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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

PT The great things about AOTC

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by d_arblay, Mar 12, 2011.

  1. ezekiel22x

    ezekiel22x Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 9, 2002
    His troubles and perhaps his hopes. The dreams about his mother's death turn out to be real, but then so do his admitted thoughts of seeing Padme again. Even after she rejects him on Naboo he says her presence soothes him, and of course this dreamlike high would continue on Geonosis when she admits feelings in return. Interesting that both of these sections where it could be said that Anakin is "living his dreams" with Padme are often called out for ridiculous and/or video game like visuals.[
     
  2. SlashMan

    SlashMan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 5, 2012
    I like how it diverged completely from TPM. It gave us variety and still succeeded in telling the story it aimed to tell:

    For one thing, the tense introduction of the Jedi in Phantom was replaced by a more lighthearted exchange in AOTC. The joyous ending of TPM was replaced by a more bittersweet conclusion in AOTC.

    Despite a rocky start, after Geonosis comes into the picture, it delivers some of the finest action sequences Star Wars has to offer.
     
  3. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    The seemingly joyous ending of TPM, set to the tune of a reworked Emperor's theme... :p
     
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  4. -NaTaLie-

    -NaTaLie- Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2001
    I've been thinking about AOTC a lot lately for some reason. One of the things I like about its story that other people probably don't is that it's basically about failure, of individuals as well as systems.

    Anakin fails as a padawan and a Jedi a few times.
    Obi-Wan fails as a teacher. He also can't understand Anakin's emotional distress caused by his mother's dreams.
    Anakin and Obi-Wan fail to catch an assassin.
    The Jedi fail to find a freaking planet :rolleyes:
    Anakin fails to save his mother, then he and Padme fail to save Obi-Wan.
    The Jedi fail to save their own on the arena, they have to be saved by their future killers.
    The Loyalists, including Padme, and the Jedi fail to stop the beginning of war.
    Obi-Wan, Anakin and even Yoda fail to prevent Dooku's escape.
    Heck, we're even told that the villains of the previous movie have not been brought to justice in ten years!

    The only person who doesn't fail is Palpatine.

    Even the wedding, which typically belongs to the happy endings, makes us uneasy because we know they'll have to live a lie and, yes, it will destroy them.

    There's definitely a sense of impending doom starting right from the opening shorts of Naboo's ships flying into the murky skies of Coruscant. Maybe more so than even ROTS which starts on a relatively upbeat note. But by then, it's already too late because the pieces had been set in AOTC. That's why, in some ways, AOTC seems like the saddest Star Wars episode to me. It's the last beautiful moments of the Republic before the darkness of the war and dictatorship.
     
  5. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Ha ha lol so funny and true
     
  6. -NaTaLie-

    -NaTaLie- Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2001
    Also the moment when Padme and Anakin are brought into the Arena and then chained to the columns. Obi-Wan must be thinking "WTF?" when he sees them. Anakin gives him a very shy smile. Then, after Obi-Wan's "Good job!" :D , Anakin has a look of a child who's been caught by his parent red-handed. He's clearly more upset by his master's disapproval than impending executions. And that's a young man who'd very recently killed a bunch of savages in a fit of rage.
     
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  7. obi-rob-kenobi4

    obi-rob-kenobi4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2007
    The Yin-yang in the middle of the film that someone pointed out in another thread...
     
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  8. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    Oooooh, burn! You could be in for a lot of trouble with a remark like that: smiting TWOK and the great Khan! I agree, however. =D= :cool:

    Much agreed: Sybok, IMO, is a compelling anti-hero.

    Yes. And I love the knowing absurdity of Kirk on the Enterprise bridge in a lumberjack shirt. The whole Yosemite National Park setting is lovely, too.

    Ditto. Ditto x 10^6.

    And don't you just dig those great chapter titles: e.g., "Chapter 12: The Masks of God" (Joseph Campbell)?

    It has many poignant, amusing, and arresting details. Love it loads.

    Mine, too.

    That's an excellent reading, putting us in the subjective frame of Padme, Natalie (Natalie! :D ). Why are Natalie's always so inspiring? :)

    I'd just like to agree with Lars_Muul and add that Trek V and AOTC, in my estimation, are quite similar in that "dream-like" regard -- something that ezekiel might also find resonant about those movies. Fusing pulp with a sort of Lynchian grandeur, they kind of pull off what Lynch himself was going for, I think, with his much-maligned adaptation of Frank Herbert's "Dune" ("Dune" also being a major inspiration for Lucas in the creation of Star Wars, of course). All three movies have tended to be met with a fair amount of derision, but they actually come closer to embodying the ideals of cinema, such as I am inclined to view the medium, breath-taking in their singular marriage of high and low.


    More terrific observations! AOTC definitely stresses the fallibility of its characters, I think, taking a page out of TESB's book, then doubling a few times, until that lone page has grown exponentially into an entire compendium on the faults and foibles of human action and agency, exploding into the film's final chapter which depicts a state of all-out war in a lurid, fever-dream refrain. This "Kitchen Sink" approach reaches its zenith in the opening chapter of ROTS, a brash continuation of what is glimpsed in AOTC's operatic close -- war ships ascending into the blood-soaked heavens, leaving Coruscant; only now suddenly hanging tenuously in or just above that central planet's discernible atmosphere -- as war monstrously rages in a state of high (literally: above planet) chaos: sort of like the TPM blockade, but redone with battling capital ships; metallic monsters rousing a cacophony of notes; to the casual observer, a strange symphony, seemingly jumbled and incoherent.

