Phantom Menace? Or Lucas' feeble attempts at storytelling? - I think we know the answer

Listen to the full Podcast and the amazing Black Dogger's hate fueled slap down of the Phantom Menace here.


So, The Phantom Menace eh?

You do realise that to ask any discerning fan of the Star Wars franchise to look at the Phantom Menace is like inviting a bulimia sufferer to an eating contest. Grossly Inappropriate and completely unfair…..

Yes Mr. Lucas did indeed Face Rape our childhoods with this Cess pool of an instalment, and now you want us to revisit the experience?

Oh……Ok, go on then as it’s you guys – Hey, It’s got Lightsabers in it and I haven’t seen it for a year or two. I’ve got a new TV and my 360 upscales to HD, so it may be worth taking another crack at.

So, notepad in hand, I fire up the movie

BADAAAAAA!!!!!! – Opening sting of the theme in glorious surround! 

Awesome, Star Wars!! I love it!!!

Bring on the opening paragraph of the crawl………..

“Turmoil has engulfed the galactic republic, the taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.”…… erm – okay…….

The opening crawl continues in this fashion over another two paragraphs and makes absolutely no sense; it’s a completely shambolic grouping of political jargon that takes two or three readings in order to garner any real kind of understanding about what’s happening at the start of the film. 

So begins my first bone of contention with The Phantom menace, it is completely contradictory throughout – it’s trying to tell a convoluted and fragmented story in a simple way, it’s a cruelly successful attempt at undermining the entire extended universe that popped up during the “dry period” between ROTJ and Phantom Menace. Yet it was trying to make the story simple and accessible to children and fans alike, essentially rebooting story…

In fairness you have to admire Lucas’ stones, he took on a huge challenge by even attempting to make the prequels and even more for actually allowing his name to be on the credits, after all he could have done a David Lynch who I’m sure all Black Doggers are aware took his name off Dune in the 80’s because it was rubbish, but then….. Dune did have something that the Phantom Menace doesn’t – a protagonist!!!

Who is the central focal character in this film? It can’t be Anakin, you don’t meet him until 45 minutes into proceedings and by then you’ve been bombarded with a million FX shots for no better reason than Lucas saying “LOOK!! Look what we can do, aren’t these amazing?” – and even after Anakin does come into the story, he wins the pod race and is pretty much ignored until he, for no logical reason goes into a firefight  and hides in a fighter and …well need I go on with how terrible his character arc is in this film? The Jedi are boring, Amidala is inconsequential and Palpatine’s the bad guy.

Back to the effects then I suppose… You’re constantly being prodded and reminded that they can do amazing things with CG. This intense desire to ram as much imagery into our minds, completely devalues the opening of “A New Hope” – a relatively low tech technique that instilled in the viewer a sense of drama and filled the screen with so much symbolism that even now, it has never been topped for dramatic openings. Let’s be honest it’s text book perfect as an opener.

The Phantom Menace failed on so many grounds that to go into them all here would take you guys hours to read out and I’m sure you’ll have tons of feedback to sift through.

The main problem with The Phantom Menace becomes glaringly evident when watching the documentary on the DVD. None of the cast, or the crew will dare say NO to Lucas, his script is rubbish, his choices of actors are for the most part, rubbish and the people around Lucas are blatantly aware of this fact but continue to allow the man to destroy the mythology they're supposed to be enriching.

Hell when they’re all sat watching the screening of the rough cut, Lucas himself admits he “may have gone too far” – No shit George!

Let’s go through the list shall we…

1. He made a film with no plot

 - And put in JAR JAR BINKS

2. He had characters with no charisma

- And put in JAR JAR BINKS

3. He had no clear Protagonist

- And put in JAR JAR BINKS

4. He killed off Darth Maul before he could actually become a threat

- And he put in JAR JAR fucking BINKs!!!!!

Shame on Lucas!!!, he should have started the story at the point where Attack of the clones began, cast an “actor” in the role of Anakin, stayed away from the politics (as he clearly can’t write it) and gotten a team of writers in to actually write a cohesive screenplay with some sensible character development.

I think that Lucas is his own and all Star Wars fans’ worst enemy and need I have anymore  proof than: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace…

I rest my case.... (I need a drink) 

Hitchcock's Psycho = ????

To hear this feedback read out in The Black Dog's inimitable style please go here.


I hope you're prepared for another geektastic onslaught of Nerdgasmic dweeb love as the Blackdog Community’s very own tried and tested Beer guzzling Yorkshire schizoid is about to go Psycho.

