Star Wars Viewers: Explain This?

Maj.Striker said:
Still a sweet film in my opinion. Perhaps it might be one of those things like "The Empire Strikes Back" when that came out there was a lot of confusion about what was going on...things came together pretty well in Return of the Jedi.
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Attack Of The Clones has everything I'd want in a movie, since I'm a Star Wars fanboy. Speeder chases, giant climactic battles involving thousands of soldiers, a badass bounty hunter, a John Williams score, Obi-Wan whoopin people's asses. To top it off, the introduction of Christopher Lee in the series, and on paper it would've been my favorite movie of the year. But leave it to Lucas to drop the ball.

Too many things happen in this movie (love story / political corruption / bounty hunter / clone war / detective story / unification of factions into the CIS) and all of it happens in an overlapping fashion. I can't tell you how I loathed the editing in this movie (how does one make the most unexciting chase sequence ever? Turn down the sound on 47 time nominated John Williams, crank up the sound effects and keep cutting the film all over the place so it's either wide-angled stuff you can't make out or super close-up reaction shots. Boy, thanks Ben Burtt. Asshole.)

The movie just left me saying "Who cares?". Some people try to validate the movie by saying "Oh, well, the pay-off is in the next movie" but there was resolution in Empire Strikes Back, it just left you with a cliffhanger. It just seemed like Lucas was cramming everything and the kitchen sink into the script to get loose ends from Episode I cleared up and set up the foundation for Episode III - nothing else.

(I hate hate hated Yoda's fight. It seemed so lowly for a Jedi Master of his stature ((if you'll pardon the pun)) to be using a Lightsaber. Yoda is suppose to be all-powerful and he resorts to physical violence? I was hoping for something more like the final battle in Dark City - willpower against willpower.)

I like Episode I. I understand why people hate Jar Jar - but he doesn't have any pull on the original trilogy, so his appearance doesn't matter much as opposed to the awful Jake Lloyd. But even him I can't discredit - he was a freaking kid in a Star Wars movie. Of course he's going to suck eggs - not everyone is born a Haley Joel Osmett. But at least Episode I had a point, had some vaugely interesting characters, had a discernable "point A to point B" plot and had some payoff at the end - I challange anyone to tell me that the lightsaber fight wasn't beautifully done and that the starfighter sequence wasn't some of the best space battle stuff we've ever seen.

I'm hoping Episode III is the best but, crap, I've never, ever had much affection for Lucas as a director. I've never fully embraced the idea of prequels since they announced them - they could be the most amazing movies ever but they're not the originals, so of course they'll "fail". Everyone is a critic.
 
I agree with most of your opinions LeHah, especially on the Ep. I lightsaber fight. I still prefer to watch that one over the the Ep. II fight.

The thing with Yoda fighting was cool to watch but I agree that he's supposed to be more wise and just plain powerful than he is combat worthy. In The Approaching Storm novel(which I know isnt EXACTLY canon) that takes places just a few days before the beginning of Ep. II, Obi-Wan repeatedly scolds Anakin for his pride in his lightsaber skill, telling him that he still has a long way to go before he can match Master Yoda. That was a bit of foreshadowing I guess.

I think the aspect I hated most about the Anakin Dooku duel was the camera angles. The fight started off nice but it ended up in close-ups of their faces while the lightsabers just whirled in and out of frame, thats not cinema to me.

Lastly, I think George Lucas is in the same kind of position as Bill Gates. There may be thousands of people that hate him, but he must be doing SOMETHING right, and as I've stated in non-CIC forums before, he really doesn't care if you like the SW movies. With the originals he had to worry about popularity because of funding, but now that he's a multi-millionare he is going to make the movies the way HE wants them. If you don't like it, too bad.
 
There are actaully other foruns on the internet??? :O
Leh Hah, I see your points, they are actually solid. But even then I personally prefer Ep2 over 1. For instance, the Maul duel on 1 was surelly great, but the other-stuff sequences between each part of the duel were too long, and the conclusion was so-so. The music was superb, though. I didn't like the space part much, because instead of focusing on the big fight around, we get to watch annakin fumbling in the cockpit. sad. maybe it was necessary, but it sucked. This movie also had the worst dialogue ever.

Ep2.: yes, the chase could have been better, the script is kinda crazy and the editing sucks. But Dukoo vs. the two jedi was a great fight, yoda's show was pretty well made even though your point makes sense, we get jango, geonosis, the battle, kamino... I think that the balance is kinda positive.

I heard that Kevin Smith went crazy over ep3, they say he really loved it. The traillers are quite good too.. So there is hope.

And IMO the Clone Wars cartoon is sublime.
 
Kind of convenient that he gets a job making a Star Wars TV show and then publishes a special article about how much he loves Episode III.
 
vindicator said:
Yoda's fight scene alone, though short, made this film worth seeing.

