My thoughts on ROTS (*SPOILERS!*)

[Kurgan]

ROTS THOUGHTS (heh)

This'll seem a bit disorganized and random, but I'm tired, so apologies in advance.

Now I'm really tired, but I hope this is in accord with the board rules about spoilers. This post is full of spoilers, so I don't think I need to make small text of various sections, but I'm copy/pasting this from another totally seperate forum so there may be some lingering tags, anyway... ramble mode on!

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Saw it May 21st (tonight), 3 days after release, but against my better judgement (was going to wait a bit longer). After all this is when the "normal (less geekified) people" go see it. Anyway...

I showed up about 6:12pm because the stupid theater chain (basically the only one in the Quad City area showing new flicks) screwed up their phone line, so it would disconnect on you if you tried to check show schedules OR order tickets (not that I order tickets but I do like to know when a movie starts so I can pick a good time to show up and not wait forever). As luck would have it I was just in time for the 6:30 showing.

9 bucks for a ticket?? You've got to be kidding!!

Good thing I didn't buy any concessions, heh.

Big crowd, only one guy with a jedi outfit on and darth vader voice changer strapped to the back of his head, and flashing blue toy lightsaber (strobe effect) sitting in front.

Couple of half-hearted catcalls to his back (stadium seating in this theater I was in) while we sat waiting (which he didn't seem to notice). "Did you get that on ebay?" "You can get 'em at Toys 'R' Us." (other guy to the first heckler)


Went right in, perfect timing. Felt silly going through this huge empty queue by myself, tailing the crowd that had surged ahead moments before.

Okay trailers, too many of 'em... none of the movies looked that interesting except maybe Fantastic Four. Disappointed I didn't see Narnia trailer on the big screen oh well.



Actually stayed for the entire credits sequence (something I've almost never done for theatrical movies). I figured I'd get my money's worth (9 bucks!!!!) plus I'd miss the mass exodus out.

Thanks for the suggestion Mr. Ebert! Interesting to learn there there WERE location shootings. I originally thought the film was going to be all done on-set with computers with only the last "Tatooine scene" (filmed during Episode II production) in Tunisia. Instead there were tons of locations, so that was interesting.

Java the Hut, heh.

The music was okay, seemed to mostly be remixed bits from AOTC and TPM with very little from the OT thrown in, not very memorable, and very subdued throught most of it.

Initial impressions:

Good, but overhyped. This wasn't the Second Coming of Star Wars nor did it blow me away or anything. It was as mesmerizing as any other good action fantasy movie I've been to. I almost got the "multiple endings" vibe at the end like I did for Return of the King but it wasn't nearly that bad, and nobody started to leave and whined, thank goodness.

I did rank it higher than AOTC (less boring bits or cringeworthy scenes) but ROTJ still kicks its a$$ in terms of direction of the action for the most part, IMHO. Impressive CGI throughout except for the various shots of Threepio. Far off shots he looked too plastic and golden, compared to zooming in on him and him almost being silver in color and too shiny by comparison. Those moments took me out of it, but otherwise the movies was very impressive.

Yoda looked good most of the time (even better than AOTC at times), but most of his closeups he looked a little too, I don't know how to describe it, I don't want to say "fakey" but he just didn't look like a real living being, but rather a big texture map. Without knowing how it was all done, I'd almost swear they had a kid jumping around with the texture maps of the green head and stuff added (the clothes he was wearing looked so REAL).

Audience reactions were mixed. You could hear tongue-in-cheek comments at the start. There was some clapping when the Star Wars Logo first appeared. People said stuff like "now be quiet, the last star Wars everybody!" as the logo was going on. The opening crawl was delightfully corny & pulp (War! <---- WW2 reference?).

spoilers:
When Anakin confronts the Younglings some kid (teen girl?) up and behind me said "Don't you do it. Re-tard!" like she was mad at Anakin. hehe



The audience chuckled a bit after Palpatine's "transformation" and his voice was cracking and croaking all over the place (he had to somehow make that transition from quiet old man to cackling madman). For once I agreed with the audience laughing inappropriately like that at a movie I'm watching. From that point on whenever Palpatine would start speaking whole clusters of people would start clearing their throats and coughing on purpose. Frog in your throat Palpy?

When Yoda easily pwned the two "Imperial Guards" (or whatever they are being called at this stage) the audience cheered and clapped. They also applauded when he smacked down the Clones trying to sneak up on him earlier.

