New STAR WARS film coming to theaters August 15, 2008 (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

For what it's worth, I don't think there's anything wrong with Ahsoka. I was happy to see a different type of female character and a different Padawan in Star Wars. She's definitely not the annoying little kid like Anakin was in The Phantom Menace or arrogant like Anakin was in Attack Of The Clones. I think seeing Ahsoka grow as a Padawan over the course of the series is going to interesting and most likely come to a very sad ending.

 

[Chris_T]

Agreed.

 

[Paul Arnette]

Apart from her nicknaming everything, I like Ahsoka a lot more than I suspected I would. In fact, there is more chemistry between Anakin and Ahsoka in this 90 minute cartoon than there was between Anakin and Padme over the course of roughly seven hours of prequel movies.

 

[Brent M]

I'm probably being a little unfair categorizing the character before having seen the movie, but I just cringe a little when I hear things like the fact that she calls Anakin "Sky Guy". That coupled with the fact that little kid sidekicks always seem to ruin movies for me(Temple of Doom, Phantom Menace, Mummy Returns, etc). I know this movie and the forthcoming show is supposed to be geared towards kids so I guess I should just accept it for what it is and leave it at that.

 

[TravisR]

^ Even if you don't see the movie, I'd still recommend checking out the TV show when it starts up. If you hate it, you didn't spend $10 to find that out.

 

[Brent M]

Oh, I'll definitely check out the show when it premieres and I'll also watch the movie when it hits DVD/Blu-Ray. I'll just go in with very tempered expectations.

 

[Ed Moroughan]

For what it was it was a really decent movie. I'll be checking the show out this fall, or whenever it re-airs on TNT.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I didn't see that at all. He reminded me more of Boss Hogg. I loved the Bith music playing during the introduction to that scene. It was a total ripoff of the Mike Hammer theme.

The opening scene dragged on a little, but I liked the film. It was beautiful to look at, and it's hard to believe we'll be getting this quality on a weekly basis. I loved seeing Jabba's palace in the sunlight. I have to admit that it seemed like a weird movie to be on the theater's biggest screen (which is advertised as the biggest screen in Texas). They kicked Dark Knight over to a smaller screen for a TV show!

Speaking of DK, unfortunately, it got credited with my $4.50. I noticed later that the girl rang me up for the wrong movie. Like DK needed the help.

 

[Tim Glover]

Was this the Galaxy 10 Greg?...ah, memories. Lots of good times and wonderful cinematic moments in that theater!

 

[Greg_S_H]

Yes, that was the one. I'm drifting to the Rockwall theater more, but I got the times mixed up and thought the Galaxy had the earlier showing. I hate waiting for the movie to start, but I ended up having to wait about forty minutes because of that. I actually walked in on the last scene because I thought I was late!

 

[Bryan Tuck]

Like many others, I have to say it wasn't the disaster it's being made out to be, but there were still some things that I found genuinely disappointing.

Ironically, I was actually okay with some of the things you'd think would've been the most bothersome. Ahsoka does seem straight out of a Disney Channel sitcom, but for some reason, she grew on me. And I thought the animation was very effective; not stunning, but it got the job done pretty stylishly. I didn't even have that much of a problem with Ziro the Hutt; I was actually impressed with the audacity of the whole Truman Capote thing (although I probably would have felt differently had he been in one of the live action movies).

The biggest problems I had were with the beginning and the ending, actually. First of all, Kevin Kiner's score as a whole is not bad, but the opening really does sound like a high school band arrangement of the Star Wars theme. (It's kind of like Ken Thorne's Superman II; the score itself has some really nice material, but because he blows the opening statement of the main theme, it colors your opinion of the rest of it).

Then, there's the 1930s-radio-announcer-style voiceover. ???!!! Huh? I guess I can see where the idea might have come from, but it should have been dismissed within five minutes of discussion about it.

Also, the ending is ridiculously abrupt. I realize that this is a pilot, but even hour-long TV pilots usually have a bit of falling action.

And there's the relentless battle droid jabber, one of the most annoying elements from Phantom Menace, back in full force.

Overall, the movie did remind me of the prequels in at least one sense: some really cool stuff mixed in with some really weird decisions. However, I do think there are some promising elements for a decent EU-style series.

 

[Sam Favate]

I didn't hate that bit, but I do think it would have been more effective to hear a fairy tale narration (like Cate Blanchett in Fellowship). Have we ever seen or heard a radio or news broadcast in a Star Wars film? Maybe there is no media!

 

[SilverWook]

People were watching Pod Races on large screens during the nightclub scene in Episode II. So there is sports coverage, and probably off track betting in the SW universe.

IIRC, there were some reporters in the crowd wanting to talk to Anakin after the rescue of Palpatine in Episode III.

 

[DavidPla]

Let alone these two horrible monstrosities.

 

[Pete-D]

/Facepalm. Argh. I had almost forgotten about these guys.

It's funny, I think Jar-Jar is so bad that he masks all the other terrible character quirks in Episode I -- notably the awful Neimodians and Boss Nass' inexplicable saliva head shake seizures.

 

[Greg_S_H]

It's supposed to be like a WWII newsreel. I forgot about it, but it was one thing I really liked. I don't know how much of the movie was Lucas, but I would bet the farm that that was his idea. I hope they do it throughout the series.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

The cynic in me would point out that perhaps there was a voiceover intro for CW because the target audience can't read yet

 

[Pete-D]

Possibly, but Phantom Menace had some alien sub-titles, which I remember because the 5-year-old girls sitting in front of me decided to start reading those lines aloud (lol).

I think this is probably just one of Lucas' bizarre arbitrary rules like the prequel trilogy couldn't have the hyperspace "blurring stars" effects.

The opening crawls are only for the live action films I guess.

To the defense of the The Clone Wars ... of course aspects of it are going to be more skewed towards kids. It's a cartoon (yeah... CGI ... yada, yada, yada) playing on the Cartoon Network. I mean realistically, what exactly were people expecting?

 

[Chris Atkins]

The Neimoidians...geesh, thanks for reminding me.

I mean, Lucas really missed a great opportunity here: if he'd just sub-titled them and given them a really cool sounding dialect, they'd be completely different characters.

But, instead we get real mechanical moving mouths, when CG would have been perfectly justified! I mean it's the oddest decision.

Honestly, when I saw their mouths moving out of sync with the dialogue, I knew something was up. All I could think was: that guy makes $6B on toys and he couldn't get their mouths to move right?

 

[Pete-D]

People moan about the Ewoks, but the Gungans, Neimodians, and the double headed Pod Race announcers are all waaaaay worse. The Ewoks are spunky little bad asses by comparision.

I remember seeing the 60 Minutes special on George Lucas around March 1999 and they showed a clip of the pod race scene (the beginning) with the announcers talking ... that was my first instinct that something was horribly wrong with the movie, but I told that voice to quiet down.

I hate to open this can of worms but the Neimodians also have those blatantly terrible Asian accents/robes, I'm pretty sure they were done that way as a homage to old Flash Gordon serials; that is really one homage we could've done without.