verdict: it was really good.
I finally saw it. I knew I didn't want to stand in line on opening night or get dressed up or anything; I just sauntered in to an afternoon showing yesterday, not knowing what to expect, but prepared to be a bit disappointed.
I gotta tell you, I loved it.
It's not a masterpiece, but it's a masterfully executed film. Anyone who tells you that it in any way diminishes the series is just wrong. I know that especially those of us who were around in the 1970s for the original can get nostalgic about it, but this work honors the works that came before, giving us new insights into characters we met when we were kids and who are part of the culture now.
I need not go much into the visual aspects of it, because you already know that the visual imaginations involved are among the best — in a couple of scenes of breathtaking beauty, you wonder (for the first time in a long time) how on earth they were done. At one point, our hero covers his mouth, astonished at the sight before him — exactly the sort of corny-clueless move that George Lucas would do — but it works: instead of guffawing, we immediately understand, because we're right there with him. What's around him is that astonishing.
Speaking of the actors, let me be the first to say that the acting isn't bad at all. In fact, it's quite good, partially because the actors all go together so well and the casting was brilliant, and partially because they were given a superb script, incisive and mythologically true and funny in all the right places and reverent in all the right places. Honestly, I couldn't be more pleased.
As for the music, it might be dismissed as the same old bunch of John Williams cliches, but, in the best John Williams tradition, it's extremely well done, providing real emotional support in a series not known for its depth of emotion.
The thing is, I did get teary a couple of times. That may be because I get teary easily at movies. But this series has more human heart to it than is usually conceded. In short, even if you'd sort of waved it off in your mind as a crass corruption of a once-great idea, you should give it a chance.
Go to the movie theater and see it on the big screen, and be thankful that, amid all the stuff that's nothing but franchise extensions and 3-hour-long ads for the video game and action characters, there's at least one beautifully done science-fiction fantasy that's made by people who care about putting on a good show.
And, like me, you'll likely be looking forward to the sequel.
I gotta tell you, I loved it.
It's not a masterpiece, but it's a masterfully executed film. Anyone who tells you that it in any way diminishes the series is just wrong. I know that especially those of us who were around in the 1970s for the original can get nostalgic about it, but this work honors the works that came before, giving us new insights into characters we met when we were kids and who are part of the culture now.
I need not go much into the visual aspects of it, because you already know that the visual imaginations involved are among the best — in a couple of scenes of breathtaking beauty, you wonder (for the first time in a long time) how on earth they were done. At one point, our hero covers his mouth, astonished at the sight before him — exactly the sort of corny-clueless move that George Lucas would do — but it works: instead of guffawing, we immediately understand, because we're right there with him. What's around him is that astonishing.
Speaking of the actors, let me be the first to say that the acting isn't bad at all. In fact, it's quite good, partially because the actors all go together so well and the casting was brilliant, and partially because they were given a superb script, incisive and mythologically true and funny in all the right places and reverent in all the right places. Honestly, I couldn't be more pleased.
As for the music, it might be dismissed as the same old bunch of John Williams cliches, but, in the best John Williams tradition, it's extremely well done, providing real emotional support in a series not known for its depth of emotion.
The thing is, I did get teary a couple of times. That may be because I get teary easily at movies. But this series has more human heart to it than is usually conceded. In short, even if you'd sort of waved it off in your mind as a crass corruption of a once-great idea, you should give it a chance.
Go to the movie theater and see it on the big screen, and be thankful that, amid all the stuff that's nothing but franchise extensions and 3-hour-long ads for the video game and action characters, there's at least one beautifully done science-fiction fantasy that's made by people who care about putting on a good show.
And, like me, you'll likely be looking forward to the sequel.
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