64 Reasons to hate Episode II

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Uber_God
I am continuing with this to keep the I & II Forums alive
thought it might make good argument again

Uber_God
Also see :

78 Reasons to hate Epidsode I

Uber_God
Reason #1
The Title
I don't think it ever occurred to anyone that the title of Episode II wouldn't be The Clone War. That seemed like an obvious title and a good one. Lucas then announced that the title would be Attack of the Clones to pay homage to the days of the 1950's movie serial. What he's forgetting is that those serials were terrible! Attack of the Clones, while it will grow on you just as any bad thing will, is a horrible title! Why would you want to pay homage to crap? It's especially bad when you realize that the clones in question are fighting for the good side. That's even less scary and stupider sounding. The title is essentially Attack of the Good Guys.

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Reason #2
"I shouldn't have come back."
The movie begins with an assassination attempt on the life of Senator Amidala. When several of her staff lie dead she says: "I shouldn't have come back." Isn't she a senator? How could she possibly avoid coming back? In what way has she been representing her planet for the past ten years that hasn't involved being in the Senate Chamber with all the other senators?

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Reason #3
Dissing Yoda
When Yoda sees Amidala he says: "Seeing you alive brings warm feeling to my heart." Amidala completely blows by him and starts yammering on about whatever is on her mind. There is so much dialogue like this in the movie. Someone will say something almost human and another person will respond (or not respond) in a completely inhuman way. Yoda can't even score a simple "thank you" from Amidala after his kind words. It's enough to make one wonder if Lucas has ever had a conversation with another living being.

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Reason #4
Spice Miners
"Our intelligence points to disgruntled spice miners, on the moons of Naboo." When the Queen's life is threatened their intelligence points to "disgruntled spice minters on the moons of Naboo." Great. This is just another reason to mention "spice miners" and is never mentioned again. A perfect example of George Lucas going down the Star Wars checklist on his way to making a poor film. "Gundarks?" Check. "Spice Miners?" Check. "Poodoo?" Check.

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Reason #5
Jimmy Smits
I don't mind Jimmy Smits. He seems like a nice enough guy. There is just something so utterly distracting about him in this movie that I can't stand it. Thankfully he's only in a few tiny scenes or I wouldn't have retained a damn thing about this movie. Every scene he is in I am forced to just stare slack-jawed at his magnificence/out-of-placedness. It may be narrow minded but I am just seeing Bobby Simone from NYPD Blue. Okay so I've never actually seen an episode of NYPD Blue but I've seen the commercials.

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Reason #6
Gundarks
They just had to do it. In an elevator ride Anakin pointlessly brings up the time that he saved Obi-Wan after he fell into a "nest of Gundarks". They laugh about it... and it's really dumb. I will eat my hat if Nerf Herders are not mentioned in the next movie.

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Reason #7
The Meeting
"Annie? My goodness you've grown." "And you've grown. More beautiful." This sets it in motion. The groans filled the cinema as this scene just refused to die. You would think that the obvious things (i.e. Palpatine's evil, Amidala and Anakin's romance, Anakin becomes Vader) that everyone knows is going to happen wouldhave a little more in the subtlety department. I am reasonably certain that there will be an agonizingly long baby-naming sequence in the next movie where they agree on "Luke" if it's a boy and "Leia" if it's a girl. They will probably even stumble through some of the original names that Lucas had for Luke like "Dirk Starkiller". It doesn't matter how bad an idea you think of for one of these movies, Lucas will come along and make your idea look good by comparison.

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Reason #8
Jedispeak
"We're trying to protect you, not start an investigation." Why are Jedi always talking like this? Jedi have gone from being just about the coolest thing I can imagine to being know-it-all jerks. Everything anyone says in presence of a Jedi they must be cautious of. If you say anything around a Jedi they'll just change it around. "Master Yoda, we're out of Pop Tarts." "Oooh? So certain are you? Always the Pop Tarts can not be found." "But I looked in the cupboard and it's empty." "Empty the cupboard is not. Absent of food it is. As 'empty' the same it is not."


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Reason #9
Thought Betrayal
At one point early on Obi-Wan warns Anakin to: "Be mindful of your thoughts, they betray you." What? Anakin was just saying something about how the Senator wasn't happy to see him. That's not his thoughts betraying him. I could be wrong but I think they worked in a line exactly like this in Episode I. They need to relax a bit with this line. Perhaps something else would have been in order. A more appropriate line like: "I believe she was happy to see you." Or: "I'm not saying that your thoughts are betraying you or nothing, I'm just saying that she was happy to see you."


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Reason #10
Bugs Over Bullets
The assassination attempts on Amidala continue. Putting a bomb in her ship didn't seem to do the trick so these unknown assassins start to get a little more creative. Amidala's bedroom is protected by laser motion detectors all across the floor while these giant windows remain unguarded. The assassins decide to fly a droid over that will spread a part of the window open (how I'm not sure) and release poisonous bugs that can crawl underneath the lasers and bite the Senator. They opt for this method rather than sending the same droid over with a gun to just shoot her with bullets which would also not trip the lasers and would be foolproof. Instead they send living beings to sneak past Jedi who are masters of the Force, a mystical power created by life. Dumbasses.

Uber_God

Uber_God
Reason #21
Representative Binks
Apparently the reason that this Galactic Republic has stood for 1,000 years is because of the great rules they have in place. One such rule is that if you don't feel like going to the Senate you can just have your completely unqualified fool of a friend just fill in for you and decide the fate of the entire Galaxy.

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Reason #22
The Importance of Naboo
Naboo seems like a fairly average planet. Why is it that every decision in this Senate--which is so huge that the ceiling and floor are beyond the limits of human site--always ultimately becomes the decision of someone from Naboo. What about Corellia, Kashyyyk and Dantooine? What about Alderaan, Coruscant and Talus? What about Yavin, Rori and Dathomir? What about Sacorria, Arkania and Telasea? What about Bimmisaari, Ord Mantell and Rodia? Etc. Etc. Etc.

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Reason #23
Anakin's First Tirade
After being with Amidala for about a day Anakin decides it's acceptable to show his true colors and he has a fit. He starts complaining about Obi-Wan saying: "It's not fair!" and "He doesn't understand!" Basically he just goes off on a completely unprompted bitchfest for no reason. He does do a fairly good job of capturing the essence of Luke from the first two movies but he also does a really good job of flipping out for no reason and yelling at people he hardly knows or hasn't seen in ten years. It would be like burdening someone at your high school reunion about how high your car tax is.

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Reason #24
Anakin the Jerk
Anakin goes from being this little sweetheart in The Phantom Menace to being a complete ******* in Attack of the Clones. He's whiny, creepy, annoying, rude and arrogant. He also throws temper tantrums at two or three points in the movie. What happened to him? He was a pretty well adjusted kid and you would figure that under the guidance of the Jedi he would become even more stable. Instead he turned into a total doofus. He creeps out Amidala by just staring at her like a creepy stalker and when she says, "Please don't look at me like that," he responds by saying, "Sorry," but also displaying a sinister grin and continuing to stare at her! What kind of fool would do this and what's more is why would she be at all attracted to someone like this? There's absolutely no reason why she would fall in love with someone like this. Return of the Jedi works so hard at making the evil Darth Vader into a likeable character despite the things that he has done. This movie comes along and makes the viewer hate Anakin just because he's a total jerk. A huge hole is left in the plot as to why he became this way that just leaves us asking, "Why did Anakin become such a dickhead?"

