Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

Star Trek: Generations/The Swan Princess/Miracle on 34th Street/The Professional/To Live (1994)

Gene Siskel: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Roger Ebert - Host : [reviewing "The Swan Princess"]  This is good holiday entertainment...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Wow.

  Roger Ebert - Host : It does NOT measure up...

  Gene Siskel - Host : In any way.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...to the Disney classics.

  Gene Siskel - Host : In any way.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Just, let me just kinda finish my thought. It does not measure up to the Disney classics, BUT, it comes as close as any of the animated wannabes of the last year. It's miles better than "Thumbelina", for example.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Uh, Roger, so is a still shot of you taking a shower.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Thank you very much. I'm sure you've had a lot of experience with studying such, uh...

  Gene Siskel - Host : No I haven't. I'm just fantasizing.

  Roger Ebert - Host : I'm sure you are.

• Roger Ebert - Host : [reviewing "The Professional"]  This thing that happens in some action pictures where the hero is given the power to predict what and how the villains will behave so he can anticipate them. And there's a scene in this movie, for example, where they break in through a door and after they've raced past him, he's hiding in the ceiling on top of the door and then he shoots them. And then on another occasion, he's able to swing down and while hanging upside down, he can shoot backwards and kill the people as they're coming in. Now, that works ONLY, ONLY if you know exactly what they're going to do, and only if they're in exactly the right place. And so the cops almost have to say, "Okay, we're gonna line up so this guy can hang upside down and shoot us." Whenever anything is choreographed like that, it strikes me as so phony, it's distracting.

  Gene Siskel - Host : When you don't care about the characters at all. You can forgive that in a movie where you're buying the people.

  Roger Ebert - Host : I might be able to. I might be able to.

  Gene Siskel - Host : But y'know what, I know that feeling: You're sitting there, you don't like the picture, and so you're really picking it apart.

• Roger Ebert - Host : [reviewing "Star Trek: Generations"]  The premise is silly, but even sillier is the ending, which boils down to an old-fashioned fist fight on that sagging iron bridge, with big close-ups of the bolts popping loose and the chain links about to break, and threatening to drop the heroes to their deaths. Why is it that the movie begins with such vast ideas and ends in such small cliches?

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well Roger, the things you knock about the picture, I can't really praise that much. I mean, at the same time, I think there's a whole section of this picture, a whole thing that's going on through it that is very entertaining, and that is, the way that these characters like each other, like their colleagues, and like working with each other. And that feeling is constantly there in the picture. And so as a result, I sat through all the stuff that you mentioned, it's not that great, but I sat through it and I enjoyed the camaraderie there, and on that basis, I recommend the film.

  Roger Ebert - Host : See, your response is very typical of Trekkers. Of "Star Trek" fans...

  Gene Siskel - Host : But I'm not a fan, I'm not...

  Roger Ebert - Host : No, but it's typical of them. Because what happens is, this series is now like family.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Right.

  Roger Ebert - Host : And a lot of these movies are not so much dramas as they are episodes of showbiz history. Like, "Kirk turns over command of the Enterprise", y'know, and talk about "What Spock would've done in this situation?" It's just like a family reunion. And if you really look at it with a cold eye, in terms of just exactly how good of a science fiction movie this is, it's a pretty silly one.

  Gene Siskel - Host : I'm not a science fiction fan to begin with, and I enjoy it on the basis of family, and only that basis.