Tag: R2D2
The Artoo – Kenny Connection
I recently saw the original Star Wars Trilogy on film (pirated Version — Han Shoots First, bitch! 🙂 ) and was sorta’ sick because of how corny C3PO and R2-D2 were in the movies… But I can also remember how I was watching the movie and would see Artoo beep-blip-bloop and 3P0 seemingly translate what Artoo said into something rude (his responses told you this) and assumed Artoo was saying something dirty at the time.
I inserted lines of my own too in certain situations… Just for fun. It didn’t occur to me just who this reminded me of until tonight.
I get online and start reading the hilarious 64 Reasons to Hate Attack of the Clones and come across this gem at #25:
Bustin’ on Artoo
There’s this one scene where Padme and Anakin are walking on Naboo and she says she’s a little nervous and he confesses to also being nervous since this is his first assignment by himself. “Don’t worry,” Padme says. “We have Artoo with us.” Then they both laugh about how ridiculous a concept it is that Artoo could be at all useful. Artoo beeps and if Threepio were there to translate it would probably be something along the lines of “Fuck you both.”
The moment I read that, remembering the scene from the movie, I agreed with the above sentiment that Artoo would have been mouthing off here… Not only that, but R2-D2 has got to be what inspired Kenny McCormick of South Park.
Now, not to piss off South Park fans by suggesting this and knowing the full truth to who inspired Kenny, I just see the odd parallels between the two characters.
1) Unintelligible — Be it Artoo’s beeps or Kenny’s muffled statements, both characters almost speak a foreign dialect
2) Ability to piss people off — Be it Cartman or 3P0, Kenny and Artoo’s mouths
tend to have snide responses for others statements
3) Getting in trouble — Artoo gets hit in Star Wars and is severely damaged, Artoo falls in a Swamp and gets eaten in Empire Strike Back, Artoo falls into the Sand of the Dune Sea as well as getting shot during the Battle of Endor during Return of the Jedi… Kenny gets killed during every single fucking episode of South Park.
It’s uncanny, I tell you…
There are probably more similarities that I can’t think of right now, but I swear to you that Kenny and Artoo have to be related somehow with these odd coincidences… If not, Artoo had to inspire Kenny in a roundabout, fucked up kind of way…
The Phantom Edit Part 2
I was debating writing this here on my own journal or on Kill The Web but I figured I am having such a shitty day that having a topic to write about in here was going to be impossible unless I thought up something like this…
A couple of years ago after The Phantom Menace came out in movie theaters, there was a copy of the movie circulated that cut out Jar Jar Binks from the movie, along with some other cuts. It was titled The Phantom Edit. Personally I think about the editing room and how much Star Wars Episode 1 could have been better if they had left out some of the crap that was in the movie (a lot of the kiddie stuff with Anakin, 3PO and R2D2, etc) and I was thinking to last year’s “Attack of the Clones” and how things could have been improved with that one.
…and it bothers me that it would have been so much better if Lucas had just been a little more liberal with the knife.
I mean, any story is better if you cut the fat. Cut out the bullshit and try to make a long story short… It works in writing and it works in cinema too. I mean, think about this — did they REALLY need to define the Force in Star Wars Part 1 as a fucking parasite in the blood? Absolutely not. What about Back to the Future? Did they need to show Marty’s mom acting really irresponsible more than they did in the final version of the film? Nope, and it worked. They didn’t need to show Marty drugging his father to get him to go back to sleep either… Both shots were cut out from the final version of the movie (but available on the DVD) and would have given just a bit too much information. It wasn’t important that they were in the final version of the film but then again it would have been strange if they had been.
Any Star Wars faithful would balk at the idea of C3PO and R2D2 being cut out from Episodes 1 and 2 but honestly – what point do they serve besides comic relief? Couldn’t there have been written quips in characters lines in order to get them some comic relief in the film? Also the stunning false visuals that they had too many of in Episode 2 needed to be trimmed down a bit. It got to be useless and annoying to see CGI everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, they painted a stunning picture but at the same time, nothing was real (and there’s nothing to get hung about, strawberry fields forever). It wasn’t like they hand-designed miniatures as they had in the first film which awed movie goers because every visual WAS real to an extent.
CGI is good in moderation (as long as you have a good movie attached to the CGI), but over doing it… well, that just bores people. I had that problem when I saw The Matrix Revolutions but I could live with it – the story made up for short comings of reality.
Maybe I’m just too picky with things? Eh, take out the maybe. I AM too picky with things. But then again, if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be leading my true life.
