Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

Phantom Menace was on Fox Last night here in Philly. Reminded me all over again how irritating Jar Jar was .... and what a lame story that movie had.

The Attack of the Clones is by all reports way better, more serious and Jar Jar is only making a very, very brief appearance. Yeah! Hopefuly Jar Jar meets Darth Vader in Episode 3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">... I just can't stress this enough...
... for the very Last time...

It's the opening! Openings are not supposed to come with the destruction of the death star!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">... I just can't stress this enough...
... for the very Last time...

It's the opening! Openings are not supposed to come with the destruction of the death star!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But before Phantom Menace, 66.6% of the movies had included a Death Star exploding at the end ..... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif These movies set high expectations.

Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

I personally think and firmly believe the Death Stars were not built to stomp out the rebels. The Empire was goign to test hem on the rebels, then launch an all out assault against Jar-Jar Binks.

Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">... I just can't stress this enough...
... for the very Last time...

It's the opening! Openings are not supposed to come with the destruction of the death star!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But before Phantom Menace, 66.6% of the movies had included a Death Star exploding at the end ..... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif These movies set high expectations.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">maybe this big bad ship they shot is a death star prototype? or in episodes 2 and 3 will be real death star exploding?

Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

Well, I also was very disappointed with the writing and story in Phantom Menace. Some of the nicer elements of the first trilogy, such as the Force with its elements of mystery and eastern mysticism, were completely junked for some lame attempt to make at all scientifically and biologically logical. Bad idea. Didn't work.

Then there was the overall plot of the movie, which to me seemed like it was written by a brain damaged 12 year old. I think they aimed it mostly at 3rd graders which was another mistake. I thought it was completely unoriginal, pompous, predictable, clichéd and self congratulatory. By the Last, I mean they fell in love with the computer generated character technology and used it to create the most obnoxious and irritating characters just because they could. Either that or they genuinely thought they were cute. No, that's just too scary to even contemplate.

Lucas hadn't made a movie in 20 years and it showed. He tried to make a 1970s movie when the Sci-Fi genre bar has been raised so much higher since then. Star Wars moved space opera and Sci-Fi out of the B and C movie doldrums but now its a whole new world. After movies like Blade Runner, Aliens, Terminator, etc., Phantom was just a boring afterthought. Heck, Farscape is more original has better effects and much better writing every single week. Now THERE is space opera the way it should be.

Now after "kiddie speed racer" in the first movie, what's next, "teenage love"? Oh spare me.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Star Wars. A lot. Still do. That's why it's so painful to watch Lucas making such an *** of himself. He should have stuck with special effects and left his legacy and reputation intact. JMHO.

-CS

Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

(Spoiler warning, I guess, for those who have been waiting to see Star Wars Episode I... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif )

Completely unbelievable/lame/stupid and ridiculously overdone things in Episode I:

1. The "underground and underwater chase" scene where even the actors are bored as a completely ridiculous computer animation scene plays behind them, with too-big and too-fast fish eating each other so quickly that no environment could possibly explain their existance. From a cinematic perspective, these monsters lacked all of the tension, mystery, and timing found in monsters in earlier SW movies. Compared to say, the trash compactor monster, these are just so badly presented. They'd make an OK short animation show off film, but that's all.

2. The pod race. Completely unbelievable and uninteresting on many levels. In the first place, it was simply shown too fast. Everything moved and changed direction so quickly and unbelievably that again, it just looked completely fake and unbelievable. The way vehicles in SW moved used to be one of the strong points - the movement wasn't strictly explainable in terms of physics in the other films, but at least it looked like there was some logic behind their movements. The racing pods just looked ridiculous, most of all the way they moved, and the speed at which they moved. The reflex requirements would be like 100 times that required for any of the other maneuvers in any of the other films. Also, the deaths during the race had so little tension or "gravity" to them... like the underground/underwater chase, it was just like a bad hallucination.

3. The ground battle. Much less believable and less interesting and with much less sense of tension than the ground battle in The Empire Strikes Back, or the boarding combat in the first movie (or, to be fairer, than the brief CGI opening war scenes in the recent The Fellowship of the Ring). It's OBVIOUSLY a bunch of CGI animation, with extremely overused animation for the Gungan infantry. It just looked like a futuristic RTS computer game engagement - both armies stand out in the complete open, not bothering to take cover at all, etc. Predictable/unbelievable "water versus metal" weapons - argh. No terror or war whatsoever.

