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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Wednesday, May 22, 2002
In the Clone Zone: An Open Letter to Lucas
SANTA MONICA -- It's been a long time, George ol' pal, ol' devourer of my childhood. It's been a long time since you made me feel seven years old. Oh, you tried, back in 1999. I felt a leap in my heart and an uncontainable grin on my chops when the opening credits of Episode I rolled. But try as I did to enjoy it, everything that followed betrayed the wonderment, the hope of ultimate escapism, that you instilled in me and a billion other fans with the opening trilogy. Tonight, at a special press screening of Episode II prior to the opening of the E3 games convention, you got a little credit back at the bank of wonderment. Not too much -- Clones is no Empire, and there are still many things you don't understand about what went wrong with Phantom Menace -- but enough to make me feel that when Episode III arrives in 2005, you might just about pay off your overdraft.
Let's start with those can't-help-feeling-like-a-kid moments. They were, in order: the opening credits (a purely Pavlovian response: play me the 20th Century Fox theme followed by the Lucasfilm theme followed by John Williams, and I'm putty in your hands); the flying car chase on Coruscant; Obi-Wan's discovery of the clone army and their terrifyingly familiar uniforms; the nick-of-time entrance of a dozen Jedi knights, lightsabers blazing; and of course, Yoda's stunning climactic duel with Christopher Lee. All of these scenes exceeded my expectations, but the last most of all. What a tremendously bold move that was on your part, to transform the little green guy into something out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He hobbles with a cane, he bounces around the room fighting the incarnation of evil, he picks up his cane and hobbles again. What an inspired illustration of one of the great themes of the series: the hidden forces at work inside us all.
But I don't need to tell you about themes, do I? You do love to repeat yourself so. You squeeze Tattooine, this supposedly insignificant desert planet, into the plot so much that the strain is showing. You repeat the line "I've got a bad feeling about this" in every movie, and each time it sounds more stilted. Repetition of theme is not in itself a problem; you've said many times that you are effectively creating a symphony, and I respect that aim. Certainly John Williams, with your direction, is knitting melodic themes together beautifully. The way his music breaks into the Imperial March towards the end of the movie is particularly chilling, enhancing our sense that the Empire is being constructed before our eyes.
But when Williams conducts a symphony, his instruments seldom sound as tired and discordant as yours. When did you stop directing actors, George? When did you stop caring about how lines sound? When did you stop caring whether the actors cared? Sure, the dialogue is hokey and camp; it always has been (and when you recognize this and have fun with it, such as the puns Threepio comes out with when he is trying to put himself back together, it works much better than when you take yourself too seriously). But go back and listen to the way Ford, Fisher, Hammil, Guinness and Jones delivered their lines. Whatever seemingly ridiculous nonsense they were talking -- making the Kessel run in less than ten parsecs, going to Tarsi station to pick up some power converters -- they always did it with feeling. Watching Ewan MacGregor, I can't help but feel his contempt for the script. There's a practiced blankness on Sam Jackson's face. Natalie Portman is still talking in monotone. Even Christopher Lee seems to be struggling with his lines. As for Hayden Christensen's portrayal of Anakin Skywalker, it veers so much into melodrama that I had a hard time believing him, too. In the early Anakin-Padme scenes, I almost believed I was watching a high-school play. Where has the genuine emotion gone, George? Whither the feeling that the characters care about this universe that you've created for them, the one that is supposed to be crumbling around their ears? My most truly emotive actor award would have to go to Dex, the four-armed cafe owner friend of Obi-Wan's, and he's entirely digital.
I know you sketched out the bare bones of each episode back in the 70's. But in fleshing them out, you've added too much digital flab and not enough muscle -- the integral, structural stuff. Take the Jedi. I was longing for some sort of establishing scene that makes us really care about the Jedi as an order, on a grand scale: something that brings home the majesty and the mysticism and the heritage and most of all, the numbers. This is a group of knights able -- just -- to keep peace in the galaxy under normal conditions. Why do we never see more than a dozen of them in any one scene? I know you want to drive home how imbalanced the Clone Wars are, and don't want to distract from the unveiling of thousands of clones. But these Wars -- note the plural -- are barely going to last ten seconds based on the numbers of Jedi we've seen by comparison, even accounting for lightsaber skill. And you've made them look extraordinarily stupid in the face of a takeover plot so obvious that any Coruscant journalist would sniff it out straight away. We really don't have much of an intrinsic reason to care about them. The least you can do is give them a majestic ceremony or two.
Of course, I don't want to jump the gun on Episode III. You've done a lot better this time. Don't be discouraged. But this is your last chance. Don't blow it. We're all really impressed with what you can do digitally; now show us some more spirit. Work off that flab. Build up an athletic level of muscle. And if you need some script doctoring assistance this time, my freelance rates are quite reasonable.
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