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Reason #25
Bustin' on Artoo
There's this one scene where Padme and Anakin are walking on Naboo and she says she's a little nervous and he confesses to also being nervous since this is his first assignment by himself. "Don't worry," Padme says. "We have Artoo with us." Then they both laugh about how ridiculous a concept it is that Artoo could be at all useful. Artoo beeps and if Threepio were there to translate it would probably be something along the lines of "**** you both."

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Reason #26
The Diner
Obi-Wan decides to visit his friend, Dex--a a big disgusting creature with four arms--to ask him about the poison dart. He meets him at a Diner where Dex works. There are many problems with this scene. One is that the twelve-bar blues is playing in the background during the entire scene and that the diner just looks like something from the 1950's on a planet called Earth. Dex is able to tell just by looking at this dart what planet it comes from. That's great but if he knows apparently more than the Jedi "Analysis Archives" then why the hell is he a short order cook? Also, Obi-Wan is confident that finding where this dart is made he will locate this "bounty hunter". I believe he's taking a great deal for granted in assuming that this person could not have gotten this dart somewhere else, say at a store on another planet.

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Reason #27
Inept Mystery
This mystery designed for ten year olds unfolds as Obi-Wan discovers that the planet he's looking for (where they make the darts) is not in the archives. He decides to find Master Yoda and enlist his help in finding this missing planet. In this scene a baby is able to figure out what Obi-Wan cannot, that the planet has been erased from the archive memory. "Only a Jedi could erase those files." This is what Yoda says. Why? Couldn't someone who maintains the archives do it? Or someone else who's just good with computers? I maintain that a computer expert could do this and that an average Jedi would probably not be able to. I think that the Force is great when flipping around and lifting rocks but it's probably pretty powerless when moving around ones and zeroes.

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Reason #28
The United States of Naboo
Within thirty seconds there is mention that Amidala was so well loved that when her two terms were up they tried to amend the constitution but instead she went on to serve in the senate. Then it's mentioned that after four trials in the Supreme Court that Nute Gunray is still in charge of the trade federation. Two terms? Constitution? Supreme Court? This is just the United States of America! Where is the creative vision? I would be willing to bet that there are three branches to their government: The Judicial, the Legislative and the Executive. Some people read Tolkien or Heinlein for inspiration but apparently Lucas gets his inspiration from an eighth grade Social Studies book.

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Reason #29
The Cloners
The entire scene just smacks of video game plot. Watching it you get the feeling that you are just playing a Sierra game from the late eighties. And it's everything, the layout of the set, the graphics, the plot and the dialogue. I spent most of the scene wishing that I had brought a mouse so that I could tell Obi-Wan to search for objects and look out the window.

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Reason #30
The Kiss
In this scene the audience is left stunned as Anakin begins saying to Padme that, "I don't like sand. It's coarse and irritating and it gets everywhere. Everything here is soft and smooth." You can sense they're going to kiss but you think that you must be wrong because everything up until this point has showed Anakin to be a total numbskull and that she must be creeped out. When they begin kissing you can't help but wonder why it's happening. The music gets loud and grand but then she snaps away and the music cuts quickly leaving a decaying reverb in the theatre and it's just plain comical. You can't help but laugh out loud.

Uber_God

Uber_God
Reason #40
Wat Tambor
This is a member of the "Techno Union" who looks a lot like Pimpbot from Conan O'Brien. It's cute when Conan O'Brien does it because he's trying to look ultra cheesy and campy for a laugh but when Lucas does the same thing it does nothing but serve to interrupt any sort of realism or continuity. Before you start sending me the emails, I know that this is fiction and that it's not real but it doesn't seem to me to exist in this universe. It's a typical 1950's Earth robot in a grand science fiction epic. It's great fun and it's hilarious and he looks totally foolish but is that necessarily a good thing? It's not that I don't think humor belongs in these movies. I just think that clever dialogue would work better than inserting lame inside jokes like E.T. and this 50's robot. As Jacques had predicted it would just be a matter of time before Lucas started stealing things from parodies of his own movies to use in future films. I think that that line has finally been crossed.

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Reason #41
Anakin's Mother
Much of this movie reminds me of the science fiction novels I used to write when I was twelve. Novels that were inspired by a childhood full of watching Star Wars. This movie is very reminiscent of me looking through one of those old novels I wrote in that it makes me grimace almost uncontrollably. But these novels were written by a dim-witted twelve-year-old and not an esteemed Hollywood movie maker. When Anakin finds out that his mother has been kidnapped by Tusken Raiders and then decides to find her, the scene that takes place is unacceptable. Anakin wanders into the camp and takes out his lightsaber, cutting open the first hut that he sees to reveal his mother tied to a post with a few cuts on her face. Anakin and she exchange several coherent sentences until she just dies, apparently from a nick on her forehead. Anakin then proceeds to get really pissed off. There was no apparent reason for her to die, she looked like she had gotten into a minor fight at a middle school. Anakin actually puts his hand over her face to closer her eyes, you know, like they do in every movie. As in the first movie, Pernilla August turns in possibly the best live action performance as Shmi Skywalker. Shmi Skywalker, however, is still a dumb name.

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Reason #42
Cheese For Anakin's Whine
Anakin gets all pissy after he can't save his mother from the sand people. He goes on this tirade that is supposed to show us how he has a dark side. Once again something like this could stand to be a little more subtle since about one fifth of the Earth's population is already quite aware that Anakin has a dark side. His second temper tantrum has him screaming five-year-old things like: "I will be the most powerful Jedi ever!" and "I should be all-powerful!" Then he throws some stuff and says, "It's all Obi-Wan's fault!" What? What does he mean? How could this be Obi-Wan's fault? You would think that Lucas could think of a better reason than NO REASON AT ALL for Anakin to want to turn on his master. Oh wait, no you wouldn't!

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Reason #43
"I will never join you!"
While Obi-Wan is imprisoned in a strange blue field, Dooku offers Obi-Wan a deal. "Join me," he says. "And together we will destroy the Sith." It's a really crappy cliche that has no purpose because you don't see any sort of emotion on Obi-Wan's face at all. He simply turns his head slightly and then simply says, "I will never join you, Dooku." End of story. It is clear that Obi-Wan's decision has been made. He is calm and firm about his answer so the audience is never thinking, Gee, what's going to happen? Is Obi-Wan being tempted? It's not like in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke is confused and doesn't know what to believe or what to do. Luke is torn between believing someone he trusts who may have been lying to him and believing someone he hates who, deep down, he knows is telling the truth. "Join me!" "Nope." "Okay." Just doesn't have the same sense of urgency.

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Reason #44
Adolph Binks
Jar Jar's role is small in this film. Small but important. In the beginning of the film when he was on screen you could have cut the tension in the theatre with a knife. Everyone just joined in a collective cringe with every word that came out of his mouth. You could just feel it. While it is stupid that he was appointed to fill in for a senator it cannot be argued that Jar Jar had the most important role in the film and possibly in the entire series as a whole. Palpatine, through simple parental-like reverse Psychology, manages to get Jar Jar to bear the brunt of the responsibility of beginning the Clone Wars. It's very disturbing that it's presented in a humorous manner as if this was just another of Jar Jar's antics. Jar Jar's decision will ultimately put Emperor Palpatine in power and destroy all but two of the Jedi Knights. Even those cute little kids we get to see Yoda training in the Jedi Academy sequence. All of those kids are going to be ruthlessly murdered. Four and five year olds, dead and the blood is on Jar Jar's hands. Ha ha ha! Okay you got me, that is pretty funny! Oh Lucas, you card!

