ATTACK OF THE PREQUELS!!!

[The Wanderer]

One fine da several years ago while sitting on his throne in the main office of an impossibly strong financial empire, a bored George Lucas begins to wonder to himself... "hmmmm, I wonder what it would take to tear this whole thing down"
So being filthy rich and bored he decides to take on the most challenging project he can think of...

ruining Star Wars.

And so GL pondered for many minutes then said... "I will make three movies, three movies of terrible quality. They shall be twisted perverted reflections of my past successes, and they shall be made as poorly as I can possibly make them without being too obvious I'm trying."

"And these movies will focus on chracters that are uninteresting with plots equally as dull!!"

but this was not enough to tear down his almighty empire, so George Lucas said... "And then to further defile these films I shall add an annoying child actor who thinks he's both smarter and cooler than any adult"

But this was STILL not enough. Thinking real hard, he concieved of a most feindish notion... "and let there be the worlds most annoying character, an overly animated cartoon character formed of CGI who would steal scenes, interrupt any and all sincear moments annoying both characters and Audience alike, I shall name this attrocity 'Jar Jar'"

"And I will give these movies childish names each one more childish than the last and humorously pass them off as legitimate titles. They shall be known as 'Episode 1: The Phantom Menace' 'Episode 2: Attack of the Clones' and 'Episode 3: The Case of the Spooky Spiders'"

And so the prequels were born, and the dark times were upon us.

[Denise]

Well and truly hilarious. :cool:

[GonkH8er]

latest update from tfn!

What do you think of the Episode II Title?

Love It (807 votes) 10.69%

Like It (1562 votes) 20.70%

Don't Like It (2285 votes) 30.28%

Hate It (2453 votes) 32.51%

No Opinion (439 votes) 5.82%

(Total Votes: 7546 )

almost 2500 people dont like it, and almost 2500 hate it :)

thats just funny

[Roger]

So what?!

Get a life!

[CaptainRAVE]

How can anyone have NO OPINION..lol...i find that funny :)

[wardz]

Thats a little harsh roger,

I am starting to like the new title, actually no thats wrong, its starting to grow on me. But hey, if its a good film he could have called it "Bambi 2" for all i care :)

wardz

[ August 07, 2001: Message edited by: wardz ]

[CaptainRAVE]

Its not a very original name though. We know its going to be about the clone wars.....but the name should have had a less obvious meaning. Look at the names....The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi......the odd one out it obvious :rolleyes:

[Roger]

Yes I was harsh...

But how is the Attack of the Clones any different from The Empire Strikes Back? (The Empires strikes back in the movie) Or The Return of the Jedi? (the jedi return in the movie) Or A New Hope? (Luke is a new hope for the Rebellion) Or The Phantom Menace (The Sith are the Phantom (invisible or not quite clear) Menace)

What is Cornier than the name Skywalker for christ sakes. Or Chewbacca... Han Solo (he does everything on his own and doesn't belong to anybody or thing)...

These are corny movies and in no way meant to be taken seriously!

It's a great title!!!

And it could still be fake, but I doubt it.

[ August 07, 2001: Message edited by: Roger ]

[GonkH8er]

was that attack focused at me roger?

[Boba Rhett]

I think it was.

*hands GonkH8er and Roger dueling pistols and runs away giggling*

[ August 07, 2001: Message edited by: Boba Rhett ]

[Roger]

No it wasn't a personal attack... I'm just amazed at all this hoopla because of a Movie Title. A movie title that isn't that bad and that isn't the end of the world and that isn't worth all the attention it is getting...

I wish all the people spending this much time and energy complaining about a movie title would spend it on talking to someone in real life (like your friends, your parents, your who ever...)

It is George Lucas's film, learn to live with the fact that not you, but he decides what title his film will have, weather you like it or not...

No hard feelings Gonkh8er...

