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i'm going to start off by saying that i'm not the biggest star wars fan. "empire" is my favorite of the original trilogy but to be completely honest i don't think i've seen any star wars movie (including episode 1) more than twice. in fact, the second time i saw episode 1 was just the other night to "prep" myself for "attack of the clones."
in the following review i'll do my best not to spoil anything for anyone. upon second viewing, episode 1 wasn't as annoying as i had remembered it. jar jar is an obnoxious, bumbling character who becomes a military general and, as we learn in episode2, becomes the representative of his people in the galactic senate. his on screen time runs at about 5 minutes total and, while he is difficult to listen to, isn't the same idiot he was in episode 1.
the basic plot of "attack of the clones" as we learn from the openning crawl is that many of the planets are leaving the republic and, in turn, the jedi (the keepers of the peace) are being overwhelmed. it's then the idea of the senate to create a repuplic army to help out the over worked jedi. of course SENATOR amidala will have none of that and her life is in great danger.
so how was the movie? i was talking about this with some people and i think i best summed it up like this:
1- tons of plot holes.
2- love story... eh.
3- so many unneccessary effects.
4- exciting as hell! i enjoyed it WAY more than i thought i would have.
i guess i'll address these things in order.
not to spoil anything, but when you think about it afterwards you're left with questions like, "well if he/she reacted this way at this point in the movie, why did he/she react the complete opposite way later on?" and you can't very well defend it by saying that the character developed over the course of the movie. it just seemed inconsistent.
the love story was weak. and i'm not saying this as some kind of macho "i hate love stories, they're for wimps" guy. it was just silly. and odd. anakin is a jerk of a character. he's descibed on aintitcoolnews as the highschool football superstar that goes after the hottest cheerleader and i couldn't choose a better way of putting it. i guess some girls just like 'em jerky.
the effects... k. so. for starters i think i'll mention that i went with a handfull of my coworkers. we all work at a vfx house. i suppose i mention this to say that (and i'm trying not to be boastfull here) we know what we're talking about when we see flaws... okay...
there is no such thing as a perfect vfx movie. and there's no way any movie with about 2 trillion vfx can look perfect or even consistent in the end. there are so many things to talk about here, but i think that rather than spoil things i'll just touch on them.
digital film making has a long way to go before it becomes a viable way of making movies. i can assume that lucas, being a huge supporter of digital film making, has advanced the technology farther along than it would be, much like the way he advanced vfx by starting up a little company called ilm so many years ago. at the same time, i'm of a mind that it still wasn't ready for this movie. scenes at night (especially nighttime on coruscant) are noisy as hell. and it can't be film grain. it is possible that they added film grain in post however what i'm talking about looks alot like pixel noise. i could be wrong, and i hope i am, but talking about it over lunch with my coworkers, we all seemed to agree that it was noise and not fake grain.
we were also of the opinion that there were very few good comps in the entire movie. matte lines were visible all over the place. but i guess when you shoot something digital like that, can you spend the proper time needed to get rid of all matte lines? or is it easier to say that for a 2 second long shot that it's "good enough" and move on? we've been in this situation before ourselves and i can't tell you how often you have to say, "this shot looks decent, but now we've got 10 more to do and they have to be done in the next 5 days. this is good enough. move on."
i don't fault anyone for that.
however when you're doing stuff like having natalie portman lying in sand... and the sand is cg and so is the guy entering from frame right... i mean... how much money could they have saved if they had bought some sand and had her lay in it. first take isn't perfect? buy a rake or something, smooth out the sand and do take 2! i think lucas has to learn that just because something can be done in cg doesn't mean it has to be done in cg.
lastly lets talk about how exciting this movie is. i think the final runtime is around the 2 and a half hour mark and while the first half can be kinda slow, the second half more than makes up for it. i don't want to give things away, but the clone wars and jedi battles are something to behold. if you can sit back and watch it with a non-critical eye and just try and take in what's going on onscreen i think you'll be in total awe watching what's going on.
in conclusion (my grade 12 english teacher would cringe if she saw me type that) this chapter in the star wars series is about a million times better than episode 1. so much better in fact that it almost feels like a completely different movie and a different universe. i left the movie feeling as i'm sure i would have if i had ever seen the original trilogy in theaters when i was a kid.
