posted
I saw it, it was okay. It had alot of charm and the acting was decent and strangely reminiscent of playing Knights of the Old Republic II, I got my nice fill of lightsabre fighting although it wasn't really really nice to watch until Dooku fought Anakin.
And we got to see some of the psycological traits Anakin had that slowly make him eventually susceptible to the dark side. Although I wonder if the Twilik girl dies during the Jedi Purge.
But ya the into commentary instead of the scrolling yellow wall of text didn't do it for me, I roll up newspaper and say "BAD LUCAS BAD BAD LUCAS!"
Definetaly the Sarah Jane Adventures of Star Wars Universe, entertaining and meant for children and teens but heck I'm okay with it.
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posted
i just watched it on my laptop. i didnt think it was that bad. im not a huge SW fan so maybe i missed a lot of the reasons it was 'terrible.' when the show starts though, it would be neat to see this padawan more. she was a firey little character. same goes for the female sith lady.
Posts: 813 | Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I hope Ahsoka becomes less I-told-you-so in the TV show. She could have been a great character, but her determination to prove herself steps the line into determination to outperform her master in the form of wisecracks. She just rubs stuff in too much to be funny.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
If your idea of a good Star Wars movie is one where previously competent and skilled villains become about as effective as one of the lesser henchmen from a 1980s Filmation cartoon, then this is your movie!
Otherwise, watch the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars mini-series again. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Anyone watch the first episodes of the series tonight? I didn't watch the movie because I refused to pay for it, and I missed the first 40 of the 60 minutes of it tonight, but the 20 I saw? Pretty good.
If anything, it actually makes me kind of sad. From what I saw, Anakin is humanized in a way the prequels never managed, which makes his fall all the more tragic.
Other than that? It was sort of funny, sort of fun, good voice acting, decent plot, good action, and though the animation took a couple minutes to get used to, was visually appealing.
I was pleasantly surprised.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Is it worth downloading off iTunes? (Keep in mind I don't have an iTunes account, but it would be very easy since I'm a registered MobileMe member.) I thought the movie was decent enough fun, so I am a bit interested in watching these episodes, so should I try buying it from the Internet?
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
I didn't think it was very good. The battle droids are really annoying. For some reason the lip syncing or the mouth animation was bad. Very distracting. There were lots of just silly/stupid things in it. I guess it is for children who will overlook things like that.
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
C3PO - Buying? Eh, I don't think I'd pay for individual episodes. I'll keep watching and if the whole thing ends up being decent then I'd maybe consider buying the DVD when it comes out if it isn't ridiculously priced, but it's unlikely that I'd pay whatever it is for an episode. iTunes is what, $1.99 an episode? Probably not worth it. This is one of those occasions where I wouldn't feel bad about watching it off one of those streaming websites, so long as it was my intention to buy the DVD at the end of the season so I didn't feel like I was cheating them.
Elmer - See I thought the droids were actually pretty funny. I think the voice acting is pretty compelling, even if the sync isn't 100%, which I agree on, but I think it's a problem with the particular style they are using, but it doesn't bother me. I find that I have an extremely low bar for what is entertaining a lot of the time though, or else I get tripped up on trivial things that people tend to gloss over.
I DO think it's likely primarily for younger kids, but I'm 24 and find myself enjoying it. It's lighthearted in the sense of the original series I think. Thus far it's left out the stupid humor of Jar Jar, which I thought was over the top in the prequels, and I think is leaning more towards the Han Solo funny.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
The voice acting was fine, just something off about how it looked that was very distracting to me. I'll keep watching, hoping it gets better.
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
Jar Jar is supposed to be in the next episode.
I took my son to the movie. It was decent, definitely aimed at kids, but I enjoyed it enough. I think people tend to overlook the fact that a lot of the humor in the old movies was aimed at kids too. Especially the droids. That's the kind of humor that I see in the movie and the first two episodes of the series.
Oh, and I think I heard some people mention that they thought the movie was actually going to air as the pilot episodes of the series. That's not the case. The movie had its own plot.
Posts: 1336 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by solo: I think people tend to overlook the fact that a lot of the humor in the old movies was aimed at kids too. Especially the droids. That's the kind of humor that I see in the movie and the first two episodes of the series.