[ August 07, 2001: Message edited by: Roger ]

[GonkH8er]

'isnt that bad'

apparently over 60% of the SW community doesnt agree....

and yes, hard feelings are taken if it was launched at me. i didnt write the story up top. i posted tfn's current staistics...

its cliche'd, but dont shoot the messenger. have a problem with the original post up the top? take it out on him :)

[Roger]

Sorry Gonkh8er... I was wrong... I LOVE THIS TITLE!!! :D

And again... I am not attacking you Gonkh8er... I am just venting my opinion...

[acdcfanbill]

you know wardz, its growing on me too, in fact i think in a week or two i might even like it...

[Angry Drunken Ewok]

personally the title is okay i would have liked a better one(it reminds of a f-class horror film)but i can live with it because it all part of the star wars story i love....and btw the trilogy and episode one(personally i liked it)arent corny they are sci-fi masterpieces and to me arguably the back bone of sci-fi....one more thing han solo started off as a loner but eventually fought ALONGSIDE the rebellion

[The Wanderer]

Roger, the fact that you "LOVE THE TITLE" only further proves that you are a brain dead idiot. Just another lemming following the rest of the crowd off of the cliff now known as "the prequels"

GL put that steaming pile of episode 1 manure in front of the fans and most of you (Roger) ate it up like good little self-brainwashed Star Wars Zombies.

You say we're blinded by high expectations, well I say you're blinded by an intense need to love ANYTHING Star Wars related no mater how awful the product may be because you're all the "real fans" the kind of "real fans" who can look at something like Jar Jar Binks, a blatant walking toy ad aimed at 5 year olds, and say it's part of George Lucas' "grand vision" which any idiot who thinks about it realizes he's clearly making up as he goes along

Christ, I've really come to start hating Star Wars since this prequel bs. If being a "real fan" means surrendering my opinions and blindfolding myself, well screw that. And screw Star Wars. It's a pitance, but I'm not giving GL my 10 dollars for Episode 2, The Phantom Flop was garbage and I HONESTLY almost walked out of it on my first viewing, the title of this one is a big indication we're just getting more of the same, and I just don't care any more.

Star Wars sucks, there is no grand vision only shlock sci-fi movies, and ya'll can have fun walking off cliffs.

[Roger]

You say it sucks and you're a genius.

I say I love it and I'm a brain dead idiot.

Good arguments...

Thanks... end of descussion for me.

Have a nice day! :D

[MajorTork]

What's sad is most of these people grew up with Star Wars, and weren't around when the original movies were being released. When the first picture opened, it was taken as a feel good, no hassle, goodguy vs badguy adventure movie. Everyone loved it. No one realized how big the story actually was, nor did they care. The critics Sickle and Egbert (sp?) reviewed it and dis'ed the hell out of Lucas, calling the movie "junk food for the mind".

When Empire Strikes Back was announced, fans thought it was the stupidest name to give a movie as big as Star Wars was. TESB turned out to be the best one yet, but the audiance hated the ending. That's when everyone found out the whole thing was a massive saga. Grown-ups loved it, but a lot of people thought it was too scary for younger childern.

Finally Return of the Jedi came out, and ended the first set of films (suppossedly). Good story, good action, good ending. But basicly 2 hours of muppets and teddie bears. Kids loved it, grown-ups liked it but were disappointed. And those two negative critics from 6 years ago had a special 1 hour show where they just ooh'd and aaaw'd over and over about how great all three films were and how brillant George Lucas was.

I've always liked Star Wars, but stopped complaining about how they made it about 20 years ago. It's just a movie. I say let Lucas make them anyway he wants. If you don't like it, live with it, and find something else more important in life to complain about.

[ August 08, 2001: Message edited by: MajorTork ]

[CaptainRAVE]

Yea, it doesnt matter what the name is. Its Star Wars....we'll still go and watch it whatever....so it doesnt matter :)

[MajorTork]

Oh and FYI; I still consider the name of Episode VI to be "Revenge of the Jedi". It is NOT the last episode. Luke did turn to the Darkside of the Force to defeat Vader. And even though he turned back to the good side, Yoda told him twice (in two different movies) "Once you start down the Dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."

