Color me unimpressed after watching the new Clone Wars trailer on the Cartoon Network’s website. No doubt that the lackluster reception of the movie last month has hurt this series. I’m not sure who will be watching, other than the diehards who will accept anything with the SW logo on it.

We all know the primary characters will survive, so there’s no real sense of jeopardy and danger. That has been shifted onto tertiary characters who are ultimately cannon fodder. Individual clonetroopers have been personalities and names, so people seem to gravitate toward them and put Anakin, Obi-Wan et. al. on the back burner. Because, well, we’ll see them again.

I really see no reason to pull out stuff that happened between movies. If the story was important for us to know, it should have been in the movies themselves to start with. It’s just an excuse to put SW back out there without really thinking about what they’re doing. Just a lot of noise and light, which gets boring and tiring after a while. I mean, is the actual thought of taking SW somewhere it hasn’t gone before that frightening to Lucas? How about an animated post-ROTJ series? He can go lay waste to the EU all he likes, I don’t care.

This feels too safe.

From the Digital Bits:

And yes… here’s a surprise: As you can see, we’ve also posted cover art for yet another new re-issue of the Star Wars films on DVD, specifically two new Star Wars Trilogy DVD box sets, due on 11/4 (SRP $49.98 each). Each is apparently a 6-disc set, with two discs per film. We’re waiting on official details. This is NOT the ultimate release we’ve all been waiting for, and no Blu-ray editions are currently planned, but it’s possible that these discs MAY include some new special features. We’ll try to get an update for you on that point as soon as possible.

I was in Wal-Mart yesterday, and near the toy section there was a display for the SW movies. I bet they moved the copies that were moldering in the DVD section over to that section.

Some time after the report above was posted, this came:

…First of all, we’ve confirmed with 20th Century Fox that the new Star Wars Trilogy DVD box sets are just re-packs of the previously released 2-disc sets (in the case of the Prequel set) and presumably the recent Original Trilogy 2-disc DVDs that had both the SE versions and the non-anamorphic original theatrical versions of the films. The key point is: THERE’S NO NEW CONTENT. So be advised and spread the word. By the way, special thanks to our good friend T-Bone for bring these new DVDs to our attention this morning…

You read that right: no new content. Plus, these “new” releases won’t be done in Blu-Ray format, which everybody and their uncle is releasing their films in these days alongside DVD. What’s the point? Everyone who wanted the PT and the OT (SE) has them if they wanted them. And, like I said, it’s not like you can’t find them in the DVD section if you didn’t get them whenever. Until LFL releases all the movies in Blu-Ray format with the anamorphic O-OT, they shouldn’t bother trying to get me to reach for my wallet. I might consider investing in a Blu-Ray player if I could see the O-OT in high-def.

And wield it I have. Not much this past year for various reasons, but when it did wale, I used it with reckless abandon. What’s the LucasClub™? Actually, there are two of them:

The LucasClub™ of Subtle Storytelling - Lucas really wields it when he’s beating you over the head with a story element because he didn’t think you got it the first five times he mentions it. Example: the countless times Anakin is called the Chosen One (and we still don’t know completely what that means).

The LucasClub™ of Idiocy - which I use. A great deal.

One day I’ll post a pic of my LucasClub™, but I’ve gone through so many of them that it would be pointless. I think I broke the current one whacking the Clone Wars stuff. But more stuff is coming down the pike, including the live-action series and the OT (SE) in 3-D. Plus sometimes the man doesn’t know when to shut up. Lots of opportunities there.

Five years of writin’ and rantin’. Hard to believe I’ve kept this up for so long.

Well…what a weekend…

The Clone Wars opened on 3,452 screens and took in an estimated gross of $15,505,000, which averages out to about $4,491 per screen*. That makes it the lowest grossing theatrical SW release, plus racked up a whopping 18% (as of this writing) Rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with their top critics reviewing it at 5%. It finished third against Tropic Thunder’s opening and The Dark Knight in its fifth week.

I could put up a review of TPM and I bet you couldn’t tell the difference between it and CW. Except that you suffered for 90 minutes instead of two and a half hours. When the critics and your average film-goer agree, something is up. When the denizens of TF.N are running for cover, pulling excuses out of the aether, echoing the “it’s just a kid’s movie” mantra, and attacking every negative comment, something is up.

Whenever Lucas aims at a demographic (or an imagined demographic), the results are appalling. For TPM it was “kids”; for AOTC it was “teenagers”, “girls who wouldn’t be caught dead watching a sci-fi flick”, “fans who allegedly want to see Boba Fett again”, and “fans who allegedly want to see Yoda fight”; for ROTS is was “fans who allegedly want a darker SW” and “fans who want to see Darth Vader in the suit”. This time it was “kids 5-12, especially girls”. Now we have a character that’s a straight up Hannah Montana/Bratz ripoff loose in the galaxy far, far away, and people point to her as one of the many problems with this movie.

If he needs a demographic to aim at, how about “all SW fans, including the OT fans you threw under the bus”? If you tell a great story, have great characters, and have great battles between heroes you want to cheer for and villains you want to hiss at, you’ll get the booties in the seats, regardless of who they are.

