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- Very minor spoilers for Attack of the Clones. - I hope no Star Wars afficionados take this opinion personally. I love sci-fi and action movies just like you do, and I loved the original thee SW films. A few years ago, I saw The Phantom Menace in the theater because I thought it would be like the first three Star Wars movies. Unfortunately, TPM skewed too young for me and left me so cold that I skipped Attack of the Clones altogether. But now with ROTS coming out, with a recognizable Darth Vader in the trailer, I wanted to catch up. So I had a friend come over and we played his DVD of AOTC. John Williams is superb as usual, but otherwise I was bored to tears. It seemed like every line of dialogue was either a stilted, formal pronouncement or else the kind of "conversational" exposition that has characters artlessly telling each other what they both already know. "As you know, young one, I have been your teacher for many years..." Perhaps the only exception was when Anakin was in his "It's not fair!" mode and sounding like a child. I found those parts both unconvincing and irritating. I wanted to like this movie and get into the spirit of things, but I never felt involved or swept up by it. No part of the story, no stunt, and no character got me feeling like this was an experience instead of a mere viewing. It's the difference between meeting an exciting, vibrant person-- and going to her wake. It was sad. Was the movie really as bad as it struck me, or am I crazy? I like animation, so when I say Attack of the Clones played like one long cartoon, that's not necessarily an insult. But it was a bad cartoon. The movie is visually "loud," like a loud sport coat, but this was a loud sport coat covered with strobe lights and set on fire. It's too much. It gets to be ridiculous. Every action scene is the equivalent of a bright orange fire ball, through which 16,000 spaceships have to be flying madly in all directions. Every scene is so layered with overly-busy digital effects, my eyes wanted a coffee break in middle of battles-- and I didn't care who won. Given that this is a prequel, we go in knowing certain things. For instance, we know who will not die. So why does this movie take those who will not die and subject them to the wildest near-fatal scrapes -- every minute or so -- that a character could only survive with million-to-one luck. This happens over and over throughout the picture. We get it: this little group can't be killed. But what's the dramatic point of "nearly killing" them five hundred times, with never a lick of suspense? Or was it a comedic point; was I supposed to be laughing? AOTC often lacked the most basic credibility: -- In one scene, the heroes catch up with an assasin and try to find out who did the hiring. But the assasin is shot with a poison dart when they ask. Wait a minute: why didn't the dart shooter kill the heroes instead, or even just kill them too? He had a clean shot. But the heroes can't die. -- When the heroes are chained to posts for a "feed the Christians to lions"-type sequence, we learn that a space-faring civilization can't muster the technology needed to make working handcuffs. A girl with no Jedi "force" powers can slip right out of them. -- Later, Yoda hobbles into a room on his cane, barely ambulatory, and the next thing you know he's doing martial arts like not even Bruce Lee could dream of. -- But surely the least credible thing to me was when Amidala (Natalie Portman) falls in love with Anakin, given the way Anakin's personality has come across, as kind of a jerk, in every scene they've shared. Why does she love him? It comes suddenly and out of nowhere to serve the required back-story. On the plus side, AOTC has John Williams. Natalie Portman is pretty. Jar Jar's part was held to a minimum-- just enough to go on selling Jar Jar toys to toddlers. It was nice to see Christopher Lee still working. Beyond that, it seemed like the longest film I've watched in quite a while.
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-- In one scene, the heroes catch up with an assasin and try to find out who did the hiring. But the assasin is shot with a poison dart when they ask. Wait a minute: why didn't the dart shooter kill the heroes instead, or even just kill them too? He had a clean shot. But the heroes can't die. I don't think the assassin wanted to endure the ramifications of killing two Jedi. -- When the heroes are chained to posts for a "feed the Christians to lions"-type sequence, we learn that a space-faring civilization can't muster the technology needed to make working handcuffs. A girl with no Jedi "force" powers can slip right out of them. She procured a lock-pick from her person. -- Later, Yoda hobbles into a room on his cane, barely ambulatory, and the next thing you know he's doing martial arts like not even Bruce Lee could dream of. That's because Yoda uses a supernatural tool called The Force. It's an energy field, created by all living things, among other things. -- But surely the least credible thing to me was when Amidala (Natalie Portman) falls in love with Anakin, given the way Anakin's personality has come across, as kind of a jerk, in every scene they've shared. Why does she love him? It comes suddenly and out of nowhere to serve the required back-story. She always loved him. She says so right before their assumed sacrifice.
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That's because Yoda uses a supernatural tool called The Force. It's an energy field, created by all living things, among other things. Thanks for some pretty fair explanations. But about Yoda: if you can use the force, why also use a cane? I know, you can certainly find explanations, like: he doesn't want to abuse the force with excessive reliance on it. But it looks pretty odd to the casual viewer. I'm reminded of something I'm sure I saw in TPM: an animal-drawn cart floating on anti-gravity technology rather than wheels. If you have anti-grav tech, how do you justify the trouble, smell, and plodding pace of using beasts of burden? Surely you have motor technology, too. It's absurd. But to be clear, techno-credibility is the last and least of my complaints. Give me a good drama, and I could forgive any amount of fantastical infrastructure in the SW universe.
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If you have anti-grav tech, how do you justify the trouble, smell, and plodding pace of using beasts of burden? I guess one would have to assume that anti-gravity technology is extremely coast-effective in the Star Wars Universe, and something that propels a vessel, like a rocket, is not.