[ August 08, 2001: Message edited by: MajorTork ]

[acdcfanbill]

ya, but luke disagreed with him, saying "there is still good in him, i can feel it" and it was prooved that one could turn back. i would suppose that Yoda said that because he had never seen anyone do it, or had never heard of anyone doing it...

[MajorTork]

lol. true. Yoda knows alot about the Force, but he doesn't trust those Skywalkers one bit. It really depends on the next two movies. There will be a lot of stuff in Episodes 1, 2 & 3 that wont be exploted till they make the third trilogy, just as A New Hope had tons of hidden elements in it that were not reveiled until the ends of Empire and Jedi. Luke will probably be that crazy old wizard that hides out on some mucky world. Han and Leia's offspring probably go to him to stop a new threat, but his balance between good and evil may be at stake. I just hope I live long enough to see all the episodes.

[ August 09, 2001: Message edited by: MajorTork ]

[acdcfanbill]

i hope george lives long enough to do all those sequals...

[Edward_Zeth]

i used to love Star Wars but this new prilogy is garbage. Ep1 sucked major anus, and now Ep2 has a campy name and from the screens and such posted, it looks like the only thing that wont suck is Boba Fett being in it. Lucas made the prilogy a travesty of the original trilogy, made for little 5 year old kids, starring annoying puppets and smart-assed kids.

As for the seqilogy(s) (i heard somewhere its 12 movies in total, but others say its 9), Lucas said this long ago, but he changed his mind and is not making a final trilogy at all.

[Vagabond]

Official Warning

I'm not going to name names, but I want to remind everyone that while intense debate is strongly encouraged, calling names is not. We're all mature people here and there's no need to let differences of opinion degrade into personal insults.

Anger, fear, aggression! The dark side of The Force are they.

Thanks for your cooperation.

[Kurgan]

From what I've read and heard, Lucas always said that it was going to be a 9 part saga, but when the prequels started, then he said it would only be six (no "sequels" taking place after Jedi).

Rumors were that the others were in rough draft form, but in reality he had only a basic outline of the prequels, and only a few rough 'ideas' for the sequels. Back in the day, the classic trilogy was going to be "one movie" but he realized it would be too long and the budget too prohibitive, plus he had no idea if the first one would even do well enough to warrant making others.

Well maybe one of George's descendants will take on the legacy.. ?

Kurgan

[The Wanderer]

This is something someone I know wrote on another message board, VERY interesting read...



...Yeah, it's a dumb title and so was "The Phantom Menace," and so was "The
adventures of Annikin Starkiller in the Star Wars, from the Journal of the
Whills," and so was "THX11382EBElectronicLabyrinth," and, well, [****] it, so
was "American Graffiti." And "Return of the Jedi" wasn't half as good as the
non-castrated title, "Revenge of the Jedi."

So ****ing what? Lucas has never been able to name a movie properly. Who
cares? I'm just grateful, and have always been, that "The adventures of Luke
Starkiller in the Star Wars, from the Journal of the Whills" is too long to
fit on a theater marquee, and was hence shortened. I know you probably think
I made that title up.

It's become annoyingly fashionable of late to bash George Lucas. It's easy to
do, any idiot can do it, and you know what? After Lucas finally screwed up a
bit with The Phantom Menace, the idiots are finally making fun of him in
droves. That doesn't make them any less idiotic.

I'm not a man to side with popular opinion, or follow the latest fad. If
something's popular, I tend to run the other way.

So let's have it out right here.

Shut up, the first two Star Wars are still better movies than you will ever
make.

If you think you can do better, please do, because many have thought they can
do better and have failed.

Count George Lucas among the failed for the rest of the Star Wars flicks, but
then most franchises die after the first 2 flicks and Phantom Menace is still
better-made than any Trek flick ever was.

Now, the normal post can end here for you guys who don't like 10-page posts.
I will now post my true feelings about Star Wars, good and bad. This could
take a while.

