Ebert trashes "Star Wars: The Clone Wars"

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

After watching the film last night, I'll say that I enjoyed it overall. More battles than all the prequels put together, crammed into 100 mins. That's why I went.

My question: where is Gen. Grevious? He was absent, but me and my friend specifically remembered him from the trailers.

Plus, I SO much wanted Jabba to press that button so the hatch would drop. I wanted to see that rancor.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I understand from the other thread that a female Hutt speaks like an old black woman from New Orleans at one point (in English no less), and while that sounds tacky and potentially offensive in the same sense that Jar Jar did, is there something specific that pushes it into the realm of blatant racism on the level of glorifying a white supremacist terrorist organization, because that's what Birth of a Nation does.

I won't deny that Lucas' work often has racially insensitive undertones (the WWII Japanese stereotypes that became the Nemoidians, pretty much any indigenous person in an Indiana Jones movie) but this time, folks are a bit off base. For starters, Ziro the Hutt is a male hutt (he's referred to as Jabba's uncle), and his voice is a dead ringer for Truman Capote. If anyone should be a bit irked, it would be the gay community (though I thought Ziro was camp enough to be ultimately innoffensive, I wouldn't blame someone else for deciding otherwise). These "New Orleans crack whore" comments that have started to spring up seem to reflect more about the commenter than the movie itself.

Ahh, thanks for the explanation. That makes more sense.

 

[zakkrusz]

The problem with being a critic as the term implies is that you're overly critical and if they weren't they wouldn't get paid quite so much. You lose the abillity to just sit back and enjoy a movie and let the story take you because you're always looking for faults to put it down with. This is why the concept of a review is utter horse hockey (unless it's someone you personally know and trust) and instead of being a drone one should just go out and see it and form their own opinion because that's the only one that matters. That being said yep, I'm still going to this.

 

[suarezguy]

Sure, films are somewhat subjective, but they all have different degrees of pulling you into a story, and many critics do praise films when they are able to do that; while their views are just theirs, there's nothing wrong with them offering those views and saving people from a bad time (they're often not too wrong, and people can compare their tastes to particular reviewers' taste to see how much they should trust the reviewers).

 

[Smiley]

Things that still bother me: voice of Ziro the Hutt, crying Rotto, and blatant EU contradictions

What exactly are the EU contradictions? I'm a big fan of the Clone Wars comics (and some of the novels), so I plan on picking up the tie-in material, but I'm not sure if I'll be seeing the movie itself or not.

"Blatant" is probably too strong a word. We're at the point where some things seem contradictory but can still be explained away. For example, Jabba is shown to have much more personal influence in TCW than he had in Tales from Jabba's Palace, The Han Solo Trilogy, and other stories. Is this influence from his Desilijic clan ties, or is Jabba really more powerful in this time period than after ROTS?

I would now recommend the movie to anyone who liked the last 40 minutes of Attack of the Clones.

What if I thought the last forty minutes of AotC was where it became uninteresting (aside from the last two minutes)?

You may not enjoy the film very much because a lot of The Clone Wars is devoted to big battles and action. It does not stray too far from the approaches of the Cartoon Network microseries and the live-action battles from AOTC and ROTS.

 

[zakkrusz]

Sure, films are somewhat subjective, but they all have different degrees of pulling you into a story, and many critics do praise films when they are able to do that; while their views are just theirs, there's nothing wrong with them offering those views and saving people from a bad time (they're often not too wrong, and people can compare their tastes to particular reviewers' taste to see how much they should trust the reviewers).

Well, I suppose it would be nice...if there was ever a reviewer I actually agreed with most of the time. Ebert definitely is not the right person I'd commission for the job.

 

[RobertScorpio]

So, basically, they're claiming that they could have produced something with decent if not stunning animation and cinematography, but decided instead to opt for something that would look cheap and ugly.

I thought the film's look was very interesting, and downright beautiful at times. When you consider that this has to be recreated week after week after week on television, it's going to be one of the most gorgeously animated CGI cartoons yet.

That is really good 'spin'. Barak should hire you!