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Reason #45
The Assembly Line
When Padme, Anakin, C3P0 and R2D2 finally arrive on Geonosis they find that Count Dooku has set up a factory which is manufacturing battle droids. Manufacturing them in this giant plant complete with molten metal, conveyor belts and presses. I'm surprised that George Lucas didn't dig up some old Carl Stalling records to insert into the soundtrack here seeing that it already looks exactly like a Warner Brothers cartoon. For no good reason they are knocked down onto a conveyor belt and are forced to time their jumps carefully as not to be crushed by these giant stamps that crash down onto the metal plates. Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, in EVERY video game I have every played!

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Reason #46
C3P0's Stunts & Antics
C3P0 is awfully limber all of a sudden. The droid that can barely bend his knees and can't seem to bend his elbows at all is suddenly graced with an acrobatic grace throughout this one flawed scene. In a change of events more reminiscent of the Droids! cartoon than of Star Wars, Threepio is suddenly hanging on to a speeding cart by his fingertips and climbing around with physics-defying skills similar to those displayed by Anakin earlier in the film. By stretching the term "suspension of disbelief" as far as possible so that it is approximately one atom thick, one can assume that the Force plays a part in Anakin's stunts. How can Threepio's stunt be explained? Undoubtedly there will be an inept definition of machine midi-chlorians in the next movie.

And Threepios's antics are possible the worst Threepio antics to date. He was annoying in A New Hope, distracting in The Empire Strikes Back, downright despicable in Return of the Jedi and just dumb in The Phantom Menace. In Episode II we see Threepio bumbling around in yet another unfunny attempt for laughter. The comedic ineptitude seems as if it will never end as his head is put on a fighter droid's body and a fighter droid's head is put on his body. You can only imagine the hilarious scenes that ensue as Threepio is now unwillingly fighting in a droid army. Oh for fun!

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Reason #47
R2D2 Flies
This may have been the most insulting point of the movie for me. What midi-chlorians made me feel in Episode I, R2-D2's flying made me feel in Episode II. I was enraged when he began flying around. Since when? Since? When? When I saw Artoo flying around in the trailers I was willing to give that scene the benefit of the doubt. Maybe something latched onto him and was carrying him around. Maybe he got shot through the air with some blast or something. Nope. He just came to the end of the floor and decided he was going to reveal these hidden jets in his legs and fly. What's more is that he decided he would never do it again! Artoo rolls around through the sands of Tatooine, he gets blocked by immoveable objects on Cloud City and he stupidly falls off of Jabba's sail barge to avoid the explosion. What about this situation in Episode II seemed to warrant these rockets is beyond me. It is clearly just visual and effects masturbation on Lucas's part.

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Reason #48
Anakin's Predicament
In the conveyor belt sequence Anakin's arm is stamped down into a piece of metal. All the other metal is stamped flat but for some reason Anakin's arm is encased in an Anakin's arm shaped piece of metal instead of being crushed. So now he's trapped. At first I thought that Anakin may end up having to chop his own arm off to escape the situation. I thought how that could be a really great moment and how he could have been the one who begins the disfigurement which will ultimately end up leading him to his signature Darth Vader suit. Then I remembered in the trailer how he duels with two lightsabers so that wouldn't happen. I also remembered that Lucas is a fool. Instead Anakin, after struggling for a minutes to try to work free from the molded metal that is imprisoning his arm just simply pulls his hand free at the last moment with no given explanation.

Uber_God
Reason #49
The Execution Sequence
Ah, the classic movie problem of villains executing people in a much too elaborate fashion. This time the concept is stretched beyond the limits of human reason. Let's take three people and chain them to poles and then release three monsters, so ridiculous looking that it will be impossible for the audience to not laugh at their sheer absurdity. Then we will have three guys with electric prods, force these terrible monsters towards the three people seeing as how the monsters won't be very interested in the people at all. Great. Count Dooku is supposed to be this brilliant man. At one point Jango Fett becomes the voice of reason and basically says: "You know, this isn't going as well as we had hoped. Let me shoot them." And Count Dooku won't allow it. Why is this? Is he having second thoughts? Is he really a good guy? No. There's no explanation given. He just won't allow it. I guess Count Dooku really had his heart set on having them eaten by animals. Poor guy.

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Reason #50
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
Typically this line has been given when nothing particularly bad is going on but there may be a sense of foreboding. This is clearly not a GOOD situation that they are in as these giant monsters are approaching them. Lucas can't even seem follow his own stupid rules.

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Reason #51
"She can't do that!"
Okay it's kinda funny when things in the execution begin going awry and Nute Gunray turns to Count Dooku and says: "She can't do that! Shoot her or something!" But it does lead us to the important question: Why didn't they just shoot them in the first place? The whole execution sequence is spent watching everyone in the balcony biting their fingernails in suspense as the Jedi and Padme escape harm. If they want them dead so bad then why did they pick this way to dispose of them. Of course the debate can be made that Count Dooku wanted to let Anakin go because he and Palpatine want him to join them. However I would counter that debate with this one: What if one of the monsters did eat Anakin?

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Reason #52
The Titanium Crotch
There's this one scene where Padme jumps from a tall pillar and lands, legs spread, on the back of one of the execution monsters. Now I'm not a woman but I've read in medical journals that women do not have the same sensitive bits between their legs that men do. While this may or may not be true I still find if very hard to believe that a woman could perform this task and be completely unfazed by the whole thing. The jump had to have been twenty feet. I would be willing to bet that freefalling even a mere five feet and landing on your crotch would make you double over, man or woman. Of course my fourth grade knowledge of the female anatomy could be leaving me in the dark.

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Reason #53
"This party's over."
So Mace Windu, everyone's favorite Jedi for some reason, shows up and saves the day. He puts his lightsaber in front of Jango Fett and actually says, "This party's over." It leaves one wondering if Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to be playing a Jedi in the next film. Crappy tag lines should not be permitted, this is Star Wars for God's sake!

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Reason #54
The Rhineclone Cowboy
Yeah that title was pretty weak but what do you want from me? Maybe this is really minor but did Jango Fett really have to twirl his gun like a cowboy? Come on! Enough is enough! This is similar to one of the few problems I have with the original Return of the Jedi where Chewbacca yells like Tarzan. It's just completely kicks you in the face and throws whatever chance you have of getting lost in a fantasy world right out the window. Reminder: YOU'RE ON EARTH AND NONE OF THIS IS TRUE!!!

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Reason #55
Aggressive Negotiations
This is a total Hollywood action movie thing to do. Earlier on in the movie Anakin is telling Padme about a situation that required he and Obi-Wan to begin "Aggressive Negotiations". "What's that?" Padme asked. "Negotiations with a lightsaber." The scene could almost be let go except for at the end where in the middle of a battle they bring it back when Anakin asks her, "You call this a diplomatic solution?" To which she replies, "No, I call it aggressive negotiations." This may look better in print than it did on screen. Star Wars comedy has never been the pinnacle of humorous writing, but it's had its moments in the past. Now they just seem content to take punch lines from movies like Die Hard and Con Air.

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Reason #56
Clone War Ethics/General Yoda
There's something about the scene where Yoda flies in on the ship and begins dishing out orders to clones that really sends shivers up my spine. This is the point in the movie where the real ethics behind cloning humans for cannon fodder really came into question. Yoda may not wish harm to come to his Jedi and he may want to extinguish this enemy threat before it gets even bigger but would Yoda, the all powerful and wise master of the Jedi, really stand behind an army made up of clones? Perhaps now that the Force is just some stupid things in your cells it may not matter but in the Star Wars that I remember, the Force was something a little more pure and mystical. I still think that this clone army would create some "trippy vibes" that the Jedi would not like. Yoda again falls a few notches in the respect category as this movie presses on.

