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Revenge of the Sith TV Spots Revealed 360
Bobert@flixnjoystix.com writes "StarWars.com has unveiled three TV spots for STAR WARS: EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH!" The three spots are shorter than the longer trailer that has been seen earlier, and a little bit more pop action than the dark trailer that gave me hope. Anyway, here is Spot 1,
Spot 2, and
Spot 3.
High cheese factor (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong. I loved the first two Star Wars films.... well A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, but it started falling off for me with Revenge....whoops, Return of the Jedi. The next two had me shaking my head in disbelief. How could they go so wrong? What happened? Ewoks and Jar Jar and lightly veiled racism combined with poor dialogue. Yeah, the modelers at ILM are still some of the coolest, the animation is fabulous, John Williams is John Williams, but as a franchise, Star Wars has lost that magic for me........
For any aspiring film directors out there, please use the following guidelines as listed in order of importance.
Story>Writing>Acting>Direction>Cinematography>E
Re:High cheese factor (Score:3, Funny)
Re:High cheese factor (Score:4, Interesting)
that all the freaking sentient aliens are pretty much the same size.
why can't we have some superdense 15 foot giants walking around talking trash.
Why are they all the same size?
Re:High cheese factor (Score:5, Funny)
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
like the big orcs in LOTR. it was so cool to see them smash around and being used as heavy infantry.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2, Interesting)
So... about the size of Jabba the Hutt, then?
Here's the thing: Actors tend to be human sized. The more odd-sized and odd-shaped aliens you have the less detatched from humanity your story becomes.
Farscape is cool and fun, but it borders on feeling like H.R. Puffinstuff every once in a while.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
er.... ummm...
g/less/s//more/
Typing fast while waiting for little blue fill-bars on the other screen can lead to lazy errors sometimes.
Animation and puppetry have their place, but you get a lot more subtle nuance out of a live actor in most cases... Keanu Reeves being an obvious exception.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:3, Funny)
Re:High cheese factor (Score:5, Insightful)
Jabba is pretty big. Maybe the Hutts killed off all the other 15 foot giants to control the underworld, and thus you don't see any other giant creatures talking trash.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2, Funny)
Or something like a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue ?
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
Re:High cheese factor (Score:3, Interesting)
that all the freaking sentient aliens are pretty much the same size.
why can't we have some superdense 15 foot giants walking around talking trash.
Why are they all the same size?
Glad you asked
Haldane's On Being the Right Size [ucla.edu]
Of course, his essay does make certain assumptions about an Earth-like atmosphere and gravity...
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
Common sense. Larger creatures have spinal cords/neural pathways that take longer to traverse. Therefore, the brain can't be the sole controller in such an arrangement - "limbic" supplemental neural aggregates, located at the base of the spinal cord, are used to compensate for these neural delay times i
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2, Insightful)
An oversimplification that sacrifices accuracy for easier visual digestion.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
Even though they are humanoid, they all have different forehead wrinkles! That makes them alien!
Oop, sorry -- wrong sci-fi universe.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
Re:High cheese factor (Score:4, Insightful)
max size (Score:2, Interesting)
The end result o
LOL (Score:2)
Yeah that Woooookie and the Eeeeewoks are two shining examples of how serious this franchise has always been. Master Yoda know force STRONG: must STRIVE, overcome temptation, or be turned to dark side, you will be! Hate, anger... (a drizzling of zen philosophy smoked with a pound of pot philosophy, and a dash puppet-mastery to boot: presto -- instant million dollar project)... etc.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:3, Interesting)
I really hope directors are reading this. They still cannot understand that story is the most important thing in a movie. No matter how good anything else is, without story and good acting, its all bullshit. Matrix Revolutions is great proof of this.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:4, Insightful)
You want to be entertained? Go see a movie.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:3, Interesting)
As probably a prime example, I loved the series
Re:High cheese factor (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a great deal of literature on the subject; go read it.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:5, Insightful)
Movies are not just a medium for storytelling. They are also a medium for visual art.
Look at Rodin's famous sculpture "The Thinker." Not much story going on there: "A naked guy sits on a rock and ponders something that troubles him." There's your whole plot, yet people come from all over the world just to gape at his naked pondering.
