Star Wars The Clone Wars Season Five News and Discussion

[JD]

Drago-Kazov wrote:

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Did the guy who put the upgrades in scream Droidsexual!!!!!!!!!!! for anyone else?

Yeah, he was pretty creepy.
One other thing I forgot to mention before, was that I found it a little disturbing that (IMO at least) nobody seemed to bothered by the fact that they seemed to be pretty much lobotomizing the green droid so the Colonel would have somewhere to hide.

[Retu]

Am I the only one who thought that the colonel looked a lot like Fester Blatz from Space Quest?

http://spacequest.wikia.com/wiki/Fester_Blatz

[Dantheman]

Christopher wrote:

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I really think you're underestimating how much of a sense of humor the original film had about itself. I was watching some of it just the other week, and was struck by how much of it was an affectionate comic deconstruction of its own genre. Luke actually said he couldn't see a thing through his Stormtrooper helmet -- that's as meta as anything on Robot Chicken today. And the way Luke and Han bumbled through the rescue and then the princess proved to be thoroughly unimpressed was a great way of deflating and lightly mocking the conventions of the adventure genre.

And I should remind you that C3PO and R2D2 had more screen time than practically any other character in the first reel or two of the first movie. The comic relief was always center stage.

Honestly, I'll never understand Star Wars fans who act as though it was meant to be some great serious epic and that treating it with humor is a betrayal or something. It was meant to be a playful pastiche of Saturday matinee adventure serials. The original three films worked because they didn't take themselves too seriously, because they remembered to be fun.

I also think this had to do with George Lucas having read Mad Magazine growing up, because he hasn't been shy about its influence on his work (He wrote an introduction for a book that collects Mad's Star Wars material, and always spoke highly of their parodies of his movies).

[DarthPipes]

Christopher wrote:

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^See, that's a valid distinction to draw. Both trilogies had humor, but the OT handled it better. The mistake is in talking about Star Wars as if it's some grand serious thing that's corrupted by any humor whatsoever.

Agreed. I've found some in the sci-fi fandom to have no sense of humor whatsoever. It's not just the fandom though, sometimes it's the films. Terminator Salvation for instance had to be the most humorless big budget franchise film I've ever seen. I understand, it takes place in a grim future. But still, it's a movie about killer robots who like to time travel. A franchise whose most successful film (T2) had humor in it. Playing it deathly serious was a mistake.

[Christopher]

I'd say that was the least of Terminator Salvation's mistakes...

[DarthPipes]

True. But the lack of humor set a definite tone for the film and not a positive one at that.

[Mr Light]

I didn't mind the serious tone of Terminator Salvation... the humorous aspects of the other T movies took place in the present, not with characters living in a post-apocalyptic future...

[TREK_GOD_1]

Christopher;7335130

I really think you're underestimating how much of a sense of humor the original film had about itself. I was watching some of it just the other week, and was struck by how much of it was an affectionate comic deconstruction of its own genre. Luke actually said he couldn't see a thing through his Stormtrooper helmet -- that's as meta as anything on [I wrote:

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Robot Chicken[/I] today. And the way Luke and Han bumbled through the rescue and then the princess proved to be thoroughly unimpressed was a great way of deflating and lightly mocking the conventions of the adventure genre.

And I should remind you that C3PO and R2D2 had more screen time than practically any other character in the first reel or two of the first movie. The comic relief was always center stage.

Honestly, I'll never understand Star Wars fans who act as though it was meant to be some great serious epic and that treating it with humor is a betrayal or something. It was meant to be a playful pastiche of Saturday matinee adventure serials. The original three films worked because they didn't take themselves too seriously, because they remembered to be fun.

C3PO and R2 's screen time cannot compare to the neverending antics of Jar-Jar, wisecracking battledroids, and the endless aliens (that diner slob pulling his pants up in Attack of the Clones for one example) and robots played for laughs from the Prequels-forward. The interplay between the droids in the opening of A New Hope was secondary to the spectable of the overrun Blockade Runner and the appearance of Darth Vader.

On the flip side, by the time the prequels rolled around, Jar-Jar was a constant distraction, and worst of all, he was inserted into the field fight on Naboo as a 100% sight gag. Compare that to 3PO in Return of the Jedi, where he stays out of the way throughout most of the fight on Endor. R2--as always--was a functioning protagonist with only minor dips into the humor pool.

Audiences actually rooted for R2.

Jar-Jar was despised from moment one.

Thinking of Jar-Jar, there's a reason the character was near-universally criticized, which explains why Lucas toned him down in episodes 2 & 3: he was over the top, and no one was laughing.

[Christopher]

^Again, the distinction there is in the quality of the comic relief, not the quantity. Your initial statements implied that any humor was an unwanted imposition upon something that was meant to be serious, and that's bull. The original film had plenty of comedy and was never meant to be more than a lighthearted adventure romp.

[thumbtack]

I know it's just coincidence, but it was an extremely Disneyesque episode.

[TREK_GOD_1]

Christopher wrote:

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^Again, the distinction there is in the quality of the comic relief, not the quantity. Your initial statements implied that any humor was an unwanted imposition upon something that was meant to be serious, and that's bull. The original film had plenty of comedy and was never meant to be more than a lighthearted adventure romp.

Christopher, at no time did I say or imply the original films were 100% grim, but the original films' comedic elements were incidental at best, and did not shape or lead major sequences. When the latter happens, it makes a scene pure comedy.

For example, the droids crossing a field of laser fire in A New Hope, or R2 bumping into a wall after getting overloaded on Cloud City in Empire (during the escape) are blink-and-you-missed-it moments, which is night and day to Jar-jar buffoonery throughout the Naboo fight (one of the key plots of the film), or jokey/wisecracking battledroids in the prequels and Clone Wars series, among other things, which are now more commonplace than incidental.

Star Wars is hardly some consistent series.

[Stephen!]

Looks like we haven't seen the last of the droids.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ytCo29psGU

[Drago-Kazov]

No Gregor.

Dammitttttt!!!!!!

[Mr. Adventure]

Interesting visuals with the void, you could definitely see every bit of the CG textures for better and worse. When the droids first emerged from the downed ship it looked damned near real though!

[Drago-Kazov]

The episode is out?