Epsiode 8 Bombad Jedi

Well, maytbe Mr. Rubio would like to express some of his viewpoints.

Yeah, all the time we were promised an exploration of characters we didn't know, not an exploration of characters like R2 and Jar Jar we didn't want to know. Espeically with R2...I know he has a fan base, but the little can is in 6 films. We saw very little new info.

We've gotten some info on Ashoka, Plo, Alpha Rex, MAYBE Cody, the "clone" in general"...other than that, can you name any significant new characters that have been developed? I dunno, maybe I'm pushing this too fast. Also, with the exclusion of Plo, those characters mostly line up with what I think are the 3 good episodes of the series: Ambush, Rookies, and Duel of the Droids. (Which i just realized was a play on Duel of the fates, kudos to that)

Now, I know the way TV series work. Filoni is sseeming obsessed with reassuring viewers that "LOOK! ITS STILL STAR WARS!" by doing familiar things and shwoing familiar faces. Its also season one, which generally sucks in any series. But there are some flaws which i think myight be endemic. A lot of the fact-checking is sloppy and continuity between episodes can have some major inconsitencies. The series doesn't seem to have a demographic. Sory guys but you cant please all people (and cutting a pasting OT dialogue doesn't do it for older fans either). Its also trying to find its place between Gendy's Star Wars surrealism and the Movies' realism. Sometimes that doest jive.

I was hoping that in some way, this seires would be a departure from Star Wars and finally crystilize into American military science fiction, with more of a focus on the war, what war does, how people influence war adn ahar war changes them. Its no secret the prequels have (UNFAIRLY) gotten a bad rap, so why not alter it a bit? This isn't quite the same canon, in an entirely new medium, we have somewhat of a tabula rasa here. War shows the progression we need to see to show the decay of Anakin and of the Jedi order. What war means is almost entirely ignored in the prequels....ENTIRELY. We got to hear all about the rebellion and what it meant, but no analysis of the clone war. But instead, we get more Star Wars, which is lets focus on events set to the BACKDROP of the clone wars. Witht the Jar Jar episode....War is not comical...you cant make straight comedy out of it. The only comedy you can seem to find is irony. Instead of focusing on the seriousness of this whole war, we get a bunch of episodes with happy endings with slugs and baby Hutts dancing...even if there are dark moments inbetween.

It jsut seems like a waste of time to go on these tangets instead of comming out of the gate running. Now Cloak of Darkness is going to get a positive rating, so the record wil be 4-5, but still, its loosing.

I'm not going to bash the series or stop watching. I want this to succede very badly. (which may also contribute to my criticsm) I still try to remeber that this is episode 8, but we're nearing 10% of the series completed...and I have to ask...how long is it going to be before some things get straigtened out. Cloak of Darkness is one episode I was looking forward too, so are

Spoiler:
Cargo of Doom and the Ryloth trilogy

I'm confident the series CAN be good. I've seen it, but its only been in glimpeses. A major contribution to my optimism is the scene on the DVD special features which shows

Spoiler:
the two 212th clones rescuing the twi'lek girl on Ryloth

This is kind of like spring training where your new recruit hasn't lived up to expectations and hasn't delivered yet. I dont really think its not going to deliver...it just hasn't shown me yet why this is worth 100 episodes.

But god knows I'll watch it anyway.

We all do. *sigh*

lol. Well its different for old guys like you. The PT was my entryway into fandom. A series like this is critical for me.

You're incorrect about a few thins I feel, Alliance.

One, the demographic. There is a demographic. It's ten year old boys, maybe some girls. But mostly ten year old boys. There's enough "action" to keep kids interested, and the dialogue is fitting for kids as well. That's what it's all about. This,

I was hoping that in some way, this seires would be a departure from Star Wars and finally crystilize into American military science fiction, with more of a focus on the war, what war does, how people influence war adn ahar war changes them.

Is not a childs theme. They show the same characters over and over (Jar-Jar, R2, etc.), because those are faces that are familiar and liked by kids... ten year olds don't care about continuity, expansion of characters, or moral conflict. Kids want to see action, and the action is presented in a way that shows that the good guys are clearly good and are doing only good things, and so they always win.

That's... the purpose of the show in a nut-shell. You have to look at it as a child's cartoon, not an hour long drama on MSNBC Prime Time. They didn't make the show with 20+ year old Star Wars fanatics who ae enrolled in college, in mind.

Originally posted by NonSensi-Klown
I would have a horse destroy his colon.

ROFLMAO 😂

😱 Classy..and pretty just, too, in view of his crimes......!!!

Please, universe, if there is any universal justice: Let this happen.

