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CG Television Clone Wars Trailer Released
Ant writes "The official Star Wars site has up the one minute and 50 second trailer for the upcoming computer rendered Clone Wars." I'm still not sold on the CG, but the models seem to be somewhat based on Genndy Tartakovsky's designs from the original Clone Wars series. Wikipedia offers a bevy of details on the series.
I can't say I'm sold on this. I enjoyed the Clone Wars cartoon series but even as a die hard Star Wars fan I feel this is flogging a dead horse. Lucas should have his special effects taken away from him and be sent to his room until he remembers how to make a good film (or in this case series).
The saddest thing is that despite my protest I'm sure I'll watch it, secretly hoarde some action figures from the series and own every reissue of the new Clone Wars boxset for the next twenty years.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
Noooo!
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Dexter's laboratory, Samurai Jack and Powerpuff Girls are enough to establish his genius. But he managed to turn around my opinion about Star Wars (as someone born in the eighties and having got a TV in the nineties) - while reinforcing my low opinion of George Lucas's later work. Samurai Jack is really another example of a long epic saga, minimalistically drawn, yet full of life, twists and curve balls.
Hopefully, they borrow the good parts from his work and not go all CG centric over the story telling part.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I wouldn't have a problem with CG if there was a single example of CG that didn't have awful motion. The best CG I've seen was Gollum in LOTR, but that's because they had an actor do the motion. Still, the way thing were rendered like hair movement, water dripping, etc looked really fake and was very distracting.
Personally, I'd rather see South Park, Terrance & Phillip, Clerks, etc style animation instead of CG. Something similar to Batman Beyond would be pretty cool for this.
I like animation, hell, most of what I watch is animated (South Park, Family Guy, Simpsons, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, etc). CG just really annoys me.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
Why is everyone making a big deal that the CG looks crap? BFD! It's about the stories, not the CG. I couldn't care less if it's done with bits of paper on a glass sheet background so long as the stories are written and voiced reasonably well.
No, the CG doesn't look real... you really want it to? I'd prefer something with a little style, a little "not real". Have you watched Polar Express? The characters looked real, and moved realistically alright... but they also looked like propped up corpses because despite all the work of the artists they STILL couldn't quite get it real enough.
There's only so far you can go along the path of making CG realistic. At a certain point you have to start thinking about the look and the flow of the thing instead of whether or not you're rendering 1000 different pores on a human nose. I personally liked the trailer, I think it looked pretty good. The CG doesn't look realistic, and I for one am glad of it. It gives the CG animated series a certain flair.
Did anyone here watch TMNT at the theatres recently? I did with my 6-year-old son and loved it. The story was strong, the characters were well rendered... but realistic it wasn't. It was stylized, but in a way that to me and my son made the characters MORE believable. It's hard to accept an unreal world when there are real people up on the screen. Similarly, it's hard to accept the real world with unreal characters... we use what's called willing suspension of disbelief in order to take some aspects on faith.
Now, whether or not they can actually get some good stories in this is open to be seen. I won't make any quick judgments; sure Lucas has created some tripe like Episode 1... but mostly because it was more about him experimenting with what he could do with CG than writing a good story. Episodes 2 and 3 both improved on this formula but still didn't quite match Empire Strikes Back (though I still think Episode 3 was better (or at least equal) in almost every respect than Return of the Jedi). Since this is going to be all CG, there are no limits and nothing to prove. The only thing he CAN prove with a CG Star Wars is that he can still write. If he can't, the show will fail since there are million and one "also-rans" in this race.
I'll wait and see. The trailer gives is little to go on as far as whether or not the writing is better here than in the prequels. Lucas has written good stuff in his life; look at THX-1138. If he can do it again, this'll be good. If not, then maybe it'll get an audience with the current pre-teen crowd who enjoyed the prequels. However, without strong stories you'll lose them and there'll be no "rewatching" ability.
Music:
Hard to Handle (Otis Redding/Black Crowes)
Come Together (Beatles/Aerosmith)
Hurt (Nine Inch Nails/Johnny Cash)
Twist And Shout (Top Notes/Beatles)
Time is on my Side (Irma Thomas/Rolling Stones)
The Man Who Sold the World (David Bowie/Nirvana)
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan/William Shatner) - just kidding
Movies:
Cape Fear
Dawn of the Dead
Oceans 11
The Thing (I'll argue it is a remake)
Scarface
So everyone just relax and reserve judgment until you actually see it. I know how hard that is, especially on the Internets, to not review a movie 8 months before it comes out based on 5 screenshots or something, but let's at least, um... try? If you didn't like the original, then you probably won't like this one. But if you did like Genndy's version and you're already reserving judgment, then right now you're just being close-minded (even if you do wind up disliking it later). Liking both isn't a mortal sin.
Among the wonders to look forward to:
- The original Clone Wars cartoons will be redone in CG, as Lucas had originally wanted.
- Special appearance by Jabba the Hutt, where we discover that he and Obi Wan have done business for some time.
- Someone will shoot Anakin first, causing him to go aggro and eventually turn to the dark side entirely out of self-defense.
- All explosions will be accompanied by planar shockwaves.
- Death scenes of random insignificant characters will be shortened or removed entirely.
- The final episode will feature a galaxy-wide welcome-to-the-rainforest happy-fest victory party.
- Qui-Gon's disembodied head will accompany Obi Wan at all times, acting as his personal Jiminy Cricket.
- DVD Bonus Feature Deleted Scenes of Chewbacca's extended family.
Can't wait!!-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
Why wouldn't the series act as a bridge between III and IV instead of padding between II and III?
Is Darth Vader boring?