The Dark Knight is proving that in spades.

*From Box Office Mojo before the Monday gross report.

I’m updating software around the whole site right now, so I’ll drop a little post here. Yeah, I’ve been gone a while. Turns out that starting in June I was way sicker than I thought, and one of my doctors identified what was going on and prescribed new meds. I’m almost four weeks into the new meds, and I feel like I’m almost all the way back. It’s really strange; you can feel bad for so long that you can’t remember when you felt good. Before the dark times. Before the RA. I still have the RA, but over time it likes to invite other diseases to the party. That’s what I’m fighting right now, a party pooper.

While the list is as thick on minutiae as any geeky list, it also goes overboard on the “Campbellian motifs” malarkey. We already knew The Clone Wars had reduced itself to Saturday morning cartoon status by sending Anakin (and his apprentice ) after Jabba’s kid, Stinky. If you remember what made the PT so odious, those elements will be in this cartoon in spades: stupid names, kiddie potty humor, unwarranted “mirroring” of stuff in the OT, unnecessary plot contrivances, manufactured encounters the makers thought were funny but aren’t, silly droid action, etc. It’s interesting that not all of the denizens of TF.N are enamored of these details. Maybe I should be expecting new members of the Sanctuary come August.

Edit: List gone!

I’ve seen more of the Clone Wars toon lately, and I still don’t like it. (Go to Sandtroopers.com to catch a sneaky-peek if you’re so inclined.) The animation still looks clunky, and my inner writer is still dancing around in angry circles about the total disregard of continuity. Plus, one particularly idiotic PT Lucasian touch resurfaces (stupid battle droid antics). Now all that’s left is the AniWhine™ and that supposed friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan we never saw in the movies.

A couple of weeks ago I bought Raiders of the Lost Ark, inexplicably rebranded as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I would have been upset if they had changed that in the movie itself. The special effects are somewhat dated (done about the same time as the OT) but at least it didn’t contract CGI-tis as did the SE OT. There’s something reassuring about sets and location shooting. Raiders is gritty, grungy, dirty, dusty, and I still love it. From what I hear, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull goes overboard on the CGI, which Spielberg said wouldn’t happen. Well, that movie I might rent later.

Update: Clip’s been pulled. The LFL Nazgûl strike again!

Priceless gems once again drop from Lucas’ lips:

We all knew this was coming, right? This is Lucas we’re talking about. The guy who never saw a franchise he didn’t want to squeeze the last red cent out of.

Staking out the competition?

*hysterical screaming* *and not in a good way*

Indy without Harrison? That’s like Gone With The Wind without Vivien Leigh, Dirty Harry without Eastwood, The Blues Brothers without Belushi! What is this boy drinking?!

I don’t know. In the trailers he looks a bit out of it to me. I guess it is the years and not the mileage.
….

That’s not what I would call “thriving”.

There’s that “it’s just a movie” write-off again. The networks get it, all right. They get that they can’t make a long-term commitment to a series that might not deliver ratings and, more importantly, advertising dollars. The PT was a joke, and anything following in its footsteps will be looked upon with jaundiced eyes.

You know, for all the stuff he throws out for me to shoot down, he should be selling it. Add it to his list of things to milk to death.

Any of you who run Wordpress know about the newest upgrade, 2.5, and the problems that have cropped up after its release. None of my blogs are running it yet. I did a clean install on a new database for testing, and the only problem I’ve come across is the image loader feature. I didn’t use the earlier versions of the loader because all the pics I use on all my blogs are in one “community” folder. It requires a bit more typing to put in the addresses and tag attributes, but it’s the simplest solution and I haven’t had any problems doing it that way.

As far as plugins are concerned, the new version seems to get along fine with them. An updated version the Comment Quicktags plugin will be used; the only difference from the old one is that there’s a toggle button to show or hide the formatting buttons. Neat little feature, but it will take a little getting used to. The only plugin I haven’t installed is Spam Karma 2, and I don’t know if it will work with the new upgrade yet. 2.5 didn’t break the theme, which is good. The widgets in the sidebar work (if you remember they need individual names).

I want to wait until 2.5.1 comes out. In the meantime, I might upgrade the smallest blog first to minimize the damage if there is any.

That’s basically what Uncle George is saying about the fate of Indy 4. It’s not as much an attempt to head off high expectations as it is another finger pointed in the face of fans who have the audacity to expect him to actually deliver a quality product. Does this sound familiar?

Just a movie. If it was “just a movie”, he wouldn’t be in such a hurry to sweep the decks of all possible criticism to absolve himself of any responsibility if things should not turn out well. If it sucks. Hey, all I’m doing is sitting out in the audience wanting to get submerged in the world of Indy again. If it stinks, that your fault, George, not mine. (And I’d hate to have brush Steven with the blame as well, but he’s part of the package, so…)

The PT stunk, and he could have learned the lessons from that and moved on. But he turned the fire hose on us who were “blinded by nostalgia” or “had their own vision of the movies in their head for X years”. Are we gonna hear that whine again when the new Clone Wars cartoon and the live-action series come out, and those not enamored with them will yell loud and long about it?

I guarantee it.