Is that so different from paying a few bucks to see a Death Star blow up? A little less highbrow than Rodin, perhaps, but at least on a par with going to the museum to check out that painting of a Campbell's Soup can by Andy Warhol.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, but it is the story that makes the explosion so satisfying. Without a story, you're just seeing a small moon blasted to dust. The story fills in the all-important details: That's no moon, that's a space station; it is a symbol of power and evil; without the destruction of the Death Star untold numbers of innocents will die. That, along with the buildup, is what makes the explosion itself so satisfying.
If I am unclear, all
Re:High cheese factor (Score:4, Insightful)
Movie Sci Fi, that's about as good as it gets. It all went down hill from the plot, unfortunately.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
it seems like 70% of 'original' sci-fi in theaters these days is just warmed over Alien rip-offs
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
Re:High cheese factor (Score:5, Insightful)
Slight nitpick... Direction is definitely more important than Acting, because good directors tend to create good performances. That's why good directors always seem to get good performances out of their subjects, whereas bad directors do not. McGregor can act, but he was so wooden in the latest two star wars films because he had nothing to work with (i.e. Lucas is a bad director). I suppose one could argue that the real problem with the last two Star Wars films was the writing, but I definitely lean towards it being a problem with Lucas' direction.
Also I would omit "Story" and just say "Writing", because some films have very little actual story/plot, but have excellent writing (e.g. Hurlyburly).
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
Why not just call it a script or screenplay?
Re:High cheese factor (Score:2)
At the end of the day, Hollywood is a business not an art house theater. Want good film? Try your local indie theater. Expecting Lucas to make you feel 8 years old again is a pretty high expectation and a fairly ridiculous thing to demand from anyone.
Don't be so harsh (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in 1977 I was 12 years old and what really got me excited about the film was a TV ad like one of these with a similar friendly announcer that was shown the Saturday of the opening weekend. We saw the film that afternoon.
I am now dating a woman who is 25 and had never seen any of the films. So this past week we watched all 5. Everyone has their favorites and they also have bits that they hate about the different films. Here are some interesting comments she made: She liked the Ewoks, she even liked Phantom Menace. Upon watching it with her and explaining what was going on I realized I like the structure of Phantom Menace and the part of the story that is told in it. I also realized that the "veiled racism" is really just coloring viewers add - there is nothing overtly racist in it. Its a real stretch to claim the characters *represent* real world cultures. The biggest problems with Phantom Menace are the dialog which isn't punchy enough and the acting which I think lacks the proper reaction because you have actors in green rooms talking to thin air - that type of acting will progress over time but I think classically trained actors are used to reacting to something they can see.
The 5th movie is a blast. It is a lot of fun and there is a lot of action. The dialog is much better and the acting is a lot better. Hayden Christensen actually does a decent job with the script and I think the main issue is not his acting range (which should improve over time) but the script itself. He does emote frustration, anger, happiness, joy, brooding, etc. The script itself could probably tighten up the transitions though and it doesn't.
Even with that said, episode II moves along a lot faster and doesn't have some of the more difficult plot complications of Episode I. When you look at a book like Dune you see an interesting and complex interconnection of science and mysticism. We have that here too in the Star Wars saga. One thing stands in contrast though - Frank Hurbert can include appendixes and go on for several pages about the subtlties of these concepts. In a 2 hour movie Lucas can at best hope to give us a hint of what he means. Things like the symbiosis of the Midi-chlorians and the immaculate conception of Anakin are difficult enough to explain on paper let alone in 15 seconds on film. In going over the additional information available from the official sites it becomes more clear what Lucas means when he inserts this stuff. It is a question for film makers: how do you do it differently without affecting the tone of the story or slowing it to a crawl while you lecture?
Lucas was inspried a bit by watching Japanese films. He enjoyed them without having to fully understand them. In those films the Japanese don't explain everything about their culture (actually quite the opposite they explain nothing) and its up to the viewer to interpret or just accept and move on. The problem initially I had with the Imaculate Conception of Anakin is its too close to Christian beliefs about The Christ. The Will of the Force thus becomes an intelligence and one that is all pervasive much like God. Its hard to escape that conclusion. The problem with the alegory is that Anakin isn't Jesus but a person who has a hard life, becomes corrupted into a force of Evil and 25-30 years later finds partial redemption and perhaps does bring balance to the Force by getting rid of the Sith Master.
I am looking forward to this 6th installment of the series. Mainly because it wraps things up. In many ways the story is already well known. We know all the roads that get to here.
Re:Don't be so harsh (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Don't be so harsh (Score:4, Funny)
But that's the whole point! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, and deliberately so. That's what Lucas was trying to do was to return to the form of the old film serials of the past, and to use the usual Campbell Myth plots to tell that story. Of course this stuff is familiar -- it's meant to be!
