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Ebert trashes "Star Wars: The Clone Wars"

Frankly, I'm surprised at the poor reviews, given that the supervising director, Dave Filoni, is a veteran of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the most gorgeously produced and brilliantly directed animated TV series to come along in ages. But then, I guess Lucas has a way of imposing banality on the most talented collaborators (cf. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cumbersomely Long Title).
 
I doubt I'll see it in the theater. I just can't make myself feel excited about it. I've had enough of the clone wars.
 
Dear Lucas;

Please stop trying to appeal to toddlers by making star wars into a "Dora the Explorer" wanna be. The reason the Original Trilogy applealed to children is simple. Children didn't want to be Luke Skywalker, they wanted to grow up to be Luke Skywalker!

It is a totally different way of appealing to the younger audience. When you make films that say "Ok, we got cute little critters that the kids would want to play with and a hero who is barely out of diapers", you are only appealing to children and not adults.

When you make a film with adults and actually cool teenagers you are making a film that adults can relate to. The adults want to be young like Luke, or a rascal like Han, or a princess like Leah, or a wise sage like Obi Wan. The adults don't wanna be children like Anakin because then they would be creepy like Michael Jackson. Ok, well maybe some would but they would have to register as Sex Offenders.

But what about the children watching Star Wars? Well when they watch the Original Trilogy they don't imagine themselves as being in the X-wing taking out the Death Star, they imagine themselves as being a big boy a little older and just like Luke Sywalker. They also can imagine themselves as a Astromech droid or Protocol Droid or a big tall hairy Chewie. Not as a cute cuddly Ewok or incompetent bumbling jar-jar. Wanting to be like Jar-jar is like them wanting to wet the bed again. The children appeal to the Original Trilogy was more of a "looking up to a big brother/sister" children's appeal. Rather than what adults think that kids seem like. Unless you are targeting the just out of diapers, not out of kindergarten range of children.

Kids that like belching hut babies are like no older than 6 or 7 years old. Yet you seem to want to target this film (clone wars) to pre-teen children and adults. Kids who are approaching their teen years don't really like to reminded they were once drooling pooping idiots. That would be like inviting some chimps to a family reunion because they are our cousins. It is an embarrassment.

Children want to imagine what their own futures hold. Adults want to be reminded of their youth too, just not the pooping drooling stages.

Sincerely;
Meredith
 
Literally the first thought out of my mind when I saw the trailer was "god I am so sick of Star Wars -- didn't we already see the Clone Wars stuff??"

I'll wait til this airs on tv so I don't even waste a buck in the dollar theater.
 
This is the first three episodes of the series pasted together to make a feature, right? They'll probably air on CN when the series starts.
 
I'm with you Roger. I'd rather watch Ewoks f**k. It saddens me that Lucas, once a young Turk of film making, who made people identify with and love a beeping trashcan, is now synonymous with low rent shite. I think, seriously, that when the bodies hit the floor, he'll be remembered for American Graffiti and "something else that made him rich."
 
Here are some initial thoughts from the midnight screening.

The movie was mostly good, and those who enjoyed the last 40 minutes of AOTC and the previous CW series should like this one. The first half is better than the second, but part of that is my sleepiness coming through, so I'll be seeing it a second time at a decent hour.

The good: Ahsoka, the first two battle sequences, updated intro sequence

The bad: Disturbing and disgusting Hutts, lightsaber duels, some continuity issues

I'm tentatively giving it a 3/5, and that could go up when I see it again.
 
Well, I only needed to read part of the review to conclude that Ebert is an elitist moron. Just because the animators chose to employ a stylized character design rather than going for photorealism, he assumes that's because "corners were cut" on the animation. That's stupid -- like assuming that Picasso was too lazy to make his paintings look like real people. The goal of the creators of SW:TCW is to embrace stylization of the sort seen in the previous, 2D-animated Star Wars: Clone Wars miniseries. According to an article I read at Newsarama yesterday, they were inspired by the look of the toys based on the SW:CW characters, which showed them that the look of those characters translated to 3D in an interesting way.

Now, I'm not saying I particularly like the design style they've used or that I think it works well. But if Ebert can't understand the difference between deliberate stylization and laziness, then his opinion is not worth listening to.

Perhaps you should read the entire review again before calling him an "elitist moron," because he didn't criticize the style of the animation but rather its poor execution in relation to other recent animated films.

"This is the first feature-length animated Star Wars movie, but instead of pushing the state of the art, it's retro. You'd think the great animated films of recent years had never been made. The characters have hair that looks molded from Play-Doh, bodies that seem arthritic, and moving lips on half-frozen faces -- all signs that shortcuts were taken in the animation work."

You can have that same design style while actually having the characters be able to emote and have more realistic body and head motion.
 
This is the first three episodes of the series pasted together to make a feature, right? They'll probably air on CN when the series starts.
It's a movie designed to lead in to the series, but it is not comprised of episodes of the series.
 
