xkamelx
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Post by xkamelx on Jun 2, 2005 21:16:02 GMT -5
Never thought I'd see the day when I agreed with Wolf...lol But I do have to say, the whole Obi-wan/Anakin/Padme thing would have been too cliche, yes. Even if Anakin had actually killed Mace himself, I would have been better with it. But an arm severing doesn't equal dark side to me. But severing his arm is not the sole reason why he went to the dark side. and remember, he didn't think he was tirning bad, he thought what he was doing was right, much like that American who left and joined the Taliban a few years ago.
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Post by theartak on Jun 3, 2005 0:06:30 GMT -5
I realize it wasn't. You're discounting my whole buildup to a climax part, Myke. Let me see if I can find a suitable comparison with which you'd be familiar... It's the equivalent of Stairway to Heaven building up to a classical interlude, of Luke Skywalker going down the Death Star trench to find a hole the size of the X-wing that is heavily unguarded. Of the Rebel fleet arriving at Endor to find the Death Star didn't work anyway. That's how I see it.
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PurpleEyes
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Post by PurpleEyes on Jun 8, 2005 23:42:25 GMT -5
Least favorite thing about Ep III: IT WAS SAD AS HELL!!! Sad movies make everything else as irrelavent as the 21-legal drinking age law in the US. I really didn't want to go see this one, like I didn't already know what was gonna happen anyways... If you need details, holla.
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xkamelx
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Post by xkamelx on Jun 9, 2005 11:54:34 GMT -5
I realize it wasn't. You're discounting my whole buildup to a climax part, Myke. Let me see if I can find a suitable comparison with which you'd be familiar... It's the equivalent of Stairway to Heaven building up to a classical interlude, of Luke Skywalker going down the Death Star trench to find a hole the size of the X-wing that is heavily unguarded. Of the Rebel fleet arriving at Endor to find the Death Star didn't work anyway. That's how I see it. I see what you're saying now. Perhaps there was just too much to put into Episode III, and not enough time? Least favorite thing about Ep III: IT WAS SAD AS HELL!!! Sad movies make everything else as irrelavent as the 21-legal drinking age law in the US. I really didn't want to go see this one, like I didn't already know what was gonna happen anyways... If you need details, holla. The sadder, darker, the better in my opinion. I love a movie where everyone is in pain, and the good guys gets their butts kicked.
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Post by theartak on Jun 9, 2005 12:01:00 GMT -5
I see what you're saying now. Perhaps there was just too much to put into Episode III, and not enough time? I think that was exactly it, sadly. Least favorite thing about Ep III: IT WAS SAD AS HELL!!! Sad movies make everything else as irrelavent as the 21-legal drinking age law in the US. I really didn't want to go see this one, like I didn't already know what was gonna happen anyways... If you need details, holla. The sadder, darker, the better in my opinion. I love a movie where everyone is in pain, and the good guys gets their butts kicked. Have to admit, I like a movie that goes against the conventional norms of "everyone is going to come out okay, except the bad guy, who will either be arrested or fall from a high place to his or her death." But this one was predictable as to what would happen...but still a good tragedy.
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xkamelx
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Post by xkamelx on Jun 9, 2005 12:11:25 GMT -5
Same here. That is why I like the new Battlestar Galaicta so much. The first season was basically about mankind being on the run from the Cylons, suffering major casulties, with no hope of survuval. Episode III was predictable, but we all knew what was to come though. We knew the Jedi had to die, we knew Padme was gonna die, we knew the Republic would fall to make way to for the Galactic Empire, ect.
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Post by The Jedi Princess on Jun 9, 2005 16:05:59 GMT -5
Yes, an oh so sad movie. But I knew it was coming...and although I'm always rooting for the good guys, this was a nice change. Yes, I did keep wishing Anakin wouldn't turn, but I knew he'd have to so that Leia caould do her part with Farmboy and Flyboy. Ah Flyboy...
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oblivion
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Post by oblivion on Jun 10, 2005 2:15:28 GMT -5
I've been trying to figure out how to say what I dislike about Episode III for a while, and I think I finally have words for it. If someone else has said this already, I apologize. I also avoided reading this thread so I could work out the issues with as little "help" as possible.
