This post over at Grognardia reminded me how much better a lot of the expanded universe of novels, video games, and comics were than the "hands on" work of George Lucas himself. Much of the talent working on these other non-movie aspects of the SW universe were fans of the material, and it showed in loving ways more than The Man himself. They "got it" while the master had "lost it."
Case in point. Several years there was a Clone Wars cartoon (not the odd looking one they have now - talk about "uncanny valley") miniseries that really got it right. Bad ass Anakin and Obi in mountain-shattering combat with Sith agents. Clone Troopers having their own piece where a group of them find themselves in a sort of Black Hawk Down situation where they show more skill and action than any of the movie clone warriors did. And best of all, they gave us a frightening and powerful General Grievous. Not the wheezing, slouched cyborg clown with the bad Dracula voice. Take a look at this clip if you haven't seen it, then tell me which version of Grevious is cooler.
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Well said. Just imagine if Tartakovsky, Rudish, and Wills had made eps I - III.
ReplyDeleteThere is a reason that Grievous is so good, Genndy Tartakovsky is amazing at what he does.
ReplyDeleteYeah, personally, I consider everything other than 1) the KotoR games and 2) the original trilogy (IV, V, and VI) to be pastiche or fan fiction.
ReplyDeleteWhich means I consider Episodes I-III to be really bad fan fiction.
Listening to Obi-wan's description of Father Skywalker in Episode IV, you get the impressions that
1) Obi-wan met Anakin when he was already an adult (he says he was already a great pilot).
2) It was during the Clone Wars that they met.
3) The Clones were the bad guys.
None of that is in the prequels. Hence, I consider it bad fan fiction. Ironic, isn't it.
In defense of the new Clone Wars cartoon. It can definitely be counted among the "doing it right" category of SW stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe series has proven to have the right vibe for presenting the Clone Wars era SW universe but doing it in a way that gets you jazzed like the original trilogy did. The creators of the series, definitely "get it".
The series has managed three seasons and is still going and has allowed us to see all sort of interesting and unique visions of what goes on in the SW universe. It also gives a lot of screen time to the Clone Troopers, even allowing many of them to develop their own personalities and character.
The Clone Wars series of animated shorts, explains why Grievous is gasping and rasping, BTW. If you watch that series all the way to the end, it pretty much ends right where the third prequel opens up.
-Eli
Dave: oh yeah, they really should not have followed Anakin from confident childhood to conflicated and bitchy teenage douche bag. He should have been at least 20 when encoutered first, and trained in Jedi arts as an older person to mirror Luke Skywaler. I think in later fiction (before the prequels were written) older Luke teaches mostly older people the force (besides he and Leia's kids). He shows that he and the Anakin that was supposed to be are examples of not needing to be a 3 year old to be able to train as Jedi.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this would have lead well to doing the Temple destruction RIGHT, by having Anakin already armored and helmuted when he goes in (the written material for the upcoming Star Wars MMO actually does this right - a Sith Lord in breathing mask attacks the temple with a load of soldiers and dark Jedi. Really cool). Far more frighteing than a sullen young man in a cape.
Eli: the new cartoon is not bad at all, and just like the other cartoon any one episode is better written and directed than the films. I actually don't like the look of either cartoon that much (when Asoka smiles she looks like Alfred E. Newman), they are just so well written. The older cartoon was produced with only the movie scripts I think, footage unseen. I think this helped bring their talents out rather than channeling the prequels which the new one does heavily.
Yeah, I saw Greivous get damaged by Mace Windu in the cartoon. But still, the General we see in this clip would have made a better foe in live action form. Just imagine how it could have turned out. Obi got off easy with a Greivous who obviously was not at around 40% power and ability than his cartoon counterpart. Obi should have come out of that combat HURTING (plus he should have had another couple Jedi with him that Grevious could have killed - Grevious is a Jedi Killer and the movie really glosses over that)