**Official** First Reactions Thread

OK! First, i just want to let know that i've been lurking here for about a year, and i was spoiled to death.

I don't know if it's because it's new and i just left the theatre about 30 minutes ago.. but i think it's the best episode so far!!!

Hayden is surprising. i didn't expected him to be that good. Ewan is excellent like usual, Natalie is pretty good too, much better than what the bad critics said about her. SMJ too but we don't see a lot of him unfortunately.

Honestly, i think everything was very good. Lucas has his touch back. my experience was not ruined by the fact that i was spoiled. No, it was like magic to see those pictures alive.. the CGI was very well done, the Coruscant scenes, the Arena scenes, the Clone Troopers.. only anakin's riding of the creature on naboo looked fake. what i love is that it does not let you knocked out like TPM. and i personaly never really like the pod racing scene, i think it killed the movie "beat", this time the pacing of the movie is really good, and you don't get distracted by background things..

i am gonna it see tomorrow again! i can't wait!

the dialogues and the humor was much more better than what i expected, i especially liked McGregor, he is so cool. "I'm getting a drink", the way he looks to Anakin, very well delivered. The Kamino fight, when he kicks Jango and then realize he's still tied in that rope and says "oh oh, not good"
The Good Job line is very good in the context of the movie even if i knew it.

Oh yeah, i forgot about the CGI, Yoda is great!! and words can't describe the fight, wow he kicks ass. You know, i was expecting AOTC to be Anakin/Padme & Obi-Wan's movie, but minutes after the film ended, i was with the feeling that it was Yoda's movie. Not just because of the fight but he's lines were good, the animation was so much more pleasant to the eyes than that ugly puppet in TPM, his presence comes regularly in the movie, he was the most wisdom guy every time. when Obi-Wan talks about the victory, and then he replies: victory? what victory? he doesn't look senile like in previous movies.

Christopher Lee is great!! His fight style was great, the way he shoots ligthning to Anakin for the first time.

Everything was running much faster than what i expected, it never really stops, except for the romance, which was overall, good. Anyway, i'd much rather watch some Truffaut's movie when it comes to women than Star Wars, but their love story was believable, Natalie is very cute (woah that spandex suite). The dialogue was bad (the sand, the scar, etc..) but the actors made nice eyes to each other, you could feel some kind of sex-appeal between the characters which helped the dialogue a lot. By the way (Since we're at it )I also think it's the most sexy Star Wars yet, all those girls on Coruscant, but it was nothing vulgar, and was not out of place. It gives an interesting twist to the movie i think. Giving the galaxy the feel of a wild life with lots of tentations (girls, death sticks, the sport gambling) which makes it believable as a world and it contrasts to the Jedi life.

ppfft.. but all the visuals in general are awesome, it's one of the prettiest movie i've seen for sure.

If you go see this movie the way you did watch the OT when you were a child, just sit down and enjoy, you will love it!

My 3 friends who were unspoiled loved it too, and we all laugh at the C3PO humor (especially the Die Jedi scum, Oh what did i say?)

Reading the critics in the last week made be a bit worried. But finally, i liked it even more than what i thinked before!

Not only it is beautiful but it has a soul it all started with anakin's eyes after Shmi's death. People in the crowd would do Vader's breathing.

Bravo Georges!!
I thought you'd lost it
but it's your best work yet!!
woah, maybe i am a bit over excited,
but i just want to see it again now!!!!

WOUHOU

 

Wow...

 

Let me say one thing this movie kicks as*. This is a really awesome movie!!!!


I liked it all!!!

 

Absolutely brilliant.One of the best Star Wars.There was just so much to see that you leave exhausted and all your senses have been overloaded.You need to watch this film 5 or 6 times at least to get a grasp on everything.Star Wars still rocks!!

 

Kick ass.

Spider who?

 

The movie rocked!!

Did I catch a glimpse of Lucas in the Senate?!? [right after Jar Jar's motion]

They were humans....thought one was the flanneled one.