Hitchcock’s Psycho is an indelible look into the oft overlooked transitional period between the 1950’s and 1960’s – most notably exemplified by Norman himself, but I’ll get back to that in a moment. By today’s standards the plot (what little of it there is) is likely to be seen as a bit light and flimsy, this is not an comment against the quality of the film, far from it. If anything it film proves that the plot is where a good story is grounded and the elements have to be finely crafted together in order to create a true cinematic masterpiece. And what a masterpiece it is.

Much like many other amazing films that have had Black Doggers remove their Rose Tinted specs in the past, Psycho was made on a tight budget and rather than depending on big name stars to make it marketable it depended on good storytelling, cohesive plot and some timeless performances. Not everyone works so well but I’d like to look at Anthony Perkins’ performance as Norman specifically.

If you try and imagine being an audience member in the 60’s at the time of release then Norman is probably easily identifiable as a genuinely lonely young man who is believable in his genuine concern for the well being of Marion at the first meeting in the reception of the Motel, yet he is clearly the victim of a mother’s over zealous parenting skills, love or whatever. But something is definitely NOT right

Obviously Norman’s character doesn’t come into play until an awful lot of exposition has taken place and nearly a good third of the film has passed, but much like another famous Anthony (one Mr. Hopkins) would later prove, you don’t have to be onscreen a lot to completely own the character and in turn own the film as a whole.

Yes, Norman comes across as a shy nerd over compensating for his lack of social experience with women other than his mother, and that relationship between Norman and his mother absolutely permeates the entire time that Norman is onscreen. The way he flips and becomes very sinister during his conversation with Marion is a wonderful red herring, the mummy’s boy defends his mother against slanderous comments, yet he nicely brings it back civility. A cool demonstration that Hitchcock let his actors pretty do as they pleased as long as they didn’t move the camera.

I think this film still works in so many ways, as a wonderful observation on the period, the loss of innocence as it were between then and now, Norman can easily come across to today’s audiences as an immediate threat - an overly polite and potentially dangerous figure, who, simply MUST be hiding something. Is this a chilling indictment on the impact Psycho has had on the general psyche of viewers over the years. If someone appears to be too good to be true then they likely are.

Psycho is argued to be one of the most important films in cinematic history although I don’t agree, I think it surpasses that. It has become a cultural phenomenon, a film none dare speak ill of, much like Citizen Kane and others, people often link with the word classic – Psycho is a film few dare say doesn’t work, I think it is a classic, with or without Rose Tinted Specs it’s fair to say that Psycho will remain firmly lodged in the minds of movie viewers for many many years to come.

Often copied, never surpassed. I love this film and although there are scarier films out there as of today, they all, in their own way owe some of their success to this remarkable film. Yes, there’s absolutely loads one can go into with regards to the many feats this film achieves, but I really enjoy Black Dog and can’t wait to hear what everyone else has to say. I’d like to give a shout out to my better half Petra, who made the viewing of Psycho possible, due to her owning the entire collection – If Black doggers haven’t already seen it, then I highly recommend “Rear Window” – another excellent Hitchcock flick.

Right I’m off – My Pipe’s going out and the whippet needs a walk. I may go see my inside man and try and get me an advance viewing of Inception, could be good...

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnn!!!! Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnn!!!!

Yes I loved it, that goes without saying. I can even get through all of it without falling asleep, which I’m afraid can’t be said of many of the other instalments, before or after. Barring maybe Star Trek VI – which, incidentally, is another fantastic Trek film, but i'll avoid the tangent.

Much like last week’s Shit Covered Goggles, that amusingly, turned into a mass outpouring of hate induced bile towards Mr Lucas and Co. for their crimes to film, exemplified by the prequel trilogy - it is going to be hard to look back on the Star Trek II without looking at how badly it all turned out shortly after.

You can’t really ever look at, say, The Motion Picture without thinking, Wrath of Khan’s better or Search For Spock without thinking WTF? Or even the Voyage Home without thinking that Back To The Future had a lot to answer for, or that it’s the one that your mum liked. Never mind that the Final Frontier was fucking stupid.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan isn’t necessarily what i'd call, the BEST Star Trek Film, but it is the most enjoyable, strange I know but that's just my opinion. Noteworthy mentions have to go to (obviouls) Ricardo Montalban for a show stealing performance as Khan – William Shatner for the immortal utterance of - KHAAAAAN!!!! And who can speak about Star Trek II without mentioning James Doohan’s wonderfully dubbed Bagpipe playing during Spock’s Funeral.

