Sijun Forums :: View topic - *spoilers* Thoughts on the new EP2 trailer

Gimbal8 · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 3:48 pm

Did you see how Jar Jar got chopped in half?!?

Yeah, I'm just kidding. Unfortunately.

I know some people might be trying to do that media blackout thing like my wife and I did before Episode 1 of Star Wars so I just want to be sure that you people not wanting too see or read too many spoilers don't read too far ahead and ruin something for yourself. Like how Yoda dies in the end. Hahaha - nevermind, kidding. Wait, yoda does die in the end...

I don't mean for everyone to try and predict what the movie will end like or anything, but after I watched the most recent trailer that was released I finally started to feel as if EP2 won't be nearly as disapointing as EP1. I still worry that the dialog seems forced or flat, and that there seems to be so much going on that to pack it all in one movie like they did in EP1 will cause some problems. But overall I think there is a little bit more grit and desperation beneath the surface of this one to make it a bit more appealing.

Anyone elses' thoughts? Besides "shut up you Star Wars geek" that is...

Rat · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 3:59 pm

Let's see...

I really hope JarJar dies. He's so damn annoying! Besides, if he doesn't die in this movie, he has to in Ep 3 (they'll probably do one). He's not in the originals (obviously).

I've seen a couple real trailers and a fake one. I'd say just by judging off them [the real ones], don't get your hopes up. Looks like there's going to be a little bit of mushy stuff (*runs off to puke*).

Nothing will ever be as good as the originals.

Coaster · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 4:06 pm

I think your right about them cramming lots of stuff into the second one like they did the first. And yes, it will be a love story as well. I remember it taking me a little while to explain to my parents how the whole princess leah, luke, anikan and {the queen whats her name.. amadala?} associations worked.

I'll probably only see this one in the theatres if a friend does.

~Jeff
Oh, and hopefully Jar Jar gets more then chopped in half...

Coaster · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 4:09 pm

Just remembered:
N'stync or some other dehumanizing boy band will appear in the movie.

I guess I'll only see this movie in the theatres if I'm tied to the chair now...

Diruo · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 4:18 pm

Well.. I'm a Star Wars geek alright. And I was really dissapointed on Episode I. I've seen the new trailer and.. umm.. I'm not impressed. 99% of the movie seems to be CG and the small part where real actors actually act it seems (like you say) the dialogue is very flat and somehow uninspired. They're basicly just reading their lines. With the exception of Christopher "Saruman" Lee when he says "You must join me Obi-Wan.. and together we will destroy the sith!". But on the other hand he sounds just like Vader trying to convince Luke to join him, only worse. Even the CG looks bad imo.. the lasers are way to bright and look very unnatural and the light sabres look like toy weapons.. espessially the purple ones.

Have I nothing good to say about it then? Well.. I must say that Ewan McGregor look pretty cool in the long hair and beard.. but that's about it

Gimbal8 · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 4:31 pm

I have no problem with there being a love story at all. True, often when people try to have a love story going on in a movie it seems tacked on like an afterthought. But I think the love story part of this one will turn into a romatic tragedy of sorts. Tragic tales are always the best (imo). And it is just the sort of twist the second part of this prequilogy needs.

Considering I don't really know the faces of the boy bands too well I don't think I'll notice them in the movie. And hopefully the rumors I hear of them pulling those scenes out to appease the fans is true.

Still the visuals are worth the price of the ticket to me. Even though I was disapointed with EP1 it was still a better movie-going experience then 80% of the other crap I see.

Gimbal8 · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 4:37 pm

Diruo: "I must say that Ewan McGregor look pretty cool in the long hair and beard.. " lol - My wife has to pause and stare at each shot of Obi Wan to gush about how hot he is.

Funny you should mention the whole thing about it sounding just like Vader trying to convince Luke to join the dark side. Is George Lucas the biggest hack of himself or what? If they have Padme choke some creature with a chain then I'll know for sure.

edible snowman · member Member # Joined: 12 Sep 2000 Posts: 998

it should be visually interesting at least, although everyone seems to be in a rush to bring it down after the first one. which i also thought at least looked cool. that stupid little kid annoyed me even more than jar jar.

