Empire Top 500: 1-4

I have decided that I will watch all of Empire's top 500 movies in turn... And here I will give you a little summary of what I think!

Empire's top 500 movies is the most accurate movie rating system yet (in my opinion). Basically they are a magazine, and they asked all their readers to vote for the best movie of all time, the poll spanned over 10,000 people. But that wouldn't make the "Best" movie ranking system, so they brought in 150 actors, directors, composers, etc, to give their vote (Obviously their vote waas a lot more heavy than a general reader), and in adition 50 professional movie critics were invited to vote. So in my opinion it is eassily the best ranking system of all time. Though, like any poll, there's always a few points in which it fails, which I will point out later on.

1. The Godfather This is a pure classic and can be enjoyed by anyone, including people that aren't particularly fans of the genre (like me). The movie follows one of the families of the Mafia, and is much more than just a "shoot him down" movie. It beautifully explores the concept of family, and is a very gentle movie letting you take it all in at your own pace, without being tedious... It certainly deserves it's place as The Best Movie Ever though I would have said that about a few other really good movies!


2. Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's first Indianna Jones movie (though perhaps I'm not the right person to ask about this as I prefered the 4th one... sure I'm going to get loads of comments now!


3. Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back This is easily the best movie ever and I'm very pleased it got so high on the list, please be quiet Star Wars haters, just take this as a cool movie, it was never meant to be a scientific enigma!


4. The Shawshank Redemption

General Movie Updates

Looks like Kirsten Dunst will be coming back for Spiderman 4

Men in Black 3: rumour tells us that it will be!

Dawn Treader may be in danger from Iron Man 2 sales!

Bladerunner 2 is being scripted

Possibility of a movie adaptation of the Star Wars game: "The Force Unleashed"

Star Wars: Clone Wars TV series makes it's way to the UK

Puppetry

There are a number of practices we use in the filming industry, one is to simply shoot the whole movie with video cameras, which is the bulk of all movies; another is to create computer animations, such as 3D animations (Toy Story, Cars) or Anime (like the Japanese films); Then there's stop-motion animation, which uses some kind of mechanical puppets and take a sequence of photos to create a full moving picture; but what I'm really interested in today is another filming practice which we call Puppetry!

Puppetry is the one practice that I believe will never die... looking at Jim Henson's Labyrinth, I believe that still competes with the graphics and all that we use 20 years later... this movie is 20 years old... and to me it looks as relevant today as any other movie that you will see! Tell me if you think I'm wrong!

These are a couple points in which I believe puppetry excels in:

• You merely have to create the perfect puppet and film it... no messing around with CGI that may or may not look right.
• Puppets are real objects and thus interact correctly with their surroundings, which is very hard to do with CGI

OK, here are a few examples of good puppets:

• Obviously the Muppets immediately spring into mind, there's some pretty good designs amongst them
• Yoda from Star Wars: way better than the new CGI version found in the latter films!
• Treebeard from Lord of the Rings: when they couldn't use CGI for him, they had to go with puppetry, which worked far better!
• All around the original Star Wars trilogy you will find various

Well perhaps Jim Henson's original ideas evolved since then- We now have a variation called Animatronics, which seems very likely to start to take over CGI as first choice in creating creatures. There is an interesting post that will give detail into how animatronics works... read here!

Del Toro has announced that he intends to use animatronics over CGI while adapting The Hobbit, which was widely used in Pan's Labyrinth and caused a stunning effect!

So it seems that puppetry has had a big boost around the time of Star Wars and Labyrinth... and has laid dormant until Del Toro has recently picked it up, proving it's potential in a modern day audience with Pan's Labyrinth... looking forward to more development in the puppetry industry!

Puppetry will never die!

Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) Vs Clone Wars (2008)

By recommendation of a regular reader, I have just watched the old Cartoon Network version of The Clone Wars.

You can read my review of the new Star Wars: Clone Wars here.

The old one is all in Cartoon 3D animation, whereas the new one is created with modern CGI animation, which should mean that the new one is a lot better... but because the old one is made a lot cheaper, it has to be very good on the story-line (which it is) thus turning it's curse into a blessing.

The new Clone Wars' story-line is so weak in comparison to the old one.

The old Clone Wars much better deserves the right to bear the name "Star Wars". And I'd certainly recommend it as a better alternative to the new Clone Wars (which I rated very low).

The old Clone Wars seems to fit in much better with the Star Wars storyline, filling the gap between the 2nd and 3rd episodes. Characters are much better developed too!

Star Wars 2.5: The Clone Wars

What's all this nonsense?

This is the film to set off a new Star Wars television series... I've not got too much hope for it...

I watched this film last night and I was thoroughly shocked.... I was expecting quite a bit more from George Lucas.

This is a children's film and not for the major audience that the original Star Wars movies attracted...

This may satisfy part of the hunger of a Star Wars fan, but will thoroughly disappointed his true self!

My praise will go to a good script, although a little childish... story line was usual star wars material... in fact it could have been a great movie if it was done properly, like the other 6 movies!

So I'm entirely disappointed in Lucas at the moment.

If you are a big Star Wars fan, go watch it to satisfy your curiosity... but if you aren't a fan... just don't bother with this film.

Bad Points:

Silly
Childish
Not much happens
Animated
Missing the good acting talent of the original movies

(I'm sure I could come up with more but they are the main problems)

Good Points:

It's a Star Wars movie
Fairly good script

That's it!


Movie Rating 4.75/10


What have other reviewer said?

It looks like a promising series, especially with original creator George Lucas co-writing the series. The film, however, gets a… Grade: B

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Review (Verdict: The First Star Wars Movie You Will Truly Hate)

So is The Clone Wars a good film? Yes. And No.

George Lucas is turning into the enemy of fun.

The new Star Wars, umm, film "The Clone Wars" has opened to very negative reviews,

Controversial Discussion: the latter Star Wars trilogy is better than the earlier

Which Star Wars trilogy is better, episodes 4-6 (starting with A New Hope) or the newer episodes 1-3?

I think the new trilogy is a lot better than the old ones, though this is a much debated subject.

The newer trilogy is highlighted by first class graphics, which are rather outdated in the old trilogy, which seems to detract from the enjoyability of the first trilogy.

The newer trilogy also holds an A-Class cast, which seems more suited to their possitions than the old trilogy had. Natalie Portman acts more like a princess heroine than Carrie Fisher did.

The newer trilogy also seems to hold a more emotional value than the first trilogy did, and also holds more dramatic tension than the first series did, as is highlighted by the superb pod-race in Episode I.

There are more interesting characters in the newer series such as Jar-Jar binks and the gun-guns which, I think, adds a lot more character to the movies.

Please tell me your views!