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Newest Star Wars Reviews Suprisingly Positive
Patchw0rk F0g writes "CBC is reporting on the suprising results of pre-screenings of Lucas' latest (and final) installment of his sci-fi epic. From TFA, "The advance reviews of Revenge of the Sith, the sixth - and final - Star Wars film, have been mostly positive - and in some cases outright effusive." Go figure... maybe Georgie got it right finally."
and all will work out in the end
"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
True in so many ways.
how 'bout I give you the finger....and you give me my phone call.
the sixth - and final - Star Wars film
final? aren't there supposed to be nine when they are all done?
What's so surprising? After all, A New Hope was the best one in the original trilogy, IMHO. Lucas is a great director. Just because he did something different the last two times from what you were expecting doesn't mean you'll always hate his work. So why get surprised?
Got it right finally? I'd say he did pretty well on his first attempt...
Is there anyone out there, that say, saw 5 out of the 6 Star Wars movies and are not going to see the last one because of a review or vice versa, see the last movie because of a positive review? In general movie reviews are relatively useless unless you know a reviewer well enough to be sure that his/her personal tastes line up with yours.
Or maybe George is cashing in a few favours from friends in the media. Frankly, while it's possible that everyone's expectations were so low from Ep 1 & 2 that anything looks good in comparison, this is also the media which blindly and stupidly supports anything these days. These companies are absolutely desperate to be the one who gets on the bandwagon first.
Click here or here.
Well, I'll be watching it whether the critics love it or hate it. I like to form my own opinions.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.â"John Gaule
Well, where's the torrent?
My name is Aaron Landry, and I approve this message.
Harry Knowles gave it a good review... that means it MUST be AMAZING!
I've been reading the reviews, too, with a bit a skepticism... but I liked this one most of all. She's an occasional columnist for AICN, and definitely one of their better and more trustworthy writers. She trashed the last two movies, but this one, well...
To quote:
Q. Give us a four-word review.
A. Bloody hell! It's good!
Are we sure that there wasn't a ghost writer on this one? ESB is that best and wasn't written by Lucas. Or, maybe he just learn to write this time around. Either way, I have read that it's damn good and can't wait to see it the minute it opens.
Evolution or ID?
Bai Ling (Senator Bana Breemuwas cut from SW3 because she did a Playboy Spread [NSFW]
Firstly I hated the episode one, episode two was alright. So I wasnt expecting much. This one was great, I enjoyed every bit, theres a constant dark undertone to the whole film which is whats been missing from the first two. Go and see it.
I wont tell you how it ends...
---Spoiler Warning---
Obi-Wan walks into a room full of toys and video games. Anakin is playing Super Mario Brothers.
Obi: "Where did you get all this stuff!"
Ana: "I've been using the force like you taught me."
Obi: "You stole all this stuff?!"
Ana: "Of course not."
Obi: "Then what did you do?"
Ana: "I used the force to see into the future..."
Obi: "And....?"
Ana: (Looking down at the floor. Knowing he's in trouble) "...and....and...I used it to find the winning numbers in the Naboo Lottery...."
Obi: "Anakin!"
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Am I the only one that liked the first two?
Yes.
The lightsaber combat in eps 4, 5 and 6 especially seem a little lacklustre compared with the excitement of the big fight in episode 1. And the whole look of the series just jars a little when you have part 4 made 20 years before part 1 and really looking 20 years older even with the lick of paint for the special edition.
Add to that the fact that Lucas clearly changed his mind a few times about where the story was going, with Leia suddenly becoming Luke's sister (and I'm not even convinced that Obi wan's lie about Darth Vader killing Luke's father was originally meant to be a lie), it would make some sort of sense.
And then the guy can stop fiddling with the original trilogy, and "tell the story he originally wanted to tell".
The previews for this movie look very good. Unfortunately, they'll probably let Hayden Christiansen actually speak and that will ruin the movie. The action was fine in both of the prequels so far, it was the god-awful script and acting that made me want to repeatedly stab my brain with an ice-pick.
Bravo for standing up and saying what (I'm sure) so many here are thinking, but won't say because it's now chic to bash George Lucas.
The first two weren't THAT bad! Yes, Jar-Jar got on a lot of peoples' nerves, and the puppy-love scenes in EP2 might have been a little overdone. But overall, I thought they were generally very enjoyable!
But let's face it; most people here weren't old enough to be movie critics when the original trilogy came out, so they don't really have much perspective. Now that it's fashionable to be jaded, they just can't bring themselves to admit that they actually liked TPM and AotC.
I for one look forward to seeing RotS, and won't be here sounding off about how George Lucas robbed my life of several hours.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
There is a version of the article with just the content, no snazzy graphics.
