Star Wars musings, just 'cause

So sartorias linked to a review of The Phantom Menace that explains what goes wrong with it in surprising and awesome detail. I highly recommend it--it's broken into pieces so you can watch a bit at a time. In the first few segments there are some highly questionable bits of non-humor, but if you push past those you'll be well rewarded. (A commenter on sartorias's journal said that apparently this reviewer's thing is to treat the subject as "if you're this much of a fanboy nerd, you're probably also a sociopath"; I haven't watched any of his other reviews, so idk.)

( on Obi-Wan Kenobi, or little things that make me squee )

( on the EU, or how Jade barely touches the tip of the iceberg )

anyway, sometimes I wish I had a way of getting into the Star Wars fandom, just because most of the people I know who have read as much as I have are, like, nerdboys around here, and while I'm so grateful for my Star Wars group, it'd be nice to have someone else to talk to.

re: TLA

two things:

1) review of a v. rough cut, basically amounting to "man, can't wait till they finish the visual effects, p.s. Jackson Rathbone why you suck so bad."

2) superbowl trailer spot, basically amounting to HOMG WATERBENDING HOMG PRETTY HOMG ILM ILU p.s. Inuit extras are Inuit shhhh don't tell.



so it upsets my best friend people when I talk about the racefail going on in this film, and I'm not particularly good at articulating it either--at first it was, "why doesn't Katara look like Katara?" and then the more I hung around racebending the more I learned about how it's just symptomatic of a systemic denial of lead roles to Asian actors/negative portrayal of people of darker skin/etc. etc. etc., and well, it seems like it's the sort of thing one ought to pay attention to.

the Prince of Persia movie falls into this kind of fail too.

anyway, from my perspective, even without knowing everything I know now about racefail in Hollywood casting, just as a fan of the animated series, I'm sad about the canonrape going on here. And yeah, I tend to be a purist when it comes to my adaptations--while I understand you can't fit every detail in, you should be so choosy in your details as to create the overall feeling or spirit of the original work--which is why Fellowship of the Ring succeeds and Return of the King fails. And all the stuff they've taken from TLA just wants to steal its original intention and spirit away, and that to me is the greatest tragedy: that my beloved show is going to be shown in this warped, reduced form to a wider audience.

also re icon: lol sad!brown!Katara is brown. :-( :-( :-(

on a positive note!
1) this comment thread regarding punching a fish
2) this comment thread, also regarding punching a fish
3) I just ordered Girl Scout cookies! Mm, cookies.