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Star Wars II: Return of the Name
Mutant was among the onslaught of readers who submitted that the final name has been chosen for Star Wars Episode II. It is... Attack of the Clones. Let the sarcasm commence. I'll pass judgement after I see it.
Circa 1977:
Circa 1999:
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Have you actually *watched* the first three films without the rosy glasses lately? Star Wars was a B-grade space opera flick (no doubt only justified by the then cutting edge FX and Alec Guiness) and the followups weren't much better. Sir Alec turned his nose up at the films ("that Force rubbage"). They're BAD man. I mean, "Star Wars?" How much cheesier of a title can you get? You only think they're wonderful because, like me, you saw them as a kid. There are NO adult themes or elements in ANY of the films, these are aimed at children, Lucas has said they always were and always will.
Now, I didn't expect much from Phantom Menace, and I actually got more than I expected. I saw kids leaving the theater with wide eyes and full of excitement. No doubt the same way I looked when I saw Star Wars in the theater more than 20 years ago.
Get over it, man. Star Wars is a children's franchise. It was never good to begin with, so why expect it to be the pinnacle of film now?
Derek
Star Wars Two: STAR HARDER
-----
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Well, It was probably something like this.
Microsoft Balmer dis'es linux! cool!, accept, next, "attack of the clones", wtf? reject, next...
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
all the arguments I hear go along the lines of:
"I saw episode IV-VI when I was a kid, and they were great! and now I went to see episode I, and I was shocked to find that it was made for kids!"
well... have you ever considered the fact that the first three were, too? and that you like them now because you saw them when you were kids?
I saw episode one on the premier night here in Sweden. never in my life have I witnessed such excitement. the one boo! I heard was when we saw that they had translated (!) the magical three paragraphs to Swedish!
then it was all cheers, every time a reference to the old movies were made, or a familiar character was presented.
most of my male friends thought it was great, with the exception of Jar-Jar. and I see the same consensus here. I have yet to find a single gyu that likes him, or even stands to watch him. and I would like to offer another view of that.
me and some of my female friends have discussed this phenomena. we all think he's cute. the one bone we have with him is that he's the only one in all the movies that succeeds not by doing his best, but by being chronically clumsy and equally lucky.
but he is a caricature of a lot of negative male characteristics. and maybe you guys don't like to be reminded of those.
it's the only way we could explain the extreme, one-sided hate we have witnessed. and maybe there is some truth in it...
now, flame all you like... I have mail filters, and I know how to use them.
Now, many people are ranting about how "Attack of the Clones" is a retarded movie title. I'd have to agree. Granted, I'm one of those 'saw it when I was young, fell in love with it, altered reality,' types. My parents, on the other hand, are not.
My parents recently saw Episode I. They were appauled at the horrid commericialization of the franchise and the apparent lack of effort that went into the actual film, the story, and the plot. Granted, Luca always triedmake money, but Star Wars was art when Lucas started making it. He said so himself - his opt-outs about how it's simply a childrens film and such are just that - opt outs. I mean, for crying out loud, Episode I didn't even have new music composed for it to fit the film - it simply had a compiled version done by someone else, so they could slap John William's name on it. They spent all their budget on special effects. Bastards.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Remember finding out about child abuse on Gont, and why wizards from Roke avoided girls, in Ursula Le Guin's Tehanu?
Remember when all the kids got killed, and Aslan turned into Jesus, in C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle?
Remember when Bilbo Baggins turned into an old, evil monster (if only for a moment) in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings -- and then the "sequel" to that had no hobbits, only elf genealogy and linguistics?
If it's not what you expected -- that is, what you extrapolated from the first movie(s) or book(s) -- you're not going to like it. We build cosy little worlds from the "original" stories, then hate it when the author intrudes.
No, I don't think there's a solution. But the problem isn't unique to George Lucas. Sequels to creative works you unconditionally love will tend to suck.
Especially with speculative / escapist fiction -- part of the appeal of which is (I assume) that the "world" presented is self-contained, and the (usually young) reader can comprehend it in its totality. Unlike the all-too-confusing real world.
...that they changed it from "Revenge of the Jedi" because the upcoming Star Trek movie had the working title "The Vengeance of Khan" (Trek 2 - one of the even #'s, yay!)... The Trek people changed it to the ever cheesy "Wrath of Khan" and the Star Wars folks decided at the last minute that "Revenge" wasn't a suitable business for a Jedi to be getting mixed up in.
Or at least that's what I read in one of Shatner's "memoir" books... god only knows why I voluntarily READ that trash, one never knows how much is true and how much is 110% "Billshit"...
