How I realized I was over Star Wars completely

[anarky]

Ah, JJL, I only keed.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Ah, JJL, I only keed.

Okay, good. I can only defend a movie I haven't seen for so long. I'm not Guyute, for fuck's sake.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Double post . . . Grimlock, lick my taint.

http://forums.sirstevesguide.com/showpo ... tcount=215

There's a post I made elsewhere with links to early, mostly highly positive reviews of the first episode. And it confirms that the first episode will NOT be just the first quarter of the movie but a new story.

[anarky]

Then they changed their plans from what they'd said before.

Screw 'em, I'll wait until at least people I know tell me it's good. And more than just you, JJL.

[Sleazer]

You can trust JJL and my opinion too 'Nark, as I am very discerning including all the EU I've seen over the years.

I just want this version of Clone Wars to be opposite of the lousy version they did with the animated shorts...and we should be okay.

[anarky]

I went to the panel at Comic-Con, hoping to allay my fears.

Honest to God, John, if you watch this and like it, the rest of us are going to put into a collection for your committal to a rubber room so you can sort yourself out. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but it looks way worse than even I expected.

First, the one good thing: when humans aren't around, the animation looks stellar. Then again, that's what the prequels were, so it should look good.

Now, the bad, and there's a lot of it:

The voice acting is, by far, the worst I've seen on any animated feature with any budget to speak of. It sounds like a shitty forgotten Hanna Barbera cartoon from the 1980s. Dooku and Obi-Wan are especially bad. One other is worse, but we'll get to her later.

The characters move in such a way that they look like cardboard cutouts. They are ridiculously stiff. It looks like something from fifteen years back, when CG was new.

Story is pretty ridiculous. They showed the battle on the planet Christopher, and it was painful to watch. The Clonetroopers run out at random into a formation of Battle Droids, shooting at nothing in particular. They mostly drop their guns. One punches a Battle Droid in the face and apparently breaks his hand, crying like an idiot and shaking his hand around dramatically before he's shot.

Anakin's master plan, which is supposed to turn the tide and which everyone is counting on, is to jump onto a Spider Droid and just stand there, deflecting blasts from another Spider Droid. And not even at anything. He just stands there, really doing nothing, atop a Spider Droid that's still moving toward his base, while looking in the opposite direction!

The second bit they did involves the interrogation of Nute Gunray (since he's on the loose in Episodes II and III, he logically had to be captured in between). Asajj Ventress is sent to kill or rescue him. She now dresses like a whore, wearing fucking purple biker shorts. The dialogue between Palpy and Dookie suggests she gets to fail them every episode, with great hilarity ensuing (or not). Best, the last Clonetrooper, before he is killed, radios that there's "some sort of bald--" (before he loses his head). Wouldn't you think they'd recognize one of the highest ranking officers in the opposing army, especially when she's so distinctive?

The worst bit of all was, as we feared, Asohka. She sounds like Miley Cyrus. And the actress either overemotes or is totally flat. She's obviously a "I dunno what's going on character, so why don't you explain everything so that the audience can know, too" sort, and it was annoying as hell after one or two "Asohka's dumbass question sets off a monologue from Luminara." Yep, Luminara. With no explanation, she's her master in this episode.

The absolute worst part was when she suddenly goes off doing the "bad cop" routine, sticking her (apparently yellow) saber to Nute's throat and threatening to gut him like a fish.

The audience reaction was mostly subdued, even from geeks. The preview for Bolt, which actually has Miley Cyrus and not a sound-alike, drew much heavier applause the next day. (And it looks much, much better.)

I'm sorry. There's no way, Star Wars logo or not, that I'm watching this shit even on TV. I can spend my time better doing a lot of things. Like popping zits or washing my hair.

[Double_G]

Here's a clip of the very battle you mentioned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuQeNVGQYnU
I was dumbfounded by the Clone punching the Battle Droid. Also by how easily the droids were plowing through the clones. The clones are supposed to be superior to droids in every way and yet they're getting their asses handed to them. Anakin doing nothing on top of the droid bugged me as well.

