Forget life for a while and watch all 9 episodes of Star Wars… AT ONCE

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3 responses to “Forget life for a while and watch all 9 episodes of Star Wars… AT ONCE”

1. 

   Rob Williams

   April 28, 2020

   Great minds etc!

   I’ve recently been thinking along similar lines and was part way through an article which looked at groups of films to watch based on connections that weren’t actually there; I was thinking of how entertainment in the 60s in the UK was based on a virtual rep company who seemed to pop up in nearly every film of that era.

   Anyway… while that was brewing in my subconscious I needed something to occupy my conscious mind and, before this article was published, I had a Star Wars re-watch. This was decided by my subscribing to Disney+… for my grandchildren… honest!

   But then I decided that I’d try something new. I had a look through the movies in the iTunes Store and saw that the Transformers movies were on a bundle offer so I went for it. Now the whole Transformers thing, and not just the films, is new to me: never watched the films, never seen the TV series, never read the comics(were there comics?), never played with the toys.

   But it’s a high budget, SFX laden series with a Michael Bay influence so if that doesn’t make for brainless entertainment I don’t know what will!

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2. 

   Jill Florio

   April 28, 2020

   I think Transformers would fit the split screen mold pretty well. Don’t they all have a similar plot? That could be interesting. Let me know how your watch session goes.

   I’ve seen one of two Transformers here and there. I never watched the cartoon or played with the toys (the kids I babysat did). I was just not interested and I’m still not. I also don’t like the bombastic M. Bay form of entertainment. But I know a of of folks enjoy his work.

   That said, I really enjoyed Bumblebee. That was a sweet little movie that seems to stand on it’s own quite well.

   What other groups of films might have repeated plot motifs if watched at once?

   How did your Star Wars rewatch go? What order did you go by?

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3. 

   Rob Williams

   April 28, 2020

   It’s not looking too good. I’m only on the second in the series and already some of the bit part robots are irritating me in a good news/bad news way… good news – it reminds me of “Star Wars”, bad news – makes me think of Jar Jar Binks. Also, I know she’s only actually about a month older than him but Megan Fox seems way older than Shia LaBeouf. Maybe he’s one of those lucky ones like my daughter who keep complaining about being carded when they try and buy booze even though they’re in their thirties.

   Ah yes, bombastic is a perfect description for Michael Bay’s work… high-sounding but with little meaning but I did say I was after something brainless. When I want to concentrate again I’m going to watch a lot more Shakespeare; I’m blaming Patrick Stewart’s Sonnet A Day for getting me back into it!

   Oh yes… Bumblebee! It slipped my mind that I’d seen it when it came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. Hailee Steinfeld helped with that. I’m not a fan of westerns but I liked the “True Grit” remake, I enjoyed the “Pitch Perfect” series and I loved “Dickinson” on Apple TV+.

   I’ll have to have a think about the repeated plot motif in film series thing. One thing I have noticed is a side effect of binge watching TV series. When you only see a character once a week you can miss/ignore/forgive a character flaw but when you watch episode after episode after episode you start to think “sorry but a real person wouldn’t put up with that in real life: Sheldon’s rules and regulations, Ross’s paranoia, Frasier’s petty pickiness. All become deeply irritating when they are repeated over and over at nearly three episodes an hour.

   I just watched Star Wars in chapter order, 1-9. I do feel an affinity for these films as they came out at significant points in my life: the originals came out when I was in college and just starting work, the prequels came out when I was at the height of my career (such as it was!), and the sequels came out as I was getting ready to and actually retiring. Coincidence, undoubtedly, but it still makes them kind of special for me.

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