2 hours ago, benbaxter said:

Can we all just agree that the Clone Wars TV show had some of the best story telling in all the canon material?

Not only did it give the characters and planets actual arcs, it gave us a sense of how and why Anakin became what he was. Not to mention the fact that it really fleshed out the galaxy as a whole and showed us that the conflict was more complex than: Jedi/Republic good - CIS bad.

I've been reading this series of blogs 'Star Wars an explication' on a site called filmfisher. It gives good insight why the movie Anakin is portrayed the way he is and, implicitly, what makes him so unlikeable. Although I've seen only a couple of CW episodes, I think the cartoons paint a different picture, and not necessarily a better one.

4 hours ago, Verlaine said:

I've been reading this series of blogs 'Star Wars an explication' on a site called filmfisher. It gives good insight why the movie Anakin is portrayed the way he is and, implicitly, what makes him so unlikeable. Although I've seen only a couple of CW episodes, I think the cartoons paint a different picture, and not necessarily a better one.

There is a clear progression of Anakin in TCW from "guy who kind of doesn't like what the Order's doing" to "Someone on the edge of the Dark Side."

A key moment is when a man is holding a detonator, threatening both Obi-Wan and a pacifist Mandolorian (that he's in love with but won't leave the Jedi Order for) with the destruction of their ship, taunting them with the fact that yes, they might kill him, but it would break her pacifist vows if she killed him, and if Obi-Wan killed him then only one person on the ship would think less of Kenobi... her.

"So who will do it? Who will be branded a cold-blooded murderer?"

Anakin's lightsaber emerges from his chest and he catches the detonator smoothly. He looks back and forth and asks, "What? He was going to blow up the whole ship."

Yes, the obvious, pragmatic answer - and the quick and easy one too.

That progression alone makes it interesting to watch, quite aside from having Obi-Wan be the proper snarkmaster he's always wanted to be, catching glimpses of Palpatine playing both sides to make sure he won no matter what, the clones trying to distinguish themselves from the droids they're fighting despite coming from a factory as well, and the original characters like Ahsoka and Assajj (yes, who appeared earlier, but she was never really a character just an obstacle).

About half of the episodes in TCW are good. The other ones have Lucas' wangprints all over them. But those good episodes are good, man, like really great. One of them even made me like Jar Jar Binks, for crying out loud! Unfortunately a lot of the real drek is in the first two seasons, and the chronology is all over the place for no good reason. It's as though it were designed to be hard to watch - I certainly would have never made it through every single one without it being background noise while I painted 240ish Zombicide zombies.

14 hours ago, Verlaine said:

Choosing not to understand. We've been seeing a lot of that lately.

No kidding.

On 14/04/2017 at 9:06 PM, BlodVargarna said:

I can't really think of a single moment in all 3 prequels I didn't think sucked.

The bit where Anakin says "now this is pod racing!". Blew me away.
Also.
The bit where Anakin says "I don't like sand." Fantastically scripted dialogue that gives you a deep and meaningful insight into the mind of Darth Vader.

18 minutes ago, Smutpedler said:

The bit where Anakin says "now this is pod racing!". Blew me away.
Also.
The bit where Anakin says "I don't like sand." Fantastically scripted dialogue that gives you a deep and meaningful insight into the mind of Darth Vader.

I had an amazing moment in a guns of icarus lobby where I kicked off half an hour of prequel-quoting by saying the sand line upon having voted for the Dunes map...good times.

On 4/19/2017 at 0:40 PM, Helias de Nappo said:

The Jedi had good reason for their celibacy rule. Being unattached allows a Jedi to be sent anywhere in the galaxy on a moment's notice and allows him to take risks in order to achieve his objectives without worrying about widowing a spouse or orphaning children. Also, there's the Achilles' heel of every superhero - he's vulnerable to blackmail or extortion through his loved ones. Jedi don't have secret identities.

It was not a moral of these movies that caring about others will bring you to ruin.