SF can be innovate in writing, but only when doing something innovate in design. When you deliberately set out to resurrect the cheesey serials, you get high cheese factor as a matter of course. As for getting away from the High Quest themes, good luck buddy. Ain't nothing new there since Homer. Good writing or bad writing, all stories are going to revolve around a handful of plot archetypes.
Re:High cheese factor (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:High cheese factor (Score:5, Interesting)
What do the new films have? Plastic line recitals and effects galore. Can someone name one funny scene in either of the last two films? How about one witty exchange? Or one action sequence that is even half as cool as the surprise attack by the Empire in RotJ? Do you feel that the battle between the plastic robots and Jar-Jar armed with blue beachballs stacks up?
I agree with all of this, the plastic robots and blue beach balls scene is awful, as is the trite "oh let's all fire our grappling gun at a very narrow window frame area and all rappel up like synchronised marrionettes" scene.
However, I absolutely love other bits and pieces. Often very short bits. Ideally when nobody speaks.
For example :-
Dyslexia.... (Score:5, Funny)
Pity me....
Re:Dyslexia.... (Score:3, Funny)
That's ironic (Score:5, Funny)
So should we be calling Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, "A New Hope"?
Re:That's ironic (Score:3, Funny)
A last hope for Star Wars redemption.
A last hope before I throw my hands in the air crying, "Why George, why?"
Re:That's ironic (Score:2)
OK, George, you've done some rubbish, but I'm going to give you one more go. I'll watch episode 3, and if that's bad then by heck I'll not watch another Star Wars film as long as I live! Erm....
Re:That's ironic (Score:2)
C'mon, Just finish your post. Unless he makes more.
Search your feelings, you know it to be true....
Re:That's ironic (Score:2)
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, "A New Pope"
Direct movie downloads here (Score:5, Informative)
Second one [aol.com]
Third one [aol.com]
Re:Direct movie downloads here (Score:2)
The O.C.! (Score:5, Funny)
Soothing Sith (Score:2, Insightful)
Forced browser resizing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Forced browser resizing (Score:5, Informative)
Then set dom.disable_window_move_resize to true.
Re:Forced browser resizing (Score:2)
Re:Forced browser resizing (Score:5, Informative)
Show CGI... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets hope this one will be better than it looks.
Uber-marketing (Score:2)
It's ALL marketing BS-speak. EVERYTHING now is greater than you can imagine. TV episodes are referred to as "television events" that "you can't afford to miss". Movies are "blockbusters" before they are even released. Every song is a "hit single
Re:Show CGI... (Score:3, Interesting)
Guess you never saw "The Empire Strikes Back." That love story was the only part of the five movies so far that could be called "good."
Re:Show CGI... (Score:2)
Never fear (Score:4, Insightful)
But if this one is bad, luckily there is always A New Hope.
The book (Score:4, Interesting)
But again, the book was worth reading and talks about a lot of interesting topics that can't be covered withing the confining medium of cinema.
Re:The book (Score:2)
>and yes Jar-Jar is there albeit briefly
Please tell me he is being torn apart by something that could have oozed out of an H.P. Lovecraft novel.Just tell me this... (Score:3, Funny)
Is this the last Episode? (Score:5, Funny)
We should start right now with an innovative grassroots effort to keep Paramount from cancelling the series.
I can't wait to see what happens after Revenge of the Sith.
What could make these cheesy trailers worse? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What could make these cheesy trailers worse? (Score:2)
> trailer. Can somebody please "mash" that up, post it, and then boing boing can blog about it.
Dear God... is this even English ?
Re:What could make these cheesy trailers worse? (Score:2)
Wow! (Score:5, Funny)
In case of /.ing: Watch SW: Anew Hope in ASCII (Score:2, Informative)
To quote Obi Wan (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To quote Obi Wan (Score:2)
I thought that was Han Solo's line.
I'll kill myself if I don't like this movie!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'll kill myself if I don't like this movie!!!! (Score:2)
"OMFG!! THIS MOVIE LOOKS GREAT!!! Not only will it blow away the other movies (even though there's no real track record here to base that on...), but everybody who doesn't like it is mentally defective! Now I'm off to go stand in line for 2 months at the wrong theater!"
"Always on the move" (Score:4, Funny)
ok george... (Score:2)
Hitchhikers (Score:2)
CAPS LOCK (Score:2)
OH MY GOD MY LIFE IS... oh wait, no. Anyone else have an image of your stereotypical over-25 Star Wars fan screaming this?
