I thought Episode 3 was pretty good. Now if you’re looking for someone to defend Ep 2, well, you’re on your own. I felt distinctly let down by that one in a way that the other prequels didn’t.
What are you talking about?
(were you trying to refer to Ep VI and wrote III?)
Yup. My bad.
It is probably the game missing from digital that I most want. It was indeed amazing.
Things can be childish without being dumb, see: Pixar. But Phantom Menace was alternating dumb and poorly done.
But also I reject the notion that a movie whose precipitating event was a trade war threatening to become a full scale war is truly a childish movie. If you want to aim younger, that is a horrible choice. If you want to aim older, flesh it out and drop the nigh indefensible Jar Jar. It was a failure at being either a realistic and believable drama about the fall of a Republic from within, nor was it a grand adventure to inspire the child in all of us.
It wanted to be both, but never really committed to either. Therefore it failed at all.
I will say this, and understand that I think that Ep1 is the worst of the prequels, but there was much there that had the potential to be good. It is one of my strongest points in favor of the Clone Wars TV series, is that it takes the concepts and potential of the prequels, and actually lives up to them, and makes them good. The decadence and weakening of the Jedi, the infiltration and corruption of the Republic, the slow transformation to authoritarianism of a democratic society, the politics that drive the feeding of the conflict, the corruption of Anakin by his forbidden love. All these and more are fleshed out and handled with a depth and seriousness that makes them good. You can feel Anakin slowly being pushed away by the Jedi and their failures. His relationship with Padme is nicely contrasted with the one Obi Wan turned down with Duchess Satine of Mandalore, and how that haunted him. That vision of the road not taken is so thematically rich when placed alongside Anakin and Padme.
Then there is the trial of Ahsoka, and you can see how that frays his trust in the Council. It really earns every moment of it through hard work, and almost redeems the otherwise terrible prequels. Anakin’s turn feels like a realistic outcome in ways it never could have before.
I agree, but really really watch the Clone Wars series. Mail is really well done there, and drives the drama in ways that live up to the inspired design. Plus his relationship with Obi Wan? That arcs into the Rebels series? Brilliant. Their goodbye was perfectly done in every way, and says so much about each.
But see, those things you list, those were good ideas that were squandered in Ep 2 and 3. I liked the idea, but the execution was so poor, I felt just watching Episode 2 and 3 once was a complete waste of my time. I’ll have to track down this clone wars tv series when it comes to streaming sometime. It sounds good.
But none of those ideas were meant to be me in Episode 1. Episode 1 was a lighthearted action movie that introduced us to a few of the characters, races and places, and was a standalone adventure otherwise, and I thought it was well done as a standalone adventure. What impressed me the most was that I had just gotten done playing Jedi Knight, and here it started off with 2 Jedi, and it showed what they could do in their prime, using Force Push, Force Speed, Force Jump, etc. The light saber fights were actually exciting to watch, unlike the original 3 movies. And finally the pod-racing sequence was a visual and aural treat.
It was the job of Episode 2 and 3 to flesh out the decadence and weakening of the Jedi, the slow transformation to authoritanianism, the corruption of Anakin, and all that. And it failed at that at all levels. You could see what Lucas wanted to do, but his execution was almost laughably bad.
But don’t blame Episode 1 for those failures! :)
It was on Netflix. There was rumor it was going off though…
EDIT: Nope! Still there!
Wow, it looks like they have 6 seasons and a movie. I assume the movie comes first, and then the series (judging by release date listed on Netflix).
Yeah I wouldn’t watch the movie though, I remember it being terrible. @CraigM might have a more authoritative opinion on the matter.
No, you have it right @Tim_N, the movie isn’t very good. Watch after a few seasons and so you have a reason to care where Ahsoka comes from, and how Anakin got a Padawan. But it is completely skippable. The characterization is weak, the sets and animation sub par (compared to the series), and the story has less development than most episodes, despite the length.
My kids and I are watching it at the moment and we never saw the Clone Wars film. There was at least one episode in the first season which started with a “previously on Clone Wars” intro which showed scenes from the film which left us thoroughly confused and reviewing past episodes in case we’d missed one.
We’re also using this ‘chronological order’ episode list which directly links to the netflix episode:
It’s gone Oct 7th. So unless your a huge “binger” your outta luck to try it.
They’ve said that several times. It was supposed to be gone back in the spring too. Instead it stayed.
Seems like it’s every month the threat is there, but never happens. @Rock8man you’re probably safe.
Maybe but if you go on Netflix and look up Clone Wars it says “Expiring Oct 7th” maybe that could change but with the word now that Disney is ending their deal with Netflix I wouldn’t count on it being extended anymore.
Because, like, it all really happened.
I second the recommendation for The Clone Wars animation. Fantastic stuff, it ranks up there with the best of Western Animation. It can take a few episodes to get going and you can really see the technical improvements as the series progresses. The plot lines frequently attack mature themes and the battle scenes get pretty epic. Afterwards if you enjoyed the series be sure to check out Star Wars Rebels which is a direct sequel (albeit with mostly different characters and a slightly different animation style).
My opinion is that the clone wars animated series is very much worth it.
I would love to see something that takes place in during the old republic
Apparently this is a good way to watch it?
Yea the first several seasons have episodes that are mixed up timeline wise. No idea why they did it. Thankfully goes away by the the 4th one.
Here’s the official SW page one.
Yeah, it wasn’t broadcast out of chronological order for artistic reasons - it was more of a screw-up, or demands of resources in the first season at least - so there’s no downside to watching in chronological order and for the most part it was the intended order for viewing.
I watched most of S2E16 last night, which is listed as the first one chronologically.
I have to say, it was all plot, plot, plot so far. No real character development, nothing funny or exciting, just a showing of a series of plot points. I couldn’t finish it. Too boring.