R2D2 got some laughs and applause when he did the burning oil trick on the Super Battledroids (makes 'em a bit wimpy though I'd say).

The droid threat was almost totally wiped out in this movie I felt. The fighter droids have voices now (in space? who would hear them?). More an annoyance than anything (like those droids that stick to fighters and eat away at them like little gremlins... looks like something from a video game, wouldn't it be more tactical for them to just collectively explode on the surface or something, go directly for the cockpit and the pilot? Oh well).

Obi-Wan seemed really weak until later in the film, with Anakin taking all the credit. I kept thinking "why doesn't he use the Force here" etc. Dramatic needs of the film I guess. When the Jedi aren't on the ground running around they seem to act more like normal people... skilled pilots and such but not Jedi with super powers. Just an observation, maybe I've been reading too many EU stories.

When Yoda climbed on the shoulders of Chewbacca (?) people went "awwwww."

Commando Cody? Oops, I mean CommandER Cody. Thanks MST3K for reminding me of that serial character, but I missed his nipple activated Jetpack! Ah well... maybe in the deleted scenes.

Mind wipe for Threepio? Thanks for throwing us nitpickers a bone George!

General Grevious was pretty laughable as a villian, I'm glad all the wanking from Clone Wars Season 2 wasn't present here. Oh wow, he can twirl lightsabers super fast, but otherwise he's just a coughing mostly droid coward, not much of a threat to a skilled Jedi, just tricky to actually put down for good. Finally a decent win for Benny boy!


The Jedi seem pretty dumb when it comes to the Clones murdering them, but I can chalk that up to diminished powers (the Shroud of the Dark Side) and surprise. Still, I would have liked to see more Clones get killed in the instances where they just pointed their guns at a Jedi and started shooting. I guess they really are just great shots, like Jango! It makes sense that Yoda escapes, because he senses the other Jedi dying ahead of time and he's supposed to be one of the most powerful Jedi Masters at the time.

Character shields, but not too much of a stretch.

During the battle between Yoda and Palpatine I noted that Yoda appears to be blocking (or rather absorbing) lightning the whole time, he doesn't throw any back like he did in AOTC.


Was that my imagination or did I see a non-Jango clone unmasked in one of those early "briefing" scenes?

Why was it PG-13? Just because of the sheer amount of bloodless deaths? Because of Anakin's burning flesh at the end? Seemed pretty low end for most PG-13 flicks. No gushing blood, no nipples or butts, no cursing, no drug use. Some scary stuff for kids, but not a whole lot more than was in say, AOTC (other than the burning flesh).

- End spoilers

I am SO glad I avoided spoilers as much as I could before seeing this. A lot of scenes I knew hints about from accidental spoilers etc, but many details and things were complete surprises. Many things I thought would happen didn't and many things I didn't expect, did. This was very nice. Now I can "turn the Matrix back on" without worry of ruining anything.

During the film I noticed right away that it seemed like the volume level was lower than usual. I remember all the Star Wars m movies I'd seen in theaters before seemed really LOUD and in your face with the surround sound (the special editions and the prequels alike). This time I had to strain to hear dialouge sometimes and took me a second or two to realize what a character was mumbling. I don't think my hearing is going bad, so I'm chalking it up to the theater setup. The movie just needed to be louder. The battles felt more detached when it should have felt like you were "right there." Ironic, when there's no sound in space, but even the dramatic music was barely audible and didn't have the "oomph" it should have. Again, I think this was a result of the setup, so other viewings might not have this weakness. I don't care how many people say Lucas is a "visual filmmaker" the sound MAKES these movies come alive.

I was sitting slightly above where I normally do when watching a movie (I try to arrive early and position myself exactly in the middle of the theater) but I was only 2 or 3 rows behind, so I don't think it could be that.

So, would I see it again (on a much less crowded day, with much cheaper tickets and hopefully louder speakers) sure. It was a fun popcorn action flick and the effects were almost perfect.


Post script Questions (spoilers): Only a few of things that were confusing to me (this is probably explained in some EU tie-in I'm guessing).

1) Why does Palpy turn ugly and old? It almost looked like his lightning was rebounding off of Mace Windu and hitting him. But since when does Lightning cause a person to age? What's the explanation for this? I assumed from seeing the trailer and the teaser trailer that Palpatine was merely "disguised" like Dorian Gray using the Dark Side and he "always" looked like a crone. Was the fact that he was struggling with Windu enough to disrupt his concentration for the disguise? Why didn't he re-erect it later when talking to the Senate? Palpy didn't look like he was fighting that hard, and I thought maybe he was holding back to let Anakin intervene as part of his Master Plan, so it doesn't seem like he'd be "burning himself out" with exertion.. maybe I'm wrong.

