Name that movie!

Tell me if you can identify this fantasy story (some of you know where this is headed already...):

Our tale begins a quaint village of little people (I mean, like, 'midgets'). They are enjoying food, drink, and the simple life... that is, until something very important comes into the possession of one such little person.

This item is of little significance on the surface, but a wizard identifies it as (foreboding drums...) the one key to toppling the Dark Lord who is coldly intent on ruling all free people. Let's call this item "The One Little Key to Intensely Evil Nature" (TOLKIEN, for short).

The little guy takes his closest companions and TOLKIEN on a quest far from his simple home. His plan is the get TOLKIEN out of his hands as soon as possible, because he's pretty sure he is not the guy destined to end evil.

On the way, one other little person's phileo (brotherly love) leads him to bind himself to the main heroic little person when other companions fall away for various reasons.

Also on the way, the little guys encounter a mysterious swordsman. Befriending this dangerous but skilled stranger may just plop TOLKIEN into evil's lap... or perhaps this rogue is more trustworthy than he seems at first glance.

As their company slowly deteriorates, they stumble into the woods and are befriended and encouraged by ancient, almost magical beings there.

From there, the remaining party members find themselves stalwartly defending a ancient white-walled good-guy fortress against an impossible onslaught of black-clad, inhuman, evil attackers. Things are looking pretty grim for our heroes, until...

... Norse-looking, red/blond-haired cavalry reinforcements ride in at the darkest hour to save our desperate heroes!

But it's not over yet. The rogue-swordsman-with-the-heart-of-gold has defended the good guys' castle, but now the little ones have an appointment at the Dark Lord's doorstep with TOLKIEN. While the swordsman leads a distraction-battle outside Evil's gate, the heroic little one enters the scary HQ of evil and puts TOLKIEN permanently out of the Dark Lord's reach.

Hooray!

The swordsman takes his place as king of the white castle (not the burger place) and the little hero returns home... having seen and done more than his entire village had in their collective experience, he's now the town hero.

You guessed it, the epic cinematic experience I'm referring to is...
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WILLOW!

Kind of makes you wonder how many original thoughts are actually floating around in George Lucas' noggin, doesn't it? See this link for someone another agreeing perspective.

This reaffirms my belief that George is not a 'visionary storyteller'... he is a mechanical recycler of old, great stories... and sometimes, he just gets lucky (or gets good help!) and his remanufactured pieces are better than the sum of their parts.

Contrary to what Obi-Wan Kenobi thinks however... there IS such thing as luck. That much is evidenced by the heartless, unoriginal, downright boring Indy #4 and Star Wars Prequels--which pale in the light of the old Star Wars movies and earlier Indiana Jones movies. Willow is a bit more lively than IJ4 and SW1-3, but as we see here, it's anything but original.

Ah, Sweet Incongruity

I was flipping through channels when I saw that Spike was airing the original Star Wars trilogy in HD. I stopped to watch a few minutes and noticed some things about 'old' (1970's, baby!) Obi-Wan Kenobi versus 'new' (prequel) Obi-Wan Kenobi. Let's check them out in a brief study in contrast.

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I recieved the Best Actor Oscar when you were 13, George Lucas... do not anger me.

New Kenobi (henceforth 'NK'): Try not to think about girls, the Council doesn’t like that. And whatever you do, don't make a rash decision!
Old Kenobi ('OK'): Leave your family--and planet--to attack the Death Star. Just you and me. We don't even have a ride there yet, but it will work out. Trust me.

NK: At six years old, you're too world-weary and corrupted to train as a Jedi. We only accept gelatinous, undeveloped brain-wash candidates.
OK: Nice to meet you. I recognize that as a backwater farmer, you are probably lacking the Sci-Fi equivalent of a GED but... you know what would look nice with that dusty tunic? A lightsaber--here you go!

NK: I hang out at Starbucks with the Evil Emperor every week, but he seems alright to me. I don't suspect him of anything worse than shoddy tax legislation.
OK: My sensitivity to evil is so well-attuned that I can sense fear in people I hardly know, and perceive the death of people light years from my location.

NK: I am so stupid I think that Stormtroopers are my friends.
OK: Stormtroopers are so stupid I can fold their feeble minds into taco-shell-shapes by waving my fingers.

NK: I sport various types of mullets and pony tails.
OK: I kill people who do that.

NK: I drink alone; the fate of all middle-aged single British librarians.
OK: I drink (and smoke) with the Most Interesting Man Alive from Dos Equis commercials. And Gandalf.

You can scramble the letters of my name to spell "Genuine Class." Bam!

Isn't the difference obvious? This comforts me, because it reminds me that these trilogies can't possibly coexist. Even the same characters are... different characters as far as these movies are concerned, which makes it that much easier for me to excise the new ones from my personal Star Wars canon.

See "Comment" link below to barrage me with nerd-related insults... but at least you hopefully agree that the 1970's version made for better cinema.

Star Trek Wars

So, last week I saw Star Trek. I'll briefly preface this post by saying that I grew up a hardcore Star Wars fan, and that Star Trek fans were my school-yard enemies (Yes, even nerds have gangs).

The Star Wars franchise has aged (from about 1983 to present) about as well as an open bowl of chili sitting on a kitchen counter over a holiday weekend. Star Trek had some rough spots too, and its past couple of movies performed badly in theaters.

However, as the third major 'reboot' in the past few years, I highly enjoyed the last Trek movie. Sure, the science wasn't perfect (here's looking at you, Squid) but at least I had something I haven't had watching anything George Lucas has made in a generation: Fun!

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If I want bad computer animation to bore me to tears, I can manage that fine without paying nine bucks--here's looking at you now, Monster Quest!

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Here's my brief shopping list of things ST had, but by contrast Star Wars has lacked in the past couple decades:

More please...



• A prominent smart alec. Space opera, almost by definition, needs someone who doesn't take himself too seriously. Kirk did this. A bunch of stiff Jedi makes for a long movie... and an exponentially longer trilogy.

• Things exploding in space! How is it that my series has "WARS" in the title, but was seemingly bereft of the entertaining WWII space dogfights that made it big in the first place? ST delivered on this, even though they cruise around in a big science vessel. You're telling me that doctors and engineers and linguists get into better scrapes than ancient warrior fraternities?! Go figure.

• Space academy cadets ordering beer. While ST has moved from nerd-scape to mainstream, SW has moved from appealing to grown-up nerds and kids... to appealing to only tiny tykes. Today it is okay for a 'cool' adult to tell his friends that he (or she!) is going to see Star Trek. BUT... If you're going to a Star Wars movie in this millenium, you would be better off lying and telling your friends you're catching a matinee Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties.**

• Blue-screen, red blood! Despite requisite sci-fi blue-screen work, Trek has a bunch of people geting the hell beat out of them--and a good guy even gets tortured! Dull Lucas had his stable of actors interacting with absent costars and fake swords. Three long painful movies couldn't even cough up one good bar fight?! Plus, bonus points for Kirk losing most (all?) of his fights. Awesome!

Even Kirk's friends put the beat-down on him

I can't go on, because if I get started on how much I hate the Prequels, I'll get banned for posting a Gilgamesh-like 'epic' instead of a brief 'blog post.' Live long... and give me a little bit of fun for my nine bucks, okay?

**Bonus knowledge: Garfield: ATOTK fared terribly despite being based on not one, but TWO Dickensian masterworks. When a movie with a lot of CG aimed at kids does this badly, you have to wonder... was GL the clandestine hand behind the making of yet another insult to society?