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Review: Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones
Much of the cast from Menace is back. Unfortunately none of the major actors manage to pull of a standout performance. Anakin is little improved from menace. I know he's supposed to be full of anger and angst, but mostly he just comes off as constipated and bitchy. Amidala seems to be taking a bit of a nap. Their romantic scenes together are the Jar Jar binks scenes of this movie: It just pauses the action, and the acting is so bad that the movie stalls until something interesting happened.
The rest of the cast is much better. Ewan McGregor has finally grabbed onto the role of Obi Wan. He's a bit preachy, but it works. Samuel L Jackson is the badass Jedi we want him to be. Senator Palpatine is pretty much the same guy as last time around. And Dooku, the flick's major bad guy is pretty excellent too. Its nice having villians with faces since they actually get to act a bit. The Fett family felt a little forced, but it was interesting.
Most notable this time around is the CGI characters. Episode I of course had Jar Jar, Watto, and many other CG chars, but Menace is literally crammed full of them. And the technology and animators have improved substantially since the last showing. No longer do they stick out like sore thumbs- now they merely stick out like a thumb with a little bit of a sliver. Yoda is of course the most important of the CG chars- everyone probably remembers the horrible animation on his one CG scene in Menance, but in Clones he is CG all the way. This is a huge deal since unlike most of the CG chars we've seen so far, this one works almost perfectly. There are a couple of shots where it doesn't seem quite right... but those are the exception, and not the rule.
What I'm saying is that CG characters have finally come into their own. In Menace, all I could think about is the fact that they were CG. The fact that they didn't looke quite right. This time around they are just part of the show. Another cast member delivering mediocre dialog. Ironically enough, several of the CG chars outshine their human counterparts.
The movie as a whole looks great. Many of the costumes look a lot more like Star Wars. From the clone army, to Amidala wearing a white costume for the last act, things just look like I would expect them to. We get to see some sets familiar from A New Hope as well as Menace, and that all really contributes to making the movie feel like a Star Wars flick. It also helps that the CG has continued to improve.
I'd also like to note that I didn't get to see it on the digital screen. I plan on seeing it digital in the next week or 2... I figured I'd see it at the local theater and make sure it didn't suck before I bothered driving to Southfield to see it in full digital splendor.
The rest of the review will focus a little more on plot. You've been warned. The story is of course largely a love story. There has been a threat on Amidala's life, and her old friends Anakin and Obi-Wan have been assigned by the Jedi Council to protect her. Investigating the asassination attempt leads Obi-Wan to a far away planet where he discovered a clone army being constructed, and a conspiracy to suppress information about it. Anakin and Amidala spend time together and get closer through a series of awkward pseudo romantic scenes where they both look like they would rather have been in different movies. Their utter lack of chemistry is almost amusing.
Obi-Wan gets into some smack, and so Anakin and Amidala go to rescue him, only to end up compounding the level of smack around for the good guys. Meanwhile the Senate does its thing and a major shift in power occurs. We learn who is responsible for the clone army, and what the plan for it is.
The last hour of Clones is the Payoff. A battle worthy of the original trilogy. I'm not going to go into it becuase that might spoil it, but let make the following points. First, we finally have enough light saber action. The massive jedi fight that we all knew these prequels could offer us. And my god was it ever worth the wait. But we also have Mace Windu kicking ass, and at long last, Yoda gets his chance to prove why he is so highly regarded.
The parallels to other movies in the SW Series, especially Empire Strikes Back are many. I'm avoiding mentioning them here, but I will say that the film tries to end on a dark note which is cool.
The packed theater that I saw this really seemed to feel the same way as me. A few awkward laughs during the romance scenes- even snickers during the sound-of-music picnic sequence. But when the final battles came around there were cheers around.
And that really sums it up. It took 3.5 hours of prequel film to get us to the payoff. For some it might not have been worth the wait... but for me, I'm just happy to finally to see most of what was promised delievered. And I'm reinvigorated towards Star Wars. If Episode III can pick up where II left off, III should finally be the Star Wars Prequel that we've been waiting for.
I thought the worst part was the kiss between Jar Jar and Yoda. I just about hurled.
I'll try not to lone gunman the thing, but you've been warned.
Had ChrisD written the article, he would have just come right out and made the headline, "Luke's dad, a.k.a. Darth Vader, kills the Emperor, then some Ewoks dance around"
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
The whole dance routine with MJ singing "Annie are you OK" (aka Smooth Sith Lord").
I almost wretched right there in the theater!
Boba Fett's father is...YODA!! Yup it's true, Boba's real name is "Yoda Fett", but to keep his lineage a secret he changed his first name slightly to "Boba". That's why he always has that mask on! Short green dudes with hair growing out their ears never get the hot chicks.
Is this Trainspotting II: Attack of the Junkies?
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Probably not, but we're going to take you through the movie anyway. Grab a bucket of popcorn and prepare yourself for the movie review of Star Wars: Episode II - The Attack of the Clones.
So the movie starts off with the requisite main score while the oddly skewed yellow text brings us up to speed on the goings-on in the galaxy. Something about unrest in the Senate, a separatist movement led by a "Count Dookie", Amidala being a Senator herself, yada yada yada. The main message is that the forced-perspective text looked lame as fuck in 1977, and seems downright abysmal 25 years later. One would think that with all the billions Lucas has made on the previous films he could afford a decent title sequence.
True to a movie made for kids and dysfunctional adults, we then jump right into the action. Senator Amidala is getting off her liqui-chrome spaceship on Coruscant when... kaboom! ...she blows up. Omigod, is she dead?!? Of course not, it was her stand in (you
remember her from Episode I, right?). This scene provides a great opportunity
for Natalie Portman to get all weepy
over her dead assistant and show us that Amidala
even cares for the little people. What an angel.
After that we see Yoda, Samuel "Mace Windu" Jackson and some freaky looking alien Jedi talking to Darth Sidious. Er, um, I mean Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who of course is in no way connected to Mr. Sidious. I mean, he's obviously a good guy, right? Yeah, sure. If you paid any attention to Episodes IV-VI you already know who he is. Also, those subtle facial expressions and tones of voice suggesting devious intentions sure do lend an air of, shall we say, insidiousness, to him.
So do the Master Jedi Knights pick up on Palpatine's two-faced treachery? No. The eight year-old kids at the theater see it plain as day, but to the leaders of the Jedi Council, people who have undergone the most stringent of training for detecting such duplicity, people who have freakin' powers of mind control and are sitting right across the desk from this guy, to them Palpatine seems A-OK.
Anyway, the whole point of this scene is to set up Obi-Wan "Ewen McGregor looks goofy in a beard" Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker as Amidala's bodyguards since it seems like somebody is trying to kill her. Of course it is Palpatine who suggests this. My goodness, what sort of deviltry is he up to? We also briefly see Jar-Jar Binks stroll by in the background. No lines for him in this scene, though.
Prior to Amidala getting hooked up with her Jedi, we get to meet the two of them alone in an elevator. Anakin is now a moody teen and his pining for Natalie Portman's firm buttox is quite apparent. When the elevator door opens they are greeted by Jar-Jar and... he speaks! Nothing like a little racist, neo-Jamaican patois to tickle the funny bone.
Once the whole gang is reunited all the complex character development gets dumped, wholesale, in about 45 seconds of screen time. Obi-Wan is the wise yet caring teacher, Anakin is straining under the throes of pubescent hormonal lust and good old rebellion, while Amidala is distant yet maternal in her care for Anakin. Jar-Jar appears to be little more than house nigger.
The next scenes begin to suggest why Lucas chose Attack of the Clones as title for this movie. All of the visual imagery was stolen from other people's films. The super-dense high rise cityscape, complete with moody nighttime lighting through half-open blinds, is equal parts Blade Runner and The Fifth Elephant to such an obvious degree that it is painful. We get to zoom about this impossibly crowded aerial metropolis at high speeds in a futuristic flying car chase. It's all Luc Besson at this point, including people falling from building to vehicle. You could swap Hayden Christensen (Anakin) with Bruce Willis at any point and the transition would be seamless (admittedly, replacing McGregor with Milla Jovovich might be noticed).
During this chase Anakin and Obi-Wan banter amusingly and offer flip one-liners. It almost works, but not quite. After the necessary crash to end the pursuit we swing fully into Ridley Scott's corner with teeming ground-level streets and a seedy bar full of oddly dressed people.
There's some sort of plot development going on through all this, but it's not very important. What is important is that this movie tries very hard to drop little nuggets of joy for the aging Star Wars fan base. The first one occurs outside the aforementioned bar when a bounty hunter who looks an awful lot like the Boba Fett of Episodes IV-VI kills somebody and then zooms off with his nifty jet pack. It is at this point where the first real signs of plot strain begin to show.
Now for some reason Obi-Wan is going to a mysteriously undocumented planet to investigate whatever the hell it is that we're supposed to care about, while Anakin stays behind to give the screenwriter a convenient opportunity to have Amidala reciprocate Anakin's puppy love.
The mystery planet is actually a sterile looking clone factory run by tall, lizard necked folks. Hard to say which movie set is being cloned, since the sterile, white, space-based science facility has been done so many times before. It's probably safe to credit Kubrick with being the biggest victim of theft here. All the clones themselves look vaguely ethnic. Additionally, they are apparently the precursor to Stormtroopers. Basically, at the factory they quickly breed a bunch of brown-skinned people who are literally identical looking, dress them up in white armor, and now they represent a huge, sinister force. What exactly is George Lucas trying to say here?
The lizard-necked scientists are a bit daft and don't realize they are revealing details to the wrong person when they tell Obi-Wan that the clones were ordered 10 years ago by a supposedly long-dead Jedi. They are also oblivious to the error of revealing the presence of a bounty hunter and his cloned "son", named Jango and Boba Fett, respectively, at the station. People in technical professions like genetics and computer science are often socially and politically clueless that way, resulting in atrocities like nuclear weapons and peer-to-peer file sharing.
Jango and Obi-Wan have a tense little meeting where more plot details of some sort are revealed, including the fact that all the clones look just like Jango himself, and then they get into a fight. Neither one of them dies though, so they chase after each other in space ships instead.
Back in the world of sappy love stories, things are progressing quite slowly. Anakin is still behaving like the sort of teen you'd send to military school as punishment. This brings to mind another apparent failing of Jedi University. If they're so great at molding super-competent Jedi, how come they can't raise a teenager who isn't a whiny little brat?
Amidala stays cold and distant to the advances of "Ani", and it's hard to see how they're going to end up getting busy and squirting out two kids. Then, they kiss. Yes, that abruptly. First she couldn't care less, then she's probing for tonsils. Whatever caused her change of heart apparently got left on the editing room floor.
George Lucas seems to be awfully fond of himself, so eventually he starts cloning his own movies. First Anakin has a dream about his mother being in pain, so he disobeys his orders and goes off to help her (Luke, 1:2). Amidala tags along.
Of course helping Mom means dropping another joy nugget for the fans, so it's back to Tatooine yet again. We reminisce with Watto a bit, and then head out to an awfully familiar looking house. Yup, it's the same one where future whiny little Jedi wannabe Luke grows up, and we get to meet the aunt and uncle who will be so trivial in later movies. The plot strains become more noticeable.
But hey, what's the point of time spent on Tatooine of you don't get to see some Tusken Raiders? Seems they've kidnapped Anakin's mother, Shmi, so we get to bust a hang with a whole bunch of them. Hell, even the Jawas pop up for a cameo. Nothing like rehashing old ground when you can't come up with a decent plot device.
Oh yeah, Anakin's Mom dies in his arms just as he rescues her (how convenient), and then he goes bezerk and slaughters all the Tusken Raiders. Apparently this is bad. Even Yoda gets some negative Force vibes from it, and he's way on the other side of the galaxy.
Meanwhile, Obi-Wan's story line isn't doing much better. Lacking anything more exciting to do in a space chase, they fly into an asteroid field. They even venture into an asteroid tunnel. To be fair though, the absolute coolest part of the whole movie happens in this scene. See, Jango Fett has these bomb thingies, and he's hurling them at Obi-Wan's ship. Whenever one of them hits an asteroid and detonates everything goes dead silent for a half second and then a wonderfully flanged and modulated kwaaang! rings out while a pale blue shock wave radiates through space. Hearing that sound is almost worth the price of admission.
Somehow Obi-Wan ends up on a droid factory planet pursuing Jango and Boba and he gets caught by the dread Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus/Saruman the White/Christopher Lee. Count Doofus tells him about some plot involving the Senate and the separatists that is entirely too confusing for this sort of movie. In short, he asks Obi-Wan to join him, and Obi essentially tells him to go fuck himself. Count Doodu responds to the snubbing by amassing a huge army of orcs, er, droids, and leaving Obi-Wan trapped in a tower until he is rescued by a giant owl.
Over on Tatooine, Amidala is revealing herself to be quite the mischievous little minx, and she talks Anakin into going to save Obi-Wan. They arrive at the factory and proceed to battle their way through the exact same sorts of choppy, bashing mechanical bits that so flummoxed Sigourney Weaver in Galaxy Quest. R2-D2 has no problems with them though because he has jet packs. I don't recall him having jet packs before. I imagine they would have been very useful if he had managed to hang onto them for his later adventures.
I wish I could say C3PO did as well as R2, but his head gets lopped off and installed on one of those battle droids, while a battle droid's head gets stuck onto 3PO's ungainly frame. I don't want to ruin the movie, but I must tell you that much hilarity ensues from this manufacturing gaffe. But this movie isn't about droids, it's about clones, so let's get back to those.
The next clone returns us to Ridley Scott territory. Anakin and Amidala get captured, and are joined with Obi-Wan in a gladiator arena (yes, a gladiator arena) where they are forced to fight animals and robots to the death. It is at this point where Natalie Portman's midriff begins to receive significant screen time.
