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thedeaditeslayer · 5 years

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Josh Becker interview: Thriving, surviving and doing it his way.

Here’s yet another interview from 1428 Elm except with Josh Becker. You can support the Evil Dead/Michigan Mafia alumni by giving his latest film Morning, Noon & Night a look. You can read the interview at the link above or attached below.

Josh Becker is a talented writer and director whose film school was the Super 8 shorts that he made with pals, Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Scott Spiegel while growing up in Detroit. Known for quirky films like Lunatics: A Love Story and his ode to Hitchcock and film noir, Running Time, he is a maverick with a unique voice in a cookie cutter Hollywood.

Josh Becker is an independent filmmaker who honed his craft writing and directing majority of the Super 8 shorts featuring Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Rob Tapert and Scott Spiegel. Known for his candor and his innovative approach to moviemaking, he is a modern-day storyteller.

Currently, in post-production on his western, Warpath, (which coincidentally sparked a murder investigation but more on that later) we were fortunate enough that the director was able to take some time out of his busy schedule to chat with us.

So, without further ado, here is our interview.

The Interview

Birth of a Maverick

1428 Elm: When you were growing up in Detroit, did you always want to be a director? Was that what you originally set out to do?

Josh Becker: When I was a young kid, I first wanted to be an actor. Then, when I came to realize there was such a thing as a director, perhaps when I was 9 or 10, I switched goals.

1428 Elm: Everyone knows how Sam and Bruce met initially. How did you become a part of the group?

JB: My family moved to Franklin in 1968 and the Raimi family moved in around the block from us a few months later. I immediately became best friends with Ivan Raimi, Sam’s older brother, then soon became friends with the whole family. At that point I was in 4th grade and Sam was in 3rd grade. Then, when I started junior high (now called middle school), the lockers were alphabetical and about five lockers down from me was Bruce Campbell. We became buddies and were both in the drama club and in a play together. That’s where we met Scott Spiegel. Then, the next year, Sam started junior high and became friends with Scott and Bruce and that’s when we all started making Super-8 movies together.

1428 Elm: You cut your teeth as a director on the Super 8 shorts. What was your most memorable shoot?

JB: The many various slapstick comedies, like: “The Blind Waiter” and “Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter” were all fun to make, but my epic was “Stryker’s War,” which I spent $5,000 making. That was my biggest, and most memorable Super-8.

The Lunatic Is on the Grass

1428 Elm: Umbrella Entertainment recently released Lunatics: A Love Story. I feel this is one of your underrated gems. Very trippy. What was the inspiration for this movie? How did Bruce become involved as a producer?

JB: The inspiration was my desperate need to make another movie and make some money. I got the idea from listening to Pink Floyd, and when they sang, “The lunatic is on the grass,” I thought, “Hey, no one has yet used “lunatic” as a title. I then dreamed up a story to go with it and pitched it to Sam and Rob. They liked it and optioned it. After a year of development (meaning 14 rewrites), they hired Bruce to produce the film.

1428 Elm: Running Time is another terrific film of yours. Everyone knows about the “single take” like Hitchcock’s Rope. Tell us something that isn’t common knowledge about the film.

JB: It’s nearly ready to come out on Blu-Ray from Synapse Films. I wrote an essay about it that’s in my book “Rushes” that explains everything. It was shot on film so there’s a hidden cut every five minutes. I think it turned out pretty well and I know Bruce likes it a lot.

1428 Elm: For those of us that like the 50’s style B-movie sci-fi thrillers, Alien Apocalypse is a great deal of fun. Do you remember your pitch to the SyFy Channel?

JB: I didn’t pitch it to SyFy. Bruce and I were working with a now long-defunct company who pitched SyFy on making any movies with Bruce, and they said “send us some scripts.” I dug out “Alien Apocalypse” (which was 14 years old) and Bruce dug out “The Man with the Screaming Brain” (which was 16 years old) then at some point not too long later we were in Bulgaria making both films. I never talked to SyFy at all about it.

“Everybody’s Gotta Choose Their Own Poison”

1428 Elm: Morning, Noon & Night is getting a special showing in Royal Oak, MI on June 6. This is a darkly comedic take on addictions which relies on actually telling a story which isn’t something filmmakers do anymore. Can you see Hollywood ever getting back to doing that and where can our readers view this film?

JB: “Morning, Noon & Night” is available right now on Amazon — and will soon be on many other platforms, too. I can’t see the future, but I can’t imagine Hollywood correcting itself any time soon. It’s a thousand times easier to do sequels and remakes then to come up with a good story that everybody agrees on. I think the entire Hollywood system is broken.