Anyone who grew up with Star Wars and followed Lucas knows he's not the
sharpest tack in the clear plastic box, we've always known that. Most
biographers refer to him as "basically illiterate," and his childlike
fascination with car racing and inability to complete a script by himself
that makes any sense whatsoever have left him basically an intensely quet,
angry, repressed, visually creative man who clearly had one good movie in
him.

That movie was "American Graffiti."

You'll not I didn't say "Star Wars."

No really, watch it. Most people give Lucas nearly all of the credit for this
low-budget California b-flick. For writing it, for directing it, for making
it work. It's charming and from the heart, and every character is a geek
clearly based on Lucas himself, and if you don't catch that about it you'll
never get the jokes in this stupid overlong movie I did, so hey.

Lucas' first feature, THX, has the style and lack of substance of a USC
student film. After spending some time at USC, I finally understood the film
as an allegory. That doesn't make it any better than it is - a cold,
technical piece of crap.

Star Wars, as planned, was gonna be just as cold and technical as THX.
Another goddamn future story, more damn robots, an incomprehensible plot ...
Lucas wrote 5 entirely different screenplays all called something like "The
adventures of Annikin Starkiller in the Star Wars, from the Journal of the
Whills." I read them all ages ago and none of them make a lick of sense. They
are also very similar to The Phantom Menace.

Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck were called in to organize some of Lucas'
better ideas into a logical order [and, uh, spell check], and a sort of
script was written for The Star Wars that made a little more sense ... though
the shooting script is also as boring as The Phantom Menace, lacking in
genuinely likeable characters and ruining key moments by attributing them to
hooey like "The Kyber Crystal" rather than any sort of actual human emotion
[Luke Starkiller blows up that dang Death Star by rubbing a crystal in his
crotch. Great.] ... Actually it's not much of a script, but it makes sense.

What follows is my own possibly flawed interpretation of things. Read if you
like.

Something happened, on-set. This shy young man who had nearly ruined his
career with his first movie, and saved it with his low-budget second, and was
trying to save it again with a bigger-budget film, began to lose his cool. He
was having trouble making the onscreen world and sets look non-cheesy and as
real and cool as the ideas in his head for the past few years had been. He
was disappointed with everything, and the cast was laughing at him behind his
back -- eventually they laughed at him to his face. [Watch Harrison Ford
closely in the now-rare 1978 "Making of Star Wars" tape -- he's a riot as he
registers his disgust for Lucas -- after a billion flubbed takes of a running
shot where a mike was in frame, he says "print it and burn it." He also
points his blaster and says "bang ... uh ... bang."] ... It was not a
well-run production, nobody liked the director, and the cast started to screw
around ... something which brought them closer to each other as a team ... in
Lucas they had someone to hate, a villain, a Vader, to play off of. The
shooting began to take on an air of panic and desperation, and Lucas, never
happy with the way anything looked, was always trying to stretch what they
had, reuse the same hallways over and over. Harrison Ford refused to say his
lines as written, and changed or mumbled many of them -- he would spend some
serious time in the ADR booth later, one reason his acting sounds so
high-pitched and unconvincing in much of the film.

The movie got shot, maybe not well, but it got shot. An edit was done of it,
and, um, well ....

This is hard to explain here without the appropriate video footage. I would
highly recommend picking up the "Star Wars: Behind the Magic" cd-rom on Ebay
or wherever, it has the Cantina scene from the original edit of the movie, as
well as the Biggs scenes, which will illustrate my point perfectly. If you're
a fan of Star Wars, as most people were before the fourth one came out and it
became unfashionable, it's an eye-opener --

You're watching a movie you know is one of your favorite movies of all time.

And it isn't working at all.

I mean, there are no bootlegs of the original cut of Star Wars out there.
Thanks to certain USC privileges I have I have seen more of it and heard more
of it than most people have.

Basically, from piecing together what footage and knowledge I have of it I
make this deduction --

The original edit of Star Wars sucked ass.

Today it would be a mild 70s curiosity, along the lines of Logan's Run, that
sort of thing.