    The seedbed for the Clone Wars, of course, is TPM, and this shocking contrast between the two films, TPM and ROTS, shows us how much things have changed (the last spoken word of TPM is "peace"; the first written word, unique to the story of ROTS, is "war"). AOTC is the crucial connective tissue that shows us how the story gets there. It is invariably more knotted and troubled than the other SW movies, subjectively speaking, because of the moral implications of an entire galaxy, led brazenly by the Sith and an unconsciously complicit Jedi Order, rushing head-long to open conflict. Galactic peace being destroyed for profit and power, enacted through Machiavellian means, is a big thing in the allegorical landscape of this fictive world; so AOTC is freighted with vast symbolic overtones and has a uniquely jaded air in which its characters live and die. Paradoxically, it acquires further estrangement, of sorts, by taking the pulpy pleasures inherent to the rest of the series and reinventing it, until the title itself -- superficially, the cheesiest of the lot, I think -- is itself a rousing affront to the neat patterning and symmetry of the other movie titles, being exactly like them and yet that little bit more: the quirky sibling that clamours a bit more loudly and does things a little more outrageously than the others. This violent, total war state as seen on Geonosis, this story's ultimate rendezvous point for its characters and motifs, effectively births the title outright, as if distorting the diegesis so severely that the miasma of war creates a bastard mutation in the titling system of the saga, shattering its right to perfect concentric order . It's rather clever, IMO.


    Even funnier, he looks like he's failing: it looks like decrepitude is washing over him and eating away at his physical strength and inner resolve, causing him to hit back twice as hard in the opening scene with, "I will not let this Republic which has stood for a thousand years be split in two." Later, in a wearied state, he addresses the Senate with a benign assurance that he is only accepting emergency powers as a last resort, and will relinquish them the moment the crisis passes (which is true if you consider the rebellion to mark a continuation of the Republic/Separatist crisis). In ROTS, he seems to have recovered: he looks rejuvenated and there's a spring in his step. This is all rather amusing; and all the more satisfying if you look at AOTC as "the odd one out". Clues abound, like the changing of Yoda's cloak (TPM and ROTS have him in a brown cloak; in AOTC, it's grey/white), echoing Han's loss of his blue jacket and rapid reversion to a beige shirt with black waistcoat between TESB and the second act of ROTJ (he was already stripped of his blue jacket before being "frozen"/placed into suspended animation). It's like these characters "forget" they were operating in a higher mythic tier -- part of a protracted cinematic dream -- in the former movie or something; they're spectral talismans for deeper ideas at work within the whole.
     
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  9. Eryndil

    Eryndil Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 18, 2012
    And don't forget 'Row, row, row your boat' - possibly one of the best parts of that film!

    Sorry, I know this is a thread about AOTC, not Star Trek.

    I can't think of a scene that hasn't already been mentioned, but I think these bear repeating:

    * Elan Sleazebaggano (what a name!) in the Cantina - got to be one of the funniest scenes
    * Obi-Wan casually leaping through a window
    * The entire chase scene - such great banter between the guys
    * Dexter Jettster - nice to see someone on Coruscant who isn't a Jedi or a politician
    * Jango on Kamino - being sinister in an understated way, plus the background to Boba
    * Geonosis arena

    And I loved the way that Obi-Wan caught the Force lightning with his lightsaber. In ROTJ and at the start of the AOTC fight scene (with Anakin rushing in), the lightning seemed kind of unstoppable, so seeing Obi-Wan just hold up his 'saber and catch it was quite a surprise. Yeah, I thought it was cool but that's just me!
     
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  10. Corran1138

    Corran1138 Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2012
    I will admit that Star Trek V has its moments, especially in the area of comedy.

    I have watched quite a few of the fan edits of the prequels (that's not to say that there is anything wrong with the original versions) and there a few things I have noticed cut out of every single version of AoTC I have seen. One of those is the Elan Sleazebaggano scene. I find this to be one of the funniest scenes of the Star Wars saga. It shows Obi Wan's great sense of humor. They also cut out the Dexter Jettster scene. I personally thought Dex was a great character, and felt that this scene showed what life is like for normal people on Coruscant. It also demonstrates Obi-Wan's familiarity with the regular folk on Coruscant. Otherwise, one might get the impression that the Jedi stick purely to their own. The final scene which is often cut is Yoda and the younglings. This is probably my favorite Yoda moment in the entire prequel trilogy, because its the one time we really get to see his goofy side, which we see in ESB. Otherwise, Yoda is purely somber and serious.

    It is strange that people complain about the characters lacking personality in the prequels, and then those same people make edits of the films where the take out scenes which show a lot of personality.

    Anyway, kind of a rant, but needless to say, I agree with the elements you point out.
     
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