1428 Elm: Let’s talk about your latest production, Warpath. Something unusual happened when you were doing pick-ups. Gerry Kissell told me about it. Can you tell our readers the story because it sounds like an incident that would be on the ID Channel?

JB: Well, “Warpath,” which will probably be fully done by July, just had its final pick-up shoot a few days ago where we got the few missing shots we still needed. As we were shooting in the woods not far from my house, folks in the cast and the crew kept mentioning a funky odor. Finally, someone pushed back a pile of branches and underneath was a decomposed human body. Suddenly, my set became a crime scene. The police showed up and we all had to fill out witness reports. Then me and the co-producer quickly found a new location, hustled everybody and everything over there and got all of the remaining shots.

1428 Elm: Wow. That’s crazy!

JB: That pile of branches is in the foreground and background of a couple of shots, so it will be in the film.

**An interesting footnote to add regarding this unfortunate turn of events, one of the cast members, Joaquin Guerrero is an active duty K-9 officer. He stepped in and took charge of the situation before local law enforcement arrived. According to the actor/officer:

“My main concern was preserving the scene and the well-being of the crew, because of the traumatic effect it may have on them afterwards.”

Riding Off into the Sunset

1428 Elm: You have an impressive cast, horror vets Thom Matthews and Ted Raimi. The film synopsis sounds like a fresh take on The Searchers. Are you a fan of Westerns? This feels like a new subject for you to tackle.

JB: I’ve always been a fan of westerns. I was the film critic for True West Magazine just a few years ago. “Warpath” certainly owes something to “The Searchers,” although in this case it’s a wife out looking for her husband, with the aid of a tough bounty hunter played by Thom. I’ve always wanted to make a western and now I have. I think it turned well, and the lead, Sasha Higgins, is terrific. Thom has aged into the perfect Marlboro man and plays it wonderfully.

1428 Elm: Do you have any upcoming projects in the pipeline? Anything you can talk about?

JB: As for the future, me and my cohorts at Panoramic Pictures — one of whom is Gary Jones, maker of such cult classics as “Mosquito” and “Spiders” — are gearing up to make my JFK script that was previously called “Head Shot” but has been retitled to “I Killed Kennedy.” It’s the account of how the assassination really came down and the professional hit men who were brought in from France by the mafia who actually did the shooting, as well as how Oswald got set up, then murdered. Th-th-that’s all, folks.

Thanks so much to Josh Becker for speaking with us. We look forward to seeing Warpath.

#Josh Becker #Lunatics: A Love Story #running time #Warpath #Morning Noon & Night

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latestnews2018-blog · 6 years

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The Time Proto Zoa From 'Zenon' Was More Popular Than William F**king Shakespeare

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/the-time-proto-zoa-from-zenon-was-more-popular-than-william-fking-shakespeare/

The Time Proto Zoa From 'Zenon' Was More Popular Than William F**king Shakespeare

Last year Phillip Rhys was touring William Shakespeare’s former residence outside London when he spotted a huddle of whispering girls, but he thought nothing of it.

“Sometimes you kind of know when you’re being recognized,” the former Disney actor admitted, “but because I was in the home of the greatest playwright of all time, I was mildly distracted ― more interested in that.”

By the time he reached the exit, the murmuring was impossible to ignore. “Oh, my God, are you Proto Zoa?” one of the girls asked

He replied “yes,” and “these young American girls” started screaming, he said. “I thought, ‘We’re in the home of William fucking Shakespeare! Let’s honor this moment. Forget Proto Zoa. This is what we should be pulling our hair about.’”

Instead, hair was pulled over a star of “Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century,” a 1999 movie about teens who live on a space station orbiting Earth in 2049. “I go, ‘Oh, isn’t that funny?’” Rhys recalled. “Popular culture trumps the Bard.”

Even after almost two decades, Proto Zoa could still make hearts go boom boom.

Disney; Getty

Phillip Rhys as Proto Zoa in 1999’s “Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century” and in 2011.

So, yes, fans regularly recognize Rhys, who rode a Disney Channel wave to fame like his colleagues Hilary Duff, Bella Thorne and Zac Efron. Playing the movie’s intergalactic rock star character made him, as he put it in an interview with HuffPost, a ”prepubescent Bradley Pitt for the mid-’90s.”

Twenty years later, the mania persists. Ikea cashiers have been known to spontaneously jump over registers to hug him.