To put it into a single sentence: The script spent too much time on Anakin and Padme staring off at the horizon thinking about each other, and not enough time on the key issue -- HOW could he turn to the dark side?
And I swear, you could fly a deathstar through the flimsy plot device of their secret marriage. They live together in senatorial splendor, Padme's obviously pregnant, and nobody catches on but Obi-Wan? What, was Anakin still her bodyguard with all his other duties? There didn't seem to be any secrecy beyond a spoken warning to the effect that "we have to be careful".
But back to the core flaw: How could Anakin betray everyone and everything and become a Sith Lord? Episode 1 and 2 did a good job of laying the groundwork: fear of losing people he loved, fear of being powerless in a situation, pride, and impatience. But, the slow, fitful build-up of his fear of losing Padme, and ultimately even losing SIGHT of that fear due to pride and a sense of betrayal simply didn't leave me with the expected and anticipated sense of inevitable tragedy.
Instead, I was left with a sense that this impetuous, spoiled young man had never been TAUGHT what any Jedi should know: that government by expedience will nearly always lead to Empire. You could argue that he was the full flower of all that had gone wrong with the Jedi during the decline and rot of the Republic...but that full flower came off as a spoiled brat, not as a tragically flawed hero.
The finale of the fight, where Obi-Wan has the high ground, and Anakin/Vader foolishly attempts to jump over him was good...painfully good, except seeing the poor guy become a human torch. Okay, so now we REALLY know what was behind that mask.
The near-final scene with Vader imprisoned in his suit, learning Padme's fate, was something I really couldn't evaluate in the theater. It seemed anticlimatic. Maybe it was the inherent inexpressiveness of the suit...I don't know. But there were several scenes in episode 4-6 where a great deal of emotion was expressed with nothing but a close-up of an enigmatic black mask and some ominous music. Maybe it was the distance involved in the camera-work of that scene. I look forward to watching it carefully on DVD in a few months. Maybe that scene was better than it seemed in the theater.
Maybe the scene seemed anticlimatic because I was still let down and realizing my disappointment, knowing that there was no time left. That there would be no last chance to REALLY portray what led a gifted but flawed young Jedi to turn to the dark side so completely that he'd betray everything his training, his duty as a Jedi, and above all, everything his beloved wife held dear without demanding to immediately learn the REWARD...how to save her. His motivation for becoming Sith was to PREVENT her death. But he put that need aside without a second thought to play Emperor's errand boy, and then he nearly killed her with his own hands before Obi-Wan got through to him.
If saving her life was motivation enough to become Sith, it simply made no sense that he'd delay learning what he needed to save her, and it certainly didn't make sense that he'd attack her in a fit of rage.
I expected the movie to be a tragic finale. I expected the downfall of the Jedi to be heroism and betrayal. And that part of the movie was excellent. I expected the actual formation of the empire in the ashes of the republic to be equal parts brute force and political finesse. I wasn't disappointed. I expected to finally understand how that brash young nine year old kid from Episode 1 could evolve into the cruel, autocratic and just plain SCARY Darth Vader we met in Episode 4.
Before Episode 1, I had always assumed that it was an insidious seduction, a taste for power. And there was a little flavor of being seduced by the dark side. But not enough. Either motivation, if handled well, could have been enough to carry off the metamorphosis. But the two combined, as Lucas chose to combine them, simply didn't work for me. And all the fancy swordwork that could be crammed into the last 30 or so minutes of the movie didn't make up for the lack.
On many levels the movie was no disappointment. Visually stunning, phenomenal CGI, especially with Yoda. Yoda's expressiveness was incredible, and I look forward to watching several scenes again..and again...and again. The swordwork and fight scenes were fantastic. The betrayal of the Jedi by the clones was really well done in every single instance.
The movie's weakest links were the plotwork, dialog...the basic storytelling. And those were the weakest links in all the previous episodes, though the casting of episodes 4-6 made up for the occasonal hokey dialog. Lucas' storytelling skills haven't matured a lot since the mid-70s when he was filming Episode IV. And that's probably the basis of what I feel are the movie's flaws -- where was the great epic tragic story? So many pieces were well done, but the most important piece -- Anakin's convesion from hero to monster -- was not nearly strong enough to carry the movie, and definitely not strong enough to be one of the magnetic poles of the entire series of movies.