I would have been shocked if it had been any good. The fundamental problem still remains: Lucas doesn't understand what makes good characters or good stories. All the eye candy and nostolga in the world won't make up for such huge fatal flaws.
 
You can have that same design style while actually having the characters be able to emote and have more realistic body and head motion.

They do look pretty stiff. Which is funny, because the animated shorts were so fluid.

I wish it were more lively. I have a feeling that it might work better as a weekly show than as a feature film.
 
I would have been shocked if it had been any good. The fundamental problem still remains: Lucas doesn't understand what makes good characters or good stories. All the eye candy and nostolga in the world won't make up for such huge fatal flaws.

I think the problem is just that he's become way too infatuated with CGI. All he seems to care about now is showing off what amazing worlds and characters his company is capable of producing.

Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be aware just how utterly mindnumbing all that nonstop CGI really is.
 
Did someone just call Ebert an "elitist moron" for not knowing as much about animation as he, in the poster's opinion, should have known? Just checking.
 
I would have been shocked if it had been any good. The fundamental problem still remains: Lucas doesn't understand what makes good characters or good stories. All the eye candy and nostolga in the world won't make up for such huge fatal flaws.

I think the problem is just that he's become way too infatuated with CGI. All he seems to care about now is showing off what amazing worlds and characters his company is capable of producing.

Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be aware just how utterly mindnumbing all that nonstop CGI really is.

Once you understand that simple truth you realize why the prequels are the way they are.
 
What really turned me off is the timing of the release... shouldn't this film have been put out between nu-Trilogy pieces, instead of AFTER all of them?
 
I rarely disagree with Ebert, and this is no exception. And to all the fans who whined in another thread about how "Gendy's Clone Wars wasn't really that great blah blah blah", all I have to say is this: Suck it losers. Because Genndy's Clone Wars looks like Shakespeare in comparison this piece of shit. But that's Lucas for you. Oh no, can't have something in the Star Wars Universe that isn't full of little kiddie crap and doesn't think that it's audience are idiots. Can't have something that is , you know, good.

And this movie should confirm that yes, indeed, George Lucas is a racist. A stupid, childish, idiotic racist. Birth of Nation was less blatant then this movie.

I know he wants to dumb down his stuff "for the children". But if he treats his kids the same way he presents his material then he must be the worst father ever. I can see it now:

Lucas: How's my widdle cutsy wootsy tootsy mowwey Sowwey?!
Sally Lucas: Fine dad. And it's Sally, not Sowwey. And I'm eighteen. Please stop talking to me like that.
Lucas: Oh! "Eightween!" Dat's a big word! Can you say "Dada?!".
SL: Jesus I hate you. I'm outa here.
Lucas: Ok hon. Just keep away from the coloreds.
 
Genndy Tartakovsky did the Clone Wars cartoon miniseries?
Oh man, now I have to see that!

J.
 
And this movie should confirm that yes, indeed, George Lucas is a racist. A stupid, childish, idiotic racist. Birth of Nation was less blatant then this movie.

Wait a minute... Hutt Clan... Klu Klux Klan. IT ALL BECOMES CLEAR.

I'm all for a little well-crafted hyperbole, but saying it's more blatantly racist than Birth of a Nation? Seriously?

I haven't seen the film yet, so can you please fill me in on the extreme examples of racism in the film, in spoiler code if need be?

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.
 
Perhaps you should read the entire review again before calling him an "elitist moron," because he didn't criticize the style of the animation but rather its poor execution in relation to other recent animated films.

"This is the first feature-length animated Star Wars movie, but instead of pushing the state of the art, it's retro. You'd think the great animated films of recent years had never been made. The characters have hair that looks molded from Play-Doh, bodies that seem arthritic, and moving lips on half-frozen faces -- all signs that shortcuts were taken in the animation work."

Actually that's the precise quote that convinced me the most strongly of his biases. Those are just the sort of comments that one might make about a set of stylistic choices that one does not understand. The hair is meant to look stylized rather than realistic, while the body movement may be intentionally staccato and limited as an aesthetic choice, much like Genndy Tartakovsky's 2D animation work tends to be. After all, the characters and movement style of The Clone Wars were designed with weekly TV production in mind, so it's natural that the chosen aesthetic would be more spare and efficient than the more lush style of a feature film. And given that that's the chosen style for the series, it makes sense to do the film in the same style to maintain consistency.
 
I just want to point out that Lucas has about the same level of involvement with this series as he did with the CW micro-series. He's not the lead writer or director on this new movie or series. It bugs me to see posts that imply that Lucas lovingly wrote every line of dialogue in longhand and animated it all himself. He has final approval and some input, but it's director Dave Filoni that deserves much of the credit and/or blame for the new CW movie and show.

Also, isn't Ziro the Hutt a male, or is my recollection of the dialogue clouded by lack of sleep?
 
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