Kuren · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 4:53 pm

It would be quite amusing to see Jar Jar just get lobbed in half in the very first scene. No dialogue, not even the Lucasfilm logo. You just see a scene of Jar Jar blatently lobbed in half. I think the crowd would cheer and automatically dub EP2 the best SW film of all time.

BlackPool · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 4:56 pm

I liked it alright. No real complaints. At least Yoda looks like Yoda this time.

Aside from my distaste of the design of all the prequal ships, I wish they would get away from those mono-chromatic color schemes and put some more color in there--particularly in those battle scenes.

James Bradford · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 5:17 pm

Coaster: N'sync was pulled out, too many people bitched to Lucas.

Rat · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 6:45 pm

quote:
Originally posted by JamesBradford:
N'sync was pulled out

I haven't been following it, but hey, that's good! If they were in it, I'd puke (not to mention make sure I never came in contact with the movie).

I could write a very detailed, graphic scene of JarJar being killed. Want me to?

Gimbal8 · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 6:50 pm

"I could write a very detailed, graphic scene of JarJar being killed. Want me to?"

No, lets all draw it instead.

Actually that would make an excellent idea for an animated gif...

"Mesa Jar Jar Bi- " *vrrrrmmmBBZRACK*... *thump*...*thump*

hehehe

strata · Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2002 3:57 am

concering the love story bla bla, Lucas DID say a long while back that the first movie would be much like a childrens movie, the second one would be a love story, and the third one would be extremely dark and brooding, almost Seven like...

So he IS sticking to his plan... and it sort of gives him an excuse for fecking up ep1 they way he did.... -he planned it... he didn't really feck it up, he just made some really really bad desicions.

Steelwind · Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2002 6:17 am

I think ep 2 is still going to suck, it'll just have more cool visuals in it. I mean, it seems to me that Lucas is so sure that any Star Wars movie will make one hundred million dollars he isn't going to try too hard to make it interesting.

Look at the trailer, for instance: the scene where Amidala is on the moving floor, and things are trying to kill her. I beleive that scene was put in solely to make the movie into a console game, and a bad one.

That, and Lucas's direction seems to be "Just sit there and say this, so we can all go home and count money." It looks to me like Natalie Portman has done some acting in spite of this, but I bet she got yelled at for it.

Still, I will go see it, and I will buy the DVD, just because there will be enough cool visuals to keep me interested about once every six months. That's about the same amount of time it takes me to forget enough of how Ep 1 sucked to watch it again. or I just watch the lightsaber fight.

Diruo · Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2002 6:24 am

"If they have Padme choke some creature with a chain then I'll know for sure."

nuff said

Awetopsy · Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2002 7:53 am

I dunno.. the whole battle for naboo thing didnt really seem like much of an opening for a 6 movie epic. :P

I like the Draw Jar Jar getting waxed idea...

I think ep2 is going to be a fair amount cooler than the first one... this last trailer sorta restored my faith.

Luccas is setting it up much like the first three movies (ep 4,5,6) first one, when it came out, hardly anybody liked... a few years later released ep5 and people started really catching on. I think the series will work out fine.

Gimbal8 · Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2002 8:09 am

Come to think of it, I can't wait for the 'Art of Episode 2' book now too.

sacrelicious · Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2002 8:58 pm

Just get the Art of Episode 1 book- a LOT of the designs come straight out of it. Well, maybe not that many, but quite a few.

Gimbal8 · Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2002 7:39 am

Have that one. And the ones from the previous trilogy (the more recently published ones with the artwork related to the added scenes). Great stuff.

Dekard · member Member # Joined: 01 Nov 2001 Posts: 274

quote:
Originally posted by JamesBradford:
Coaster: N'sync was pulled out, too many people bitched to Lucas.

Actually, the statement about them being pulled out was from Joey Fatone from N'Sync, later that day, it was released from LucasFilms that 'nothing' has been cut from the movie and the only one that can make that decision would be George himself which he hasn't made his decision public if it will be included or not. That was the official statement from LucasFilm.

But I think this one looks way to 'cartoonish' the pic above is what I am refering too, it's just too CGI'ish, you can't let the CGI try to make the story, George should know this, look at Final Fantasy, GREAT F**King CGI, crappy told story.

Points of my pickiness:

Cloned Troopers all same height, same pose with pistols at the same position all mathmatically correct throughout the ranks. Height would be same since they are clones, but guns wouldn't be magically all the same exact hieght, position etc..

