[Games] LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (PS3)

Looking over our collection of PS3 games, it's pretty obvious that there's a LEGO fan in the house. In terms of our home, Sietch Creare, that person would be me. Tobie had his LEGO period as well, of course, but I could refine the statement and say that there's a major fan of the LEGO-based video games.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is an attempt to apply the LEGO formula to another George Lucas creation - the Indiana Jones movies. I suppose it was an easy enough transition given their success with the Star Wars games, but I wasn't totally sold on how popular this franchise would be among younger audiences. And these games typically go for that particular market.

But the game was still a decent amount of fun, although it did not make it to the mandatory achievement trophy requirement for the PlayStation Network. Still, I worked my way through the game and decided to formally review it today.

[Movies] Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Well, it's D-day, or perhaps more like "3D-Day" if you get my drift. By the time this posts, The Phantom Menace would have debuted in local theaters while it's just about ready for release in a few hours over in the US. I can only wonder if people will still line-up for the midnight screenings for a movie they've already seen, albeit in 2D.

But back on topic, this also marks the last of this series of review of all the different Star Wars movies, which has been a rather enjoyable adventure in review blogging for me as well. I've seen all of the movies multiple times (and yes, that includes the prequels) but to really take some time to think about each movie and how I felt about it has certainly been an interesting and somewhat insightful experience.

The bigger challenge is trying to rate each movie relative to the others and yet still in a consistent manner. At least in terms of this exercise, I get to lay out all six movies in a row and sort of go back and forth between them until I come to a decision I like. It would have been a lot harder to have rated the movies as they came out - well, harder mainly in terms of figuring out the scale of things as you go along and as other movies enter the fray in order to provide greater perspective and alternative points of comparison.

But enough of that - let's just geek out about Star Wars now.

[Movies] Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

It's kind of crazy how quickly we've been going through the Star Wars movies in this review series - or perhaps it's just crazy how the past 5 weeks have passed us all by so quickly.

But that's neither here nor there - we're here to continue to review all of the Star Wars movies and finally add them to my movie review archive. This started as a sort of timely effort to get this item off my blogging bucket list given the upcoming release of The Phantom Menace in 3D this month but also because I've really enjoyed this franchise, despite the horrible prequel trilogy.

This movie tends to stand out versus all the others and is often cited as the best of the franchise. Perhaps it's because it's one of the few Star Wars films not directed by George Lucas. Maybe because it had such a dark and gritty mood to it that made things more realistic and less like a fairy tale. Or perhaps we all just love bounty hunters and cities in the clouds and guys who wear capes. Yeah, we totally dig the capes.

Whatever the reason, this is definitely one of the must-see movies in the franchise and a personal favorite, if I may be so bold.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Wow, I can't believe we're already starting the reviews for the original trilogy of Star Wars movies. Where has this month been going? Does time really go by this fast when you're having so much geeky fun?

Regardless, we press on, yes?

This is part of an on-going series of blog reviews where I finally post my thoughts on all of the 6 Star Wars movies. It's just my little way of celebrating the upcoming release of The Phantom Menace in 3D this February, whether or not this whole 3D translation is necessarily a good thing for the franchise as a whole. I'm weird that way.

Admittedly we're going to look at things with respect to the Special Edition of the movies that was re-released in theaters around the time the prequels started up a well. Purists may argue against this stance, but you have to admit the new version is supposedly closer to George Lucas' original vision and thus merits some study. Plus it's the more commercially available version now, thus it's what more people are going to end up watching whether on DVD or on whatever pay TV movie channel happens to be showing it.

[Movies] Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Continuing my efforts to review all of the Star Wars movies in time for the re-release of The Phantom Menace in 3D this February, we're now on the final prequel movie and one that really had the task of capping off our return to the Star Wars universe in 2005. The whole prequel trilogy was quite the mixed bag, to be certain, but one can't really argue against how it was still a geek milestone that brought the Star Wars franchise back into public awareness after so many years of not being in theaters.

