The Battle of Geonosis

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-02-28 08:00am

All right, I just rented Star Wars: Clone Wars for Gamecube, and was playing it, and I was trying to rationalize all the events into the bigger picture of the battle, and I figured this would be an appropriate environment in which to conduct that rationalization.

Here's the idea: using all canon and as much official evidence as we can, we should create a coherent and detailed order of events for the Battle of Geonosis. Sources should include the movie (obviously), the Galactic Battlegrounds Clone Campaigns video game, the Clone Wars video game, any Clone Wars comics that relate to Geonosis, and any other source that relates to Geonosis. While game mechanics obviously don't count, the general scenarios deserve to be rationalised, and here we can uniformly decide what to discard, what to creatively interpret, and what to fully accept. I don't think this has been done yet, at least not here. And if it has, well then buy me a cadillac and call me Elvis.

Since it's 4AM here, I'm not going to break out any of the sources and review them scene by scene, but I'll get us started off the top of my head:

Star Wars: Episode II ATTACK OF THE CLONES (film)

-Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker, and Senator Padme Amidala are led into the Geonosian Execution Arena. Poggle the Lesser starts the execution ceremony, and captive beasts are herded towards the prisoners. The Jedi and the Senator defend themselves, to the amusement of the crowd.
-A large group of Jedi (100-150, I forget the official number) under the command of Jedi Master Mace Windu reveal their presence to the Seperatists after infiltrating the Arena.
-Confederate army forces (consisting of battle droids of the type seen in the Battle of Naboo, plus "super" battle droids acting as support, and a few presumably unshielded Droideka) enter the Arena and engage the Jedi. The Geonosian workers/civilians evacuate the Arena, but some warriors remain, manning at least one large anti-personnel cannon. [note: do the Super Battle Droids function as leaders? We know the battle droid heirarchy utilizes officer droids, and indeed at least one officer is seen in the Arena battle, dispatched by Master Windu. But the Super Battle Droids are seen to knock the mundane battle droids out of the way, which isn't a very leader-like thing to do. There's an indication when they're marching in that the Super Droids are issued roughly one per squad, but I'm not sure whether or not it is in a leadership capacity. See Bob Brown's site for some interesting speculation as to Battle Droid networking and heirarchy at Naboo.]
-The Confederate forces surround the Jedi in the center of the Arena. Jedi Master and Councilman Coleman Trebor is killed. All but 14-15 Jedi are killed. At this point, Darth Tyranus orders a cease fire and offers the Jedi the opportunity to surrender. The Jedi refuse.
-A group of Republic LAATs commanded by Jedi Master Yoda descend upon the Arena and evacuate the surrounded Jedi. These LAATs head SW away from the Arena.
At this point, Curtis Saxton's cursory examination of the events becomes more efficient for me to point to. It is 4AM, after all.

Galactic Battlegrounds Clone Campaigns (PC video game)

I don't remember much of the details from the game, I'll have to bring it out later.
This is what I can remember:
One of Dooku's Dark apprentices (it seems Dooku began breaking the Sith traditions pretty early. Palpatine had to know about this, I wonder if he approved. Certainly by the OT period, Palpatine himself had many apprentices.) is a Chiss female. She battles a Jedi Master and his Padawan, and kills the Padawan. She escapes, and goes on to be one of Dooku's top generals. Some other stuff happened.
I'll be more specific when I play the game again.

Star Wars: Clone Wars (console video game)

I think this game in particular will need some heavy interpreting, as some of the events are a little strange.
The game starts out with the Republic fleet arriving at Geonosis. A large amount (~100 or more, perhaps) of Jedi Starfighters, led by Mace Windu, descend to the surface.
Mace Windu and Luminara Unduli use small, presumably (but not necessarily) one-man tanks to eliminate Anti-Orbital cannons. They then clear a landing zone for the Republic forces.
Still in their tanks, Windu and Unduli escort a convoy of slow moving troop transports filled with Jedi to the arena. Why the Jedi are all in these transports is unclear.
After explosively clearing the Arena's outer defenses, the Jedi prepare to infiltrate the Arena, confident that the occupants are unaware of their presence. How this can be so considering the intense fighting that preceded this is unclear.
After Mace lands on the battlefield and is presented with his "special team of commando units" as per the movie, he leads them about 100-150 yards into battle, just to get on another LAAT. This is pretty stupid.
Windu's new LAAT leads the gunship attack that destroys many of the evacuating Techno Union starships. TradeFed droid starfighters are seen, which is cool. Also, there are AATs on the ground, also cool.
Mace then gets in a tank and protects the SPHA-Ts from enemy tanks while they destroy the Core Ships. Three Core Ships are destroyed, and it is mentioned that each Core Ship contains an army large enough to take a planet. Whether or not this refers to strictly the Core or the Core plus its Battleship in orbit is unclear.
I think that's the end of it. Pretty crazy, but there are some interesting points to salvage. Most of the problem simply comes from Mace Windu personally doing all these things.

Other Sources

I'm not familiar with any other sources on the battle, perhaps some of you have read/seen/played them. Also, the Inside the Worlds book will probably have some good information, but that won't be for a while yet.

Anyways, I'm going to bed now, but I thought this might be an interesting project for us to undertake. It's always good to have a clear understanding of what happened, and this way we'll all have the same understanding.

Coaan · Post by **Coaan** » 2003-02-28 12:43pm

The reason why games aren't canon is because if they followed the films to the letter...there would be so little action for the mindless drone who picks up a copy...there would be no point releasing a film when you can just play it.

