Do I get to be the lucky first on to say that Episode III is the let down of the century? A steaming pile of shite!
My friend sums it up pretty well. I tried to warn him not to go see it, but he had already gone with his roomate. He says:
[quote]I turned to [my roomate] during one of the pivotal scenes and said, “What the f*** are we watching, a junior-high play?”
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No kidding!
**** SPOILER WARNING ****
I’m not a Star Wars fan-boy, so I wan’t expecting it to be a life-changing film or anything, but… meh.
The actions scenes were very good, the CGI was excellent. The acting was mostly okay, with the unfortunate exception of Annakin Skywalker… What should have been the two most powerful scenes of the movie - the surrender of Annakin to the Dark Side and the realisation that he’d caused the death of Padme - ended up being devoid of either emotion or logic, and how the latter scene even looked sensible on paper boggles the mind.
All loose ends were tied up, but most were extremely forced. The last fifteen minutes were merely cleaning up the storyline so that the plot of 4-6 wasn’t damaged.
Lucas’ desire to play to the fan-boys was painfully obvious, with characters like Chewbacca being thrown in purely to get a cheer from the audience (which didn’t, I’m pleased to say, come). I was half-expecting that after the birth scene the camera would pan to the next cubicle, and a robot would turn around and say “Congratulations Mr Calrissian, it’s a boy!” or something. Somehow Lucas resisted it. I’ve heard tell that in the early scripts they were trying to get Han in there as well, probably being taught to play cards by Obi-Wan or something…
I’m very pleased, however, to see that Mace Windu really is one bad M.F.
Even given the above, I still recommend it! The space-battle prelude to rescuing Palpatine, Obi-Wan’s fight with Grevious, the Emperor in full circus-freak mode… so many great action scenes.
Oh, and as a quick aside, let’s play a quick game of Spot the Sith!
In front of you is a line of Jedi. First one, brown clothes, serene look on his face. Next, brown clothes, serene look on his face. Third one, brown clothes. Fourth, brown clothes. Same for fifth, six, seventh, eighth, ninth…
Right at the end is a Jedi who is wearing black, seething with anger, missing an arm, has a scarred face, and doesn’t wash his hair.
Anyone? ???
The action scenes were very beautifully done. They could have slowed down the pace just a bit such that one actually had time to really enjoy the looks, but okay.
I agree that they could have played their cards much better. What I looked forward to in episode 3 was the depiction of how the republic evolved into the Empire. I think many of those things went way too fast, they were sort of forced. To make space for more action maybe? Anyhow, how on earth would Anakin so easily be turned from the Jedi ideals which he has been taught for so many years?
Hmmm… well, I could go on about some details, but okay.
I for one liked it.
It had more plot then the original movies and wasn’t as formulaic (sp?). The dialog was far superior to all the previous movies combined and so was the action. It answers all the major questions from the previous movies and is the first Star Wars that wasn’t directly targeted by Lucus at kids in any way. III also did more character development then any of the previous movies and showed that even the good guys have faults.
I really can’t think of much bad to say about it other then a couple of the CGI scenes were a bit over-done, Amidala was off character and the wookies were unecessary…but all of those were also small parts of the movie.
4 out of 5
I totally agree with that. I liked to movie though and I would definately watch it again. The final fight between Darth and Kenobi was awesome and I wish they had ended it there rather than the frankenstein-esque ending they went with.
I really can’t believe what I’m reading. Better than Episodes 1 & 2, I’ll give you that?! But a good movie compared to the originals?
Please, I’m hardly a fan-boy. Isn’t anyone disturbed by the plastic-looking world that’s been in place since Episode 1? You could argue that it’s just the way that it’s done nowadays, but for me it’s distracting - nothing looks as real, nothing has a much physical presence on the screen as the actual, physical props they had to use back in 4-6.
I think LotR is an excellent example of how to use CGI in parts to enhance a film. Star Wars 1-3 is so chock full of CGI that it cheapens the feel of the action.
Is there anyone here that wasn’t impressed by the CGI? This isn’t a video game - this is supposed to be high-quality, Hollywood special effects - not Star Wars the video game - because it looks more like a game than a film.
[quote]What should have been the two most powerful scenes of the movie - the surrender of Annakin to the Dark Side and the realisation that he’d caused the death of Padme - ended up being devoid of either emotion or logic, and how the latter scene even looked sensible on paper boggles the mind.
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Now I definitely agree with this! I thought the point of good film was to tell a good story. And as pointed out, the two scenes that should have been the most powerful were shite!
If you’re looking for a special effects movie, I can’t argue that you’ll get what you want (not because they’re good special effects, but because the film is simply full of them). But c’mon - can’t we expect something better of what should have been one of the greatest series of all time?
Lucas owns his own studio, post production company, directed the film (a mistake), and has complete creative control over a franchise that he completely and exclusively owns. He’s a freakin’ billioinaire and has all the resources at his disposal that he needs. If this is the best he can do, then it’s a joke, because he’s done better.
And don’t give me that “Could you do better?” crap! We’re not talking about me, are we? Plenty of people in Hollywood and abroad have already done better - compare the man to his peers!
I think it’s safe to say that there is no way Lucas could have pleased everyone with this movie.
I liked the new effects, with the exception of a few of the Jedi moves (Count Duku doing acrobatics??..that’s just wrong).
The original special effects were actually pretty cheesy and wouldn’t fly in todays market and doing models and such simply wouldn’t work for most of the scenes in the movie. Watch the oringal Death star attack again and you’ll see what I mean. He would have had to have written the story or slashed it to pieces (as he did with the first movies) to fit with the capabilities of model style special effects.