Content is king.
I know, what's even worse are those first few movies. Just a few spaceships, Luke discovers the force, shoots a bunch of stormtroopers and blows up a Death Star or two. And Darth's his father. I mean seriosuly, what do people see in these things?
If you oversimplify to the degree that you did Episode III, you can make anything look stupid. Romea and Juliet is just two lovey-dovey people with a fatal misunderstanding. Indiana Jones is just some archaeologist who beats up Nazis. Episode III is just some saber fights. I mean come on; you know it's more than that.
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
He has to make you fans again? What, just because he stops making movies for a while means you revert to your Pre-Star Wars stage and aren't a fan anymore? That's silly. If anything, you would be a fan from the first three he made, revert to normal person once hating Episode I, then see Episode II to see if he wins you back. Episode I shouldn't be his attempt to win you back, since there was nothing to disenchant you with the magic of Star Wars before that. Unless you didn't like the Special Editions or something but you don't need to bother seeing those.
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
Once you have all 6 movies on DVD will you watch them in the order that they are released on in the order that they are numbered? I contend that the 4-6 should always come before 1-3 because I don't want to know that Darth Vader is Luke's father, etc. I think that they should still be viewed in the released order or else the mystery will be lost, however most of my friends disagree with this notion. It would be like watching half of The Godfather II and then watching original Godfather beofre going back to the rest of II.
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?
The BBC has some reviews too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4528 639.stm
I actually liked the first two movies... the dialogue wasn't exactly mind blowing... even dull at times... but they were still very entertaining by and large. However, I have a feeling that, story aside, if Darth Vader had been in the first two movies I think they would have gotten a much bigger reception. All of the original trilogy had Vader in it in all his 3V1L L337 coolness, and all three of them were very good... the third only dropping off mildly from the first two.
Now that Vader is finally coming back onto the screen he has everybody fawning again. I have a sinking suspicion that the dialogue and acting is going to be similar to that of these last two movies (essentially what makes them 'horrible' in many people's eyes), but its got Lord Vader... so it's AAAAALLLLLL good. My $0.02.
I think you're confusing writing the STORY with writing the SCREENPLAY. The story was written in part in the 70s. There are some scenes in this film which were published in magazines in the early 80s (there is one particular major bit with Anakin that I've heard quoted ever since, and it's a major set for ep3). And of course, Lucas almost certainly planned out much of the detail in this film when arcing out 1 and 2 and their tie to 4.
I would not be shocked to find out that some sets / CG for this film were built before 2 was even done post-production.
The screenplay for this film is crucial, but don't assume that it was or even should have been the starting point.
To the author of this article:
Finally got it right? So it somehow seems that George messed up some critical point in the original three? I think an obssessed legion of fanatical Lucas zealots and Star Wars freaks would beg to differ with that statement. Aside from that, yeah the Phantom Menace wasn't so great. Jar Jar Binks was incredibly annoying (can they please, PLEASE KILL HIM this movie? I'd love to see Jar Jar's fricking head get lopped off with a lightsaber; hell I'd pay money just to see that one scene by itself) and was far to prominent in the movie, but Attack of the Clones was pretty good. Particularly the end battle scene in the arena, and Yoda stepping up to the plate againest Count Dooku were particularly good. Personal opinion: take your opinion and shove it pal. With the exception of Phantom Menace I've liked all the movies, and I don't doubt Revenge of the Sith will be great as well.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I agree. 7 year olds dig ewoks. One day I got to thinking how come I wanted an ewok so bad 3rd grade was a complete wash with daydreaming, but yet I friggin hate Jar-Jar. Oh, it must be becuase I'm 30 now. I re-watched I & II with the mindset that I was a kid again and you know what, Star Wars rules again.
Also they cry themselves to sleep at night holding their pillows moaning "Han shoots first!"
If Lucas could easily buy good reviews, he would've bought good reviews for the last two prequels too.
I have an optimistic crackpot theory. I'll write it in PHP because that's what I'm using mostly as of late.
if( in_array( 'Darth Vader', $movie ) ){
return awesome;
}else{
return poop;
}
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
To be honest though Lucas didn't have an awful lot to do for this film - he already knew how it had to end. I'm no writer but I'd wager it is a lot easier to formulate a screenplay when you already know exactly what it has to achieve to be considered a success.
Contrast that with Episodes I and II, where Lucas had very little in terms of pre-ordained plot development - the result was obvious, Jar Jar Binks et al.
Not to mention of course that since Episodes I and II were poorly received (62% and 65% respectively), reviews of this film were (and are already) bound to draw comparisons and as such favour it accordingly anyway.
