February 2005 | |||||
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CHAPTER
1: PREVIEW CLIPS
Immediately after you see Yoda riding into battle you get to see exactly who he and his army is up against... Super Battle Droids and Spider Droids. The detail the artists did on these Super Battle Droids is pretty damn good... much better than what I was expecting.
It's hard to imagine that the Jedi and Republic Army could really have a fighting chance against the Separatist Army, but when you have the Kaminoans pumping out Clone Trooper after Clone Trooper anything is possible. The Republic Gunships in this image are pretty well detailed, but check out that lone AT-TE in the upper-right portion of the image. That has to be the crappiest work I've seen in these shows. If I were Tartakovsky I'd be pretty embarrassed at that lack of detail.
For the first time ever we finally get to see some Jedi other than Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi flying in their Jedi Starfighters. Seen in the picture below is Saesee Tiin leading an entire squadron of Jedi Starfighters into battle against some Hailfire Droids. Damn, does he look like a bad ass or what in this shot?
Have you ever seen so many Battle Droids in one spot, especially when they're marching in such perfect order? I thought they could have been spread out a bit more and in a more randomized pattern, but I guess it's easier for the animators to just copy one image and past hundreds of copies side-by-side.
Another first is seeing the Quarren species in mass numbers, where as the only time I remember seeing one of these creatures was in Return of the Jedi. In this shot you see them teaming up with the leader of the Separatist Army, Count Dooku, on the planet Mon Calamari. My question to this shot though is this... what the hell are they looking at?
In this busy shot you see Luminara Unduli and Barriss Offee fighting against a couple of Super Battle Droids. You can easily see Luminara Unduli in the foreground where she is about to destroy one of the Super Battle Droids, but look close immediately to the right and behind of her. You see Barriss Offee has already sliced her lightsaber through a Super Battle Droid, straight through the middle of it from the top to bottom. Barris Offee had just somersaulted herself into the picture to assist her Jedi Master Luminari Unduli.
This is one of the more fascinating images in the entire first chapter, with Kit Fisto swimming in the Mon Calamari ocean with a squad of Aqua Clone Troopers closely behind him, preparing to attack the Quarren army down below. In the movie Attack of the Clones, Kit Fisto always had a smile on his face, but in this picture he is clearly ticked off and is ready to kick some major ass. Those Aqua Clone Troopers look cool as hell, especially with the glow shining out of their helmets. Now if only these guys were swimming down toward the Gungan city to take out Jar Jar Binks and the rest of the Gungan civilization.
Mace Windu didn't have much of an action role in AOTC, but in this quick preview you get to see him show some of his moves against a huge army of Super Battle Droids. Will we get to see more of him than in just this one shot?
Here we have the very first images of ARC Troopers in battle, wearing what appears to be ponchos. It is almost reminiscent of the outfit Clint Eastwood wore in his Western movies. I'm curious to know why they need to be wearing these though. Do they need to really wear them? I thought their armor helped protect them from the harsh elements. Anywho, they look bad as hell in them.
It took over one minute before Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi were first introduced, which seems to be an eternity in a three minute show. In this picture they are riding on a Republic Gunship, getting ready to jump out into battle. The scene looks very similar to the battle on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones.
And here they are on the ground after they jumped out of the Republic Gunship, getting ready to start swinging their lightsabers into the Super Battle Droids. Something that seems odd to me is that so far you haven't seen too many Battle Droids in battle, but yet there are a great number of Super Battle Droids. I suppose building Battle Droids aren't worth it anymore since the Super Battle Droids are much better in battle, except when they have to face the Jedi. Check out the two Super Battle Droids in the background... what the hell are they doing? They're just standing there watching their fellow droid get wacked.
Anakin sure knows how to handle himself well by using the Force Push against this swarm of Super Battle Droids. Why Anakin doesn't take out Obi-Wan Kenobi right now is beyond me, because it's obvious how powerful he truly is. If I had that kind of power I'd take on the entire galaxy myself.
