SPECULATION Your thoughts on Attack Of The Clones

So true. In my case I'm currently going over TCW Season 1 and I can see what you mean.

In paper the prequels should work fine. However, the jump from cute slave/podracing boy to stalker teen to Jedi Knight on the verge of falling to the dark side is better understood with additional sources as TCW and comics like the series "Obi-Wan & Anakin". In there, you can see some glimpses of the selfless slave boy who was eager to help three perfect unknown people he had just met, and even some reflections of Luke and Leia on his character: the same characteristic Skywalker lack of patience, courage and kindness.

 

He already was a stalker when he was a "cute slave", remember? He poorly hits on Padme in TPM despite her being 5 years older and out of his league, and then proceeds to tell Obi-Wan in AOTC he happily dreamed about her for the past 10 years. Boy, his hormones were 'out-of-control' for a 9 year old !

 

It was probably all the heat, and especially the sand . Wise man once say, "Too much sand can drive a man crazy".

 

He probably saw too many of Watto's 'caregivers' . Them Twileks though, I guess the planet is constantly invaded for a reason .

 

What, you just started on The Clone Wars.. ...now? I'm gonna hope I misinterpreted .

 

Well, you might not be aware I was not a Star Wars fan a year ago... Is that a problem?

 

Nope, at least not one that some proper binge watching can't fix .

 

Yes, you should have watched a Star Wars installment earlier. I'm a second generation fan, been watching since I really young!

 

Good for you.

It happened when it had to. And it does not matter how long you've been a fan, it matters that you are a fan and that's it.

In my case it was, just like Episode VII, that the Force awakened in me. LOL.

 

Not according to OT elitists .

 

Whatever float your boat, my friend.

 

That's because you haven't been through the worst years of the fanbase .

 

So you pay a "Disagree" with a "Disagree"? Classy.

Let us stop this non-sense gibberish of contrary SW perspectives and keep on with the topic at hand.

 

Some nerve, ask for a truce but have to slip in a sarcastic statement beforehand. Classy.

"You're so Star Wars fanbase naive."

Now, that I have thrown in my rebuttal, I will accept your request .

 

Let's say I had my fair share of disgruntled Star Wars all-timers finding out a newbie like me knows quite a lot of Star Wars lore. Maybe more than them. You might be surprised how many people out there are just casual fans, but hey I'm here to have fun and for me, a fan is a fan. No matter your race, age, height, weight, time being a fan or whatnot. If you've seen it since you were a day old or you've just seen it a day ago and you felt immediately captivated by the magic of a galaxy far, far away. If you say you like Star Wars, I will high-five you and wish you the best!

 

Take a wise and funny .

 

The main central focus of that sequence is on the 2 Jedi chasing Dooku, though in the middle the 2 do some battle stuff as well.
Sometimes they cut to Yoda/Mace partaking in the battle.

Actual clone soldiers stay in the background at all times - following the orders of the "human" characters, or shown in some wide establishing shots of the war.

The viewer roots for them because they come off as likeable/professional, and are fighting the separatists which have been just shown as rather villainous - so this is rooting for one side over another; not that much rooting specifically for clones (though somewhat) against robots, but, again, the actual pure clone vs. robot stuff is kept in the background, not the foreground.

It's not a battle sequence, it's a chase sequence THROUGH a warzone.

Well, you seem to be agreeing with them on at least this particulary faulty point

Well, this reaction is kind of a bit too divorced from he reality of the movie to really matter as analysis/critique - like, it's real as a personal reaction, but that might be it...

Well, the Obiwan stuff is the core of AOTC, though - that's how it's structured.

Well, if he could back up such an attitude with vaid, damning argumentation, he would've earned the right

 

You still haven't pointed out how it is a faulty point. Is there a chase sequence sure, but it still doesn't change the fact that we, the viewers, don't care about the two armies in question. In the OT, we see real human characters fighting and dying, we know and feel that there are real stakes, that feeling is missing from the PT. Your argument about the chase sequence is irrelevant as it ignores the actual point being made about the PT as a whole(plus let's not forget that the chase and final confrontation are unsatisfying anyhow).

Also, you discount my entire reaction, but you don't point out a single valid reason why. Attachment to characters and proper character development is key to most all stories in all forms of media. If you don't understand how that is important to why people may or may not like a particular story, then as Yoda would say, "Much to learn, you still have".