Caps lock, people. It's a privledge, not a right.
Formulaic Trailers (Score:3, Insightful)
Missed the women in bikini's but really delivered on the explosions.
squid in bikinis (Score:3)
Missed the women in bikini's but really delivered on the explosions.
They didn't want to spoil the surprise for the viewing public when Lucas puts squid into bikinis [slashdot.org] and has them do an ester williams routine.
I'm not obsessive, or hyper-critical (Score:2, Redundant)
To all the people who say "just remember that it's a kid's movie, and that nostalgia makes the original Star Wars movies seem better than they were, and the new movies can never live up to your expectations, and...."
Give me a break. By ANY standard, the new movies have been bad. Kids don't really like them that much. Adults are bored to tears by them. Hell, even the toys are lame.
The most disappointing thing about them is that Lucas could have had A
I think it's time (Score:2)
For those a little worried about this movie... (Score:2)
Just a thought.
"Revenge of the Sith...
SITH!
Revenge of the Sith...
Huhhuhuh
Revenge of the Sith
SITH!"
Wookies! (Score:2)
Lucas's hairy obsession..... (Score:2)
Re:Lucas's hairy obsession..... (Score:2)
Ewok Adventure: cute n' cuddly, you know, for kids!
Wookie Adventure: brutal, savage, and just arms getting ripped from their sockets every other scene
Re:Lucas's hairy obsession..... (Score:2)
I can't wait for this movie to come out... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I can't wait for this movie to come out... (Score:3, Funny)
You're forgetting about the Slashdot articles for:
Pseudo-Spoiler Warning (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, based on the fact that virtually all of the Jedi are wiped out by the time of A New Hope, you ought to expect a lot of lightsaber action in the movie. Really, aside from the audio of the annoying announcer whose voice was way too happy for what was going on in the video, it's still a set of pretty dark TV spots. [I think at this point still] Chancellor Palpatine flies out of his chair with a lightsaber at the number-two Jedi for crying out loud.
That, and we see Star Destroyers. That gives me hope. My only concern is that I don't know if the movie starts with a mood-setting Star Destroyer passing over the camera. Really, judging by the past, we have a pattern. Star Wars movies opening with Star Destroyers: good; Star Wars movies opening without Star Destroyers: bad.
Am I the only one? (Score:2)
I swear... I was fully expecting the helmet to come off at the end of that last spot followed by:
"Owwww! This helmet is chafing my eyebrows!"
Just in case you missed that ;) (Score:3, Informative)
Best Star Wars trailer ever [sequentialpictures.com]
Those clips... (Score:2)
Now CG can work when it's seamless, but CG for CG's sake stopped being fun a long time ago. It wouldn't be so bad if it looked realistic but it doesn't.
I have teh good idea! (Score:2, Troll)
Then when we say something REALLY bad about it, we can head to Slashdot and get mod posts!
Like this:
omg, jar jar sux. And Anakin is in love, wtf.
Here's one you didn't see coming: Darth Vader is only in the last 5 minutes.
Re:I have teh good idea! (Score:2)
Why the hell wouldn't we see that coming? Darth Vader is a menacing dramatic antagonist; he's part of what made the first movie good. Obviously we're not going to see much of that. It's easy to seee things coming with this movie; just ask yourself, which would I rather see, more Vader or less Vader? More Vader. So obviously the movie will have less Vader.
What I think is funny is the people like you coming out saying the las
poor yoda! (Score:4, Funny)
No, the first two really aren't so bad (Score:3, Interesting)
By the way, Jar Jar is pretty funny, too.
I still have hope (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't you know... (Score:3, Funny)
Is it just me... (Score:2)
Re:Interesting fact (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Interesting fact (mod parent down TROLL) (Score:2)
Anger...fear....aggression....lead you to the dark side they will.
Re:Interesting fact (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it was frelling, but it wasn't fantastic.
Myself and quite a few other professional 3d artists have NOT been impressed by the CG in this movie. Not only is the color palette nauseating, but the effect is far from realistic. It's a step BACKWARDS from Episode I. The space scenes in particular... blerg.
Believe me, we've nitpicked the shit out of EpIII. Hehe.
Re:The latest high tech merger (Score:2)
You've obviously never been to MGM Studios. Star Tours, Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. Eisner and Lucas met years ago, and they opened a theme park.