Not only is it overlong and boring, it is badly acted as hell, full of scenes
that go on for minutes without a cut [like that scene of Biggs and Luke just
drinking beer and shooting the **** for like 10 minutes], there are no good
aliens in it, no good space effects, LOTS of BAD rear projection, a lead
villain with the dopiest British-couch-potato voice you've ever heard [every
Darth Vader line would get a laugh if they used Dave Prowse's voice, I saw
the footage, and no I don't have a copy] ... I mean, it's got some very nice
isolated moments in it, but it wouldn't play at all today, it would be
something of a joke. It might have played okay then, but it woulda gotten bad
or disinterested reviews.

This is when the really amazing thing happens, which is the editing of Star
Wars, I mean, not the first cut editing, the real editing, the shaping of the
version we know and love.

This is when George Lucas gets angry with a half-realized version of his
movie, and pushes the special effects guys to do better work until they hate
him. John Dykstra went and created space photography as good as "2001"'s,
only FAST and with ACTION in it, a feat of pure entertainment, and would hate
Lucas pretty much forever.

He pushes to have the b-roll of the Cantina scene reshot to suddenly include
some wicked-cool monster masks that weren't in the original footage. Greedo
is reshot to not look so stupid.

Meanwhile, Ben Burtt is creating the greatest sound effects job ever put on
film. R2-D2 is perhaps the most likeable character in the film, and that's
all Ben right there. Ditto Chewie, ditto everything. The **** he came up with
is so amazing and appropriate it's disturbing.

Meanwhile meanwhile, George and his wife Marcia Griffin [a MASTER editor who
worked on 'Taxi Driver'] suddenly decide they don't like their own movie that
much. Egged on by Marcia, the team deletes reels and reels of superfluous
stuff, and cuts the whole thing FAST. Not fast, but FAST. FAST FAST. The kind
of fast you dream about, the kind of fast that works. Not too fast, not too
chaotic, but just right.

All the rear projection stuff gets canned. Imagine that, cutting ALL the
effects that don't work. Several lead characters in the film are cut out
entirely for the sin of sucking ass, from Luke's buddy Biggs to a chubby
Scottish fellow named Jabba, cut because he couldn't act very well [Lucas
joked at the time that he'd replace the guy with a special effect if he
could].

Voices are redubbed all over the place, Vader especially but Han on down to
Aunt Beru. The entire character ADRed until Lucas likes the performance.

Meanwhile again, John Williams is listening to Holst and Wagner, taking notes
for things to steal, and writing some sort of music, I guess you've heard it?

Imagine Star Wars without ... STAR WARS. I mean, really. Music that's not
always original but is worth the price of admission alone.

Oh, and those wipes. Those marvelous Kurosawa wipes. The later Star Wars
flicks used them as simple, lame, unconvincing scene bridges, but in the
first Star Wars they have an emotional sweep to them that follows one shot to
the next like ballet. [Have I mentioned the wipes in Phantom Menace are a
flat, boring, ****ing joke?]

This is why I like Star Wars so much to this day. You can say what you like
about the acting .. Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing are the only ones who
turn in a halfway complete character. The rest are inconsistent at best,
annoying at worst. Though it's hard not to like Vader's voice, and Han Solo's
general attitude when he's not being irritating.

But I stand by my statement that Star Wars, the original, is the best-edited
motion picture of all time.

It's a best-parts-of-our-movie video. It's a party on the screen. It WORKS,
goddamnit, and to this day I'm still trying to figure out why.

It's one of my favorite movies of all time.

I DARE you to do better. No really, I dare you. I dare you to create a movie
more fun and visually inventive and downright dazzling as Star Wars.

It's ****ing hard, and many have ruined their careers trying.

Then again, those Wachowski brothers did pretty well of late with a movie
whose chop-sockey of cinematic genres seemed not only fun and fast and cool
but rather familiar to these eyes.

So it happens. But you need a miracle. In the editing room, I mean. A lot of
Sci-fi movies are made in post, let's face it.

George Lucas himself, with his extreme lack of talent at anything other than
coming up with new worlds to hang out in, wasn't able to create a movie more
visually dazzling than Star Wars until 1999, when he created the jaw-dropping
"The Phantom Menace."

