Sunday, April 22, 2007

Simon Pegg: Zombies, Cops And Ewoks

A very nice interview with Simon Pegg about his love of Star Wars and his thoughts about the Special Editions and the Prequels. Click here

6 comments:

I. N. J. Culbard said...

The Empire Strikes Back possibly holds the most resonance for me above and beyond any other film I've ever seen.

I think I must have seen A New Hope in the UK on its re-release before Empire hit screens in the UK, because the first time I saw Star Wars: A New Hope was in Poland (fairly certain of that... though it's an incredibly vague memory).

The reason for the resonance in Empire is two fold. The revelation at the end. Right up until that point (part way through the film you see Darth's bald head), I thought Darth was a Robot. That absolutely and utterly blew me away. I had absolutely no idea before I went to see the film. Nowadays movies are riddled with spoilers. If the trailers don't give it away, or the movie posters then the press does, or as I find now, cinematic storytelling does (like Usual Suspects for example where you're shown the twist in the opening three minutes of the film by two camera shots).

Secondly, the swamp on Dogobah where Luke meets Darth in a vision and he chops off Darth's face and the mask explodes off to reveal Luke's own face in the mask. That had enormous significance for me at an age when my parents had divorced and I hadn't seen my father in a long time, and I would grow up to hear people say how much I looked like him yet I myself was unable to remember what he looked like (my mum removed his pictures from photo albums, he was basically erased from my memory... so the scene in Dogobah really made the film personally significant).

There is of course a third significant memory for me watching that film and that's sitting there thinking 'Yoda sounds like Fozzie Bear' (of course, I know it's Frank Oz, but it took a little getting used to for me... not too long, by the end of the movie and by the time the action figure came out Yoda was Yoda and that voice was just right).

Andrew Glazebrook said...

I agree with what Pegg says about the scenes in the prequels like the racing announcer in TPM and the robots playing football in AOTC,all utter crap.
For me Star Wars is STAR WARS, this New Hope stuff is crap, the films to me are Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I knew of no kid in 1978 after they changed the title who would say 'Hey I've just been to see a New Hope again'
I'd rather watch those first 3 films now I can on DVD with their technical flaws etc as they were when I fell in love with them, I don't want to see Jawas swinging down off ronto's and naff looking CG Dewbacks the same as Pegg doesn't. It seems that Lucas took the original trilogy and used them purely as a testing ground for new FX technology before the prequels,if he had simply cleaned up the prints and re-released them in 1997 like they did they would have still done super box office, instead he continues to turn more and more fans against him.
The trouble is had he not made the prequels or done the special editions I'd have been sat here now 30 years after it's release wishing they'd do more films, now I'm sat here wishing he'd leave well alone and the 30th anniversary of one of the greatest films of all time means nothing much to me anymore.

I. N. J. Culbard said...

"For me Star Wars is STAR WARS, this New Hope stuff is crap"

I can see the sense in it given the umbrella branding of "Star Wars". "A New Hope", as I see it, just shows how the franchise has grown. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "Empire Strikes Back" or "Return of the Jedi" though does it?

TimeWarden said...

Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before but Simon is from a few miles up the road from where I live.

Michael Grant Clark said...

After Phantom Menace came out I edited my memories to eraze it and ended up wiping out all Star Wars stuff. I blame George for making me forget a good portion of my childhood.

The bloaty funter.

Moonwatcher said...

Timewarden, have you ever seen Simon Pegg on your travels then ? If so get Jessica Stevenson's phone number for me please :)