PT Thoughts/General Discussion: Attack of the Clones

Well there are some alternatives.
1) The republic doesn't allow for systems to leave and if anyone tries they'll get ARMY on their *****.
2) The republic doesn't allow for systems to leave and the seps say "let us leave or we'll use force." And in response the Republic wants an army.
3) The republic is dragging it's heels and slows the negotiations down and the seps are getting impatient and threaten to use violence.
4) The seps are leaving right now and are seizing republic assets on their worlds. They aren't very interested in negotiations and are instead only making demands backed by threats.

I agree that it is a bit odd in the film. Mace says that if the negotiations fail, then there will not be enough Jedi to protect the republic. Suggesting that the separatist will attack. The Jedi are also apparently overworked because of systems wanting to leave. If they just left and din't cause problems, then the Jedi will have less area to patrol and would have less work. So apparently the seps are already causing problems, fights or something.

@Alexrd

I'll try get back on track and shorten my posts.
The issue at hand was why Padme said that Dooku was behind the attempt on her life.
Your argument, if I understood you correctly, was that she thinks that Dooku really wants war but he needs an excuse. He can't just attack the republic, he has to be seen as the good guy and the seps will not start a war. If the republic gets an army, that is the excuse he needs and he will have his war.

My counter is;
First, with this argument we can ask the following "The seps want to leave the republic but would they be willing and able to initiate a military action if they thought it served their purpose."
The answer, based on the seps the film show us, is a clear Yes! The TF and co are totally willing to start an attack on the republic, esp since said republic is weak and will fall quickly. If the "other" seps, whoever they are, share this view or not we don't know, since we never see them. So, based on the seps the film shows us and that they they are the leaders of the seps, then I'll say that the argument that these other seps will NOT start a war has no supporting evidence. They can all want to leave but that doesn't mean that they won't start a war if they think that this will achieve their goals.

Second, as I said above, Mace says that if the negotations fail, the sep WILL attack, army or not.

Third, if Padme thinks Dooku really wants war and is willing to stoop to murder, why does she believe that negotiations will work? Dooku is the leader of the seps and if he is this warlike and untrustworthy, what value will any treaty have?

Some quick comments;

The difference being? If they control those worlds that means that those worlds obey the TF's orders. If the TF are leaving then all those worlds will follow.

It was apparently the only world that they could reach that wasn't under the TF's control. Naboo is in the republic, Tatooine was not. And it seemed to be rather remote. This suggest a fair distance and in turn suggest that the TF control quite a number of systems.

Dooku sells pretty much that alternative to the seps in the meeting we see and they have no problem with it and they seem to expect that other systems will join them despite this. And the senate was told about an iminent attack by the seps and they still couldn't agree to ok the army.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I am aware but 3k upscaled to 4k can work ok while 1080p to 4k won't.

Even on the blurays I think the OT and TPM which were shot on film look a lot better than the digital AOTC.

ROTS improved things a lot but AOTC is stuck with an ugly early digital look.

 

There are regular separatists, you are just looking past them. The first fact you are missing is that the meeting that Dooku has on Geonosis is a treaty signing meeting, so those parties were not part of the Separatists before that.

What we are told at the beginning of the movie (from the crawl) is that there is a "Separatist Movement". This movement has no standing organized army, it is a political movement (to begin with), however, the Jedi are spread thin because Dooku has riled up individual planets to revolt (in an attempt to drag the Republic into rash decisions). There is no organized Separatist Army going around that the Jedi are trying to stop. The Jedi are simply trying to quell individual uprisings (or skirmishes) across the thousands of planets trying to secede from the Republic. These are the normal Separatists that are involved in the "Separatist Movement". There is no Trade Federation yet, there is no banking clan, there is no Techno Union. In fact the Trade federation holds off their pledge to sign the treaty until Padme is dead, however, after the events of Geonosis, the Trade Fed is forced into the conflict even without that part of the agreement fulfilled.

That meeting is the start of the Separatists standing army, because before that it was just the populations of the planets that were uprising under Dooku's political rhetoric (hence Ki Adi calling him a political Idealist). The scene with the meeting of the mega-corps was Dooku showing an underhanded side. Using greed to entice the mega corps to pledge their armies to his cause.

You keep on saying in other posts that it is clear the Seps want to attack, however, that is not clear. What is clear and comes right from Dooku's own lips is that they are going to use this new army to blackmail the Republic into giving into their demands because the Republic has no standing army to defend itself. There is not one mention of attacking the Republic. He says the Jedi will be overwhelmed, which is true from a numbers aspect, and not necessarily an attack aspect. Then the Republic will give into their demands.