2) Sith eyes. Sith eyes come and go. I am not assuming this is a "Dune" type of gaffe like with the Fremen eyes being accidentally left out of scenes. Do Sith only possess them at certain times like extreme agitation? Maul always had 'em, Palpatine sometimes has 'em, Anakin has 'em twice, and Dooku never has 'em.

3) Since when do the Neimoidians trust Darth Sideous again? I thought that they were "betrayed" by him and sought Dooku's help (AOTC)? Or was this an elaborate lie by Dooku (in his unusually candid speech to Obi-Wan). The point of Dooku's "deception" was that he WAS TELLING THE TRUTH (but leaving out important facts like that the Sith Lord was his Master, and the war was started intentionally by Sideous/Palpatine as a ploy to gain power). Suddenly the Neimodians act like this is just a routine call from Lord Sideous and they trust him implicitly. Mind Trick?

Any help there?


Now I plan to watch Season 3 of Clone Wars, play through Republic Commando SP, read the novelization, etc etc.

So much to do, so little freetime! Oh well, thanks George, see ya... So far the critics (http://www.rottentomatoes.com)and fans (http://www.imdb.com) love this film, by all counts, so there's another pile of money for the bin, and this time I feel like he's earned it.


Some fun links that will either anger or amuse you guys (or maybe both) about the movie, with spoilers of course:

CAPAlert tells you the reasons why this movie may be bad for your kids:

http://www.capalert.com/capreports/star ... odeiii.htm

Mr. Cranky talks about what a stupid movie it was:

http://mrcranky.com/movies/starwarsepis ... esith.html

ChefElf nitpicks the teaser trailer. He's overdue for nitpicking the film, but give him time!

http://www.chefelf.com/starwars/ep3_teaser.php

Phil Plait (nice guy, I heard him speak in Boulder a couple of years ago) nitpicks the science of the movie:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/ ... _sith.html


Also nice to see Saxton talking about the Death Star already.

Edit: More things... Was it my imagination or were the Trailers a bit wrong in one detail?

I remember them showing the newly "reborn" Vader with his hands manacled so they were bent at the elbow and angled near his shoulders (so you could see them in frame with his head).

In the actual film they are closer to his sides. I guess they changed that in post production? I think it looks better now anyway, as Hayden (in the suit) seems to have really small hands compared to David Prowse and it looks out of proportion compared to what we're used to from the classic trilogy.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Blah, too long.

[HemlockGrey]

Blah, too long.

Dude, seriously, shut the fuck up. Virtually the only thing you've done in this forum for the last few days have been completely useless criticisms, put downs, and stupid bullshit.

I almost got the "multiple endings" vibe at the end like I did for Return of the King but it wasn't nearly that bad, and nobody started to leave and whined, thank goodness.[/quote

I actually would have liked the movie to have included a scene of Yoda looking out over the swamps of Dagobah, because it would have put all the primary characters into the positions they were when ANH started.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Yeah, you're right. I've been behaving like kind of a dick. I'll knock it off.

[Noble Ire]

Phil Plait (nice guy, I heard him speak in Boulder a couple of years ago) nitpicks the science of the movie:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/ ... _sith.html

I may not have a degree in physics, but many of the complaints here are blantantly falacious.

Sound in Space: A common, understandable Scifi brainbug, acceptable (and even possibly explainable if you consider the concept of auditory simulators built into the ships.)

Buzz Droids: Understandable nitpick.

Ship Gravity: The gravity system is malfunctioning fool. No wonder it's all warped (and in the novelization, the gravity does behave in a more natural manner.)

Grevious' Cape: Obviously, the cape is being effected by the atmosphere being blown out of the bridge. Simple.

Fireship: This nitpick makes little sense, but is unobjectionable (same with the jumping bit, although I dont even know where that's coming from.)

Ground Combat: Honestly, has this guy seen ESB? Planetary shields, ooooooooo. And baring that, has it ever occured to him that the point of taking planets is often to use them in some way or capture something from them? Apparently not.

Mustafar duel: Reasonable nitpick.

Obi-wan's suprise: Obviously the jedi are omnipotent. Riiight....