Things go well at first, then our protagonists get into trouble as the robots multiply. All seems lost until Samuel Jackson's bald head strides in, accompanied by a whole bunch of other Jedi. Jedi and robot go at it in great numbers and there's lots of glowing phalluses being wielded about and much carnage. Jango Fett flies on into the fray only to get beheaded by Mace Windu. His young clone Boba seems to find this upsetting, and presumably he'll be holding a grudge for some time over this.
Things go well (again) until our protagonists get into trouble (again) as the robots multiply (again). The next turn in the battle occurs when Yoda comes strafing into the arena with several ships loaded with clones and utters his most absurdly spoken line ever: "Around the survivors a perimeter create!" It made me want to beat Frank Oz to death with a copy of Labyrinth.
As the arena battle winds down and everybody leaves to chase the fleeing Count Dooker we see Boba Fett cradling his progenitor's severed head. Somebody should get the kid some counseling or he's going to have some real issues later on.
After a rolling battle across the plains of... whatever planet they're on ...Doochu gets cornered by Anakin and Obi-Wan. As anybody who's ever seen one of the other Star Wars movies can tell you, it's light saber time.
Anakin attacks. Anakin gets tossed in the corner like a sack of dirty laundry. Obi-wan attacks. Obi-Wan gets beaten down like a filthy Scottish actor. Anakin attacks again, this time in the dark and with two glowing phalluses! He looks a lot like one of those irritating Rave kids waving glowsticks about, but he must've forgotten to take his vitamin E because he gets his hand chopped right off. Yes, his hand. The right one. Just like his future son. Oh, the anachronistic irony! This is profound stuff.
Our protagonists are once again in trouble and all seems lost (again) until... ninja Yoda!
He comes hobbling in on his cane looking a bit feeble, but oh is he pissed. After a short hand gesturing bit of "My Schwartz if bigger than yours" they get down to the wand waving. But Yoda doesn't grab his saber. Nosirree, he telekenesifies it from his belt to his wrinkled green paw. Yoda is one bad mother fucker.
He flips, he spins, he darts through the air like a mosquito on crack. If you watch Iron Monkey on fast forward it still won't come close to the acrobatics of this little gremlin. However, he doesn't win. He's forced to chose between killing Count Doosey and saving the other two Jedi from a falling pillar, and he lets the Count go. Despite his ninja skills, Yoda is a humanitarian at the core. The next shot shows the Count flying away in a ship powered by some sort of solar sail (the "hard science" geeks are going to love that bit).
As the movie draws to a close we see Anakin flexing his new prosthetic hand, just like Luke does in Episode V. It might be chilling if it weren't so contrived. When a screenwriter/director has a decade and a half to come up with a prequel you would expect him to conclude with something a little less obvious. But, that's what you get when you focus on joy nuggets of nostalgia for a pathetic group of emotionally underdeveloped adults.
Of all the 8 and 9 year olds who will be able to see the series as a whole at nearly the same time, without having to accrue 20 years of cynicism, rose-colored retrospection and inflated expectations between viewing the older and newer trilogies. My feelings regarding the movies have been tempered and altered so severely by time that to expect "as good or better than ESB" (a common refrain in fandom) is simply ridiculous, due to the one thing Lucas cannot possibly do: make me an 9-year old again.
CORUSCANT -- Presiding over a memorial service commemorating the victims of the attack on the Death Star, the Emperor declared that while recent victories over the Rebel Alliance were "encouraging, the War on Terror is not over yet."
"We will continue to fight these terrorists, and the rogue governments who harbor them, until the universe is safe, once and for all, and the security of the Neo-New Cosmik Order ensured."
It was one year ago today that the Death Star, perhaps the greatest symbol of the Empire's might, was destroyed in an attack by fanatic Rebels, who used small, single-person crafts to infiltrate seemingly impenetrable defenses. Thousands of mourners were on hand to remember and pay tribute to the victims and their families.
"We lost our innocence that day," reflected one mourner. "I guess we thought we were immune from the kind of violence that happens in other galaxies. We were wrong."
"I lost hundreds of buddies that day," said one teary-eyed Stormtrooper. "Guys whose only crime was trying make the Universe a safer place."
Although the day was colored by sadness, the mourners found some relief in the news of a decisive victory over the Rebels.
In an attack led by Darth Vader, Empire forces were able to rout hundreds of Rebels from a network of caves underneath the surface of the planet Hoth. "We're not sure we got them all," says a Vader spokesman. "There are a lot of places to hide in those caves. But we've delivered powerful blow to the terrorist's infrastructure, that's for sure. Today, the Empire has struck back."
Initial reports are unclear as to the fate of Luke Skywalker, a hero among the Rebels, who is rumored to have delivered the fatal blow to the Death Star. Skywalker, a former desert-dweller from the planet Tattooine, became a part of the Rebellion after family members were killed. Skywalker was trained by a militant wing of the Rebels, known as "Jedi Knights." Fanatical in their religious beliefs, the Jedi Knights claim to derive their power from the mystical "Force."
It's believed that Skywalker was specifically trained by infamous terrorist O bin Wankanobi. Wankanobi, occasionally called "Ben" and easily recognized by his bearded visage and long, flowing robes, achieved near-martyr status among the Rebels after his death last year during a spy mission. His more fervent followers believe that Wankanobi lives on within them today, some even claiming to hear his voice during times of duress.
The attack on the Death Star came shortly after the Empire's destruction of Alderstaan, a planet whose government was known to harbor terrorists. Responding to criticism over the total annihilation of the planet, Vader stated, "There is no middle ground in the War on Terror. Those who harbor terrorists are terrorists themselves. Alderaan was issued ample warning. The fight for continuing Freedom is often burdened by terrible cost."
The cost of this war can still be seen today in the continuing efforts to build a coalition government on Tattooine. Longstanding animosities among the planets various ethnic groups, including the Jawas, Tusken Raiders and scattered human settlers, have been an impediment to the peace process. The Empire continues to maintain a small peace keeping force until a provisional government is finally in place.
Much of the difficulty in fighting the Rebel forces stems from their lack of a central organizing structure. "They don't play by the traditional rules of war," complained one spokesman. "They come in all shapes and sizes, united only by their single-minded desire to destroy the Empire before it destroys them."
The Emperor closed his comments today by stating that "the cowardly attack on the Death Star left a deep scar on the Empire. However, we will not stop fighting until every last evildoer has been brought to justice." He paused for several moments, wiping away a tear and then added with determination, "We will never forget."
"I wish we could all just get along," said one of the mourners. "But it's hard to offer an olive branch to a cult of religious fanatics whose main tool is violence and who insist on calling us the Dark Side."
Kilroy was here!
I just got home from watching it and I must say it really is quite good. One problem that Ihad though is that a lot of the minor characters ("uncle" owen, his father, amidalas security chief etc) are Australian tv actors, and it is a bit distracting. amidalas security chief specifically has been in an Australian childrens program called Play School so i kept imagining him singing the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round....
otherwise,great
The Borg assimilated my race & all I got was this lousy T-shirt
In what scene in Menace was Yoda CG?
Does anybody know where I can find a list of digital theatres presenting the film?
R2's rocket boosters were out of warranty by the time of the original trilogy, that's why you don't see him flying around. Seriously.
Thus far, it's gotten very different reviews.
Roger Ebert ripped it a new asshole, saying that the characters talk "more like lawyers than the heroes of a romantic fantasy."
Other reviews, however, were very positive (FilmThreat.com had a cool review here and here.
If you've got the time, look at the smorgasbord of reviews on www.mrqe.com.
R2 Did fly, remember? Right outta that monsters mouth. Like an R2 on... crack or something.
"Do you suppose that's why God lives in the Heavens? Because he lives in fear of His creations?" - Steve Buscemi
...for me has always been the change from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. It seems odd on the surface, but the most interesting element of the first trilogy was a transition that occurred years before.
It's just kind of fascinating. How does someone become what they've sworn to oppose? From Obi-Wan's comments in the original trilogy, you see a picture of Anakin as a good friend, a decent guy who falls from grace and becomes a great force for evil (no pun intended). Sure, the "redemption" at the end of RotJ is good, but we want to see the fall. =)
Even before seeing Episode I, my money was on Episode III to be what I was really waiting for. I and II are important to set these things up--I'll know more when I catch the 10:40 showing tonight--but the real story is going to be in Ep3.
How to bring about such a dark (Darth?) result while ending in such a way that the audiences won't hang him in effigy (or in fact) is something that I hope Lucas can pull off.
the long lines, the sound systems cranked up, the beach balls...
I had almost forgotten what Star Wars could be like.
But the first flight of fancy in the buildings of Courissant (sp?) - i was hooked!
I'm sorry - but this was almost the best of the movies to date - just below Empire, of course..
It FELT like a Star Wars movie again.. when you were first taken to strange new worlds (sorry) and got to see aliens and battles.. villians who's asses you want to see kicked...
this movies has it all back.
I think one of the best things that Lucas has done with this one is the fact that there are actual twists and turns!
I mean, is the good-guy a bad-guy? Are the good guys fighting against the wrong person? The Good Guys fighting along side StormTroopers!?!
I won't give spoilers - but I will say that this movie does bring back everything I loved about seeing the first movie when i was 5 with my dad at Big Newport (70mm of holy-crap-its-so-freaking-big screen)... and maybe part of why I loved it so much WAS getting to see this one - opening night - in the same theatre...
i could be misguided.. but i'll be seeing this movie time and time again... just like the original 3.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Episode II was light years better then Episode I...while there were numerous scenes in PM that made me cringe at how bad they were, there's very little of that here...
some things to look forward to if you haven't seen it yet...
- Yoda's climactic fight scene...everyone has heard it's coming, but you can't be prepared to see Yoda in a lightsaber duel...the crowd in my theatre was literally cheering the whole time, at how cool it was...
- Mace Windu also has some quality Lightsaber action, and some pretty bad-*ss scenes...only thing that would've made it better was if his lightsaber said "Bad A** Mother F*****" (Pulp Fiction Reference)...
- Hayden Christenson is a huge improvement over Jake Loyd as Anakin (then again it would be hard not to be)...he's brilliant in the scenes where he has to show flashes of evil and flashes of the dark side...
- From the trailers, i thought that the romantic part of the movie was gonna be super cheesy, but it's actually not as bad as i expected...though, there is one point when they're in that big field on a picnic, when it looks like a scene out of "Sound of Music"...
- The worst part (IMO) was Lucas' attempts at some uneeded humor (much like Jar-Jar in Ep I)...in Ep II he uses C3P0 and R2D2 to deliver this humor both physically (in a ridiculous sequence with C3P0) and also in a series of bad puns involving the two of them...
- Natalie Portman looks great in the movie...and if you've seen the trailers, you know the tight white top that she wears...well, let's just say, that it must be cold on Tatooine...
well, that's my thoughts...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
We had the same problem with Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton) from Reading Rainbow. =)
Is Episode III, as the review suggests, likely to be the "Windows 2000" of Lucas' declining franchise? You know, "pretty good except for a few remaining legacy problems (Jar Jar)." I don't like to see movies that have to have apologetics any more than I like to run software that comes with a list of excuses. Windows Lemmings run Windows and claim it's the best, even if they don't really like it. Star Wars lemmings run out to see Lucas' latest (and then again on a digital screen 2 weeks from now) even though the substance of his films is insultingly weak.
The same market forces that have kept Windows so lousy are also at work setting up Episode III to be complete tripe (with great special effects).
Episode II will probably get nominated for best visual effects and I hope the next LoTR film bests it amongst the Academy voters.
Shush! Flannel Man will hear you!
"I have a sneaking suspicion that if there were a way to make movies without actors, George (Lucas) would do it." -- Mark Hamill (source, imdb.com)
El riesgo vive siempre!
Two words... Yoda, lightsaber :)
In the spoon, there is no Soviet Russia!
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere yet, but did anyone notice how ATOC reveals why the Stormtroopers just plain sucked in ANH?
The clones were of Jango Fett, and the Kaminoans were keeping him around while this whole cloning project was going on. So apparently they needed fresh material from him to keep making clones.
After ATOC, they no longer have Jango Fett to clone, they started making clones of one of the clones. And you know how if you make a copy of a copy, it's not as sharp as the original....
See the movie Multiplicity to get a better idea of why the Stormtroopers are the way they are....
I thought that exactly!!!! as soon as Palpatine made the comment in the chambers that they could've counted on Padame if she was there, and then they zoomed in on Jar-jar...i was like, no, Jar-Jar don't do it...
i could see it coming, then he was just so smug with himself when he got the senate to go along with it...it's his fault...he gave palpatine full power...first he ruined Ep I, now the galaxy...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
And it looks good. Given the amazing special effects and storyline I expect the MPAA will be able to use the profits to buy off 2-3 more congressmen and take away computers just a little bit faster. It's a good thing that just about everybody on /. is a hypocrite because on Monday we can all come back here and bitch about how the **AA has too much money and how they're trying to take away freedom after we just spent a weekend gorging ourselves on the latest crap they flung up against the wall to squeeze a little more money out of us. Well folx. if you see this movie, you deserve to not have any computers. Have a nice day.
And yes I *DO* have a lot of karma to burn, and no I *DON'T* care so mod me down you little hypocrite for hitting a little too close to home. You know I'm right.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
10 years have passes since Ep I...at the end of Ep I yoda gave in to Obi-wan's request to train Anakin (it was Qui-Gon's dieing wish)...in the past 10 years, Anakin has trained as a Padawan apprentice, and has become very advanced....
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Cue: ringing phone
"Hello? Yes. Are you sure? Yes sir."
% rm -f /data/episodeii/ohDearGod/insync*.mov
The reviews from rest of world seem more upbeat, check out the force dot net. I'll see it tomorrow, thanks to the girlfriend for picking up seats for the DLP viewing. Go digital.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
[obligatory spoiler warning]
It was better than I expected, if you can ignore the terrible dialogue and total lack of any reason at all being demonstrated for Anakin or Padme for having any kind of feelings for each other outside of their obligation to fulfil what we already know will happen. Oh you killed all those innocent people, how sad, now get over here and make love to me you bastard. Where did this deep undying love come from? They had a brief encounter 10 years ago, she was a pretty girl, he was 9 years old. Suddenly 10 years later, after a brief meeting, and his raging hormones, they're in love? psh.