--=Major
One useless man is called a disgrace; two are called a law firm; and three or more become a Congress. -John Adams, 1776
I have been reading Slashdot for several years. I created an account just to post this. And here is what I have to say:
This is getting silly. Half of the comments here seem to be lamenting the fact that the prequel trilogy appears to be geared towards children. Well, I've got news for you: the same applies to the original trilogy as well. You just don't realize it because you were so young when the movies first came out.
Do you know why almost everybody here hates the Ewoks in ROTJ? Because they make you feel insecure. You're afraid that people will laugh at you for watching a children's movie with talking teddy-bears in it. And they will. You should just shrug it off, but you can't because of your low self-esteem. And, for some reason, you can't realize that the average Joe sees all Star Wars movies as children's movies, regardless of whether they have Ewoks or Jar-Jar in them or not.
The Jargon File has a section called "A Portrait of J. Random Hacker". I'm sure most of you here have read it. The section has a list of "Things Hackers Detest and Avoid", and here is how it begins:
"Offensive cuteness" seems to rank very high on the list, right after Microsoft. Why is this? I believe that the reason is the same as stated above: you fear that being associated with any sort of "cuteness" (such as the Ewoks in ROTJ) will make you look ridiculous and childish in the eyes of others. And a lot of people seem to think that enjoying "dark" movies such as The Empire Strikes Back or The Matrix will somehow help you gain acceptance and credibility.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but it doesn't work that way. Nobody cares if you prefer The Empire Strikes Back to Return of the Jedi, or The Matrix to The Phantom Menace, or Babylon 5 to Star Trek. Again, to the proverbial average Joe, it's just "stupid sci-fi for geeks and nerds". That's what people think.
And here's another explanation: many of you are depressed and therefore can't stand the thought of "offensive cuteness" such as talking teddy bears or Jar Jar. You'd rather wear all black, watch splatter movies and listen to German industrial rock while fantasizing about killing your classmates or coworkers. Sorry about being a bit over the top, but this is how "regular people" see you. They don't see you as intelligent persons who appreciate a good sci-fi movie. Instead, they see you as sad computer geeks.
Somebody here wrote something along the lines of "well, Star Wars sucks, but fortunately we'll still have The Matrix and Lord of the Rings".
Huh? Are sci-fi and fantasy movies all you have? If you get mad because the title of the new Star Wars movie did not live up to your expectations, I think you should seriously re-examine the priorities in your life.
Star Wars Episode II: A Darkened Heart.
Would be a good title given the primary story line in this edition (Anakin->Vader), and would be a good-natured poke at El Presidente.
Carl G. Jung
--
"With one breath, with one flow, You will know Synchronicity" -La Policia
It is lame to bash or even look down on other geeks because you think their tastes aren't hardcore enough-- isn't it enough that half the world already looks down on us? Do we need to add to the persecution?
-m
> Harlan Ellison's was the sole, lonely critical voice to be raised against it, and even in his case his point wasn't so much that it sucked, but just that it wasn't quite as good as everyone else was saying.
I saw it at college age. I was disappointed because it was space opera rather than "hard" scifi of the 2001 variety. But at least it was fun. I've rented it several times, and I'll rent it again someday.
That Pathetic Movie wasn't fun, and I certainly won't be renting it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Beware all ye who would criticize the genius of Lucas, for is it not written in the revised, updated and George (dubya) Bush approved version of The Constitution of the United States of the Multinational Corporations (now available as an Adobe(R)(TM)(C)All Rights Reserved E-book for $19.99 per view, order today! Operators are standing by!) In article I section 1 that George Lucas is hereby declared the greatest storyteller of all time and all law abiding and Bill Gates fearing citizens are required to pay homage to him by seeing any and all movies with the name Star Wars multiple times and by further paying homage by standing in ridiculously long lines at the local Wal-Mart to purchase dozens of non-biodegradable plastic toys for the betterment of our young(isn't it grand of us to think of the children?).
Yea and those who dare not to venerate the name of Lucas and pay the required homage shall be stricken from the rolls of the nation. They will be outcasts in their own land of birth. Denied bland conversation with their fellow citizens about the masterworks of Lucas, they will wallow in their anguish. They shall be stricken from the lists of people to be protected in time of war and their names will be added to the lists of those who will not recieve the bounty of this great land in the form of Blue Light specials and the occasional Buy one Get one FREE sales at the local Piggly Wiggly. They shall be stricken from the rolls of every good and beneficient policy this great conglomerate bestows upon it's consumers. Moreover their name shall be dupliated in all databases related to taxation and if they ever contest this clause, they are subject to auditing by the BSA, RIAA, MPAA and Rectal-Probers-R-Us.
