So what did you think of Episode 3?

[Morbid Angel]

Here is my 2 opinions on it:

From visual effects point of view it was great. Very nice fluid smoke (custom made fluid dynamics) but cg is pritty good in every movie nowdays.
But like Peter Jackson once said its really easy for cg to overwhelm the movie and viewer gets lost in whats going on. That how I felt thru the whole thing. There was no solid visual lock onto what was going on; which battle ship was good which one was bad. Everything kind of blured all together. I found some of the cg replacement models were ok, but not great.
What pissed me off completely is Lucas starts unwrapping the events starts some crazy action then suddenly cuts/wipe to a totally different setting...this happened like 10 times...

From the story point, well the dialogue was horrible, the movie doesnt carry a sense of seriosness or should I say war theme...every one is happy, many cheerful colors, massive battle on the orbit, space ships are dropping out of the sky, and there is happy people walking all around... etc...The jedi fight scenes some times were so fast that 60% of the screen was filled with white lightsaber blur...which looked like a flash show.
And oh, you could tell which scenes Spielberg helped on.

Then I found some interesting simularities:
In the beginning some of the battle ships and effects in space looked like from video game homeworld 2. One can argue that starwars were out long before any homeworld but the missle trailings and etc were just too similar. The music in the begining resembeled lord of the rings uruks approach. The super assault bot looked veeeery much like cylons from new bsg...and a space ship which the senator uses to save yoda looked a lot like astral queen from bsg...
And in the end, another striking similarity two good characters, one of them became evil, he was chosen one but now they fight for good vs evil and are about to fall into lava...all looked like lord of the rings to me..

So to sum it up, I felt like the whole movie was like a video game with levels, once one level was finished they moved onto another...

Dont want to be totally bad, so I'll say that the movie is ok, but by far not great...and please dont make anymore
Cheers.

[Dynedain]

Natalie Portman looked like she took her acting cues from Will Shatner.

The fighting over lava thing - its been in the starwars mythos for a long time, the LOTR books date back to the 50's though there wasn't much of a fight over the lava in the LOTR books.

The idea of someone good turning to evil in a dramatic setting is a common archetype of myth - something Lucas is actually good at.

There was a lot of good visuals, that weren't as distracting as in Ep 1&2. But the Yoda vs. Sidias scene in the senate hall was poorly done. They had a physical speaker's podium that already looked good...the CG version looked very flat. Some character moves were pretty crappy (think of count dooku doing his flip on the bridge before the battle) and there was a point or two where a clone took of his helmet and turned or spoke and the char work looked straight out of a video game.

Overall, I think its better than 1&2 and worth the ticket price, but not as good as 4,5,6, and certainly doesn't make up for the dog turds that 1&2 were.

[Morbid Angel]

agreed

[plastic_]

i liked the movie. it's probably the only star wars movie that doesn't suck IMO.
of course it's cheesy but everyone should expect that by now.
at least there is no overpresence of really annoying characters, like jar jar, the golden robot, some child in a racing car etc.

[Da_elf]

the big picture however it how it links 1&2 to 4,5&6 and i found it did a good job of it.

[jacksc02]

Finally saw it last night,
I thought it completed the series of movies well. The cg was good, but at times a little overdone.

Morbid, which scenes were done by spielberg?

[percydaman]

saw it last night as well. Overall much better then the last two. For me I hated how anakin gave himself to the emperor. One second he was saying"what have I done!" then the next moment, he was pledging his allegiance to the guy. Seemed very disjointed, but on a whole I found the movie a little disjointed.

Loved the cg, though ya there were definitely some parts that looked off. Like the last one, some of the sets, looked very cgish, and they might have even been real.

[Morbid Angel]

one where they crashland the chunk of speace ship in the beginning and the camera trucks right into the bridge...plus there were a few more, what I know spielberg helped out on few of them... just didnt look like lucase's stryle of directing.

[jujubee]

I though the movie was fun. Not as good as LOTR but fun nonetheless. Well worth the ticket. Funny thing is Morbid - I saw the Lava and thought of you.

it's probably the only star wars movie that doesn't suck IMO

I don't mean any insult - but I have to wonder how many people appreciate the original Star Wars for what it was - I'm 31 and I can remember seeing it in the theaters when I was 4. It was fun for a little kid and fun for the time. Anyone born after that might be spoiled with the evolution of special effects since then and might not appreciate Lucas' ground breaking vision for that time.