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Noname Given]

wanted to give it a look and feel of something that is so compact. We picked the Gerry Anderson Thunderbirds to be our inspiration, and you will see it has a very stylized look. I didn’t want it to look like Beowulf, which we could have done, (...) Speaking to Empire about upcoming animated movie, Lucas said the fans can expect "a stylised cartoon, it's not photo real... it's in a Gerry Anderson style, Thunderbirds. The characters have painted surfaces - they look like they've been painted".

So, basically, they're claiming that they could have produced something with decent if not stunning animation and cinematography, but decided instead to opt for something that would look cheap and ugly.

If true, then that is dumb. Forgive the crudeness, but I just can't think of any other way to describe this decision other than... just, plain dumb.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

Yeah, I can see the actual conversation as:

Producer: "Hey, we rendered the final version of the episodes"

Lucas: "Holy crap! THAT is the final render??!! I thought those desiigns were just so you could test render faster. I thought we were going photo realistic?"

Producer: "Oy vey!"

Lucus: "jeez, this looks like the crappy super-marionation that Gerry Adderson used on Stingray, Captain Scarlet, and Thunderbirds from whn I was a kid...looked ridiculous then and it does now..."

Producer: "Hey, I got it...believe it or not, there are still people who like that crap. we can say we consciously ,made a stylistic choice; and we'll look like artistic geneiouses to the media!"

Lucus: "I may be out of touch in some respects, but somehow even I doubt that'll fly; but what the hell - since it's 3 made for TV episodes and redoing them would take more time and money; what the hell. It's not like I won't make a mint off this and the merchandizing regardless. Hell, I could show 5 minutes of Anakin taking a dump; and those fanbois would find a way to reconcile it as a realistic plot point."

 

[TGTheodore]

The problem with being a critic as the term implies is that you're overly critical and if they weren't they wouldn't get paid quite so much. You lose the abillity to just sit back and enjoy a movie and let the story take you because you're always looking for faults to put it down with.

There is SO much untruth in these statements that I don't know where to begin.

--Ted

 

[Orintho]

Has it come to this? Has the magical impact of George Lucas' original vision of "Star Wars" been reduced to the level of Saturday morning animation? "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," which is a continuation of an earlier animated TV series, is basically just a 98-minute trailer for the autumn launch of a new series on the Cartoon Network.

An interesting comment coming from Roger Ebert, a person who routinely claims that he never, ever watches television.

 

[TGTheodore]

Has it come to this? Has the magical impact of George Lucas' original vision of "Star Wars" been reduced to the level of Saturday morning animation? "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," which is a continuation of an earlier animated TV series, is basically just a 98-minute trailer for the autumn launch of a new series on the Cartoon Network.

An interesting comment coming from Roger Ebert, a person who routinely claims that he never, ever watches television.

He probably doesn't. When you're a critic at Ebert's level, you probably get the press DVD's of such programming.

--Ted

 

[Immolatus]

I took my little ones to see it this past weekend and they loved it. I thought it was ok , there little eyes lit up for the whole movie and for me that was worth it. I feel it was a kids movie and the kids love it

 

[FalTorPan]

I finally watched the movie. The first 30 to 45 minutes were better than any segment of similar length in any of the prequel movies, but the last 30 minutes felt like 30 hours.

Suckfest.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I caught this on a long overseas plane ride. As a "plane movie" it was ok, in that it was light and watchable enough to not think about the agony of the plane ride (i'm not a good flyer). But really it wasn't that good. The dialogue was painful (moreso than the prequel films), i heard this was a few tv show episodes stitched together and that's very apparent. Some of the action was decent, but its just hard to get excited about this time period. Anakin and Dooku fight? really? Am I supposed to get excited about that considering its sandwiched between the Episode 2 and Episode 3 Anakin/Dooku fights???

It's just... so..... very............... prequel.

 

[DanTheGrey]

I watched it and all I can say is, that to be fair, it was just a few episodes of the show stitched together and called a movie. The thing is it was at best a set of middling to below average episodes that they stitched together...

Glad I didn't see it in the theatre. At best it should have been a direct to DVD.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Am I the only one who thought the animation was of higher quality than the TV series?

 

[DanTheGrey]

^ Not sure, but compared to what was in episode 9 with the fights in the engine room, I think the series is now winning

 

[nx1701g]

The TV Series is better.

 

[Corran Horn]

Am I the only one who thought the animation was of higher quality than the TV series?

Some of the episodes of the series were created before the movie was created itself, actually.