In the time since “Zenon,” Rhys has appeared in roles for TV shows such as “Nip/Tuck” and “24,” has had parts in Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” and Al Pacino’s “Salome” and directed a short film starring Sandra Oh called “The Scarecrow.”

Now Rhys is starring in Syfy’s upcoming series “Nightflyers,” based on George R.R. Martin’s novella about an ill-fated space voyage. Rhys joins the series as Murphy, a systems engineer who is said to be very busy in the premiere.

“[Proto Zoa} is back in space years later!” Rhys joked.

His perspective on acting has changed since his Disney days, when screaming fans were the sign of a job well done. “Jobs I get now feel earned, and they seem to fit better with the richer and more diverse life I try and live,” he said. “A life that isn’t about just acting. It’s a much healthier place to come from.”

Part of that more diverse, healthier outlook comes from what has happened in his personal life. He is now married with a son. So you could say Rhys is done looking for his supernova girl. At least he would.

“I found her,” he said with a laugh. “Oh, my God, she chuckles with that.”

During our conversation, Rhys divulged as much as he could about “Nightflyers,” graciously looked back on the “Zenon” franchise and (zetus lapetus!) teased a possible Proto Zoa return.

What is it like being in space again?

The ship’s a lot bigger. The craft services is healthier, maybe? No, it’s great. You know, this production, it feels very special. There’s a certain energy on the set where we all feel like we’re involved in something that people are engaged in, excited to see. We’re doing a lot of firsts. We’re using augmented reality, which I had no idea what it was at the time ― deals with depths of field. There’s all sorts of fancy perspective where we can look outside the ship and see Earth going by. We’re using these lenses Ridley Scott used back in the day, [with] this dirty sci-fi feel to it. [It’s a] much more real, grittier vibe. Everything is anamorphic lenses. It’s like you’re getting a 10-hour movie.

Why were you interested in “Nightflyers”? What makes it so special?

They’re pushing certain boundaries … The guys who are running that, they’re about story. It’s not about what’s cool. We all love a cool shot. We all love a cool image, but at the end of the day, if the story sucks, you’ll get the kids for a moment, and they won’t be coming back. The story has to sustain, and they’re coming from that place. When you’re working with a George R.R. Martin, he knows story.

How involved was George R.R. Martin? Was he able to be on set, or was it just kind of approving things from behind the scenes?

I believe it’s the latter. Yes, they’ve taken the novella, and they’ve gone at it. I don’t know how much material was there for a 10-episode season for the first season or even subsequent seasons, but they’ve used that as a launching pad, a jumping-off point. Much to his blessing, he’s endorsed it all. He’s been very positive about what he’s seen, and I think due to contractual reasons with HBO, he can’t be a creative on this, but we’re at least allowed to say “from the mind of George R.R. Martin.”

Of course, your first foray into space was in “Zenon.” What’s it like looking back on it?

I’m incredibly proud of it because, by all accounts, it should’ve just been another kids’ TV movie. Even when I read it, I said, “This is good. This is really good.” I went in with a specific thing. I said, “If I’m going to play this role, I’m going to do it like this.” I think I was doing a play at that time … so this was an amalgamation of this character I’d done in a play … [Proto Zoa] wasn’t written English, and it wasn’t written with blond hair [or with] that swagger … I went in, and I did it, and they were incredibly open to it.

We had a screening a few months later. It was really well received. I watched it with my adult friends at the time, and they thought nothing of it. Just, “What the fuck are you doing wiggling your hips around?” It was lost on us. It was lost on kids in their 20s. It wasn’t for them. It was for a generation before us and even younger than that, and it clicked. It really clicked, and I can’t believe it.

It still comes up, especially on social media. Have you seen the comparisons to Guy Fieri? People say that’s what Proto Zoa looks like today.

Oh, yes. I have seen this. I’m fine [with it]. I’ll be honest with you, I had no idea who he was, not until that moment. So the first time I saw it, I said, “Who is this guy?” So I looked him up. OK, I’m fine. It’s all, you know, if people are looking and talking about your work in a reasonably positive way, I’m fine with it. And Guy, I’m sure, is great at what he does. He’s a cook, right?

Yeah, he’s a celebrity chef.

OK, so I don’t really watch those programs, but God bless him. God bless him if I could one day be Mr. Guy Fieri. I probably should watch the shows, and I could learn from him if we ever did a 20-year reunion, a “Zenon” reunion. I could bring some of his flair. Maybe he’s a chef now, Proto Zoa.