There were a few CG scenes that looked a bit cheesy too, mostly involving the mounting of large animals or trying to stand up while riding them.
Perhaps my favorite line was something along the lines of: "You'll always be that little boy from Tatooine."
My biggest complaint about the dialogue was that we aren't allowed to think for ourselves or draw conclusions. They might as well said something like, "and now I am wielding my light saber so that I may kill you, don't I look dashing?"
It was still entertaining, but I liked Spiderman much better. There are many many better movies, I couldn't dare to list them all, but it isn't the worst movie ever either.
What?
lone gunman \'lon 'gun-mun\ vt 1: To spoil the ending of a film, television show or story by including details, which were meant to be a surprise by the writers, in a slashdot story title. 2: To make yourself look foolish by posting a story on slashdot which was poorly thought out, has more then 12 mispelled words, or mentions the DCMA.
"I'm nobody suspicious... That makes me sound even more suspicious, doesn't it?" - Spike (Cowboy Bebop)
Ummm... might have, but I definitley noticed some things were *perky* on Tatooine :-)
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
I've always thought the clones were, you know, real clones. Of people. It seems that they're robots from what I've seen/read about AotC. Is this right or wrong?
I think I read a sequel book to Star Wars where a "clone" of one of some Dark Jedi Admiral was taking over what was left of the Empire... I assumed, or maybe read, that this was using the same techniques as in the Clone Wars?
Someone help me out with my understanding of the Star Wars Universe...
-Russ
Me
I keep hearing about problems with the transfer from digital media to celluloid, saying the projection is downright fuzzy in places. The best article is HERE quoting Roger Ebert and others, saying that even George Lucas wasn't happy that there is such a huge loss between digital projection and traditional. Has anybody noticed this? Is it irritating? Should I wait for the DVD?
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
Sadly this is the way alot of teenage angst comes across.
Angst and anger while being trained to be a member of the elite Jedi doesn't say much for his upbringing.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
In that case, pay the $8.00 to see it. The lightsabre fights are more than just worth it - saw it at 12:01 AM today, and after a good morning's sleep, I can still vividly remember all the fight scenes.
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
If you call that rocking hard, you must have thought the original Batman movie was better than all of Star Wars. Because Batman the movie beats the pants off that joke called Spider-Man the movie. I can't imagine any "love scenes" much worse than Spider-Man, actually, though from the reviews it sounds like Lucas is giving the title a go.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
george's explaination of the fliing R2D2. "well he was getting too advanced and they where worried he would take over the universe so they took out his fliing ability."
The film that eliminated the cruel outdated stereotype of the Scottish kilt-wearing bagpiper, and replaced it with the stereotype of the Scottish amoral and AIDS-ridden heroin fiend.
"Well Sickboy lacks a certain moral fiber."
"He does know a lot about Sean Connery though."
"That's hardly a substitute!"
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
If Lucas spent even a fraction of his effect budget on writers and decent actors then maybe I'd be happy.
Flame me if you wish, but my feeling is that even though (as usual) this is a pretty movie to watch, it does not have any soul.
The writing is extremely poor... I don't care if it was geared towards 12 year olds, a kid can still tell good writing from bad.
The acting for the most part was poor. The only believeable characters were Owen and Peru..which seems kind of accurate in a way... Mix their gentle characters with the Annakin's insipid whining and you get Luke.
Even Yoda (to me) seems to have lost a slight edge on what he used to be.
This is only my opinion, but I would have rather donated my money to a fund for decent writers than have wasted my money and time on this film...
again only an opinion from a disgruntled fan... give it time to sink in a little and I may like it a little better.
i haven't seen it yet. what makes it so bad? and just for perspective, how much did you like any of the star wars series? i find that makes a difference.
you probably shouldn't have read this.
From the Top-10 Lines for Jedi Master Mace Windu:
#1. Hand me my lightsaber... it's the one that says, "Bad Motherfucker" on it.
There was an article last week about the estimated cost to the economy of ~$300M. Just an observation from my morning commute, the traffic was very sparse and moved fast, I had the definite feel that there's a lot of people taking the day off to see EP2.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
lone gunmen (lon' gun'men)
verb
1. To prematurely reveal plot points.
2. To spoil the surprise, reveal spoilers without warning."I'll try not to lone gunman the thing."
3. To include spoilers in the headline.
insert photo of chrisd here
If you mentally filter out every sequence that Jar Jar is on the scene, and maybe the midochlorians, and trim that Pod Race scene down, there's a good movie in there.
I know where you're coming from Taco, but you're just wrong. It's not our job to "filter" jack squat. That's Lucas's job, one he's not doing.
FYI everyone, Rotten Tomatoes has it at "barely fresh", with 61% positive reviews. For the selected, more reputable reviews it's rotten at 47%. Doesn't bode well.
Like it matters. The jackass has us all by the nape of our childhoods. I'll be there tonight. Already got my tickets in my pocket. There'll be bits that make me happy, but they'll be like reflections on water, untouchable & disturbed if you try. Ah well. We should all just realize we can't go back again.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
there was a Matrix 2 trailer along with AOTC (atleast in the theatre i saw it at)...i was really looking forward to the Matrix Reloaded trailer, and everyone in the theatre cheered when the familiar "matrix-like" computer characters started scrolling down the screen...while i'm still really looking forward to the movie, i was a little disppointed in trailer...it was just really fast snip-its of action, none sustained long enough that you could actually see anything...that said, it still looked pretty intense...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
The first of two articles on sfgate.com (SF Chronicle) covers the prerelease piracy of this movie (and others) by internet file swapping. It's not heavy handed either way, thank goodness.
The review of the movie is by Mick LaSalle. An excerpt:
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
The hard nipples and the half ripped off top of Amidala made it worth it! Three thumbs up!
Lucas has been over in the UK promoting Episode 2, and in the middle of defending Episode 1 in a press conference, let slip that an episode 7 might be in the works... It's near the bottom.
Also, there's an interview with Lucas here.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
The best, from The Washington Post
Salon.com hates it. The Onion isn't impressed, and Adequacy rips it as well.
Ninja Yoda sounds fun though.
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after a good morning's sleep, I can still vividly remember all the fight scenes
so you're saying that all of the critics saying there are no memorable scenes/moments are just propagating anti-lukas FUD?
i haven't seen it yet. so i hope that is the case.
you probably shouldn't have read this.
Any time he comes onto the stage I just wanna stand up and shout "Yeah! Let's hear it for evil!"
His performances in this film and as Suruman (in LOTR) have inspired me so much that I'm going to go out and do terrible things to many, many innocent people, because when it comes down to it, good is weak, and evil is strong.
At first, I thought playing a semi-sympathetic misguided villain might be a stretch for Christopher, but he's just so delightfully vile it doesn't matter. His stage presence makes the appeal of the Dark Side all to clear.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
CmdrTaco hasn't exactly redeemed himself this time around, but he has wiped out most of the worst of his last reviews from my memory. His review starts of slow and it takes until half the review to really start to get coherent. But the final paragraphs seem to really feel like English again. Read on for my full review- I'll try not to shoot down the lone gunman on this
/.ers. Meanwhile Congress does its thing and a major shift in power occurs. We don't learn who is responsible for the clone army but we can guess, and what the plan for it is ( Perhaps enforcement of the DMCA? )
I really don't feel the review was that bad. If you ignore every misspelling, and the occasional attempt at the 10 dollar word there's a really good review in there. I read this hoping to get an increased desire to see the movie this Friday, support that going wouldn't be a waste of time and he mostly has give me that.
Much of the same blah de blah is back. Unfortunately none of the 10 dollar words really seem to stand out.
Most notable this time is how notable he though the CGI characters were. With the occasional reference to Menance and a couple times where I wasn't sure if he was talking about Episode I or II I found some of the information curious and some that just didn't make sense but those are the exception, not the rule.
The review as a whole seems to work great. Many of the paragraphs bleed into one another where you can follow a coherent thought and altogether it wasn't too bad. I hope his reviews continue to improve
I'd like to note that I didn't get to see it on my nice 17" monitor at home. I plan on seeing it there after 5:00 but I wanted to make sure this review didn't suck before I thought of maybe using my Lunch break to drive home to read it there.
The rest of this review of the review would focus on the Grammatical and spelling insights, but was I found none I won't digress into that. A couple sentences were so awkward that they seemed like they would rather have been in different reviews. Their utter lack of chemistry is almost amusing.
As usual, with the posts CmdrTaco gets some smack, and so other posts go to rescue him, only to end up compounding the level of smack around for other
The last paragraph of this review is the Payoff. Several sentences that actually make sense together but I'm not going to go into it because that might spoil the shock of it, but let make the following points. First, we finally have enough correct spelling of words in one place. The massive amounts of coherent thoughts we all knew these reviews could offer us. I don't know if it was worth the wait but it's nice to see
The packed posts that I saw seemed to feel the same way as me. A few awkward FUNNY +3 even the occasion INSIGHTFUL +5 here and there.
That really sums it up. It took 11.75 paragraphs of text to get us to the payoff. For some it might not have been worth the wait... but for me, I'm just happy to finally to see most of what was promised delivered. And I'm reinvigorated towards CmdrTaco. If Episode III's review can pick up where II left off, it should finally be the Star Wars Prequel review that we've been waiting for.
Was it me or did it have no sense of pacing?
The changling chase
Fight vs. Jango Fett
Now let's slow it down for 45 minutes!
Think about this.
Left in Latin is "sinister". Anakin gets his right hand chopped off. What's left (pun intended)...
his sinister side.
Damn. Well, I guess there's no reason for me to see Empire and RotJ, is there. Thanks for ruining it for me.
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Here is Salon's take on Episode II.
As with the sun's light
My mom was magnificent
Unquestionable
This comment is probably too late to be noticed, but more reviews can be found here and here.
The parent review was stolen from adequacy!
Well, it just wasn't very dramatic. Star Wars was about saving a princess from terrible danger and blowing up a doomsday weapon to save a planet.
Phantom Menace was about... a trade dispute?
I mean, I know that the trade dispute let Palpatine gain power, which leads to all the events in the other movies, but still... It wasn't that gripping.
*minor spoilers
If you fall a long ways, try to land on a vehicle, they won't hurt you, no matter how fast you're falling.
If you're in a vehicle, just stick you hand out to catch something, it won't even hit your hand hard enough to make you flench, even if you're going 200 mph.
Asteroids have atmospheres
If you age 10 years and are a woman, you won't look it.
Gravity does not apply to heads in helmets
Some people think so.
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In EP2, the big B2 Spirit shaped Naboo ship sounds like a WWII Lancaster bomber.
So Taco, does this mean that you are retracting your previously largely positive review of Phantom Menace.
Or has that been wiped from that highly reliable memory of yours?
But the C-3PO thing is the one that always rubs me the wrong way... he clearly comes off as a shiny bureaucrat in the first films, a prissy droid with a cushy government paycheck (or however droids are compensated; you get the idea). We see other models walking around; he's clearly come from an assembly line.
That's the nature of his character. He winds up getting dragged all around the galaxy when he would rather be back at his robot desk filing robot forms or whatever. That's where the comedy comes from.
Now Lucas has turned that around 180 degrees, made him the crude invention of a moisture farming child on a rural desert planet... ah, don't get me started.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
Choose the force. Choose a lightsaber. Choose a career as a Jedi. Choose no family. Choose a fucking big space cruiser. Choose washing droids, speeders, death star plans and blasters
Nathan's blog
I'm still trying to figure that one out... The story in Spider-man rocked and the effects were really well used. It was overall an awesome movie, every part of it.
Episode 2 was good, but lacked in a few areas as Taco mentioned. Specifically for me the 'romance' scenes which seemed as awkward as when geeks talk to chicks... Also, the CG to human interaction was not really well done, they seemed to work totally independant. That was especially noticable in the fight scenes. The effects and war sequeneces were amazing though.
With all that said, Episode 2 had the flashiness and would win an award for best effects. Spider-man was, IMHO, better written and done. I felt the effects were used wisely and really made the movie work.
Lemmie start by saying I'm not that much of a Star Wars fan to begin with. I went to the 12:01 AM showing because a friend got tickets to it, and offered 'em to my wife and I. The only one in the series I liked up until this was The Empire Strikes Back. And personally, I think Lucas is a bit of a prick because of some of the crap he's pulled with the theaters, etc.
Yes, this has memorable scenes. You finally get to see what's so "wow" about a Jedi. 4, 5, & 6 the Jedi are some sort of BS plot thing with a cool sword. Luke tries to become one, and you know what - he ain't JACK compaired to this. Watching an actual battle with the Jedi is quite memorable. Finding out why Yoda is the master is quite memorable (Holy hell yes!)
I think Lucas burned everyone with Episode I, and critics are quick to not let a director live stuff like that down. Episode I didn't have any memorable scenes, IMHO. This one does.
Parts of the movie are still weak, however, but if Episode I had been as good as this, no one would have really been bitching nearly as much.
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
My big complaint about the movie is that it assumes too much knowledge about the Star Wars universe. I feel that I know a fair bit about it, but still much of the 'politics' eluded me, an effect that would probably be much worse for utter Star Wars newbies. Who ordered the clones ten years ago and how did he know they would be needed? Who erased the planet from the archives? Is Palpatine on the republic or the separatist side? It's all very odd, though perhaps they'll clear things up in the next movie. Lightsaber battles are more fun than long explanations anyway.
Ceci n'est pas une sig
But like the cherished passions of first love, the fervor called forth by the landmark film is never coming back, and no amount of prequels or sequels is going to change that. Paradoxically, the fact that the latest prequel, "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones," is a bit better than its predecessor makes it clear how lacking in the things that matter these newcomers are.
