New star wars trailer posted.

March 10, 2002 7:30 PM

New star wars trailer posted. This is the fourth trailer, entitled Clone War.
posted by jragon (46 comments total)

Sorry. This link should work.
posted by jragon at 7:31 PM on March 10, 2002

I saw it on TV. It was ok, the battles look interesting, and I hope it's more violent. Anakin doesn't look any better. He's gone from an annoying tow-headed kid to an annoying effeminate teenager.

Not very Darth Vaderesque if you ask me... although they do show signs of the metamorphosis. It wasn't very exciting.
posted by insomnyuk at 7:44 PM on March 10, 2002

Before everyone starts saying that we don't need another Star Wars trailer post. I just wanna say that, I hate the fact that they showed the trailer a couple of seconds before 9;00 PM ET, so that it would get cut when TiVo changes from Malcolm In The Middle to The X-Files.
posted by riffola at 7:46 PM on March 10, 2002

I thought it was awesome.
posted by padjet1 at 7:46 PM on March 10, 2002

So who's the dude fighting with two lightsabers near the end? Personally, I think that the storyline is firming up nicely, no matter how annoying Anakin is.
posted by SpecialK at 7:51 PM on March 10, 2002

SpecialK: Isn't that Anakin with the two lightsabres? It looks to me like that's his big fight with Obi-Wan.
posted by mathis23 at 7:57 PM on March 10, 2002

oh man, this looks awesome.

i thought after the last trailer that ep 2 was going to be a sappy love story, but it looks like there is going to be some serious butt kickin' going on. i think that if the movie is a good mix of the two, it will be worth its weight on celluiod. ep 1 with it's cheesy humor which distracted from the moral weight of the plot was not.

special k and mathis23: i do believe that is anikin with two lightsabers.
posted by will at 8:07 PM on March 10, 2002

riffola: Why would it get cut from the TiVo grab? Aren't Malcolm and X-Files on the same network (FOX)? Wouldn't it just flow from one into the other and get picked up? I don't own a TiVo, but just assumed it was time based (8:30-9:00, 9:00-9:30).

Oh, and if Natalie Portman is wearing the skin-tight white outfit for a large portion of the movie, then that's a definite plus.

And the battles, too.
posted by Grum at 8:08 PM on March 10, 2002

Bah! If I want to hear Yoda's old jewish man conjugation, I'll rent a Mel Brooks movie.
posted by machaus at 8:08 PM on March 10, 2002

It looks like a cross between a fan flick (live actors with wooden dialogue poorly contrasted with CG backgrounds) and the intro FMV for a video game.

Mirrors - grab it in DivX 5.0, MPEG and Windows Media 8.0 here.

Yes, that is Anakin with the two sabres, but no, it's not Obiwan - it's Count Dooku.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:08 PM on March 10, 2002

I did notice the conspicuous absence of Jar-Jar Binks. Of course, we know he's IN the movie (half-frame shots of him in the background of previous trailers) but they are doing a good job hiding him. But I thought Lucas was proud of that character...
posted by Grum at 8:09 PM on March 10, 2002

*geeks in*

Isn't that Anakin with the two lightsabres?

Yeah, that's him, but it doesn't look like Obi-wan he's fighting. It looks like the guy who was trying to recruit Obi-Wan against the Sith.

That's makes sense, though. According to most of the Star Wars backround material I've read (uh...*cough* not that I've read that much,) fighting with more than one saber is "un-jedi-ly."

*geeks out*
posted by Cyrano at 8:12 PM on March 10, 2002

first jar- jar, then "attack of the clones," and now.. a character named

"count dooku?"

i have a bad feeling about this.
posted by ronv at 8:14 PM on March 10, 2002

"count dooku?"

Apparently, it's pronounced 'dough-ku'. He has a hella cool sabre.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:18 PM on March 10, 2002

I, too, am geeking out.

I have really really big apprehensions about the writing and acting and the general Lucas thing... but the scene showing the dawn of the Empire and all the star destroyers and clone/stormtroopers just made me drool.
posted by mkn at 8:29 PM on March 10, 2002

Grum, I've got Malcolm, and X Files season passes, and when TiVo starts recording a show it changes to the channel the show is on. So even if the previous show is on the same channel, TiVo will change to that channel to start the recording. When it does that you end up losing a couple of seconds, and the trailer also gets split in two, the first half beind in the Malcolm recording and the second in The X-Files recording.