But did we really want things to end the way that they did? Was this the key bridge piece that we envisioned when the opening scrawl of the first movie started and revealed that we were actually watching the fourth episode of a larger franchise and not precisely the first? I figure geeks like myself will continue to debate this question well past the shelf life of these movies given how much the prequels both excited and yet also polarized audiences.

But still, it was interesting to get a glimpse of George Lucas' original vision for the story, even if it turned into a bit of a misshapen mutant thing that screams "Nooooo" a lot. It is a bit of a geek dream - to be able to revisit something you created so many years ago and revitalize the franchise with new material that still fits in the overall theme of things. And whether we thought the story was good or not becomes somewhat beside the point - the movies were made and now they are part of the overall history of the franchise. And that may not be a bad thing in itself.

[Movies] Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Continuing this series of Star Wars movie reviews in commemoration of the re-release of the films in 3D (not that I want to shell out money for this), we now come to the "second" movie in terms of the franchise's continuity timeline.

Okay, that last sentence ended in a bit of a mouthful. I apologize.

Now given how the first movie certainly generated a strong reaction among the fans, it's funny how a lot of us still trekked back to the theaters to catch the next installment. Are we that stubborn? Do we put that much value in the franchise as a whole over the immediate experience of a really bad prequel? Or are we just that starved for decent science fiction entertainment outside of superhero movie remakes that we go see almost anything with spaceships in it?

I exaggerate I know, but I think you can appreciate that I'm coming from a good place. Or at least a rather geeky one.

So upwards and onwards to the review proper!

[Movies] Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

When it was announced that Lucasfilm would be re-releasing all of the Star Wars movies in 3D starting February 10, 2012, I figured that it would be fun to do something to mark this little event in geek history - not that I feel overly compelled to pay extra to watch the movies again just for the sake of 3D. And given how things go, the Geeky Guide just happens to not have reviews for any of the Star Wars movies. Weird.

So starting today and continuing on every Friday thereafter, I'll be reviewing each of the Star Wars movies in "chronological" order with respect to the saga's internal continuity and not their original release dates as movies. I'm sure it's going to be a rather interesting experience for all of us.

And yes, I have noticed that I don't have reviews for all the Star Trek movies either, and I promise to rectify that before the new movie comes out in 2013. Honest. There is the new movie coming out next year after all, so that requires some appropriate preparations. But I digress.

[Star Wars] Messing With The Classics

Image via WikipediaThere's been a lot of press buzz going around related to the additional changes made to the Star Wars films in line with the debut of the Blu-ray collection of these iconic movies. One could argue that this is nothing more than the kind of backlash George Lucas first received when he created the "Special Edition" of the original trilogy, which consisted of updates made to the first three movies mainly related to the inferior special effects technology available at the time.

However this is a lot more than just tweaking the excessive black edges where different sets of footage were spliced together or the lack of CGI alien creatures in a busy starport. These have included some strange thematic changes that have altered the narrative to some extent or tried to present additional insight into certain sections of the movie.

So I figured today was as good a day as any to try and discuss some of the changes and weigh in on the modifications as best as can be expected.

[Movies] THX 1138 Director's Cut (1971/2004)

It's interesting how directors and pretty much anyone in the movie industry develop over time. As much as we always remember them for their landmark works that change the face cinema as we know it, you won't necessarily find similar styles, themes or techniques in their earlier works when they were still honing their craft. Thus it becomes quite the interesting experience to go back into their movie history to see how they were like before they hit it big and really started to define their art style or niche.

Now George Lucas remains a landmark director and filmmaker for many reasons. Of course he's best known for epic adventure franchises like Star Wars and the Indiana Jones series but it's interesting to note that he started out with a somewhat more serious style and tone to his films that seems somehow further away from his more mass market appeal movies that made him truly famous.

It just goes to show that you can never really figure out which film student is going to become the next big thing just based on how they were in their early years.