26-02-2005 10:33									#61
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quote: Most importantly, and I've said this before, while it had Jar Jar in it, Jar Jar was used to further the cause of Palpatine. Because he is a sucker. I loved that Lucas used the most hated Star Wars character of all time to cause the rise of the stormtroopers.

Yeah, that was clever. I kind of liked how Lucas kind of turned Jar-Jar on himself. That rat bastard is responsible!

	26-02-2005 11:14									#62
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Bah, you people suck... AotC was superior to RotJ, full stop. It had a better story and no freaking Ewoks! Which red blooded male gives a crap if the romance scenes were any good? They'd suck no matter what!

Well RotJ wasn't match (Empire Strikes Back is far far far better) but AotC was just simply unwatchable. I wouldn't have minded "not any good" but I have to draw the line at mind-rendingly awful. And what's the point of watching an epic when the main character is the kind of spoiled little teenage twit that I have to deal with during my bad days at work?

	26-02-2005 11:28									#63
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You miss something... AotC was NOT unwatchable . It was a pretty fun movie. What's wrong with the character being a spoiled teenager? Hello, teenagers ARE spoiled and twits. It's what they do.

And he wasn't the main character. Like PM was Qui-Gon's movie, AotC was Obi-Won's movie. He was the main character in the film, not Anakin. Though RotS will have Anakin be the main.

	26-02-2005 11:42									#64
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I liked AotC, and I've seen it a few times. It was far from unwatchable, as Imran points out.

	26-02-2005 11:56									#65
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Christiansen:
Hamil:
Jar Jar:
Ewoks:

If #3 is as bad as AoTC I will never watch another Lucas movie EVER.

	26-02-2005 15:25									#66
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For episode1 and episode2 a local kids toy store had huge ammounts of the latest action figures etc. Two years later i spoke to the guy about why he was still selling all that stuff - he told me he just was hoping someone would buy all the stuff
As a kid who spent £100's on the figures and toys for the origonal films, that speaks volumes to me on generally how much of an impact these films made on this generation of youngsters.

The first three might not be everyones favourite films, but for me they are(well the first two definately) and had a huge impact on my childhood.

I 'was' Luke skywalker as a kid, fighting school bullies(the empire ) and the 'dark' side etc and trying to do the 'good' thing. And through that it taught me that the good path in life is indeed the harder path, but overall the more powerfull path(i never have lost to a bully).

In a world rapidly loosing its direction, with delinquent kids all around with no-one to provide the correct examples for the next generations, we need all the help we can get - films like Star Wars can be really useful and more than the sum of their parts.

See i really was a Star Wars nutter but how these recent 'souless' films have betrayed me and the message of a new hope

	26-02-2005 15:52									#67
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I think I was more obsessed with collecting figures and trading cards than the actual movies.

	26-02-2005 19:06									#68
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quote: Originally posted by Tuberski I loved that Lucas used the most hated Star Wars character of all time to cause the rise of the stormtroopers. ACK!

That was a great touch.

Like I said, AoTC wasn't as bad as Phantom Menace. I think what bothered me the most about it was that it felt like potential wasted. I desrcibed it in my previous posts. Christiansen ruined the movie singlehandedly, and the plot (other than the scenes done in the Senate, which I thought were well done) could have used some work. I stil think that Dooku was a wasted, one dimensional character would could have been so much more.

At least they didn't try to sell the entire movie on a character taht appears in it for five minutes (Darth Maul in Phantom)

	26-02-2005 19:16									#69
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quote: Originally posted by Odin Ewoks:

Comeon, the Ewoks are terrible! To me, they're even worse than Jar-Jar. They completely ruined Jedi. Thye are proof that Lucas was only worried about toy sales and pandering to the 10 and under crwod... after all, why else make living teddy bears? I hate the Ewoks, and I've hated them more ever since learning that, originally, they were all going to be Wookies. That would have been cool. The Ewoks ruined the movie.