Take for example Aotc, Quite alot of it was dialogue...would you want a game that's mostly dialogue you can't alter at all and so little action it has you screaming at the end?....so saying that....all the 'extra' parts of the battles they added to spruce things up.. (like all the jedi starfighters....wtf?!) just have the exact opposite effect.

Games based on movies are a bad idea, they always were

Movies based on games....well that can be a different story....if done right, who wouldn't pay to see Privateer?

Post by **Kuja** » 2003-02-28 02:03pm

If you want to use SW:GB, then you'll have to mention that a group of seven or eight Jedi destroyed a pair of TF Core ships without any kind of support.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-02-28 03:21pm

Coaan wrote:Movies based on games....well that can be a different story....if done right, who wouldn't pay to see Privateer?

I have YET to see anything even approaching a decent movie made from a video game. The best was probably Mortal Kombat and even that was still little better than standard MST3K fodder.

Wing Commander? Street Fighter? Mario Brothers? They all gave new meaning to the word 'suck'.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-02-28 05:09pm

Darth, You see the trailer for House of the Dead yet? First time I saw it I assumed it was fake because I didn't think anyone would ever make anything that bad.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-02-28 05:11pm

There's an overall Clone Wars/AOTC chronology thread linked in the "Clone Wars Database Thread" thingy stickied.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-02-28 05:17pm

Ender wrote:Darth, You see the trailer for House of the Dead yet?

You're kidding me. They're making a movie out of that?

First time I saw it I assumed it was fake because I didn't think anyone would ever make anything that bad.

NEVER underestimate the stupidity of Hollywood.

Call me Servo for short. There are too many 'Darths' on the board to keep them all straight.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-02-28 06:24pm

Darth Servo wrote:
Ender wrote:Darth, You see the trailer for House of the Dead yet?
You're kidding me. They're making a movie out of that?
First time I saw it I assumed it was fake because I didn't think anyone would ever make anything that bad.
NEVER underestimate the stupidity of Hollywood..

This onbe goes further. They ditched the house entirely, totally threw out the basic plot, and now apparently raves are corporately sponsared by Sega. Let me see if I can find the trailer.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-02-28 06:45pm

http://www.movie-list.com/h/houseofthedead.shtml

Revel in the crappyness

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-02-28 07:50pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:There's an overall Clone Wars/AOTC chronology thread linked in the "Clone Wars Database Thread" thingy stickied.

I guess I'm just retarded, then. I actually read the stickied thread, too. Whatever.

Oh, and Coaan, nobody's saying that the games are canon. But they are official (even if they're low-level). While there are many things about them that we must reject, and still more that we must generously interpret, my feeling is that we must at least attempt to rationalize them into overall continuity.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-02-28 07:53pm

Coaan wrote:The reason why games aren't canon is because if they followed the films to the letter...there would be so little action for the mindless drone who picks up a copy...there would be no point releasing a film when you can just play it.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Gamesmechanicsaren't official, ex: X-Wings killing ISDs with a few protorps. The events that take place in the game are official unless contradicted by canon, or a higher form of official.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-02-28 07:56pm

Ender wrote:http://www.movie-list.com/h/houseofthedead.shtml

Revel in the crappyness

It's a German/American sci-fi/action movie with a $12m budget and a one-month shooting schedule that is based on a one-dimensional video game. It's written by one of the guys who wrote Free Enterprise and it's directed by the guy who directed Blackwoods. It also stars one of the guys from Final Destination 2. What do you expect?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-03-01 09:52am

Robert Treder wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:There's an overall Clone Wars/AOTC chronology thread linked in the "Clone Wars Database Thread" thingy stickied.
I guess I'm just retarded, then. I actually read the stickied thread, too. Whatever.

It's quite alright.

At TF.net they tend to copy stuff down from the games verbatim and slop it together and likely the result makes little sense. That's what we're here to do, take the cut-and-pasting they did and make the observed events in the games make sense in terms of the movie, galactic scale, and realistic combat.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-03-02 02:52am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:At TF.net they tend to copy stuff down from the games verbatim and slop it together and likely the result makes little sense. That's what we're here to do, take the cut-and-pasting they did and make the observed events in the games make sense in terms of the movie, galactic scale, and realistic combat.

My thoughts exactly.

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2003-03-04 02:51am

Ender wrote:http://www.movie-list.com/h/houseofthedead.shtml

Revel in the crappyness

Wow, that DOES look crappy. You guys also find it hard to take it's "dramatic" music seriously as you watched borderline-famous teen "stars" and bimbos blowing zombies away?

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-04 10:31am

Robert Treder wrote:
Ender wrote:http://www.movie-list.com/h/houseofthedead.shtml

Revel in the crappyness
It's a German/American sci-fi/action movie with a $12m budget and a one-month shooting schedule that is based on a one-dimensional video game. It's written by one of the guys who wrote Free Enterprise and it's directed by the guy who directed Blackwoods. It also stars one of the guys from Final Destination 2. What do you expect?

Uh actually, if you had read any reviews you would have seen that it is actually a halfway decent flick.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-03-04 11:23am

Free Enterprise was an excellent movie. Don't know about the rest though. I've seen Final Destination, and it SUCKS.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-03-04 06:14pm

It might have a few good reviews going for it, but it has a few horrible trailers, and a horrible concept. I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.
And Free Enterprise was okay, but it wasn't great.