Given its huffy 9-year-old protagonist and off-putting characters like Jar Jar Binks and Watto the junk dealer, "Episode I The Phantom Menace" was anything but a tough act to follow. Picking up the adventures of Anakin Skywalker 10 years later, "Clones" (which opens Thursday) has more menace and less Jar Jar, better battles and an impressive parade of eye-catching splendors. But like the Tin Man, "The Wizard of Oz's" C-3PO predecessor, it doesn't have much of a heart. Writer-director George Lucas' gift for animating the inanimate turns out to be paralleled by a tendency to deaden what should be completely alive.
As with "Phantom Menace," it is the pictorial element of "Clones" that makes the biggest impact. Production designer Gavin Bocquet, aided by four visual effects supervisors, three concept design supervisors, an animation director and a previsualization and effects co-supervisor (no, I don't know what that is either), has created some truly involving alternative universes, and costume designer Trisha Biggar has figured out what should be worn in each of them.
Some of the film's action is also well-done, especially a thrilling flying chase through the dizzying nighttime urban caverns of Coruscant, the "Blade Runner"-influenced capital city. But except for a climactic appearance by the venerable Yoda, whose computer-generated lightsaber skills got him on the cover of Time under a "Yoda Strikes Back!" headline, creating emotion is beyond this film's powers.
One reason is a script that feels, well, cloned, something Lucas and co-writer Jonathan Hales (TV's "Young Indiana Jones," story credit on "The Mummy Returns") threw together in their spare time. The plot is standard, and the dialogue, even for something intended for young people, is curiously flat. It ranges from the pious ("The day we stop believing democracy can work is the day we lose it") to the predictive ("Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me," Obi-Wan Kenobi jokes to Anakin) to the pathetic, as when Anakin grumbles about Padmé Amidala, "I've thought about her every day since we parted--and she's forgotten me completely."
These stiff lines are matched by line readings so uniformly impassive that even such lively performers as Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan) and Natalie Portman (Padmé) can't animate them. Only the veteran Christopher Lee, with experience of doing things on his own during his long career, gives a worthwhile performance as the villainous Count Dooku. For what Lucas gets out of his cast, the actors might as well be digital too, as is the rest of the film.
This dramatic stolidity underlines yet again how fortunate Lucas--and the world--was in the Harrison Ford-Carrie Fisher-Mark Hamill troika that animated the original "Star Wars." Ford especially brought the kind of wickedly nonchalant sense of humor to the proceedings that has gone missing this time around.
To be fair to the current "Clones" team, there's perhaps something more at work here. When that first film was being made, it meant less than zero to say you were part of "Star Wars"; the eyes of the world were not on the production, to say the least.
Now, everything has been close to sanctified, and those currently involved seem weighted down by the knowledge that they're part of a phenomenon. There's an unshakable self-consciousness about "Clones" that does not work to its advantage.
Still, the picture does start promisingly, with Senator (and former Queen) Amidala coming to Coruscant to try and preserve the Republic against a secessionist movement. She's quickly the target of multiple assassination plots, and the Jedi knight Obi-Wan and his Padawan learner-apprentice Anakin are called in to protect her.
Judging by his performance here (perhaps not a wise thing to do), young Canadian actor Hayden Christensen was picked for Anakin strictly on his ability to radiate sullen teen rebellion, something he does a lot. Anakin chafes like a grounded adolescent at the restrictions Obi-Wan places on him, grousing that the master is "overly critical. He never listens. He just doesn't understand. It's not fair."
This High School Confidential in Outer Space tone is continued in the forbidden romance (Jedis aren't allowed to fall in love) that develops between Anakin and the senator. As the young people hide from danger in an elegant Naboo retreat, they're burdened by a formidable lack of chemistry. (Where are Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst when we really need them?) And they're saddled with dialogue that might have been ransacked from old Harlequin novels: "I'm haunted by the kiss you never should have given me."
Everything inevitably ends in a climactic battle, where the senator gets to fight bad guys while showing off a Britney Spears-like bare midriff. Impressive though the computer work is, it soon descends into video game overkill. Only a teenage boy could find this kind of stuff continually diverting, and only a teenage boy would not notice flimsy emotions and underdeveloped acting. It seems George Lucas, like Peter Pan, has never really grown up.
Kenneth Turan
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
They may have looked perfect... But they were far from it. I found the CG to Human interactions would really bad in a few scenes (like skywalker fighting the moster thing... He didn't know quite where it was. He almost seemed blind).
I think in about 5 or 10 more years, they will be able to do it really well. It gets better every year.
My friend said DLP is not being shown so the lists are wrong. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Palpatine is both a Sith Lord and adept politician. He probably didn't need JarJar. He probably could have manipulated any number of other Senators.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Dammit! I'm a f***ing count again!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
...in the "romantic" scenes. (NOTE: SPOILERS) He keeps saying all these cheesy romantic emotional things... but I actually thought it was very in-character -- it seemed like Anakin had gotten his entire sense of romance from holodramas, since he probably had had very little in the way of real social contact with girls for the past ten years. Padme put up with the clumsy come-ons because she (for whatever reason, not really well-established in the movie) was falling in love with him, but her sense of duty kept her from acknowledging it at first. Kinda sucks for Anakin that it took imminent death for Padme to get past that. :)
:)
And can I just say that Obi-Wan is the worst Jedi ever? Episode IV, he gets killed by Vader (in what I always thought was a bit of needless martyrdom). Episode V, he acts all cryptic and unhelpful. Episode VI, he whines. Episode I, he nearly gets killed by Maul, and Episode II he nearly gets killed by Dooku. Not that I don't like him, he's just kind of incompetent.
And, yes, Blender-Jedi Yoda was the damn coolest thing ever. Like someone else said, it was awesome to see why Yoda is so highly regarded.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
First off, I am not usualy one to point out flaws in movies, but this one has just been stuck in my mind since I heard it. When Obi Wan was talking about where the planet should be he said "South of..." Can someone tell me how south relates to planets in space, South is a compass direction, influenced by the magnetic polls. Is there some sort of Force or galactic polls that give people in space a way to dissern North from South, if they even exist in space?
This is actualy the first time I have had a second thought about validity of things in science fiction, but it just kind of stuck out in my mind. Did they screw up, not realize it, or is there something I am not understanding.
On a different Note, Yoda in the Light Saber Battle was deffinately the saveing grace of the movie for me. I loved it when the entire theater exploded into applause when Yoda reached for his light saber and proceeded to do... whatever you want to call all that juming around and kicking ass.
-- Any comments seen here are not mine, but a mixture of alchohol and lack of sleep.
The link I posted mentioned that it should be fine on a smaller screen (like you get at many cinaplexes) but the reviewers saw it on big-ass screens and the graininess apparently gets worse with it... whereas with movies shot on film the size doesn't seriously decrease the clarity.
There's simply more visual information stored on a piece of film than can currently be stored in a digital format. That degredation gets worse with size...
But that said, the same reviewers claimed the picture was crystal-clear on a digital projector. Are digital projection screens smaller? IF not, wouldn't they suffer the same losses? Like playing a little 3x3 inch compressed mpeg movie at full screen on my monitor? Or are digital projection screens always the same size, thus allowing the filmmakers to plan around it?
I guess it's a moot point for me; I don't have a digital projection screen within 200 miles.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
One more little complaint: If I have to hear someone say, "Me lady" or some derivative 50 times in 2.5 hours again, I am going to shoot myself. It was equivocable to someone writing a paper and starting each sentence with "she did this, she did that, yada yada yada".
What?
He said, and than put the spoiler "attack of the clones" in the title of his review. Now people won't be surprised when the clones attack. Bad Cmdr., bad.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I just can't believe that with that much money they couldn't come up with some good writers... There were so many moments there which could have been really really good. Why wasn't Anakin's mom mad when he found her? Why didn't Anakin go on a real tirade and why did he smile when leaving right after that in his ship? How much money does one need to get a good script going???
Back in 1977, after watching years of cheezey films I sat in a theater in Midland, Michigan to see a film people were completely at a loss to describe, other than, "You just have to see this man, just go see it." I nearly dropped my popcorn at the start when the corellian(sp?) ship rumbled overhead firing away. The fairly new theater had Surround and Lucas put it to good use. Not since Tora Tora Tora had I been so impressed by a film, and George Lucas knew what few other filmmakers understood, effect when managed carefully can make up for a lot of short comings. I didn't pay much attention to some of the sets (which look pretty camp now) because I was so impressed, not hard when compared to a lot of films in the mid-late 70's. Now they put piles of money into flicks so overdramatic and littered with acting they make 50's B movies look like Shakespeare. The impression has lasted years and for that I'm content.
Kids today missed out, maybe Spider-Man or Independence Day would be their defining moment in cinematic memory. We'll have to ask them in about 25 years.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The interesting thing about this -- and what I haven't heard many people talking about is this: that until Lucas really delivers the quintessential Star Wars film -- hopefully in 2005 -- he's not doing any favors for the "film to digital" movement in Hollywood and around the world.
I say all this because Lucas insists that digital is the wave of the future -- digital "film" and digital "projection" -- and Lucas is clearly at the forefront of the movement. And that's fine. But until Lucas can deliver a single potent film -- shot digitally, edited digitally, and projected digitally -- he's actually hurting the "100% digital" movement.
I'm sure folks disagree -- and I'd be curious to hear counter-arguments -- but all this struck me when I was watching an interview with Lucas not long ago where he apparently wondered why Scorsese was building huge sets for his (Scorsese's) upcoming 'Gangs of New York' film in Rome. (Scorsese recreated turn of the century lower-Manhattan in, apparently, incredible detail -- right down to authentic leaded glass windows, glass bottles, you name it. Everything, interestingly enough, was created on Fellini's old studio outside of Rome.)
Lucas's point, as I understand it, was that Scorsese was wasting his time -- and Harvey Weinstein's money. Everything Scorsese was doing could be digitally created and the actors only had to show up in a studio lined with blue screens and simple foreground props. The background and atmosphere could be digitally created. Scorsese -- to his credit -- said no way, this is the way films have been done in the past, this is the way I want to make films.
Now, perhaps it's really Scorsese that's potentially on the losing end -- because he's *still* doing it the way it was always done. But I'm not so sure about that.
I understand what Lucas is saying -- and I understand what he means -- but with the exception, perhaps, of some truly original stuff in the Matrix (which, of course, had a fantastic story), I'm not convinced that 100% digital is convincing anyone yet. It'll make pretty pictures, sure, but good stories are still needed, too, and Lucas -- despite esentially an endless supply of cash -- hasn't done it. Didn't do it with Phantom Menance and (from what I hear) hasn't done it with Attack of the Clones.
Anyway, I don't mean this as a flame. I'm just curious what other folks think about this -- the idea that if Lucas is at the forefront of all this, he's really got to be the one that proves. Otherwise it'll get there eventually, sure, but not with the speed that Lucas (and other folks) hope.
**sorta spoilers included**
/.'er requires electric shock therapy to feel love. (But I liked Jar Jar and the Ewoks, if that gives you any impression on the type of person I am.) And yeah, the dialogue leaves something to be desired.
I got the big privilege to see it this morning in DLP here in Cleveland. The digital system is not exactly earth shattering, but it is impressive (and I don't think I would even try going to see it on regular film.) There are no specks in the screen, and colors are indeed super bright (though the light sabers don't seem any more brillaint than they would be otherwise. I was disappointed by that.) Roger Ebert said that it looked disappointing on regular film, and I could how that would be , though I can't explain why.
One thing that bugged me is that, and I dunno if this was the result of dlp, or it just happened that way, i could see that some of the scenes were not of tremendous quality. Standing in Palantine's office, you could see the entrance way (a door or two and a little room leading to his office) is computer generated, and lacks depth. Also, when Amidala is in the factory and stuck in a molten core barrel, you could sense how it was done in a studio--it lost the factory's touch.
On an incidental note, I was a bit more touched by the romantic scenes, I'm just that type of person--I think the average
What? Do they have a location where you can download the Phantom Edit listed in the credits of Episode II?
Um, hello?
You must see some _very_ strange ppl walking around. FF wasn't close to realistic, just one notch better than Toy Story 2. Bodies didn't move properly, faces didn't work, plus there were plenty of nice rectangular polygons floating around in areas where they didn't think you'd notice (hands, arms, etc). I won't start on the animators who couldn't make a character do anything without wildly exaggerated arm and body movements, bcos they said they were going for manga-style accentuated movements, so I'll let that one go. But the realism wasn't much better than Toy Story 2. The old guy was better than the others (bcos they animated him last after they'd done the others), but still pretty dodgy.
Grab.
Enjoy!
Click here or here.
Thank you Dickinson Northrock 14! They have two digital projectors and I was there for their first showings. I have never seen DLP before and I also have not seen the same movie on Film and DLP (I may go see Ep2 on film just to see if its different). Here are some things I noticed:
1: The most visable improvement that me and my failing eyesight (at 19 too, fuckin 85hz) could see was on the green screen that said that this preview had been aproved for all audiences. That was friggen pristine!
2: MAJOR FUCKING ANOYANCE: There were these three rectangles 'on the screen' that made that section of the screen just a tid bit darker. I am guessing that maybe some color calibration decals were left on lens on the glass between the projector and the auditorium.
3: I have bad eyesite and I was about the 6th or so row from the from and I could not pick out pixelation - and I looked hard. However, my friend up in the row infront of me said he could pick it out big time. If that is the case then UGH, WTF!
4: Like I said, I have not seen this on film yet so its hard to compare the quality but light sabers in the dark were friggen amazing.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Rosebud is a sled!
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Strange, with all those outfits, Senator Armidala doesn't have any bras.
Anyone have any complaints?
*listens to the sounds of crickets chirping*
Nope, didn't think so.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
No. Now the Screen Actors Guild will demand that no CG actors be used in movies unless membership fees are paid to the SAG on their behalf.
We want to understand about the socio-economic relationships clones introduce when confronted to droids, and the threat such a relationship is towards the current Guild commercial ventures and business models!!!!
you forgot my personal favorite...