	26-02-2005 20:21									#70
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quote: Originally posted by Wycoff Comeon, the Ewoks are terrible! To me, they're even worse than Jar-Jar. They completely ruined Jedi. Thye are proof that Lucas was only worried about toy sales and pandering to the 10 and under crwod... after all, why else make living teddy bears? I hate the Ewoks, and I've hated them more ever since learning that, originally, they were all going to be Wookies. That would have been cool. The Ewoks ruined the movie.

In his original vision the ewoks were supposed to be wookies and the giant battle was going to be wookies against the stormtroopers. All that was changed when it became doubtfull that Lucus could make anything close to his original vision. The first Star Wars movie was intended to be a stand alone movie with a faint hope that he could come back later to the franchise. Afther Lucus got all the money and success he felt the big battle at the end couldnt be done with wookies against stormtroopers since he had this thing in his head that the aduience had to see new things. So he shrunk them and you get the Ewoks. He was going for the whole primitive people beating the superior empire with all their technology. ROTJ would have been an amazing movie if he had stuck with his original intent and instead of a battle of ewoks vs stormtroopers you would have wookies there instead. In Ep 3 you will see what his original intention was when you have Wookies battling the clone troopers.

	26-02-2005 20:31									#71
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The link doesn't work

	26-02-2005 20:38									#72
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quote: Originally posted by OzzyKP The link doesn't work

I just checked it and it works.

	26-02-2005 21:33									#73
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quote: Originally posted by Tuberski AotC was far better than the first movie

That's like saying being punched in the eye is far better than being forced to eat feces.

	26-02-2005 22:45									#74
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quote: Originally posted by Ted Striker Looks bad ass but I stopped looking so I don't ruin it when I watch it.

As did I.

But four Jedi enter, looking angry? Anger is not a Jedi trait.

	26-02-2005 22:46									#75
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I agree with Kuci, there are some simple continuity things that Lucus has just thrown out the window. I have literally been waiting for the transistion to classic Imperial naval architecture wedge statships. We got a hint in AotC with the Accumulater, but that was a lander as oppossed to a full on warship. I was waiting for the VSD. Doesn't look like he could get that most basic of details right.

He really has forsaken his core audience. I simply cannot fathom his thinking.

And the lightsabre duels in AotC sucked. Maybe if Yoda actually attacked instead of wasting energy and time on spinning around like a idiot, he might have accomplished something.

	26-02-2005 22:53									#76
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quote: Originally posted by Sprayber In his original vision the ewoks were supposed to be wookies and the giant battle was going to be wookies against the stormtroopers. . . . Afher Lucus got all the money and success he felt the big battle at the end couldnt be done with wookies against stormtroopers since he had this thing in his head that the audience had to see new things. So he shrunk them and you get the Ewoks. He was going for the whole primitive people beating the superior empire with all their technology.

My understanding is that Lucas substituted in the Ewoks because the Chewbacca character showed that Wookies were not the primitive sentients called for in the last movie. So rather than have tall hairy creatures, Lucas went with short hairy creatures.

But yes, thr Ewoks were the beginning of the invasion of the cutesy characters

	26-02-2005 23:47									#77
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quote: Originally posted by Zkribbler My understanding is that Lucas substituted in the Ewoks because the Chewbacca character showed that Wookies were not the primitive sentients called for in the last movie. So rather than have tall hairy creatures, Lucas went with short hairy creatures. But yes, thr Ewoks were the beginning of the invasion of the cutesy characters

In the beginning it was supposed to be the wookies but Lucus couldnt do the battle idea and went ahead and used the character of Chewie. When he had more money to work it was too late to use the wookies because of the audiences was already introduced to them so he shrunk them and the ewoks were created. (from an interview on the OT DVD)

so it was basically as we both said.