Guy Fieri is Protozoa from Zenon grown up pic.twitter.com/0A6OhGR9oT

— woooooooooof (@gilwoof) May 8, 2014

I mean, the 20th anniversary is next year.

Where do you see Proto Zoa 20 years later?

He’d be a manager for the next hot band, selling the next boy group or something to the world. And living off-world, probably because the polar ice caps have melted and all of it. It’d be a bit of a downer. It’d be a post-apocalyptic “Zenon.” Everyone would be in boats.

Boats that could go in space, I hope.

Oh, my goodness. That immediately is the second thought you go to. Could my hair sustain all that peroxide? Jeez. That was a summer I was playing a lot of musicians, and I shot the first “Zenon” in September, so I just did a whole summer of various degrees of musicians, successful and otherwise, so I had let the peroxide grow out. I went and auditioned like that, and they were like, “We love it. We love the hair,” and I was like, “Oh, Christ.” I was actually going to dye it back normal, and they’re like, “No, keep it. Keep it.”

Does Billy Idol still wear [his hair with] the peroxide?

Actually, yeah, he does. I saw him with it on “The Voice.”

Does he? He’s still rocking that hairdo? I need to Google him. What about Bowie? He was a dirty brunet always going around as blond.

Yeah, I mean, David Bowie changed his look a lot.

I took a bit from Bowie, a bit from Elvis, a bit from Liberace, I think. That’s “Zenon.”

Are you still friends with Zenon?

I haven’t seen Zenon [Kirsten Storms] in a while, no. Holly Fulger, who plays Judy, I see her every now and then for a coffee. We catch up.

When I think about “Zenon,” obviously one of the most memorable things was your song.

Zoom, zoom, zoom. Make my heart go boom, boom, boom.

With that, we had Michael Jackson’s choreographer come up to Vancouver. Suzanne de Passe managed the Jackson 5, and she produced “Zenon,” so it was heavy. This gentlemen came up and was like, “OK, let’s do it. Let’s do this choreography dance number,” and I was like, “I have two left feet.” I was like, “Hold on, hold on, hold on.” It was kind of like the day before we were going to shoot, and … [the choreographer] does this, “You gotta go left, right, chassé, twirl with the guitar, play the song, and go!” I did it, I fell over myself, and it was ridiculous, and seeing the producer’s face, they were like, “What the fuck have we got here?” Because every actor says they can do everything, right? Until you’re on set. The band were much better than I, so if you look, the band was doing most of the dancing, and I was just doing two steps to the left and two steps to the right.

Wow, and that was Michael Jackson’s choreographer?

Yeah, one of the guys at the time, whoever that was. Yep, so when we did the second [movie], they were aware of my limitations as a dancer. I did a lot more pointing in the sequel. Just put your feet on the ground, just start pointing to the stars and the galaxy.

How do you feel about the aliens basically using Proto Zoa to get to Zenon in the “Zequel”?

Bastards! Right? I know, they used me as this conduit. I was used and abused.

Why weren’t you in the third one, “Z3”?

I was shooting “Nip/Tuck” at the time, and … I was committed to it. It was Ryan Murphy’s first big thing, and I just couldn’t leave, really. I actually know the gentleman who played Proto Zoa [in the third], though, bizarrely enough. After a few months, he came into my world. I met him via a friend, and he’s a lovely guy. That’s not easy taking over the role. He’s American. He had to do an English accent as well. That’s tough, just not fair.

For sure. Nathan Anderson is his name. He’s a lovely guy.

I’ve seen this debated, but was it “zetus lapetus” or “cetus lapetus”?

Didn’t she go “zetus lapetus”? It’s a Z. But she’s pronouncing it with an S … “cetus lapetus,” right? Yeah, when I hear it. What’s the Earth translation?

“Crap” is probably better for Disney. The movie also predicted Chelsea Clinton would be president.

More of her discussions in the media have been politically skewed, I think. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, right? And maybe she’ll want to right the wrong of whatever happened at the last election. I wouldn’t bet against them, but what happened with Ivanka Trump? Wasn’t part of her agreement with daddy that she would also run at some point and they would get behind her?

So you think it could be Clinton vs. Trump again?

Because they were friends pre–this nonsense? Maybe a Clinton-Trump showdown.

Possibly in a new “Zenon.”

A new “Zenon” would be perfect, right?

Brad Barket / Getty Images

Rhys attending the Tribeca Film Festival Shorts in New York City in 2016, with stars of his short film “The Scarecrow,” Sandra Seacat and Darren Pettie.