I agree the scene where Anakin was turned was anti-climatic. But overall, the plot in this movie makes the other ones look like saturday morning cartoons. Story wise, IMO this one is way ahead of any of the other movies. Only Empire came close to having as much plot, but it had the element of surpirse on it’s side (“Luke, I am your father”), but with III, we all knew where it was going. Yet, it still managed to make the journey there much more interesting then all the other movies in terms of action, complexity and character development.
It has it’s problems, but if I had never seen any of the Star Wars movies, and then watched all of them for the first time, this would be my favorite. I would be wondering why all the rest of them (save Empire) have no more plot then a Saturday morning cartoon and ultra-cheesy dialog to go with it.
I guess it’s like the Star Trek world…there are TOS fans and NG fans.
I liked it , unlike most of you I found anakin’s turning (and palpatine’s schemings) interesting and rather credible. when I watched the first two movie I noticed anakin was actually acting like a sort of schizofrenic madman from the start but I don’t know if it was because of the scenario or the bad acting.
Anyway there were the usual mishaps from lucas (IMHO 3po,r2 and chewbacca should never have appeared before ep.4). I liked Ewan Mc gregor, perfect choice for the role and nice make up to make him look like the young alec guiness. Ian mc Darmid was a pleasure to watch too.
But I have to agree: way to much stupid CGI. Why on earth couldn’t them refrain themselve to have kenobi riding the stupid lizard?.
It seems that lucas is too old to adapt himself to modern CGI, he’s not tired of it like us videogamers and he can’t regulate himself. He’s probably all “WOW” everytime someone shows him a stupid rubbery creature designed on a computer.
I have not seen it yet but as far as loose ends, I understand they explain the jedi “ghost” we see in 5-6. Thing is, Timothy Zahn explained this in his trilogy soon after Lucas allowed others to write in the universe. If they didnt explaii, then read the book. LOL
I enjoyed ep3, as opposed to the previous 2 which I hated. The thing you’ve got to remember is, that Star Wars is intended for 12-year olds, which explains entities such as jar-jar and all the funny sounds coming from droids and creatures. Did the wookie actually do a Tarzan-sound when attacking the boat-thing?
And I really liked the explosions, since I’m tweaking a particle system right now, trying to create a good looking explosion. I kept thinking, “how would I go about to create that explosion?” 
I think this sums it all.
SW1 with Jar-Jar-Binks the worst movie ever made. It could have been a good movie but JJB is just too bad and drags the movie to the bottom.
SW2 better than the 1st.
SW3 better than other two and a movie way above average quality.
The originals rock.
Yes, it was better than I and II, but it was still utter crap. I found it painfully boring and was watching the clock to see how long I had left of the agony (I was watching the ripped workcopy with the clock ticker in the upper hand corner).
I loved the old movies. They had charm. There were chemistry between the actors. Something the new films lack, maybe with the exception of Ewan. The new are all back and forth between action scenes and some crap dialog forced on in an effort to throw in a story.
The third movie actualy justifies its existence. It exposes the past of Dart Vader which many people wanted to know. I personaly enjoyed the third movie and almost everyone where happy with it. It’s not a movie about the mistery of Dart Vader it’s about his drama. The frst three movies tell his story since his birth to the moment when he becomes half-man and half-machine. However some people question if Dart Vader’s story was really worth three movies instead of a single one.
Ok, someone explain this to me… the originals take place 17-18 years later… At the end of episode III the shuttle flies to the new Empire’s main ships and we see them building the deathstar. Well, the ships are not the normal Star Destroyer’s with TIE fighters flying CAP. So, ok, let’s assume that the Empire also replaces the fleet with the “new” Star destroyers and TIEs. What happened to the “old” ships (the ones we see in Episode 3) did they really decomission all those vehicles in an 18 year period?
Just looking for any loose ends he didn’t tie up.
Overall, I liked it. The Vader: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” scene was embarassing, but overall it was decent.
There’s quite a bit I don’t like about it, but when it ended I had a big smile on my face. I thought the dialog was garbage (“From my point of view the Jedi are evil!” - ugh) and much of the acting was stiff (even Natalie Portman was out of step). The CGI didn’t impress me so much since we’re so used to it these days, but neither did it turn me off. Much of the storyline seemed contrived and rushed. Chewbacca’s cameo was pointless, but throwing R2 and 3P0 in made sense - particularly how they tied it off with them ( from A New Hope - “He he’s the property of Obi Won Kenobi, but I don’t know what he’s talking about. Our last master was Captain Antilles…” - or something close to that). Windu going bonkers like he did was rather out of character - Anikin did what he did to Duku because Plapatine encouraged him, but Windu was wanting to do the same out of anger and hatred. Isn’t that what leads to the Dark Side? Cheap plot device, that.
Perhaps my favorite moment in the film was after Anikin donned the Vader suit, when he was on the bridge of the Imperial cruiser looking out at the Death Star with the Emperor and a Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin) look-alike. Seeing the bridge, the uniforms, and the hearing that music all took me back for a split second to Empire Strikes Back. Wish the rest of the movie could have made the same impression as that one little scene.
[quote] Did the wookie actually do a Tarzan-sound when attacking the boat-thing?
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That’s a throwback to Return of the Jedi. Chewbacca did the same thing when swinging from a tree during the battle of Endor.
It was too forced and I asume a large amount of logical inconsistencies. BTW it would be much better if she would stay alive.
“Oh, and wipe the protocol droid’s mind!”
(“and remove the jets from the r2 unit”, guess. ;))