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Reason #57
The Helmet
After Mace Windu decapitates Jango Fett it is for some reason a big deal. They show the shock on Dooku's face as Jango's lifeless body falls to the ground. Mace Windu even seems upset by what he has just done. Why? This was a battle. Mace Windu kills plenty of other people without skipping a beat. Is it because he knows how cool Boba Fett is going to be? That can be the only explanation. Boba is upset by this, understandably, and he makes his way out onto the arena floor to mourn his father. In this scene he picks up his father's helmet and looks at it. One can't help but wonder why Jango's head didn't fall out of the helmet and roll around on the ground. It defies logic! Everyone in the theatre had to be wondering that. It would have been great because Boba would undoubtedly have been moved to hysterics.

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Reason #58
Yoda's English
I think I made it clear in my 78 Reasons to Hate Star Wars: Episode I article that Yoda's peculiar grasp of language doesn't seem to be the same as it is in The Empire Strikes Back. But it takes a turn for the worse in this film as he speaks almost normally at points. I still firmly believe that Yoda, who spends all of his time around people who speak perfectly, would have figured out how to talk in the 800 some odd years he spent training as a Jedi. I can see the emails pouring in right now telling me that it gives Yoda depth as a character and that it makes him unique and I understand that. I think Yoda's great but one has to wonder how Celine Dion can speak perfect English after five years and Yoda still struggles with sentence structure after 800. He gets all the words in there, he just can't seem to put the sentences together in the right order. It makes you wonder if he suffers from dyslexia. Strong is he with the force, but not strong enough to conquer his own dyslexia.

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Reason #59
The Death Star
They showed it very briefly on a computer screen and it became evident what they were working on. I couldn't believe it. Lucas continues to amaze me with how much he can cheaply insert into this movie from the first three movies for no good reason. Then after this they showed the plans for the Death Star yet again but for a much longer time in case you were just too dumb to have noticed the almost subtle appearance of it a few moments earlier. What was even worse was the guy sitting behind me in the theatre that was genuinely amazed by this turn of events. The thing is that it just doesn't even make any sense anymore. Qui-Gon was Dooku's apprentice, Dooku was Yoda's apprentice, Vader was Luke's father, Boba Fett was a clone, etc. It's just so inane and boring now. What's next? Jar Jar was Chewbacca's father, Admiral Akbar was a test tube baby, Captain Panaka's illegitimate son is... Lando Calrissian! It doesn't matter anymore. The only thing at this point that could shock me is finding out that Palpatine isn't the emperor. That would genuinely shock me and could possibly be cool since it would be a twist. Everything else is just people mentioning shocking things as quickly as they can think of them without any regards to the plot. Plus, if it took them thirty years to build the first Death Star how come it took less than a year to build the second Death Star. An argument could be made that they begun building them simultaneously but I'm not buying that for a second.

Uber_God
Reason #60
Remembering Admiral Motti
An inconsistency side note
Admiral Motti, as you may remember, is the person in A New Hope that becomes frustrated with Darth Vader and says: "Don't try and frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel's hidden fort..." and is subsequently choked by Darth Vader. Admiral Motti has got to be in his mid to late forties. Being a high ranking officer in the Empire he most certainly remember a time not to long ago (when he was about twenty) when there were thousands of Jedi who wandered the galaxy and were known by EVERYONE. He is undoubtedly from Coruscant, the home planet of the empire and former seat of the Jedi Council. If he really stretches and delves deep into the recesses of his memory he may even remember the Jedi having a huge part in Galactic Government. Admiral Motti is even credited with constructing the Death Star. We now know that he must have received those plans from Count Dooku, a former Jedi master.

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Reason #61
Yoda's Battle
In a much anticipated scene Yoda finally decides that he is going to kick some ass when he sees that Anakin and Obi-Wan are in trouble. So we see a struggle between Yoda and Count Dooku that while it is kinda boring shows them tossing lightning back and forth at each other and throwing around giant stone fragments. After a while of this going on Count Dooku says, "It is obvious that this contest cannot be decided by our knowledge of the Force but by our skills with a lightsaber." They don't bother explaining why this is. The only reason to assume they wouldn't be able to settle this with their knowledge of the Force is that it would be cooler to see Yoda fight with a lightsaber. Yoda should be above using a lightsaber, plain and simple. This battle sequence is simply pandering to the lowest common denominator because Lucas thought it would be funny and cool. Part of me even wants to think that this is cool but then I remember that it's really stupid. Yoda's Grover-like battle cry as he launches into action adds more insult to injury. His insane cackling makes you afraid of Yoda and even more afraid that you are really witnessing this and that it's not just a sick and twisted nightmare.

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Reason #62
The Imperial March
Putting in the Imperial March is yet another way this movie incompetently combines things from the first three movies and completely ignores subtlety. As if the fact that the clones look exactly like Imperial stormtroopers isn't enough we are kicked in the side of the head by the Imperial March.

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Reason #63
The Ending
While I appreciate George Lucas' attempt at trying to rekindle the emotions felt by Star Wars fans at the end of The Empire Strikes Back I think that possibly it could have been done in a way where it wasn't just EXACTLY the same ending! Cut to guy with his arm around a girl, cut to prosthetic hand, cut to C3P0 and R2D2 making noise. It was the same damn ending. It wasn't nostalgic. It wasn't cute. It was cheap, repetitive and just plain bad.

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Reason #64
Jonathan Hales
Jonathan Hales co-wrote Attack of the Clones with Lucas. I was very, very, very skeptical about this movie until I heard that Lucas had hired a co-writer. I then became merely very, very skeptical. After seeing the movie I am left with just one questions: What did Jonathan Hales do? This seems exactly like The Phantom Menace. This man is obviously nothing more than a yes man for Lucas. If he were a real co-writer with any sort of power he would surely have argued many points to Lucas. A New Hope was a good movie but what really made it and even Return of the Jedi stand out was the brilliance of The Empire Strikes Back. What made that movie great is that Lucas mapped it out, Lawrence Kasdan wrote it and Irvin Kershner directed it under the supervision of Lucas. That kind of collaboration turned an otherwise ordinary movie into a great movie. The fact that Lucas was naive enough to think that he could do everything himself with the first movie is absurd. After the failure of that movie that he tried again to do everything with no help or suggestions is preposterous! No matter how good Episode III is it is undoubtedly powerless to save the franchise. The final scene of Episode III has long been known to fans as the scene where Anakin puts on the Darth Vader mask for the first time. This sounds like it could potentially be an amazing and powerful scene to conclude this prequel trilogy. Unfortunately it's going to be handled by the one man who could possibly ruin something that conceptually great... George Lucas.

Uber_God
Reason #65
You Meddling Kids
When Yoda arrives for battle, Count Dooku actually says, "You have interfered in my affairs for the last time." When you are trying to write a serious script at what point does it become acceptable to lift entire lines of dialogue from Thundercats?

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Reason #66
Size Matters After All
During Yoda and Dooku's battle the sinister Count Dooku decides that he is going to use the force to drop a huge stone pillar onto Anakin and Obi-Wan. When he releases the column Yoda drops his cane and uses the force to stop the column's fall and drop it to the side of the two fallen Jedi. Yoda visibly struggles with this item. His face contorts into a variety of different expressions much like that guy from the beer commercials who drank the bitter beer. Apparently size does matter if Yoda is having so much trouble with this piece of rock. Also one is left wondering why Yoda didn't simply yank Anakin and Obi-Wan out of the way of the giant slab, bringing them to safety. Surely the combined weight of Anaking an Obi-Wan must be slightly less than four tons.