Getaway: I laughed when I saw this one. Why do you think the cap ships are so close? There blocking the CIS's escape. Geez.

Stormtroopers (Why is he talking about stormtroopers?): Typical "Stormtroopers SUX!" arguement. I thought this guy was supposed to understand these things.

The rest are odd and typical complaints.

At least this guy admits he's no Star Wars buff, but honestly, if he's going to make a site like this, he should think about it more.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Sound in Space: A common, understandable Scifi brainbug, acceptable (and even possibly explainable if you consider the concept of auditory simulators built into the ships.)

The anti-sound in space argument is one that I particularly detest. It seems mind-bogglingly stupid when you consider aspects like non-diegetic sound (for the most part, sound in space basically functions like the musical sountrack).

[Winston Blake]

I wasn't aware that "[Anakin] should have been nothing more than a wisp of vapor, and not just a guy who who looked like a sausage left on the grill a minute too long", so regarding SW vs ST, this might be strong evidence that Jedi could withstand phasers on stun, as a kind of 'Force energy resistance' power.

About the bit with the firefighting ships- maybe it wasn't plain old water, but a dense liquid forced out a high pressure, hence not whipped away by the wind but still arcing.

[Mange]

I don't think that $9 for a ticket sounds that expensive, I paid 95 Swedish kronor ($13) for my ticket (regular showing), that's expensive (well, Sweden is an expensive country). Interesting thoughts...

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Wait a minute, Quad Cities? Kurgan, you live in Iowa?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dooey Jo]

About the bit with the firefighting ships- maybe it wasn't plain old water, but a dense liquid forced out a high pressure, hence not whipped away by the wind but still arcing.

That was my thought as well. I thought it looked more like the stuff that comes out of those foam (or whatever they call it) fire extinguishers, and it seemed to stick to the ship. Plus, you'd think they'd need something better than water to put out fire's in starships' hulls...

[Kurgan]

Wait a minute, Quad Cities? Kurgan, you live in Iowa?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only now... at the end, do you understand!

Hey, I almost went to your school too. It's a small world after all.


***

9 bucks a ticket seems like a lot to me, I guess it seems like only yesterday they were 7.50 (with tax). Then again I have usually found ways of avoiding the high ticket prices by going to early shows during the week or free/cheap movies at school or bargain theaters. This time I didn't do that so I felt the pinch. ;P

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As to Mr. Plait's site, I encourage you guys to send your comments to him via email. He does read and update accordingly, even if he disagrees. The sound in space thing wouldn't be a big deal in this movie, except the Droid Fighters are suddenly talking to each other (in their high pitched annoying cartoon voices)... something that we never saw previously. It's like Lucas was just looking for new ways to goof on the fans. (???)

The whole "auditory feedback" explanation is fine and dandy, but it still would force us into thinking there was a "god's eye view ship" that we were inside watching the battle with the sound effects. Not every shot is from the inside of somebody's cockpit and yet we hear the sounds all the time. Still not as bad as saying this is another universe with different physics that allows sound to travel in space just like on earth. Saying it's just like the incidental music is a better SOD explanation.

The fires on the ship seemed like the least of their worries, but I guess it's probably standard procedure for the "fire ships" to attend to any burning vessels they see in the skies quickly.

I just got through the Clone Wars series (season 3) this morning, nice stuff. It seems like Tartakovsky & Co. basically took all the fanboy "we know this has to fit into the prequels somehow" lore and packed it into the cartoon, basically so they could say that stuff was part of canon now and not just fanon (like the aquatic battle, the cunning warrior/best starpilot reputation, the "dark cave" on dagobah, etc). More Grevious wanking (oh I see, this is why he runs from battle, 'cause Dooku taught him that, heh), ultimately discarded in the new movie. Then again, it's not just Grevious, the Clone Wars pretty much boosts everyone from movie level. I still enjoyed it, but the feel was very different. So much for Mace Windu's amazing crowd clearing abilities just being the mixed up memories of some kid, though. Anyway, I see it as "it's a cartoon, an exaggeration of the 'real' thing."

[Tsyroc]

Wait a minute, Quad Cities? Kurgan, you live in Iowa?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of the Quad Cities are in Illinois (hopefully he doesn't live there, for his sake).

Milan, Illinois used to have the only multi-plex in the area when I lived there (Bettendorf). Back when I saw RotJ for the first time it was only showing at the cinema adjacent to South Park Mall in Moline, Illinois.