As for the other stuff, as to why the Trade Fed an others would want to leave the Senate and Republic. Well it's because even though the Trade Fed had a lot of power in the Senate, they still had the play the bureaucratic games to use that power. Bribes, back stabbing, back scratching etc. If the Republic was overwhelmed, and blackmailed into the demands of the "new" separatists, well then the Trade Fed and other mega corps could get anything they wanted without having to play the bureaucratic games that probably cost them a lot of their profits to use their power and influence.

Edit: Just to add, I am sure that if the Republic didn't give into the blackmail attempts of Dooku and the new Separatist Army, than they would probably attack. However, again, there is not one mention in that meeting scene of attacking the Republic just yet.

 

Ok, so if I want to understand certain point plots of the film I have to read the damn novelization and if I want to watch these movies in the latest resolution available, the almost 40 year old classics will work fine but the one released 12 years ago can only perform at 25%?

I thought AOTC was bad but now you have shown me how bad it really is, thanks!

 

obviously this was a debated point in the Senate. When Obi-Wan reported back that the Seperatists were raising their own army and then they tried to kill a Senator and two Jedi Knights it became a little clearer to those opposed. I'm guessing up until then without Palpatine's behind the scene's maneuver's the will to raise an army wouldn't have been that great.

 

When AOTC was released, I absolutely loved it and saw it 10x in the theater. But in hindsight, there are too many glaring issues revolving around the story and effects.

IMO, Anakin needed to be the heroic and likable Anakin from TCW (which I'm not a real huge fan of the series). Instead, he was just a whiny teenager. He had no friendship with Obi-Wan. The romantic part of the story was abysmal. And that Droid Factory scene is the worst scene in any movie, with the exception of Jar Jar scenes from TPM.

Overall it's a terrible movie, but I still love it because it's SW lore.

 

i've noted a couple times this week people mentioning the droid factory scene. what's wrong with it?

 

ROFL!!

I just someone would make that response. So absolutely typical.

Don't actually read what I have said but what you want it to say.

You do of course realize that nothing is different with the OT? It's the same kind of thing.

The OT had all kinds of things left out of the movies which were in part answered in the books and of course many, many things were still not answered there which is what the PT had to do. So of course the PT had things that weren't going to be answered in the movies directly and in this case I don't see why why Padme thinks Dooku is behind it is all that important.

You do realize that in the OT the term Sith is never used? Palpatine is not even called a Sith in the novels oh and in a very cool scene the Emperor mentions Yoda. We also never find out why Anakin is in the armor in the OT. He's more machine than man. Why? We never find out onscreen but we get at least some story in the books. This is I think is a bit more important than Padme's thought processes about Dooku.

That is how the films were designed. People coming out of the first film were often confused trying to take all of it in. Lucas' wanted an experience like watching a foreign film where you don't get all the context. If the movie itself is the text then the novels give subtext that is not necessary to the movie experience but can enhance it.

Obviously the OT was a far more complex story than we saw in the films but they were presented in a very simple way. The PT gives perspective to the OT that it wasn't designed to do itself. The PT is also a far more complex story both in the movies and again this is reflected in the novels of the films as they should.

What are you talking about? That clearly is not anything that I said at all. I said they will all work fine.

 

3PO losing his head and swapping with a droid. Too much CGI. I think the scene is awful.

 

Not everything needs answers, specially elements to the story that work well if kept as mysteries. Of course that fact that the bad guy is in a suit is part of that. But since we're talking about a film with little character development and a whole lot of crap happening on screen, it is important that action oriented sequences make sense. If you have to go to the novelization just to make basic plot points make sense, well to me that means there's a problem with the film itself.

You are basically saying that the mysteries left unanswered in the OT = poor storytelling in the PT.

I get it's hard to defend a movie that looks awful, that has the worst love story in modern cinema, that recycles the soundtrack of the previous film, etc. But still, if you are going to defend it, please use real arguments.

To say "the OT has the same problem" doesn't help much, specially when the problem being discussed is very different from the OT situation.

 

Several things.
1) Mace says in response to Palpatine saying that his negotiations will not fail;
"If they do, there won't be enough Jedi to protect the Republic.."
The idea is pretty clear, if the negotiations goes sour then the seps WILL attack or use violence.
If they have no army or armed forces then what will they attack with?

