AOTC - Comments Questions (Spoilers)

Standard disclaimer applies... spoilers ahead for those who haven't see the movie yet...

I was finally able to get tickets for AOTC today & overall I was really happy with it! Feel-good Ep. 1 finally makes sense (to me, anyway)... all those who've been screaming for Jar-Jar's head on a platter now have a valid reason (slapstick idiocy aside).

As much as I enjoyed AOTC, I was disappointed with some of the re-hash.

Why do the Skywalkers have such a hard time keeping their limbs??? Seeing Anakin have his arm chopped off was too reminiscent of ESB, IMO. For a few mintues, during the conveyor belt scene, I was sure that we would see Anakin loose a hand while trapped in the metal. Obviously, had that happened he wouldn't have been able to fight Dooku, so I understand why it happened when it happened, but it seems like GL could come up with a better way of getting Anaking in to the Darth Vader suit. More of that to come in Ep 3, I suppose.

Also, the part (I think it was also during the conveyor belt scene) where Anakin starts heaving the equipment at the flying goons seemed a little too much like the Vader / Luke Cloud City scene...

What was with Anakin cutting the pipe at the beginning of the Dooku fight scene when he & Obi-Wan came in... that, too, was like the Cloud City chamber where Luke did the same thing... Only Luke actually used it to spray the gases in Vader's face.

Also the lightning from the fingers... I guess that's a standard dark side trick, but would have been nice seeing something new.

I think there were a few other things, too, but those were the big things I remembered.

Aside from the instances of re-hash, though, it was really great.

I'm wondering whether anyone noticed any quality of picture issues with the film? My local cinema was rated one of the top 3 places in the world to see AOTC by some group that does that sort of rating (Abingdon Cinemall)... The Lucas designed / approved sound system was friggin' amazing (too much at times, actually), but the picture seemed bad in places. It seemed rather blurry during a few scenes. Anyone else notice that, or did someone need to clean the lens & my theater?

The scene where Anakin is in the field with Padme & he's riding that beast was really bad, IMO. They needed to do some more work to that bit of CGI.

In ROTJ, when Luke cuts off Vader's hand, you see the machinery beneath. The scene in AOTC explains how he got that.

What would you rather he do? Ask them politely to step aside?

He cut it so he wouldn't trip on it, at least that's how it seemed. It was on the floor, after all.

The Force gives the Jedi/Sith a limited bag of tricks, it seems. But oh what tricks they are!

The movie was shot on digital tape instead of celluloid film. Perhaps the translation from digital to celluloid resulted in loss of clarity. <shrug>

I noticed a few blurry scenes too.

[...]

Yes, I understand that... however all I'm saying is that it would have been nice to see it happen some other way... Instead of coming up with a new twist, GL did the same thing he did with Luke - have the hand chopped off by a lightsaber. Obviously, it does the job, but what's wrong with molten lava pits or having it chomped off by one of the creatures in the fight scene... Or a piece of equipment?? It just seemed too much like ESB to me.

LOL. Okay, whatever. My point was that the scene seemed very close to the cloud city scene in ESB - black boxes flying around. There's nothing wrong with using the force powers... for instance, the Yoda / Dooku scene was very well done IMO as I'd never seen anyone actually repel the lightning bolts as Yoda was doing. That was different, that was okay. The scene I was talking about seemed like a re-hash of old ideas, though.

That's true... but he also rushed Dooku thereby removing himself from any proximity to the pipe... in turn he ended up on the floor in some corner far removed from the pipe. So yes, he may have cut it so he wouldn't trip on it but it seems as if there may have been some other reason since no fighting took place there. Maybe it was another Han Solo stepping on Jabba's tail type situation... Yoda comes in that way, so maybe he cut it so the CGI folks would have to have Yoda step over it. Who knows... seemed like it would be more important that it actually was.

True, true...

Figured as much... was only wondering if the blurriness was specific to my theater of if anyone else noticed it... looks like others did see it.

Shit I'll chip in and start a pool if he would remake the whole film...

...

Well, maybe the arm could have been reattached under other circumstances (provided the arm survived)? But if it was cut off by a light saber, it would be cauterized and couldn't be reattached? Not to mention that if the wound wasn't cauterized there would have been lots of icky blood and the movie would have had a higher rating and made less money.

Or maybe Anakin had to lose it in a fight. A fight where he didn't show patience (dark side) and he was angry (dark side) and he didn't listen to his mentor. Maybe he had to lose it acting on negative emotions and it was a more tangible symbol of him losing himself to the dark side piece by piece. . . . Like slaughtering innocent kids wasn't enough.

I have no idea really.

Lucas did that intentionally... he's said many times that he likes to repeat themes and create patterns. By having Anakin get his hand chopped off, it forces the audience to draw a connection between Anakin and Luke. It's actually a common literary device called parallelism. It's one of the few that Lucas is good at.

Looked like a powerline to the ship to me. Cutting it ensured (except it didn't) that Dooku couldn't get away.