in the following review i'll do my best not to spoil anything for anyone. upon second viewing, episode 1 wasn't as annoying as i had remembered it. jar jar is an obnoxious, bumbling character who becomes a military general and, as we learn in episode2, becomes the representative of his people in the galactic senate. his on screen time runs at about 5 minutes total and, while he is difficult to listen to, isn't the same idiot he was in episode 1.
the basic plot of "attack of the clones" as we learn from the openning crawl is that many of the planets are leaving the republic and, in turn, the jedi (the keepers of the peace) are being overwhelmed. it's then the idea of the senate to create a repuplic army to help out the over worked jedi. of course SENATOR amidala will have none of that and her life is in great danger.
so how was the movie? i was talking about this with some people and i think i best summed it up like this:
1- tons of plot holes.
2- love story... eh.
3- so many unneccessary effects.
4- exciting as hell! i enjoyed it WAY more than i thought i would have.
i guess i'll address these things in order.
not to spoil anything, but when you think about it afterwards you're left with questions like, "well if he/she reacted this way at this point in the movie, why did he/she react the complete opposite way later on?" and you can't very well defend it by saying that the character developed over the course of the movie. it just seemed inconsistent.
the love story was weak. and i'm not saying this as some kind of macho "i hate love stories, they're for wimps" guy. it was just silly. and odd. anakin is a jerk of a character. he's descibed on aintitcoolnews as the highschool football superstar that goes after the hottest cheerleader and i couldn't choose a better way of putting it. i guess some girls just like 'em jerky.
the effects... k. so. for starters i think i'll mention that i went with a handfull of my coworkers. we all work at a vfx house. i suppose i mention this to say that (and i'm trying not to be boastfull here) we know what we're talking about when we see flaws... okay...
there is no such thing as a perfect vfx movie. and there's no way any movie with about 2 trillion vfx can look perfect or even consistent in the end. there are so many things to talk about here, but i think that rather than spoil things i'll just touch on them.
digital film making has a long way to go before it becomes a viable way of making movies. i can assume that lucas, being a huge supporter of digital film making, has advanced the technology farther along than it would be, much like the way he advanced vfx by starting up a little company called ilm so many years ago. at the same time, i'm of a mind that it still wasn't ready for this movie. scenes at night (especially nighttime on coruscant) are noisy as hell. and it can't be film grain. it is possible that they added film grain in post however what i'm talking about looks alot like pixel noise. i could be wrong, and i hope i am, but talking about it over lunch with my coworkers, we all seemed to agree that it was noise and not fake grain.
we were also of the opinion that there were very few good comps in the entire movie. matte lines were visible all over the place. but i guess when you shoot something digital like that, can you spend the proper time needed to get rid of all matte lines? or is it easier to say that for a 2 second long shot that it's "good enough" and move on? we've been in this situation before ourselves and i can't tell you how often you have to say, "this shot looks decent, but now we've got 10 more to do and they have to be done in the next 5 days. this is good enough. move on."
i don't fault anyone for that.
however when you're doing stuff like having natalie portman lying in sand... and the sand is cg and so is the guy entering from frame right... i mean... how much money could they have saved if they had bought some sand and had her lay in it. first take isn't perfect? buy a rake or something, smooth out the sand and do take 2! i think lucas has to learn that just because something can be done in cg doesn't mean it has to be done in cg.
lastly lets talk about how exciting this movie is. i think the final runtime is around the 2 and a half hour mark and while the first half can be kinda slow, the second half more than makes up for it. i don't want to give things away, but the clone wars and jedi battles are something to behold. if you can sit back and watch it with a non-critical eye and just try and take in what's going on onscreen i think you'll be in total awe watching what's going on.
in conclusion (my grade 12 english teacher would cringe if she saw me type that) this chapter in the star wars series is about a million times better than episode 1. so much better in fact that it almost feels like a completely different movie and a different universe. i left the movie feeling as i'm sure i would have if i had ever seen the original trilogy in theaters when i was a kid.
ops: so if anyone posts more questions on the weekend i won't be able to answer any of them until monday. sorry.
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