Star Wars: EPISODE III Thread

[PaulSC]

Switch "movies" for games, "Star Wars" with "Monkey Island", and "the original trilogy" with "the first two", and that little rant could've come from me! Except it probably wouldn't be fair to blame George Lucas in that case.

As for Star Wars III, i'm still looking forward to it! I don't think I feel anywhere near strongly enough about Star Wars in general anymore to really have any passionate positive or negative feelings towards the new film. Whatever my feelings turn out to be, I'll make sure not to explain or defend them in any way, just because I'm so goddamn sick of talking about Star Wars in anything more then a general way.

[Snarky]

Hey! Blaming George Lucas is never wrong.

[PaulSC]

He's history's greatest monster!!

[LGM]

My Praise:

Spoiler

1. The action was fun to watch and the first scene was amazing. Though it felt like a climax rather than an opening.
2. The SFX have advanced and aren't as obvious. Yoda looked almost real in most of his scenes.
3. Anakin wasn't such a pussy in this one.
4. Dialogue wasn't has cheesy/horribly written.
5. The final fight scene was awesome
6. Seeing Darth and hearing the theme again was nostalgic and fun.
7. WOOKIES!

[close]

My Nitpicks:

Spoiler

1. The droids were way too comical for such a dark film. They say "ow" when they get hit... ROBOTS DON'T FEEL PAIN!
2. I wanted to strangle Padme. Every scene she was in made her seem so weak and useless and...  Well, Sshe went from being the Queen of Naboo to a housewive.
3. Why wouldn't anyone notice Padme was pregnant?
4. How were the Jedi's killed so easily by CLONES?
5. Some of the saber scenes looked horribly coreographed.. I.E Mace vs. Palpatine.
6. Useless or drawn out scenes. I.E. Anakin and Padme staring at the sunset for 3 minutes.
7. Overall, George Lucas's storytelling is dodgy and sometimes I find myself missing something.
8. The dialogue seems forced. The humans talk like they're robots. It's ironic, because sometimes I think C-3PO has the most character in the film, and he was only in it mere minutes. I mean.. Even Ewan McGregor didn't seem comfortable in his role. I really don't think Lucas knows how to direct actor's or convey complex plot. Look at THX-1138 to get what I mean. It's a pretty film, but I have no idea what's going on!

[close]

There's probably more for each sides of the arguement. I was still entertained and thought this was best out of the trilogy.

[Jimi]

I thought the film was like one big anti-climax. It just seemed like a pointless string of events leading to the inevitable breathing from behind the black mask. It just got boring seeing Anakin constantly moaning to Padme or Obi Wan. Some of the action scenes were good to watch, but began to lack originality. The only the thing consistantly good throughout the film was the special effects. They were brilliant. And I suppose it was nice to see exactly why he needs that whole suit thing.

[Darth Mandarb]

Holy smokes it's Jimi!

Where you been man?  It's been almost a year since your last post!

[Sotoeovoeon]

Im not ganna say what its about.  bout the new star wars is awsome.      Its a must see it pisses all over part 1 and 2 .

[TheYak]

My personal gripes against the movie were primarily nitpicking.  I did enjoy the hell out of it and got a much better movie experience from it than a couple other POS's I've seen recently.  Comparing technicalities (SFX, acting skill, written dialogue, events, plot holes) between trilogies isn't what shows E.I-III to be lacking.  It's that the first two weren't any damned fun.  I wanted to love 'em, heard no hype about E.I before seeing it and was bored.  It was neither a thought-provoking movie that kept my brain interested, nor an adrenaline rush to keep me excited about a film.  I thought E. III showed a bit of a return to the overall feeling of the later ones: Gritty, characters thrown off balance, epic events that shape the galaxy (No.. not pod races), etc.

As for Ep. III, what hurt my soul was how close they came to doing something and then GWL just decided to hump its leg instead. 

Spoiler

When Padme confronts Evil Annie, her reaction to the betrayal is excellent.. his is flat, with a couple lines sounding like sentences were cut in half.  My primary gripe, though, is how they touched upon depth then stomped it.  They had a perfectly understandable reason for him to go to the dark side, to save Padme, they didn't have to harp on the topic - "Choose evil, it's really cool" "No." "Aw, c'mon, evil's not that bad." "Oh, alright." 