What have been the biggest challenges you’ve overcome since “Zenon”? What have you learned in that time?

What I learned from 20 years as an actor? The obstacle is the path. When you’re denied the roles and jobs you think you want, it forces you to get even clearer on what you really want and why. It forces you to be at peace with the outcome and look for other things in life to fulfill you creatively. By doing this, you discover your unique truth and what’s valuable to you … so when a job does come along you want, you can basically take it or leave it … There’s less fear or desperation in and around the work.

So what’s next? You directed “The Scarecrow.” Do you want to direct a feature, or are you planning on focusing more on acting?

None of it is mutually exclusive. I’d like to direct a feature. I’d like to continue very much on “Nightflyers” and other shows of comparable quality, stuff that’s good stuff, that challenges me in front of or behind the camera. I mean, if you’d asked me a week before I’m shooting this pilot, I never thought I’d be on a George R.R. Martin show. These things happen, they present themselves, and you grab them when they’re good.

And there’s always the possibility for another “Zenon.” Gary Marsh, president of Disney Channels Worldwide, even said there could even be a “Zenon” TV show. Would you be into that?

Yes, I read that. I heard about it too. We’ll see. Maybe they’ll commission the writers and stuff. I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything. Actors are usually the last people to hear. I would be open to it, of course. Of course.

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focalwriterworks · 6 years

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ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY

The path to new Star Wars stories has been carved and cut and whether you like this first one or not—the first live action Star Wars product to arrive outside of the Skywalker saga (and by product let’s call it Star Wars product B, C, or D to the original main series A)—it's a success for Disney. And though it’s different, let’s say it has a pleasant Star Wars veneer, it still works competitively well in the new episodic, binge watching digital TV and theater world we live in.

The Story: A band of Alliance Rebels—think French and British underground rebels fighting the Nazis in WWII—know the power and destruction of the Empire’s latest weapon called the Death Star. They must at all costs steal the digital blueprints of the planet-destroying spaceship in order to stop the tyranny of an army in possession of such a fearsome device. We do indeed see the Death Star’s strength in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) for which that film acts as a sequel, sort of, to this prequel. Central to the rebel endeavor is Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, whose father Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is one of the weapon’s creators.

The Goods: For the Disney business model, and for Star Wars fans, the film is a huge plus. There is already, and there will continue to be, endless products and programming as the Mouse that bought Luscasfilm for $4 billion in 2012 will be story-mining details of previous films and characters from those films for decades to come. And this will be for all demographics and age groups regardless of whether those products are critically received or not. Which brings us to this semi-inaugural film—not animated like Star Wars Rebels, the Lego Star Wars films or Star Wars: The Clone Wars—but linked in terms of the Rebels’ fight, in a space war, with the Empire just like all of the films and ancillary TV and game commodities before it.

Most diehard fanatics who were there in 1977 won't feel the same however, for Rogue One, as a younger crowd might but that's why rolling these new items out every few years is important—it’s a scientific, mathematic equation that Disney’s quantitative assessment analysts have forecasted accurately—that they will continue to reach out and appeal to a new generation at every turn. But it’s important to point out, spoiler free, that they didn't ruin Star Wars. Disney and Rogue One director Gareth Edwards didn’t harm the Star Wars legacy or universe in any way, and that’s very important to know going into Rogue One.

The genius of all this is that it’s probably impossible to do so because the originals, Episode IV, V, and VI sort of exist in this historic vacuum. Yes, in Rogue One they use props, tools, machines, wardrobe and uniforms from previous films—from the 1977 original, specifically—and used one of an infinite amount of moments from Star Wars lore for the Rogue One story but the rest as a whole is mostly a digression like you might see in a midseason episode of The Walking Dead, or Game of Thrones. That’s to say it’s not a massively impressive “episode” (like season five episode eight of Game of Thrones, Wildlings vs. Walkers) that makes you drool for more, or want to tell people about it the next day at work, even wanting to talk about it with people who don’t watch. Rather that Rogue One is more like one of those sort of book-to-TV adapted filler episodes with 70% talking and character development, and 30% action. Which still gives us the goods to keep us watching until next week though not as hair raising.

Though Rogue One is not as aesthetically pleasing or paced as well as Edwards’ other films, Monsters (2010) and Godzilla (2014), and I can’t believe I’m saying a Godzilla film is better than a Star Wars film, Rogue One is still well put together in terms of the story and plot territory it covers and the actual war battle sequences that ensue. The best parts of Rogue One are the actual “star wars” dog fights between the Rebel X-Wing fighters and the Empire’s TIE fighters, and blaster-laden land battles in exotic locations, which are extremely well done. And then there’s Darth Vader. Vader makes an appearance in the film, not a spoiler here because you see him in the trailers, but let's just say his appearance in the film and the lead-up to Episode IV is worth the cost of admission.

