AOTC: Oscar nominations

In only watched AOTC the film. No comics, novels or other story sources.

From watching the film I know NOTHING about the Seperatists. Nothing about their history, reasons, motivations or moral stance. Absolutely NOTHING is explained about them.
So why on Earth should I care about a battle between Seperatists and Clones even if it has nice effects? It's like watching a football game between Tunisia and Bulgaria - you might appreciate a nice goal scored in such a game but ultimately you don't care who wins. Lucas throws eye candy at you but apart from saying "nice effects" you just don't care. How would you since you know NOTHING about either side of the battle. You see a giant mechanical spider. Great. What side is that spider on? No idea. Are we supposed to guess this?

And then look at Helm's Deep. It's quite simply in a different league. Or, as Sam Jackson put it in Pulp Fiction, "it's not even the same f-----g sport!!!". At HD you get characters, people, dialogue, emotions, strategies. My god, how anybody can seriously say that the Playstation advert in AOTC is better is beyond me. It seriously is.

 

"They should create and awards category for both best voice actor and best supporting voice actor. That way both Andy Serkis and Frank Oz can get the oscars they deserve."

I just knew that the academy wasnt going to nominate Andy Serkis. Peter Jackson was wasting his time. In 1980, Lucas tried like heck to get Frank Oz nominated for his portrayel of Yoda in TESB. The academy said "NO. We dont consider puppetry to be a true form of acting." Lucas said, "What are you talking about!!!???" "It's the oldest form of acting there is!!!"

 

True, true...

I was pretty upset and pissed off that AOTC didn't get the best costumes, best sound and best sound effects editing nominations. I really hope it would get costumes - if for nothing else, then only Padme's 13 outfits deserved it!

And I'm afraid that it will be TTT who wins the best visual effects (though, if it's Spiderman, who looked SOOO fake, I'll be REALLY pissed off!). Yoda was freaking awesome, but Gollum looked very REAL (it's because Yoda is a complete alien, while Gollum, who was once a Hobbit, is more human-like, therefore is more easily related to).

But in general, I'm not really roused by the Oscar nominations. We all know what's Academy like and what types of movies they don't like (a major to the Academy). Screw 'em.

They can rob Star Wars of the Oscars it deserves, but they can't and never will rob it of its popularity. People will still love Star Wars and quote the lines from it even if it doesn't win Oscars.

And the Golden Raspberries - well, that's just another Star Wars tradition...

 

"except the jedi are fighting for palpatine. And are themselves not terribly intersting nor heroic."

It's called dramatic irony. And yes, it works, considering the effect it's having on the perceptions on fans. How many Palpatine/Sidious threads have been started since the prequels began? How many "X = Sifo-Dyas" threads? How many, "OMG, I'm so confused!"

And for the record, all this is completely INTENTIONAL. Lucas himself has stated this. And it's so brilliant to use for this type of movie. This isn't some Spider-Man comic cheesefest, this isn't pretentious LOTR nonsense, and certainly not spoonfed Disneyfied crap.

It's Star Wars, and I love it.

 

"So why on Earth should I care about a battle between Seperatists and Clones even if it has nice effects?"

Um, weren't they there to save Anakin,Obi-Wan, Padme and the rest of the Jedi?

"I know NOTHING about the Seperatists. Nothing about their history, reasons, motivations or moral stance. Absolutely NOTHING is explained about them"

With no Republic, organizations such as the Banking Clan and Trade Federation will have free reign, which is stated during the scene where the Separatists meet. And they are really just a means to an end for Dooku's, and Sidious' plan to bring about a civil war.

Oh, and I know NOTHING about the Uruk-hai, Why would Wormtongue side with Saruman?
And Saruman is hardly in the movie. Whats his motivation? Oh right, "there will be no dawn...for men"

FYI - I know the answers, I am just applying the same standards of dissection.

 

Technically, you know everything about the Uruk-Hai. You've seen everything they've done from their creation on.

As for Saruman, we can clearly tell from the first movie that his motivation is his desire to be on the winning side. Wormtongue? As explained in his first scene, Saruman convinced him to betray Theoden in exchanged for his "promised price," Eowyn.

It's all there.

