Star Wars 2.0 - Part 1.5 Chapter III: Revenge of the Thread - Part 4

[CelticPredator]

Or just watch this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi60989qxxE

 

[kal-el1990]

Man that sucks! I really don't know why Lucas didn't have Liam record the lines when he was working on the Clone Wars! Would be a great addition to the movie!

 

[Donut]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeJL-hcIQTk

 

[Hunter Rider]

TPM isn't as bad as I've always made it out to be. 1st watch since 05. Liam owned that film. Honestly, the only main "issues" for me on this day is Jar Jar and the Trade Federation bs. btw, Pod Race/spaceship scenes are so sweet in Blu.

onto AOTC...

MY only issues with TPM are the comedic Gungans doing battle with the idiot droids who have ant eater heads is a bust as the movies big battle, and there should be a pilot character that destroys the Federation ship, not Anakin accidentally doing it.

 

[the amazing fro]

I love TPM mainly due to nostalgia as it might have been the first star wars film II ever saw and was definitely the first film I ever saw at the cinema. Its got major flaws but I can't bring myself to dislike it. The duel of the fates and Qui Gon's subsequent death really affected me when I was little and I get shivers down my spine whenever I watch that whole sequence.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

MY only issues with TPM are the comedic Gungans doing battle with the idiot droids who have ant eater heads is a bust as the movies big battle, and there should be a pilot character that destroys the Federation ship, not Anakin accidentally doing it.

I don't see any problem with the design of the driods, I rarely have any probs with any design choices in the SW movies.

The space battel had more problems than Anakin's 'accidental' fortune though, there was *nothing* thrilling about it whatsoever.

I hate those two action sequences too, but I have major problems with the dumb script. the whole invasion of Naboo is illogical.
I don't buy that the invasion of a planet can be easily covered up just because a couple of those Trad fed guys deny it in the parliament. Whit?

and a planet that does not have an army to repel the invaders? Just some security guards? Why don't they have droid armies? Why doesn't the republic in general have droid armies?! Seems like the Holy Grail of armed conflict and only one side chooses to use em?
'To have peace you must prepare for War.' is pretty much common sense.
I never understood Leia's line of Alderaan having no weapons either, I always thought that was a wonky concept in the original movie.

 

[Hunter Rider]

The Jedi's were the peacekeepers, I think Naboo felt that and democracy in the senate were how things would be handled.

I don't see any problem with the design of the driods, I rarely have any probs with any design choices in the SW movies.

I think they look weak, and the fact they are "comedic" as well is a bad fit for what is supposed to be a war. The Battle Droids and Droidekas are awesome though.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

The Jedi's were the peacekeepers, I think Naboo felt that and democracy in the senate were how things would be handled.

But as Mace Windu says in AoTC, 'We're keepers of the peace, not soldiers.'

edit: and as for 'diplomacy', that is what the phrase 'to have peace you must prepare for war' is about, there will always be someone who just charges past the rules and has no respect for diplomacy.

The planets of the Republic needed some kind of army, it is just mind boggling that they did not have their own droids for defensive purposes.
It's like, Lucas gives us some reasoning as to why droids can be a bad idea, when the control ship is blown up they break down. But, it's still wonky, because, they are better than nothing right?
and, I don't understand why some droids can operate under their own AI steam, whereas these army ones need a remote control or they break down?!

It's just...too many things in the movie don't make sense and you have to try and knit together some logic in order to enjoy the film, but you can't quite get there.

I think they look weak, and the fact they are "comedic" as well is a bad fit for what is supposed to be a war. The Battle Droids and Droidekas are awesome though.

They seemed like a logical design for their type of warfare, slim to avoid laser fire, and agile to get in and out of scrapes more easily. They're not there for hand to hand combat, they're there to fire guns and run around.
eh, the comedy may annoy you, but I don't see how it gets in the way of the warfare. in fact, in real life, comedy helps soldiers cope with the stress of war, if you want to look at it that way.

 

[The Navigator]

Watching Jedi again, and I noticed Artoo now has little CGI arms that flail around when he gets blasted by the trooper.

 

[danoyse]

Was Jabba a human at first in New Hope?

He filmed the scene with an actor, and he planned to matte in a creature over the actor in post-production. They didn't have the time or budget to finish it, so in the end it was cut from the film.

He finally put it back in for the special editions in 1997, but I've never liked that scene. Jabba has always looked awful, Han "stepping" on his tail has always looked terrible, and it really added nothing to the plot whatsoever.

 

[Teelie]

That scene should have just never been in the movie. Lucas was right in omitting it in the theatrical version.