Verbal Kent is Keyser Soze
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
It's "better" than TPM, but still a lousy SW movie. The love scenes are unbearable. Actually hearing some of those lines makes you want to cover your ears and say the alphabet to drown it out. Anakin is such a lecherous jerk it's astonishing. He keeps touching Padme and feeling her arm, as if that magic touch is going to make her go wild. Any normal girl would slap him in the face and tell him to keep his fucking hands to himself. I mean, it's almost sickening.
This is what Darth Vader is reduced to? Anakin is annoying in so many ways: embarrassingly horny, foolishly impulsive, recklessly stubborn. No redeeming qualities at all. Even bad guys have redeeming qualities, it's what makes them captivating. He has none at all. He is a horrible character. Darth Vader as a character is diminished by seeing this, although even now I barely connect the two together.
Ironically, while the audience will want the romantic scenes to be over as soon as possible, in the context of the story, it happens way too quickly. It goes like so: Horny Jedi sees the girl he's had a crush on for 10 years and drools over her in the most obvious ways. She repels his advances, but does give him the once-over. OK, he's aggressive and pestering, but SO DREAMY and INTRIGUINGLY DISTURBED. (Five minutes pass) He kisses her and she says it's a mistake even though she admits to feeling something too. More obvious fawning and pleading from the Horny Jedi. (Ten minutes pass) They go to Tatooine and she sees his sensitive side. The grieving son side, not the going-postal-with-revenge side. (Five minutes pass) They get captured and she professes her love for him because life is, like, too short, you know? (One big battle happens. Twenty minutes?) Having survived that, they return to Naboo and get married. (Good thing for him, because wanking off would have been damn near impossible after that saber battle...)
The early scenes on Coruscant are typical Lucas. Every frame is jam packed with too much to absorb. There are aliens walking around. Signs displaying messages. Trams zipping along. Droids performing tasks. And somewhere in the middle of this mayhem, two characters who you are supposed to be paying attention to. Man, he just doesn't get it. This overstimulus repeats itself over and over: in the speeder chase; in the city street; in the bar.
The movie's scenes are like index cards with ideas for locations, fights, or chases, with nary a bit of connective story between them.
The detective plot is silly. I'm sorry, but it is. Hmm, where did this mysterious dart come from? Of course it only comes from one planet. You know, the one in the Big Clue solar system. If you wanted to kill someone, wouldn't a nice sniper shot from a laser rifle be effective? If subtlety wasn't important, just spray a crowd with a blaster cannon. But no, use a stupid dart that will allow them to follow the trail of conspirators.
It bears mentioning that I can't believe the Jedi council continues to send one guy on critical missions when maybe four would be appropriate. Also, Yoda has never looked so unwise. Bad decisions you make! Cost many lives, it will!
The second half of the movie is somewhat better in that there is some action. However there are still problems abound. First there's the whole Tatooine trip. You're never told why Anakin hasn't in ten years been able to see his mother, so you're left to wonder why, other than to make it really dramatic, he only shows up when she breathes her last breath. Are the Jedi such assholes that they won't allow a four-day furlough for a trainee to go visit (perhaps even "free") his mother? OK, so now he's gonna do some serious kung fu on those Tusken Raiders, show 'em who's boss, yo! ....uhm, whaddayamean you aren't going to show it? You go from him taking the first swing (as seen in the trailers) to a fade/wipe to the next scene? Lame!
The fighting in the arena is pretty intense. I'm not entirely satisfied here either though, because some key matchups again get the short shrift. You'd expect Jango against Mace Windu to be a great fight. A Jedi Master versus Jango Fett? Sign me up! Don't get your hopes up, it's lame. Jango hardly puts up a fight before his head flies off. Really disappointing.
Plus, the Jedi in the battle are nameless and interchangeable. (Another of Lucas' big blunders. If he had any storytelling skill, he would've introduced at least one new Jedi character in this movie, if for nothing else than for the sake of getting some emotional response when he dies.)
For all the build up, the Yoda fight was a big letdown. As I feared, they have him spin around like Sonic the Hedgehog. The fight barely lasts a few seconds and then Dooku makes his escape.
One thing that really bugged me was the blatant Empire Strikes Back ripoffs. You'll see them continually throughout the movie. Lines of dialogue are so similar that you are forced to draw comparisons. There's a whole bit where Dooku is trying to get Kenobi to join him and I half expected him to say, "Yoda never told you what happened to your father. I am your father!"
So much of the action is cartoony. Anakin falling hundreds of feet onto a speeder with no injury and then having it crash and having him stand up with barely a wince is just one example.
However, at least this one doesn't crap all over the original trilogy the way the first one did. Which is my bitter way of saying Lucas didn't pull another "Darth Vader built 3PO" type of bombshell. So that was "good."
...because there are only 323 posts on /. about it. Stupid judgical rulings get more respone than that.
My father-in-law's summary of The Crying Game: It was a really dumb movie -- the girl the hero fell in love with turned out to be a guy.
We shouldn't have to wait until the fucking second or third episode to start with.
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
I'll add into this one that the pear that Amidala bites into was just a *wee* bit far from her face for her to have taken that big a chunk out of.
But, then again, the only other thing I noticed that was really wrong with the movie was near the end where we see Amidala writhing in pain on the desert sands, then the clone comes up and asks if she is ok, then completeley shrugs off the discomfort she felt. That's the only thing that really bugged me.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
as one of my friends said... at least in this movie he did something... he wasn't in this movie just for the sake of being in the movie, he actually advanced the plot.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
I saw the first Star Wars movie opening night when I was 16 years old. I was honestly perplexed that anybody thought that it was other than shallow, contrived shit. I persevered, watching every SW film afterwards on opening night, wanting to understand why this derivative garbage had so captured the pysche of the nation. I wanted to belong, damnit!
For Phantom Menace, I attended just because I'd seen the other three. Of course, I was disappointed. Last night, I went to see Clones, KNOWING that it was going to be trash.
Happily, for the very first time, I was wrong. Lucas finally presented to me a world that I had never seen before. Sometimes the CGI was disappointing, but only occasionally and never to the point of distraction. It was fast-paced, but still contained enough of a story to hold my interest. The eye candy was fantastic. Almost every alien and every craft and every city was amazing.
Omit the Anakin masturbation scene, and the Sound of Music scene, and much of the dialogue between our two young lovers (no chemistry, and that is hard to imagine considering that Natalie is HOT and a capable actor), and the movie was the second best I've seen this year (Brotherwood of the Wolf being the first).
Of course, I was disturbed that Natalie's character simpers so often, and, even after Anakin reveals that he is a mass murderer of women and chidren, she still marries him.
Still, I enjoyed it more than anything I've seen Lucas direct since American Graffiti or THX 1138.
Thank you, George.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
You have got to be kidding, not to defend Ep1 which Ep2 was only slightly better than. But the light saber battle in this sucked, it was entirely too short and made Yoda into comic relief. Of all it's shortcomings Ep1 had one of the best light saber duels. Ep2 has the cool multi jedi attack, but comeon Lucas stole the entire inspiration for that from Gladiator, in a lame attempt to capitalize of movie themes that were successful in the past. Yoda flying around like an idiot was stupid, as was his battle cry (err I mean squeal) when he first attacked. If it weren't Yoda no one would have been entertained, Lucas is using his "Get out of Jail Free" card by using the net provided by putting classic characters into different situations and using post shadowing ( it can only be foreshadowing when you don't know what's going to happen) stuff from 4,5, and 6. This movie gets a 5/10 at best, mainly because Portman's hotness more than makes up for her bad acting.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Remember, it's not the MPAA as a whole that you need to look at, moreso as the actions of its members. Star Wars is, as others have noted, done by LucasFilm, not associated with the MPAA.
Boycotting ALL movies will have no effect, however, a more meaningfull approach would be to boycott movies from members of the MPAA heavily in support of the legislation you don't want, and to see movies from more neutral/friendly studious.
IE: buy FOX instead of buying Disney.
This works in multiple ways: it shows the buying power that the slashdot crowd can create, it allows people to have pop entertainment and still stand for "the cause", and it damages the company that ppl do not support. A full boycott would be difficult to arrange, and very unpopular. A buy from this studio as they do not want to destroy your rights campain however, could possible work - perhaps even w/ the mass public, if you can get some media support.
(This entire line of reasoning however, exists souly because I want to see star wars(again). Yes i know, I'm a hyprocite. Bite me.)
------ 24.5% slashdot pure
I'm going to wander a bit, but I think there's an important point that people are missing. People miss the context of these movies and Lucas has put a very subversive political statement in them- both in how they are made and in the story they tell.
I never quite understood the complaints from the Star Wars "fans" about Phantom Menace. It seems there's a lot of people who wanted A New Hope remade and hated tht Lucas released a movie with a different story! Jar Jar was the lightning rod for this.
But PM was a summer bubble gum movie, JUST LIKE Star Wars originally was.
Lucas has stayed true to his vision with this movie, as we move towards the period in which ANH takes place we can see how we got from PM to ANH.
This movie, shot digitally, and shown digitally, really rocks. It is a compelling argument for digital theater. Its unfortunate that the reviewer is reviewing the movie not as it was meant to be seen-- but film isn't the only issue here. When ships rumbled this morning I felt it in my legs. (Cinerama in Seattle, best theater I've ever been in.) The image was pristine the sound system THX and turned up.
The other is that this is not a Tom Clancy story. This is not a Wim Wenders story. This is not a typical movie saga-- this is Space Opera.
A lot of "fans" seem to have forgotten this. This isn't The Matrix-- they are different categories of movies. Unfortunately, there is so little Science Fiction that all Science Fiction is perceived to be the same genre.
I freely admit that I prefer the style of story and dialogue of Blade Runner and the Matrix over Star Wars-- but Lucas's does his job so well that I have to give his movies the higher marks.
Lucas is telling a Galactic sized story, and only has 270 minutes to do it in. That means each scene must convey a lot of information, and the result is tortured dialog... and even then it feels like there's a whole lot that we don't get to see.
I respect this ambition, and I accept that it means that finding a cast that can convey it is going to be difficult-- especially given the financial, and political constraints on Lucas. Remember, these movies are made outside the hollywood system and without union crews-- and I applaud that. Its the ONLY way to tell the story you want to tell.
Many "fans" seem to forget who the audience for these movies is. It isn't 35 year old computer geeks. Otherwise they wouldn't be popular. The audience is middle america who wants entertainment. And Lucas, consistently, delivers what they want.
That's why we have Jar Jar - kids love him. That's why we have a love story in this movie. (Not to mention it would be hard to conceive Luke and Leia without some love story somewhere.)
And the reason he "compromises" in this way is not just to get the big box office, but to serve his larger, ultimate goal. Notice how much politics there are in these films? There's a really subversive message. One that Marx made (before jumping to foolish conclusions) and most americans ignore, but is extremely poignant these days:
When given the chance, people will trade liberty for security.
Ben Franklin brought this up a long time ago, in a country far far away, and Lucas is making the point again, but a bit too subtly for most people to pick up on it.
Do you trade democracy for the perceived security of a clone army? Regular inspections at airports? Do you concede your inalienable right to self defense and rely on the Jedi? Notice that Amadala is a pretty self sufficient person when the going gets tough.
And when you do, ultimately, as all democracies seem want to do, trade liberty for perceived security, you get neither-- you get an empire.
As we react to being attacked by "seperatists" with increased government control over our lives, we move in the direction of the dark side- of fascism- does it need to be pointed out how similar the empire's soldiers in the first three movies looked like our Nazis? The fixation with Nazis shown in the indiana jones movies?
They do make great villains, especially visually. but there's a lot more going on here.
Hitler was freely elected in Germany. A chancellor, or senator, he was. Germans, after the defeat and Trade Federations imposition at the treaty of versailles, wanted a strong leader. One who would raise an army despite the prohibitions. Hitler was that leader. He raised an army of genetically pure "clones" with rigid behavioral conformity and turned the country into an empire.
Nobody thinks it could happen here, but difficult to see, the dark side is.
BitGeek
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
He Dies.
You know ... almost this entire argument could be made for why video games aren't as mature as movies... good eye candy, but no killer story to tag along with it. I guess there's game play, but I think that could mature in the same way... sorry... I'll stop being off topic now.
People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
I just have one complaint about the Yoda fight: instead of stopping the column in mid-air, why not simply yank Obi-wan & Anakin out of the way? Seems to me that would take less Force energy then suspending several tons of rock or whatever in mid-air...after that, he could have continued to kick the dooky out of Dooku (sorry, couldn't resist :)).
Actually, a number of the clones "get it in the end" as well, just not at the hands of any Jedi.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
For the record, this review was written by zikzak and posted to Adequacy.org several days ago. It has been reproduced here without permission or attribution (and mention of Adequacy was actually removed from the introduction.) We're glad you enjoyed the review, but the least you could have done is explain where it came from.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Lucas always said he filmed the middle trilogy because it was the most action packed one. Now that he's rich, he can do the other two trilogies.
Of course, we know he considers then inferioir to the middle one, so obviously no one is going to be as happy about them as with the ESB, the best movie of the best trilogy of the Star Wars epic.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Maybe Lucas maybe should push filming with digital cameras and put the digital set creation on the backburner for now. There may very well be something to filming in real instead of virtual sets, I can see the actors performance being affected by their environment and the "atmosphere" a period set might create, as opposed to a sterile blue screen set where the actors have to imagine the world they are acting in.
If directors see the advantages during production and post-production to filming in digitial, and the image quality of the end result up there on the theatre screen is as good or better than film, then digital filming/projection will gain ground, and the use of virtual sets will grow in situations where they are appropriate.
SPOILER ALERT
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Lucas ALMOST has a plot twist here. He sets up the stunt. He calls in the press. He drives up the ramp, drives back to the starting point, then decides to cross the canyon by taking the hiking trail. In the end, there is no stunt and there is no real plot twist.
Of course... what I am talking about is Dooku (sp). Dooku warns (taunts?) that the Republic is now under the control of the Sith. Woa. Could it be a plot-twist? Did Dooku discover (perhapse in being part of the plot to create the Republic's new army) the influence of the Sith? Did he become a rogue Jedi, taking perhapse the wrong path in a noble attempt to resist the Sith? Will the Jedi be fooled in to destroying the last resistance facing the Sith? Is this really a plot twist?