	26-02-2005 23:56									#78
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui You miss something... AotC was NOT unwatchable . It was a pretty fun movie. What's wrong with the character being a spoiled teenager? Hello, teenagers ARE spoiled and twits. It's what they do. And he wasn't the main character. Like PM was Qui-Gon's movie, AotC was Obi-Won's movie. He was the main character in the film, not Anakin. Though RotS will have Anakin be the main.

I'm pretty sure Anakin had more or as much screen time as Obi-Wan.

	27-02-2005 00:02									#79
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Is Christiansen coming back for #3?

	27-02-2005 00:25									#80
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Yes.

	27-02-2005 00:35									#81
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quote: Originally posted by Kuciwalker Yes.

F*CK!

	27-02-2005 01:48									#82
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Here's my ranking of star wars movies

ESB 9/10
ANH 8/10
RotJ 5.5/10
AotC 5/10
TPM 2/10

ESB had everything a star wars movie needed, decent plot, good special effects (for its time), good well acted characters, unforseen plot twists, and no real short comings. I mean think of how often "Luke, I am your father!" has been parodied. Plus it introduced Bobo Fett, Yoda, and Lando. I do think that the scenes with Yoda did slow down the movie and were my least favorite part of the entire picture. Still it's a solid SciFi movie. A new hope was also well done in my opinion.

Then came RotJ, and it started the downfall. I think that it had great special effects for its time during the space battle, Jabba's pleasure barge, and the speeder bikes, but it wasted its technical deftness on its plot. Ewoks are simply the worst idea ever seen in a star wars movie. They as a whole did far more damage than Jar Jar. I guess I'm simply too much of a nitpicker. Still you have a legion (which is probably larger than a company of troops in the U.S. army and maybe as large as a division) of the empire's best troops, waiting in ambush for the rebels, and then they lose to teddy bears!

I. CAN'T. TAKE. IT.

Then you have the Imperial fleet waiting to jump the rebels, a fully armed and operational death star, and the Empire loses with the Rebels apparently suffering few causualties. I think I could have accepted oppressed wookies rising up to attack the empire, but C3PO worshipping furbies is too much! Really its simply plot that hurts RotJ, everything else is perfectly acceptable. If either GL had of came up with a better solution to problems faced by the heros in RotJ, or simply set it up so that only by Deus Ex Machina (via Mattel's toy design department) could the Rebels have a Hollywood happy ending I wouldn't have thought it was that bad. Maybe it could have even rivaled ANH.

TPM was simply bad, and besides special effects it had very few good qualities. It's most memorable character was Jar Jar, who is the second worse idea in the franchise. I wanted to put that chubby little kid on a spike and roast him like a pig because he was so bad. Then basically the movie focused on mostly pointless things. I mean ANH focused on destroying the empire's first terror weapon, ESB focused on scattering the rebels, and RotJ focued on destroying the empire. Then TPM focuses on pod races and trade disputes! WTF George?!! There is so many things going wrong with this movie that its a travesty. GL had so much free reign for his past successes, and so much praise that he simply put out crap, and because of the hype we lapped it up. If you remove the Star Wars name from this movie it goes from grossing 400+ million dollars, to more like 40 million (hell maybe only 4). There isn't much to like about it.

Aotc is a mixed bag. It had some great special effects (the clone army battling the droid army) along with some middle of the road special effects (the cgi creatures in the arena). That wasn't the problem of this movie though. It was the fact that the CGI clone troopers probably had more onscreen presence than any of the actors. I think AotC had a servicible plot, not great, but not bad. Wycoff's suggestion for having Count Duku work on his own to fight the Sith (even if he had of fallen to the Dark Side...or maybe especially if he had fallen to the dark side but wasn't a Sith) would have been great. I could have gone without the American Graffitti homage, and a few more twists and turns could have raised it from average to good or great. What hurt this movie was dialouge and acting. I've seen Hayden Christiansen in a few other movies and he wasn't a completely bad actor, but he sucked some sweaty hairy goat balls in AotC. His fall to the dark side was horrible. Just compare it to Pyro (I think that's the character's name) in X-men 2. It was completely inferior to rivals even in its genre. Much less to other films. He looked like he was ****ing instead of having a night mare. His sandpeople genocide and aftermath was weak as well. In fact I can't think of a single good scene with him in it. Then as far as the romance went...was this the same natalie portman from other films Garden state? Seriously AotC had one of the worst, most ham fisted romances ever captured on film. I liked the Yoda fight scene though.