-Rance-
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Yoda's fight scene alone, though short, thank goodness, was yet another reason not to like ep2. Yoda goes from needing a cane to hobble around, to a little green superball with a lightsaber, and then picks up his cane and keeps hobbling around :confused:

Sure, it's probably all some kind of an act to make people think he's weak or something, but it still felt out of place. He's the best Jedi in existence; I'd think he doesn't even need a lightsaber.

Oh well. I hope ep 3 is awesome. It has the potential.
 
I only argued for the yoda fight scene because it was comic relief. The theatre busted out laughing and I liked it because I totally Identified with the idea of people going misjudging a character.

And Christopher Lee makes a great villian.

-Rance-
 
Well they might have done the fight differently and I do like the thought of a battle of wills between Yoda and Dooku (Dark City did it pretty well, also it was an amazing film) but wouldn't there be the danger of it looking a bit to similar the Gandalf/Saruman fight in LotR? and also the peoples wanted Lightsabre fights and thats exactly what they got.

Clone Wars is the BEST cartoon ever!!!
 
Edfilho said:
I didn't like the space part much, because instead of focusing on the big fight around, we get to watch annakin fumbling in the cockpit. sad. maybe it was necessary, but it sucked.
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I hear you on that point. Jake Lloyd (as my friend put it) has all the delivery of someone reading the ingredients off a package of hot dogs. (It should be noted that Anakin was originally written as older - it wasn't until immedeately before the casting call that Lucas decided to cast Anakin as 8 or 9 instead of 11 or 12 so the impact of leaving his mother would be greater.)


Edfilho said:
This movie also had the worst dialogue ever.
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Star Wars movies, per se, are not known for having great dialouge. Everyone knows that everyone who's ever worked on them has complained about how they're written, especially when Lucas was directing Episode IV. Ford made the point in the "Empire Of Dreams" documentary of the 'everything you need is in the script' mentality of the director.

Edfilho said:
kamino... I think that the balance is kinda positive.
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I do like the fight on Kamino. It's the only thing I could see in a positive light when it comes to set peices in that movie.

Edfilho said:
And IMO the Clone Wars cartoon is sublime.
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Haven't seen much of it but I plan on buying the DVD soon.

Ed, have you tried Star Wars: Battlefront? I've been playing it almost non-stop since I got it. It's a great little game, you'd probably love it.
 
I've been screwed in so many instances, I'm a bit weary to try a new SW title. Outside of Kotor, I've almost hated every game. So what does battlefront offer that can change my mind? Just curious.

-Rance-
 
I played the SP part of it for a weekend... then I had beaten all the maps, so I uninstalled it.

I really like Kotor games, and I'm finishing the last planet (Onderon-Dxun). I also liked Republic Commando, and I'm a few hours into it, but other games got in the way...

I'm not even going to mention classic Lucas Arts stuff, those guys were good back in the day. I REALLY liked their space sims, and Dark Forces 1 is the best 2st gen pure FPS.
 
I'v only seen the first 20 episodes of Clone Wars (they were aired as one 1 hour show on German TV) and IMHO it was the worst part of SW that I did ever see, including games and Ewok movies...
IMHO the Clone Wars ist only suited as web teasers for EP3.
 
I just watched Season 2 as a 1hr show, and I liked it very much...
Oh, c'mon, Karl, why did you hate it so bad!?
 
Republic Commando, IMHO, is a fantastic game. True, it does get a bit repitious by the end but really a great squad based AI system keeps the game fun. I'd say it's every bit as fun as Dark Forces (albeit a different "feel" to the game).
 
I didn't like the first two seasons of Clone Wars at all. They were fun little bumpers when they appeared one at a time... but watching them in order became very boring. "Hey! Look! We have a unique art style! And we're making it fight in weird ways for minutes straight!"

I caught the first block of new episodes recently, though, and it was a huge improvement. It worked as a story instead of a bunch of complex fight sequences.
 
I like Clone Wars. It's a little different, but the results were quite good.

Republic Command has an interesting "dark" look, but there's not much in terms of storyline. It was great to fight on the Clone Wars, however.
 
Oh, The Attack of the Clones is much better than The Phantom Menace. I mean, they are trying to keep a low profile and take a crazy amphibious creature to a desert city for no good reason. What was that all about?

The battle scene is much better, too.
 
Edfilho said:
I just watched Season 2 as a 1hr show, and I liked it very much...
Oh, c'mon, Karl, why did you hate it so bad!?
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I didn't say I hated it. Just that it was extremely uninspiring. I could have watched Dragonball instead and would have had the same experience. It just didn't get me at all. BTW: What I saw was supposingly Season 1, so maybe S2 is better...
 
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