For me one of the worst things about the previous two films in the franchise is that because they were continuations (albeit prequels) of what had already become legendary - no one had to try very hard. As a result the acting is wooden, the dialogue stunted and insincere, etc. Reminds me of the cringeworthy Matrix sequels.
Anyway, I personally believe that if the film didn't happen to include the words "Star Wars" in the title, that we would be seeing completely different reviews. And I consider myself to be an avid Star Wars fan to boot.
Their sad devotion to that ancient trilogy has not helped them conjure up DVDs of the original films, or given them clairvoyance enough to find something better to do with their time.
"ANYONE who's ever been interested in Star Wars knew the story. Anakin falls to the dark side, Obi-wan knocks him into lava so he gets the suit, Luke and Leia are born, Obi-wan and Yoda disappear to distant planets. The rest is really just details. This isn't exciting because no one knows what's going to happen, it's exciting because we DO know what, but we want to see *HOW*."
Bingo. That's the whole thing.
I knew that Anakin was gonna turn to the dark side ever since the original trilogy. I didn't know how or why.
After playing the video game, I know exactly how and why. And, while trying not to go into any explicit spoilers, let's say it was a bit... not what I expected, and it puts Episodes 4 to 6 in a very different light too.
So trust me, when I say the video game gives away the story, I don't mean just "it tells you that Anakin falls to the dark side, falls in the lava and gets a cool black suit." It gives away a helluva lot more.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
... and boy was that intriguing! can't wait to see whats coming in Episode 4!
Lets be frank here and I'm not trolling.
Nothing will be good enough for the Slashdot crowd. He could film it in super douper total emersion 3D-o-vision with the best script & acting on the planet and there will still be compaints from many of the Slashdot crowd. He could choose to be totally divorced from the bloody thing and people will still hark back to how it isn't quite as good as the one they saw while in their nappy 25 years ago, and George has spoiled.
Hindsight is invariably 20-20 and rose tinted. People seem to forget that the originals had their very dodgy moments too. What people remember is not just the movie, it is the whole experience that they had when sitting there many moons ago, before the got old and embittered by age and by supporting Windows boxes (coz supporting Unix doesn't embitter one as much does it). It was going with their parents, getting popcorn, sitting surrounded in awe by peers, with their parents or older siblings. Playing with X Wing fighters for weeks afterward. It was getting all the mags & figures & watching the cheesy kids shows jump on the bandwagon. It was the fact that this was totally new, nothing else came close.
I watched the rest, I await the next as does everyone else here, even those that refuse to admit it.
Oh and just to piss off the remaining readers I haven't offended yet, I love my TiVo.
Just because your paranoid doesn't really mean they aren't out to get you
At first when I saw this headline on Matt Drudge, perhaps Speilberg was sad because the yet this was yet another cheesey episode in a long melodramatic series. However, the article says Steve was genuinely moved by the film.
I'm a member of an oppressed minority group who believes that New Hope was better than Empire.
I dunno why that is. Maybe we didn't care for some of the darkness in ESB, and New Hope was more fun. Maybe the open-ended conclusion was less thrilling than the destruction of the Death Star. Maybe it's the "freshman effect" that made Clerks better than Mallrats. (Not that ESB is anything like Mallrats. ESB is a great movie. Just less fun than New Hope.)
It's not important why. I just wanted to state out loud that although it's accepted wisdom that Empire was better than New Hope, it's not entirely universal.
But that's why I've said before on Slashdot that I thought that Sith had a good chance to be the best of the prequels: it ties in to what I feel is the best of the originals.
Wait I'm confused.
So whatever happened to episodes 7, 8 and 9? (If anyone else can remember that far back, when Lucas was talking about his nine-episode epic.)
I mean, other than having a movie about a guy talking about himself ...
The characters are dropped into situations and they react. Like when Han shot a bounty hunter sitting across from him.
Lucas' problem isn't character development. His problem is back-story. Vader had more character development in ep 4 & 5 than any other bad guy has had in ep 1-3.
Lucas just doesn't know how to write a story that will result in the character he has already developed. Which is why he falls back on fan-boy tricks of re-introducing the previously created characters and such (the droids, Boba's daddy, Tatoonie, etc).
Vader has character.
Annie is just put through some badly written situations and dialog so we can get to the Vader suit.
When one considers that the inside of R2 had porn plastered all over the inside to ease Baker's discomfort (I'm not making this up) one wonders what kind of comedy is involved.