They even gave people a good reason to choose dark over light: Yoda says that death is part of life and that a jedi has to let go of attachments to loved ones and not be sad if/when they pass away. Grief leads to the dark side.  Sounded like a crap philosophy to me.  They didn't delve into that at all, just a simple conversion of Anakin to Evil 0.9b, and he turns Insta-Asshole.  "Kill some little kids to show how evil you can be." "No.. wait.. umm. sure."  A more subtle change (i.e. ushers kids out but they get mown down anyway) would've been nice is all.

[close]

[Adamski]

It wasn't anti-Bush.  It was anti-Vietnam.

Hello hello? "You're either with me or my enemy", I'm very sure that's a paraphrase of the way America's government thinks, I think Bush even said something similar. There's a lot of criticism towards the political environment in the US in Ep. 3, although I guess it's easier to see when looking in from the outside.

Honestly guys, I think you were all expecting FAR too much.

Really? I knew when I was munching my popcorn watching the trailer for Batman Begins that what I was about to see would be "blah" at best judging on the previous two films Lucas has made. It turns out that if I'd stayed at home and had someone wiggle their fingers infront of my eyes while turning the lights on and off and going "Blam! Kerpow! Rumble rumble WHUM WHUM" in my ears for two hours then holding up a bit of cardboard with "Padme dies, Anakin goes bad" I would have probably gotten roughly the same level of enjoyment. 

And besides, are we supposed to lower our expectations of what a good movie should be just because Lucas couldn't write or direct his way out of a paper bag?

Ep IV - Ep VI's special effects were top-of-the-line back in 77-83 and Ep I - Ep III's are top of the line now.

And I think this was the problem with the new Episodes. In the original trilogy the effects were there to help immerse you in this alternate galaxy while your onscreen buddies go on an adventurous romp, to help suspend your disbelief. The new trilogy is nothing BUT special effects, everything is founded inside the computer where suddenly it becomes so unbelieveable that it's quite blatant everything you see is just an elaborate set-piece done in Maya and you stop caring for anything that's going on. When Darth Vader and Obi-Wan duel in Episode 4 it's much more exciting as although it's not as acrobatically 'impressive' as their "hi-we're-keyframed-computer-models-moving-too-fast-to-concentrate-on" battle in 'Sith', it actually _feels_ like two guys fighting with lightsabres - you become totally engrossed in the tension created by the wise bearded hermit taking on the face of evil. Anakin and Obi-Wan swinging their things around on a platform about to plunge into molten rock? It's ok, they're just zeros and ones hanging over more zeros and ones. My disbelief is not suspended no matter how many hours it took to render that frame.

It's the same problems that the two Matrix sequals had, too much dependance on what can be done on a computer then overloading your senses with it. The focus shifts from making an entertaining film to cramming as much crap on one frame, and so instead of being inspired by what I see on screen I'm just bored silly by it.

Could you elaborate on the plotholes?  What plotholes did you see?

Here's one for you - in 'Empire' Obi-Wan doesn't know that Leia is Luke's brother until Yoda tells him, yet he watched Padme giving birth!

Oh yes, how long does it take them to build the Death Star between Episode 3 and 4? Certainly a damnsite longer than it takes between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Time, it makea no sense! Maybe it's the same reason in Episode 4 why one of Vader's cronies says something along the lines of "you don't scare me with your heebie-jeebie lah-de-dah ramblings of an ancient dead religion" shortly before being strangled by Darth's heebie jeebie lah de dah mind powers. It can't have been more than 30 years ago that Jedi's were everywhere dude, surely you can remember! They were all excecuted after plotting to overthrow the Chancellor, you  must have at least heared about it on the radio.

(Incidently this response isn't a personal attack on you Darth if it seems like it, it's just given me a good chance to elaborate on the feelings I had after watching Ep 3. )

[DragonRose]

I saw it. For a LONG time I felt like I was just watching the movie as homework- you can't be a geek unless you've seen the new Star Wars! I found myself wishing for a clock so that I could figure out how long I was going to have to sit there.

My "Yay! Nifty!" moments

Spoiler

1. Anakin getting fried. It both explained how he became "more machine than man," and Hayden Christiansen got set on fire. Result!
2. Yoda riding piggyback. Awww...
3. Anakin and Obi-Wan rescuing Palpatine. It was just a cool sequence.  Though the R2 humour was a biiiiit much.
4. The "we can rebuild him" bit at the end. Which is what we've all been waiting for for the past three movies. FINALLY!

