An outsider's thoughts on the Clone Wars series...
- Thread starter Gaith
- Start date
Checkmate
Commodore
Again, it wasn't a "backstab the Jedi" sinister order. It was conceived of for that purpose, but the actual order isn't written as such. It's little different than a clause detailing the punishment for treason, of which the clones are taught to assume if they receive that particular order.
In effect the order told them that the Jedi had turned against the government and were attempting to overthrow it. It was the clone's duty, as a result, to thwart that plot. And since everyone knows how powerful and deadly Jedi can be, resorting to cheap attacks in the process makes a lot of sense. They are, for all intents and purposes, the equivalence of a weapon of mass destruction. And one that can mess with your mind, too
To sum it up: The clones thought they were protecting their government, not murdering innocents.
I don't care much for Lucas' writing as a whole, but this particular issue is one of the few things I don't have much of a problem with in and of itself. The only problem I have is how it was protrayed. On-screen it did, in fact, look like the clones just blindly went on a killing spree.
In effect the order told them that the Jedi had turned against the government and were attempting to overthrow it. It was the clone's duty, as a result, to thwart that plot. And since everyone knows how powerful and deadly Jedi can be, resorting to cheap attacks in the process makes a lot of sense. They are, for all intents and purposes, the equivalence of a weapon of mass destruction. And one that can mess with your mind, too
To sum it up: The clones thought they were protecting their government, not murdering innocents.
I don't care much for Lucas' writing as a whole, but this particular issue is one of the few things I don't have much of a problem with in and of itself. The only problem I have is how it was protrayed. On-screen it did, in fact, look like the clones just blindly went on a killing spree.
What's "LA prequels"?
I'm assuming Lucas Arts Prequels ie the movies? ... I had no problem with Order 66. One of the adjacent orders was to remove the Chancellor for treason in the same manor. It's just one of the many orders on the books. Clones were genetically bred to follow orders self-lessly, so only a few managed to overcome their programmed nature and spare their Jedi Generals.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
I think it's a case of Lucas wanting to have his cake and eat it too. When it serves his turn, the clones are little better than battledroids, following their programming. But he just can't resist the temptation to try to "humanize" them (or let other writers do so).
By doing so, he (and a lot of people, apparently) feel that it "deepens the tragedy" of Order 66. And on a visceral level, I suppose that it does.
That said, on an intellectual level it's an irresolvable paradox: intelligent, free-willed clones that never hesitate to carry out an order that no real army's soldiers would ever accept. And then to continue to follow orders antithetical to the allegiance and oaths they supposedly are sworn/programmed to uphold.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
Even though that order (and the assumptions behind it) fly directly in the face of the real experience these soldiers have of their commanders.
If you were a free-willed, thinking man who had fought beside a certain officer for almost four years, quite possibly having been saved by him at least once, maybe even saving him at least once, and you got an order saying "he's a traitor, shoot him in the back" (a statement that flies right in the face of your experience of the person) would you immediately and unflinchingly follow that order?
Oh, and because the question keeps coming up:
LA = Live Action (as opposed to Clone Wars, which is animated).
I think they're intended to be free-willed, thinking men until Palpatine gives the order. As of Order 66, they're stormtroopers.
I might well deserve that... but the thread had gotten pretty OT anyway.
Exactly. I always figured that was the point of the Chancellor using clones instead of drafting regular people. It WAS genetic. It was coded into them all, and "Order 66" was the trigger that turned off their free will and forced them to execute the Jedi.
That adds a whole 'nother level of tragedy to Episode III, because while the clones have believed all along that they're individuals with free will, it turns out they're not.
I'm not sure why this is such a controversial notion. We can accept that fully grown soldiers are made in vats, but it's too much of a stretch to think they were programmed?
Yes, it is. For one thing, the clones were not "fully grown in vats", as AOTC showed. More importantly, however, ideas are not genetic. I know SW is more fantasy than sci-fi, but this is too much. It was even dumber when Enterprise did it, but at least they wrote it into a compelling story.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
Well, the idea of "genetic memory" isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility, but if it was a genetic "program", then none of the troopers would disobey, and that clearly wasn't the case.
Checkmate
Commodore
As I said earlier in the thread, there were numerous examples of clones questioned if not outright disobeyed that order, including at least one special forces unit. Those that did were, more than likely, clones that were close to their Jedi commanders. Whereas most of the clones (and this was an army-wide order) only saw them from afar.
On top of that, it was a confirmed order coming directly from their commander in chief, with loyalty being all but hardcoded into them. These people were essentially drowned in propaganda from birth, taught to obey their superiors without question. The fact that as many of them did disobey is testimony to just how much free-will they truly had.