Ah, but Garrett, you're saying, "The Phantom Menace was an overlong,
badly-acted piece of total horse **** by a man waaaaay past a prime which was
apparently never there to begin with. I would rather watch [insert bad thing
here] than that."

Ah, and you're right, because here's the trick, I'll spell it out on a handy
sheet for you.

Star Wars = young filmmaker with something to prove makes best-edited movie
ever and surprises everyone
Phantom Menace = old filmmaker with nothing to prove makes worst-edited movie
ever and surprises no one

Worst edited movie ever, you say, Garrett? What the plog? I mean, clearly the
Phantom Menace had bad acting and an incomprehensible plot and MANY more
problems than something as niggly and technical as editing and ..... um
...... wait ....... I'm guessing this ties into your earlier overlong ramble
somehow, but I don't like the insinuation you're making.

That's right pucky, I blame the EDITING and nothing else here. So there. It
wasn't a well-shot movie, sure, but visually it was the most spectacular of
the year in many ways, and I note that the two characters who bring the film
down most, Anakin and Jar Jar, are EXACTLY the sort of characters that a
younger Lucas would have redubbed entirely.

The raw material was there to keep the audience interested, I believe. Not as
much as the real Star Wars, but certainly enough to justify a 4th entry in
the saga.

So, a while back, as an experiment, I took out the TPM video and my old hi-8
deck and started to look for uncecessary scenes and plotlines and bad pacing
and redundancies and annoying bits and bits that went nowhere etc ....

Well, within 15 minutes my hi-8 deck was covered in vomit.

My GOD, even John Williams' music was used incorrectly.

For my own amusement, I grabbed an 8mm tape and created an edit of the movie
where I only left in things I thought were entertaining or vaguely necessary
to what plot this film had.

An hour of the film suddenly disappeared.

My cut was 1 hour 18 minutes, and that was the first, loose, rough cut by a
guy well-known at the time for letting his movies run on twice as long as
they should.

I was now completely convinced that with access to an ADR team and the
original rough footage [for I now needed to spice up/lengthen certain scenes,
add proper wipes and reinput the music], even *I*, an amateur loser, could
have made Phantom Menace work.

Well, obviously I don't have that, but a few friends have seen my first work
tape, and enjoyed it greatly.

I mean, the point isn't to make a movie so incredibly cold and
technically-beautiful that it appears to have no flaws [like 2001] ... the
fun is to shoot a movie warts-and-all and then hit it with a hammer until the
audience starts liking it.

I checked the credits for Charles Martin Smith, the editor of Episode I. His
only previous feature editing credit was a forgotten Janeane Garofalo vehicle
called "The Matchmaker."

**** Charles Martin Smith.

I have said this entire thing before, and I'll say it again --

I don't think George Lucas is a particularly gifted filmmaker, he's very
gifted in many areas especially as an idea man, and can deliver a film.

But Star Wars is still one of the great movies, and Phantom Menace isn't, and
it's his fault but not for the reasons most note. Sure, he shoulda hired a
real writer. Sure, he shoulda gotten better performances. But his real sin
was being satisfied with a rough-around-the-edges first cut of the film.

He's just old and not paying attention anymore. He doesn't have people like
the cast and his wife to tell him his movie sucks ass.

Meanwhile, Empire Stikes Back IS a well-made movie, and saves the entire
series for me. Actually, it's so well-made that watching it makes me shudder
and cry at my own inferiority, and curse the gods and fate, and then want to
make my own space movie in hopes it can turn out 1/10th as well as this dark,
brooding, technically-perfect sitcom-in-space did.

So it turns out Lucas rather doesn't like that movie since he didn't have
very much to do with it, in terms of writing or directing or being involved
with it onset at all.

He wasn't there to **** it up, basically, which is good because the cast had
seen the first movie as it played in theaters. I mean, they knew by then that
they had to work harder to live up to the legend. Y'know, Harrison, Carrie,
you actually have to give performances this time. Mark Hamill is still not
great here, but Frank Oz is perfect. And James Earl Jones hits the mark
again.

