We haven’t had much time to discuss it yet, but none of us seemed particularly impressed last night. My personal take: It’s far too long, and adds very little to the (real) movie experience. If you’re absolutely dying for more prequel, you might get more out of it, but as someone mainly apathetic to the whole era (and bridge stories in general) my impression was “Meh.” I’m glad I got to see it with Jaders, but it’s not something I would recommend to anyone without a basic working knowledge for the prequel EU.
But: Stinky is adorable.
Jaders, (I know you’re reading this in the suite!) leave your reviews/thoughts in the comments!
I agree with about everything you’ve said here – except that I don’t think any familiarity with prequel EU is necessary. This is because I don’t have any, I’m sure. My biggest complaint is STILL that someone thought it was a good idea to give Anakin a padawan. I talked with someone coming out of the theater who said he was going back at 7pm in costume, and this is a perfect reference point – I don’t think it’s worth dressing up for, but I’m certainly glad I went out to see it the first day.
I really wasn’t impressed at all. The starship troopers esque intro instead of the normal star wars scrolling text kind of sucked. All the stupid droid jokes got really annoying too. Maybe it’s because I went to the midnight showing, but I was having a little trouble staying awake at the end. All the Genndy Tartakovsky clone wars stuff is a whole lot better. Even the action in my opinion. But the movie is really really kid friendly kind of stuff. Sort of like the Droids and Ewok stuff. All in all it wasn’t really what I wanted, but it was what I was expecting…well probably a little less then I was expecting.
I thought it was truly awful. I really disliked the padawan, whose name I can’t even remember (Osaka?). I just can’t believe someone raised in the Jedi Temple would behave towards a NEW MASTER the way she does. She’s a typical snarky American tween, which SO doesn’t work for prequel-era Jedi.
Have to say, the reviews had me expecting the film to be terriblehorriblegodawful, so I was pleasantly surprised that (IMHO) it wasn’t. It’s not a great film by any stretch, or one I’d recommend to anyone not already a SW fan; and I’d have been disappointed if I’d gone in expecting “the next i.e. dramatically important chapter of the saga” or somesuch–which I admit I would have done had this been a live-action film (or, heaven help us, Episode X). But I went in expecting a two-hour SW tie-in cartoon, and got that. Yeah, I’m sanguine about it.
why did anakin call her snips?
I was pretty disappointed with TCW. No John Williams soundtrack (most of the music didn’t even match the action I thought, the old cartoon had it better), no opening crawl, half-rendered characters with backdrops that made The Wizard Of Oz’s painted walls look fantastic, voice acting that made me cringe at times (need I remind anyone of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s voice? Especially during his duel with Asajj.), dialogue that made some of Mace Windu’s lines in the prequels profound, and plot holes-a-plenty (Anakin can have a Padawan, but can’t be a Master in ROTS? Frelling heck?). And don’t even get me started on Mary Sue, er, I mean, Ahsoka. A barely teenaged Jedi that already knows how to “organize troops”, fight three Magna Guards with a lightsaber and a baby slug, and question her master’s authority and always be right? Not buying it.
I really, really wanted to like this movie. Parts of it, I did enjoy. I loved the battles that actually showed the clones fighting up close. The only thing that came close to that before was the video game Battlefront 2. I was a big fan of that. And I liked the details they put in, such as the nose art on the gunships (nice homage to WWII, better than the announcer at the beginning of the film), the clone’s different haircuts, and seeing the new Imperial Commanders take charge of the battle inside the soon-to-be Star Destroyers.
But yeah. Like I said before, they could have done so much more with this. I’ll watch the series I suppose, and pray that it has some worthy offering for SW canon.
Maybe Traviss’s novel is more likable than the film. I hope so at least.
Erm, I’m with Qadgop. I didn’t go in expecting much, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s goofy, it’s dumb, it’s kiddy, but that’s all it was meant to be. No John Williams score, true, but hey, practically the entire crew was new, aside from Lucas, Coleman, Wood, and a couple of the voice actors. But I’ve gotten used to that from other spinoff material, so I didn’t mind.
The score was actually pretty good at times, I thought. The animation was jerky, but the style doesn’t bug me so much any more, and the action sequences were generally pretty cool. And there was some nifty camerawork and what not–the sort of freedom you expect from an animated film.
I think io9 got it right when they said the TV series’ strength will be its freedom to explore the little guys–the unexplored nooks of the era. This, being the premiere, basically, and a film in theaters, naturally stuck to the big guys. But I look forward to some more variety. Besides, then there’s no precedent, so there can be no bad voice acting to throw you off. :)
Agreed, Ahsoka fighting off three MagnaGuards was a little… unrealistic. There was a fair amount of that here and there.
I loved the newsreel intro.
And Ziro was kind of hilarious, in a totally unexpected way.
And if they do a different little Lucasfilm Animation logo skit at the end of every episode, I’m sold.
CWhiteman–because when she first called him “Skyguy,” he told her not to get snippy. Um… yeah. Haha.
Agreed, the animated Lucasfilm Animation logo was pretty nifty. They do that with LucasArts with each game, I think they could do a different one with each episode.
And Ziro didn’t annoy me as much as Ahsoka did. At least Ziro had some faults and wasn’t Mr/Mrs. Perfect.
James makes his general review here:
http://jawajames.livejournal.com/159614.html
and Scoke: the Traviss novel, which i read before seeing the movie, does a good job of salvaging the movie, by A) having things make sense (Dooku and Ciro show up earlier, so we learn more about everyone’s motivations. B) give more about Rex and the clones (but without any direct Mando references!!!) so that you can actually care about them. overall, the movie’s plot is given a little more complexity – you see into Asajj’s mind, and the only thing that doesn’t appear in the novel is Ahsoka’s battle with the Magnaguards… and Yoda seemingly to appear everywhere.
Thanks for that info jawajames. :) Sounds better already.