Camelot_2000

I admit I enjoyed "Creepshow" from 1982 and this sequel still holds the comic book qualities of that, but isn't up to par with the original. There's only 3 stories here instead of 5 like its predecessor and those three stories prove to be a little overlong. The animated sequences in between them though are excellent.

The first creepy tale, "Old Chief Wood'nhead" was alright with great performances by George Kennedy and the legendary Dorothy Lamour. They play an elderly couple who run a general store in a small derelict of a town that is practically deserted due to bad economic conditions.

They're definitely worried about the future of their beloved establishment due to the lack of money flowing in. It didn't help matters either when they constantly offered "credit" to the residents of a nearby Indigenous reservation who suffered from the lack of money too.

The Chief of the reserve eventually goes there to compensate for the bills his people owed, offering the couple priceless native jewelry. Those artifacts were held sacred to his people who held strong spiritually significance towards it.

The Chief said that the couple could have total possession of the jewelry if his reserve's bill wasn't paid within "two autumns". A very touching story, but then the dark side occurs when an arrogant native guy along with two other hoodlums rob the store.

They harass the couple mercilessly with the native guy looking egotistically in the mirror at one point, saying he planned on becoming a movie star with his ravishing long black hair.

There's also a wooden statue of a native chief that was displayed outside the front of the store and was held in high regard by the store owner. It had been there for 30 years and he had been in the middle of applying fresh paint to it before the robbery had occurred.

This Old Chief Wood'nhead ended up carrying more potential than being a simple store display. There was more to him than meets the eye.

I thought the best story out of this movie was "The Raft" where two couples head to a secluded lake and swim to a raft that's anchored in the middle of it. They're having a great time at first, but then get disturbed by a dark blob that's floating around in the water nearby. They also mistake it for some type of oil slick.

I thought the guy wearing the yellow swimming trucks and the big silver ring on his finger, was mega-hot. He also had to act really arrogant and conceited though.

I found the final story to be the weakest part of the whole film. A woman has a sex session with a high priced hustler and then drives home to her husband in the middle of the night. She ends up losing control of her car and hits a black guy that mysteriously appeared on the side of the highway. She's traumatized by the accident, but doesn't take responsibility for it, she drives off instead in a case of "hit and run".

It's easy to predict what'll happen next, as she tries to maintain control of her driving skills, she's haunted and tormented by what she's done. That had a strong similarity to an old episode of "The Twilight Zone".

I've seen this old film off and on throughout the years and I still find it entertaining, though to a certain extent. It just doesn't deliver the same impact as the original had.

This is indeed a very pleasing and heartwarming film though the premise of little flying saucers with miraculous abilities to fix anything that's broken, does seem somewhat silly. It, however, does work with those little flying machines coming across as fun loving and cute.

There's also a good cast of characters here with Frank and Faye Riley at the heart of it all. They're the owners of an old run down apartment building that includes a cafe. After living there for decades, a change has come and it's not for the better. A ruthless cooperation bought up the whole neighborhood so it could be replaced by a large skyscraper.

As the buildings around them are getting demolished into rubble by a construction crew, the Rileys and their tenants stand firm about staying put and refuse to be bribed into vacating the place which causes problems. The company hires a gang of thugs to make their lives hell by harassing them and violently vandalizing the building.

I admit it was hard to stomach watching those brutes bullying and causing trouble towards the elderly Rileys and seeing them viciously smash up their beloved cafe. The police also act powerless towards it all and treat the situation like a lost cause.

All does indeed look bleak until two little flying saucers appear one night through the window and they end up becoming a symbol of hope for the Rileys and their tenants. They're awed by those little technological wonders, most especially when they discovered their power to totally fix the smashed up cafe and any other broken objects laying around the building. They were truly incredible.

It's also eventually discovered that the saucers were a "couple" and who functioned just like living beings. The "female" also gives birth to three smaller saucers with one that apparently "died" but later got fixed and made operational again by one of the tenants, a former boxer named Harry.

Conditions drastically improved around that place with the arrival of the saucer family who also secretly helped out in the cafe whenever it got busy. They lived in perfect harmony with the Rileys and the tenants but the threat of that evil cooperation bent on emptying out that building so it could be torn down, still posed a serious problem.

Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy are absolutely terrific as the Rileys with Tandy a standout as Faye who seemingly has dementia and is unable to properly understand all that's going on around her. It doesn't help matters either when she keeps mistakenly thinking that the leader of the hoodlum gang, is her son, Bobby.

If you can accept the elements of a family of flying saucers in this film, it can become a fairly enjoyable and pleasing view though the cruelty of the bad guys can be a bit hard to take. That nastiness, however, is what caused me to root for the Rileys and their tenants even more, hoping they'd finally win the battle against that Goliath of a cooperation. I've always liked this movie and highly recommend it.

These original films out of the whole Star Wars series are indeed iconic and unforgettable. They wowed audiences in an age when primitive analog technology was the rage at the time. They set the standard for highly advanced technology in moviemaking which is highlighted to this day of CGI.

I only wish it had more of a refreshing feel to it rather than digging up old plots that are too similar to Episode IV. Yeah, I refer to the infamous "Death Star".

Sure, it's known that something indestructible such as that huge technological beast has a weakness, and sure enough, that's once again discovered by the rebels on that "Galaxy from a long time ago". Rebels lost their lives infiltrating the Imperial System to get the info for that dangerous menace, but why did they have to make heroic sacrifices for that? Wasn't it already made clear in Episode IV that all you needed to do was fire lasers at the core of that false moon? That was made obvious in the first film.

All the old gang reunites for the inevitable confrontation with the same enemy forces and with Han Solo evidently given not much to do. He's thawed out of carbonite in Jabba the Hutt's desert palace but is not essential to the main plot and is just there to add to the link of good guys. A far cry from the potency of his Indiana Jones persona where he's needed everywhere.

Princess Leah isn't given much to do either except having the highlight of being captured as Jabba's sex slave. She did look good in that metal bikini though there'd be a backlash to that with today's audience. Something like that would suffer from controversy if that was depicted now. Still, it was an intriguing situation she was in. I mean, what guy wouldn't be turned on by that?

I remember this movie was mega-news when it first came out in 1983 and dominated the headlines by showing how devoted Star Wars fans were by camping out at movie theatres to see it right away. I, unfortunately, had no such luxury. I was living in a small and remote Northern town at the time with no movie theater and had to settle for reading the paperback novel instead that I bought from the local grocery store.

Sure, that's a pathetic way to revel in the glory of this film back in 1983, but it sufficed for trying to know the story when it was a major hit at one time. I now have the DVD that I already watched several times before and admit it never gave the excitement like the novel once did.

The notorious "Emperor" makes a grand appearance here, but the freshness and curiosity of that got lost in the prequels years later. The cunning and surprising show of his powers in this old film doesn't have the impact it once did. We already know what he's capable of.

I admit the major low were those primitive teddy bears on the forest moon of Endor which the new Death Star orbited around. It clearly brought this series down to a kindergarten level with those cute things squealing and running around like mice evading a cat or officers from "Animal Control".

The Cartoonish battle they had with the highly advanced technological forces of The Empire was laughable, considering those Ewoks had nothing, but sticks and stones to retaliate with. Still, they were cute, but too cute to be taken seriously. They were evidently targets of a production line for new Star Wars toys.

The major interest was the space battle between the rebels and the imperial ships and that's indeed an exciting part. Han's old friend and former betrayer, Lando Calrissian, handled it with such superb piloting skills with the Millennium Falcon that you can't help but root for the rebels to win, regardless of the odds they were up against.

There's of course, the father-son, situation between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader which hits a melodramatic soap opera level this time around with a more mellow approach than what was depicted in The Empire Strikes Back.

Vader is also not as menacing and evil as he was in the previous two films either. He's more or less a "Yes-Man" towards the emperor once he appears. He does nothing but take orders from "his master" and acts humble towards him.

To sum it up, I do like Return of the Jedi even though it's clearly the weakest entry to the original series. Episodes IV and V brought the "Skywalker Saga" to a zenith, but those prequels and sequels released afterwards were never able to compare to the quality that was once there.

Star Wars was once a breakthrough film for its day, highlighting highly advanced special effects, but now in this era of extreme CGI, it's a yawn. The impact the original films once had with audiences will never be recaptured in the 21st Century. The era of wowing people with new and awe-inspiring film gimmicks doesn't cut it anymore. There's too much of that in movies nowadays.