Bent Corner

Surprise, surprise, the newest installment in the Star Wars franchise appears to be a real stinker. I checked out some of the reviews this morning and the critics hated it.

Over at Rotten Tomatoes, its coming in at 23%. When you only look at the reviews from the top critics, the movie drops to only 11%.

Ouch.

I think now I know why most of the stars from the prior Star Wars flicks aren’t doing the voices in this. They probably read the script and refused to participate. Samuel L. Jackson returned to lend his voice as Jedi Master Mace Windu, but has the man ever said no to a movie? Seriously, if Samuel L. Jackson turns down a boat load of cash to appear in a movie, you know it’s got to be bad. 

It seems that Clone Wars will feature a gay character. Once again I turn to the MTV movie blog to get all my Star Wars info:

Jabba’s uncle, Zero the Hutt, a new character introduced specifically for the upcoming animated series, is a gay stereotype that makes what Jar Jar Binks represented to the island of Jamaica look subtle by comparison. It’s not the look or design that pushes it over the top into stereotype, of course, but the voice (performed by Corey Burden), a lispy, high-pitched twang purposively reminiscent of Truman Capote.

What?  Truman Capote was gay?  And who exactly decided to inject a lispy talking, negative gay stereotype into the movie?  Master filmmaker George Lucas, that’s who:

“Zero, Jabba’s uncle, originally spoke in Hutt-ese, like Jabba and then he had a different sluggish voice just like Jabba, and then George one day was watching it and said ‘I want him to sound like Truman Capote.’ He actually said that and we were like ‘Wow!’” Filion revealed. “It’s a hybrid of it but the inspiration is definitely there on Capote. It’s one of those things that takes him from being an interesting character and I think really does put him over the top and does something. He’s a favorite among the crew here.”

The more I learn about this movie, the more I hate it.  I’m not going to say that Jabba’s Uncle Zero is offensive to gay people, but the potential is certainly there.

It doesn’t look good.

Clone Wars, the animated feature film that looks more like the World of Warcraft online game then an actual movie, opens this weekend. If you were looking forward to watching the flick and hearing the familiar voices of Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, or Frank Oz, don’t waste your time. They aren’t in the movie. Instead, their parts are being voiced by unknowns.

Why would George Lucas do something like this? He explains to the good people of MTV:

“It used to be in animation you just had [unknown] actors do the parts. The idea of hiring a really good actor – Tom Hanks [for instance] – was a really revolutionary idea,” Lucas said. “Partly they did it because they were great actors, partly they did it cause they wanted to use them for publicity. To be very honest with you, I don’t really think I need to hire a big movie star to publicize my movie. I don’t need Angelina Jolie here. That’s what it comes down to in the end. They have two days in the studio and then they have like two weeks doing press. They are mainly paid for the press stuff.”

Thank you George Lucas for telling us how it was in the olden times, you douche. Angelina Jolie? Why bring her up? She has nothing to do with the Star Wars universe. If he’s going to do yet another Star Wars movie, he ought to at least bring back all of the actors to reprise their roles.

The characters aren’t going to look anything like they looked in the movies. They might as well sound like they sounded in the movies.

I read over on Randomonium, an excellent blog maintained by fellow Marylander, that Baltimore is in consideration for Celebration V, a four-day Star Wars convention. The con would take place in the early spring 2009 or 2010.

I think this would make an awful lot of sense. Baltimore’s Inner Harbor area is a great place to hold a major convention. The Baltimore Convention Center is ideally located in relation to other tourist attractions along with a good many restaurants only a few minutes away.

The only caveat would be to make sure to schedule the event when the Orioles are not in town. Oriole Park at Camden Yards is directly across the street from the Baltimore Convention Center. When the Yankees or Red Sox are in town, hotel rooms in and around Baltimore become rather hard to get. I’m assuming that the powers that be over at Lucasfilm Ltd. would be smart enough to take this into consideration, but the folks that run the Baltimore Comic-Con never seem to. This year the comic book convention is being held the same weekend the Orioles play their final two games of the season. At least the Ravens are playing on the road that weekend.