Well, just what was stupid about episodes 1 and 2, you ask? I invite others to add to the list, or dispute my inclusion of the following:
1) Anakin grew up on the planet his son later hides on, yeh. So, maybe those Storm Troopers are retards and kill the people raising his son, but even turned to the dark side he feels so little that he doesn't shred the troopers who killed them into hamburger? They're his own relatives, for crying out loud. All GL had to do, was put this on another planet, it's a big universe.
2) Darth knows the droids, from his childhood? Yeh right. What does this add to the story? All the big story's in humanity's history have room for literally thousands of important people, important players. If they needed some droids (and yeh, they probably did), why not invent some new ones?
3) Yoda bounces around like a $10 toy from the bratstore? Yoda was supposed to be literally *awesome* if you did piss him off. Not comical. Yoda should have opened his robes, and anywhere from 6-20 lightsabers just levitate outward from him and activate. The bad guy (Darth Brooks? I forget his name) would have to do everything he can to not be mowed down by the cloud of spinning lightsabers biting at him from every side, even the distractions he might throw at Yoda would be smacked away. Let him escape, sure. But make it look like the guy beat the 100,000 to 1 odds in doing so.
4) Absolutely clueless intrigue. Even the bad guys in both shows would be amateurs when put up against the likes of my local city council. The good guys wouldn't stand a chance against the maternity ward at a hospital. The Jedi have magical powers, dammit, and you're telling me they never even notice a Sith Lord on the same planet as their headquarters? That once they know about him, it's all up to Ewan McGregor to find out what's going on? Aren't there dozens of Jedi, even hundreds (if not thousands). With influence at the highest levels of government?
5) The big Jedi battle against whatever those things were. They have to be rescued by storm troopers? Mace Windex runs around like a fat man, out of breath, sloppily hacking at things like one of the three stooges would swat at a bee. Some of these Jedi get nailed without ever even seeing it coming. It was so lame. If they can't squash an army that has less than 50 attackers per Jedi, then it's just plain dumb. You get the impression in the first 3 that if the Death Star coughs, Vader will go down to the surface and destroy the damn planet himself. With one arm tied around his back. He might be one of the most powerful ever, but the other Jedis should be with in a few orders of magnitude of that.
Acting by the guy (whose name I refuse to learn) who plays Annakin: 0/10
Acting by by the grits woman: 1/10
Acting by Ewan MacGregor: 2/10
Overall story: 6/10
Nostalgia value as we see the things we recognise from Episode IV: 8/10
Effects: 8/10
Pleasure from hearing Princess Leia's theme again: 8/10
Enjoyment value for those with a fetish for hand amputation: 9/10
Intelligence of characters who don't notice how Padme became pregnant: 0/10
Entertainment value of Yoda's big fight: 6/10
Entertainment value Yoda's big fight would have had if we hadn't seen it before: 10/10
General Grievous's homage to Harryhausen's Kali: 9/10
Amount of sense General Grievous subplot made after editors removed vital explanations from movie: 3/10
Did I mention Annakin's acting?: 0/10
Quality compared to Episodes I and II: 10/10
Quality compared to Episodes IV and V: 5/10
Overall: 7/10
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
If you haven't seen this take on Return of the Jedi, you must. Not only is it hilarious and right on the money, it even predicts and explains the crapiness so prevalent in Eps 1 & 2.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
1. It was meant to remind people of the movies they liked. They remember Tatoonie from ep 4 and they liked ep 4. (and it saved Lucas from having to create another world and populate it).
... but failed.
Besides, you left out the part about hoping that Vader would NEVER have any desire to visit family members. But that's probably okay because Annie didn't even bother to save his mom.
2. It was meant to remind people of the movies they liked. They remember the droids from ep 4 and they liked ep 4. (and it saved Lucas from having to create another character to speak the lines).
3. Lucas equates "skill" with "flash". A skilled Yoda would be more believable just standing there and blocking every attack (like the two Jedi did when faced with the attack droids in ep 1).
4. That is "explained" by the "fact" that the Sith can "hide" themselves from the Jedi. That is their secret power. That and the ability to quickly find very powerful replacement apprentices who can train in secret to challenge the Jedi. The Jedi's secret power is the ability to blow up the Sith's Death Star in every movie.
5. Jedi may be great individually. But they don't seem to spend any time learning group tactics. If it wasn't for their secret ability to blow up Death Stars, they probably would have been wiped out a long time ago. And that would have been a good plot. Big Jedi convention at Jedi Central and evil Emperor sends a nova torpedo into the sun. All Jedi dead expect for a couple who learned of the plan while travelling and tried to fight the control ship
Ep 3 is a fan boy movie. You get to see the things you've already seen and you get flashy battles. People like flashy battles, right?