No, no. Don't worry. Dooku is really in league with Sidious. Its all a part of that machivelian Sith plan-within-a-plan-within-a-tired-plotline. Its a false twist. Its there just to fool you in to thinking there might be some active thought towards plot. But there's not. Evil.
Obi Wan leaping through a window and catching the flying droid thingy
Many many many Jedi, each with a unique fighting style battling it out in an arena
Psyco kitty trying to kill Amidala
Clone army fighting with the Jedi
Obi Wan saying to Anikin "Why do I feel you'll be the death of me."
Chasing the female bounty hunter
C-3PO & R2-D2 as the comic relief
The battle sequence between the Count and Anikin
Yoda kicking ass in surround sound
And of course, Amidala demonstrating just how cold it is aboard a starship
How many more memorable moments could you ask for out of a movie? Why don't you all get off your high horses and stop expecting an age defying, world shatering myth. That's not what Star Wars was ever about. Star Wars was about the story. A battle between good and evil. No more, no less.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Did you even see the new movie yet? The new movie is what Star Wars was all about. The new movie in fact is arguably on par with the original trilogy. Yes the acting sucked, but when was the last time you took a good long look at the old trilogy, the acting sucked in that too.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Clones starts off slow, and it takes half the movie to really start get going.
Maybe so (I haven't seen it myself yet), but that's true of A New Hope as well.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
It wasn't an attempt to reflect Luke in empire, nor does it have anything to do with latin (unless it did even in the original). In Jedi, when vader is fighting Luke, he gets his right hand sliced off. If you'll notice, there were mechanics and wires undertneith. He had to loose his right hand somewhere.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Granted, James Franco (Harry in Spiderman) would have made a better Anakin with more emotional strength, but the people who think the first part is slow must've missed one of the major action scenes, and not be happy with actual story getting in the way of anything but chasing and fighting.
The CG is definitely improved, but not well matched --- it's way too bright. Though some of it was that way in Menace, it's all that way now and thus in that respect, it's actually a little worse.
We're definitely getting more linkage to the original movies, and that's a big plus as well.
You mean in making a classic film, the director used classic bits of older films? Holy shit! Seriously take it easy, Lucas rips things out of other films and so does every other director.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Dude, there hasn't been a single Star Wars movie that the critics have liked. None of the Star Wars movies were Criticaly Aclaimed. All the power of Star Wars came after the fact. Ebert had nothing to do with the sucess of Star Wars. Stop listening to critics and judge the movie for yourself.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Everybody else is doing is not only untrue, it's not a valid defense of the crap in this movie. There's a difference between deciding to add a car chase, and deciding to add a car chase form the 5th Element. The movie bit, bit hard and the fact that it's in the Star Wars universe does not excuse it from being bad.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
While looking at a galactic 3d map Obi Wan says: "I'm looking for a system south of here".
Yes, George Lucas is a master comedian.
Spider Man - Action flick based on a comic with over 20 years of established history and characters designed to entertain comic geeks and action movie fans
Star Wars Ep II - S.F. Flick based off the old serials (read Flash Gordan) designed to be a simple but engaging story designed to entertain audiences from age 6 - 86
Two different generes each with their own merits, the movies are not comparable
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
> Hey, they did it in an episode of Star Trek:DS9 in the mirror universe where we got
;-) There's actually a good deal of pr0n films featuring twins, though most are (generally)unavailable in the U.S. Something about incest being potentially obscene... There was a famous film from the European company Private, one of the biggest pr0nmakers in the world, which featured fairly attractive twins making out and even fisting each other in a bar, but the scene was "cut" in the U.S. release to have all sexual relations between the two left out. If you think I'm kidding, I'm not. :-) Unfortunately the U.S. pr0n industry self-censors way too much, for fear of obscenity prosecution--yet there's no way to eliminate outdated censorship if no one's willing to take a stand and push the envelope. I don't think it's so wrong for consenting adults to be able to see whatever they want, being done between consenting adults....
> to see mirror-Kira make a pass at herself.
That was really sexy, in a perverse way.
Anyway, add to the list of hitting-on-herself scenes in geek-friendly shows the luscious encounter between Willow and evil vampire Willow on *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*. Sexy sexy! Willow-stroking-Willow, and a nice ass-grab. I'll never forget the line where Willow was describing vampire Willow that went something like, "I'm so evil! And I think I'm kinda gay..." That, and when vampire Willow says "No! This is a dumb world. In my world, we have people in chains and we can ride them like ponies." A-hem...
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
The film was wondrous, and delivers big-time as a fantasy adventure. I was astounded at how completely the movie immerses you in a vivid fully realized fantasy universe. This film builds out the details of the Star Wars universe in a way I found mind-boggling. Creative and artistic people labored over every frame to breathe the realism of life into the story, and they succeeded brilliantly because you buy into most every scene without even thinking about it.
The practical limits of older movies are simply gone, and there are none of the gratuitous CG showoff scenes that marred Lord of the Rings. Remember the camera flying through the evil factory in LOTR? A cool shot, but totally incongruous. In Star Wars Episode II everything is subordinate and appropriate to the story; the story flows with an effortless and beautiful freedom that must have been incredibly difficult to achieve behind the scenes.
As an adult I have to admit there was one significant flaw -- the entire love storyline between Padme and Anakin felt forced and mechanical. There was some spark and chemistry between Padme and Anakin, and it certainly made sense that they would fall for each other. There were revealing scenes with insight into their emotional bonding showing why they would care for each other. However, the overall feel of the love storyline was amateurish; you never felt the passions of the characters, never empathized with their dilemmas, and never really believed these were real people with real feelings falling in love. Lucas is very clumsy with human emotions both as a writer and as a director. Lucas should simply admit this and have someone else write and direct the scenes for this critical plot line; the movie would be significantly better for it.
To a 10 year old the love storyline might be acceptable, but to an adult it seems artificial and half-baked. I felt the love storyline was far and away the least polished aspect of the movie; I wished the same degree of intense creative artistry had been applied to the love storyline as was applied to the visuals.
Fortunately, flaws in the love storyline were not fatal to enjoying the movie. Because the universe was so rich and fully realized and the story was so involving and revealed so much about the Star Wars universe, the whole thing just worked as a pulse-pounding fantasy adventure.
Go see it, enjoy the exciting rich fantasy world as a kid would, and don't overthink the whole thing. It was good fun!
Episode I of course had Jar Jar, Watto, and many other CG chars, but Menace is literally crammed full of them.
I didn't read the full review (afraid too), sheee-it I could have downloaded the movie a week ago.
But is there any fully animated scenes like in Episode One?
Two cents to whoever guesses what scene it was. (it's easy)
Get your Unix fortune now!
I'm sorry. The people I saw it with thought this scene was completely absurd. The CG-Yoda comes walking in with a cane, and all of the sudden he's bouncing around the screen like some green piece of flubber, while swinging a mineature light saber. Well, that much is forgivable, I guess. I mean we all knew that Lucas would incorporate a big "look what you can do with digital effects" commercial into the movie. Also, you shouldn't expect him to care that Yoda, the only character that managed to exhude a sense of dignity, should go bouncing around the room a green weasel to entertain children.
But seriously, this scence just exhibits the degree to which Lucas is out of ideas. I have no doubt that Yoda could always defend himself, but I expected him to do so in some more interesting way than just fencing. It's about as much of a letdown as watching a movie in which the Dalai Lama starts blowing away people who diss Tibet with a shotgun.
Even sitting here, I could come up with a much more interesting thing for Yoda to do than merely having an acrobatic sabre duel. I mean, we know that you can do a lot more with the force than telekinesis and telepathy, and I figured it would be Yoda, when his back is against the wall, who would show us. I'm talking about mind control, about creating illusions for Dooku, about working him into such a rage that he loses control of the force, you know, the sort of stuff that Yoda always talked about.
But no, instead Yoda takes out the "far far away" equivalent of the machine gun and goes at it. Never mind that he weighs about 20 pounds--he still manages to parry the kinetic energy of a strong man's blow without flying backwads like a batted muppet. This thought alone caused me to giggle when I saw this scene, and by the end, I was laughing. Not with Yoda, but at him.
That scene made the character lose a lot of credibility in my eyes, and I must say, I was always a fan of Yoda. I worry for the Jedi, because you just know that sooner or later, someone in that galaxy is going to discover actual lasers (you know, devices which emit energy that really travels at the speed of light!). I'd like to see Yoda parry that!
Ebert began lambasting Lucas in the press ever since Lucas went full-court-press for digital projection. Ebert loves film, and sees Lucas as a threat to that medium, which of course, he is. I think that Lucas' statement that the next installment of the trilogy would ONLY be shown at digital projection theaters gave Ebert the impetus to fire both barrels at Attack of the Clones.
Personally, I'm troubled by the whole digital projection / all-digital-shoot / all-digital-post-production mentality, even as I recognize that it may open up new opportunities for small filmmakers.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
One guy in the packed theatre raised his hand and asked for a Diet Coke.
"That'll be $4.00," said the manager. The entire theatre erupted in laughter. Someone threw a bag of popcorn at him. Someone else started whooping and swinging a lightsaber. Ah, it was beautiful.
amen brother!
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
*****
What the hell is wrong with Amidala? Anakin tells her all about how he murdered an entire camp of Tusken Raiders in cold blood -- men, women and children -- and she still falls in love with him and marries him? I thought she was from good old peace-loving Naboo? Does she just have a shitty memory or what?
Speaking of...one of my friends who saw it says that N'Sync is in the big Jedi battle sequence at the end? Confirm/Deny? (I'm hoping for deny.)
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
- the whole saga is about an ambitious senator who creates a bit of havoc in order to be granted emergency powers, which he uses to eventually become emperor, and ends up being killed in Episode 6. Correct?
- there needs to be a prequel (or an Episode 0) in which it explains how an ordinary man becomes senator (SP), and how he avoided detection by a heap of Jedi for at least 10 years (before Ep1-Ep2). Somehow he manages to get the loyalty of Yoda's apprentice (Christopher Lee - CL), who disappears just before Ep1. Nobody notices how CL disappears and a new count appears - not even the Jedi, who are all-seeing.
- the galaxy is at peace for over 1000 years, with no army (only the Jedi to maintain peace) and a centralised government (senate) which is always quaralling. How the hell does one senator manage to persuade an entire fraction (Trade Federation) to start creating havoc? Episode 0?
- In order to avoid detection from the Jedi, the Trade Federation need to create a robot army, since an army formed of life forms are detectable by the Jedi. So why dont the Jedi detect the Clone Army? On a side note, the Clone Army are created on a planet 2 parsec away from "capital planet', which is a little over 6 light years away (basically suburbia in the SW universe). A parsec in a galaxy far far away is obviously different from an parsec in the Milky Way.
- Who finances the Jedi? Who finances the creation of the clone army? This Army is secret, started by CL on orders from SP while he was still a normal senator. So who financed SP?
- CL is loyal to SP, as are the Jedi throughout Ep1 and Ep2. The Jedi basically ask SP to take emergency powers in Ep2. They are still on the same side. So, storm troopers (a brain child of SP) are sent in to fight the drone army (also a brain child of SP). What the $#@%?
- Who the hell is Darth Maul (Ep1)? Wasn't there word that the Sith always come in 2's? If CL is the current dark lord, does that mean he is the 2nd sith. Since CL was trained by Yoda, who trained Darth Maul? My head hurts.
- In Ep4-Ep6, Anakin (AS) is loyal to the emperor (SP). In Ep2, he is loyal to SP. Most probably he'll remain loyal in Ep3, that is, he is loyal throughout the saga (Ep1-Ep6). So it's the Jedi who switch sides in Ep3. They join a rebellion. But who are the rebellion at this point? The only objection to the republic at this stage are the Trade Federation, taking orders from both SP and CL. But hang on, the central authority is SP (emperor). So who is the rebellion?
- So Anakin is there to bring order to the force. On one side you have the Jedi, who is on the other? SP? But the Jedi are working for him. My head hurts.
Revolution = Evolution
As we react to being attacked by "seperatists" with increased government control over our lives, we move in the direction of the dark side- of fascism- does it need to be pointed out how similar the empire's soldiers in the first three movies looked like our Nazis? The fixation with Nazis shown in the indiana jones movies?
They do make great villains, especially visually. but there's a lot more going on here.
Hitler was freely elected in Germany. A chancellor, or senator, he was. Germans, after the defeat and Trade Federations imposition at the treaty of versailles, wanted a strong leader. One who would raise an army despite the prohibitions. Hitler was that leader. He raised an army of genetically pure "clones" with rigid behavioral conformity and turned the country into an empire.
In 7th grade I bought a book which was all 3 of the original novelizations of the SW movies (including all the deleted scenes). But the thing that caught my eye was the prolouge. It described how the empire came into power. And I remember saying to my Social Studies teacher at the time, "This looks a lot like how Hitler came to power". Since then, I never looked at the Star Wars movies in quite the same way. There is a lot of political statements going on in the movies. It doesn't make the fact that they are just good fun stories first and foremost, but the politics are there.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Matrix Reloaded on Digital....drool...
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
Insert obligatory how to distract the clone armies with sheep joke here ;-)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
It sinks.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
[B]SPOILER ALERT - DONT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM.[/B]
[I]Its a Yin/Yan universe, we have the Jedi and the Sith, the 'good' side and the 'dark' side. Palpatine is the Yoda equivelant, but more powerful since me manages to deceive everyone. He somehow manages to splinter the senate into two factions, the Trade Federation and the Republic, although he's in charge of both factions. The TradeFederation know that he is leading a double life, they know that his goals are to create a clone army, so they create a cannon-fodder army called the Drone army (makes sense, you dont wont to risk the lives of your supporters, use robots instead). The senate give Palpatine emergency powers to end this crisis. Storm Troopers are recruited as the Army of the Republic.[/I]
Based on these facts, we can conclude that Ep3 will consist of the following:
1. The war ends when Palpatine negotiates peace between the TradeFederation and the Republic. The TF gets trade concessions (why else would they bother with Palpatines schemes), and even a priviledged position (Palpatines loyal friends). The TF may have financed everything (an investment so that they can make more profits later).