If it would be canon-disruptive to use an earthern horse, then maybe one of those camel eopee thangs or even an AT-AT could be brought in to viciously defile and eventually destroy 'the phantom menace' once and for all..!

That'd definitely guarantee a few DVD sales, for sure.

[QUOTE=11363120]Originally posted by NonSensi-Klown
[B]You're incorrect about a few thins I feel, Alliance.

One, the demographic. There is a demographic. It's ten year old boys, maybe some girls. But mostly ten year old boys. There's enough "action" to keep kids interested, and the dialogue is fitting for kids as well. That's what it's all about. This,

Is not a childs theme. They show the same characters over and over (Jar-Jar, R2, etc.), because t

^^^ Excuse that, I have no idea what happened.

Originally posted by NonSensi-Klown
You're incorrect about a few thins I feel, Alliance.

One, the demographic. There is a demographic. It's ten year old boys, maybe some girls. But mostly ten year old boys. There's enough "action" to keep kids interested, and the dialogue is fitting for kids as well. That's what it's all about. This,

Is not a childs theme. They show the same characters over and over (Jar-Jar, R2, etc.), because those are faces that are familiar and liked by kids... ten year olds don't care about continuity, expansion of characters, or moral conflict. Kids want to see action, and the action is presented in a way that shows that the good guys are clearly good and are doing only good things, and so they always win.

That's... the purpose of the show in a nut-shell. You have to look at it as a child's cartoon, not an hour long drama on MSNBC Prime Time. They didn't make the show with 20+ year old Star Wars fanatics who ae enrolled in college, in mind.

Well, targeting pre-teens explicitly is not Filoni and Lucas' stated ambitions. That may end up being the demographic, but it wasn't targeted so narrowly. Evidence: content, air time..etc

I make no qualms about them targeting children as well. Star Wars always has, es evidenced by the majority of its fan base...lol. I don't mind that we don't see clones diced into tiny pieces and blood splattered all over the walls. I don't think that is necessary for a good TV show. But look at great sources of Clone Wars content: Republic Commando and Traviss' RC novels. We haven't seen things like the abandonment of Sev in RC, or Fi about to be butchered for spare organs in True Colors...the series lacks gravity and the emotions associated with war. I think children can actually respond to themes of peril, loss, responsibility over desire, and questioning of authority.

In ANH we have the garbage scene (peril), Gui-Gon gets waxed (loss), Anakin chooses to take on Dooku over playing sandbox with Padme (responsibility over desire), and Padme outright questions the conduct of the war (questioning authority). Why aren't such strong emotions in the series? Why is war so happy? Only one episode has ended on a loss, and that is Cloak of darkness. Even episodes like Rising Malevolence and Rookies that show good guys dying end on happy notes.

If the series continues a happy war against hapless battle droids, the majority of people will simply begin to say: "What is the point of this war?" and "Why haven't we won yet?"

But to the matter at hand: Children can respond to adult concepts, and while some things are CLEARLY beyond the grasp of pre-teens, the series has already shown betrayal (Grievous killing Gah Nacht and Ventress killing Argives...neither of which were surprising), at least by bad guys. There are ways to incorporate things here and as Filoni and Lucas have stated, they have a broad target audience (which together trying to produce comedies, westerns, romances, adventure, and action espisodes in each season should totally alienate every concievable audience) and it would nice to see a little realism. This is THE CLONE WARS after all, not GUNGANS ON RODIA or LOST: DROIDS. Pre-teensand teenagers can respond to the idea that war sucks. Expecially given the US's rampage in the past years, I cant think of why some analysis of some of the downsides of war (aside form getting blown up) is out of order. Rookies has been the only episode to even attempt this. So, even Filoni thinks its within his target audience. If he wants a serious show, he's going to have to do better than mutantly long versions of Gendy's 5 mins of sh!t blowing up. You cannot have 100 episodes of action...I understand this. The problem is, to break up the action they've filled in diversion, not things that contribute to expanding on the Clone War. Children or not, diversions only last so long, and the introduction of adult concepts makes the show MORE appealing to kids...who doesn't want to watch the big boy show? I'm not suggesting we need "Letters From Iwo Jima this is how you commit mass suicide with grenades" but maybe war could be shown as a bit more than farting Trandoshans and dancing slugs.

Then again, as next week is Lair of Grievous, maybe Filoni is just moving slow, because I know we will see personal struggle with the dark side in

Spoiler:
Nahdar Vebb

That was rambling, but see my point?

Originally posted by Alliance
Well, targeting pre-teens explicitly is not Filoni and Lucas' stated ambitions.