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Reason #67
Those Pesky Politicians
Why is Obi-Wan always right? He's totally against Palpatine because he's "a politician" yet sees nothing wrong with protecting Amidala who is also a politician. This serves to make Obi-Wan seem like a hypocrite but at the same time makes him cool because he doesn't trust Palpatine who, as we all know, is evil. Obi-Wan was supposed to be a conflicted Jedi who mistakenly tried to train Anakin and did a poor job. Now his character is made to be a wise know-it-all who just happens to get stuck with a psychopath for a Padawan.

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Reason #68
"I hate you! You're like a father to me!"
Anakin's inconsistent feelings about Obi-Wan are entirely unacceptable and wholly annoying. Every five minutes Anakin is bitching, pissing and moaning about Obi-Wan. Either he's complaining to Obi-Wan's face and questioning his master or at other times simply talking about Obi-Wan behind his back. Often just moments after complaining about Obi-Wan he then talks about how Obi-Wan is like a father to him. Sure you could say that he's conflicted and troubled and what have you but in actuality it's just some bad writing and even worse directing.

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Reason #69
Lord of the Lightsaber Dance
Anakin's dual lightsaber battle with Dooku can best be described as interpretive dance. Anakin moves his arms with the fluidity of a ballet dancer but doesn't actually accomplish anything. There is a lot of room for a really cool two-handed saber battle in this scene but the rather silly looking dance-battle lasts a little less than four seconds. As if that isn't enough of a kick in the crotch to the viewer then Anakin extends his arm (seemingly on purpose) to give Dooku the perfect opportunity to cut it off thereby disappointing all the fans who were expecting Obi-Wan to do it.

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Reason #70
Jedi "Wisdom"
Mace Windu and Yoda write off the idea that Dooku could be behind any murder plots because he was once a Jedi. They don't even consider Dooku as a potential plotter because he was a Jedi. End of discussion. Apparently someone that is good can never become evil. If the Jedi have always been this dumb it's a wonder the Sith waited so long to strike.

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Reason #71
"Yoda, weak you are."
Yoda's little acting job is just plain dumb. He pretends to be weak but really he's just a kickass dude! Why? Because since Episode I wrapped up filming before the release of The Matrix, Lucasfilm didn't know just how cool it would be to make a blindingly fast, very unlikely fight scene! Lucas, with his "wouldn't it be cool if..." philosophy decided to make Yoda jump around like a bouncing circus acrobat to surprise everyone. A suitable replacement for that scene would have went as follows: Dooku beats up Obi-Wan and Anakin for a while. A shot of Lucas masturbating for three and a half minutes. Dooku's ship flies away.

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Reason #72
M'Lady
I can't believe I missed this the first time around. What is it with everyone saying "M'Lady" all the time? They didn't say this in Episodes IV, V or VI. They didn't even talk like this in Episode I. So why do people all of a sudden talk like it's the nineteenth century? Should we expect powdered wigs in Episode III?

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Reason #73
Daddy's Little Girl
submitted by Joe Yohn
In the bar scene, right before we meat Elan Sleazebaganno, we see Lucas's daughter mugging for the camera. Now there's nothing wrong with putting your kids in the background of a scene. The original Star Wars had producer Gary Kurtz's children as Jawas. The thing is that it wasn't obvious. It didn't beat you over the head like everything Lucas does these days. Instead of cleverly tucking his daughter away in the scene he has her smile directly at the camera as if this were the Lucas family photo.

Uber_God

Uber_God
Again the end of the wankers rantings

Look out soon for Nit picks of Star Wars Episode IV : Special Edition

DenKi
Some GOOD and HONEST points here what are true, so no one flame this thread.

Uber_God
im sure when some good smart sw fans see it it will get flamed

The Ones
those points are bull crap. and since when did 64 become 82?

Uber_God
dont be a dumbass
try reading the titles
it says additional moron

The Inkeeper
I love this guy

The Ones
Originally posted by Uber_God
dont be a dumbass
try reading the titles
it says additional moron


i dont want to be in an argument but i just couldnt bother reading some points that some fan boy made up and thinks everyone agrees with him. so i just scrolled down the page and saw there was 82. i couldnt even be bothered wasting precious seconds of my life reading something to tell me why to hate a film i loved. (and in case your going to ask i clicked on this thread to see what crap he came up with)

The Inkeeper
What he came up with wasnt crap though, it was true points and he delivered them in an ever so delicious sarcy humour way

The Inkeeper
btw- if you didnt read them, how can you say they were bullcrap

The Ones
i read the first few and couldnt be bothered reading on

The Inkeeper
Sure roll eyes (sarcastic)

The Ones
its true.

Darth Subjekt
64-82 reasons why this guy hasnt gotten laid yet....

see previous posts....

i sincerely hope you didnt take the time to type all that shit out....im gettin cramps in my hands thinking about it

eXSBass
Rolling on the floor laughing my f*cking nut off!

Half of that I agreed with, half I didn't.

But one thing that cracks me up...Padme's titanium genitals! laughing

Red Superfly
Half the things I totally agreed with.

The other half I felt were nitpicky, but still, deep down, couldn't help but agree with also.

I don't even like admitting that.

atila the great

atila the great

atila the great

atila the great

Uber_God
atila

answer to reason 1 made no sense at all
answer to 2 & 3, not everyone decides to read the EU books

atila the great

atila the great
reason number one made no sense at all

i was gonna put 20 of your "reasons" but it's 2:21 a.m. here and i'm kinda tired so i'll post them tomorrow ok, but listen you need to say to yourself " i am watching a sci fi movie" ok?

good night mate

Uber_God
did i say i wrote these?
thats right i didnt
read '78 reasons to hate ep 1'
youll notice i say i didnt write it
moron

OB1-adobe
Uber god, meet my friend Awain.


I'm sure you will have a lot in common.

Uber_God
awain?
wat u mean?

Uber_God
your saying im gonna get banned again?
ok then ill calm down
but me i did not write the reasons
i found them

The Inkeeper
He didnt say that, this is a legit thread, just ignore the hordes of over serious SW fan boys bashing it.

Darth_Janus
You know, all posts aside, I found some of the material funny (If and only if the way it was presented to me), some of it glaringly true, and some of it nitpicking.... but also true. Now, I'm a big fan still. And nothing will really change that, ever. And I don't think the purpose of this is to change that for any of us, but to gvie us another viewpoint on the movies.

I had a lot of the same complaints while watching the movies, to be honest. ESbwas perhaps my favorite movie, but eh prequels I found ot be lacking when held up to that old relic. Certainly, the overuse of CGI was ridiculous. Watching AOTC for the second time made it obvious as a pink elephant in an elevator about just what was real and what wasn't real. I found on a whole, acting by anyone who didn't have an English accent in AOTC to be just horrible. The relationship was pretty piss poor; Anakin was an ass, which is probably why I don't like him now; too many cameos and too much pizzazz, not enough explanation; etc. etc. I could go on all day, myself.