The -old- movies droid humor, right? We won't see R2 trying to kill C-3PO, right?
The Clone Wars movie "humor" came from Generic Action Girl Jedi constantly chiding Anakin for being a grouch and not realizing the Littlest Hutt was cute. That didn't seem quite same humor as droid bickering and Han Solo sarcasm. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I meant that the droid humor in the old movies was aimed at the kids. Watching them now, I find that if I look through the nostalgia, C3P0 is nearly as annoying as Jar Jar. The only 3P0 stuff that I enjoy as an adult is the bickering with R2 and I think that that is mostly due to nostalgia. The bigger problem with the newer movies is we didn't have a Han or Leia to offer humor for the grown ups.
I don't think the Clone Wars cartoon humor will give us the Han or Leia humor either but it will probably provide enough of the other kind of humor to keep my 6 year old entertained.
Clone Wars the movie wasn't memorable enough for me to point out any parts that I laughed at. I probably chuckled a few times but the point I'm trying to make is that my son and other kids in the theatre were laughing quite a bit. The humor was targeted at the younger members of the audience. I think the same probably could have been said of the old Star Wars movies when it came to people laughing at some of the C3P0 stuff. I think people forget that they were kids when they originally fell in love with Star Wars and they view the old movies with a layer of nostalgia that doesn't let them see how the humor hasn't changed that much between the old and the new.
Having said that, the old movies did a much better job at balancing out the kid/adult humor ratio and were overall better written and directed. Oh, and the acting was usually better in the older ones but I have a hard time calling out the actors in the new ones since I've seen pretty stellar performances from most members of the cast.
Posts: 1336 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I liked the Battle Droids in the movie... who's with me that the best part was when the Clone Trooper accused the large droid legion of being outnumbered (when there were only about ten clones still standing), making the Battle Droids confused and starting to count their strength out loud... until Republic reinforcements arrive? Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
Without even having seen the film, I'm annoyed at but unsurprised by the idea that they had a bunch of battle droids coordinated by an orbital network even temporarily unaware of the number of operational units in the vicinity.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Well, you could say that they aren't controlled by an orbital network. It makes sense that they would stop doing that since it didn't turn out that well in Episode I. It would also add some sense to how they suddenly have so much personality.
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Elmer's Glue: How old are you?
When it comes to Star Wars, my whole family is a bunch of eight-year-olds. Except the eight-year-old cousin who thinks he's too old for Star Wars.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Without even having seen the film, I'm annoyed at but unsurprised by the idea that they had a bunch of battle droids coordinated by an orbital network even temporarily unaware of the number of operational units in the vicinity.
According to Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Databank says Battle Droids were refitted to be able to operate without a master signal. Really, if you can swallow the idea in A New Hope that droids are unpredictable enough to call each other names and respond to speech the way a person would, all unrealistic droids in Star Wars are legitimate. Not only is it a trend for robots to be unpredictable and develop personalities in Star Wars, but it's a rule. Every Star Wars movie, show, book, and game has at least one droid with a distinct personality. I think the Clone Wars approach to making the B-1s comic incompetents does a good job of showing the audience that they're really just expendable swarm units that aren't to be trusted with important tasks. When the director wants to add tension, the CIS uses Super Battle Droids or, even better, Droidekas, or else a tank or walker that infantry are not meant to combat with the same efficiency as they can B-1 droids.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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quote:all unrealistic droids in Star Wars are legitimate
Not military droids whose "personalities" make them less effective in combat. There's simply no good reason to build a military droid at ALL that's less of a drone than a human clone soldier.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
The clone soldiers weren't drones at all in the cartoon. I'll get to that later.
By the way, starwars.com now let's you see past episodes online for free, so that's how I saw the first two episodes. There were some good moments, some time-filler foot-shufflers, but overall it managed an interesting combination of dark and light-hearted fun. It was interesting to see Yoda in action with his clones; it brought back a bit of the Empire Strikes Back side of Yoda (much to the dismay of my father ), and I still think the droids are funny. They keep to the formula, though. While the B-1s are really just incompetent, the Super Battle Droids and Droidekas are respected and feared, which does allow there to be some tension.