[close]

My "Boo! Yucky!" moments

Spoiler

1. What's with R2 having a jet propulstion system?  Where did that come from?
2. Why did EVERYBODY seem to get their hands chopped off? Mace Windu, Anakin, Dooku, Grievous got his hands chopped off TWICE... Are we beginning to see a pattern?
3.Grievous in general. Would YOU follow a guy who's name means "causing grief or anguish?" Doesn't seem like a nice guy.
4. "Be evil!" "No!" "Be EVIL!" "Okay!" Good lord, grow a backbone, Mr. Skywalker.
5. Why wouldn't Leia notice that she looks NOTHING like her "parents?" Dark skin, black hair for them, pale skin, brown hair for her. Yeesh.

[close]

[Darth Mandarb]

Here's one for you - in 'Empire' Obi-Wan doesn't know that Leia is Luke's brother until Yoda tells him, yet he watched Padme giving birth!

Interesting.  I never interpretted it that way.  All he said was, "That boy was our last hope ..." and Yoda says, "No ... there is another" in reference to Leia.  I never interpretted that as Ben not knowing about Leia.  I mean ... it IS Ben who tells Luke of Leia in RotJ.

Oh yes, how long does it take them to build the Death Star between Episode 3 and 4? Certainly a damnsite longer than it takes between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Time, it makea no sense!

Again this isn't something that really bothered me ... I mean, who's to say?  Maybe they built it in 3 years but making the 'super laser' takes them a lot longer.  Maybe that's not the same death star as in A New Hope.  Maybe it's a 'prototype' or a smaller model or something?  Maybe the 'super laser' in Star Wars was an upgrade to aging weapons platform?

Maybe it's the same reason in Episode 4 why one of Vader's cronies says something along the lines of "you don't scare me with your heebie-jeebie lah-de-dah ramblings of an ancient dead religion" shortly before being strangled by Darth's heebie jeebie lah de dah mind powers. It can't have been more than 30 years ago that Jedi's were everywhere dude, surely you can remember! They were all excecuted after plotting to overthrow the Chancellor, you  must have at least heared about it on the radio.

That's funny   Made me laugh.  I think the point here was that a lot of people had lost faith in the Jedi.  They didn't like them anymore even when they were around.  OR they were sick of them and wanted them removed.  Kind of like Nazis dislike of the Jews.  They doubted the power of the force.  After near 20 years of no Jedi I'm sure memory of their power would start to fade ...

Again, it's funny how differently the same material can be interpretted.  I don't see any of these as plot holes, but I guess I can understand how you do.

(Incidently this response isn't a personal attack on you Darth if it seems like it, it's just given me a good chance to elaborate on the feelings I had after watching Ep 3. Wink )

No worries!  I asked you to elaborate and you did so quite nicely

[Squinky]

I'm not gonna put a spoiler thingy cause people shouldn't read this if they havent seen the movie....

I like it. My only gripe/joke is this. Anakin thinks he killed his gal by choking her.....Then, I go and watch him as vader in the original (ep 4) and looky looky, he's all choking people out with the force....thats like his signature move...You'd think he'd have some mental issues tied to choking people, heh....

[Privateer Puddin']

maybe how he realised just how effective it was?

[Squinky]

Also, I find it funny that the other Jedi didn't tottally see anakin turning to the dark side....He was always wearing black and all whiny....He was like total goth jedi...

[sedriss]

One thing that was a bit stupid was the part where R2 spilled the oil and lit it with the jets. It just seemed.. a bit stupid.

But as a whole, I liked it very much.

[Las Naranjas]

on the politics of it all, the paraphrasing of contemporary speeches and the naiming of Newt Gunray are pretty shallow anti-republicanism, whilst not really presenting reasons why, but the level of depth is par for the course with Lucas, the films glorify war in the end anyway.

it's a minor point that epople interpret the films as against mechanised warfare, for it's dehumanising elements, yet makes sure that the badguys, as clones or robots, are dehumanised completely...surely the humanity of war lies in the fact both sides suffer, rather than just the cute creatures on your side...

meh, comes from trying to read into popcorn.

[DGMacphee]

Have you ever seen The Battle of Algiers? If so, is that the kind of example you mean?

[Haddas]

While on the subject of Star Wars... http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/238514
STAR WARS TRANSITIONS!

[Blackthorne]

While on the subject of Star Wars... http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/238514
STAR WARS TRANSITIONS!

Star Wars transitions have ALWAYS been that way, ever since the 1977 release....... the transitions are an homage to 30's and 40's Flash Gordon serials, much like Star Wars was in the first place.


Bt

[LGM]

Yes, and the flash sucked anyway.