As for the trailer itself, I like it, I can't wait to see the movie on May 17th, when I can just buy the tickets at the box office ten minutes before the show starts. The massive light saber fight in the circle surrounded by the bots looks interesting.
posted by riffola at 8:29 PM on March 10, 2002

That looks fantastic. Stormtroopers! A squat little AT-AT! Star destroyers! Boba Fett's dad!

Sidebar - immediately after it was finished airing, my girlfriend calls.

Me: Hello?
Her: NEEEERD!
posted by GriffX at 8:34 PM on March 10, 2002

According to most of the Star Wars backround material I've read (uh...*cough* not that I've read that much,) fighting with more than one saber is "un-jedi-ly."

There is footage near the end of this Quicktime video of another jedi twirling two lightsabers. I believe he is also visible in one of the crowds of jedi in the trailer.
posted by JDC8 at 8:34 PM on March 10, 2002

Girl...friend?
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:35 PM on March 10, 2002

Man, I'm far from a Star Wars fan, and yet I found that trailer to be hella cool. Certainly raises my (low) expectations.
posted by Marquis at 8:35 PM on March 10, 2002

obiwanwasabi - LOL
posted by GriffX at 8:38 PM on March 10, 2002

I did notice the conspicuous absence of Jar-Jar Binks.
I too, noticed the absence of He Who Shall Not Be Named. Maybe George has been enlightened by his marketing people.
posted by schlaager at 8:38 PM on March 10, 2002

That's some bad acting right there. Buh I'm serious. Buh I have an english accent. Buh he's a bounty hunter. I hated the last film. The first three aren't gonna be topped with established talent.

Then again Alec Guiness and Jim Henson are both dead..so it won't be possible. Guess it'll be buh that guy playing Obi wan and duh Samuel L and guh that horsefaced chick with the silly headress.

That having been said it looks better than the last and to a certain albeit small extent looks interesting.
posted by Settle at 8:44 PM on March 10, 2002

I did notice the conspicuous absence of Jar-Jar Binks.

SPOILER BELOW!

I'm too lazy to go to AICN and find the link, but an early report implies that Lucas has attempted to head the Jar-Jar hatred off at the pass, so to speak. JJB's first appearance in the movie is when he walks into the Senate chambers, where he is roundly booed and hissed by the assembled Wookiees and whatnot.
posted by GriffX at 8:45 PM on March 10, 2002

Also - be warned about the DivX; 5 install - the 'ad supported version' insists on installing Gator. Gator bad, yo.
posted by GriffX at 8:47 PM on March 10, 2002

jango the muss!
posted by sawks at 8:49 PM on March 10, 2002

i'm not really a star wars fan, but that scene where obi deflects all of fett's shots with his light sabre is freakin' dope, to say the least.
posted by lotsofno at 9:48 PM on March 10, 2002

Jar Jar is in the scene where Obi Wan is a hologram, talking about the clone army. You see the big ears in the bottom right corner of the frame.
posted by inviolable at 11:56 PM on March 10, 2002

"They're using a bounty hunter to create an army of clones."

Sneaky. Most people would employ molecular biologists or somesuch.

(Presumably what they mean is that the Stormtrooper Army is all Jango Fett. Which must make Father's Day a uniquely impoverishing experience for young Boba.)

Also, the tagline to the last one was something like "The Saga begins", this one is "The Saga Continues". Will the next one be "The Saga Gets to the Middle Somewhere".
posted by Grangousier at 12:02 AM on March 11, 2002

re: using two sabres

if you look at it, there's a jedi using two green sabres in the fight against all the droids. don't know if much should be read into annakin's use of two sabres (one of which looks to be obiwan's, considering the color difference, and the shot of annakin drawing the sabre to him).

alright. i'm done geeking out.

as for even seeing this film... damn. i'd written this and the next one off after watching the first. i was bitterly, bitterly disappointed with phantom menace. still am. the acting doesn't look any better in this one, and despite all the whiz-bang f/x, it's way too easy to be distracted by lucas' cardboard characters.
posted by gangcandy at 12:33 AM on March 11, 2002

Does anyone know where to find these in Windows Media or some other format? I hate Quicktime and refuse to install it on this machine ever since AdCritic went under.
posted by pooldemon at 1:14 AM on March 11, 2002

Does anyone know where to find these in Windows Media or some other format?

