Clown Wars....

They did, in fact, need a bigger boat.

Dr. Manhattan kills... actually, I don't think I can bring myself to spoil this one.

jeb wrote:

Get bent.

Spoiler rule #8: There's a 10-year statute of limitations on spoilers, 15 years for the juicy stuff.

IT'S A SLED.

That joke is so old. I'm really ashamed of myself.

The problem with the prequels was they had no idea what the fuck they were meant to be about.
Logic says that it should have followed the story of the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker. But for some stupid reason that central pillar got shifted to a B story and instead tyhe films focused on a whole bunch of other shit no one cared about.

The phantom menace was an adventure about breaking a trade blockade on a planet. It put forward next to nothing about Anakin's storyline. You could drop that entire film and miss nothing on Anakin's development.

I still don't know what Attack of the Clones was meant to be about. The preperation of the clone wars? Dunno, the film really has no central theme nor nattative, it's just a bunch of 'shit happens'. Anakin gets lost in the shuffle, with his development consisting of nothing but plot points.

Then we get to Revenge of the Sith. The storyline (finally) about the fall of the Jedi, the rise of the empire (which in hindsite kind of isn't in here...) and the creation of Vader. Basically this contains the elements that should have been in the other 2 films. There is also all of the plot threads from the prior film to tie up, resulting in pretty much a clusterfuck. No organic development, we just race through events in an attempt to get it all done. Vaders 'fall', which should have been the lynchpin the entire trillogy hung on, was an utter crock of shit. Instead of being the pivotal moment that the films are based on, it's squashed into a 5 minute non event. That makes no fucking sense. And basically rewrites the character within 2 scenes. Hasn't Lucas ever seen the Godfather?

All in all these films are hack bits of shit. I don't say this lightly, but a fucking FANBOY could have done a better job. Christ, it's not hard, in the first film show his training and rise to Jedi Hero, in the second his temptation to the darkside and frustration with the Council and the third his conversion into Vader and his leading the Empire to victory.

Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it before. The prequels had such potential to look at what evil is and how someone becomes evil. Questions that have been tackled by other writers before with considerable skill. The prequels didn't do that at all. Anakin just does evil stuff.

The trade blockade in the Phantom Menace set up the fall of the first Chancellor bringing in Papaltine. It showed the weakness of the Republic to deal with strong opponents (or something like that). Although, I will agree that Anakin seemed to be a sidebar to that.

Attack of the Clones was supposed to be Papaltine's further consolidation of power.

And I'll agree with you that Revenge of the Sith seemed rushed. It seems it would have been better had they broke it up into two movies to give the stuff proper treatment. Or they could have thrown the stuff from the first part into Attack of the Clones and taken out some of the Golly Gee Willikers clone scenes.

However, they still don't fall into the steaming piles of movie category for me.

Holy shit Skelly - you just summed up my entire unconscious opinion of the prequels right there. I knew I didnt like them, I knew Jar Jar was part of that - but not all. I could never quite state what it was, but now I can. For the win.

Thanks

mikoyan wrote:

The trade blockade in the Phantom Menace set up the fall of the first Chancellor bringing in Papaltine. It showed the weakness of the Republic to deal with strong opponents (or something like that). Although, I will agree that Anakin seemed to be a sidebar to that.

Attack of the Clones was supposed to be Papaltine's further consolidation of power.

In other words 3rd (4th) rate political thrillers.
This is stuff that should be the BACKDROP of the films, not the focus. The characters should have been the focus.
The OT didn't have the 'rebel war against the empire' as the focus, it was the backdrop in which our characters played a part in. The focus was always on the cast and their personal triumps and tribulations, which would often impact the wider setting. But the focus was always on the main cast. That's why they worked. In fact allm good movies do this.
The Prequels forgot this basic storytelling principal.


EDIT - oh and the Jar Jar thing was a fucking farce and shows just how directionless these movies really were. Phantom sets him up as a major character, but then because he is met with a bad reaction by the fans he all but disapears from the other 2 films? What kind of shitty storytelling is that?

Mr Skeletor wrote:


In other words 3rd (4th) rate political thrillers.
This is stuff that should be the BACKDROP of the films, not the focus. The characters should have been the focus.
The OT didn't have the 'rebel war against the empire' as the focus, it was the backdrop in which our characters played a part in. The focus was always on the cast and their personal triumps and tribulations, which would often impact the wider setting. But the focus was always on the main cast. That's why they worked. In fact allm good movies do this.
The Prequels forgot this basic storytelling principal.


EDIT - oh and the Jar Jar thing was a fucking farce and shows just how directionless these movies really were. Phantom sets him up as a major character, but then because he is met with a bad reaction by the fans he all but disapears from the other 2 films? What kind of shitty storytelling is that?

I can agree with you that the characters should have been the focus. In some cases they were but in others they took a backseat to the overall story of the collapse of the Republic. It should have been Anakin's story though.

I dunno. I still think the biggest problem is that we knew what was going to happen and we had a pretty good idea of how. And the second biggest problem is that a good chunk of the focus was on the CGI and not on the story. That being said, I still like the prequels.

Well, I didn't really see any actual response to the OP.