 

Wow. I knew that the MPAA hated Lucas but I can't believe AOTC wasn't at least nominated for sound. That's absurd.

As for the arena battle not being dramatic because we don't have a clear sense of the motivations behind the separatists, we do know what their motives are. They're being controlled by Dooku and therefore by Sidious/Palpatine. They want to stage a war to most likely frame the Jedi and take power over the galaxy through Macheivellian means. That's a lot more interesting than a faceless entity with absolutly no character development that's attacking a castle because he wants to kill off humans.

 

" And for the record, all this is completely INTENTIONAL"

For the record - not bothering with any sort of explanation, characterisation or back story is NOT, I repeat: NOT, wonderful intentional ambiguity. It's bad storytelling.

btw, a fan of a movie that features JarJar Binks should never ever look down on other movies.

 

Well, no matter how you feel about the plot, you can't deny that AOTC was completly snubbed in makeup, costume and sound. There's no way you could have an arguement for that.

 

So the Separatists are waging war because someone else told them to. That's almost as interesting as that time when the Federation waged war because someone else told them to.

Luke didn't go up against the Death Star "because someone else told him to;" he did it for his friends. Vader didn't start chasing Luke "because someone else told him to;" he had a very personal stake in finding him.

For a character's motivation to be at all compelling, they need a personal stake in the matter, which the Separatists are never given.

 

"btw, a fan of a movie that features JarJar Binks should never ever look down on other movies."

Why, Jar Jar is funnier than alot of the crapfest that is in most films out there. Lucas didn't sacrifice his story for Jar Jar. He just wanted to cater to the younger crowd with Jar Jar. No big deal to me, as "The Phantom Menace" (and "Attack of the Clones") has more than enough meat for me to chew on. I don't know why alot of people focus on only Jar Jar. There's so much other great stuff going for the prequels it's rather silly to point fingers at Jar Jar 24/7.

 

"For the record - not bothering with any sort of explanation, characterisation or back story is NOT, I repeat: NOT, wonderful intentional ambiguity. It's bad storytelling."

The PT is the backstory.



And for the record, a movie about hobbits, wizards, and elves, should never be taken that seriously.

I know TPM is a light-hearted romp through space. But I can appreciate the myth as well.


And Jar Jar > Gollum.



LOTR Fanboy Response: OMG!!! GOLlum should wiN an OSCAR!!!@!@!

 

But what you're missing is that the motives of the separatists aren't important. They're not the ones waging war. Sidious is. His motivations are that he wants to use these separatists to start a war that will allow him to be declared emporer and take over the galaxy, so that he can be in a position to kill all the Jedi. Dooku's motivation is to gain more power through the Dark side and either destroy the Sith or become the Sith master, we don't know yet. Now what do we know about Sauron, based on the movies?

EDIT: as for Jar Jar, he's annoying but I'd take him over the two idiot Hobbit sidekicks any day

 

Now what do we know about Sauron, based on the movies?

Wait, wait, I know.

He's an eye.



Now, where's my gold star?

 

This is getting into a SW/LOTR thing, which I admit to allowing myself to get drawn into when I shouldn't. Let's try to keep it on the topic of the award nominations.

 

Special effects that serve the story should always win out over special effects that are thrown in to look cool, unless of course the effects are so badly done that they kill suspension of disbelief.

TTT should win the visual effects Oscar for Gollum alone, but also because of the difference between the philosophy behind the use of special effects.

The droid factory sequence was thrown in to AOTC at the last moment because Lucas felt it was important for the film's momentum, but not because of a compelling story reason.

Lucas handed over the clone battle sequences to his effects team without clear objectives for the story. He basically said: "make the battle look cool." I think the effects team did that, but the result is a cold, emotionless exercise in cool effects, not the compelling climax of an interesting story.

Compare this to the TTT effects that never are about showcasing the effects. Of course TTT deserves to win.

 

In regards to SW/LOTR...I'd only repeat what PB said.

I don't see how AOTC was not nominated for sound. Whereas TTT and AOTC were both excellent in visual efx, AOTC was far and away the best of 2002 in terms of sound.

BTW, whats the difference between sound and sound editing?