2. Palpatine controls an army of StormTroopers, probably to maintain the peace. Since he's in cooperation with the TradeFederation, he also starts building the Death Star to ensure peace is maintained. Think NATO.
3. Some planets want Palpatines emergency powers to end, but since he refuses (and is backed by a large army), they secede from the Republic and form the Rebel Alliance. The Jedi join the Alliance to restore things to the way they were.
4. Anakin doesn't like the politics and bickering of the Republic of old, instead he supports the 'strong hand' leadership of Palpatine and joins him to 'bring order to the galaxy'. Anakin decides to seek out and destroy the Jedi.
5. The Rebel Alliance is driven to the outskirts of the galaxy. Somehow, a spy manages to acquire the plans to the Death Star.
6. Episode 4 - A New Hope.
Revolution = Evolution
Are we to expect a third trilogy?
He's never made it a secret that it was supposed to be nine movies. Or did you mean "Are we to expect that he's really going to try to go through with his planned nine movies?"
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
If he goes through with the next 3 movies (or someone else (spielberg) does) they better follow the Zahn books because next to Lucas, when it comes to the Star Wars universe, Zahn is god.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Anakin is little improved from menace. I know he's supposed to be full of anger and angst, but mostly he just comes off as constipated and bitchy. Amidala seems to be taking a bit of a nap. Their romantic scenes together are the Jar Jar binks scenes of this movie: It just pauses the action, and the acting is so bad that the movie stalls until something interesting happened.
The romantic parts of the movie are the best parts. They are realistically awkward, slow, and mangled. Perfect romantic relationships dont just happen and Ep2 was an excellent example of what happens when you put 2 exceptional young adults together who like each other. Another important thing about Ep2 was that the human characters looked much more PLAIN (sans outrageous costumes and makeup and CG/movie lighting) and therefore real. Anakin was played perfectly by an excellent actor and we finally got to see some Amidala nipply-goodness!
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Flip side: granted Natalie Portman is in her early twenties. But Amidala is pushing thirty, and is probably just a little on the frustrated side after having been in politics for so much of her life, having gone from kid to grown-up without much chance at being a teenager (in that regard, just like her daughter). She's getting to the point where bells are going off, making her think that her life is passing her by. Anakin makes her feel younger and takes her away from being neck-deep in her responsibilities.
Keep in mind as well -- Anakin is not above messing with people's heads to get what he wants. Who's to say he's not flipping a few of her switches without her knowing about it?
I have yet to see the movie, but I did read the book, and there does seem to be an undercurrent of "Amidala's getting old -- go for it now" to the story.
Incidentally, I thought AotC (the book) did an excellent job of showing how Anakin could turn to the Dark Side -- it's exactly the same as any other zealot whose desire to do good is corrupted by a destructive streak. Think perhaps abortion clinic bomber. Anakin becomes Vader, not because he wants to be evil, but precisely because he believes that he's doing the right thing. He just doesn't realize what it's gotten him into until the end.
/Brian
I lucked out today and got to see AOTC at ten in the morning. The luck part was my friends and I bought our tickets on monday online. I was suprised by then the show wasn't sold out. When I saw TPM I had to wait in line for about four hours to get tickets and then another two hours waiting to get into the theater for the movie which filled the stadium. Today the stadium wasn't even close to full but I'd be curious to see how other theaters did. We picked the theater specifically because it has good quality screens but no oneever goes there because it is so out of the way.
I wasn't even positive last week that I would end up seeing the movie today because TPM disappointed me so damn much. The first time I saw it I was impressed mostly due to the anticipation of seeing it and the scale of the theater I saw it in. It was one of those ultra ginormous theaters with the sound cranked so high the speeder scenes caused your pants to massage your rectum. Subsequent viewings in other theaters and eventually getting the DVD spoiled the initial effect. TPM sucked ass. So in steps AOTC which had much less hype and I was less excited about. It turned out to impress me as much at it impressed Rob and many others here. It started off slow but it showed off lots of planets and lots of aliens and had plenty of Jedi action. All TPM had was abunch of pandering about mydoclorians by Qui fucking Gon and that damned pod race.
Things AOTC did right:
-Established Boba Fett, of all the characters from the original trilogy with possibly the exception of Han Solo he is the most interesting. Just by looking at him you can tell he has a past and has been there and done that. Han Solo was the same way, the Millennium Falcon had the same personal history effect as Boba's armor.
-Gives a reason why everyone goes on and on about Yoda being a badass Jedi master. Also gives Yoda a part in the movie that had some weight to it just like ESB had. Yoda's scenes were probably me favorite because I've always though he was a BMF.
-Goes back to Lucas' original desire to really show a full universe behind the story happening on screen. Originally he wanted to have the action take place indozens of different locals running a wide gamut of places in the galaxy. This is hard to do just using glass matte paintings and forced perspective shots. When the CG was used to really show off a big world that extended way past the reach of the camera it did its job well.
Things I didn't like so much:
-Poor use of CG characters in some scenes. Actually more like poor implimentation. Obi Wan's friend with the four arms just looked fake and stupid. If you want to use CG characters they need to look tangible. Some scenes felt like watching Roger Rabbit in space. When Yoda is seen floating by mace and Obi Wan he looks extra fake, in other scenes the CG shots are almost indistinguishable from puppet shots. Scenes with clone soldiers just look silly. In ANH and ROTJ the Death Star scenes with the stormtroopers in formation were done on glass mattes and look tons better than the CG clone soldiers.
-Crappy space scenes. While ESB didn't have a huge space battle or anything, it would have been nice for AOTC to have one or two. It did have the obligitory asteroid battle sequence but it was not nearly as tense as the one in ESB (baring the escape from the giant worm). Watching ESB for the first time it is a real possibility that Han and crew are going to end up staring at the walls of a Star Destroyer's brig. Star Destroyers were menacing and gave asense of forboding, the droid control ships just look comical and weak.
-Some shots like the view from Palpatine's office just look crappy. I applaud the effects guys for doing very good keying with all the CG augmented scenes. Characters don't have halos around them and it would be hard to tell that they were in front of ablue screen if it weren't for the fact the shots outside the windows looked way too weak sometimes. The twilight shots looked great and were massively detailed by the daytime shots didn't have nearly enough contrast. Something even old time directors have always done when using flat backdrops is add enough contrast to make it look like the backdrop is real. Too many soft shadows ruin the effect.
My gripes are just nitpicky visual details really because I really liked this movie. It was much better than TPM and gives me hope that Episode III willbe something really worth watching. Like Dante says, all Jedi had was a bunch of muppets. I'm looking forward to Episode III really jam packing in some action and maybe some real drama. I'm going to have to see it again on a digital screen just to compare and contrast the two formats. If you haven't seen it or are on the fence, go see it soon because Yoda's bad assery is worth sitting through the rest of the movie.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The most implausible scene however was Shmi's death. She was holding out in captivity for a month waiting for a rescue she never knew would arrive. Yet after surviving for that long she then just magically dies a minute or two after Anakin rescues her. The timing of that is beyond coincidental.
A more plausible, and perhaps more fitting, scenario would have been for Anakin to try and carry her out of the camp, only to have a signle Tusken Raider catch them and shoot her.
For added dramatic emphasis, Anakin could reach out with the force in a moment of rage and strangle the Tusken, causing the trademarked cluthing of the throat and falling to the floor. Having quietly dispatched the opponent, Anakin could then have a few minutes for his mom to give him her dying speach before he goes on his rampage and kills everyone.
Along with showing more clearly his fall to the dark side, it would also make his failure to rescue her more pronounced.
(And on a sidenote, where are all the Jedi? If 10,000 systens is only minority of the Republic, there must be at least 100,000 systems. At a billion people each(?) that would be a population of 100 trillion. Yet there are only a hundred or so fully trained Jedi?)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I'm going to come off as a Luddite here, but so here goes....
Personally, I think there was TOO MUCH CGI in Ep 2. Too much? Why, yes. Backgrounds, scenery, characters... it was prevailant. Unfortunately, that left very little for the actors to interact with. I'd say a good 80% of the film was done with actors in greenscreen stages, and/or interacting directly with computer-generated characters. This resulted in wooden performances. (Well, that and the fact that George Lucas can't write a love story.) The actors had nobody to act *with*, or they had no scenery to help them "get into" a scene.
If anything, shooting it digitally excaberated the situation. Okay, quick lesson: one foot of 75mm film -- about 12 frames, half a second at standard 24fps -- can run for US$1000. Film gets expensive quickly! Shooting digital means you can reuse the media for dailies, and it's releatively cheap, too. And when you get to editing, you can use all sorts of super-nifty non-linear editing techniques.
But there's a reason why editing and sound mastering is an art form and neccessarilly difficult. A good editor can make a good movie *great*, or can even make a poor movie tolerable. There are reasons why mastering and editing are done in expensive rooms that look like movie theaters that have multiple, hundred-channel consoles mounted elegently in them. It's as much an art form as directing is. I think something is lost when you move away from physical film as your editing medium.
Another point: Again, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but digital will never be able to compare to 24 frames/second, siver halide film. Any 'pixelation' is, frankly, microscopic, and the halides have an infinite range of color matching. You aren't limited by the picture format, by the compression format, by the number of bits per pixel used. It's natural color. Citizen Kane would have not nearly the impact that it did if it was filmed and edited digitally.
The computer animation student in me was thrilled and ecstatic, overwhelmed and overawed by the amount of CGI in the film. (And the miligeek in me was enthralled by the big battle.) Taco's right, CGI has come a LONG way, between Final Fantasy and Episode 2. The traditionalist in me, though, was dismayed and appalled by the way the CGI simply drowned out the actors.
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA- Inspired by the blockbuster series of movies from the 1970's & 80's, aspiring filmmaker George Lucas has added his own project to the growing array of Star Wars fan films. While its production values far outpace other fan films, it bears all the hallmarks of garage cinema.
To prove that imitation is indeed the sincerest form of blatant copyright violation, Lucas premiered his "film" at a local Star Wars convention. Lucas' mother, in whose basement he has lived for the last twelve years, is reportedly proud of her son's accomplishment. However, she also felt the love story between Padmé and Anakin was forced and poorly written.
Like most fan-generated "films," George's was not a film at all. Lucas admits that he shot everything on digital video, about one quarter the image density of standard 35mm film. While he maintains that the choice was an artistic one, the issue of cost is undeniable.
During the screening, many patrons complained of the blurry look of the film print. A defensive Lucas reminded them that it looked much better on his computer monitor.
"If you look at color retention and light response, it would have looked much better on film," offered local film buff Wes Antilles. "I would have let him borrow my Super16 camera. He's too proud to ask, I guess."
The film suffers other ills common to fan films. Even the B-movie title, Attack of the Clones, is a dead giveaway of its amateur origin.
While some critics say that story elements take a back seat to flashy special effects, it would be difficult to argue that Lucas underwrote the film. The first two thirds of the film consist of nothing but mouths moving, gums flapping.
"I've seen this kind of thing ruin otherwise promising films," says UCLA film professor Leonard Calrissian. "Independent films often turn out too 'talky' because amateur directors are often too in love with their script to cut unnecessary or forced dialogue."
The most common complaint so far is that the film is not very much fun to watch. One walks away from Attack of the Clones wondering for whom it was made. Like most independent/amateur cinema, it is likely that the movie exists mostly for its own sake.
"I've got lots of other friends who do this kind of thing," said one local independent filmmaker. "Every time I run into them, they demand that I watch their latest project. It's getting to the point where I'm avoiding people. I haven't talked to George for over a year."
Unable to pay real actors and having run out of available friends, Lucas had to create many of the characters digitally. In spite of their obvious unreality, these digimuppets do a great deal to mask the awful acting and terrible direction common to such efforts.
There is no word yet whether the owners of the Star Wars trademark and franchise will do with Mr. Lucas. Clearly Attack of the Clones violates more than a dozen heavily-guarded copyrights while creating unsanctioned and [according to some] inconsistent backstory for established Star Wars characters.
In spite of its problems, most audience members agreed that Attack of the Clones was one of the best five fan films they had seen this year. Some even went so far as to compare it with the much-loved The Lego Strikes Back from 1996. Not bad for a first effort.
Inspired by the slightly-warmer-than-luke response to Attack of the Clones, Lucas announced plans to begin work on a sequel- as soon as he can come up with a better title.
[the above article is from ridiculopathy.com]
My criticism of these movies lies only with their success... please let me explain:
PEOPLE ARE EXPECTING TOO MUCH, and YES, this has been said before, so again, let me explain:
Star War Episode IV was the first Star Wars that was released for a reason! Give or take a few details (OK, maybe more than a few), the overall story was already formed before shooting of the original Star Wars began. But just like Back to the Future, the total concept for the plot and the characters and their adventures and the ultimate finale simply couln't fit into one movie -- this is why there was a Back to the Future I, II and III, and this is why we are still waiting for more Star Wars. So why was Episode IV released first, and why was it so much more positively received by the critics?
Episode IV was a success because of one simple fact: it had clearly defined "good guys" and "bad guys". The Empire was already formed, and it was bad. Darth Vader was bad. Luke was good. Leia was good. Obi Wan (Ben) was good. Simple.
But even still, there were hints at a greater scheme -- there was a history, there was an anxiousness at the end that made people wonder "whats next"? Well, with these "prequels" we already know "what is next" (in the long term anyhow), and although we in the audience really know who is "bad", it isn't really clearly defined. This is a much more subtle arena -- the title of Episode I was very appropriate, and for that reason (and yes, of course, even PeTA members would like to kill Jar Jar) it was highly criticized. I think Episode II answers a lot of questions, and given the enormous story that Lucas is trying to tell, I commend him for his efforts -- this has all the heart of the originals despite not having a cowboys vs. indians black and white story from the get go. We all knew there was a back story, and it amazes me that some critics have the nerve to complain that the material isn't "fresh".