[Morbid Angel]

haha juju...that lava movie is coming... so you'll see more lava stuff from us.

[gafl]

C'était GRANDIOSE !
Du Grand Art !

I didn't go to see the film to criticize it after, I just went there to have fun.
And I had.

Gaël

[flipside]

Re: So what did you think of Episode 3?

So to sum it up, I felt like the whole movie was like a video game with levels, once one level was finished they moved onto another...

Well, that's what I thought of LOTR... Didn't understand what all the fuzz was about.

I will watch star wars when the big crowd is finally gone.

[tom schuelke]

Weeeellll

I allways loved those films from gorge lucas. I still loved them after seeing thos painful dialogs between anakin and padme in episode II.

I always knew this is only a myth storry for old children.

Only thing, in between i thought, why cant thos idiot guy anakin, do the right stuff, stop beeing a teenager and start getting serious, and after a hapy end with gorge lucas telling us .... sorry, but forget the first three old movies. lol

no just kidding think it was better than I and II , and because i loved all those cg stuff as good as 4,5 and 6.

Tom

[jujubee]

I and II just sucked. You can't mix children's toys with politics. It's like watching an Indiana Jones movie without the action. They tried to push the polygons instead - and the dogfights weren't personal. Droids getting killed by the thousands is just not exciting - doesn't elicit any human emotion - which George intentionally made to spare children from violence. There weren't any 'surprise me' moments in the storylines - like discovering the force, finding out Leah was the sister and getting you all creeped out, Han Solo getting frozen, seeing Leah as Jaba's sex slave, finding out Yoda can kick some butt, Luke learning some new destructive powers, and Darth Vader was Luke's father.

George Lucas stated in an interview after episode I, "I never read or look at reviews - it's the box office which says the most." So my question is - what exactly happened to Jar Jar Binks then George?...

I'm glad he redeemed himself to a degree. Just remember, a lack of a shoestring budget can apparently make one less creative and more content...

[thethule]

I HATED it, really really hated it. I tried to like it. I really did.

-I hated the way that Anakin just goes over to the dark side, no proper explanation given.
-I hated how the opening space battle (technically brilliant as it was) was just one big mess. After all the hype "greatest space battle ever", yeah right. Wanna see the greatest space battle ever? Return of the Jedi.Wonderful camera moves, great action.
-I hated how even the big butch droids are all turned into comedy relief "uh oh" etc...
I hated the dialogue
-I hated the fact that anakin and padme have as much on screen chemsitry as chalk and cheese
-I hated the fact that Lucas thought "hey we had Dooku use 2 lightsabers in AOTC, lets have a bad guy that can use FOUR this time......but we will make him lose 2 of them within seconds".
-I hated that he never explained properly why Yoda went to Dagobah. Because he failed? Failed what? Surely he is needed?
-And mostly i hated the fact that Mr Lucas has so little respect for his own creation, the baddest bad guy in the whole universe, a creation that has stayed at the top of popularity for almost 30 years and what does he do with his big reveal? Turns it into a bad Frankenstein shot, with a comedy soundtrack "NOOOOOOOOOO!".

And i think that one shot shows it all. It shows the contempt with which Lucas treats his fans, and his creations. It shows that he has become one of the worst directors in existence. It shows that everyoen at ILM is too scared to say "hmmm, george, i dont think thats right".

But im glad, im glad they are all over, so i can stop defending that talentless berk when people say hes cr*p, hoping that he will redeem himself in the 3rd instalment. Now i can say "yes, you are right, he is". I will accept these films for what they are, great examples of CG/. But thats it... cinematography, editing, pacing, directing, acting, script all out the window.

For the record, i am a big big BIG fan of Star Wars (hey i queued up for hours to get tickets for the star wars marathon on the 16th), and the new films have their moments, The pod race in TPM, the sonic mine sound in AOTC, and in this film, i just loved Yoda, if it wasnt for him, i would have overdosed on popcorn, just to end the pain. He was friggin' superb. Beautifully animated. And i also though Obi Wans acting was pretty good at the end ..."I failed you Anakin" . I did find that quite poignant.


Hehe


Marc