All the scenes in the with the fighting and you see all the actors, like Natalie in teh white suit firing the blaster and fighting that animal thingy, all scream green screen. Not even like they tried to match up the light from the CGI to the actors at all.

It will be a good film, but I haven't found anything from this trailer that makes me want to run out to see the film.

The asteroid blowing up looked pretty impressive though, and the CGI 'is' pretty, but lets hope good ol' George can pull it off.

This movie is much less hyped than EP1 was.. maybe that's a good thing.

Lunatique · Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2002 11:24 am

I dunno. Star Wars' charm doesn't hold up in today's world for me. We've had quite a bit of excellent works in Sci-Fi/Fantasy since the first Star Wars for me to give a steamy pile of poo about what Lucas is up to. I prefer his Indiana Jones series more, to tell the truth. Indy's got more personality than all the SW characters combined.

I was always a fan of the more intense/serious stuff like Alien/Aliens, Bladerunner, Contact..etc anyways. Ewoks and Jar Jar can blow each other for all I care.

Gimbal8 · Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2002 2:02 pm

For me, I can't hold Star Wars to the same standards I hold Bladrunner and Aliens. Different types of movies in my mind. For me a movie usually fails if it doesn't hit the mark it was aiming for. Like if a movie tried to be all realistic and serious but had some guy in a cheesy rubber suit saying, "Grrr, I'm a monster...Grrrr" then the movie will suck.

My favorite horror movie of all time: Dead Alive (the uncut version rocks). And it wasn't even scary. But you can tell the movie hit what it aimed for and it did it brilliantly (imo).

So in that respect I'm not too overly worried about the CG stuff in EP2. In the first trilogy there were obvious stop-motion shots, puppets, rubber-suits etc. and I still enjoyed it all.

A Star Wars movie with the gritty realism of Bladrunner or Aliens would rule...but I doubt Lucas is capable of aiming that high, let alone hitting the target. And as long as my expectation remain equally low, I'll be less likely to be disapointed as much in the theater when I do see it.

travis travis · Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2002 2:30 pm

"concering the love story bla bla, Lucas DID say a long while back that the first movie would be much like a childrens movie, the second one would be a love story, and the third one would be extremely dark and brooding, almost Seven like... "

what the heck kind of plan is that?

does he want no person to be able to stomach all three of the films? I don't know. it seems bizarre for a creator to work on a new branch of his material - but instead of really working on it, plop each section down in a genre like style instead of what was. it's almost parody.

star wars was never rocket science, but where it was once a cool adventure, George's prequels have clearly entered 'what a retard' territory. it's like the earlier movies were at least adolescent cool, but these ones are nearing toddler maturity. seriously. tell me what is engaging or even watchable about a bunch of silly costumes that at this point are looking rather trekky and Babylon-5, uninspired but excessive CGI demonstrations, and acting so flat it makes you suspicious that keanu reeves has taken up direction. (seriously, I'm having trouble understanding why all these professional actors are acting like 10-year olds reading off cue cards in these movies.) not to mention it can't be hidden that every other scene, and half the aliens, are posing to be toys. the only thing giving people any interest in these movies at all is the tie in to the past.

fellipe · junior member Member # Joined: 14 Nov 2001 Posts: 43

Episode II: A Love Story
i'll go to the theater, only for the cg tho, i like massive (well done) cgfightings, and space action scenes, and samuel l jackson( i wanna see him jumping and fliping).

Rat · Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2002 3:58 pm

My dad's probably gonna drag me to see it. It might be okay, but I can't stomach love stories. Unless one of the pair gets killed by the other.

Coaster · Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2002 6:47 pm

hmf.
Above posts prompted me to make a gif of jar jar getting torched last night.

I don't know what I was thinking.
I'll probably see the movie.
I'd really want to see it if I got paid to though.

but until then... *slowly backs away from Rat*

Cicinimo · Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2002 6:17 pm

quote:
Originally posted by Steelwind:
I think ep 2 is still going to suck, it'll just have more cool visuals in it. I mean, it seems to me that Lucas is so sure that any Star Wars movie will make one hundred million dollars he isn't going to try too hard to make it interesting.

Look at the trailer, for instance: the scene where Amidala is on the moving floor, and things are trying to kill her. I beleive that scene was put in solely to make the movie into a console game, and a bad one.

