Well, we planned for it. And now it is here. My review ensues.
[spoiler]
My review is scathing to say the least. The movie had its ups and downs; unfortunately there were more of the latter than the former. Much has been made about the need for strong dialogue and acting in the movie to make it a good film. Star Wars is however, an action movie. More than that, it is supposed to be epic, grand in every scale. It is a movie that has riveting action - not always necessarily effects - supported by dialogue. This movie was lacking in both areas.
To pick apart action, I speak as a connoisseur of battle scenes and combat of all kinds. Explosions were lacking significantly in realism and during the approach of the Droid army up the promenade, you can see as no less than three of the explosions are copied, cut, and pasted one after the other. The Techno Union Rollertanks were horribly disproportionate from what we came to expect in the last two of the Prequals.
There was action for the sake of action, but it wasnt good action. Attacjking up a cliff was a great idea, and I enjoyed the premise. But droids failing to obey orders and cracking jokes removed the seriousness of the situation. When watching a great movie, you are able to put yourself on the screen from shot to shot, feeling the sneering heat of an explosion or dreading each beat of an advancing army. Here, you merely chuckled at this line or that.
Dialogue. Nyeh. Again, we have too many jokes and slap-stick humor and not enough interaction, seriousness, or purpose. Continual references to the Huttling as 'stinky' were fun once or twice, but throughout the movie? Made it seem more farcical than epic.
Probably the biggest disappointment for me was the beginning. I grew up with three Star Wars movies and then three prequals bolstered my faith in the saga. Every time you were shocked in your chairs by the massive Fox fanfare, to be followed by blaring trumpets as the theme music fills the theater. Here, the was no fanfare, and narration replaced three paragraphs we have come to expect.
Now, music. Sir John Williams is part of Star Wars. Why he didn't do this is beyond me. Whomever re-worked the music to this, especially the theme, raped it and then crossed the border ahead of the vengeful. The way notes were drug out and then jazzified made me think was a spook like Meet the Spartans or Hot Shots part Duh. From the beginning, my hope for epic-ness, ebbed.
Voices. Christopher Lee was the only salvation which made it a watchable movie. However, one can imagine, from seeing the way he played Dooku in live action and the way he spoke in this feature, you can see the Director making him add inflections here and there which, again, took some of the edge off. Dooku was a sinister creature, and here he is more of a comic villain than this aristocratic Republic-hating Dark Jedi we've come to expect.
Animation. We saw in TPM and ROTS just how excellent effects can be. They are damned close to cinematic and also allow the humongous battles we've come to love be fought in any environment. More importantly, they look close to real. you could tell they were effects, but ignored it. This looked more like a Very long intro to a new Lucasfilm game. Pixelation is unavoidable but you can see where they saved money by matching shades, making features plain, and using the same shots over and over again. The stylized way the characters were portrayed were also more game-ish than movie-worthy. Again, Dooku suffered the most, his pointy beard a throw-back to the cackling villians of silent-picture fame who tied damsels to railroad tracks. I expected him at the end to twist a mustache-hair and say 'curses, foiled again!'
The ending. What ending? Here we can see the Director watched Episode IV and decided to create a new spin on it. To play my violin again, we lack the epic-ness expected.
Now, the good points.
The cliff battle was very good, minus the points noted above.
Republic troopers were beginning to individualize, which was a nice touch. Also, most importantly, we see that the Imperial Navy is manend by non-cloned personnel and commanded by actual naval officers. Bravo. We also see the difference between the Venator and the Acclamator-class Cruisers, even though we do not get to see them fight an engagement together.
Whomever did Ewan McGreggor did an excellent job of impersonating his mannerisms. Very well done.
We see artillery, legged versions of the German 88m get their barrels depressed and used as anti-tank weapons. My favorite part.
