Orlando, FL AOTC: general consensus?

I saw it this morning and was curious what everyone else thought.

 

Well here's my two dinari...spoiler free too!

I thought the first half was very very slow...and sort of had the same feel as TPM (e.g. looked awesome but as an audience member I had little to no emotional involvement)...but I understood why it kind of had to be that way...there was a lot of information to get through.
Somewhere around the halfway point (coincidentally right about the times that John William's reintroduces a specific piece of OT music)...it started getting very engaging...

Towards the last half it was spectacular! If the whole movie had been like the last 45 minutes it would have been the best Star Wars film to date.

A couple of side notes...I thought some of the CGI (especially background mattes) was a little weak...especially in light of unbelievable CGI like the close ups of clonetroopers and Yoda. Also...really liked the fact that Lucas proved that shooting on digital worked. the Picture quality looked great...and I think was unaffected.

End result: Two thumbs up! Not quite ESB or ANH...but better than ROTJ and TPM...IMHO.

 

Absolutly fabulous! It did start off slow and that was good because it allowed the characters to develop and in the end it paid off.
For me the whole film had a Ben Hur feel to it, but it was an hour shorter... It was truely a grand experience. But most of all it was what a Star Wars film is supposed to be... a fun flick.
Buzz

 

Mike,

A note on the CG. I noticed that also but also noted a different style of CG. The weakness was in the texturing, which was fairly flat rather than rich. After I thought about it a bit, I thought it was designed to look that way to more closely resemble the matte paintings and physical models that were used so prevelantly in the first three films. I thought this was delibrate to marry the look to the OT.


Better than Jedi? Hmmm. Hard comparison since Jedi is really part 2 of Empire. My problem with this one was its lack of completeness. Even for an episode, it was pretty chaotic and didn't have information I needed to properly follow the film. To me it was a lot like watching 2001. You have to have read the book to know what is happenning in the story. The dialog was pretty wooden, even for a SW film. It seemed more like a Bond film than a SW film IMO, although this varied greatly. The water planet was perfect SW, very, very cool and very faithful to the OT. The ground battle came off far better than I imagined minus the comedy routine which frankly nearly churned my stomache. Christopher Lee was outstanding, but I'd never expect less from him. Glad to see Yoda and Mace Windu demonstrating why they are the masters. The love story was lifeless and inspired more by the timecode of the movie than any passion in the characters. Lucas' tie-ins created more continuity problems, which again is one of the reasons I hold the OT far above the new trilogy. I confess, I saw parts of this as advertisements for books, video games, and other merchandise rather than a complete movie. Coruscant was extremely well done but detracted from the SW universe feeling IMO because everything was modeled so closely to a real city that it seemed more like walking down the red light district in NY City rather than a far off, SW location. (Again, this is what made the water planet setting so strong). Like TPM, elements were outstanding, well beyond expectations, but the film as a whole falls short of the OT magic. (I'll admit, the 3PO comedy bit destroyed much of the film for me).

Can't say more without getting into spoilers.

Sandy

 

Yeah, some of them really did look like bad moving mattes. Some CG that thoroughly impressed me (after seeing it the second time)....look at Yoda's ears...they got the little latex bounce and twitching just like the puppet...That is one hell of a model.

 

Over all, I loved the movie.

Although, Sandy, I have to agree with you when you said that the Coruscant parts did in some respects like something you'd find in a real city. But that was pretty cool in a way. IMO.

I loved the costumes. They were really cool. And the Kamino were really pretty.

I loved some of the lines. Especially the ironic ones. Some like Paplatnes speech about his love of democracy.

My dad really like all of the clone troopers in the end.

Ok I go to bed now and eat chicken noodle soup so I feel better so that maybe I can go see Epi2 a third time.

Bye- bye.

 

Hi guys and gals! Your RSA is here to chime in. POSSIBLE SPOILERS...







Overall, I loved AOTC. My main gripe is the rushed love story. I just couldn't see why Padme would fall in love with Anakin. He was almost like a creepy stalker at the beginning of the movie. But that's just my humble opinion.

I thought the segments involving Kamino were the most interesting parts of the movie. Between Obi-Wan learning of the clones and his fight with Jango, it held my interest more than any other part of the film...with the exception of the arena battle.