So let it be written(in tiny print behind an encryption scheme which may not be broken under article two of this constitution, formerly known as the DMCA) so let it be done.
Now if you missed this update to the supreme law of our land, that isn't my fault. I suggest you rush right out to your computer and fully enable all the update packages you can and register any and all software you have. I got this preview of our new constitution as a bonus when I downloaded the latest version of Minsweeper, the official game of the land. Baseball isn't bringing in enough money it seems.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Star Wars: Episode 3: Your Childhood Memories are Raped For Two Solid Hours, then the Orchestral Score and Mood Lighting in the Last Thirty Seconds Tricks You into Thinking that this is a Worthy Prequel to Episode 4.
A little unwieldy, I grant you, but it's only a working title.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Say it ain't so, George!
Peter Jackson! Ian McKellen! Christopher Lee! Hugo Weaving! Cate Blanchett! John Rhys-Davies! How could anyone not be waiting for this?
Assuming that Natalie Portman will be neither naked nor petrified, the only trump card that When Clones Attack has is Samuel L. Damn, they should have cast him in LotR, maybe as a badass orc or something. "Does Sauron look like a bitch?"
Or even us 13 year olds. But it wasn't just the kids who were taken in. Sober, serious, adult critics were almost uniform in their praise. Harlan Ellison's was the sole, lonely critical voice to be raised against it, and even in his case his point wasn't so much that it sucked, but just that it wasn't quite as good as everyone else was saying. I suspect that even Lucas was surprised at the critics' reaction, but he knew good luck when he saw it and ran with it. Can't blame him for that, but I can blame him for pretending to have made something profound.
And the brethren went away edified.
Episode II: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Force
(To the tune of "Send In The Clowns")
I'll pass judgement after I see it.
This will be a first.
omfg! 'a new hope' 'empire strikes back' and 'revenge of the jedi' are all dark and epic titles....
Lucas has lost it.
I was about to apply for a job at Lucasarts, now I just might be too embarrased!~
And now, a moment for America to shake its head and sob softly to itself... What the hell is wrong with the "clone wars"? Are the traditional starships we have grown accustomed to now to be replaced with flying saucers? When will George Lucas learn not to make important decisions when drunk?
-Ignatius Gunnarsson
...Millions of sheep named dolly attack tatooine. All is feared lost, until annakin decides to release his keeler blue heeler to save the day.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I was hoping for "Jar Jar's fiery death" or something similar. "Attack of the Clones" only makes me fear the creation of an entire army of Jar Jars.
Dancin Santa
(ducking)
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
Not that I'm ragging on the choice of topic here, but I'm genuinely curious: Do adults (>=16 yrs) really care about the Star Wars franchise? I would think that Star Wars as it has become wouldn't be of any more interest than Pokemon here.
Do people who enjoyed George Lucas' original trilogy (well, minus the last half of RotJ) really care about the George Lucas' current focus on ten-year-olds?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
but Blue Harvest was already used....
How many freaking "Send in the Clones" jokes do I have to read? IT'S BEEN DONE! READ THE THREAD BEFORE YOU POST! Gaaack!
Of course, someone else has probably already posted this sentiment by now...
Lucas will be sued by God with penalties of 10 years in jail, a $5,000,000 fine or both. However a plea bargain may be possible if Lucas agrees to please kill off Jar Jar.
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
???
A New Hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
They're all silly unless you've been conditioned as a child to think they're all amazingly cool. Fortunately, I have. :-)
sig fault
- It [using chapter titles] harkens back to the sense of pure fun, imagination and excitement that characterized the classic movie serials and pulp space fantasy adventures that inspired the Star Wars saga.
Gag me. Worse than merely being cheesy, it's an evil blend of marketing and cheese.And in further news, Episode III will be named, "I Wipe my Ass With Your Money", and will consist entirely of 15 minutes of Hayden Christensen putting on the Darth Vader outfit, saying "This is heavy," and "Okay, I'm ready to be Evil now."
"Star Wars" was MY childhood. My middle-school friends and I argued endlessly about "Empire." Vader, Luke's father? No way. Who was this Boba Fett anyway? Why was he masked the entire film. Somethin's gotta be goin' on there.
WE WAITED MORE THAN A DECADE FOR EPISODE 1! I grew up, I became an OLD MAN waiting for that bloody movie. When I heard it was coming, it was like the Return of Gandalf. The World would be OK. I dragged my wife to the theater, promising her it would be great, this would be epic, Strap In and Enjoy the Ride.
