Re: Clone Armies in Trek

"Mike Dicenso" wrote...
> The opening was a great way to start things off, and the little bantering
> between Obi-Wan and Anakin throughoutt the movie finally put back into the
> Star Wars what I liked about the Original Trilogy, although the bantering
> in AOTC still falls a bit short compared to the one-liners in Episodes
> IV-VI.

I still don't understand why Lucas didn't have Kasdan write his scripts for
Eps 1 and 2...

> The thing still missing is a very strong sense of comraderie between the
> characters, and development. I still don't have a sense of why, other than
> total contrivance, why Anakin went from a nice kid into being a dumb, full
> of cum punk.

As I learn more about the "extended universe" (I'm getting a kick out of
Knights of the Old Republic these days), I've learned more about Jedi teaching
processes.  Most Jedi begin schooling at age 5 or younger, and remain
Apprentices for ten years or so.  Only by the time they hit 15-ish do they
become Padawans.  And then they stay Padawans for at least 5 more years,
possibly more, before they're granted the rank of Knight.  So most
newly-christened Knights are in their early 20s.

Anakin didn't begin his Apprenticeship until he was about 10 (the age of Jake
Lloyd in 1999).  AotC appears to be about 11 years after TPM (based on Hayden
Christensen's age of 21 in 2002), so Anakin likely became Padawan only a year
prior to the movie's timeframe.  So here you have a brilliant Jedi (brilliant
in the sense that his affinity with the Force outstrips everyone else's) still
a Padawan when his peers were all becoming Knights, and still needing to face
4 or so more years before he can see his own graduation.  Granted, the
dialogue and characterizations were clumsy, but at least the structure is
there for him to resent his situation.

Of course, the movie shouldn't rely on "extended" material in order for its
protagonist's emotional journey to make sense.

> > not-quite-by-the-numbers-for-SW ground battle.
>
> It was a cool thing, although I'd have liked to see more flinching and
> other "human" reactions from the Clonetroopers during the battle. One
> thing I really liked as a contrast between Clonetroopers and the
> Stormtroopers was the scene where the Clonetrooper gets up, goes over to
> Padame, and actually shows genuine concern for her after they had fallen
> out of the LAAT.
>
> I honestly can't picture a Stormtrooper doing that for anybody, at
> anytime.

A big problem with these new movies is that the effectiveness of the special
effects removes some of the humanity.  Not only is Lucas indulging himself too
much (where in the original movies a tight budget forced him to be creative in
how much he showed onscreen and how much he let our imaginations do the work),
but the action has taken on a plastic quality.  I was far more concerned with
Luke and Leia clinging to the tops of those speeder bikes on Endor than I was
about Anakin leaping from hovercar to hovercar on Coruscant, mainly because
L&L looked like they were actually strapped to racing rockets, while Anakin
looked like a CGI motion blur artifact.

Sign of the times, I guess.