So, despite the hurried love story, I give AOTC a hearty thumbs up.

 

Thumper, GoldenArrow, and I (READ: Katie, Art, and Sandy) went to the DLP showing in Melbourne Friday and saw it again. The digital print makes a world of difference. The muddiness you see in the standard showing is gone and the detail is about 20% finer than other films, although you do have to ignore the pixelization that shows here and there.

I liked it more the second time than the 1st--probably because I already knew the 3PO thing was coming and did my best to block it from my mind, much in the manner a missing time victim would do so. The stalker comment is well placed. Katie made the same observation. Anakin comes off as a bit creepy rather than lovestruck. There is no reason for he and Padme to get together -- none. He's a whiney brat and she couldn't seem less interested, except for rattling off some mandated lines. SW films always rush the emotions but even this was too transparent. It was probably the second biggest disappointment in the film -- right behind the 3PO incident.

The sequences with Obi-Wan make the actual movie. One serious complaint I maintain is that the dialog is infantile and the characters are wooden. The CG characters have the most life to them, which is a sad observation on its own. Obi-Wan has a few good moments but overall, I thought all the actors were robotic. Christopher Lee and Samuel L. Jackson can be excused from this as they are supposed to be robotic.

CG-wise, it was very, very chaotic. The final sequences being one of the greatest ironies of the entire film, very indicative of the whole show. The trooper formations looked very CG, almost video game level, far below the stuff in TPM shot over three years earlier. Even in this scene, if you look carefully at the engines, they are jetting out heatwaves that spew over the sky slightly disturbing the view of other things in the background. This is a very fine detail that was placed in a scene that really needed work in other areas. The clone facility was rather flat (which I believe was intentional to make it look closer to the models used in the OT) but the Slave 1 was TOO flatly rendered to be a good match for the model used in Empire. It was almost cartoonish in a few shots. Even here, in the background, you can see trails of rain pooring down the walls of the facility--another fine detail that is a great addition, but looked out of place given some of the oversights in the overall shot. I seriously doubt the same people who composed the asteroid scene and the city chase created the trooper effects. It seemed like there were three distinct levels of animation skill being slapped together to composite this film. I know Lucas was having a hard time keeping quality animators because they kept quitting on him. I wonder if he had to do some quick subcontracting in order to get the movie on the street in time.

Overall, there is a lot of fun in this film. It was well worth the price of a ticket. I personally felt it detracted from the other films rather than enhanced them. Lucas set up an entirely new set of continuity problems rather than fixing (or burying) those he created in TPM. I thought the story was poorly delivered (something I'll explain in a true SPOILER thread) and very rushed but it did show off a few things that needed to be shown and hopefully set up a good conclusion the way Empire did for Jedi. I doubt this film can really be appreciated until the 3rd film is finished. Then we'll see whether the setups in TPM and AOTCs were worthwhile or just a lot of noise.


Sandy

 

You know Sandy, about the CG...I got the same feel...some of the shots were simply jaw-dropping....and then others felt "rushed", for lack of a better term. Almost like they didn't have a chance to finish and just put in a high-res animatic.

I site two examples...(spoilerish...but I'll try to keep it clean)...





When Anakin is hopping on the back of the bovine looking beast on Naboo....I'm not bragging here...but I've done better animation than that...it looked terrible...Playstation 1 era...maybe...horrible. However...when Padme and Anakin are in the chariot in the arena...there are several shots that are completely CG...and everything (including Padme's immaculate belly ) looked awesome! I don't get it...I think you nailed it when you said it had an inconsistent feel to the CG....some stuff was amazing, other stuff was ....well....I've seen fan films do better.

On the whole though (to get back on topic)....I really liked the movie. I for one...didn't care for the love story 1 bit...I could understand why Anakin wanted Padme (she's hot)...but there was no reason for Padme even to give Anakin a second look...I just couldn't buy it...but then again...that's pretty much Star Wars, ya know?

I can say that the third time I saw it...I thoroughly enjoyed it...same as the first and second times...and it was neat paying attention to Williams' musical hints and homages...very neat.