It was all to tie in Boba Fett. He was in the last scene for a few seconds and looks right at the camera. I'm convinced it's more of Lucas' attempts to tie everything into the prequels and ANH more into the sequels (we don't see Fett until ESB) so it meshes together better in his mind even if it's flawed and rife with continuity errors.

eh, not wanting to re-start the debate or anything, but I read this article on the bbc news site this morning, arguing why Lucas should release the original versions of Star Wars for fans if they want them. Invokes arguments by the famous artist Marcel Duchamp(the guy who stuck a urinal in an art-gallery and credited it to Indiana Jones's son, not joking) from a 1957 lecture on the relationship between the artist and the audience, a good read:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14944240

I ran across a very similar thing on TV Tropes but didn't want to spark the debate myself.

Death Of The Author, is a concept from the field of literary criticism which holds that an author's intentions and biographical facts (politics, religion, etc) should hold no weight when coming to an interpretation of his or her writing; that is, that a writer's interpretation of his own work is no more valid than the interpretations of any of the readers. The logic is fairly simple. Books are meant to be read, not written, and so the ways readers interpret them are more important and "real" than the ways writers write them.

Substitute author, written and read with director, produced and watched and you get the same thing. The entire read gives a great run down on those who support that concept (Tolkien included) and a lot who disagree and say you must accept their interpetation which is counter to what it should be. You should not be told "this is how you interpet my work." It should be up to the individual.

In this case Lucas keeps going on altering that original work, destroying it in the process with his revisions. A lot of what is problematic isn't fixing technical errors or things you can explain as non-interference with the story or characters.

 

[Lord]

Any fan of the original concept art?

 

[Bim]

^ The problem with TPM is the pacing. Honestly, if they tweeked the scenes, fixed some minor issues, and removed most of the politcal stuff, you have a pretty solid flick.

I love the political aspect of the PT and specially Palpatine's entire arc. I dont think the story would have felt complete if we hadnt seen how the Republic ended up an Empire and how Palpatine ended up as Emperor. I generally hate politics, but in this case i thought it was imperative to include.

I've always loved this one, Lord:

 

[Lord]

Me too, that's one of my favourites along with these:

 

[Sebastos]

First time I've seen that concept art, great stuff.

 

[Doctor Jones]

The politics were important to include, since it makes the most since as to how Palpatine would come into power and build himself up. It's brilliant that he uses the Senate building to get the entire galaxy's approval of him. For years they've come to know him, and once he tells his tale, they sympathize and support him.

Now the more political stuff in the beginning isn't the strongest storytelling element or rather wasn't executed the best, but I see the scheme of it.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

It was all to tie in Boba Fett. He was in the last scene for a few seconds and looks right at the camera. I'm convinced it's more of Lucas' attempts to tie everything into the prequels and ANH more into the sequels (we don't see Fett until ESB) so it meshes together better in his mind even if it's flawed and rife with continuity errors.

But he did write and shoot the scene before Boba Fett was even conceived.

See, back in ye olde years we didn't even know Jabba lived on Tatooine. In between ESB and ROTJ, Marvel comics ran stories with Lando and Chewie trying to find out what planet Carbonite Han was being held on, so even they didn't know.

I think what he was doing with the original scene was to show us that yes, it was very easy for Jabba to find out where the Millenium Falcon was docked, I mean, of course he could easily find that out. Once you saw ROTJ, you could have wondered how on Tatooine he did not track Han's ship down if he ran the place and it was full of crooks. So, Lucas wanted to tidy that notion up by putting the scene back in.

and we see why Han was still in Tatooine, ie, he wasn't scared of Jabba, and had something of a relationship with him where could openly speak his mind on matters without Jabba ordering him dead, as he was a useful smuggler to have.

The thing is though, as folk have said, it just goes over the same dialogue of the Greedo scene, (although it shows the relationship between Solo and Jabba as being different from what Greedo suggests), but the main thing it spoils is the reveal of the Falcon, us sharing Luke's first reaction to the ship by taking his word for it that it's a piece of junk, so it lessens the effect of the surprise getaway by lightspeed, as beforehand we are already acclimatised to the ship in the Jabba scene, so sharing Luke's reaction doesn't work as well for first time viewers.
So, as an artist , you weigh up the pros and cons of both approaches, and personally, I would have left it out, and had the audince just ascertain that Jabba was preoccupied with other matters and so didn't track Han down that day, or Han bribed the docking bay guy not to spill the beans, which is what you did back in the day before the SE's were out.


I'll say one other thing about the original films not being out there in decent form.
In the decades, centuries to come, folk are gonna look back at the history of film, see that there was this massive phenomena called SW in the years 77-83, and want to sit down with the original films, trying to recreate the experience of watching them, as if they too had been alive in this point in human history, to see if the film have anything like the same effect on them, to see if the art hold sup, and whether people are the same as back in the old days. But, y'know, even if they go to antique shops and create a 20th century environment, and go to a hypnotist to put them into that frame of mind, they won't quite be able to.
Because to see the films are they originally were is to watch them without all the crap that has attached to the prints, like they were released as in the laser disc/dvd form we got.