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oblivion
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Post by oblivion on Jun 10, 2005 12:03:40 GMT -5
Yipe...I just realized my longwinded comments might should have gone in the "Star Wars, what did you think?" thread.
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Post by theartak on Jun 10, 2005 12:26:35 GMT -5
Actually, I agree with you totally, oblivion. Myke and I have been having a long debate about how anti-climatic the whole thing was, and I was on your side. Let's go remake Ep III the way it should be...we can call it Ep 3-A.
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oblivion
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Post by oblivion on Jun 10, 2005 12:56:30 GMT -5
Ep 3-A...I like that!
I'm looking forward to reading the novel, and hope that the internal dialog of the characters, and maybe some scenes that aren't in the movie, will close the gaps and put Anakin's tragic fall into better perspective.
I had one other main issue with the movie that's not related to the decline and fall of Anakin Skywalker.
There came a point in the movie where suddenly the focus shifted too far from Anakin's free-fall into the dark side, and became obsessive about wrapping up all the loose ends that needed to be tied up. The intro of Senator Organa, the Wookie war (which I think should either have been expanded or left out completely -- it was nothing but a distraction as it was...a place for Yoda to face off with the clones), the death star, the question of how the Jedi ghosts came to be, etc.
All this trivia stuffed into the last part of the movie kind of annoyed me. A few key pieces, yeah. Everything from the afterlife to Chewbakka...no.
Or why not go whole hog?
With all the Ep II build-up of Bobba Fett, why not a little crumb, showing how he wound up a bounty hunter?
And if they were going to give a pre-IV backstory to nearly all the main characters of IV-VI, why not make Han Solo the illegitimate son of Padme's handmaiden or something?
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xkamelx
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Post by xkamelx on Jun 10, 2005 13:27:49 GMT -5
I think the expansion of the Wookie world would have took some of the pace away from the movie. Not action, but what the movies is about, Anakin Skywalker. It was there simply for Yoda to have a place to be, much like General Grevous was there for Obi-Wan to have something to distract him.
As for Boba Fett, Han Solo, ect. I am thinking all of that was left out on purpose, and will be covered in the Star Wars TV show, which I think is going to focus on the minor characters in the time frame between Episodes III and IV.
Hopefully, it will all work out in the end. I am a huge fan of Boba Fett. In fact, when I sold off all of my Star Wars toys as a teenager, the original Boba Fett from ESB is the one I kept. He is sitting on a shelf above my computer desk as I type this, as well as a Boba Fett from 1993 (or whenever they re-released the original characters) in his package still.
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oblivion
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Post by oblivion on Jun 10, 2005 18:02:24 GMT -5
That's really my feeling, too, Myke. That the Wookie war got too much screen time as it was, given the time limitations and the amount of information they needed to cover. They could have had two scenes involving Wookies...one, where Yoda "dials in" for the Jedi Council session, and one where the clone assassins fail. We didn't learn anything new (that we didn't already suspect -- low tech arboreal species) from the Wookie sequences. So, why waste screen time on their war.
We didn't know anything specific about the battles that the other Jedi knights were involved in when the clones turned on them. Much of the Wookie-time wasn't essential to the plot, or to the loose-end-tie-ups.
Bobba Fet would be a good one to explore in the TV show. And from the perspective that Solo was a central character to episodes 4-6, it would make sense to work on his backstory elsewhere. His misadventures could be a huge story element for a TV series.
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ConqueringWolf
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Post by ConqueringWolf on Jun 11, 2005 9:33:51 GMT -5
I agree with you oblivion.....I also am on the opposite side of the fence from Myke concerning how easily Anakin turned to the darkside....it just wasnt epic enough....or tragic enough....in fact i love the flash spoof i gave links to....where is shows Palpatine saying to Anakin. "Join me on the darkside" or something and Anakin just looks up and goes, "OK"
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xkamelx
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Post by xkamelx on Jun 11, 2005 11:56:34 GMT -5
And if it was a one dimensional storyline, or if he turned because Obi-Wan did the nasty with her, we would still have people not liking it. You just can't win.
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