I finally noticed this watching the DVD yesterday.
What is up with the sound these ships make? The Millinium Falcon make the coolest whoosh, whizz zoom zoom sound. X-wings went whine. TIE fighters had a unique and menecing noise. But listen to a lot of spaceships in AOTC. They warbble! they shound like a truck’s jake brake! wpwpwpwpwpwp! What self respecting pilot would drive one of these?
okay that’s about as mundane and pointless as they come…don’t move this
I always assumed it was because this takes place before the others and the technology wasn’t as impressive as it would later be.
The acting, writting, and direction don’t help either.
Nor the douche commerical right in the middle
I thought the AOTC DVD wasn’t being released until tomorrow.
We can still talk about it, right? 
While we’re on the subject of the DVD, though, I heard that they cut many of the dialogue scenes (including parts of the “douche commercial”) out of the DVD release. Does anyone know if this is true? I hope so. It would be a far better film for it.
On the subject of sound, I actually thought the sound design of AOTC was one of the better aspects of it. Leaving the John Williams score aside (His Worst. EVAR.), the sound effects of the ships and weapons were amazing.
The big problems I had with the film were related to dialogue (obviously) and effects.
The dialogue issues have been done to death. I’ll just say that Lucas should leave the parts of writing dialogue and directing actors to others. He is good at neither. Attempts at humor fell flat with a wet thud (with the lone exception of Yoda’s joke at Obi-Wan’s expense). The heavy-dialogue scenes in Attack of the Clones weren’t just bad, they were Vogon poetry-bad. 'Nuff said.
The effects issues I have are mainly a problem with Lucas’ new reliance on digital-only effects. While it works in some scenes, it really fails in others. The obvious glitches with Jar-Jar in Phantom Menace were a mistake Lucas should have learned from, but instead he magnified them in Attack of the Clones by making my favorite character in all of the Star Wars universe, Yoda, all-digital, all the time. He essentially sucked the life out of the little guy. While it did provide for the great Yoda fight scene (which I’ve been waiting for ever since Empire), it also really killed my enjoyment of a character I loved. Part of the charm of Yoda in the first trilogy was the imperfect, idiosyncratic quality of the puppet used to give him life. The digital animated version took that spark of life and squashed it into the muck. A sorry performance from the digital Yoda, overall.
Similarly, Lucas’ use of digital backgrounds and scenery was a constant distraction in the film. He seems to have forgotten the clever uses of effects in the early Star Wars films now that he’s got the money to do the the easy way… the film suffers as a result. While I recognize that there are some things that couldn’t be done without the use of digital effects, the success of the effects in, for example, Fellowship of the Ring shows us that there are also some things that should not be done with digital effects unless absolutely necessary. Lucas apparently forgot this when making Attack of the Clones.
Anyway, those are my larger problems with AOTC. I enjoyed it overall, but only because it was a dumb, fun entertainment with pretty lights and cool sounds. If I had been expecting any sort of challenge or intelligence from the film, I would have been badly disappointed. Fortunately, Phantom Menace taught me well, and I was expecting neither. 
grumble brumble hamsters grumble wumble blender grumble
what’s the douche commercial?
Of course, but Roadwalker said he just watched it on DVD. So I’m curious.
This refers to the picnic scene with Amidala and Anakin, unless I am woefully mistaken.
Funny, I didn’t even have to think about that one when I first read it…
I’m glad somebody else asked. I saw it for the first time this weekend, on DVD (a friend at Blockbuster); the picnic is in.
God, what a piece of crap.
Don’t know if this is the case here but when I pre-order movies, I usually get them on Monday.
The new IMAX presentation of EP II does have some of the more grating scenes and dialogue missing, incl. the “douche commercial” and some of the dialogue near the fire. But there is also a crucial scene with Jar Jar cut. Except for that scene missing I think the cuts greatly enhanced the pace and plot of the film.
Okay, maybe this should be put in a new thread, but it’s a question that just popped into my head a while back about the movie.
Yes, we all know Darth Vader had a fake hand and there’s a lot of other bad shit that happened to him, but was giving Anakin a robotic arm in Ep. 2 really necessary? I mean, Luke got one because his hand was dropped out an air lock. Anakin’s was, like, right over there. The wound was cauterized, couldn’t the marvels of medical science that grafted a robotic hand to a living arm reatatch a recently severed hand? I mean, WE can do that much with our “primative” science. I guess like most of these films, logic goes out the window for stupid plot devices.
The DVD and VHS were at the video store this Friday. Today I watched some of the bonus features. Mostly the animators and folks tooting their horns.
There were some deleated scenes that were interesting to see.
Somebody clear up what the douche commercial is?
I still haven’t seen AOTC because I’m not a big fan of cartoons… but I suppose when it’s on DVD I’ll rent it if the price is under a couple of bucks.
Well, nobody ever claimed that Star Wars technology is ahead of our “primative” science in every respect. I mean, have you seen their computers?
Question: Is it possible to have any AOTC threads without having people bitch and whine to hell and back about this or that aspect they did not like?
No.
Who’s stopping you from saying what you like about the film? And “this or that aspect”? Acting, writing, and direction are pretty substantial aspects. Yeah the plot was somewhat enjoyable and the action and effects were mostly terrific. The movie wasn’t a train wreck, but it wasn’t great. Its main redeeming quality is that it’s better than that piece of crap TPM. Star Wars was never Hamlet, but George has taken it to new lows.
Imagine if Kevin Williams or Steven Spielberg was helming the prequels and Timothy Zahn wrote the stories, we could have had a masterpiece. Instead we got a 2-hour toy commercial and light show, replete with bad jokes and colorless acting.