Ten minutes in, I wanted to shoot myself. Twenty minutes in, and my wife was openly wondering if this constituted the sort of spousal abuse that would get her more than 50% in the divorce.
To give you a contemporary example, I want you to go to your child and explain that in the next book, which we're all waiting for like it was Christmas, in the next book, Dumbledore turns out to be a child molester.
Watch the look on the face of your little Harry-or-Hermione-wannabe.
THAT's exactly how episode one made me feel.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
By poisiong the debate with such senseless propaganda as "Attack of the Clones" he does injury not only to an honorable public servant with only the public's best interests in mind, but he also places in jeopardy the lives of people needing a cure. To eliminate the hope of these people is a crime against humanity.
For shame Lucas! For shame!
Read more Herbert - he was one of the most important minds in fiction all last century.
Parenthetically, Herbert followed this 20 years later with a trilogy: The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor. It's really some of his best work, aside from the Dune books. Sadly, he died before he finished the last one, and his co-author for the series (Bill Ransom) finished it. Bill Ransom's a decent poet, but a lousy novelist, and The Ascension Factor was pretty weak. The first two are great though, and spend more time with the clone issue.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
yes, for all you who didn't know, this movie should be set in the time of the clone wars. so the title makes sense, even tho it's a bit wimpy ;)
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Anakin: Quick, send in the clones
Obi-Wan: Don't bother, they're here
Lucas: Isn't it rich, isn't it queer, Losing my timing so late in my career
SW Fans: There ought to be clones
Lucas and Fox Studios:: Well maybe next year
----- One piece short of Legoland
Here's some of Fark.com's user suggestions:
Attack of the Killer Human Stem Cells.
Killer Klones from Outer Space
Episode II: Hype
Episode II: Luke's Dad Was a Whiner, Too
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Episode II: Bloodsucking Clones from Pittsburgh
Episode II: Plan Clone From Outer Space
Episode II: Clones Are EEEEEEVIL
Episode II: Lucas Must Die
Star Wars Episode 2: All your clone are belong to..
Send in the Clones!
Tears of a Clone
Jar-Jar's Big Adventure
Star Wars Episode II: The Second Episode
Star Wars II - Just like 83/84, only more missle based...
Star Wars II 1/2 - The smell of Lucas
Episode II, JarJar Binks, Return of The Kingfish
-= rei =-
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.
Anakin looks up to see Queen Amidala and Obi-Wan dressed like clones, holding miniature billboards advertising the clone college and dancing to clone music. "Amidala...?" asks Anakin slowly. "Yes, Anakin?" answers the clone Amidala, starting to hum clone music.
Anakin: That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clone college! [leaves]
Obi-Wan: I don't think any of us expected him to say that.
"The Phantom Menace" "The Attack of the Clones" "My Wookie and Me" "A New Hope" "The Empire Strikes Back" "Return of the Jedi"
Dolly the Jedi Slayer
True; it was changed to prevent confusion with Star Trek II: The Revenge of Khan, which was in production at the same time. Upon discovering the similarity, both movie studios agreed to change their titles.
what do you think IS under those stormtrooper helmets?
Collect them all!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The problem is most of the people bitching, IMO, were children when they saw the movie. They saw with a child's eyes and a child's viewpoint on life. The people complaining have lost the ability to view the series through that childish viewpoint and have attached a sense of reverance towards it that will certainly get me modded down for saying this.
I think that the people who retain the ability (or a part of it) to view things as a child are probably the ones who loved ST:TPM as I did and yes, they will even like Jar Jar.
Vermifax
Logout
...is that George Lucas isn't fit to direct or be otherwise associated with any Star Wars film. Of the four that have been released, which one would most fans say had the best script, the best directing, the best overall tone, and the best all around story-telling? The Empire Strikes Back. Coincidentally, this is the film that Lucas had the least involvement with.
Who else was disappointed by the last two films, ROTJ and TPM? Hands up, I know you were. Ewoks? Jar Jar? With the three prequels ROTJ just doesn't hold up as the finisher. It took the novels (i.e., Zahn), to to that. Fire Lucas and put some Sci-Fi folks in charge, someone who hasn't tackled Star Wars. I fear George simply doesn't have it.
No statement is true, not even this one.
Star Wars: Dude, Where's My Clone?
This may seem like a flame--and it probably is, but why the reluctance to post this news bit?
"was among the onslaught of readers who submitted"
I know I submitted it nine hours ago, and it was almost immediately rejected. I figured someone else had already submitted it and that it would be up on the Frontpage almost immediately. Yet, hours go by, and still no news.
