumb things Owen (the one that lives with me) noticed:
-Why do Anakin and Obi-Wan not touch light sabers?
Yeah, it’s true. There’s a moment during their fight when they are standing about two feet apart, lightsabers a-blazin’, and it’s apparently just to look cool.
-What’s that thing Obi-Wan is riding?
I don’t know, but it’s got to be the dumbest creature ever to appear in the Star Wars universe.
-Why did Padme die?
Yeah, that’s a mystery too. No one knows why a woman who has just given birth would suddenly feel they have no will to live, especially when her death directly contradicts Return of the Jedi.
-How did the babies get milk if their mom died?
They were probably just given midi-chlorinated forcemula.
Thursday, 06 January 2011
We’re getting the ball rolling (to use a lame-ass cliché’) regarding buying a home again. As you’ll recall, we tried something like this about 11 months ago, but just as we were going to go look at house, our incompetent realtor discovered we needed to wait 3 years from the time of a short sale, not two.
Anyway, it’s now been 2 years and 10 months, so we’re once again in the process of getting pre-approved for a loan (again) and finding a realtor (again). The good news – and, yes, this is good news as far as I’m concerned – is that the economy still sucks; so home prices are even lower than they were last time, interest rates are down and, since it’s a buyers’ market, we don’t have to pounce on any available house that happens to pop up and compete with other people to buy it.
Similarly, realtors really need to prove themselves, since there’s not as much work for them right now. My wife talked to a realtor today who didn’t seem very excited about our home-buying. She said things like, “Do you guys mind looking at old houses?” Um, no, we don’t mind. In fact, we like older houses (as long as they’ve been maintained). If we didn’t like older houses, we would be house-hunting in the suburbs. She also was concerned about our price range which, again, seems odd as we are seeing homes for over $100,000 lower than we will be approved for and $30-40,000 lower than we are willing to spend. So….yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem. Over all, she didn’t sound very enthusiastic. Maybe she knew she wouldn’t make as much money off of us as, say, someone who is in the market for a $500,000 house. And you know what? That’s great; if she can sustain her livelihood by showing houses to rich people, than I applaud her.
But I’m also not gonna go with her. So I told Jennifer to email her and say, essentially, we’ll look for another realtor.
From what I’ve read about Star Wars, the original trilogy was written just as clumsy as the new movies. The difference was that the people surrounding George Lucas would give input and change the dialogue, direction, etc. With the newer movies George hired his cronies who were loyal to him and his ideas, so he became too powerful (like the Emperor) and stagnant to make quality films.
I wonder what it is like to part of a group where my opinions and voices are ignored because they are not in line with the leadership? I guess I’ve never had dealings with such people who believe they are correct no matter how much I try to convince them otherwise.
On the other topic concerning the house hunting, I hope it goes well for you. The realtor the we used was actually eager to show us homes because she enjoyed exploring different properties. She knew our price range and what would work for us even if we looked at 20 houses over a year with her. I can get her phone number if you want.
Good luck with finding a nice place for your family.
By the way, Padme died of a broken heart…it is a real medical condition if you would like to look it up.
I would believe that the original Star Wars movies started off just as bad. Lucas definitely had script and directing help with the original trilogy (he’s not even listed as director for Episodes V and VI), so it’s too bad he nixed that for the prequels. So many obvious errors could’ve been stopped before they went too far.
The droid attending Padme in the delivery room told the Jedis that she was perfectly healthy. A broken heart sounds like a real stretch – especially since Anakin had not rejected her – she could’ve returned to him after the births and said, “Hey, look! I’m alright, your dreams didn’t come true! Come away with me and let’s raise our children together!”
Even if we accept she died of a broken heart, it’s still amazingly incompetent on Lucas’ part to have forgotten that Leia remembered her mother.
Thanks for the suggestion of a realtor. Shortly after I wrote this blog post, I talked with one of my co-workers (who purchased a home in nearby Roseville recently) and he put us in touch with someone that we like.