I have read reports (Rex Reed, for example) that claim this is a boring movie. Get off the Vicodin -- this has more explosions, fight sequences, chase scenes, thrills and surprises than any other action movie I can think of. Sure it has its flaws (read: "love" scenes), but the movie's greatest flaw is that it is the latest in a series of wonderful movies -- I can't think of an easier and more obvious target for a mainstream critic.
Luke senses the good that remains in Vader. The Emperor can't sense Luke because he represents pure evil. Good is aware of good, evil is aware of evil. In the new trilogy, only the Trade Federation is aware of the existence of Sidious because it is the allegorical representation of greed. The Jedi Council is blind to the power of evil because it is represents everything that the Sith do not - evil, hatred, greed, lust etc.
But not for long... because the new films are all about this fall from grace. Anyone else do a double-take at the cognitive dissonance of seeing Yoda fight alongside a bunch of stormtroopers? Lucas had me grinning ear to ear!
Warning...Intellectual Spoiler
Go watch it again. There is much more than implication --- It is clear to see the "Anny" respects and admires Palp. In their seen together Palp. goes a long way to "pat" Anny on the back and talk about how he is going to be a bigger bad ass than Mace and Yoda put together -- and that good ole' buddy Palp will be there with bells on when it happens. VERY clear forshadowing from where I was sitting.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.; (which is distributing SW)
That's why I don't make a distinction. They're all a part of it.
Yeah, it really is fscked. My husband wanted to take me to see a movie. I try to avoid anything but indies now, so I say "cool, let's go to see Dogtown and ZBoys. Indie film, no connection to the MPAA, a movie about some people who were sorta, kinda heroes for me Back In The Day...yeah, great idea.
Guess what. The film starts. What's the first thing you see? A title slide that says "Sony Classics Pictures."
GAAAHHHH!!!! EVIL FSCKN SONY STRIKES AGAIN!!!!
I really, really resent the MPAA. They have the movie distribution channels locked up so tightly that not even indie movies can get in theatres without kissing Don Jack "The Ripper" Valenti's ring.
That's it. I'll just wait for stuff like this to come out on DVD and get it on Half.Com.
PS: Dogtown thoroughly kicked ass. You gotta see the scenes of Venice surfers playing very dangerous games with the ruins of the Pacific Ocean Park pier. But wait until you can get a used DVD on Half.Com. Do it for the kids!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Nope, just saw the movie. In Episode III 3PO HAS to have his memory wiped. R2 on the other had appears to remember stuff in ANH that 3PO doesn't.
Anyone notice how Dooku and Anakin say almost exactly the same thing? "I am the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy". I guess it's expected, but I didn't think it would be so blatant, and Palpatine tells Anakin, "You're the most talented Jedi I've ever met".
I though the romantic scenes were a little sappy (but I always do, seen too many Hindi movies). But, they are much better the second time around, and you catch a few more nuances (they're there). I wanted to see whether they would be as embarassing the next time around, and they really weren't.
I could hear Lucas in the director's chair saying:
- Natalie, you're still thinking, is this the little 10 year old from Tatooine.
- Natalie, you're tocuhed by his declaration, but wiggle your shoulders a little more, and edge away from him on the sofa.
- Hayden, you're willing to tell her *anything* to her, you're 20 years old and you've been a monk for the past 10.
- Hayden, keep staring at her, you know she likes it.
None of the actors have the presence of Alec Guinness, Harrison Ford, or James Earl Jones' voice. Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine) and Christopher Lee (Dooku) probably come closest.
-- Equity lord of the Trill Consortium
Funny. 3PO doesn't remember Tatooine, Ben Kenobi, or Luke; but he does remember the Clone Wars.
Remember? He tells Luke "there's not much to tell."
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
You want emotion and feeling? Read Anna Karennina. This is a Star Wars movie.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
In another 15 years Lucas will be about 73 years old. Hope he hangs in there.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Lucas draws heavily on older movies. Lord of the Rings, 1950's Westerns, The Seven Samurai (and other Kurosawa films),... the list goes on.
Why does everyone seem to think this is a bad thing?
Remember? Great artists steal!
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
what was that from? I can't seem to remember.
anyone can tell from Yoda's "words of wisdom" in Empire Strikes Back that he was speaking from experience. That's how you get wisdom. Obviously, if Lucas would lay off the pot he might have some shred of internal consistency. But anyway, Yoda's got to be about 870 years old already (that last few decades really caught up with him), so maybe he had already learned his lesson about helping your friends/honoring what they fight for.
David Weber and Lois McMaster Bujold write far better space opera. Lucas should outsource the plot and concentrate on what he's good at: effects and production.
No. Bad artists steal. Great artists create something original.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
The biggest thing is that he doesn't remember the Lars homestead where he apparently lives for years. Maybe he gets damaged in the next movie and gets selective amnesia.
Nah, he's a master. There is no context switching. You're always aware of everything, living in the moment.
I claim anteriority on that one !
And I did not even get 1 point !
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=32292&cid=349
of course my piece was less developed and
more elliptic. Story of my life...
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
That is the only movie I left the theater wishing that I hadn't seen it. To this day I try to put it out of my mind. Aliens is one of the best movies ever made and then they go and stomp all over it in the sequel. I hate the people that made Alein 3.
Even though I left the theater dissapointed in Episode I, nothing compares to dissapointment of Alien 3.
Need inventive ideas? That's why they have officers - recruited from the general public....
Some say it's computer generated inside
the ships to help the pilots understand
what's going on....
in my opinion the propulsion system of the
ships distorts the fabric of spacetime
a little like the effects of gravity, and
this creates corrsponding gravity waves
which makes the vessels vibrate. When the
ships explode the brutal disruption of
those gravity-wave creating systems
makes a shockwave appear.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
Pablo Picasso said,
"When there is something to steal, I steal it."
even great artists "borrow." great artists realize that even something original references things that have come before it in some way.
you probably shouldn't have read this.
I saw at my local big screen 8:45pm. My thoughts. 3.5 of 5, here's my non-Lone Gunman Review:
Attack Of the Clones: "Hand Me My Lightsaber. It's Purple and Says, 'Bad Jedi Mother.....'"
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Actually, 3PO is referring to being involved with the Rebellion.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Of course, there is still the very real fact that the Islamic extremists ARE deranged...
A rea=egypt&ID=SP37502
To pick just one example, here is a column that appeared in Egypt's official state newspaper. As you read it, keep in mind that this is not some guy passing out propaganda on the street, but the Egyptian Government Daily Al-Akhbar.
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&
Sure, it is always easy to write something which looks superficially like a parallel situation. I just hope people recognize the humor and do not confuse fiction and reality.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I really liked this movie. This will contain some spoilers, but nothing serious. Lucas injected this with so much moral ambiguity its practically Barry Lyndon in space. The Jedi are revealed to be a lot more backward and 'secret police'-like than the knights of honor Obi-Wan described them as in the original.
Lucas continues to demystify the Jedi and shows them to be practially ineffectual compared to the dark-side. The jedi are shown to be a conservative group of assassins, thugs, and simply the fist of the republic. Their restrictions seem more trouble than they're worth, especially the celebicy rules for hormone-crazed Anakin. Lucas seems to be showing both the Jedi and the Republic to be structures that age very badly and are destined to collapse from dogma and corruption.
Lucas's political cynicism is all over the place. None of the other movies had this, at least in such an obvious way. The original three had a strong good vs. evil theme. TPM had some senatorial intrigue, but nothing on this level. We get to see how badly the republic is run and how vulnerable it is to dictatorship. The characters trust their government about as much as most people trust the US government.
A few people have compared it to ESB, but its a lot more brainy than that. The next film which shows the total decline and collapse of both the Jedi and the Republic may be the best one of all.
... universe, or possibly not known, is that the story telling perspective is not from the point of view of the humans such as Luke, Leah, Anakin, or the aliens, Yoda, Chewie, etc. They're told from the perspective of the droids, plain and simple. That has always been Lucas's intention. I heard/read/saw an interview or something along those lines (I forget, I'm sorry) where he mentioned this explicitly. The droids are what make the real framework of the story - their antics make the movies interesting and fresh. I challenge everyone to go back through the Trilogy (and Ep2, really) and mentally remove the schenes where R2 and 3PO are present. The films are drastically lacking any sort of entertainment value. They're almost boring. The droids perform -so many- useful tasks in the films. Paticular emphasis on A New Hope and Clones, I feel. Notice how the plot didn't really start picking up until the droids started having a more active role. (Coincidence, but still, ironic coincidence. Also, I'm not sure of this, but I think that Lucas almost named the movie Droids initially, but picked Star Wars instead. Watch "The Making of Star Wars" - the majority of talk was about droids, and getting them to work properly, etc.)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
real fans won't care if the movies are inferior...we want the entire serise in itf full complete self......besides...after 1-3 are done he can show 1-6 then anounce 7-9 then when those are done show 1-9
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
exactly, anakin was never realy evil intentionaly, and at the end of rotj he realises it.
I think this movie adds new depth and understanding to why darth vader is who he is.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
it is kind of interesting that palpatine's plane ends up to doom him. if the jedi had been finished at that point, then Luke would never have been able to do what he did.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Get your flamethrowers out boys.
;-)
George Lucas has set movie heroines back at least 50 years with the use of Natalie Portman in AOTC.
I know I know...you all think she's a hottie what with her exposed back in the infamous perilously draped bedsheet as dress number on the terrace scene, or the strapless black pleather dominatrix wannabe getup in the hokey fireplace festivities scene or even the white longjohns in the colliseum battle scene...once they've been conveniently slashed to reveal her tummy.
Take it from a real woman - Nat's a "nottie"
Meta-Quote "There are no jiggling breasts in space". --Carrie Fisher in 'Skywalking' quoting George Lucas's reason for mercilessly taping her breasts flat to her body for the filming of ANH.
Every second Little Miss 'I better use my only 2 talents 'cause I sure as hell can't act worth a crap' was on screen I secretly longed for Leia to swoop in and bitch slap the dumb blonde conveniently disguised as a brunette Amidala (I'm supposed to believe she's Leia's *mother*?!?! I don't think so...). Assassins kept trying to kill Amidala through out AOTC and what does she do? Change outfits, usually to something that would even have Joe Pesci's Vinnie saying a la My Cousin Vinnie 'Oh yeah Padme, you blend...not!' Here's a fashion tip: A shiny silver cape on a desert planet is about as subtle as Jennifer Lopez's Grammy Awards bathrobe in a mosque filled with Shiite Muslim clerics - nothing like the impractical outfit to remind the killers just where their target is at all times (see Kate Capshaw in Temple of Doom).
Leia Organa was and in my mind still is the only regal female character, a real Star Wars fan's princess. That Padme's now only a Senator says something (apparently even a pair of perky ones doesn't translate to a lifetime guarantee to a crown). And while we're on the subject of breasts, Carrie Fisher had to go through two and a half full movies before she was ever allowed to show a little skin and she still hooked up with Harrison Ford, Even fully clothed that relationship was damned sexy! Watching Padme half-naked and forced to keep saying 'no we really shouldn't Ani' while making cow eyes at him was beyond stupid and painful and sends the not so subtle message that George has forgotten what makes for a real heroine - the ability of a woman to stand up for herself and kick a little ass whether she's taped and covered in a white shroud and has her hair done up in to ear-covering danishes or whether she's chained half-naked to a morbidly obese slime slobbering lounge lizard.
While Leia would shove a Wookie into a stinking trash compactor to get away from imminent danger, Padme can't figure out how to crawl out of a big bucket. Where Leia would give Han Solo shit about being a money grubbing mercenary jerk, Amidala can't even convincingly defend her own politics to an escaped boy band look alike who is a cross between Wesley Crusher and any dreaded Mary Sue from any fanfic cannon you'd care to name.
And let's get to Amidala's taste in uh sullen teenagers. Hayden is certainly no James Earl Jones, he's not a Harrison, heck he's not even up to Hamill on Mark's worst day. Hayden has exactly two facial expressions: drool and pout and most of the time he doesn't know which one he should don. This poor little boy's character is saddled with the great task of becoming the menacing Darth-freaking-Vader and anytime he does something vaguely unsettling (like say committing small scale genocide to avenge a plot device...I mean his mother's death) our heroine's first instinct is to give him a cuddle?!?! Besides Anakin being ten years younger, a thousand times less smooth than the geekiest geek you can imagine, and a future mass murderer Padme all of a sudden finds Ani peachy keen and hints that she'll put out for him if he'll fight by her side when it looks like they're both going to be executed. Gag me with a lightsaber already! Or better yet Harrison appearing as Indiana with a big black revolver and shooting the creepy lovers the way he did with the big sabre wielding dude in 'Raiders' would have made me respect George Lucas again.
And there lies the crux of the problem: by using Padme/Natalie as the female protagonist in this first trilogy old Papa Skywalker Ranch is really saying he doesn't give a rat's patootie about his female characters other than as fashion accessories and plot devices. I'd like for Georgie Porgie to remember that the women in his audience young and old are all smarter than those Kenner action figures he's gonna retire on. It's sad that he's dumbed down his plots so that kids won't see too much death and bad stuff (ie why the Dark Side of the Force has been stripped from this first trilogy) but it's unforgiveable that Padme doesn't stand up for herself until very late in AOTC. The message this first trilogy sends to women and young girls is that we're not a factor in a major political and spiritual revolution except as a fetus factories and eye candy and for someone as smart as Lucas it's unforgiveable. He had better give Padme some honorary cojones for Episode III or he's gonna lose his female audience (you know the future mothers and grandmothers and ticket buyers for the generation of little urchins to whom the third Star Wars trilogy will be marketed) and lord knows he can't conquer the box offices or the Dark Side without us.
Besides every geek knows that smart is infinitely sexier than skin