 

what? he has a mechanical hand because bio-surgery hasn't advanced like it has in ESB yet. Your reasons for hating the movie are petty. If you dont like certain parts...fine, but damn man, grow up.

 

Awsome Movie!
Yoda Rules!
Critics Can Kiss My <bleep>


i'm going to bed now

 

This movie was great.

Maybe too much action though....

 

Jango killing the jedi and twirling his guns was great.

Oh and Obi Wan calmly blocking Dooku's lightning was classic.

 

<< Critics Truly DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY TALK ABOUT!!!!

No problem with Hayden & Natalie's acting... THEY'RE INCREDIBLE, ESPECIALLY HAYDEN!!!! >>

Thank you, JM. This is all I wanted to hear. You have seen the light when it comes to critics. Hayden OWNED that role.

 

Oh, please....

It is a movie ladies and gentleman.

A very good movie I must say. All Star Wars movies have problems. This movie had problems; however, it was still enjoyable, care-free, and fun.........

relax.

 

Just got back from the midnight show in Daytona Beach
AWESOME!!!!!
Action was great!
Ewan was great
Hayden was good and great when he was turning to the dark side
Natalie was good as ever
Palpatine was great I would like to have seen more of Sidious
Samuel is the man, a lot of cool scenes
Count Dooku was great
Loved seeing Yoda, as well as the rest of the audience, was better than I could have imagined.
I thought the acting was good not as "wooden" as many critics tried to portray
C3P0 was not annoying as I was afraid and I rather enjoyed the humor
Perhaps this is my darkside, but I thought the slaughter of the Tusken Raiders could have been a bit longer. Not necesarily seeing the detail but to see how bad he is.
I really loved how the movie seemed to be so dark
AWESOME!

 

WOW, WOW, and WOW!!! I just got back from a 1201 showing in Ohio and I was thoroughly impressed and entertained. I was fortunate enough to see it earlier in the evening, during a prescreening, then later at a 1201 showing in DLP. I must say the difference in quality was night and day both in clarity and color. DLP is definately far superior to 35mm and I recommend any one who can, go see it in DLP.

As for the movie itself, I'll save time and say I agree with all the positives posted before and after me. The only negative thing I could say was some of the scenes were quick and made the film choppy at times, they could've been blended together better. The acting seemed fine, I was pleased with Haydens performance, some scenes were wooden at times but I feel that's more to do with GL not allowing actors to improv and also doing scenes in front of blue screens for sets.

This movie is total redemtion for TPM and has brought life back into this franchise. I plan to see it a few more hundered times before the summer ends. I can't wait for the DVD to come out, because I feel there were a lot of deleted scenes from this movie.

By the way, supposedly the DLP has a slighty altered scene from the 35mm version. Since I seen them back to back, I think the scene in question is during the wedding scene where Anakin holds Padme's hand with his mechanical hand. In the 35mm version, the wedding scene shows Anakin just holding Padme's hand with his real hand. Those who have scene both, let me know if you agree.

 

Got back from my 20 hour wait in line and midnight viewing of AOTC and I LOVED it. I went along with a friend and she brought her boyfriend along who wasn't all too fond of SW and even he wound up enjoying it.

I may just be in a bit of a delerious state right now (seeing as how I haven't gotten any sleep in over 41 hours) but this film had me hooting, hollering, and cheering more than Empire and just may be (IMO) better than Empire.

BTW, whole new outlook on the OT from now on from what was shown on Geonosis with the Death Star specs and all. I can't wait to confuse the hell out of my fellow SW fans I work with.