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In one scene, the heroes catch up with an assasin and try to find out who did the hiring. But the assasin is shot with a poison dart when they ask. Wait a minute: why didn't the dart shooter kill the heroes instead, or even just kill them too? He had a clean shot. But the heroes can't die. Why did one bounty hunter hire another bounty hunter? Couldn't Jango fly the remote controlled robot himself? And why did they fly over deadly centipedes and not something a little less subtle.....LIKE A BOMB!!!! Neil
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Posted: |
May 13, 2005 - 9:19 AM
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By: |
workaluk
(Member)
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ooohhh boy,so we now have Horner bashing topics,Zimmer bashing topics,how scores by Goldsmith are so fabulous topics,how Star Trek movies suck topics and now it's the how Star Wars prequels really suck... I mean if you want to say how the movies suck,just wait for the new one,why bring this up on a movie that has 2 or 3 years... I'm not a Star Wars fanatic,but i like the movies,they are fun to watch,they aren't suppose to be masterpieces.Why don't you complain about how the hell did a civilization so advanced,build a mega space station so powerful that when a fighter launched a couple of missiles into a hole,it exploded,it's like destroyng a ship by launching a hand grenade into it's engines,it doesn't make sense... I know that hole was a shaft for a nuclear reactor or something like that,but wouldn't Empire engineers(if there's something like that )would see that puting a couple of turns instead of making it straight,should resolved the problem. Ohh but wait that's from the original Star Wars,and those were perfect...Right.... Just my opinion anyway,sorry for the long reply Nuno Cunha
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Posted: |
May 13, 2005 - 9:45 AM
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By: |
Alexcremers
(Member)
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George Lucas explains that the reason why the first lightsaber duel was so "primitive" was because the fighters were old men. And we are all suppose to believe him?! Everything can be explained in Star Wars, Tederlumpling, but does that make it plausible? Fact is, Lucas does very little to convince his audience why the girl should love the boy. At a certain point, Anakin is preaching the ways of the Nazi and yet, Amidala, who's feeling disgusted because her planet almost fell victim to it, falls in love with him. There is no solid backbone supporting all these episodes. Much, if not most, has been made up after the success of Star Wars in 1977. Let's watch the Star Wars movies in chronological order, starting with episode I. Look how old Ben when we get to episode IV! He barely remembers his own Jedi name: "Obi-Wan Kenobi? Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time . . . a long time." How long could it have been, 18 years? Yeah, I'm sure Lucas will say that solitude in the desert made his body and mind age rapidly. -------------------- Alex Cremers
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I agree with Zap on his review and yet why do we even bother to dismiss these Star Wars prequels? Everytime a Star Wars prequel hits the screens you'll have the media going crazy about it during the weeks preceding the release. You see news coverage, trailers, commercials of products using the star wars franchise (like those crunchy potatoe chips); They even did a reportage this week on a respectful Belgium television program about a guy who's head of a large bank and who walks around in Jedi clothing during his free time. He also ended up paying millions to get a 2 second shot in Phantom Menace. I get out of the train each day and see parhaps a minimum of 5 posters on my way to school. I get the feeling that the advertising budget on Star Wars is nearly as big (if not bigger) as the budget to make the movie. I also notice that each time a Star Wars prequel hits the screens, all the people seem to forget how bad Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones were and they go right back into the nostalgia-mode of "Oh, it's star wars, so it's gotta be good". No matter how much CGI, no matter how good the Williams score, no matter who's name is on the acting billboard, if there's no story to back the visuals, I wont even bother seeing this.
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He barely remembers his own Jedi name: "Obi-Wan Kenobi? Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time . . . a long time." How long could it have been, 18 years? Yeah, I'm sure Lucas will say that solitude in the desert made his body and mind age rapidly. But nowhere in the movies is there a timeline. You're just saying its 18 years because lucas stated its about 20 years in an interview. But if you just watch the movies, you can only tell how much time has passed by luke's age. And that could be anywhere from 18 to 30 by the looks of him. Plus, if you watch in order like some people have, you won't be comparing trilogies like one of them is a classic childhood memory that must be lived up to. Somebody with no Star Wars experience watched it in this order 6,1,2,4,5 recently and said it was a fun ride and the anakin aspect was emotional throughout. Star Wars is much like a japanese anime OAV series, like Giant Robo. For people complaining about the detailed plot and non-sensical implausibilities...well, they're just not the intended audience. Nobody who dislikes Giant Robo watches it for more than a few minutes. They don't complain because its not their cup of tea. Ironically, if the first Star Wars' weren't such spikes in the timeline of special effects technology, they would probably have just held a comfortable cult status, and that's probably where they belong if their intrinsic quality is the only factor. But its pop culture now, all because of who we were in 1977. And pop culture makes a big target as opposed to Anime OAVs with cult followings.
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And spoiler warnings? Are you joking? I was pretty annoyed when [SPOILER] Snoopy said Rosebud was a sled in the Peanuts strips, long before I saw Citizen Kane. So in this age of watching movies whenever you get around to it makes it a nice thing to have spoiler warnings. Hell, I don't even watch the TV series 24 until it's released on DVD, so for a year, I avoid anything about the current season. Don't bust on someone for being polite. Besides, he said he didn't see ATOC because TPM sucked ass and just wanted to catch up before Sith. Cut the guy some slack.
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