I recently bought the animated Star Wars Clone Wars DVD, thinking even if I didn't like it, it might be a good buy for my young son. To my surprise, it is actually better than any of the recent movies: it has non-stop action and holds up to repeat viewing quite well.
The first two weren't THAT bad!
The second wasn't that bad. The acting was terrible, and a few other things could have been better, but basically it was still a proper Star Wars movie.
The first was a huge, embarrassing, computer-animated steaming turd from beginning to end (although that last expression is a bit misleading, as it might be construed to imply there was some sense of direction in it), and anyone who doesn't see that is just... just..., well just plain wrong. So there. Glad we cleared that up.
sudo ergo sum
Q: . . .when Luke takes Vaders mask off at the end of Jedi, no scar.
.Luke and Leia also discuss their mother in Jedi
A: Bacta. Lots of Bacta.
Q: . .
A: More Bacta.
This sig is a test. If this had been an actual sig, you would be reading something quite a bit wittier than this now.
"I know, what's even worse are those first few movies. Just a few spaceships, Luke discovers the force, shoots a bunch of stormtroopers and blows up a Death Star or two. And Darth's his father. I mean seriosuly, what do people see in these things?"
You know, I must be one of the very few total nerds who nevertheless haven't even seen Episode 4 until a few months ago. You know what? I can't see what people saw in that either.
The acting isn't really any good. The story really does justice to the "Episode 3" title, because it's like waking into the middle of a movie with not much clue as to what's happened, why are they really fighting, and wth that's really solved. And the one lightsaber fight is not like between the most powerful Jedi alive and his Master, but like between people who've never used one before. Obi Wan holds it like he'd hold his... ahem, let's just say now I see why the "I see your schwartz is as big as mine" scene was there in the Spaceballs parody.
I guess the one that said it the best was one of Scott Kurtz's characters in his PvP Online comic: it's not Lucas that ruined your childhood memories, it's growing up that did it. The only way you could find the new episodes as entertaining as the old ones (or I'd add, the only way to find the old ones entertaining at all too) is if you could see them through the eyes of a 6 year old.
So while you were probably going for sarcasm, I find what you wrote there actually true: the old movies really _are_ even worse.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Either way, I have never trusted a movie review from anyone but a close friend who I know is reliable. I have yet to find a movie critic whos opinions are consistant with my tastes.
John Podhoretz just posted a warning:
WARNING: He also gives a Jar-Jar spoiler in a later reply.Darth Brooks? I forget his name
Hey... isn't that the country singer that went to the dark side?
also had some great writing and acting in it. Same with that other indie flick he did (THX-9087980 or whatever it was called).
Maybe he just sucks at making Star Wars films.
click me
I said to him, man, relax: your two tense[1].
And so are you.
[1]Thanks Blizz.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I'd say the only disappointing aspect of this movie is lack of Vader himself in his suit. Sure, Anakin technically becomes Darth Vader before the shit hits the fan, but it's not the same without the suit. Even then it's not disappointing considering what happens before it, but it just makes you want more.
It'd be nice to see more of Vader himself going ape shit, but you only end up seeing that in the last few minutes when he awakens after being operated on and learning about what had happened. I mean, you'd expect some scenes containing mass genocide or some form of magnificent display of "Hey, I'm the most powerful being in the known galaxy, watch me as I fuck you up big time."
You see all these amazing movies that the human Vader has that the mechanical Vader never uses in the later movies. It would just be nice to see mechanical Vader utilize all these swift "magical" moves that apparently have deteriorated over time.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I'll be damned if I'm going to have my six year witness the "slaughter" at the Jedi Temple, or give him nightmares from the violence.
Not that I plan to see the film, but at least that will be one less brat ruining it for everyone else in the theater.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Name one movie where the pre-release reviews weren't positive. The film companies control what gets said about their movies and they're not about to let some critic slam their film before the public's paid millions to see it. And if a critic DID write a negative pre-release review, he'd never get to see another pre-release.
George Lucas has employed brilliant marketing techniques by lowering the standards. He realized, the lower he set the bar, the better his chances that one of the films would succeed. Clearly, the bar could not have been any lower after the gems that were Episodes I and II!
:-)
Folks... This is going to be the BEST DAMNED STAR WARS MOVIE since episode II
Top 10 Other Things That Han Shot That Didn't Shoot At Him First
umm dude.. you don't go to star wars and look for the "grey shades and multiple conflicting motivations of complex human behavior".... watch Schindler's List or Requiem for a Dream of you want something that has depth.
:) oh, and the special effects!
Watch Star Wars to see Natalie Portman in a nice skin tight outfit
"There should have been only one."
Sometimes my arms bend back.