Jedi is a mess, a very fun mess and probably the most fun of the series for
kids, but it's a mess, and you shouldn't be surprised to note that Lucas
considers himself basically the author and director of this one, even though
he wasn't, he just interfered a lot ... again, we had a sort of director who
wasn't quite sure what he was doing I think, and the entire Jabba/desert
sequence is so badly shot it's painful, apart from a few special effects
inserts here and there. I mean, this bit hurts, the angles, the look, the
hair, the lighting, it's just so badly shot really. It seriously makes you
realize that Lucas did know where to put the camera. The acting is also a
mess apart from ... and it feels weird saying this ... Mark Hamill, in what
is probably his best screen performance ... one-note, but a good note, and
certainly a major improvement over the annoying Luke from the first flick.
And the good news is that the second half of the film, particularly scenes
with Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor, who's quite good, is much better shot than
the Jabba scenes, almost evoking the "Empire Strikes Back" feel at times,
though never quite making it. The Death Star x-wing run is also eye-poppingly
beautiful, light years ahead of the first film's great sequence ... it's too
bad that the good characters are in another sequence, and this run has to be
run by second-stringers like Lando and Wedge ... Lando and Han showing no
charisma whatsoever compared to their great work in Empire, and it doesn't
help that I hate Nien Numb. There are too many ****ing Muppets in this flick,
none with 1/80th the cool Yoda had. But the movie's fast as **** and a lot of
fun, so I can't slight it that much, even if I never did like that whole
"she's his sister!" thing, I'm with Gary Kurtz in saying that's a Lucas
copout. I mean, Han woulda gotten the girl anyway at this point, why ruin the
fun of the moment? Ah well, **** it. It was my favorite as a kid when I
didn't care about camera angles and wanted to see the good guys win and lots
of muppets and things, and it's still a damn fun movie, a fair sight better
than most of the crap that has passed for sci-fi since primeval man first
crawled out of the muck and said "Klaatu Barada N ... it's an N word, it's
definitely an N word .."

Attack of the Clones will be better than Phantom Menace, Droids, Ewoks, The
Ewok Adventure, Caravan of Courage, or the Star Wars Holiday Special. It will
be worse than The Adventures of Luke Starkiller in the ... I mean, Star Wars,
Star Wars 2 or Star Wars 3. And I look forward to doing a "test" reedit of it
when it comes out on video.

I expect I'll be able to cut an hour out again ....

[/QB]

[UberChild]

I think you guys should wait and see the new movie before condeming the whole prequel series... yes the pahntom menace was a bit boring, but it is the 1st in the series, there were soo many things that needed to be explained, to make the rest of the movies work, unfortunately all this knowledge, while necessary is a bit boring.. but now all that **** is out of the way, GL can move on to a much more exciting episode 2, we now know about all the basic characters, and as someone said, many of the secrets of the phantom menace, will not become clear untill the next 2 movies have been made, just like star wars.. if the 2nd movie sux.. fine bash GL and star wars as much as you want, but for now give them a chance... :cool:

[GonkH8er]

just a question. how long does it normally take to write 3,329 words? :)

[magnum]

Hehehe! And I thought that I was the only one that believe that SW movies (with the exception of ESB) are bad, bad movies... Don't get me wrong, they're my favourites as a spectator, but technically I think they could be a *lot* better :)

I have to agree with this guy respect the old removed footage... in Behind the Magic CD I could watch that HORRIBLE Biggs footage :(

I really hope that EP2 will be better than EP1... hey, the guy has the money, the technology (his team was one of the creators of it!), and he can reasonably expect to win tons of money ;)... I really hope...

[Dante]

at first i was kinda pissed at episode 1 when i saw it but then i realised...if you watch starwars again with a critical eye they're pratically the same...episode 1 a lil more wooden but still the same...i think thats the way its gona be for the next 2 movies...and lets not forget that the target audience for starwars was and still is 15-20 year olds...so while george is senile he still is doin what he planned to do...and to whoever said he was making it up as he goes along do you know that episode 1 was penned a long time before "a new hope"?...