It wasn’t without its flaws though, filmed on an incredibly low budget, re-using, at points, effects footage from The Motion Picture, using a (then) cheap as chips composer for the score and with all the other the other hurdles before them, you could say, at the very least, the odds were not tipped in favour of a successful film.

Don’t forget, The motion picture was a bit of a black hole as Sci-fi goes, released only 6 months before Empire Strikes Back, The Motion Picture was beset with the same problem that Star Wars had and still has to this day, a meddling creator with delusions of godhood in relation to the mythologies they create. At least Roddenberry had the good grace to die.

The Wrath of Khan was spared the meddling of Gene Roddenberry, a man who’s idea of a Utopian equalitarian society was one where women wore short skirts and did exactly what the men told them to, with a slap on the back side thrown in for good measure. Apparently Paramount woke up and smelled the coffee after the Motion Picture, here was this misogynistic pervert who’d been given free reign over a whopping $46 million budget and failed monumentally. No way, they were going to screw up a second time. If you adjust $46 million in 1979/80 – to today’s rates it’s about $100 million and that’s not world’s away from what JJ Abrams was given to make last years reboot  a probable $150 Million, which probably dedicated a third of its budget to marketing) The Motion Picture bombed, granted it made its money back eventually, but suffice to say second time around, they were not going to make same mistake again and thus Roddenberry, who was seen to be the issue, was dumped.

Bring on Harve Bennett, Nicholas Meyer, a paltry $11 Million budget (a potential $26 million by today’s standards) and taking all that into account they made an excellent film. Why?

Because it was a simple revenge tale, the story of a man obsessed with exacting cruel revenge. It was this core story, acted out by the wonderful Ricardo Montalban who reprises his role from the The Original Series episode - Space Seed (I think?) along side a lot of other typical Sci-Fi plot devices – but the core story was Khan vs Kirk. It was simple, it was without the complexities of intergalactic politics, religious orders of warrior monks suffering mid life crisis’ and cybernetic bad guys trussed up in black leather bothering young boys whilst breathing heavily.

No - it was about people, their relationships with one another and how the decisions of their past could one day come up and bite them in the arse. The central story, Khan, being marooned, along with – Kirk’s cheating on the Kobayashi Maroo and denying himself a chance to learn a valuable lesson, Carole Marcus not telling her son who his real daddy was, it all mounts up and comes to bite poor Kirk in the ass, towards the end of the film (and in to the next one- but less said about that the better). This central focus is vital to the film’s success, it’s all about people. Much like Empire Strikes Back, it was all about people, no politics, no religion and most importantly no second guessing the audience, no patronising bullshit characters and the list goes on.

You, the viewer are invested in these characters, not because of The Original Series or heaven forbid, The Motion Picture but the first twenty minutes of this film. We are reintroduced to the central characters, archetypes and all. You rediscover the different bonds between McCoy and Kirk, Kirk and Spock, Spock and McCoy the amusing ‘man love’ triangle the three characters have. It all adds up to the viewer being invested in the characters they’re following on this journey.

Another central aspect to the Wrath of Khan is the sense of place you have. You’re always reminded that you’re in a spaceship, it could be any setting for the revenge story to work, but the sense of Mythology is hammered home throughout, with naval style language used in reference to the ship and military style order. Just a general sense of team spirit, a mutual respect for one another, it makes you root for them. Much like Moore’s BSG would end up having in its first series

Star Trek II has a lot to answer for, yes it was excellent and it was an exemplary addition to the Star Trek cannon – It showed the world that a fantastic Sci-Fi film could be made on a minimal budget. It proved that series creators could be fired (and in certain cases SHOULD be – as it’ll ensure a better instalment) but most importantly it gave us Nicholas Meyer who, not once, but twice rescued Star Trek from itself, with Star Trek’s 2 and 6 – But it did also lay the groundwork for III and IV and they were bloody awful, let’s not go down this road again, suffice to say The Undiscovered Country was a vast improvement on the three films before. Funnily enough, The Undiscovered Country (The Title) was supposed to be the title of II as Spock was originally supposed to die and it was all about Kirk growing old and venturing into the titular undiscovered country of life without his friend, having grown old and becoming a parent etc.

So, in conclusion

Thankfully, JJ Abrams followed the same kind of revenge storyline with last year’s film, it was central to the whole time travel, red super goo, black hole, Old Spock/ New Spock storyline which, although slightly rushed at times, nailed every fundamental aspect of a good Star Trek movie, the embodiment of which is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

If you look at my highly technically advanced chart attached it will hopefully outline what I mean:

I think that the aforementioned diagram may clearly indicate that my personal favourites are in this order.....