And being a celibate, unattached robot person means you have nothing to fight for. You're just a robot that does someone's bidding, some pawn that can be thrown into battle because you don't have anything else to live for.

It was the moral of the prequels that caring about others will bring you to ruin. Anakin cares for Padme and is punished for it, and Luke cares for his friends and is rewarded for it. Han's a dirty scumbag, but has a change of heart and comes through in the end.

The prequels are the very antithesis of Star Wars, that brave people with good hearts can accomplish great things.

1 hour ago, Turbo Toker said:

And being a celibate, unattached robot person means you have nothing to fight for. You're just a robot that does someone's bidding, some pawn that can be thrown into battle because you don't have anything else to live for.

It was the moral of the prequels that caring about others will bring you to ruin. Anakin cares for Padme and is punished for it, and Luke cares for his friends and is rewarded for it. Han's a dirty scumbag, but has a change of heart and comes through in the end.

The prequels are the very antithesis of Star Wars, that brave people with good hearts can accomplish great things.

And a better writer/director might have explored this more, maybe showing that it was that Anakin had to HIDE his feelings to remain in the Order which caused his fall - and the destruction of the Jedi. THAT would have built into how embracing your emotions - accepting them but not letting them rule you - is a source of strength and lets you accomplish great things.

Alas... no.

On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 8:19 PM, iamfanboy said:

About half of the episodes in TCW are good. The other ones have Lucas' wangprints all over them. But those good episodes are good, man, like really great. One of them even made me like Jar Jar Binks, for crying out loud! Unfortunately a lot of the real drek is in the first two seasons, and the chronology is all over the place for no good reason. It's as though it were designed to be hard to watch - I certainly would have never made it through every single one without it being background noise while I painted 240ish Zombicide zombies.

I am just finally working my way through TCW. Far inferior to Rebels; for people who think Rebels is a kid's cartoon, I wonder if they are biased by TCW. I know he was the creator, but thank goodness Lucas sold the franchise.

As an interesting aside, I just watched Philip Glass's opera The Perfect American today. One theme was Walt Disney losing his identity to the company, and his fear of never being remember as an individual. Wow, now that SW is Disney, will anyone even remember Lucas's name in 100 years?

Anyhoo, as we watch TCW, my wife's constant assessment of Anakin's character flaw is not attachment. . .but rather, he can't stand to lose. Any he will disobey any order to not lose (from his POV), whether it be a battle, an ally, or his droid. He's sort of the antithesis to Captain Kirk: Kirk refuses to lose and so does great things; Anakin refuses to lose and so corrupts what could have been a noble deed.

Hmmm. . .maybe netlisting should be called "Skywalker Syndrome."

More of the same?

10 minutes ago, tsondaboy said:

More of the same?

That is actually pretty neat!

10 hours ago, Turbo Toker said:

And being a celibate, unattached robot person means you have nothing to fight for. You're just a robot that does someone's bidding, some pawn that can be thrown into battle because you don't have anything else to live for.

It was the moral of the prequels that caring about others will bring you to ruin. Anakin cares for Padme and is punished for it, and Luke cares for his friends and is rewarded for it. Han's a dirty scumbag, but has a change of heart and comes through in the end.

The prequels are the very antithesis of Star Wars, that brave people with good hearts can accomplish great things.

Heh, well, since I'm really just your alternate, 'sock puppet' account, I should probably just agree with you, but I don't think that being romantically unattached makes one a robot nor do I think that it means that one has nothing to fight for or live for. I see the Jedi as similar to the medieval orders of chivalry, whose members took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience just as monks do. Far from having nothing to fight for, they accomplished many mighty feats of arms.

10 hours ago, Turbo Toker said:

And being a celibate, unattached robot person means you have nothing to fight for. You're just a robot that does someone's bidding, some pawn that can be thrown into battle because you don't have anything else to live for.