I will say a few positive things. Unlike Hayden Christensen, this Anakin is actually able to emote. And the animation on the droids looks pretty decent.

I'll still end up seeing this in theaters, but I'm not that enthusiastic about it.

[anarky]

The stupidest thing about that sequence: The Battle Droids are expendable. They're designed to fight and die.

The Clonetroopers were originally intended to be the same. However, they're led by what are essentially Buddhist monks, and who respect life in all forms. Why are they sending them out like cannon fodder, especially in such random fucking fashion?

[Double_G]

At least with the prequels they put some thought into the combat strategies of the clones. I find it hard to believe that with a title of "The Clone WARS", they couldn't even nail that aspect of it.

[Antropov]

At first, I thought that was awesome. I realized it wasn't when I found myself zoning out and having no fucking clue as to what was even going on. Count me out.

[anarky]

And how about this?

In TPM, the Battle Droids seem to weigh practically nothing when the Gungans start pushing them over. Their heads also seem to be hardly attached at all, and several heads actually fall off when the Gungans knock them down.

In AOTC, nothing seems to have changed, and it's also ridiculously easy for C-3PO to swap heads with one.

In ROTS, they still seem to be the same.

Yet, in between AOTC and ROTS, a strong human can punch one full-on in the head, and it merely flinches and immediately blows the guy away? And breaks his hand through armor plating and padding? WTF? If he hit it that hard, shouldn't the head have flown off and hit some other droid fifty feet or so behind him?

[Diabolical]

Damn, the people in Clone Wars look even shittier than I expected. I keep waiting for Jimmy fucking Neutron to show up.
The animation on everything besides the characters was pretty good...for a PS2 cut scene.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

I still think it looks good.

[anarky]

Eh, to each his own.

To be honest, I actually envy you to an extent. I only hope that you don't go for decades loving this stuff, then suddenly get so let down by the bulk of it that you have a hard time caring, as has happened to several of us older farts around here.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Well, I've never been as big into the EU as you have, and I can ignore most of it, meaning I'm not really let down by any degrading quality to the novels or comics like you might be. And I still like the prequels and I know you don't as much, especially ROTS. So, eh.

Is there some stupid shit in the Clone Wars? Sure. But there is in a lot of other SW stuff, too. I don't have as big a problem with the clone punching the droid as you do, since where you see a clone "crying like an idiot and shaking his hand around dramatically before he's shot," I see a small event that lasts no more than one second.

Later in that clip, though, Cody throws around a droid or two, so maybe that guy just hit it wrong and broke his fingers (which don't have any armor on them). Or, I dunno. Remember, though, battle droids (with a few Destroyers, SBDs, and Geonosians) killed over 150 Jedi on Geonosis. I don't actually remember any of their heads coming off in TPM; they only seemed flimsy when they were deactivated. Or maybe I'm forgetting something.

The Clonetroopers were originally intended to be the same. However, they're led by what are essentially Buddhist monks, and who respect life in all forms. Why are they sending them out like cannon fodder, especially in such random fucking fashion?

In the Insider I got yesterday, the head writer said that a big theme in the show is that the Jedi are having a hard time accepting their position as generals in an army (Qui-Gon: "We can only protect you, we can't fight a war for you;" Mace: "We're keepers of the peace, not soldiers."), which is hinted at a little bit in the movies but hopefully elaborated upon in the movie/show. They might sometimes send the clones out "like cannon fodder," I guess, but the clones were literally made to fight.

As for the style of the humans, George has said that they used Thunderbirds as an inspiration. Yes, those marionettes from the '60s. Whether the animation came back looking stiff like marionettes and they decided to roll with it or they actively decided to do that from the start, I don't know. I admit, I thought the humans looked weird at first, too. But I've gotten used to them and their stylization by now so it doesn't bother me.

Well, if I end up being wrong about the Clone Wars and hating it, I can just go back to the six movies and ignore the new movie/show. Just because some of it sucks doesn't mean you have to stop caring about the aspects that you still like. For me, anyway.