OK, I re-watched AOTC last night on TV. I have to say, the #1 glaring, obvious weakness of the entire series is the dialogue. I can forgive some of the obvious plot holes (Leia remembers her real mother?) and - even though I think they were heavy-handed - the cameos by familiar characters (“Thank you…CHEWBACCA.”) I don’t think that Hayden and Natalie are that bad at acting, when given decent material to work with. Still, the dialogue seems so forced and stilted at times that there never really is a chance for any real chemistry to develop. I think it might have been much better if Lucas had made TPM differently, in the sense of having Anakin as a child at the beginning and having him grow into a young teenager by movie’s end, all the while developing some relationships to Padme and Obi-wan. Then again, maybe not. Maybe the chemistry that was in ANH, TESB, and yes, even ROTJ is too hard to recreate.
I have to say it again; the dialogue! NOOOOOOOOOOO!
I mean, come ON, George! You have Christopher Lee there, and you have him say things like, “It is obvious that this contest will not be decided by our knowledge of the Force. It must be settled with light-sabers!” Oh god.
And this groaner from AOTC: “Want to buy some Death Sticks?” NOOOOOOOOOOO! Even the guy who says it looks like a poorly-done parody of something better. What the hell is he supposed to be? Caterpillar boy?
Plus, I didn’t see ANYTHING machine-wise that was anywhere near as cool as AT-ATs.
I’ve only read a few pages, but I’d like to chime in with some agreements and a question.
Dialog was bad in all 6 movies. However, the trio in the original had more chemistry than any pairing in the recent trilogy. Hamill was nearly as bad an actor as anyone in the recent trilogy, something I didn’t notice when I was 12 years old. But Luke, Han and Leia clicked, especially the latter pair. No matter how hard they tried, Obi-wan, Anakin and Padme did not click on any level.
For those seeing the “Falcon”, it’s a stock Corellian design. There are probably thousands of them out there. It’s a light freighter, so it probably won’t go through many design improvements.
Darth V and Obi-Wan K sure slow down in their old age saber battle. Obi-wan should have asked Dooku how he kept so spry through the years.
My 12 year old kept cracking up at the dialog. She could have written them better than Lucas, and probably delivered them better than Portman. My theory is that Portman and Christensen were told they were doing a dress rehearsal, but then budget worries forced them to go with that. Please do not point out flaws in my theory, it helps me enjoy the movie more.
Now for the question:
What happened to the stormtrooper camo armor? Wouldn’t that have been a bit handier on Endor’s moon? Did the supplier go out of business?
This was, IMNSHO, the third best SW film, slightly better than RotJ. The drop off between the 4th best (RotJ) and 5th (AotC) is HUGE.
Saw Episode III yesterday, what a load of crap. Great special effects but for a guy who claims they mean nothing without a story, Lucas can’t put together a cohesive one or have people saying realistic dialog within it.
People gain and lose powers and technology functions or doesn’t to move plot haphazardly. R2 can fly/ no he can’t. Darth Vader and Grevous are held together by incredible medical tech, but Yoda needs a cane (no he doesn’t/yes he does/no he doesn’t) and Padme dies in childbirth (Annikin has visions of her dying but can’t get her to a doctor - WTF?!). The Jedi can see the future and have a 6th sense. Yes they do/no they don’t/yes they do. The Republic is all about democracy… um, except for the fact that everyone in power gained it through birthright and “destiny.” C-3PO can translate 6 million languages but Yoda is 900 years old and has a word order problem that could be corrected in a few ESL classes. People are still dying in wars that could easily be fought by machine. Jedi have a deep respect for life and shouldn’t kill when possible/maybe not/oh yes/maybe not (the more you look human the more it applies). Leaders are closer to battle sites then they are now on Earth. Important characters have stuff cut off and limbs cauterized by the light sabers (which for some reason become solid when they hit each other) but non-vital characters are killed by them immediately. And so on, the continuity problems could go on forever.
The entire movie was written in Special English for Voice of America, with each character making no statement until the other is finished making theirs; totally unrealistic dialog, and delivered like “How to Order Food at a Restaurant” from a Berlitz tape. Lucas’ attempts at comedy throughout the series have been painfully bad, and his attempts at love scenes worse. Acting ranged from uninspired to horribly overacted. Take away the CGI (which has gotten better) and this was a turd.
Just playing Devil’s Advocate here…maybe having all of his limbs and many of his major organs replaced by cybernetics slowed Vader down…and maybe Obi-wan was holding back deliberately, so that Luke could eventually fulfill his destiny and “redeem” Anakin later instead of killing him now in a lightsaber battle. Besides, if he killed Vader he probably would have had to tell Luke eventually that Vader really was his father anyway, right?
Yoda did look pretty good, but I don’t think that was the Tantive IV. It might have been the Tantive II or III. There were some minor cosmetic differences between Bail’s ship and Leia’s.
I wouldn’t want to be Obi-wan’ apprentice, if that was his reason for throwing the Vader fight. As for telling Luke, Obi-wan clung strongly onto that old Anakin died when Vader was born story. Probably believed it himself.
And General Grievous didn’t seem hampered by cybernetics, and he had a lot more. Vader moved like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster.
I came to Star Wars late in life, and while the first three were good, I never thought they were the end-all be-all most fans think they are.
R2 could fly in the earlier ones and not in the latest ones. This is really easy to explain: in the earlier ones there was a war going on. Later, Leia is just a diplomat. She doesn’t need a super-duper power droid, and it would just draw attention to her father anyway. So he took away a lot of his extra functions.