That, and Lucas's direction seems to be "Just sit there and say this, so we can all go home and count money." It looks to me like Natalie Portman has done some acting in spite of this, but I bet she got yelled at for it.

Still, I will go see it, and I will buy the DVD, just because there will be enough cool visuals to keep me interested about once every six months. That's about the same amount of time it takes me to forget enough of how Ep 1 sucked to watch it again. or I just watch the lightsaber fight.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say George Lucas might actually have interests beyond bringing in money. Granted, he's eager to rake in another few billion. At the same time, I seriously doubt he's approaching the new films as nonchalantly as you claim. Nobody puts their heart into the creation of an epic classic, then kisses their dream to a few truckloads (REALLY big trucks) of money. His devotion may not stretch as far as a that of some of his rabid fans, but I'm quite sure he's doing all he can to make his films exactly how he wants them. I think a few people need to go back and watch the original trilogy, and realize George has never been a brilliant director or a skilled writer. He has a brilliantly visual, creative mind, and I think thats really going to show in his next two films. As the visual style moves more towards the dark and gritty, I think we'll see the return of alot of fans. Complaining about the cg appearence seems a little silly. It wouldn't be reasonable to use the same effects he used in the 70s, and sci-fi will always be heavily dependant on the latest technologies. Industrial light and magic is par none (poor, poor square pictures...dead), dispite any minor lighting differences you can spot in one individual frame. I'm thinking a few of us might be a little overly critical...

Gimbal8 · Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2002 6:40 pm

Probably one of the reasons I like The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi better then A New Hope is that the other two weren't directed by Lucas (if I remember correctly).

The fact that he is directing all the prequels is kinda disheartening, but oh well. Last thing I want to do is be hyper-critical about everything he does. It would kill any enjoyment I might have out of going to see the movies.

I cetainly hope I don't find myself looking for lighting conflicts and other such things while I'm trying to watch something. After I watched Fight Club and they showed the 'cigarette burn' thingy, I now see it EVERY FREAKIN' TIME I'M IN THE THEATER!!! UGH! I hate that. And I'm not even trying to look for it.

Bg · Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2002 5:56 pm

Episodes 4-5 were ok, 6 quite good without the ewoks but I hated Episode 1, even its best part, which is the light saber fight IMHO, wasn't that good: the movements were overly clean, it seemed more like dance to me than real fight (they were trying to hit the sabers, not kill haha), the place was like a background taken from a videogame, no logic, no realism, it was made for the fight, the fight wasn't made for it which is the reason it didn't feel natural.. what was it supposed to be, why there were the laser walls? Even the original three movies had more logic in them, but unfortunately many of those same ridiculous elements were present back then: too big starships and buildings, walking through the Death Star would've taken days, characters with horns or elephant's face, the list goes on and on...
The weapon design is embarassingly bad, the so called "lasers" were slower than today's bullets, even slower than arrows. At times the movie(s) tried to be serious, but on the other hand there were these stupid characters like ewoks, Jar Jar and every damn creature in Jabba's place. Does George Lucas really enjoy making movies which are mixs of love, war, comedy, adventure and children's movie?
I watched Black Hawk Down the other day, it doesn't try to be anything else than a combat film, and it does it very well... and that's the way I like movies.. I don't want to see teletubbies in war flics.
Episodes 1-3 are supposed to tell the story of Anakin, how he became Darth Vader, and how the Jedies were slain by the Emperor in clone wars, construction of the Empire's massive fleet and army, epic tale in all aspects.. the main plot sounds very dark and promising and I hoped to see something excellent in the theater when I went to see Episode 1. I was heavily disappointed, it was a silly fairy tale for 8 years old kids. After Starship Troopers' brilliant space sequences Star Wars' galactic battles look ok at best and the war in the beginning of Fellowship of the Rings is better than George has ever envisioned, or what does Jar Jar and his brothers beating the vast clone army with zero casualties sound/look like?

Episode 2 looks empty, dull and lifeless. A good example is the scene in the trailer where Christopher Lee says "You must join me Obi Wan" compare it to similar scene in Fellowship of the Ring where he says (as Saruman) "We must join with him Gandalf". Peter Jackson got so much more out of Christopher Lee than George Lucas.