2) The seps have been building their droid army for some time, designing and building new and more advanced battle droids. Also Dooku said "As I explained to you earlier.." and his promise to the TF to have Padme killed. This suggests that they have been working on this for some time. There wasn't much surprise from those at that meeting, one guy said something about treason but there was no follow up on that. So the meeting was instead the finalizing of the seps army, not the start of it.
They intended to use the army, how is not made totally clear but saying "The Jedi WILL be overwhelmed." suggest more than just blackmail to me. If they just wanted to make a threat then he would have said something like "The Jedi will not dare to stand against it."

3) Padme says that the seps can turn to the corporate alliance and commerce guilds for help. So they are at the very least supportive to the seps. Meaning the seps have access to armed forces if they want them. The republic meanwhile has nothing.

This argument is about why Padme suspects Dooku. If he has indeed been inciting revolt on many planets and systems, then his intensions aren't peaceful. He is the aggressor, he is causing problems. He fans the flames of revolt and rebellion. It doesn't sound like he needs an excuse to push the seps into more and more hostilities. The TF and co needs no excuse at all, they are all for it and indeed a weak republic makes them all the more eager. So why would he want the republic to get an army based on this? That a republic, that is facing revolt, rebellion and increasing violence would want to defend itself isn't strange or evil.

@Qui-Riv-Brid

How many SW books were written between 1977 and 1983? There were the novelizations and a few Han Solo books. Nowhere near as many as when the PT was released. Also the SW books were a bigger thing with the PT than the OT. Far more things in the films were explained and explored and things like the Clone wars mini-series was made to tie directly into RotS. It explained where Griev got his cough.

Why Padme suspects Dooku is a valid question because from where she stands, he would be the last person to want her dead. So it comes across as a less than good way to establish Dooku early on as we don't see until much later.
Other questions like "Who really ordered the clone army?", "Who deleted the Kamino file?" etc are also valid questions because AotC set up mysteries than it then doesn't answer. Lucas said that Sifo-Dyas would be talked about in RotS but he couldn't make it work so it was put in books instead.

The title of Sith isn't important to the story in the OT. Nor is how exactly Vader wound up like he did.

With Padme is comes across as forced exposition if she gives no reason why she suspects Dooku and based on what we know, she shouldn't have.
The prophecy is very important to the story and characters in the PT and yet we are never told who made it, when it was made, what it says exactly and why it is different from the normal ability to see the future all Jedi have.

To be fair the OT does have a few questions like, why didn't Han pay back Jabba? Which I don't think the novels answered but I could be wrong.

Disagree, I was eight when I first saw ANH back in 1978 and I wasn't confused at all. Everything that is needed for the story and characters is in the film. There is backstory that we don't know and some would be cool to find out about but you can understand the film fine. Lucas did want to begin right in the middle of the action, you get some set up and then are dropped into the thick of things. The backstory is given in bits and pieces and we get enough of an idea about what has gone before, who these people are and what is going on.

Personally, I think ANH is written very effectively, a lot of information is conveyed along with character development. Many scenes are doing several things at once. Like the DS conference scene. Alec Guinness did a very good job as both provider of exposition and creating his own character and making Luke and the audience care. Had the role not worked, the whole film could have collapsed.

Disagree in part, I find the OT films to have a simple story but told very well. The PT films have a more complicated story but is told poorly in my view. And if a filmmaker can't fit the story he wants to tell in three films then either make the films longer or simplify the story so that it works within the timeframe you want. Omitting necessary things and relegating them to books is not a good way to make a film to me.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

I had always assumed that Padme's comment was an intentional vehicle to introduce the theme that Dooku was a master of opaque and byzantine intrigues - intrigues that were by their very nature, difficult to flesh out as far as motives and intent. The comment was also a vehicle to introduce the theme that Dooku had already been known to be involved in some type of political intrigues (which may or may not have involved separatist issues).

Windu's response was, IMO, meant to convey an almost arrogant naivety, regarding not only Dooku specifically, but also regarding what was happening in the galaxy politically. But possibly even more important was that it was meant to convey an arrogant naivety regarding the Jedi Order's perception of itself as morally infallible - even among those who had strayed.

 

Let's say that for the sake of argument, Mace is implying that he thinks the Separatists will attack (I personally do not think he is saying this), you clearly ignore what happens right after that. Palpatine turns to Yoda and asks Yoda:

"Master Yoda, Do you think it will really come to war?"

Now here is the important part, Yoda neither agrees or disagrees with Mace, Yoda tries to use to the Force to see if it will happen and he replies:

"Hmmm, the dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is."