[Kurgan]

Wait a minute, Quad Cities? Kurgan, you live in Iowa?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of the Quad Cities are in Illinois (hopefully he doesn't live there, for his sake).

Milan, Illinois used to have the only multi-plex in the area when I lived there (Bettendorf). Back when I saw RotJ for the first time it was only showing at the cinema adjacent to South Park Mall in Moline, Illinois.

Ah yes, the old Showcase cinemas in Milan, I remember those. I probably saw it at that very theater. He guessed right, but yeah, the QC includes Moline and Rock Island in ILL, Davenport & Bettendorf in IA.

I know what you're saying, ILL can be like a different world, compared to IA, it's amazing the contrast sometimes.

[Hardy]

Phil Plait (nice guy, I heard him speak in Boulder a couple of years ago) nitpicks the science of the movie:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/ ... _sith.html

Well, finally somebody brings up the blatantly obvious physics problems. I'm very familiar with this particular site, and I do harbor a lot of respect for Phil Plaitt, by the way.

Some of the buzz droid issues with sound in space can be explained by dubbing over the documentary film for enchancement of viewer expereince. Some of it is unavoidable unless you go to great lengths to explain it.

The only way for them to fall behind would be for Obi Wan to accelerate, so he would be moving faster than the dead droids, and they would appear to fall behind him. But there's no indication he's doing so (and in fact is wasting time talking to Anakin when he should be concentrating on getting to his destination, but the ways of the Jedi are mysterious).

This is a good example of when when circular reasoning is perfectly valid. I noticed this problem too and had just assumed that he had accelerated.

The ship was in orbit, so there is no up or down! I have to assume they have some sort of artificial gravity, and they lose it. But then everyone should float! Instead, it's depicted like a room that's tilting. Even R2 (who has thrusters in his feet, as I recall) starts to slide along the floor.

This particular bit had confused me greatly, and I'm quite glad that people like Saxton fixed it. There are several solutions.

• The ship wasn't entirely freefalling and/or may have been providing a weak counterthrust. That would still allow people in the interior to fall.
• Canon literature says that artificial gravity was on the fritz, and a "lateral" gravity might have been causing the downward falls.

Oh, another thing: when General Grievous jumps outside the ship, we definitely see his cape waving in the wind. What wind? He's in space! He was already outside the ship, and had moved well away from where he broke the glass to escape outside.

It could be pendulum motion or due to other factors, like the cape being pulled taught by some acceleration. The ship was venting in multiple places too. It's a weak refuation on my part.

As the ship falls toward the planet, it enters the atmosphere. It heats up, with flames trailing behind it. Parts start to fly off. After at least a half minute of this, we cut to the control room, and Obi Wan says "We're in the atmosphere."

I can't disagree here. That was silly.

Also, a point I like to make, even though it's not mentioned in the movie: re-entering ships don't heat up due to friction.

W00t! New knowledge!

Oh, another thing: as they are about to land (well, it was more like a controlled crash landing), ships fly along spraying water on them to put out the fires. Besides being pretty silly, the streams of water are shown dropping straight down onto the warship. Um, they are about to crash land at several hundred kilometers per hour, so I would think the wind would be pretty fierce and blow the water streams backwards.

I think Anakin may have slowed the ship down enough, but I'll give him this one.

Another thing like that is not getting motion correct when showing characters jumping. When a real person jumps, they go up, slow down, stop, accelerate down, and land. In movies, when superhuman characters jump, they never slow down on the way up or speed up on the way back down! It looks fake, and that happened several times in this movie with Yoda, Anakin, Obi Wan, and other Jedi and Sith leaping around.

I'm surprised. ROTS seemed to actually have corrected this problem a little when compared to other films. On the bright side, a new Force power has been discovered: Force thrust.

His little ground combat scenario was stupid...obvious reasons.

I'll give him the lava bit, too. Though I didn't catch it, he's very right. The best one could do is just rationalize it as having to do with Force powers. As for the immolation, he's guilty of a bifurcation fallacy. Anakin's concentration must've been reduced, but not altogether shut down.

Once Grievous "kidnaps" Palpatine, why didn't he just break orbit and get away? Of course, it was all a plot to get the Jedi there, but then Obi Wan should have been wondering why the ship wasn't trying to get away. He said he sensed a trap, but still.

Plenty of reasons. The Republic fleet was probably quite literally in the IH's way; they were under Coruscant's planetary shield; the ship was likely disabled.