EDIT: "The droid factory sequence was thrown in to AOTC at the last moment because Lucas felt it was important for the film's momentum, but not because of a compelling story reason"

And the Warg attack had nothing to do with momentum, action and cool efx. It was completely, absolutely necessary to the story.

"He basically said: "make the battle look cool.""

Right. Lucas said that, because we all know that he doesn't care about the story at all.

 

the question should not be "what do we know about Sauron or the Uruk-Hai" but "what do we know about our heroes?". That's important. If you draw interesting and compelling characters then the audience will care if they are in a situation of peril. Whether we know the exact reason for the peril doesn't matter (although just for the record - we DO know everything about Sauron, his motivations, his plans, where he comes from etc. it's all in the films). Watching TTT with an audience and looking at their reaction every time shows one thing very clearly - that people genuinely CARE for the heroes, for the outcome of the battle, they feel sorry for Gollum or the ents or Boromir. The CARE. And that's the difference. To say that nobody needs to care in AOTC because neither seperatists nor clones are important doesn't make sense. After all - if neither of the opposing parties really matters then why is this conflict the climac of the movie? I can see George Lucas writing the script "Episode 2 should be about lots of things that don't matter. Let's give the audience something spectacular - a big climactic superbattle that doesn't matter and has no meaning. I bet they'll love it"

 

I want to know why this wasn't nominated.

[image=http://www.sgtfretsurfer.com/Grilled-Sarlacc/c/padme/g-9.jpg]


Damn, that's fine!

 

The droid factory sequence was thrown in to AOTC at the last moment because Lucas felt it was important for the film's momentum, but not because of a compelling story reason.

I don't want to get into a LOTR argument, but I will say this. What storyline did the love sequences in TTT play a role? Or how about the sequence where Aragorn almost drowns. Special effects or not, I don't see why it's any worse, since those two things serves absolutely no point to the story at all. At least the factory sequence showed us Anakin's fighting skills.

So to sum it up, I think AOTC should win, But it won't.

 

"The droid factory sequence was thrown in to AOTC at the last moment because Lucas felt it was important for the film's momentum, but not because of a compelling story reason."

Funny how selective hearing works. I heard Lucas say on the DVD that the STORY was getting bogged down at that point, and it needed to "go" at that point.

I didn't affect any key plot points. It didn't affect the overall story.

But damn if it didn't look cool.

 

It's a pity Yoda isn't nominated. IMO, he's the best CG character of the year (better than Gollum). Rob did a wonderful job animating him. Yoda's facial expressions were superb. From funny ("how embarrassing"), serious ("Pain, suffering, death") to sad ("Begun the clone war has" , poor little Yoda ).

Anyway, Star Wars doesn't need all those stupid awards. Star Wars is an award on itself.

 

Because the Oscars don't have awards for Best Location! HAWWWW! HAWWWW!



Nice costume, but I think the TPM ones were better and really were more elaborate.

EDIT: @&@^%$ DIAL UP CONNECTION IS TOO SLOW!

 

"the question should not be "what do we know about Sauron or the Uruk-Hai""

Why not? You ask the same question of the Separatists.

"but "what do we know about our heroes?""

You mean Obi, Anakin, and Padme, the very reason the Jedi and clones come to Geonosis?

"To say that nobody needs to care in AOTC because neither seperatists nor clones are important doesn't make sense."

Just like no one should care if Uruk-hai no. 484 is killed by Elf no. 231. Or vice versa.

"Let's give the audience something spectacular - a big climactic superbattle that doesn't matter and has no meaning."

No meaning? Except for the start of the clone wars, Anakin/Obi Wan on the gunship, Yoda showing why he is the master both strategically and hand to hand, the power of the darkside through Dooku...I guess you are right.

I care about Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padme , just as I do Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli . How the final battle affects all parties involved in each movie is very well done.

 

Ok, fair enough. It's really hard not to get back into the argument but I'll let you have the last word here. If you want to continue this discussion, there's probably an appropriate thread in this forum and I'd be glad to jump in.

But to return to topic, there is no rational human being who can argue that 'Gangs of New York' had better sound, that 'Frida' had better makeup (like Salma Hayek needs any makeup at all )...cinematogrphy, art direction, score, I could go on and on. You just can't deny that AOTC got completly snubbed.