 

Well, I just saw AOTC at the midnight showing at Atlantic Beach NC. I was a little worried that I was going to be disapointed from some of the reviews I read...but those are not unusual for a Star Wars movie. Let me just say that I am totally blown away....The visual part to Episode II was brilliant. The story was great, and the acting was top of the line. I liked Episode I a lot....but I liked this one better. Becuase now everything is coming together and making sense. You get to see the WHOLE story.....it was great...YODA was totally awesome in a master jedi, and rocked in the fight scene with Count Dooku. I will say that not reading a lot of spoilers definately made it a better experience. Master Windu was very powerful, he took out Jango in a very cool way. The entire battle scene at the end with all the jedi and the driods and the clones was terrific.....so heres my thing....if you didnt get this movie...then(and this is gonna offend some folks)then you have absolutely no creative apptitude....if you do then you probably enjoyed it and know what I mean.....So forget all of these people who are giving the film such bad reviews....they dont understand and never will. Everyone left cheered at the end of the film....we all went outside the theater and were all in a daze, you could see it...this was movie magic.

 

Sayor is just mad, that movie was amazing.

 

I've read every spoiler going for the past three years for Episode II and it didn't effect my enjoyment when watching it for the first time whatsoever.
First of all, Hayden's performance is excellent - I didn't expect him to be that good, he interacts well with Obi Wan/Ewan - it's just a shame Natalie wasn't up to par with him.
Some bits seemed a bit rushed and even if you'd avoided spoilers I think you'd have realised that there was quite a bit cut out.
Did I see a bust of Lucas in the Jedi library? Could do with some confirmation on that one. Fight scenes were superb and Kamino and the Kaminoians(sp?) were very mysterious.
I think I'll give it 10/10, naturally!

 

I'm glad that I was mostly spoiler-free for this movie, because I was totally blown away. I'm too pumped to write a good review, so I'll just mention a few things:

- Hayden wooden? Natalie forgetting how to act? Did the critics watch this movie? The acting surprised the hell out of me. No Ralph Browns or Jake Lloyds here.

- Yoda was amazing. The fight scene with him and Dooku, as brief as it was, beats DOTF by a longshot.

- The Death Star hologram.. that was like something out of a dream. Major chills there.

- Shmi's death and funeral... perfect. Adds more power to Vader's death and funeral in ROTJ.

- Imperial March blazing as Palpatine looks on the Clone Army in Coruscant... more chills.

I can go on and on, but I need to calm down first. Star Wars is back, baby!

 

The movie has a heart this time and its Padme and Anakin.
Awesome.

 

Ok, just got out of the screening of AOTC for the first time...

OH. MY. GOD. NEED. OXYGEN.

Ok, that's pretty much my first impression....

Then after I had breathed enough, I realized that Lucas was a ******* genius!!!!!!!!!!!

Not only can he do battles, he can also do a complicated political and emotional plot!!!!

Breathe....

Ok, the good points:

1. Ok, the political plot was great....we get to see Palpatine play both sides...and our Jedi don't even realize it!!!

2. The lightsaber battles. It rocked. Yoda rocked. Obi-Wan and Anakin rocked. Dooku rocked.

3. Action sequences. Chase scenes was great.

4. Jango Fett. Ok, this guy deserves his own number. He was BADA** COOL.

5. SFX. Well, it's ILM, what more is there to say? They manage to make Yoda look cool while dueling-->if they don't get an oscar for SFX, the oscar can no longer claim to be the standard of excellence!!

6. Pacing. George Lucas can edit. One scene after another, no miscellenous stuff. The last portion went by so fast, I was disappointed it was over so abrupt, then I saw my watch---ok, it's my fault for losing track of time while watching the movie!!

7. Master and apprentice-->obi and ani's relationship was well done considering the shortage of time.

8. Most disturbing scene: Anakin's confession...lots of vader undertone-->I think the audience was in shock.

9. Shmi's death. Well done, realistic if a bit disturbing.

10. Ending. Last half of the movie was so good, I don't even know what time it was when the battle scenes started. But whenever it did, it rocked like no other battle scenes seen in a long time.

11. Complexity of Anakin. I always thought Lucas was a bit short on character development (even in ROTJ). Anakin is such a complex character, there's so much emotion in him that I can SEE Anakin becoming Vader.

12. Anakin's anger and inpetulance. You can see he's an arrogant bastard trying his best to control his emotions, but he just has too much baggage.

