From: preacherman01	Date: November 27th, 2005 04:07 am (UTC)		(Link)

I could have Sworn that I posted a SCATHING review of this movie.
Now I know I may be hard on movies sometimes but I hope that I was part of the reason that you didn't see "That" in the movie theater.
I knew it was going to suck
And I was expecting what I thought would be the worst and even still... I was sorely mistaken, Some people were saying that it was better than "Empire" I wouldn't even say that it was better than "Robot Warrior".



Also as a side note it you would like a holiday card from me drop me an email with your adress. They'll be going out on the first full week of December.

	From: querldox	Date: November 27th, 2005 04:08 am (UTC)		(Link)

And they hide the other one with a Senator who, y'know, may interact occasionally with the Emperor...and then her parents let her become a Senator herself who defiitely would be on the Emperor's radar with all that Resistance stuff (and it's pretty clear from Ep IV that she and Vader have been around each other before too).

	From: ckd	Date: November 27th, 2005 04:20 am (UTC)		(Link)

My retcon? The Jedi had figured out how the Sith cloaking skill ("what do you mean, the guy we've been meeting with every week is the Sith Lord?") worked, and were planning to use it. We know Yoda was able to hide himself well enough to make it through to TESB; I figure that Luke and Leia were each under a similar protective umbrella.

"But wait!" you say? You'll buy the Luke shield, because Obi-Wan lived nearby, but Leia had no similar advantage?

R2-D2's a secret Jedi.

	From: querldox	Date: November 27th, 2005 04:46 am (UTC)		(Link)

Alas, Lucas did make that an impossibility with the midichlorian retcon. Unless R2's really a cyborg.

	From: kradical	Date: November 27th, 2005 04:51 am (UTC)		(Link)

Perhaps, but it's an entertaining theory. *grin*

	From: ckd	Date: November 27th, 2005 05:47 am (UTC)		(Link)

What, didn't you know that the R2 series had a midichlorian culture tank option?

	From: atimson	Date: November 27th, 2005 02:47 pm (UTC)		(Link)

As does the R5 series.

[What, you haven't read "Skippy the Jedi Droid" by Peter David? Shame on you! ;)]

	From: psiqueue	Date: November 27th, 2005 04:33 am (UTC)		(Link)

My take on the whole hiding the twins is this- Darth Vader was told that Padme had died. That he had killed her. And with her death came the death of the babies.

And yeah, you have to realize that the Emperior knew that the baby/babies weren't dead. Just in hiding. But for now, the Emperior had an imperfect apprentice. Sure, the guy was FULL of those pesky midi-chlorians, at first, but after, he burned off some serious power staying alive. Not to mention Vader is more machine than man. But until such time that it was right and that Luke could be "found" and brought over to the dark side, and replace Vader, the Emperior had to wait his time.

And as for Vader not finding out. Let's see, you come from a planet you intensely disliked after leaving it. You one trip BACK there involved finding you mother being tortured and dying in your arms. And then you go and open a can of whoop ass on some sand people. YEah, I think I would not want to go back there. Add to this that Vader was to busy helping the Emperior control the galaxy and build the Death Star. (Let's face it, that thing is HUGE!! And you know that the interstellar trade unions had to have some say about overtime and benefits. "I am the Dark Lord of the Sith, and I command you to get back to work..." "Yo...Asthmatic cape dude. I thinks me and the boys might just have a few words to share with yous about this here order to skip our 15 coffee break").
But as for Leia...well, she is a spitfire in cinna-bon hair. She is going to do WHAT she wants, When she wants, and chances are, her father can do nothing to stop her. Like Mother, like daughter.

and besides, Vader is still thinking his wife and offspring is dead, so why worry and be checking for children that don't exist.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: November 28th, 2005 03:45 pm (UTC)		(Link)

psiqueue wrote: And as for Vader not finding out. Let's see, you come from a planet you intensely disliked after leaving it. You one trip BACK there involved finding you mother being tortured and dying in your arms. And then you go and open a can of whoop ass on some sand people. YEah, I think I would not want to go back there.

Actually, Ep III convinced me that Vader actually did come down to Tatooine in Ep IV. He came to visit his mother's grave. At the same time, the Storm Troopers who had tracked the droids to the Lars farmstead showed up. This is why he burned the place, step-brother and all.

Of course, this gets complicated by the fact that Vader wouldn't come out and say he was Anakin, though visiting the grave should have tipped off Owen. If that's the case, Owen is a stronger man than we are lead to believe because he does not divulge Luke's existence to Vader. And, Vader doesn't leave anyone behind to wait for Luke to turn up with the droids, as he would surely do if he were just an ordinary farmhand.

Ep II and III do seem to make Vader seem a lot more clueless about events on Tatooine than make sense.

Sean

	From: marinarusalka	Date: November 27th, 2005 04:44 am (UTC)		(Link)

I see I made the right decision when I bailed after the awfulness that was the Phantom Menace. Good to know.

	From: drewshi	Date: November 27th, 2005 12:28 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Me too. The Crappin Menace was more than enough for me to keep away from the series and cherish the first three.

	From: galin	Date: November 27th, 2005 05:01 am (UTC)		(Link)

I have selective memory when it comes to the prequals. I only remember the major plot points. The specific details are tailored to fit my own view of the universe.

The overall plot of the prequals is not that bad. It is just told in a completely incompetent fashion. Lucas would have been better served to have others write and direct. That's what worked for ESB and RotJ, after all. (of course, he would have needed to take a big step back... Episode 1 was pointless and should have just been handled with exposition. Episodes 2 & 3 should have had an extra episode to deal with the events that occur within.)