I just saw the movie yesterday. I wanted to take my son who is turning 5 today to it. I was 5 when I saw the original Star Wars in a theater in Lincoln, Nebraska - an event that shaped pretty much the rest of my life.

Anyhoo...

Disclaimer. I am a total SW geek. I drank the Kool-Aid. I bought the purple shoes. I don't hate the prequels. Yes, they aren't nearly as good as the original trilogy but there are cool bits here and there. I know all about the expanded universe (books, comics, etc.,) So am I biased? Err, yep.

Star Wars the Clone Wars.

I liked it. A lot. It was better than all three prequels. Better than EpIII by a hair and better than I or II by miles. It FELT like a Star Wars movie.

I heard all the people who were saying, the animation sucks, it was a kiddy story etc., etc., I went in with zero expectations. It starts off with a news reel introduction rather than the traditional scrawl. I thought "uh oh." But then it took off. Right into he middle of the action.

For me, I was immediately interested in the story. Are there gigantic leaps of logic. Yes, but let's not forget that at it's heart SW has always been basically a B movie. A pulp action movie soap opera. To me that is not pejorative. I think for those of us who grew up with the original trilogy it has built up in our minds to be some epic film masterpiece. I would argue that rather than Ben Hur, it is simply the greatest B movie ever made.

Clone Wars animation - it was a bit clunky for me in spots but then there were times I really forgot I was watching a CGI movie. The story grabbed me. Sure if you think about it enough you can pick it apart but if you just sit back and enjoy it, it was quite fun.

I was worried the Asoka character was going to be forced. Rather, she was absolutely a breath of fresh air. A cocky kid with some of the best lines in the movie. This movie seemed to achieve what I think they were trying to capture in EpI with Jar Jar and failed. A fun side-kick. To me this movie comes the closest to capturing the spirit of the original trilogy of any of the prequels.

In my opinion this film has some of the best action sequences in the non-original trilogy movies. Much more fully realized to me than anything with the possible exception of EpIII. The scene going up the side of the Bomar Monk monastery (a nice little reference in and of itself BTW) - was fantastic.

As a side note, I quite enjoyed the soundtrack as well. There some of the SW themes of course but there are also several new pieces that were quite fun. A Cantina Band piece that is a sly wink at the OT fanboys.

I think to really enjoy it, you probably need to be a SW nut. I think anything else and this is probably an average movie. But for me it was a solid A. I really like the Clone Wars shorts from several years ago. I enjoyed those far more than Ep I or II. Seeing those before Ep III Gen Grievous made a hell of a lot more sense, especially the idiotic cough. Having seen those, you'll already know who Asajj Ventress is. I think knowing some of those details probably makes it an even more enjoyable experience.

For this Star Wars kid, this was a home run.

Thanks for the review Van. I might go see it now. Or maybe not. For the record, I'm not a SW fanboy. I enjoyed the original trilogy immensely. Went to see all of them several times in the theater (something that I rarely do). And I thought Phantom Menace was pretty good too, despite Jar Jar. The last 2 prequels I thought were pretty lame, just being narrative vehicles to get from PM to Episode IV without a lot of good story telling.

I saw it today with the family; the kids have been bugging my wife and I for the past month about it so it was a foregone conclusion we were going to see it.

For the record: I liked the Original Trilogy (but hated the acting in Jedi), and thought that if they'd have dumped Jar Jar we'd not have so many people bitching about the Prequels.

I went in expecting this to be a movie length version of the upcoming cartoon, which is going to be geared at kids aged mine (5, 7 and 9 years old). All I prayed for was that there wasn't going to be another smarmy Ice Age or Madagascar or any of these other "oh too cool" animated flicks. I wanted something closer to The Incredibles or Kung Fu Panda in that the film actually treats the audience as something other than simpletons who think that ESPN's hooting and hollering on Monday Night Countdown is the height of entertainment.

The verdict? I pretty much got what I hoped for; the kids had fun, the story was pretty good, and there were no "but you'll die!" acting breakdowns like I used to see in RotJ. The only thing that I was disappointed in was that Amidala's Deus ex Machina routine was so late in the flick that I felt it was stuck in after the fact to tie up some loose ends. Considering the animation wasn't designed to rival state of the art in CGI or act too terribly like what passes for current animation on Cartoon Network or Nickolodeon, it does a pretty good job of capturing the flavor of the film.

There was one thing I was really not looking forward to, and that was the "trade routes" part of the story, but they made it pretty believable: after Geonosis, Dooku strikes fast to disrupt the shipping lanes and cut off the Republic from the majority of the clones. In doing so, these disruptions allow the Hutts unfettered access to try to control the Outer Rim. Therefore, if the Republic wants to get to their clone armies, they have to either go through Dooku or the Hutts. The Hutts are the better (if a classic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" ) option. It wasn't "trade routes" as in "send me some merchant goods" which is what some people (like on Ain't in Cool News) made it out to be.

--Mike L.

I did get to go see it. It wasn't too bad. A little bit better than the prequels but not quite as good as the cartoon that came out with EpIII. I'll be interested in seeing how the TV series turns out though.

Speaking of TV series, I wonder what the status of the series that covers between EpIII and IV is?