ST Sequel Trilogy space battles

How can you say that the Battle Scenes in the PT were horrible. The first 15 minutes of ROTS were freaking amazing. It nearly got me dizzy at the theaters.

 

The ANH Battle worked because it was the climax of the film and there was nothing important being intercut into it. They need to end one of the ST with a big space battle only. In ANH the only thing intercut with the battle is Tarkin and Leia observing what is going on during it to build suspense. In TPM and ROTJ the space battles were intercut with Lightsaber fights and I am sure most of us are paying more attention to the duels than the space battle in those movies. ROTS has the disadvantage of that it is the opening of the movie though the first part were they come out of hyperspace to the first close up of Anakin in his fighter is great because it was all done as one continuous camera move.

 

Some old ships and many new ones will bring the movies together. The falcon has to be there at least for the first one. the battles have to slow down, back to the speeds of the OT with the detail and suspense that you can get from absorbing everything in. That is what lacked in the PT. We couldn't enjoy the visual aspect of the ships and battle. Shots like the Falcon being chased by the star destroyer, close ups of X Wings and panning shots of the flight into the death star ROTJ. Hopefully there will be real stories and personal emotions in them.
Or are we hoping for something that can't be delivered? The beauty of the OT was that no one had ever seen ships fly through space, only across the screen. ANH showed us the universe and TESB took us on a suspenseful journey.
Or did the PT just under deliver. The down fall of the PT was defiantly never seeing Vader in all his evil glory and how could you not make one episode completely with Vader and James Earl Jones is beyond me.
I pray that the NT can capture the essence that made SW so great.

 

There's lots of possibilites. For one thing, I'd love to see an atmosphere battle a la The Clone Wars;

 

Your Majesty! I didn't know we had a Royal person on these boards!

 

I think a battle near the Unknown Region would be visually stunning. The New Republic Ships would be attack out of nowhere by an unseen menace from uncharted space.There would be real tension in discovering who attacked and amassing a fleet of ships to cross the Unknown region. What would make this even better would be our heroes finding ancient abandon ghost ships. It would truly be exciting experience.

 

I like this idea.

 

I certainly hope space battles in the ST are quite epic, even to the point of being a little indulgently gratuitous. I'm a little saddened that for me there hasn't been any really memorable sci-fi battles on the big screen or the small screen in the past five years, with the exception being those of Mass Effect, and those are video game cutscenes! Still, they do set a good bar for what I would like to see:

 

I wanna see 80 million ships on screen battling it out. Of course, to get 80mil ships onscreen they'll have to pull the camera waaaaay back and we won't see much besides little flashes of light. But 80 million ships, man . . . hellz yeah!

 

Real spaceships piloted by real living muppets please. None of this "special effect" garbage.

 

WELCOME!!!

I think you'll get your wish. I wholly expect massive space battles.

 

1. The bulk of it is Anakin and Obi-Wan flying in a shallow parabolic arc towards Grievous' ship.
2. Anakin and Obi-Wan conveniently forget that they're Jedi with telekinetic powers that should make the buzzdroids no threat at all.
3. The rest of it is between disposable people and disposable machines. Hardly gripping cinema.

It's pure spectacle with no meaning. It looks pretty, but if you take more than a few moments to think about it, it falls apart. It feels like a blatant attempt to have some sort of space battle just for the sake of it given how neutered TPMs was, and the complete lack of a medium-to-large scale space battle in AotC. There's no build up to it, there are no real stakes, as we never get a clear idea about how the war is progressing in any of the media taking place in the Clone Wars era... it's just, "Here, have some ships and explosions."

ANH's space battle is by far the best, followed by RotJ. TPMs is better than RotS' from a storytelling perspective (which isn't saying much).

 

You know, there's a whole forum for discussing the prequels.

I'd like more WW2 Pacific influence-more long-distance battles between opposing fleets with starfighters doing the actual destruction of enemy capital ships. Gun battles are so 1915

 

I understand your point but Unfortunately the Clone Wars was driven by the Sith and fought by Clones and Machines which of course made them disposal. GL focused on Obi-Wan and Anakin 'cause that was the human element in the battle or story. They basically had to fight through the battle to get to heart of the matter which was Anakin's defeat of Count Dooku and the rescue of his soon to be Master. I never thought about your second point but its true. Why not just force push those little bastard off the ships. Anyway, I feel different about that battle. It was a Jedi mission that just happen to take place within a space battle. Regardless, I understand your position and I too would like to see a bit more meaning to the battle if they are any in Episode VII. I think that in order for Episode VII to be sucessful it truly needs a very well written and powerful script. I think this trilogy lies in the hands of Michael Arndt. Lets hope he lays down a great foundation for these next stories to flourish!

 

I think you are right in believing that the battle above Coruscant is 'pure spectacle'. However, I'm not sure there is anything wrong with spectacle for spectacle sake when it comes to spaceship battles. I think the other thing to consider is that this battle comes right at the start of ROTS... there is no build up, sense of anticipation or peril (as there is in the battle of Yavin) because it's a simple prelude to Anakin killing Dooku... which is, we assume, Palpatine's reason for the faux kidnapping. Whilst the spaceships and explosions are big and brash, the purpose of the overall piece is a lot more subtle (IMHO).

And again whilst agreeing with you that it's all spectacle, I think seeing capital shipes duke it out is fun. I don't think it had the emotion of ANH or the actual grace of battle cheoreography that the battle above Endor achieves... and I think John Williams scoring doesn't do it any favours, but I think it's generally well executed.

 

You present your argument thoughtfully and carefully, but I still disagree. RotS is fun to watch.

 

Think I might jump in here...while the ROTS space battle had no build up and it was basically thrown right in your face right at the beginning of the film, I still thought it was awesome and a great way to start the film. I mean, what better way to start a Star Wars movie then to see the looming silhouette of a giant cruiser followed by the screaming engines of starfighters? Pretty much perfect, imho.

 

Yeah . . . . . . .



Wait, what the hell is the Unknown Region??

 

The entire region in the lefthand side of the galaxy.
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/1/10/MainGalaxy.png

 

Thank you. So it's a EU thing then, like most of the planets on that map. Doubt we'll see any of that making an appearance.

 

The EU history is probably out by why change the galaxy? No reason.

 

Coruscant.

 

We got a comedian right here

 

If we don't have an Empire, we won't have an epic space battle. It has to be in Ep. VIII, I feel that this movie is going to be more character driven.

 

Before the PT was released, the space battles seemed to be emphasized in the tie-in material and products more than the lightsaber duels.