Topic: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

According to Camille Paglia.

"He views dialogue as merely 'a sound effect, a rhythm, a vocal chorus in the overall soundtrack.'" Well, that explains everything (for small values of 'everything').

Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

omfg, high-brow humanities academic praises the prequels. Or is she just trolling? I felt a bit nauseous after reading the article. Could anyone be any more out of touch? I suddenly feel like a Republican, as in 'scrap the university liberal arts faculties' - what are they good for?

not long to go now...

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

I bet you wouldn't get the same people waxing lyrical about visual art films like Immortals or Sucker Punch, which are truly beautiful and evocative to behold.

Also, the author praises what is quite possibly one of the worst sword fights ever put on film. There was a great animated gif I saw ages ago which showed just badly (or rather, how obviously) it's choreographed. It shows the two combatants standing about a feet apart swirling their lightsabres in huge and very non-hazardous circles. It's on a loop to be sure, but there's at least 2 seconds of them doing it. And what's more, the showmanship of most of the duel is at odds with the raw emotion of the scene! I really hate you, but look at my skills yo.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

redxavier wrote:

It shows the two combatants standing about a feet apart swirling their lightsabres in huge and very non-hazardous circles. It's on a loop to be sure, but there's at least 2 seconds of them doing it. And what's more, the showmanship of most of the duel is at odds with the raw emotion of the scene! I really hate you, but look at my skills yo.

This springs to mind:

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

Ugh. I hate that video.

Of course they're aiming slightly above the other guy's head, or to the side -- they're trained to do that. Practically every fight scene ever put to film (with the notable exception of the ones by Tony Jaa and colleagues) could be deconstructed that way because they're not actually fighting. Some fake it in the choreography better and miss more narrowly than others, and better camera angles than the ones chosen in TPM would mask a lot of these moments, but they're pretty much always there.

For example, still one of my favorite fight scenes:

It's great. Fast, exciting, intense. Now watch it without sound. Half the time the blades don't get anywhere near each other, but they're moving so fast and the sound design is such a flurry of clashes to your brain it looks like they're going at it hammer and tongs. And check out 0:37, where Ziyi Zhang is clearly stabbing about a foot to Michelle Yeoh's side.

There are a lot of reasons to rag on TPM. The fact that the Duel of the Fates fight scene is a movie fight scene like any other (and it apparently took 13 years for anyone to notice) is not one of them.

That being said, I agree with redxavier's comments on the ROTS duel. While you're not actually supposed to try to hit the other person, you ought to be pretending to try, and this shit

http://i.imgur.com/4thrz.gif

is unacceptable. I was disgusted when I saw that at the midnight show. But, considering the author of the article seems to consider style over substance to be a virtue, it's no wonder she thinks the duel is great.

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

I have a friend who sat in her class at UArts. He said that she was out-of-her-mind crazy. I guess, this article seems to prove that.

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

Dorkman wrote:

Of course they're aiming slightly above the other guy's head, or to the side -- they're trained to do that. Practically every fight scene ever put to film (with the notable exception of the ones by Tony Jaa and colleagues) could be deconstructed that way because they're not actually fighting. Some fake it in the choreography better and miss more narrowly than others, and better camera angles than the ones chosen in TPM would mask a lot of these moments, but they're pretty much always there.

I know it's not real, it's a movie. I don't even think it's a bad fight sequence, I just find the deconstruction video amusing. Here's one of my favourite fight scenes:

And it's full of moments like 'dude just extend your arm a bit more and this will be all over'. But it also has a couple of cool near misses, everyone gets messed up and it's fun to watch. (The movie is good too, check it out smile)

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

Squiggly_P wrote:

In the new movies they use the force on other people (never in the original films...  not once...)

No, nobody choked anyone or convinced anybody about which droids they were looking for in the OT ...  roll

/Z

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

MasterZap wrote:
Squiggly_P wrote:

In the new movies they use the force on other people (never in the original films...  not once...)

No, nobody choked anyone or convinced anybody about which droids they were looking for in the OT ...  roll

/Z


http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/29521536.jpg

EDIT:

Correct me if I'm wrong...but I think they call it FORCE lightning for a reason....

http://image.retrojunk.com/e89_985d4f0347.jpg

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2012-11-03 14:51:30)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.

(UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

... and mathematics. Ergo mathematicians are sith. QED.

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

Evil, evil mathematicians.

Sébastien Fraud
Instagram |Facebook

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Re: The Greatest Artist of Our Time

The OT Jedi are pacifists.
Obi Wan gives in to Vader's violence, and Luke can only defeat the Emperor by turning his loyal assassin against him.
The Jedi using the force against opponents in PT combat was a shock to me as well.

(UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

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