Ranting of a (former?) fanboy

[memnus]

Finally saw Episode 3. Beware my caps lock.

I confess I came in with high hopes, having heard it made up for the previous two. Unfortunately, after the first scene and its HORRIBLE PHYSICS ABUSE, my standards were shot. (Um, starship is IN ORBIT and rotates 90 degrees, suddenly the gravity aboard is pulling everything sideways!)

In short, too much gratuitous, not enough time spent on halfway... ok, not even quarter-way... decent dialogue. So much potential, it had. The easy way out, Lucas took. The dark side, shortcuts lead to. Never mind that so many things flew in the face of just about everything established in the EU. Some of the worst violations I saw:

I don't care how distracted a Jedi is, you cannot look him in the face while you have orders to kill him, and not have him sense hostiliy and betrayal.

The Death Star was still in design phases less than five years before New Hope, not under construction at the end of the Republic.

Having Yoda and Chewbacca know each other was entirely out of the blue and just felt too random.

What happened to the bodies of Jedi Masters disappearing when they die?

Artoo's memory was not wiped, yet never once in the future does he tell Luke all the things about his family there were ENTIRE BOOKS dedicated to his quest for.


I will say there were some touches I found absolutely beautiful. The cameo appearance by Organa's corvette. Despite the awful leadup to it, I definitely felt the shock when Anakin found the kids in the Temple. The amazing shinyness of all the various worlds shown.


Entirely unrelated, something here smells like pine.

click

Comments

[camlost.livejournal.com]

As for the bodies of dead Jedi disappearing, I assumed that the explanation for that lies in the new discovery of Qui-Gon's, that allows Jedi to not really die which Yoda mentions at the end.

[macdaddyfrosh.livejournal.com]

This issue got considerable coverage in the fanboy community immediately after Ep. 1; specifically, Qui-gonn (the fourth Jedi we see die in real time, and the third light-side Jedi) is the first good guy who doesn't evaporate.

Then, they proceed to kill a bunch of folk in Ep. 2, and they don't, either.

The bit at the end was supposed to be Lucas explaining why Yoda and Obi-Wan get to evaporate, and the rest don't.

Not that that explains why Vader gets to do it, unless that third person at the end of Return is supposed to be Qui-Gonn (and it isn't...)

So, yeah, good fight choreography.

And who says the spaceship was still generating its own gravity?
(equally full of holes, I know; don't try to make it scientific, it just won't work)

[inferno0069.livejournal.com]

In Ep. 4, Vader does poke at Obi-Wan's clothing in a way that made it seem like Jedi aren't expected to disappear, so that part didn't bother me, but ... many of the rest of those, yeah.

And yay for pine!

[ultrasparcz.livejournal.com]

When was the last time you saw a scifi that *didn't* have bad physics. The point is with enough artificial gravity, inertial compensators, and hand waving it almost becomes believable.

I agree the dialogue wasn't that great, but George Lucas doesn't like writing scripts so it wasn't unexpected.

They're clones with practically no free will. I doubt they even have emotions. Furthermore it does take concentration to sense emotions, and even Jedi aren't immune to inattentional blindness.

I agree the Death Star was a major discontinuity. I will say, however, that it a very visually stunning connection to the OT.

The Chewbacca scene was a bit random, albeit there's no evidence in the EU either way.

I never got the impression that Jedi Masters disappear when they die. Quigon and Anakin were both burned on pyres and there were plenty of bodies in Ep II. I got the impression that Kenobi and Yoda disappeared only because they were expecting to die.

You're assuming that R2 knew Luke was related to Anakin. Given how much effort they took to hide the birth of the twins I can believe that R2 never possessed this knowledge.