1). Wrath of Khan

2). Abram’s reboot (Star Trek)

3). The Undiscovered Country

 And which of the films I think is bloody stupid!!!!

Kick-Ass - indeed it does, but why?

Those who have the misfortune to know me well, or at least have had a conversation with me at some point in the past will know that i'm not often forthcoming with praise about films and the like, but I have to say that having sat and watched Kick-Ass this week I find myself very much so back in love with Hollywood offerings.


Kick-Ass is a film that goes back to the 'KISS' theory of film making - (K)eep (I)t (S)imple, (S)tupid. Where film makers forego the notion of layering plotline after plotline of pointless rubbish to keep the ending a suprise and filling our screens with so many Effects, famous faces and the latest crappy pop song overtures by today's useless popular musicians.


Kick-Ass was a fun "super"-hero flick, no delusions of grandeur mired the marketing, it was a simple story, ticking every monomythical structure box that could be thrown at it. It was a revelation to feel a real sense of tension when things weren't going well and elation when events took a turn for the better. I haven't had a genuine experience like that since that 3rd season episode of BSG when the Galactica is free-falling in New Caprica's atmosphere whilst launching Viper's and the sense that they may actually get destroyed in orbit later on.


I digress, Kick-Ass really was an enjoyable experience, I have it on good authority that even Nicholas Cage was good in it, apparently i'm the only person on earth that enjoys his movies as a rule - My better half isn't so forgiving and thus her opinion of his performance is probably more accurate than mine, but I REALLY liked him in this.


The lead, he was okay, his cronies - they were okay too.


The real gem is - Chloe Moretz as Mindy Macready AKA: Hit Girl - It's not necessarily the Catch yoU Next Tuesday utterance that made me chuckle but the fact that no-one survives her and her introduction of hacking someone's leg off is particularly endearing - Of Hit Girl one can say, She is simply a vicious little cherub whose easy on the ears dialogue is spectacular at points and i'm sure Nicholas Cage's life was made infinitely easier during filming having an incredible performer to work with.


She was a credit to the film, unfortunately her performance will be forever mired with the inevitable bad language backlash that the media dish out whenever a youngster utters anything that respreents them as being anything other than sweet innocent children, the aforementioned Catch yoU Next Tuesday line is more representative of how children actually speak and have spoken like since this author was young. I'm glad the film makers kept it in and i'm glad it was her line.


Kick-Ass won't win any awards for originality, but what it does do is follow the rules of an entertaining and thoroughly endearing tale of good vs Evil, Right and Wrong and victory over adversity.


I love it, and highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't.

Never outnumbered, never outgunned - Iron Man II

It can't be easy to follow up a particularly well loved title and i'm trying to rack my brains with regards to whether or not Jon Favreau has pulled it off, so to speak with Iron Man 2. I went in, as most did with a certain amount of excitement. Remember 2008? and that despondent reservation which you had when you entered the auditorium for Iron Man. None of that this time. No reservations as to whether the guy who played Matt Murdock's bumbling Lawyer sidekick in the disappointing Daredevil could direct better than he could act (although he does play, yet another bumbling sidekick character in this...) Well last time he did it and very well indeed. It was Marvel's first solo foray into film production and it worked.

I enjoyed Iron Man 2, it was fun, funny and so self deprecatingly candid, maybe to the point of Emoism (that's a new word for Naval gazing without any real point, or benefit) I found it difficult to relate to the Tony Stark of this film, whereas in 2008's outing he was this almost autistic, eccentric, aristocratic jester, this time he was, for want of a better phrase a bit Emo.

Don't get me wrong here, I enjoyed this film immensely with so many nods to the mythology of the Marvel Universe and the wonderful semi reveal at the (VERY) end it was great fun. I won't go into the nods because, frankly they are the best bits of the film and the parts that probably kept me hooked in to the films jittery pace. Mickey Rourke was as intense as he was in the wrestler (in my opinion) and a very formidable foe, at least in his reveal at the race track. Scarlet Johannson's character was completely pointless, to have a single character that built up throughout the story for the sake of a pretty lame gag was a waste of a huge amount of screen time that could have been given to an actor with some real chops, in my honest opinion that was negligent to say the very least.

There was plenty of CG which was pretty nice, Casting my mind back the first one was very heavy on the CG, but it did teeter on the razor's edge, it nearly did what this did and that was go too far into the realm of robot wars.

