That's still one of my favorite movies. Just friggin love it. Hollywood could take a lesson on it; how you're supposed to do a sequel. They have forgotten since then.

The problem with sequels, especially in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Action genres, is that a lot of them are more heavily dependent on special effects and CGI than they are on plot and character development. Classic example: the original Star Wars trilogy versus the prequel trilogy. Red Letter Media provides a really in-depth, often hilarious, breakdown of Episodes I/II/III.

Or, as I like to say: "Memo to George Lucas - I don't care about high polygon count, shaded, textured, smooth CGI computerized special effects. I wanna see a movie about Jedi's I care about."

You know, speaking of those trilogies, I want to ask you this. Do you ever look at the CG effects of movies like the prequel trilogy, and everything just seems off somehow?

When I sat in theaters and watched episodes I and II, everything looked so polished, shiney, new...pristine, even. The CG was done to such a degree that it just...looked unrealistically clean. City scenes without a speck of dust or dirt. No chipped paint, just everything perfect. Too perfect.

I compare that to episode IV, where Luke is plodding around in his little pod car. It's dirty, grungy. It looks like it had been through a lot of crap from driving around in that desert, rocky planet. It looked more real than the CG from episode I.

I suppose I'm complaining that graphics are getting to the point where everything looks too perfect to be real? Bring back the props man!

It's been years since I've seen the prequels, but from what I remember, the CGI didn't look blatantly off, but it was still weird to look at, in its own subtle way. Like the actors didn't really look like they belonged in that environment. And a lot of films that require over-use of CGI sets are guilty of looking weird. About the only film I actually thought where the CGI set looked like it was used effectively was Sin City. And that was because Robert Rodriguez knew how to use the special effects to give the film a style that, from my limited understanding of the graphic novel, was close to the original source material.

Like the guy once said, all these techniques that require skilled set builders, set and model makers, matte painters, rotoscope artist, location scouts, photography directors, costume designers and puppet makers, animatronics makers and operators, puppeteers, and you see where I'm going with this. It's soon getting to the point where, if not for use of their voices, we really don't need to use actors at all. For instance, James Cameron's Avatar. Beautiful movie to look at, but not much in the way of a story. If not for Cameron having the ability to bring in people to pay for movie tickets, it probably wouldn't have been made. And you know all the new technology he invented just for that film.

Same thing with Eps. I-III. If not for the fact that he was George Lucas, he probably wouldn't have gotten once cent to make those movies the way he did. Which makes me wonder sometimes why he's putting all of his effort into the technical and technological side of filmmaking, when he should be focusing on the story part of it.