If they openly stated it it'd alienate the older fans.

That may end up being the demographic, but it wasn't targeted so narrowly. Evidence: content, air time..etc

Content? Weren't you talking about it's content not being mature enough? Maybe I'm just misudnerstanding. I'm tired.

But look at great sources of Clone Wars content: Republic Commando and Traviss' RC novels.

Both the novels and the games were rated for a more mature audience, and society (USA's anyway) tends to be a bit more forgiving toward video game violence. I don't know why and I don't agree with it.

I think children can actually respond to themes of peril, loss, responsibility over desire, and questioning of authority.

I agree. I think it's ridiculous how we overprotect our children so much.

In ANH we have the garbage scene (peril), Gui-Gon gets waxed (loss), Anakin chooses to take on Dooku over playing sandbox with Padme (responsibility over desire), and Padme outright questions the conduct of the war (questioning authority).

The movies have their share of adult tones, but the movies encompassed a much borade demographic, is my point. This show comes on right after Ben freakin' 10 goes off...

If the series continues a happy war against hapless battle droids, the majority of people will simply begin to say: "What is the point of this war?" and "Why haven't we won yet?"

Kids won't. My eight year old cousin thinks it's the best show he's ever seen.

But to the matter at hand: Children can respond to adult concepts, and while some things are CLEARLY beyond the grasp of pre-teens, the series has already shown betrayal (Grievous killing Gah Nacht and Ventress killing Argives...neither of which were surprising), at least by bad guys. There are ways to incorporate things here and as Filoni and Lucas have stated, they have a broad target audience (which together trying to produce comedies, westerns, romances, adventure, and action espisodes in each season should totally alienate every concievable audience) and it would nice to see a little realism. This is THE CLONE WARS after all, not GUNGANS ON RODIA or LOST: DROIDS. Pre-teensand teenagers can respond to the idea that war sucks. Expecially given the US's rampage in the past years, I cant think of why some analysis of some of the downsides of war (aside form getting blown up) is out of order. Rookies has been the only episode to even attempt this. So, even Filoni thinks its within his target audience. If he wants a serious show, he's going to have to do better than mutantly long versions of Gendy's 5 mins of sh!t blowing up. You cannot have 100 episodes of action...I understand this. The problem is, to break up the action they've filled in diversion, not things that contribute to expanding on the Clone War. Children or not, diversions only last so long, and the introduction of adult concepts makes the show MORE appealing to kids...who doesn't want to watch the big boy show? I'm not suggesting we need "Letters From Iwo Jima this is how you commit mass suicide with grenades" but maybe war could be shown as a bit more than farting Trandoshans and dancing slugs.

I agree. Look at the shows we used to watch, Batman TAS is one of the darkest cartoons ever, Toonami when it was cool (DBZ, Ruroni Kenshin, Beast Wars, Gundum Wing), etc. Now there's Ben Ten. Ruroni Kenshin, Yu Yu Hakesho, and Cyborg 009 (Which all incidentally showed many moral themes and the such, were actually removed for being too violent. Mexico's Toonami played YuYu Hakusho, Samurai Champloo, Samurai X and Saint Seiya, but they were all shut down because parents protested the violence...

I think peopel are just afraid to put out anything that people will havr a problem with.

That was rambling, but see my point? [/B]

I do honestly agree with just about everything you say. It's just... not how the world works. It's not the 80's and 90's where actual conflict is a good thing.

And check out Wiki's article on Toonami. I would kill for most of those shows to still be on air.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toonami

Originally posted by NonSensi-Klown
Kids won't. My eight year old cousin thinks it's the best show he's ever seen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toonami

When I was 8, I used to think The Hulk with Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby was the best series I ever saw. That feeling didn't last. It did about ANH.

Just that kids like it now, is now real criterium is it? I mean they also like Pokemon etc. But does that last for a long time.

I think saying SW is for kids anyway, is selling the franchise short. The whole success of ANH was that it appealed to a WIDE audience. Lucas may have directed it at kids but he made something a lot of age groups liked. That what's made it such a hige succes, not just kids, but ALL ages! And that's because it wasn't childish, which also supports the idea that kids can relate to more adult narratives. The other way around is a lot harder and I do feel SW is getting more infantile. Saying that its for kids anyway is no excuse for bad storytelling.

Originally posted by queeq
The whole success of ANH was that it appealed to a WIDE audience. Lucas may have directed it at kids but he made something a lot of age groups liked. That what's made it such a huge succes, not just kids, but ALL ages! And that's because it wasn't childish, which also supports the idea that kids can relate to more adult narratives.