I have hope for RotS, but we'll see. If only it could have a decent plot, decent acting and dialouge, along with top notch special effects I'd be happy. While I'd want it all to be great, I don't expect it to nail everything. I guess we'll see. I think the main problem with Episodes I and II was that George Lucas was too hands on. I think his overall story is a great synthesis of various old bits of culture into a great space opera setting. I think his technical vision is groundbreaking. Yet I think he has deficiencies as a director. The thing is he could of made the first three episodes anyway he wanted. I mean he could of hired the best actors/actresses, the best screenwriters, the best director etc. and still had complete creative control. He didn't do that, and it the franchise suffered. I hope he's learned a little humility since epidose I came out. If so I think we're in for a treat, if not, then this could be a disaster. What's really sad is that if The Phantom Menace had of been a great movie, I think it would have easily unseated Titanic as the box office leader. For all of its flaws the hype alone made it one of the most successful movies ever. Sadly I also think that its box office take made GL feel vindicated it was a good movie, but he's underestimating how much built up anticipation there was for a new Star Wars movie. I guess only time will tell.

	27-02-2005 01:48									#83
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quote: At least they didn't try to sell the entire movie on a character taht appears in it for five minutes (Darth Maul in Phantom)

You have to admit it was a kickass character though!

Should have done much more with him though.

quote: Anger is not a Jedi trait.

Perhaps disapproval was confused with anger? And is Sam Jackson! If he can't look angry, he's got nothing else .

quote: I'm pretty sure Anakin had more or as much screen time as Obi-Wan.

So what? The story arc is about Obi-Wan finding out about the Clone Army and what Dooku is up to. Anakin's romance and turning to the dark side is in the background, setting up Ep. III.

quote: Is Christiansen coming back for #3?

Yeah, look at the pics . He has to turn into Vader.

The funny part is when the rumor was that Anakin would be played by Leo De Caprio, Star Wars fans were up in arms! I think they'd prefer him now .

	27-02-2005 02:30									#84
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Good post, Korn

	27-02-2005 02:51									#85
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TPM: JarJar + JarJar with WAY too much screen time + "Then TPM focuses on pod races and trade disputes! WTF George?!!" But I honestly didn't have high expectations.
AotC:
-
ANH:
ESB: (best)
RotJ:

	27-02-2005 02:55									#86
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Prediction:

The movie comes out. People who see it come gushing to Apolyton - "WOWOWOW THAT WAS NEAT IT WAS CERTAINLY MUCH BETTER THAN PHANTOM MENACE AND ATTACK OF THE CLONES"...

...and this time it might take as long as three week for the fan consensus to decide that it sucks goat balls, actually.

	27-02-2005 03:04									#87
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quote: I think the main problem with Episodes I and II was that George Lucas was too hands on.

I'd actually say the main problems is that Ep 1 and II are simply means to an end. They both are lead ins to Ep III where Anakin turns to Vader. They are expository. In the original trilogy each movie was somewhat self-contained, even though it pointed to something else happening. We already know what everything is leading up to now, we were unaware with the first two. One reason I think RotJ suffered was that, again, we knew what was coming.

	27-02-2005 03:45									#88
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quote: Originally posted by Sprayber I just checked it and it works.

Ok, it works now. Awesome!

	27-02-2005 10:01									#89
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The effects look awesome. Who cares about the plot, if I want plot, I don't go looking for it in movie theaters.

	27-02-2005 10:03									#90
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*sigh*

CGI is worthless. If you ask me the old movies look better than the 2 prequals.