And yet I still love the flicks. Moreso the old ones, but still... love em. No matter what anyone says they contain a magic that no other film has. The end.

atila the great
i'm starting to think that fans have a big problem not with the prequels but with CGI.

you say that it's pretty obvious what's cgi and what's not, well, you know, i'm a big fan too and i find it more obvious to see the special efects on the original trilogy.

everybody's saying that the prequels are full of cgi but nobody remembers that the original WAS filled with special effects or as my little borther calls them " the cgi of the old timers"

Uber_God
hmm
i heard something about liam neeson not being in ep2 because of cgi or something

Darth_Janus
I think there's a notable different in old special effects versus the new flood of CGI. While I did cringe everytime someone flicked on a saber or opened an automatic door in A New Hope (Remember the film was apparently chopped as they edited it), there is an atmosphere to those films that the prequels lack. I think it has a lot to do with just how grimy and dark and unfriendly this futuristic world looked. I mean, let's take AOTC as example (Since I've forgotten TPM in the past two years, and ROTS is nebulous to me)...

All the outfits are more or less clean. The backgrounds are too crisp and defined to be real (mostly because they aren't real). The streets seemed too clean, etc. etc. It doesn't seem like many of the locales where even filmed on earth, and while that seems desireable, it takes away from the realism of the movies. I know, that's a funny word to put in when we're talking SW, here. But I mean it. There's a realism to all the environments in the sequels. Whether you're in the Millenium Falcon or racing down the corridors of Jabba's Palace, there's something about the backgrounds and whatnot that is very real. The dust is in the corners, the grime is on the guard's outfits. The human eye has a tendency to notice imperfections, true. But it's even better at realizing perfections. And most CGI is too good to be real, in almost all cases.

Red Superfly
Exactly. The real sets of old had that worldly feel to them. They looked solid. Lucas set out to achieve that, and it payed off big time.

There was less "designing" back then too. Back in the OT, everything looked like it was BUILT. Clunky, functional and simplistic, it still looks more real to this day.

Pretty much everything about the PT is that everything looks forced and designed, rather than looking like it has always been.

I mean, look at the "Gonk". It looks like a bin with two legs. It's someone in costume, but it's real.

As you say, the eye picks up imperfections much better than perfections.

That's why the OT was so successful. Sometimes our eyes would see a tattered edge, or a wonky computer screen, something that looks flawed, looks more real. The flawed quality of the sets, the grime, inconsistent paint jobs, the tell tale footprints, and the uncontrollable factors of having a REAL set such as finger print smudges on plastic, hasn't been replicated with CGI in the PT so far. With the OT, the locales looked like they were real intergalactic structures of some sort. WIth the PT, you can so easily tell something is fake by very subtle, unseen things. Things such as geometry moving perfectly, panning and rotating seamlessly, or having a perspective change that looks WRONG. I noticed that in AOTC, when the camera would pan around a room, it gave away it's CGI properties because it was so SIMULATED. The movement was too fluid and crisp to be real. Life is full of imperfections, and we take them for granted, which means when those imperfections aren't there, they stand out like a sore thumb because the human eye is accustomed to flawed perfection.

Also, acoustics and sound within these sets also added to the idea that they were really there on set. The new blue screen sets have poor and very false sounding acoustics.

Red Superfly
Oh and by the way I think CGI is fantastic for ship battle scenes.

CGI is good enough now to make spaceships look photo realistic, even ultra realistic. I love the CGI work on the PT ship sequences, they are amazing and I think using CGI for the ships is the best idea in this day and age.

However, I have issues with where CGI has been apllied elsewhere. It simply isn't good enough for living creatures or replicating humans. Using CGI for characters still looks crap. Puppets and anamatronics look ten times more realistic. Compare puppet Yoda from ESB and the crappy CGI Yoda from AOTC and see what I mean.

I'd also like to point out that I think ILM are very capable of pulling off realistic ships, but they REALLY overdo it with the dynamic lighting. Some of the best work, in my opinion was when they made a few CGI scenes for the dogfights in A New Hope. The CGI there is excellent and adds a lot to the film, while being consistent with the "look". The new PT space ship battle sequences are chromed up, specularly lit with all the colours of the rainbow and it's overkill. It's simply too much.

It's a shame because sometimes, ILM get a scene absolutely spot on and it makes me say "Wow that looks good", but I'd say the majority of the PT has been overly done up and squandered, and I can see why the haters think George Lucas is just CGI masturbating.

dave milan
UBER GOD you are an absolute moron.

i cant believe you have taken the time to trash these movies.

i'd like to see you do better you little punk. i doubt you have grasped the ability to drive let alone make a successful film franchise.

SO F**K OFF and eat some Kangaroos.

Uber_God
1. I did NOT write these as i have said several times

2. They are good for debating

3. Yours reported

dave milan

Uber_God
ok then

i may have posted a few bullshit posts but i have a pologised for that
you have under 10 posts meaning your a noob or a sock (cylob cylob)
You havnt got any reason to report me buddy stick out tongue nothin will happen to me.

You although have been reported a 2nd time

And no i havnt got 'some kind of problem'.

Obi-OneManShow
Darth Janus, Red Superfly, I agree with you completely...

Also, everything is "over-user-friendly"...
Like: for every little thing there is a hologram involved. For instance; in ANH when R2 is locating Leia in the Death Star, you see the locations flickering on a monitor (which works for me). Whereas in ROTS (and I won't be specific, for spoilers sake) he does a similar search, but he's immediately projecting it by hologram.
Why does Qui-Gon have to show a hologram of his J-327 Nubian to Watto?
Why does Dooku have to show a hologram of the Death Star, seconds after it was on a screen (possible answer: he wanted to check if the data was on the disc, but still)

And also, while it's nice to have a universe populated by all kinds of strange aliens, droids, Wookiees, etc., in the end, it's about the human characters, it's they who go through the emotions and everything. All the rest is atmosphere. I think they should keep distracting CGI out of key scenes. Chewbacca was accepted, because you know it's just a tall guy in a hairy suit in that fysical space between the actors and on set, and after a while, you tend to forget that, and just look at him as the character. Jar Jar however (aside from being a crap character with crap lines and crap voice with a crap look) is impossible to achieve by a guy in a suit, the way he looks on screen. You're always -even slightely- aware that he's not really there. When Chewie passes Han a screwdriver on the Falcon, one thinks nothing of it. Yet am I the only one who keeps seeing things technically when Qui-Gon grabs Jar Jar's tongue in TPM? I can't see the action for what it is, even if it's done seemless in a computer; I just keep imagining Liam sitting there grabbing thin air.

For instance: imagine ESB's "I'm your father" scene, with CG creatures walking/crawling in the background. It would be distracting from the scene's realism and emotional impact, because these things -even subconsiously- tap you on your shoulder and say "hey, it's just a movie". These CGI creatures work in spaceport, senate and cantina-like scenes, not in every single shot of the movie.

To finish off: who else thinks the Conveyor Belt scene from AOTC is by far the ugliest, most redundant scene of all six films?

My favorite scenes are things like the binary sunset in ANH, Obi-Wan talking about Luke's father in ANH and Luke/Darth Vader duel + revelation in ESB.

Uber_God
um i didnt read all of that cause i never can stick out tongue
but are you saying they should make a special edition of the New Trilogy and make it more shit?

dave milan
Uber God reported for using abusive language.
ha ha ha ha ha

Darth_Janus
Settle down, you two.

And no, he wasn't saying that. Take the time to read it. It's not like this message will self destruct in under thirty seconds.

And my favorite scenes would include: the prison break on the first Death Star; the final battle in ESB; and the battle near the shield generator on Endor.

MistaMandalore
Why are people flipping out? Sure, some of it is pretty petty nitpicks and I found myself saying 'you're an idiot' a few times but I got some laughs from reading it. Consider it a roast and chill.