4. The Space Battle. Again, the fighter battle in the first movie was the most believable, tense, and interesting. Here the movements are overdone and unbelievable, no one really seems like a person who is facing death, and of course, Anakin. Anakin, the little kid, what, accidentally gets into a fighter and intuitively figures out the controls and becomes a mega-legendary ace instantly? Uh huh. I guess as Darth Vader he just lost his knack at wiping out targets a dozen at a time, or specialized TIE fighters are just a massive step backwards from these goofy Naboonese provincial designs? Then, what, he flies inside the enemy ship ... and manages to "turn off" all the battle droids... mhmm, ya, sure, whatever...

PvK

Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

I'd have to watch the pod race again to give detailed reasons why it was so unbelievable. I'm sure kids on an arcade game can push buttons at insane speeds. I don't believe though that any contraption is going to have the maneuver characterstics shown, nor will it be as easy to control them as just pushing a button or jerking a control stick. Maybe there's some explanation to the way they moved that involves force fields rather than direct control, but my reaction to watching it was just that it was a lot less believable than someone redirecting lazer bLasts with a light saber (which is saying a lot).

As for SW not being hard-core sci-fi, well yes, but there is interesting and somewhat internally consistent space opera and fiction, and there is lame and inconsistent. Of course, people probably draw their lines in different directions. Personally, I think the first Star Wars was first-rate Space Opera, and the next two were very good too, while Episode I had some really questionable parts by comparison.

Also, I really prefer actual models and costumes to paintings and CGI computer graphics, for the most part.

PvK

Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

Not that anyone cares, but my whole family likes JarJar. We think he's funny.

As far as the quality of Episode I:
1) Duel between Maul and the Jedi was excellent, esp. with the music.
2) Pod race impossibly fast??? You haven't seen kids playing PodRacer have you? And those are human kids w/out the Force.
3) Totally agree that the climactic space battle was lame, and that Anakin's lines were REALLY lame.
4) Disagree somewhat about the ground battle being lame. Sidious's orders were "Kill them all." When I saw the Gungans on animals and saw (and heard!) the tanks come over the hill, I thought, "Oh man, they're dead." Then they activated their shield, and we find out that the Gungans aren't such pushovers after all. So far, not lame, IMHO. Yet once the droids finally break up their defenses we still see few, if any, Gungans get killed. Lame. I don't like needless blood and gore, but a battle just isn't heroic if nobody dies.
5) Maul was supposed to be obviously evil, in stark contrast to Palpatine. He had to cause immediate shudders. So he was made to look devilish, demonic, as pop culture pictures that. Evil incarnate.
6) I think you all need to keep in mind that Lucas is not, and never has been, intending the StarWars movies for serious sci-fi fans. They are comic book fare. Pulp fiction. Like the serial movies he remembers from his childhood. Think cowboy movies, Buck Rogers, Robin Hood, Flash Gordon. Eye and ear candy. Melodrama. Space opera. Mass audience. RTS gaming.

Re: Jar Jar Binks Must Die!
 

The plot does makes sense and could have been a great opening to the whole saga.
No movie could have met the expectations of all fans that have been waiting for so long, but that’s not a good defense.
But with a few minor changes, less dialogs, the end of the space and ground battle, and it would have been the movie we were waiting for.
The destruction of the TFDCS could have resembled more the destruction of a Death Star, size matters not (though it was big enough), but how it was made. The gungans could have won over the droids, that in turn could have got confused and not dead after the destruction of the command ship. Ewoks with little help of a few rebels could beat the better prepared imperial forces.

Too much special effects? I don’t think so, after all starwars has always had a lot of fx. Jar Jar was overdone and given too much time, I agree. I heard they were careful to make effects in the new movies fit with those in the original trilogy.

About the race: Remember that humans are not supposed to be able to drive pod racers. Anakin relied on his Force perception, most of the other drivers were aliens with faster reflexes and multiple hands.

Hadrian: I don’t think that Palpatine would have planned to use the Death Star against the Gungans, Naboo was his home-planet.
IIRC Rebel sympathizer planets such as Chandrila, Calamari and Sullust were in the list.

And what's serious sci-fi? Blade Runner, Aliens, Terminator and Farscape?
Give me a break!