The Flaws: Edwards knows Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick well. He is a student of great cinema, and you can see that in his other work. Most of the awesome, wide vistas and images of great breadth we see in the trailers for Rogue One—very similar to use of great spatial dimensions on screen in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and found in John Ford films—are missing from Rogue One’s finished presentation and seem to be only found in production stills used in marketing and advertising. In that respect the ads sell a completely different, expansive, wide screen creative work that is opposite of the quick, short, almost TV-like one we see in Rogue One.

It is a well done cover of a Star Wars original, certainly not part of their flagship class A line. To think they may have purposefully set out to make a Star Wars film, for the big screen, that doesn’t try as hard to be better than the rest is disappointing. Like purposefully not using certain John Williams created Star Wars score cues to amplify emotional moments as heard in the A films. Instead there is a completely new though familiar sounding accompaniment to keep the films separate, while visually keeping it all in the family, which defeats the purpose really. Especially when Rogue One needs that familiar Star Wars theme to help when solid character development fails.

In reality Rogue One is no different then something you might see in an NBC Heroes episode circa 2006, or Agents of Shield, or something from the early 2000's on the Syfy channel, like Battlestar Galactica from 2004. That is to say polished, action oriented with long sequences of dialogue for budget purposes. And while several “shows” from the ‘60’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s paved the way for Netflix, Prime, HBO, Hulu and their bread and butter serial TV, Heroes and Galactica stand out as the kind of new kid on the block products these streaming channels gunned for. Rogue One could be a part of that category. Even though it’s not TV it certainly feels like it. Not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just not of the Class A Star Wars echelon we’re familiar with when we go to the theater.

Here’s what watching Rogue One felt like to me: since I mentioned Battlestar Galactica, if you saw the original Star Wars film in 1977, in a theater, and then a year or so later saw Battlestar Galactica, the movie, in the theater, you would understand what it feels like to see Rogue One. Sure they’re different, absolutely. And how can you compare anything to the original Star Wars. George Lucas sued the producers of Battlestar Galactica for certain technical similarities to Star Wars: A New Hope, and John Dykstra who was a special effects supervisor on A New Hope also worked on Battlestar Galactica. Regardless, one felt like the greatest space adventure ever while the other felt like the TV pilot space war surrogate that it was. And that’s sort of what we’re talking about here. Coming from a huge Star Wars fan.

Again, I can’t say enough of how much I appreciate and applaud what Disney and Lucasfilm have done. But it doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws. The major error for me in Rogue One (as if I haven’t been critical enough) is the very limited but highly visible use of computer graphics to create two well known Star Wars characters. It's great CG animation, don’t get me wrong, but it's also noticeable as such. So when the rest of the film looks incredibly real, in terms of old school model making and matte paintings, and shooting on location, when none of the characters are animated and along comes a cartoon you really know and feel it and it removes you quickly from the film. Not quite Jar Jar Binks distraction, but along those lines. More like in Tron: Legacy (2010) when Jeff Bridges' computer likeness appeared.

When George Lucas did this with the prequels, Episodes I, II and III, he interweaved an equal amount of human actors with computer generated ones and the finished product while at first was hard to swallow soon turned into a crafty, acceptable balance we learned to live with through those three films. Like watching a foreign film with subtitles, or a Shakespearean British drama, it takes a good fifteen to twenty minutes to get into it and assimilate the presentation. Whereas here when suddenly after an hour of solid human interaction we get an artificial actor well it just feels out of the norm. There’s not enough of it seasoned throughout the film to allow us to get comfortable with it. Sort of cool, yes. But it fails the movie in its disruption. Especially when compared to nostalgic, organic realism of 2015’s Episode VII, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The Call: Spend the ten. Regardless of my personal petty criticisms, as a long-time Star Wars fan, Rogue One has some hot action adventure sequences—though not as many as talking ones—and an appearance by the one and only Darth Vader (voiced once again, thankfully, by the great James Earl Jones). Kudos to Disney and Kathleen Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm, for successfully planning, executing and inaugurating the Star Wars Story line for Star Wars where we are sure to see a Star Wars story for everyone. And on every device.

Running time is 2 hours and 14 minutes. Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of sci-fi violence and action.

By Jon Lamoreaux

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