[acdcfanbill]

well, not in its entireity, just the jest of it i think, GL has been putting in details, im sure that Jar Jar wasnt a 25-30 yr old creation... at least i hope not... if i had a charcter bouncing around in my head that long, i might be senile too... :D

[Kurgan]

So now the question is.. where can we get "Episode I.I: The Phantom Edit"? ; )

Maybe George will set things right with the DVD edition in October.

Oh well, wait and see I say...

[Dante]

hopefully not a directors edit... ;)

but in saying that the script does look better for episode 2...and with all the criticsm that ol georgie is taking for both TPM and the name "Attack of the clones" you know he's not gona make the same mistakes again...unless he really is as dense as 4x4 plywood...oh and he has to kill off jar jar binks...i'd watch episode 2 for that alone...on another note if you watch the planet core scene in episode 1 when jar jars screaming and quigon gives a sort of vulcan neck rub...you'll hear ewan say "he over did it"...now was that really part of the script or simply bad editing?

[Kurgan]

Yeah, originally he was supposed to say "THAT is for your whining, you little @#$&(*^$#!" and Obi and Qui Gon exchange high fives

[Dante]

lol!!! :D

[StormHammer]

Dante: Obi-Wan actually says "You over-did it," meaning that instead of Qui-Gon calming Jar-Jar he sent him to sleep. Pity he didn't kill the annoying aquatic ****.

As for the rest... To me TPM was just a rehash of ROTJ, and a poor one at that, and it doesn't help that ROTJ was the film I liked the least of the original trilogy. If you asked me if there was one memorable sequence from TPM, I'd have to say the lightsaber battle at the end. It was well-executed (if not totally predictable).

The name for Episode II is, well, plain bad. I'm beginning to think that GL is trying a bit too hard in turning Star Wars into the original B&W Flash Gordon serials from the 30s (and yes, I have seen them), and obviously attended the Roger Corman school of movie titles. Attack of The Killer Tomatos, anyone? Or Attack of the 50-foot Woman? Or Attack of the Crabs?

As for the content of Episode II - I've no doubt it will be aimed at 9-year olds like TPM was (why-else have a 9-year old kid flying a starfighter and nuking a space station - it's every kid's dream isn't it?).

I don't think they will ever recapture the essence of ESB, so I don't really expect much at all from these prequels. My eldest son (4 years old) enjoyed TPM, so I guess it managed to reach it's target audience. That's fine. It's just a roller-coaster ride anyway.

I can't see what the fuss is about, really. It's only a film, and it will either be a good film or a bad film, depending on your personal preference. I mean, how many of you are really going to boycott the film because of it's title, or some of it's content? Most of us are Star Wars junkies, so we'll probably end up watching the damned thing one way or another, and adding to Lucas's little money mountain anyway.

At the moment, I'm more interested in how The Lord Of The Rings is going to turn out, and whether that film can revitalise the fantasy film-making industry the way the original Star Wars did for the SF film-making industry way back in 1977. I mean, let's face it, if not for Star Wars, would we have seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture, or more importantly, Alien, Blade Runner (my favourite SF film), and some of those other films that appeared around the same time?

I just wish someone else would bite the bullet and make an SF film that could rival the long-term impact of Star Wars.

[acdcfanbill]

hmm, rival, i dunno, matrix 2&3 will prob be REALLY cool! have to wait till they are out to tell though... damn bastards pushed m2 back til '03 now.... ****!

[dazilla]

If u ask me, Rise of the Clones would have been MUCH better, if u insist on going with the clone idea.

[Kurgan]

Star Wars Episode II: Killer Klones from Outer Space!


Well at least we can look forward to commercials calling it "Star Wars 2" or "Episode II."

Kurgan

[Ice Man]

Hehe! Maybe GL will make an Episode I "Special Edition" in ten to twenty years. I hope the eventually put the originals on DVD.