Right away because of Yoda's response, it is understood that if Mace is implying that the Separatists will attack, it is only his opinion. An opinion coming from one of the biggest, if not the biggest, pompous ass of a Jedi we see in the PT (possibly excluding Anakin). Yoda does not want to give an opinion, so he gives a non-answer. Yoda doesn't give an actual answer one way or the other because:
1) He can't see it through the Force,
2) There is no actual tangible evidence on the table they will attack

So Yoda doesn't want to give an opinion. Overall, the Jedi want the military creation act to pass because they are already spread thin trying to take care of all the hot spots being sprung up.

Now I think Mace's answer is not proof that there is evidence on the table that the Separatists will attack. The Jedi are however warning the Chancellor that it is a possibility that they will or if negotiations fail there will be war. This situation is very similar to the American Civil War.

The American Civil War was not actually fought over Slavery. Slavery was a reason (a very big reason) that led up to the war and a reason why the South seceded. The actual War was fought because the South seceded from the Republic. The South fought to break away from the Republic, and the North fought to force the South back into the Republic. This is the same situation we find in Star Wars. The Separatists want to break away from the Republic, and the Republic wants to keep them in. That is what is going on with the negotiations. Trying to find a peaceful way to resolve it where those systems stay in the Republic but get what they want.

However, if negotiations break down there is a real possibility that the Separatists will fight to win their independence from the Republic. The Jedi do not have the numbers to stop this! It's really not that hard to see the similarities that are hinted at between what's going on in Star Wars and the American Civil War. The Confederate States of America... The Confederacy of Independent Systems.

That is what Mace is warning Palpatine about, not so much that there is an imminent attack, but, if negotiations fail the Separatists will fight to win their Independence! Lucas loves using past historical events as a back drop to Star Wars!

This is all the regular separatists. There is no standing army as of yet. That is the real reason why Dooku tries to kill Padme at the beginning of the movie, he is trying to get the Trade Fed to agree to sign the treaty. That is one of the stipulations that Gunray has negotiated.

Furthermore, The Senate as whole doesn't believe there is an imminent attack by the Separatists because the Senate at the beginning of the movie would vote against the military creation act. That is why Palpatine is holding off the vote, as a favor to the overwhelmed Jedi, in hopes that the vote may sway. That is why everyone is so surprised when Obi Wan reports back to the Senate and Jedi about the army:

Everyone is caught off guard by the news of the Separatists having an army. In fact this is the first time throughout the movie that an attack is even brought up, which is after the meeting of the Separatist where everyone pledges their armies to Dooku. Again, there is no standing army of the Separatists at the beginning of the movie. What Obi Wan sees and explains to the Jedi and Senate is Count Dooku in the process of "forming" an army or alliance for the purpose of an army. He doesn't say they have formed, he says "forming"!

Advancements in military equipment is not a prelude for an attack. It is actually just a normal thing for companies that provide the tools of war. Create bigger and better toys to kill your enemies with. This doesn't prove that there was any compliance between the mega-corps prior to the meeting.

The only army being built was for the Trade Federation. More than likely to replace the one they lost ten years earlier at Naboo. The players at the table already had their armies. They weren't new armies, they were already standing armies that they had for their own purposes that they pledged to Dooku.

Yes Dooku explained earlier because they were in negotiations, this scene, as I already explained in a previous post, is a meeting where the mega corps agree to the treaties. Why would they agree to sign treaties to hand their armies over to Dooku, if they all had already done that as you suggest? Once again, the Separatists had no standing army previous this. There was no imminent attack by the separatists, or threat of one. It was only until after it was revealed that Dooku was in league with the various mega-corps that the idea of an attack was brought up.

Actually she says the Trade Fed and Commerce Guilds. Why must they turn to those groups? Because as of right now they have no standing army...lol. In fact, dialogue cut from the script (but left in the novelization of the movie) says it plain as day:

Take it for what it's worth. The simple fact of the matter is that at the beginning of the movie there was no standing army for the Separatists. The Jedi were thin because they were all over the galaxy trying to put out fires created by the regular Separatists, following the political rhetoric of the political idealist (Ki Adi words not mine) of Count Dooku. It isn't until later in the movie that we actually see the Separatist Army being created. That is the a big point of the movie, showing us how the 2 armies came to be.

As I already explained earlier, you are not seeing the difference between the public, political idealist persona that Dooku has. The one that is leading the normal separatists to cause trouble across the galaxy.
Dooku's other persona, which we see in the meeting is making shady back door deals in order to get his army for his cause. He is buying an army for the Separatists Movement. The groups he is buying the army from are not the separatists that we are told about at the beginning of the movie.