I think my biggest complaint was, that there was very little humour in this film. Let's not forget that Iron man appeared before The Dark Knight in 2008 so the world had yet to be introduced to just how bleak the superhero movie could go and how "not ridiculous" these stories can be. Iron Man though had a campness about it that was lacking in this tale. Marvel's Iron man Comics were serious, I get it. Tony was a very serious character buried behind bravado and where comics have years to build up the Mythology, the movies have had a little over four hours in total. You have to cram it all in. I can forgive that, but that doesn't mean that other characters can't be sucked in to Tony's Ego and believe him to be impenetrable. Keep Pepper out of this equation as it's her job to be his quote unquote "wife" in the story but how snivelling was Don Cheadle's Roadie? We just didn't NEED that many people fluffing around Tony Stark. Nick Fury, Natalie, Roadie, Pepper Potts even the bloody Computer was whining at him. With that many Nay sayers around you it must be hard to take a dump let alone save the world from killer robots.

This film wasn't so much a case of Iron Man versus "cliche" bad guy but Tony Stark versus his friends and it's for that element of the story that I think Iron Man 2 lets its predecessor down, not that this is a bad film, but it really isn't a patch on the tight storytelling of the first instalment. The thing that REALY raped the story was the fact that the baddies were outnumbered and outgunned from the moment they entered the frame. Tony Stark was not for a second in that film made vulnerable, he was always surrounded in a bubble "of Love" from his friend's who kept protecting him. Even his dead father was around to help him.

There were two bad guys in this movie, one was pussy and the other was really only hard in the same way that Tony Stark is tough, with a robot suit that's impregnable unless he's completely outgunned by The good guys.

There were hundreds of good guys in this film. two in robot suits, one who's "the man" one who's supposed to be pretty and deadly and about fifty other sidekicks. With odds like that even an idiot chav heavily intoxicated by white lightning cider knows to avoid getting involve let alone someone as smart as a physicist whose father helped Howard Stark create Arc technology. I think Rourke did the best with what he was given and to be honest he was the best part of the whole film.

For Rourke's performance and the nods to the Marvel mythology this was a great film, it didn't quite meet my expectations and the bad guys never really had a chance of winning and the last battle seemed a little rushed in the edit. Still I like Iron man and was a pretty good romp.

Better late than never

So I went to see AVATAR and I really felt like I had to make a few comments, firstly being that I loved the film. A true return to top form for Mr. Cameron who let it slide somewhat with Titanic but nonetheless really brought his 'A' game for this film. The second comment probably won't go down too well with most, but the plot was very thin on the ground. Whilst the movie made some insanely huge steps forward in relation to film making, the storytelling was relatively straightforward. I'm not saying that the film suffered for this in any way. It was excellent and a joy to experience in 3d, even with two fuckwits persistently chatting throughout right in front of me. My enjoyment of the film was not in any way demeaned by the plot.

The message of the film was relatively simple, corporate America takes on Nature and loses, but in an extremely cool way - It really was pretty spectacular towards the end of the film. The film tended to stick to a relatively standard monomythical structure throughout and whilst it told the story in a very new and unique way, I couldn't help feel that the technology behind the camera was dictating an awful lot of what was going on in front of the camera. Perhaps teetering on the edge of overwhelming it, but not quite doing so which makes it pretty hard to not love this film.

At the beginning of the story, conversations between characters that would have been conducted in offices and still had the same dramatic impact were immediately moved to other locations for want of a FX shot. In parts it almost came accros as ignore the story here, but check out what we can do with our new toys. Don't get me wrong here, i'm not saying I didn't buy in, I did and in a huge way. In retrospect there could have been a monumental evolutionary leap forward in film making here that would have truly stamped this production into the minds of generations going forward a hundred years or so, much like a modern Citizen Kane or whatever.

I'm not so sure that in our mass consumer mind set that AVATAR is going to have the longevity of a Star Wars or the endearing nature of a Lord of The Rings. Not to say that this film wasn't good, or that it didn't do what it said it was going to do. It all played the same sort of tune that Jurassic Park and Independence Day did to me. Look at what we can do, leave your brain at home and enjoy the wonderment of special effects.

**But**

They were pretty damned amazing and the story did enough for me, to propel one into the sparse mythology that was provided and buy in wholesale to the notion that something pretty phenomenal was being played out in front of me.

It looked good, the message was conveyed and it did what it said it was going to do - and thank god it wasn't a bloody 80's remake or reboot. It was original and it was beautiful. Fine it wasn't the Hollywood redeemer film that I wanted it to be, but it was a bloody good nod in the right in the right direction and I can't wait for more.

All I'll say in my humble opinion is that the technical process was nailed, combine that with an excellent script and he really will have revolutionised filmaking.

Still, definitely one of the best event movies of recent history.

Two Thumbs up from me.