Your first indication the prequels would be bad?

[Nardpuncher]

^^ I don't they talked during the battles anyway, so adding a few more "Roger rogers!" wouldn't have helped.

 

[Hermiod]

Watch the Clone Wars series and Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

Not only do they communicate vocally, they also have ranks and personalities. That just doesn't make sense for a droid army.

 

[Amaris]

Let's see if I can sum it up in one word. Oh yes: "Yippee!".

 

[Mr. Sin]

To be fair on the droid thing, I think the 'infantry' models were controlled by the Droid control ship and had no independent thought. The droids with the colors and no backpacks were independent, I think.

There's actually a scene that was cut from AOTC where they storm one of the spheres and try to shut down the droids from there, only to have them re-activate because the TF learned from their defeat in the first film.

 

[Hermiod]

To be fair on the droid thing, I think the 'infantry' models were controlled by the Droid control ship and had no independent thought. The droids with the colors and no backpacks were independent, I think.

There's actually a scene that was cut from AOTC where they storm one of the spheres and try to shut down the droids from there, only to have them re-activate because the TF learned from their defeat in the first film.

If it was a matter of them being independent because of the potential for their enemies using the same tactic as in TPM I could partially understand it. However, the Droids appear to have independent personalities even in TPM - remember in the hangar bay on Naboo one of the droids is referred to as a "Sergeant".

Giving them the ability to act independently in the event of a loss of communication with the control ship is a good idea, of course. However, it would make much more sense for them still to be able to communicate with each other directly via non-verbal communication.

If you don't make use of these potential advantages then the only advantage they give you over the Clones is numbers.

I just don't see the point of creating machines to do a job humans could do if you're only going to make them do it worse. I mean, what other human limitations did they build in for no reason other than to anthropomorphize them ?

 

[Deckerd]

Giving them legs and arms instead of being little flying buggers? I admit that didn't make sense.

 

[Kegg]

For me, it was when Darth Maul died. In all the trailers, I thought he was going to make Darth Vader look like a cream-puff.

Hell, his trailer practically gives him more lines than he got in the actual movie. I remember having to download these trailers, it taking forever on broadband, and the end image being, well, far beneath youtube norms. How far we've come...

Clearly they were going for the Boba Fett approach with Darth Maul, though, where a villain says almost nothing, does less, dies like a wimp, but he dresses cool and has some neat toys so he becomes a geek icon.

Anyway, I don't know when I got the indication the prequels were bad. I liked TPM when I first saw it, honestly. I went to see it again several times in the theatres. I only saw the subsequent films once each, though my initial impressions of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were both pretty positive - say what one will, but they're shiny, polished movies with lots of cool looking doodads to gawk at. Sure, the actual romantic plot in Attack of the Clones was weak at best, but the scenery! The music! It's so... lush.

Yet I simply can't watch any of these movies anymore. I tried Attack of the Clones a year or two ago, I got bored somewhere in the first chase sequence. It's not that they're terrible, they're just... insubstantial; flash-in-the-pan affairs that keep us amused with their gimmickry but of which one quickly tires.

 

[Deckerd]

I felt sorry for Ray Park having all his lines dubbed over. He was surely the most convincing fighter I've ever seen on SW.

 

[iguana_tonante]

And for the record, I never thought the prequels were bad. In fact I liked them a lot more than the originals.

Sure, the actual romantic plot in Attack of the Clones was weak at beset, but the scenery! The music! It's so... lush.

We have that scenery for real near Lake Como.

 

[Kegg]

^
Yes, but Lucas made it better.

I felt sorry for Ray Park having all his lines dubbed over. He was surely the most convincing fighter I've ever seen on SW.

I don't. The voice actor simply had a better voice, and it was standard for Star Wars (Darth Vader and all).

I do think it's unfortunate the character had so few lines and so little personality, though. He's clearly little more than a filler boss to build a setpiece around the film's climax.

 

[Deckerd]

Standard Star Wars in everything that didn't have a real face. I daresay all the motion capture / Vader actors said the lines but they didn't have the indignity of someone else lip-synching.

 

[Mr. Sin]

As we see in X-men, Ray does have sort of an Irish accent that wouldn't have worked with Maul.


It's interesting that Maul's voice is a popular British comedian, Peter Serafinowicz. He also did a Darth Vader sketch in the show, so he's one of the few people to have played both Vader and Maul. Maybe he could do Dooku with the Brian Butterfield makeup.

 

[Hermiod]

^Park's accent is actually a mix of Glasweigan and East London, not Irish.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The opening crawl when it said "taxation of trade routes is in dispute"...

Yeah, the opening crawl of "The Phantom Menace." Zzzzzz...

 

[Kegg]

Standard Star Wars in everything that didn't have a real face. I daresay all the motion capture / Vader actors said the lines but they didn't have the indignity of someone else lip-synching.

Aunt Beru also had her lines dubbed.

^Park's accent is actually a mix of Glasweigan and East London, not Irish.

Yes, quite. If you want to hear an Irish accent in The Phantom Menace, listen to Liam Neeson.

 

[Shazam!]

What bugged me was that out of nowhere at the end of ROTS we have the Empire and Tarkin and Star Destroyers and dudes in uniform. Where did all that come from?

 

[Mr. Sin]

The Star Destroyers were seen earlier in the film, they're the same type just without the paint. The initial AOTC destroyers, walkers etc. probably came with the clone army.

The Empire is established towards the end of ROTS as well.


As for Tarkin and the officers, in Clone Wars and various other materials we see the green-uniformed officers made their debut in the Clone Wars (The clones were the main army, but other people joined the navy). We can also assume Tarkin was part of that group. (Tarkin is fleshed out more in several of the prequel era novels).

 

[Kolrad]

I must be unusual. I actually thought both Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones were good the first time I saw them in the theater. They weren't great, but I had a good time seeing the movies.

It was only after I had thought about them a while (and seen them again on TV) that it gradually dawned on me how unsatisfying they really were.

By the time Revenge of the Sith came out, I had readjusted my expectations to see a movie with impressive special effects, great music, and not much else of substance. And that's exactly what it was.

 

[zakkrusz]

This topic is assuming I thought they were bad, which is far from the case, since they were great.

By the time Revenge of the Sith came out, I had readjusted my expectations to see a movie with impressive special effects, great music, and not much else of substance. And that's exactly what it was.

That's all any Star Wars movie ever made is whether it took place in the original trilogy or prequels.

 

[Shazam!]

As for Tarkin and the officers, in Clone Wars and various other materials we see the green-uniformed officers made their debut in the Clone Wars (The clones were the main army, but other people joined the navy). We can also assume Tarkin was part of that group. (Tarkin is fleshed out more in several of the prequel era novels).

Yeah, but you shouldn't have to read the books to find out about some of the most fundamental aspects of the trilogy. The way it was presented was almost an after thought like "Oops, we haven't haven't shown were the Empire came from!"