We get to see Anakin's anger revealed in the look on his face. As Yoda said, "And as the heat of war grows, so do grows the prowess of one most gifted student of the Force." Little does Yoda know what will happen to Anakin in the near future, when he chooses to go over to the Dark Side of the Force. I like the look of his robotic hand holding the lightsaber here, but I looking forward to when we see him using a red lightsaber instead of the Jedi blue one.
CHAPTER
1: THE MAIN SHOW
Obi-Wan is informing Palpatine about the Banking Clan's huge factories on Muunilinst, where they are producing enormous armies of Battle Droids and warships for the Separatist Movement. Muunilinst is one of the wealthiest worlds in the galaxy, and is home to the InterGalactic Banking Clan.
However, Palpatine becomes concerned who can investigate the matter, but Yoda suggests that Obi-Wan take his army to Muunilinst. Palpatine then counters the suggestion by requesting that Anakin takes Obi-Wan's army to Muunilinst for further investigation. Both Obi-Wan and Yoda think Anakin isn't ready for this type of responsibility, but Palpatine insists that Aanakin takes the lead on this. Look at the smirk on Anakin's face... love it!
And of course Obi-Wan and Yoda aren't too thrilled with the idea, but what can they possibly say back to the Emperor? I would say that Obi-Wan is jealous of Anakin's power, but of course it will "be the death of him" later in time.
After the pouting session between Yoda and Obi-Wan the camera changes its view to seeing the Republic Army prepare for a major battle, by seeing the Clone Troopers and AT-TEs marching up the ramp into the Republic Assault Ships.
Looking from high above is Obi-Wan, who is clearly disgusted with what is taking place right in front of his eyes. I don't know if he's more upset about going to war, or about Anakin taking his army to Muunilinst. If he's that upset about it he should do something about it, but Obi-Wan is too much of a "goody goody" I guess.
Here is the first time we get to see the new V-19 Torrent Starfighters, and Clone Trooper Pilots are scrambling to get into these fighters for lift off. Astromech droids scurry about as well.
These new fighters remind me of the Imperial Shuttles, with their side wings that fold down during flight. The only difference is that the center fin is pointing down instead of up on the Imperial Shuttles. Here you see them launch from their landing pads. This is definitely one of the better scenes in this chapter.
One of the last fighters to take flight was Anakin's modified Starfighter. Here you can see Anakin standing next to his fighter, with first appearances of R2-D2 and C-3PO (to the right). R2-D2 looks pretty damn good, but why does C-3PO look so pasty in color? He should have been a little bit more gold in color.
Throwing in a little humor here, Anakin removes his robe, and the wind throws it right into C-3PO's face. This distracted R2-D2 away from doing some last minute maintenance on Anakin's Starfighter. It would have been great if it had knocked C-3PO down to the ground though.
After the humorous event Anakin boarded his ship, started up the engines, and decided it was time to join up the army he was about to lead into battle. Anakin should have kept the neon lighting on the bottom of his ship, but that would have broken Republic code and we all know that wouldn't have been good.
But, just before meeting up with the others he decides to stop by Padme's apartment, to say "goodbye' possibly for the very last time (which of course it wasn't the last time). I'm not too sure why he looks so incredibly depressed here, because you would think he'd be all psyched up about the battle that lies ahead of him. Maybe because he couldn't have one last bit of fun with his woman.
Padme waves "goodbye" back to Anakin. This is a cool shot with Anakin's Starfighter in the reflection of her apartment window.
Another cool shot of Anakin's Starfighter flying away from Padme's apartment. Anyone else think that her hair looked two axe blades?
Here is a great final shot, which reminds me of the closing shot of The Empire Strikes Back. Check out all the ships here... there's going to be one huge battle soon and I can't wait to see it!
And, of course, the final image shown in Chapter 1 is the infamous "Lucasfilm Ltd" logo.
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