13. Making Jar-Jar participate in the downfall of the Republic has got to be a tip off from Lucas for all the bashing he took from the fans....you know everyone suspected that.

14. When Mace Windu showed up and the Jedi's lit up their sabers...that was COOL...makes you want to be a Jedi again!!!!

15. Hayden Christensen. He can act, and he acts well, even with some of the bad dialogue given. He can really act tormented.

16. Ewan MacGregor. He da man!!

17. Yoda. He showed his fun side with the Younglings. He showed his serious side with his scenes with Dooku. That guy deserves an oscar!

Bad Points:

1. Clunky dialogue (mostly in love story). Delivered better then OT, but still stank. Although I'm starting to understand that they speak this way for formality reasons.

2. Love story. Too quickly done, and too contrite. I think there could have been a sense of urgency while they fall in love...would have been more realistic. But I wanted to pee during those scenes...could have just been me.

3. Tusken Raider scene. Ok, it's probably partially MY fault for being spoiled. I evasioned this scene to be a bit discrete...instead we get a scene with Anakin loping heads off. I think I preferred it done with more discretion.

4. 3CP0 humor was just dumb. It could have been scaled back.


Two final points:

Being spoiler-aholic...I knew EVERY SINGLE NEW SCENE. There was almost nothing new. My fault. But it ruined the surprises in some places.

I had to pee almost from the start of the movie (when I get anxious, I want to pee), so that was distracting.

Oh yeah, a few times, there was a few words that couldn't be heard.

Final thoughts:
Lucas is going to make a load of money with this one. It was a crowd pleaser as well.

The dark complexity of it, the general feel of it, screams something more adult, makes me re-evaluate Lucas once again. I aways thought of him as a children's storyteller, but AOTC was more dark then even Empire, IMHO.

Throughout the film, even though I was spoiled rotten, I couldn't help but not

 

The movie has a heart this time and its Padme and Anakin.
Awesome.

 

Awsome movie! The fight scenes were great! The story was great. It wasn't bogged down with political crap nearly as much as the critics said it was. And, I thought, it was an integral part of the story. 3PO was hilarious, the goldenrod comedian I missed in TPM. The only reason I still think ESB is still my favorite movie, is because this one did not contain a surprise ie. "Luke, I am your father." But, AOTC runs a very close second. I missed this whole thing for TPM because I was in Saudi Arabia. Even though GL sent the movie over there for the troops to view, I missed out on all the premire hoopla! Thank you GL for creating a very fantastic movie. It was awsome! What else can I say, other than, it was awsome!

 

Just got back from the midnight show. It was fabulous. Enough said.

 

First off, I overall felt that it was by far the coolest Star Wars film to date, but not the best. Now to the nitty-gritty:

NEGATIVE ASPECTS-
-Some of my favorite dialogue was edited out.
-Some important scenes were edited out.
-The editing as a whole seemed really choppy
-Certain scenes between Anakin and Padme seemed really forced.
-Part of the Dooku/Anakin duel was really stupid(I'm talking about seeing nothing but their faces, then a quick cut of the sabers clashing, then their faces again)
-Boba Fett seemed kind of awkward
-C-3PO was over used

POSITIVE ASPECTS-
-YODA
-YODA
-YODA
-Kamino
-Jango Fett
-The last thirty minutes or so
-Coruscant Chase
-Almost no Jar-Jar

SUMMARY-
Really there are a million things that I was in awe of. There is more eye-candy here than that which can be absorbed in one viewing. All of the fight scenes (except for PART of the Anakin duel with Dooku) were just straight up awsome. I do think that George Lucas should:

A) Let Lawrence Kasden to come back and write basically all of the next screenplay (with Lucas' Story).

B) Get a new editor!(this was the most frustrating part of the movie)

C) Get someone else to direct.

The acting overall was fine, except for when Anakin has mood swings, but I don't think that's Hayden's fault. I love all of the little things that Lucas puts in, but he really needs to work out the kinks in the big picture.

I know it sounds like I did nothing but bash, but I really did love this movie. I just would have done a few things differently.