The romance, while still painful, was much more bearable and I actually felt sympathy toward Anakin, which I never had before.
I actually felt a lump when all the Jedi died, and a bit misty when Obi-Wan was saying “You were my brother!”
I was totally enthralled and impressed…the opening fight was really cool and the lightsaber duels were amazing.
And General Grievous was all that and a bag of potato chips!
I thought the Tantive IV (Leia’s ship in ANH, right?) was a Corellian Corvette? Again, another stock design, like the Falcon, probably sold on the open market to anybody who wanted to buy one. Or am I missing something?
I actually came to the conclusion that Bail Organa’s ship in RotS was not the same ship seen in ANH. The one in ANH was obviously built from a model dragster kit (Lucas said, long time ago, that most of the spaceships in the orginal were pieced together from model car parts). Bail’s ship in RotS didn’t have the fat tires in the back, as near as I could tell.
good heavens! darth vader was a gravely injured man. it isn’t easy to move on 2 replacement legs, esp ones that connect above the knees. 2 arms above the elbows and burn scarring everywhere. he isn’t gonna be a russian ballet dancer!
obi-wan was on an off planet with no one to practice with. he was a bit rusty.
he def. threw the fight in starwars. he just held his sword in front of him and let vader kill him.
i’m a bit baffled on how he thought luke would be able to kill vader when he couldn’t. he had the same arguement with yoda over vader that luke did. i can’t kill him! he is my brother/father!
But 20 years earlier (story chronology) Grevous can do kung fu insect moves with 4 replacement arms and 2 replecment legs? Just one of dozens and dozens of glaring continuity errors…
I’m perfectly able to accept a fantasy world as long as it has internal consistency. Lucas drops the ball on that time and again. It’s just poor storytelling.
[Devil’s Advocate] Well, maybe Grevious’ species (whatever it is) has an easier time adapting to cybernetics than humans do. [/Devil’s Advocate]
I’m with you on the Jedi’s not killing unless it’s necessary (or really convenient). I see it as the Star Wars universe’s equivalent of the Prime Directive from Star Trek…it is important but the characters can ignore it whenever they want.
Ummm…is it just me, or are we complaining about how Vaders very FIRST steps as mostly machine are awkward? Wouldn’t your very first movements with 4 prosthetic limbs be a little unsteady? I know it would take me at least a few days before I felt at home with them. Even with huge technology advances, it’d take at least a few minutes or hours before Vader could walk normally, getting used to how the stuff feels. He walks just fine by the time he joins the emporer on the bridge to look at the Death Star.
FWIW, I loved it. Also…the discontinuity between Obi-Wan and Vader’s first and last fights is simple: the ‘last’ fight was made before George had ideas of grand lightsaber battles. That’s it. The movies were made 28 years apart, get over it! The lightsaber battles get better in every single film…was he supposed to make Anakin and Obi-Wan suck in Ep III because he didn’t have a good fight coreographer for Ep IV?
I just saw it; I thought it stunk. Better, sure, than the first two, but maybe even worse in some ways because all of the last-minute attempts to tie these last three in with the original three. Plus, the dialogue? I couldn’t decide which movie wins the trophy for bad dialogue: Sith or Titanic.
The Wookie Tarzan calls? Yuck. The droids’ stupid voices and ridiculous exclamations? Double-yuck. “She’s lost the will to live…” Not enough fingers in the world to count that yuck.
But I do have one question for those of you who saw it:
When Yoda and Obi sneak back into the Jedi building, the Chancellor was busy proclaiming himself Emperor. Obi, however, twice refers to him as “Emperor” before he could have even possibly known. Was there something I missed?
(I didn’t mind, however, the pre-X-Wings and pre-TIE Fighters and pre-other-recognizable machine crap from the original trilogy that showed up.)
My ratings:
Star Wars - 10
Empire Strikes Back - 10
Return of the Jedi - 10
Phantom Menace - 0 (without Jar-Jar: 1.5)
Attack of the Clones - 0.5
Revenge of the Sith - 2, but because all of the names were pretty stupid, -0.5 for a whopping 1.5. Plus, hey, .1 for not being the Phantom Menace even without Jar-Jar: 1.6.
The difference between Grievous and Vader are pretty clear.
Grievous is a cyborg, meaning that he is almost entirely robotic, with the exception of his brain, eyes, and a few internal organs that just seem to hang in his metallic chest cavity. Since his entire body is cybernetic, it can move pretty efficiently.
Vader, on the other hand, is a quadruple amputee with most of the rest of his body intact. What is left of his body has essentially been melted and burnt to a crisp. His robotic legs and arms are merely replacements for limbs lost. He doesn’t get the complete overhaul. Flesh and mechanical parts needing to work together is not going to be as efficient as having a 98-99% robotic body.
I liked the evolution of the ships alot, as well as the fact that the technology style went from 2005-style-futuristic to 1970-style-futuristic halfway through the movie, to fit with the other trilogy. Definately a good movie, up there with the originals.
As far as Palapatine’s face-warp, it did the same thing to Yoda. Look at Yoda pre-lightning-battle and then post lightning-battle. He’s much older-looking, or maybe it was just me.
Oh and just a quick brag: I got to see it on an IMAX screen!!
Something just occured to me, regarding the villian names in these movies, while I was reading a comic book. Perhaps Lucas was a Green Lantern fan. Sinestro, anybody?