Obi-OneManShow
Originally posted by MistaMandalore
Why are people flipping out? Sure, some of it is pretty petty nitpicks and I found myself saying 'you're an idiot' a few times but I got some laughs from reading it. Consider it a roast and chill.
Of course it's nitpicky, but that's my point. All these little things don't really matter, but they really add up in the end and make you take the new films less seriously than you did the OT.
Originally posted by Uber_God
um i didnt read all of that cause i never can stick out tongue
but are you saying they should make a special edition of the New Trilogy and make it more shit?
yeah that's exactly what I said. congratulations dude, you really see the big picture of everything, right? hey look, a tree!

Darth_Janus
Tree? Where? *Looks*

My doctor said I was guillible and I believed him!

Red Superfly
Ever had a paper cut? I'm sure you have. Small and insignificant, but nagging and uncomfortable, and always on your mind.

The prequels are full of paper cuts - it's like Japanese torture.

I feel sorry for the actors. They get the flak for crap performances, and I don't even blame them. They have to put up with working on crappy sets, with such little character interaction - and it shows. Not even Christopher Lee could pull off a convincing conversation with a CGI Yoda due to their isolated stances and camera cuts. Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, and SAMUEL FRIGGIN JACKSON are astounding actors, but actors have their limits, and George Lucas, with his blue screens and very cold approach to directing, didn't give a shit about that, and it shows.

Ever notice how the best scenes in Attack Of The Clones are where they are on Tatooine on the old ANH set? That's because Padme and Anakin are really there, interacting on a human level. Haydens temper tantrum really spoke volumes and was possibly the one decent scene in AOTC.

That was another good point about the CGI distractions. Most of the scenes on Coruscant have huge windows with tons of CGI traffic in almost every shot. The eye is directed towards that rather than the actor. It would have been better to have an establishing shot of the CGI stuff outside, and then make sure the performances are shot with nothing in the background (on a real set maybe? who's have thought?). I'm not that keen on the sound, to be honest. I think Ben Burtt spent too much time creating five hundred different lazer and engine sounds, rather than focussing on bringing those lifeless empty sets to life. That's what I meant about poor ambience. In the OT, the acoustics and ambience was naturally generated on the sets they were in. There are some scenes in the prequels with absolute silence. Any sounds are very fabricated sounding. Lucas should have realised that when going for simulated realism, sound is also as important as visuals.

DenKi
These Star Wars Geeks crack me up, This is a good thread for pointing out things in the movie what ARE true..

Reason #79
Lousy Jedi
brought to my attention by Tony F.
During the Coliseum battle between the Jedi and the droids, this one rather ridiculous looking Jedi lands on the balcony with Dooku and Jango Fett. Jango just pulls out his gun and shoots the Jedi square in the chest and he then falls off the balcony to his death. I know Jango's supposed to be this really really great bounty hunter but these are Jedi! At the very least he could have engaged in a short and unsuccessful battle with Count Dooku. I refuse to believe that Jedi (who make a living off of deflecting rapid-fire laser blasts with their lightsabers) would be able to be dispatched this easily. And how humiliating to die in such a manner after a lifetime of training. This just confirms my suspicion that this was just some guy that grabbed a lightsaber because he thought it would be cool to get in on the action.


This is the most annoying part of the film for me, the Jedi what jumps up is a Member of the council, and he gets kill F**king stupid by Jangos Laser Bullets.

Darth_Janus
I did find that pretty weak, but then I have heard that the Jedi who landed on Genonosis (Around what? 200? Maybe half that?) who almost all died out, all were practitioners of a very blaise style of lightsaber combat. Do I think that would make them terrible enough to die as did the one above? No. I think that was just to give Jango props after Obi made him look stupid at Kamino.

And the screenshots suggestions and ambience I totally agree with. I'd thought the same thing myself. Id' have to say, the scenes in AOTC I enjoted the most were the bar scene (With all those people it just felt real), & Tattoine (Because, again, people were really there)

Red Superfly
Yeah I quite liked that bar, it was real, but it lacked that atmosphere that the Cantina bar had from ANH, there was no hostility.

The death sticks bit I actually enjoyed - I don't know why this list has those as a bad idea. Comparring them to cigarretes isn't fair. I mean they coulda been the intergalactic equivalent of ciggies, but who cares? They are bad and that's all there is to it. Coulda been the same as heroin or God knows what. One of the many points on this list I found to be quite rediculous.

In fact I wanted to see MORE of Obi-Wan and other Jedi helping citizens like this. Like they'd be on a death defying mission, and still manage to help out a little scally-wag by mind tricking them.

In fact, that bar scene really established Ewan McGregors Obi-Wan as Obi-Wan, was actually pretty good. Could have done with this more kind-hearted and empathic Obi-Wan than serious action man Obi-Wan.

Darth_Janus
Right. I agree. It would be nice to see Jedi knights -act- like Jedi knights.

General Kaliero
Several points in this list are very good, many are nitpicky, and some are just plain stupid, but I managed to get a luagh from nearly all of them.

My one argument for several of the points concerning "knocking the audience over the head" with allusions to the original trilogy is this: Think of the movies in proper terms. Think about them in order, from the viewpoint of someone who hasn't seen the OT first, and watches them all end-to-end. For someone in that situation, the parallel lines and scenes become a humorous point, and the images of things to come in later movies suddenly have a sense of mysterious foreboding.

As for the CGI argument, I totally agree. I've seen it used well, particularly for the space battles (in the special edition of ANH, I had to dig out my VHS original to figure out which shots had been added to the Death Star battle) I've seen it used badly (as the background of every scene on Coruscant), but as far as the prequels go, I've seen it used way too much.
The originals had excellent scenes with people interacting, because you focused naturally on them. Why did you focus on them? Because the background looked like something you might see every day, something which you would have no business staring at slackjawed. However, the big scenes out in space, with ships and stars and explosions, while done very well for the time, are somewhat lacking by today's standards. (remember the TIEs popping up out of nowhere in ROTJ?)

Now, in the prequels, we have the problems reversed. The interactions have gotten all the life sucked out of them by huge CGI backdrops with visually distracting elements. The space battles are better than ever, with fluid movements and dynamic angles.

I can see using CGI when filming something would be physically impossible, or at a stretch very difficult or expensive, but if something can be done on a real set, it should be done on a real set. As proof of that, look at Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: Anythign that could be done phyiscally, was. And as a result, the films looked spectacular.

atila the great
all your points are good and valid but, how would you feel if you have the knowledge to create a great film and to write this amazing out-of-this-world script with good looking aliens (not handsome but amazingly well done, good enough to fry all those star trek, flash gordon ones) and amazing battle shots but damn it's 1979 and you are thinking about personal computers when there are none and you have to create a heart with just guts. and all your script gets lost by the lack of technology.

you made money but still you where not after it. you wanted to have the shots and the droids and the aliens right and good enough for you.


fast forward to the mid'90's and you have your own computer graphics company and they just created a realistic dinosaur!!! wow i think it's time to go back and redo my movies, but wait i cant because of the way i ended up shooting them, and if i do too much, this fans are gonna hate them. well just a fix here and there but wait and see the new ones that i'm writting.

now you can have more with less money how cool is that, instead of hiring 10,000 extras and make 10,000 suits i'll just create them and make them act the way i wanted. now it looks like the movies i imagined years ago, now i can see them.

that's lucas man! that's all he wants to do, it doesnt need to be human-like it needs to be out of this world so that you can say "damn that one blew my mind".

i swear to god that i hate every time that jabba moves his mouth, the line might be great but the mouth moves like a ****ing kermit the frog.

now let's talk about another thing: can you disscus attack of the clones by comparing it just to ESB? and can you do that with ANH and TPM? remember that in the first movie there was no yoda, no emperor, or anything, lets compare one with four, two with five and 3 with 6, dont do the original trilogy against just TPM or AOTC

DenKi
Obi one was a Jedi Knight in that film as Dooku says

Darth_Janus
Well, despite whatever Lucas set out to do, he did successfully do one thing, and that was to disappoint a rather reasonable amount of fans, and all regarding a lot of similar things:

Chief among these are the -abuses- of CG. I don't mean, "Hey, this would help cut costs and make for a great cinema masterpiece!" I mean, "Hey, let's get with the new age and overkill the CG and -cool- stuff".