There are just some things that I don't understand at all. Why switch the birth order of the twins? That has NO impact at all on the plot and just serves to further piss off fans who are already fed up with changes to established facts.

I knew the movie would be bad. I had high hopes that the duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan would make up for it all, and surpass the fight in Phantom Menace. No such luck. Obi-Wan gives up on Anakin entirely too easily. He should have been spending that entire fight trying to bring him back from the dark side, not spending it in silence. (not to mention removing Anakin's three remaining limbs with one stroke is anticlimatic, not to mention Anakin's completely idiotic and out-of-character action that allowed for the removal).

	From: rantmaster	Date: November 27th, 2005 05:01 am (UTC)		(Link)

Yeah, no desire to see this movie. So full of holes, the whole damn thing. I watched part 2 only because a friend had it on DVD and I was morbidly curious...

	From: oneminutemonkey	Date: November 27th, 2005 05:38 am (UTC)		(Link)

Well, you see, by hiding the infant Luke with his aunt and uncle (who hate and distrust the Jedi), Obi-Wan was able to ensure that he'd be safe from the Dark Lord. Protected by the love of his mother, who died to keep him safe, Luke could grow to become a misunderstood teenager, at least until the time was right to begin his training... It's obvious that there was some sort of 'you're safe as long as you stay here and don't get into trouble' field around the farm.

Wait, why does this all sound familiar?

	From: jidimus	Date: November 27th, 2005 06:31 am (UTC)		(Link)

The good thing about Lucas' directing style is that there's ample room (and by ample, I mean, you could get up and go get a snack) between each line of dialogue, so it can be amusing to insert lines of dialogue in between each one on-screen.

It's like he tried to make it MST3Kable...

	From: thehey	Date: November 27th, 2005 06:40 am (UTC)		(Link)

I knew if things would be pretty flimsy as soon as Anakin showed up at the Lars Homestead in Episode II (The outburst of "WTF?!" at the midnight screening was a huge laffer). I gave up on the saga making any sort of sense in this trilogy after that. Lucas backed himself up in a major corner and didn't have the time or talent to get himself out.


I'm not saying that Lucas did good here with the swiss cheese plot holes, but I still liked this one, but no where as much as any of the original trilogy, natch.

	From: djonn	Date: November 27th, 2005 07:27 am (UTC)		(Link)

Some things one watches for research/genre awareness purposes (in case, for instance, one ever lands a Star Wars tie-in project).

The great tragedy of Episodes I-III is that Episodes IV-VI laid the groundwork for the prequels to be a really nifty conflict-of-goods tragedy -- and Lucas' scripts utterly failed to deliver on that promise.

	From: wyldemusick	Date: November 27th, 2005 07:57 am (UTC)		(Link)

I'm actually going to sit down and watch this despite the first two prequels...literally just to see ILM bring the pretty with the CGI and the odd non-CGI effect. I'm a dork that way.

I'm endlessly amused by people trying to claim that this fil is Luicas copmmenting on Dubya. Um, no it's not. It's George doing yet more Nazis with a new paint job, mixed with a bit of Julius Caesar's ascension. Coruscant is both Germany and Rome.

Lucas also took himself way too seriously on the noion of these movies being like Saturday Matinee serials. Then again, people obviously like to pay $8.50 or more a shot for their inflated two-reelers....

I wonder if, in Lucas' mind, the Death Star construction that's kicked off in the second prequel and touched on in the third is in fact that original prototype as included in one of the books? (Thus the one in the original movie is in fact the second -- which means they still didn't get all of the bugs out.)

Just me being perverse....

	From: nahtmmm	Date: November 27th, 2005 10:59 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	A bit off-topic...

But the story of this... is reliant on the good guys being idiots in order to work.

One of the things I really appreciate about your Trek work is that you never fall into this "turn the good guys into idiots" trap.

	From: hol_man	Date: November 28th, 2005 03:10 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"Hearing Anakin's whining coming from James Earl Jones is just depressing."

After this movie came out, my friends and I made fun of the "Where's Padme?" line to no end. It's hilarious that *those* are the first words spoken by Darth Vader.

	From: cephme	Date: November 28th, 2005 04:51 pm (UTC)		(Link)

We all just went around throwing our fist up in the air and screaming "NOOOOOOOOO". :P

	From: merlinpole	Date: December 1st, 2005 07:59 am (UTC)		(Link)

I saw the Attack of the Clones in theatrical release, and was so very tempted to walk out on in. From about two minutes after the film started, the words, "this stinks!" keep running around and around and around inside my brain, except for during the light sabre battle. At the end of the light sabre battle, that internal accompaniment return. At then end of the film, it changed from "this stinks," to "that stank."

Ewan McGregor was pretty to look at, and some of the CGI was pretty to look at. Most of the talent had less facial expression change than botox users, and calling the dialogue banal was an insult to banal.

I've never seen Phantom Menace--I sort of would like to see it, but not hear it, or at least, not hear the the audio of speaking parts with the dialogue that Lucas promulgated. The same might be true to Revenge of the Sith. I saw a brief clip out of it in a Blockbuster it was playing with. There was a very upset parent in that store, she did not want her child seeing the particular scene that was playing at the time in the store. The clip that I saw, had the sorts of banality about it that was one of the reasons why I did not go to a theater to see the film (especially not with my status of having been unemployed for months and months at the time).

I wonder if the films could be salvageable with a dubbed voice track?

[Note, very recently seeing something in anime that had only western language voice tracks and no subtitles, made me acutely aware all over again, just how much an AV presentation can be downgraded by an audio track that one finds underwhelming. ]