It looks to me like you are simply trying to downplay valid criticisms, not based on logic, but rather based upon your own biased opinions of the movies.

 

1) How good then, that these armies aren't the focus of the action but just the background to main characters
2) The degree to which the viewer "doesn't care" about the clones, is under question:
2a) They're fighting for, and with the main characters, so the monkey brain makes you root for them so some degree.
2b) Their conduct is likeable enough to even dissipate any suspicions the viewer may've had about them based on their origins - which could've been the case in-universe as well, were that an actual plot point

Yes, and those humans and their war are the focus of those sequences.

This is more like the police convoy's arrived to wipe out the bad guys, the main hero starts chasing some key figure, and then you say "we as an audience don't care about the police" - well, you're not supposed to aside from the general "those good cops got our backs" feeling.

About the PT as a whole? For that to be the case, it has to be representative of the whole - and given the comparison to the Gungans from the previous one, it's rather presented as a contrast to, or step down in quality from the PT itself.


The chase argument is irrelevant and ignores the context? It puts the criticism IN context - there's a huge difference between making a 10 minute video game battle scene between two armies you don't care about, and having the army you don't care about (to a degree) as a backdrop to something the main heroes are doing... whether it be a chase or partaking in / leading / surviving the battle.

One would've been a huge dramatic failure in need of a storytelling101 lecture - the other's a minor weakness at WORST.

Then maybe RLM shouldn't have "forgot" about that either, and actually discussed it

Of course, in any case, the degree to which the chase+confrontation are underwhelming, is in no way comparable to "look 5 minutes of battle between 2 masked armies".

Problem is, that highlighted stuff is already in ROTS - if you still "just shrugged" it's got nothing to do with the movie not fulfilling these basic criteria that you cited.

Hence "divorced" - it's possible not to give a flyin ryan about the most dramatic movie ever made, or feel incredibly invested in a collection of scenes with tabula rasa characters, but such a reaction would be divorced from the content - certainly if analysed in that basic "this is what a movie does to make you care, establish X about hero, having Y happen to hero etc." sense.

Looks exactly the other way around

 

Eh, your focusing on that one scene again and not the context of the entire war. But let's do as you say then, focus on that particular sequence. Would it not have more impact if while the heroes are chasing the baddie, that we see actual people fighting and dying, this giving more meaning and urgency to their chase? Instead we get two armies full of expendable mass produced soldiers being thrown at one another, there's no weight to it(I'll give you that the Clones are somewhat likeable, but I still don't give a flying rats ass about them). The lack of said weight does indeed detract from the gravity of what the heroes are trying to accomplish by capturing Dooku. So what if the war is ended more quickly, it just being fought by two disposable armies anyhow.

Taken in the larger context of the Clone Wars themself, this creates the issue of the audience not being invested in the war that is taking place. Never do we see the supposed grievous consequences of this war on innocent people after it begins, we just see two disposable armies fighting each other, with some Wookiees thrown in during RotS. Even then, it's not like we see the Wookiees suffering at the hands of the CIS anyhow. The entire war as shown in the films feels weightless.

As for RLM, they do plenty to point out how terrible the following scenes are, I wonder if you actually watched the vid in full, at least from an honest perspectivie(or listened to his follow-up in the RotS review where he outlines changes that would have given weight to the Clone Wars). Watching their reviews, it's plain to see that the guys at Red Letter Media aren't willing to give any ground whatsoever on the PT, I think the only actual praise they gave the films was that they liked Palpatine. I personally feel that they are a bit too negative, but there is still plenty of valid criticism to be found in each of their reviews.

As for the stuff you highlighted, no, RotS was not successful in portraying that. Anakin isn't even remotely likeable in the film, he's tolerable, mainly because the film doesn't focus on the godawful lack of chemistry between him and Padme. We know that he cares enough about Obi-Wan to save him, but we still don't see an Anakin that we can really care about. He still seems whiny and petulant at times(especially in his interactions with the Jedi Council). He is not even close to being as likeable as the Anakin that we saw in The Clone Wars. If you think the movie fulfills the basic criteria, it's only because you are being incredibly forgiving of weak characterization and poor acting.

And there it is . Nope, you're not biased at all .