Another point would be the acting. It's pretty poor in most cases in the prequels. Unless you have an English accent to help you, the lines just sound flat, as though no one cares about the plot or themselves, or life in general. People can tear on ROTJ until the day they die, but Anakin and Padme's performances were dreadful, and Mace wasn't much better.

Third is improvisation. Stuff like the prophecy and midi-chlorians are just ugly throw-ins that should have been left out. No one likes prophecies for the same reasonw e don't like driving only on tracks. And a scientific explanation for Force affinity is stupid no matter what I hear.

And last is the cameo appearances and hints, coupled with the dreadful attempts at humor. C3PO and R2 could never have been in the prequels, and honestly, little would change. Same goes for a lot of characters, such as Boba and now Chewbacca. It's like cameo-tie-in city with PT and it's rather clumsy. And the humor... Hold on. Let me think of the funniest joke in AOTC... hold on... still... No, nevermind.

And look at me. I'm a fan. I sound like a SW-hating bastard. If that's not evidence of some screw up, I don't know what is.

Darth Putte

General Kaliero
They could, but that makes for poor debates.

But what exactly is it with the amount of British accents? I don't mind the British at all, I can fake a fair British accent myself, but in the OT you knew someone was an Imperial if they had a British accent.

Now every speaking Jedi except Yoda and Mace has a British accent. In fact, nearly all characters in TPM and ATOC do. I miss Han's slightly slurred mercenary slant, and Luke's carefree young man accent.

Red Superfly
Accents have nothing to do with it to be honest.

Also, nobody is disputing the fact that CGI CAN be used effectively.

Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 spring to mind when I think of films that effectively pulled off CGI to create something physically impossible or too expensive to recreate.

Star Wars COULD have been done like that, but there is simply too much of it.

We don't need droids or animated creatures running around in the background all the time. There's simply too much eye candy and it detracts from the films.

Also the performaces are really down to the director. Actors are directed to act a certain way. Sam Jackson, Hayden C, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, they could have all done better - and the reaosn why it's annoying is because WE KNOW they could have done better. At the end of the day, the director is the person that says "thats a wrap" and green lights the perfomances, so its their fault if a scene comes off as hokey. I think they were given a raw deal, because I doubt even Sir Ian Mckellen could make sense out of the line:

"I hate sand, it's rough an coarse and it gets everywhere".

The actors were given absolute crap to work with, and they had to work on isolated sets and imagine props, imagine eyelines and other such hidden things, that no wonder their performances aren't natural - how can they act natural when nothing they are working with is natural? It isn't performance driven anymore, because such lack of accomodation has been made for the actors.

Darth_Janus
Very good points. Though I will argue that English accents sound more sophisticated and intelligent. Imagine all of Obi's lines in typical Yank. He'd be annoying. And Jurassic Park has some astounding CGI (for 1993 people!) and yet AOTC and TPM look fake in comparison.

And I have heard complaints about the director. I tend to agree. Those were excellent actors, and they should have been better accomodated. After all, SW was always about the plot and the characters, not the CGI wow effect.

Lord S
Originally posted by Uber_God
Reason #22
The Importance of Naboo
Naboo seems like a fairly average planet. Why is it that every decision in this Senate--which is so huge that the ceiling and floor are beyond the limits of human site--always ultimately becomes the decision of someone from Naboo. What about Corellia, Kashyyyk and Dantooine? What about Alderaan, Coruscant and Talus? What about Yavin, Rori and Dathomir? What about Sacorria, Arkania and Telasea? What about Bimmisaari, Ord Mantell and Rodia? Etc. Etc. Etc. You're absolutely right about Naboo...it's so annoying how much importance that planet is given, without any sort of reasoning behind it. You would think Alderaan would be more important...and we haven't even seen the surface of that planet yet (hopefully in Ep. III).

Originally posted by Uber_God
Reason #72
M'Lady
I can't believe I missed this the first time around. What is it with everyone saying "M'Lady" all the time? They didn't say this in Episodes IV, V or VI. They didn't even talk like this in Episode I. So why do people all of a sudden talk like it's the nineteenth century? Should we expect powdered wigs in Episode III? This is especially annoying...reminds me of Paul Walker saying 'bro' every three minutes in 2 Fast 2 Furious. mad

Originally posted by Uber_God
Reason #82
"Process of discovery? What's that?"
Ultimately there is no process of discovery in Attack of the Clones. After the attack on Amidala there is speculation that it was spice miners that had plotted to kill her (which is a lame callback to Episode IV). She immediately tosses this theory out, stating that it was probably Count Dooku who threatened her. This makes for a particularly weak mystery when the perpetrator is someone that hasn't even been introduced. Not only that but she's right! It was him. The mystery lasts 5 minutes. This is extremely boring for the audience and is symptomatic of much of the larger problems with this movie and the entire prequel series. The only hope for the series is that Episode III will have at least one tiny little thing that isn't totally lame and predictable. But I'm not putting any money on it. Very true...the most absurd part is that Dooku, up until that point, was not even established as a villain yet. How in blazes did she get the idea that he would try to assassinate her? Everyone (in the movie) knew that she was against the creation of a military for the Republic, so keeping in that context, with Dooku as the head of the separatists, it would be illogical for him to try to kill her, when she would in fact be helping him as a separatist. Of course we all know of his Sith affiliations, but she did not know of that at the time so it made no sense to accuse him.

macgeek2005
WHAT THE ******* ****** ********* ************ **** ***** ********* ******* ******** IS THIS?????????????????? YOU CAN SAY **** LIKE THAT ABOUT EVERY ******** MOVIE IF YOU REALLY WANT TOO.

macgeek2005
And does anakin say, "Here everythings soft and smooth" or "Your everything soft and smooth"?

LandoSpeeder2
I agree, every movie has it's flaws. you just have to learn how to enjoy these films. whoever wrote this has way to much time on their hands and doesn't seem like he would like anything.

Darth_Glentract
Reason 57
"One can't help but wonder why Jango's head didn't fall out of the helmet and roll around on the ground. It defies logic! Everyone in the theatre had to be wondering that."

You obviously never noticed that Jango head actually did fall out because it shows there is a round shawdow that has a nother shawdow come out of it that looks like a head. It would be beyond reason to assume that this head could have been anyone's other than Jango's head.

CBright7831
Originally posted by Uber_God


Shame on you.

mtryder
Agreed with the consensus here- I agreed with a lot, found a lot nitpicky, and while I still love the series, some of the stuff is undeniably right.

DarkAge
This guy is hilarious, and he has some very good points. Few people here will agree because most of you seem incapable of handling constructive criticism, but why would I care about the opinions of fanboys who defend a highly flawed trilogy unconditionally?

jedimaster2000
OK I admit the prequels were no where near as good as OT but IMO they were still LIKEABLE. I totally agree with some of the points but most of them, however, are totally nit-picked and really couldn't matter less.

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