The best part, I think, is when the Jedi give pep talks to their soldiers. Something I think was sorely lacking in the Prequel Trilogy was that the clones were just as much soulless servants as droids, but the Clone Wars corrects this, and gives the clones individual personalities, hearts, and minds.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
That's kinda what they are supposed to be. Why else would you build a clone army, if not to have soulless servants?
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer:
The best part, I think, is when the Jedi give pep talks to their soldiers. Something I think was sorely lacking in the Prequel Trilogy was that the clones were just as much soulless servants as droids, but the Clone Wars corrects this, and gives the clones individual personalities, hearts, and minds.
Which is all made meaningless when we see how casually they execute Order 66 without guilt or remorse. Whenever I see jedi and clones bonding I just think, if Palpatine issued the order right now those clones would shoot the jedi in the head and go on about their business, no different from a machine. I also can't help but wonder if cute little Ashoka winds up being gunned down in year or two. Maybe she's in the Temple and is murdered by Anakin himself.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Yeah they are pretty much drone-like servants conditioned for complete obedience.
Now, I agree that that's mostly how they're portrayed in the movies. If there's anything George Lucas did wrong with the Prequel Trilogy, (to me, this is far worse than Jar Jar, mostly because it goes against my moral principles that all human life is valuable and all men are created equal) it's that the clones are given no heart. We do see that Obi-Wan was friendly to his clones in Revenge of the Sith, but since we don't see the clones faces, they appear to execute the order to kill him without second thought. The cartoon is different. The clones have distinct personalities and the Jedi care for them as people. The novels are different too, there are several books that deal with a clone's perspective on Order 66, including Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, and Republic Commando: Order 66. They are conflicted, but they all decide to choose the Empire not because they're clones, but because of their assumption that the other clones are following orders and who are they to stand up to this which everyone else appears to be doing without hesitation? Kind of a mob mentality that did it.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
Mob mentality? It wasn't like there was someone standing there yelling at them to kill the Jedi. They were given the order by a well known numbered code that could have been sprung on them at pretty much any time during the war.
Realistically, if even one person who knew about the order ahead of time had doubts, they could have easily let it slip to one of the Jedi ahead of time.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I agree. The fact that there were literally millions of clone troopers and not a single one opposed the order speaks volumes.
I also agree that their lives have value. Certainly more so than a droid. But they don't have the same level of free will that normal humans have. That much was explained in Episode II. They will obey any legitimate order that they are issued without question or guilt.
The idea that all humans are created equal and no life is expendable was thrown out the window by the Republic when they used a slave race that they genetically modified to be more obedient to fight their war for them. I think that Lucas was in fact conveying a moral message on the matter when he made these beings the downfall of the jedi order and the Republic. So I wouldn't say that he dropped the ball on the morality issue.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote: In rare cases, some clone troopers would develop strong emotions which would override their sense of loyalty to the Republic, and later the Empire. This was the case of Mort, a former clone commando who along with his squad had been abandoned on Kashyyyk by their commander, Morkov.
posted
Yeah, that's the EU for ya. Sometimes I think it misses the point. Not that I'm not a fan.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Please recal that the Clones of the Clone Wars were very much a rebirth of the Mandalorians and their Culture to some extant, following orders would come natually to a Mandalorian.
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My condolences. *shudder* Traviss is a decent writer who, unfortunately, simply doesn't fit the SWU.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Who? I know this from my friend whose massively Pro-Mandalorian.
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Ah, he might know my massively Pro-Mandalorian friend. Your friend probably got it from the Traviss novels, like Republic Commando, which are obsessive with Mandos.
You should have seen what she did to the Legacy novels. Half the fifth book was about a cool new Mandalorian starfighter that eventually did not play too much of a pivotal role in the story.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
Yeah, but those things sounded pretty badass.
The problem with the Mandalorians in the Legacy novels was that there was absolutely no mention of them outside of Traviss' books. She'd spend 75% of her books talking about them, and everyone else would barely mention them only insofar as was necessary to talk about Jaina's training. She was trying to fit a totally separate storyline into something it didn't mesh with well at all. It would have been fine if the other authors had carried the storyline along, but to have it rear its ugly head like Putin over Alaska so randomly was just jarring. I was actually getting a little interested in the individual Mandalorians like Beviin towards the end, but then it ended so damned abruptly that I didn't get to see what happened.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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