^^But we all know it's not the
worst Star Wars film ever made, don't we?
Nah, that would be the
Star Wars Holiday Special.
A good second would be
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, though, which I just watched. I know there's something called suspension of disbelief, but this is one of those movies whose plot requires every single character to consistently make idiotic decisions. From the assassin using a crappy subcontractor, to Padme deciding that the best place to hide would be out in the open at a luxury resort on her home planet, to the Jedi order still allowing a blatantly unqualified and emotionally unstable Anakin to not only continue his training, but also go solo on a bodyguard mission with the one woman he has shown emotional connection to, but is not allowed to love. Add to this the copious amount of CGI (apparently, not a single Clone Trooper costume was made for the movie - they're all CGI,
and it shows) and a handful of other questionable directorial decisions and a terrible script, and you easily end up with the worst of the main saga Star Wars movies. The monsters in the colosseum scene were cool, though, and the visuals of Coruscant were very nice. But that's pretty much the only positive things I have to say about it.
Overall... not a movie I'd eagerly watch again any time soon:
1/3
I also watched
Ready Player One. I really like the book, so far it's the only book I've read through then decided to immediately go back to page 1 and read it again (although I did get an English copy of
The Martian immediately after finishing my Norwegian copy). I've seen it get a lot of criticism, however, but I find myself strangely unfazed by it. I guess I'm in the target demographic, and still found it hugely enjoyable despite its supposed flaws. I was very excited to hear they were making a movie out of it, but my expectations were a little so-and-so. How would it translate? Quite well, it turned out, but it was a very liberal translation.
The movie follows the book closely on a conceptual level, but on a detail level they could hardly be more different. They made huge changes to almost every scene for the movie (for instance, the main character is seen sleeping on top of his aunt's washing machine, while in the book he sleeps behind it
). Some were clearly for the better, such as the quests for the keys. For the first gate, a pretty slow-paced and calm walk through a D&D module is swapped for a high-speed race through a copy of NYC. I think this scene is, hands down, the best CGI-fest I've ever seen. Spielberg must have told his writers and artists "there are no rules and no logic! Name any IP, we can get the rights to use it. Have fun!". Hence a T-Rex eating cars in the middle of Times Square, and that is one of the
tamer bits of the scene. Brilliant.
However, in the transition from book to film, a lot of explanation was lost. The characters meet in real life suddenly with no explanation, they are all just in a hurry, so the movie never stops to explain why how they all came together. I guess that, looking back at it, one scene kind of implies that three of them knew each other IRL already, but I still found it puzzling how the five top players of a worldwide game could suddenly be in the same street in the same city at five minutes' notice. In the book, they all live in different cities and none of them have ever met in real life until the last few chapters. Also, it is never explained why the evil megacorporation is so obsessed with finding and offing the main character, or why the megacorp goons have to switch stations whenever one of them dies in-game. Other things also seemed a little rushed, for instance the "here's this castle and that is where the treasure is" thing.
Fortunately, most of the changes from book to film were for the better. Putting a whole scene in
The Shining was quite genius, while also a nod to the parts of the book that would not easily translate into movie format (ironically). I really like the last "trial" the game's creator put in to weed out unsuitable heirs to his fortune. The character I-R0k was completely overhauled for the better; in the book he's a nobody who just disappears halfway through. And the pop culture isn't restricted just to the 1980's.
I found the movie very watchable, and I'll probably see it again. Still think the book is better, but I know that's an opinion many will disagree with.
3/3.