The political idealist Dooku wants the Republic to make a rash decision and create an army, this will push more systems towards the Separatist movement and provoke others. Padme realizes that is what he is trying to do, and she, being the biggest and leading voice against the creation of the Republic Army makes her a target.
The Dooku at the meeting with the mega corps has an ulterior motive and that is to buy an army so he can simply force the Republic to bend knee to him, at least that what he tells them (the real sith reason is to throw the galaxy into war). He buys this army with promises of fulfilling the mega corps greed.

 

The bluray of AOTC is the best it will ever look, TPM and the original trilogy can have higher resolutions since they were shot on 35mm instead of 1080p digital like AOTC and ROTS.

It's not just about the resolution either, I think the digital camera used gave AOTC a poor image quality overall.

 

To say the war was fought because the south seceded from the republic is true. But why did they secede to begin with? This isn't the forum for this but South Carolina was the first state to secede from the union and it was in their articles of secession that one of the reasons was the preservation of slavery. They also fired on the union starting the war. I think it was clear the war started over the issue of slavery considering the first state to secede not only had it as a issue in their secession but also fired on Ft. Sumter, starting the war. Lincoln started by saying it was the preservation of the union. But taken as a whole, the war itself was fought over slavery. It was the issue art the heart of the whole conflict.

Okay, back to Dooku and battle droids.

 

Boy, this has turned into an action-packed thread...

Only in your mind, my very young apprentice.

 

Star Wars doesn't really make sense story wise.

The Separatists are evil because they are evil. There really isn't a justification for the Republic to force them into the Republic beyond that.

Now the prequel movies could have been much more interesting if shades of grey were involved but Star Wars doesn't do that, it's Light side or Dark side.

 

Allow me to introduce you to the following essay:

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/38/clones1.php

 

Actually, it's the other way around. The separatists aren't evil. They're manipulated by the real evil, who's leading the Republic. The good guys aren't really good (they are the ones attacking) and the bad guys aren't really bad (they were right believing that the republic had become corrupted).
The PT beautifully plays with all these ironies still managing to be a fairytale in which good and evil are clear abstract concepts, and portrays a story about good guys becoming evil.

The story of the OT is much less interesting in that regard: the Empire is evil because it's evil, and the Rebels are heroes just because they fight for freedom.

 

Separatists and their leader were still portrayed as villains.

The movies would be a lot more complex if Dooku and General Grievous weren't portrayed as villains.

The Jedi being forced to fight against grey characters to keep the Republic alive would be a more interesting set up than what we got.

 

Most of them pathetic villains who were fooled by the real actual villain.

 

Threepio's Kafka-esque ordeal is the key to the whole film--being a parable about a gentle diplomat who is terrifyingly transformed by the machinery of war into a trigger-happy lunatic. The CGI wasn't outstanding, but I personally wouldn't cut out that subplot for the world.

Do you really need a justification for a republic not wanting a large portion of its territories to secede? I would think that would be self-explanatory.

And shades of grey were involved. The Separatists are by and large portrayed as villains, but if you pay close attention, it's obviously not so simple. The Separatists are repeatedly identified with the virtuous Rebels of the Original Trilogy, both visually and by their place in the structure of the story. The Episode III opening crawl outright tells us that there are heroes on both sides, and Padme openly ponders whether the Republic are the real bad guys.

The potential moral rectitude of the Separatist cause is not initially made obvious, because Lucas wants the audience to see them as unambiguous villains at first, like the Empire. That way, when he later drops hints that things may not be so black-and-white, it forces the audience to confront the fact that the intentionally propaganda-like presentation of the films caused them to be led so astray.

 

It could have been handled a lot better.

What comes after ROTJ when Luke and Leia try to reestablish the Republic and those planets want out?

We will probably never get an answer to that because Star Wars is set up to have a Light side and Dark side so some pure evil villain like Palpatine or Greivous has to come along so the audience doesn't question the "light side".

 

Yes, in the movie we do need some justification or some motivation. Why is it a big deal if they leave? Why are they leaving? Understand I know the deleted scene with The Lost 20 and Dooku at Padmes trial does cover much of this. However, they were cut. So the film, IMHO, suffers a bit from making the supposed antagonist of the film kinda nebulous.

BTW, I agree with you on the shades of gray issue overall though. The PT had plenty of that throughout. More than the OT by far.

 

I agree. Much of my liking for the film is rooted in nostalgia and I still enjoy it, but he romance scenes are the worst in the saga.