Altogether, it was quite a let-down as far as Star Wars movies. Something I now regret spending money on seeing, considering the skyrocketing cost of popped corn and carbonated beverages. This will NOT receive a venerated spot in my collection, but it is not bad enough for me to flip the channel if I ever happen to be surfing the tele. But, if TPM is on, I'm afraid even for that, I'll have to click over.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
My review is scathing to say the least. The movie had its ups and downs; unfortunately there were more of the latter than the former. Much has been made about the need for strong dialogue and acting in the movie to make it a good film. Star Wars is however, an action movie. More than that, it is supposed to be epic, grand in every scale. It is a movie that has riveting action - not always necessarily effects - supported by dialogue. This movie was lacking in both areas.
To pick apart action, I speak as a connoisseur of battle scenes and combat of all kinds. Explosions were lacking significantly in realism and during the approach of the Droid army up the promenade, you can see as no less than three of the explosions are copied, cut, and pasted one after the other. The Techno Union Rollertanks were horribly disproportionate from what we came to expect in the last two of the Prequals.
There was action for the sake of action, but it wasnt good action. Attacjking up a cliff was a great idea, and I enjoyed the premise. But droids failing to obey orders and cracking jokes removed the seriousness of the situation. When watching a great movie, you are able to put yourself on the screen from shot to shot, feeling the sneering heat of an explosion or dreading each beat of an advancing army. Here, you merely chuckled at this line or that.
Dialogue. Nyeh. Again, we have too many jokes and slap-stick humor and not enough interaction, seriousness, or purpose. Continual references to the Huttling as 'stinky' were fun once or twice, but throughout the movie? Made it seem more farcical than epic.
Probably the biggest disappointment for me was the beginning. I grew up with three Star Wars movies and then three prequals bolstered my faith in the saga. Every time you were shocked in your chairs by the massive Fox fanfare, to be followed by blaring trumpets as the theme music fills the theater. Here, the was no fanfare, and narration replaced three paragraphs we have come to expect.
Now, music. Sir John Williams is part of Star Wars. Why he didn't do this is beyond me. Whomever re-worked the music to this, especially the theme, raped it and then crossed the border ahead of the vengeful. The way notes were drug out and then jazzified made me think was a spook like Meet the Spartans or Hot Shots part Duh. From the beginning, my hope for epic-ness, ebbed.
Voices. Christopher Lee was the only salvation which made it a watchable movie. However, one can imagine, from seeing the way he played Dooku in live action and the way he spoke in this feature, you can see the Director making him add inflections here and there which, again, took some of the edge off. Dooku was a sinister creature, and here he is more of a comic villain than this aristocratic Republic-hating Dark Jedi we've come to expect.
Animation. We saw in TPM and ROTS just how excellent effects can be. They are damned close to cinematic and also allow the humongous battles we've come to love be fought in any environment. More importantly, they look close to real. you could tell they were effects, but ignored it. This looked more like a Very long intro to a new Lucasfilm game. Pixelation is unavoidable but you can see where they saved money by matching shades, making features plain, and using the same shots over and over again. The stylized way the characters were portrayed were also more game-ish than movie-worthy. Again, Dooku suffered the most, his pointy beard a throw-back to the cackling villians of silent-picture fame who tied damsels to railroad tracks. I expected him at the end to twist a mustache-hair and say 'curses, foiled again!'
The ending. What ending? Here we can see the Director watched Episode IV and decided to create a new spin on it. To play my violin again, we lack the epic-ness expected.
Now, the good points.
The cliff battle was very good, minus the points noted above.
Republic troopers were beginning to individualize, which was a nice touch. Also, most importantly, we see that the Imperial Navy is manend by non-cloned personnel and commanded by actual naval officers. Bravo. We also see the difference between the Venator and the Acclamator-class Cruisers, even though we do not get to see them fight an engagement together.
Whomever did Ewan McGreggor did an excellent job of impersonating his mannerisms. Very well done.
We see artillery, legged versions of the German 88m get their barrels depressed and used as anti-tank weapons. My favorite part.
Altogether, it was quite a let-down as far as Star Wars movies. Something I now regret spending money on seeing, considering the skyrocketing cost of popped corn and carbonated beverages. This will NOT receive a venerated spot in my collection, but it is not bad enough for me to flip the channel if I ever happen to be surfing the tele. But, if TPM is on, I'm afraid even for that, I'll have to click over.[/spoiler]