If anything would qualify as "news for nerds"--I figure this would. Why the delay?
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
Due to now being an uncle I saw the re-releases of the first 3 movies a few years ago, and they hold up pretty well, allowing for the shrinkage of theater screens and auditoriums in the interim. Then my nephew and I went to see Phantom Menace. He liked Jar-Jar just fine. I wanted to see Darth Maul grab his tongue and garrotte him with it. Slowly.
Jar-Jar aside, Phantom Menace was the quality I'd expect from a movie made by the same person that made the 1977 movie, but if he'd made it 25 years earlier, not 25 years later.
How old you were when you first saw any of the movies has nothing to do with the shortcomings of Phantom Menace.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Return of the Jedi implies a renaissance of the Jedi in general, not just one of them, so, assuming a large Jedi presence in episode 7, it's a better title.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"Attack of the Clones" is probably meant to mislead merchandise counterfeiters, as "Revenge of the Jedi" (remember that one?) was before they changed it at the last minute to "Return of the Jedi". This way, all the fake merchandise will be easily recognizable because it'll have the wrong name.
My $.02.
It had to be done by someone...
Natalie Portman stars in "Attack of the Hot Grits"
(Rated R for nudity)
Right... society will accept that right after they accept that one identical twin has no rights and the other does. After all, one is just the clone of the other. I would hope they'd have the decency to at least let twin #1 be the master of slave twin #2. You'd hate to sepatate siblings. :)
Lucas was a devotee of Joseph Campbell, the late comparative mythologist, and he used Campbell's work as a paint-by-number set for generating the plot of the first movie, by his own admission even if not in so many words. (By "first movie" I mean the first one that was actually made, now called Episode 4 but originally called just "Star Wars".) It's filled with motifs we expect to see in great stories, so our minds naturally associate it with being a great story. Aided by the admittedly competent cinematography, we are presented with the semblence or illusion of a good movie. This blinds us to the plot holes, the shallow characterization, the cliched dialog, and the shoddy acting that it typical of the series.
Plot Holes: Try, for example, to reconcile the timeline of ANH with what is now known to be required for even the beginning of Jedi training. Luke can't have had time to learn much on Tattooine, and he only has the time during the trip to Aldaraan for serious instruction. How long does this take? There's nothing in the movie to suggest that more than a day or two passes in transit, possibly less. And Luke's starting out as a teenager, when even Anakin at 8 (or is it 10? I forget) is thought by Yoda to be too old to begin.
Shallow Characterization: All the characters are very close to their archetypes. There are many assumptions we therefore automatically make about them, and Lucas doesn't have to do very much work at all to make them "pass" for deep ones. And he doesn't.
Cliched Dialog:"I can't believe he's gone." (Luke about Obi-Wan. He'd known him, what, a week or less?) "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." (Han about the Jedi. Substitute the appropriate weaponry and it could have come from a spaghetti western.) "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." (Leia to Tarkin. How many times has the plucky revolutionary said something similar to the dictator in numerous other settings?) Et cetera.
Shoddy acting: Alec Guinness' opinions on this are well known, but even so he and the other few competent actors deliver even the most hideously bad lines in a credible manner. Unfortunately, they don't have enough screen time to make much of a difference. Seen Mark Hamill in anything lately? There's a reason for that. He was bad enough in ANH, but he really showed he didn't have it in RoJ. When he tries to sound mystical he sounds stoned. For serenity we get vacancy. Instead of firm resolve we get a sort of vague assurance. Man he was bad. Carrie Fisher wasn't much better in the first movie, but at least she improved in the craft after a few years. Harrison Ford might have been good enough, but he failed to rise to the level of genius it would have taken to break Han out of the "rogue with a good heart underneath it all" mold.
If after thinking about it all in these terms I had any doubt about the quality of the story, I simply have to think about TPM. If Lucas ever had it, he's lost it. There just isn't any enthusiasm left any more. He should have been thinking of the people who'd been waiting almost 20 years for that film, not the 10 year olds the promotional tie-ins were designed for.
Or maybe he was, and this was the best he could do. Oh well. It could have been a lot better.
And the brethren went away edified.
"Star Wars: Episode II: Worst Episode Ever"
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
10. Plan 9 From a Galaxy Far, Far Away
9. I Married a Dark Jedi
8. It Came from Tatooine
7. Die, Jedi, Die!
6. Will Success Spoil George Lucas?
5. Evil Sith 2: Army of Clones
4. Urotsukijedi
3. Pod Racer Summer
2. Midichlorians: the Awakening
And the number one rejected title for Star Wars Episode 2...
1. Surf Gungans Must Die