It was the moral of the prequels that caring about others will bring you to ruin. Anakin cares for Padme and is punished for it, and Luke cares for his friends and is rewarded for it. Han's a dirty scumbag, but has a change of heart and comes through in the end.

The prequels are the very antithesis of Star Wars, that brave people with good hearts can accomplish great things.

That is not at all the moral of the prequels. Anakin isn't punished for caring for Padme. We were over this already in this thread.

6 hours ago, tsondaboy said:

More of the same?

That was GREAT.

It was so intentionally chosen to hit the same beats and have similar shots that it is an actually inspirational piece of filmmaking. Because... you know what this means?

Star Wars is in the hands of competent filmmakers who understand the language of cinema.

I can't wait for TLJ.

8 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

That was GREAT.

It was so intentionally chosen to hit the same beats and have similar shots that it is an actually inspirational piece of filmmaking. Because... you know what this means?

Star Wars is in the hands of competent filmmakers who understand the language of cinema.

I can't wait for TLJ.

I wish I could share your optimism, but till I see the movie I will hold a small basket.

Rogue one proved that awesome Star Wars movies can still be produced. I am not convinced thought that the new Episodes stand up to the standards of the original 3 or Rogue One. Heck, even Episodes I-III would be better than VII if it wasn't for Jar Jar.

I do need to rewatch III again just to give it another go. It always suffers from being tied to the abysmal AotC and leaves you hating a lot of the characters regardless of what they're doing in that movie. What I find it really lacking is subtle and believable character development on the part of Anakin, and that's mostly the fault of the script.

What the prequels truly lack for me is moments like in the animated Clone Wars short where Anakin loses his hand and chokes the yeti beast in self defense with the phantom appendage. I'm not saying we need yeti monsters, but moments like that in AotC would have gone a long way and mostly come down to the irreversible pacing nightmare created by introducing Anakin as a child.

In terms of animated character development Clones Wars (CG) is kind of an odd show. There are parts of it that click almost immediately (mostly things revolving around the Clone Troopers) and huge parts of it that are insufferable until the show finds the right voice for it (most of the primary cast). Ultimately, the show becomes the best part of the prequel era by a landslide and it would be incredible to see that team redo RotS, but its a series that, if you want to convince someone to appreciate, is best shorted to a playlist of greatest hits.

8 minutes ago, tsondaboy said:

I wish I could share your optimism, but till I see the movie I will hold a small basket.

Rogue one proved that awesome Star Wars movies can still be produced. I am not convinced thought that the new Episodes stand up to the standards of the original 3 or Rogue One. Heck, even Episodes I-III would be better than VII if it wasn't for Jar Jar.

Episodes 1-3 are still bad even without Jar Jar. The Fall of the Jedi fan edit makes them bearable, but it also makes you realize just how much cruft and awfulness there is in each movie. Watching his version of Episode 2 actually enraged me physically at Lucas, because there's a great scene which got cut:

Anakin and Padme having dinner with Padme's family.

It shows just how bad a director and writer George Lucas is that he included scenes about hating sand, but not the scene that shows his characters having a legitimate, human moment that all of us have done and would actually ALLOW US TO CONNECT WITH THE CHARACTERS THAT YOU WANT US TO LIKE AAAAAUUUGGGHHH YOU SUCK SO MUCH!!!!!

Sorry, had to shout there for a second.

You also have to look at other stuff as an editor would. Why, for example, have a scene where Anakin and Padme fight through a droid factory? It's pointless to the actual story. We already know that the droids are being manufactured there. The scene in the arena later on shows us that the droid army's sheer numbers would defeat the Jedi. We also know that lightsabers can cut through stuff. It tells us nothing that we don't already know, and NEEDED to be cut - especially because there's ANOTHER great cut scene that shows Padme's naivety where instead of trying to sneak into the droid factory, she walks straight in and tries to convince Dooku to give up his ambitions and talk peacefully.

But because Lucas had Immunity to Editors, the awful scenes he liked stayed in, and the good scenes that would have made sense for the characters and story were cut.