 

[Drizzle]

I watched all six movies yesterday. Took me 13 hours, but it was an experience. I've never sat through all of them in one day before. The closest I came was back when ROTS came out on DVD, but even then all I did was watch the Prequel Trilogy one day and the Original Trilogy the next. Without a doubt, ROTS looks the best on Blu-ray. No surprise there. ANH looked great. ROTJ probably had the worst transfer out of the Original Trilogy but it was only really noticable during some of the Endor scenes. But one thing is certain: The saga has never sounded better. I thought my speakers were going to get blown out a couple of times.

 

[henzINNIT]

Any fan of the original concept art?

LOVE it. Want a book of McQuarrie's art but they are expensive

 

[Teelie]

I know he wrote it before Boba was famous and scripted and of course shot it but he ret-conned the scene and since it had Boba in it, ret-conned that to include him. Like you said it was redundant to have and should have been left excised but we now know Lucas wants to tie everything together into neat little packages and he wants to have all of it even more inter-connected than before.

In addition to seeing Fett, we do see Jabba who while famous, is not as famous as Fett, has more screen time and is more important to the story. I may be hyperbolizing Lucas focusing on Fett but my main point was it only got reinserted because it had tie in value to ESB and ROTJ.

 

[Angel_Faerie]

Or just watch this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi60989qxxE

Removed.

 

[danoyse]

The politics were important to include, since it makes the most since as to how Palpatine would come into power and build himself up. It's brilliant that he uses the Senate building to get the entire galaxy's approval of him. For years they've come to know him, and once he tells his tale, they sympathize and support him.

Now the more political stuff in the beginning isn't the strongest storytelling element or rather wasn't executed the best, but I see the scheme of it.

I agree. It was very Machiavellian, and I like how it was executed, even though it did tend to plod along, especially in the beginning. The Senate stuff was great, as was his fake surprise at being nominated to replace the Chancellor.

I always loved how the Jedis were so afraid that Anakin's compassion for his mother would be such a danger, when in the end it was his compassion for his son that saved them all.

 

[Hunter Rider]

But as Mace Windu says in AoTC, 'We're keepers of the peace, not soldiers.'

edit: and as for 'diplomacy', that is what the phrase 'to have peace you must prepare for war' is about, there will always be someone who just charges past the rules and has no respect for diplomacy.

The planets of the Republic needed some kind of army, it is just mind boggling that they did not have their own droids for defensive purposes.
It's like, Lucas gives us some reasoning as to why droids can be a bad idea, when the control ship is blown up they break down. But, it's still wonky, because, they are better than nothing right?
and, I don't understand why some droids can operate under their own AI steam, whereas these army ones need a remote control or they break down?!

It's just...too many things in the movie don't make sense and you have to try and knit together some logic in order to enjoy the film, but you can't quite get there.

I disagree, I think the idea was there were planets that felt building an army led to the temptation of war. allowing the Jedi to be peacekeeper's was enough security as they expected debate in the senate as opposed to a droid army assault. Even by AOTC Amidala was still against creating an army, basically going along the lines of resorting to violence will only bring about more violence thus as viscous circle situation develops, and wanted to try to find a peaceful way, naive? quite possibly, as Mace points out, but that is politics and idealism for you.

As for the Droids, maybe some models are made different to others, wasn't it only the anteater ones that conked out when the ship went down?

They seemed like a logical design for their type of warfare, slim to avoid laser fire, and agile to get in and out of scrapes more easily. They're not there for hand to hand combat, they're there to fire guns and run around.eh, the comedy may annoy you, but I don't see how it gets in the way of the warfare. in fact, in real life, comedy helps soldiers cope with the stress of war, if you want to look at it that way.

You make a fair point about the design, but the comedy wasn't like a bunch of soldiers cracking jokes to calm their nerves, it was as if the droids were idiot pratfall comedy droids, not fighting droids. they didn't crack jokes, you didn't laugh with them, you laughed at them, or at least that is how I felt.

 

[Hunter Rider]

In ATOC when Dooku has his conversation with Obi Wan, does anyone think he was genuinely trying to turn him by telling him so much? or just simply planting seeds?

Also It was interesting to see Yoda talk about only the Sith knowing of their weakness.

I agree. It was very Machiavellian, and I like how it was executed, even though it did tend to plod along, especially in the beginning. The Senate stuff was great, as was his fake surprise at being nominated to replace the Chancellor.

Co-signed, I loved the political stuff, Palpatine manipulating his way further up the food chain whilst also orchestrating a war, a war that would see the Republic use soldiers that had a chip in them for him to control them that no one knew about, so he could flip it on them when the time was right.

I always loved how the Jedis were so afraid that Anakin's compassion for his mother would be such a danger, when in the end it was his compassion for his son that saved them all.

Excellent point.

 

[TheDragonator]

*looks at original Star Wars box office gross*

Hm. 700 million. That's very, very good.

*realizes it's 700 million in 1977 dollars*

F**********************************K.

Adjusted for inflation, it's over 2 billion.