I agree witht he other stuff, but I will challenge this. "Star Wars" (ANH) was a cultural and entertainment phenomenon, driven both by emergent technology, cultural tensions, and a new style of marketing. The success of ANH does not in any way translate into fandom. (Otherwise there would be a lot more Star Wars nerds lol) ANH succedded because it was a good movie, but it was also hip (something nerdiness is not). If you want to explain what makes a Star Wars FAN, you're going to have to look well beyond ANH.

The problem is, Lucas is getting old and senile. He's simplifying his own work to an algorithm, which will ultimately kill it. (I've heard the same with Indiana Jones, but I haven't seen the new one and probably never will) I feel like in his age, he's focusing on youth because its 1. fun for him and 2. he wants to build a legacy fan base. The problem is, fart jokes and clownish characters are found in all sorts of dime a dozen children's entertainment, they were not found in the original Star Wars.

Hence the epic split the PT has caused between the preservationist "can't take my childhood nostalgia out of my arse" types and the progressivist "I will love Star Wars no matter what" types.

But essentially I agree. Children respond better to serious programming, and serious programming can actually make a difference in the world. I'd love TCW to become one of the highest rated and must-see shows on TV. That certainly would never happen at its current state.

I agree with ya, Alliance.

I don't what it is that everything needs to be so senile anyway. An analogy came to mind when I heard an expert on the board gaming industry the other day on the radio. He said a game like chess, if invented now, would never be a success: the rules are too complicated, it's hard to relate to, it doesn't look very well (vague puppets and a board with squares), it's just plain boring and it would bomb.

It's a little the sign of the times I think, we're we tend to embrace mediocre, simplistic good looking crap.

Haha. The analogy is perfect, but stuff today isn't innately crap.

First off, there is more...more channels, 24 hour TV, more production companies, making more stuff, faster. A lot of the limitations that rejected old crap have fallen in favor of quantity over quality and in favor of personal preference over group-preference.

I think we tend to forget the volume of crap back then too, its not like 1977 didn't have its fair share of junk movies. We're also comparing the feelings we have to a weekly cartoon that has been running for 2 months with a life-changing cultural event (ANH in your case, AOTC and run up to ROTS for me). There are good movies and TV series today.

I think its less we embrace crap, but that crap makes money, so people continue to make it lol.

The escapade of saving R2-D2 totally had the feeling of 'Kids, this is what friendship is!' But it was still fun to watch in my dorkish fandom.

I hope the Clone Wars series grows a little more serious as it plays over the next few years. I'm expecting the more serious Star Wars tones to come from the live-action series, personally, but for now we've got TCW.

Oh, I totally forgot that I was going to say something about this episode.

I honestly did not think that the Jar Jar episode was as bad as it could have been. I liked that everyone seemed to acknowledge that Jar Jar was a bumbling goon... though Nute Gunray is just stupid... and I could have sworn he started slipping up his L's with his R's.

"Kill the plisoner!"

I actually really liked this episode. it is better than all of those "malovolence" episodes, and managed to make me grin and even chuckle at times. I thought the fact that they actually acknowledge jar jar as an idiot instead of act all tight around him like he has brains was good.

And padme in bondage, need i say more?

Originally posted by Captain REX
... and I could have sworn he started slipping up his L's with his R's.

Chinese accent?

Originally posted by Lord Knightfa11
it is better than all of those "malovolence" episodes,

Totally.

Originally posted by Lord Knightfa11
And padme in bondage, need i say more?

But we've already seen that.

...they need a clone in bondage. When Ventress had Alpha/Rex in bondage in the comics...thats something to get excited about.

Originally posted by Ordo
Haha. The analogy is perfect, but stuff today isn't innately crap.

First off, there is more...more channels, 24 hour TV, more production companies, making more stuff, faster. A lot of the limitations that rejected old crap have fallen in favor of quantity over quality and in favor of personal preference over group-preference.

I think we tend to forget the volume of crap back then too, its not like 1977 didn't have its fair share of junk movies. We're also comparing the feelings we have to a weekly cartoon that has been running for 2 months with a life-changing cultural event (ANH in your case, AOTC and run up to ROTS for me). There are good movies and TV series today.

I think its less we embrace crap, but that crap makes money, so people continue to make it lol.

Well, not all's bad. I was watching the Blu Ray of WALL-E today. Damn, that's some great movie. Compared to that Clone Wars is really close to something like Pokemon.

At least Clone Wars has an original and distinct animation style?

Pretty pictures alone don't a good movie make. Pokemon has a unique style too

If pretty pictures alone don't make a good movie, why the hell do you like Star Wars? lol

jk, but still...