Couple those facts with the fact that the order's purpose was to help protect the very thing these clones were bred to defend, and it's honestly not that hard to understand why so many of them enacted the order without question.
Again, the way it was protrayed in the movie was absolutely abysmal and did nothing to point any of this out, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's completely unbelievable once you have all the facts. Still, it would have been nice if Lucas had a single clone trooper questioning the order, or even saying something to the effect of "the Jedi are attempting a coup, kill them!" I think it would have gone a long way to alleviate some of the issues here.
^In addition to all of the propaganda that they are exposed to during their development, there may also be subliminal or hypnotic suggestions hidden in there too that make "Order 66" an even more powerful trigger.
IIRC, depending on how much you move the camera around, fancy camera moves can significantly increase the rendering time. (They mention something about this on the TMNT DVD commentary when they point out a certain shot that was originally supposed to circle all the way around Raphael and give us a 360 degree view of the NYC skyline. When they were told that that one shot would take a year to render, they replaced it with a simpler one.)
I agree. I'm not sure why Lucas didn't pick a post-Return of the Jedi time period for his animated series rather than going back to the Clone Wars again.
I would say the one character that the animation truly fails is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Ewan McGregor was putting so much nuance into that performance, trying to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear of Lucas' dialogue. But the computer animation isn't able to replicate any of that.
IIRC, depending on how much you move the camera around, fancy camera moves can significantly increase the rendering time. (They mention something about this on the TMNT DVD commentary when they point out a certain shot that was originally supposed to circle all the way around Raphael and give us a 360 degree view of the NYC skyline. When they were told that that one shot would take a year to render, they replaced it with a simpler one.)
I agree. I'm not sure why Lucas didn't pick a post-Return of the Jedi time period for his animated series rather than going back to the Clone Wars again.
I would say the one character that the animation truly fails is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Ewan McGregor was putting so much nuance into that performance, trying to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear of Lucas' dialogue. But the computer animation isn't able to replicate any of that.
As Spock might say, fascinating. I wonder why that is... I'd assumed that if the same number of pixels were being rendered, at the same resolution, it'd take equal amounts of time. Weird.
The only thing that I can think of is that they wouldn't be able to turn off any of the buildings in the model they were using for the city to cut down on the scene's required memory.
And no, same number of pixels does not mean same render time. I promise you that.
Resolution is but one factor (though a fairly big one) in render time; the complexity of the lighting, the number and level of detail of the objects, the size and number of textures, the level of anti-aliasing, and, especially, the number of passes all play a huge role in how long a render takes.
And no, same number of pixels does not mean same render time. I promise you that.
Resolution is but one factor (though a fairly big one) in render time; the complexity of the lighting, the number and level of detail of the objects, the size and number of textures, the level of anti-aliasing, and, especially, the number of passes all play a huge role in how long a render takes.
Of course; I should have added "other factors (number/complexity of objects) notwithstanding".
This makes some sense, I guess, though it still seems a bit strange. I guess it's a question of being able to hold over certain portions of the picture with a static camera.
The issue of the Clones and Order 66 is a rather interesting one and I'm not sure even I understand it all myself. From the moment on AOTC where Lucas twisted the knife of the story and established that the Clones would be ON the side of the Republic and under the command of Jedi, I finally understood how the Jedi would end up getting wiped out in ROTS and, frankly, I thought that it was a master stroke of set up by Lucas. Still, after watching an entire season of The Clone Wars, it IS rather difficult to see how the clone troopers would simply turn on their Jedi Generals seemingly on a dime as soon as Palpatine issues Order 66 after everything they've been through already with their Jedi generals. However, the Kaminoans do clearly state that the Clones they produced were programmed to be more docile and less likely to question orders from their superior officers. OTOH, The episode, "The Hidden Enemy" and, more importantly EU material such as "Dark Lord:The Rise of Darth Vader" has already established that it's possible that some Clones are capable of more individuality than others. I hesitate to use the word, "defective", but that's essentially what they are by virtue of the fact that they ended up somewhat different from the others in terms of their self-awareness and capacity for individuality. I suppose that, given the mass quantity of clones produced for the Clone Wars, it's only natural (and expected) that at least few wouldn't turn out exactly "right" and not be quite as likely to blindly follow Order 66 like the others.
The only thing that I can think of is that they wouldn't be able to turn off any of the buildings in the model they were using for the city to cut down on the scene's required memory.
And no, same number of pixels does not mean same render time. I promise you that.
They significantly reduced the number of objects in the shot by changing it from a pull-back turning into a 360 degree pan around Raphael to a simpler pull-back ending in an over-the-shoulder shot. In the final, simpler shot they used, you only saw the city & buildings in one direction (call it "north") while not showing (and therefore not needing to render) any of the skyline to the "east," "south," or "west."