Wot part of 'grab it in DivX 5.0, MPEG and Windows Media 8.0 here' didn't you understand, young Padawan?
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:46 AM on March 11, 2002

Why do I get the feeling that I've seen the entire movie from watching these 4 trailers?
posted by meep at 3:18 AM on March 11, 2002

What I can't wait to see is Yoda wielding a light saber in Jedi school/battle. This has the possibility of being one of the best/worst done scenes ever :)

Here is the ain't it cool news spoiler section to ruin it for you all. Hoho.

I actually didn't mind Episode I, well, at least the special cut VCD version of it I have.. I bet you anything Jar Jar turns out to be the true baddy in Ep III. You'll see. He is the true Sith Overlord. Cunning.
posted by Mossy at 3:53 AM on March 11, 2002

There was something really annoying about all the pastel-colored light sabres. When I was a boy, we didn't have green, pink and purple light sabres, we had primary colors. Blue, and red. They put hair on your chest. Or something.
posted by Sinner at 8:21 AM on March 11, 2002

Is anyone able to view it with the plain ol quicktime viewer? I keep getting pushed to a page that tells me to buy QT... I can wait to pay $10 for the movie instead of $30 to see the trailer ...
posted by holycola at 8:51 AM on March 11, 2002

Holycola - the large version of the trailer on the official site requires you to have Quicktime Pro, but the medium and small versions work with the free player.

If you want the large version and don't want to upgrade, check out obiwanwasabi's links above.
posted by Chanther at 9:38 AM on March 11, 2002

I just watched this online and my first reaction was "so much computer animation it looks like Shrek."

I miss the old-style effects of the first Star Wars movies, where everything was solid models - it gave the whole thing a greater feeling of reality.

But maybe it looks better on a full screen. The plot/action stuff in it looks great.
posted by dnash at 10:42 AM on March 11, 2002

Sinner:
Not to be a huge dork, but in ROTJ, Luke's saber actually was green.
posted by padjet1 at 10:57 AM on March 11, 2002

Incredibly enough, in Anakin, they found an actor who can out-dull Natalie Portman. That kid has about as much presence as a neutrino.
posted by Skot at 11:04 AM on March 11, 2002

Padjet1,

Touche. So just primary colors, no. But primary and/or secondary. All I know is that that climactic circle-the-wagons fight looked like a bunch of kids holding up glowing crayons. It seemed more Power Rangers than Star Wars, to me. That's all I'm sayin'...

And while I'm sayin' that, for my money, the best SF/Action/Fantasy trailer going is still the Spiderman one. Granted, saying that in this thread is like ordering a hamburger in a Chinese restaurant, but...
posted by Sinner at 11:35 AM on March 11, 2002

"I'll be the greatest Jedi EVUH!!!"

God, that kid is a disaster. I hope that I am proven wrong for thinking that he will be the Jar Jar (read: sore spot) of Episode II.
posted by adampsyche at 11:47 AM on March 11, 2002

Is there a place that offers all 4 trailers spliced together (i.e. all the sceneshots put together in chronological order)?
posted by gluechunk at 12:16 PM on March 11, 2002

For a not-particularly-big-Star-Wars-fan, I'm wasting a lot of digital ink in this thread, but I just realized something else that irked me about this trailer - it was the whole buddy-cop interaction between brash young skydiving Anakin and suddenly-jocular Obi Wan. It just strikes me as a very transparent ploy towards resurrecting the Han Solo sarcasm of the first three, which was great in its time, but in this trailer just seemed cheap. "I just remembered [for the fourth time in this two-minute trailer] why I hate flying." Ugh.
posted by Sinner at 12:25 PM on March 11, 2002

Is there a place that offers all 4 trailers spliced together (i.e. all the sceneshots put together in chronological order)?

If that were to happen gluechuck, you'd probably have the entire film right there in front of you (the good bits anyway).

I will go and see this film. But really, hasn't Star Wars simply become an animated cartoon in which real-life actors can be seen reading out a bad script?
posted by crayfish at 1:05 PM on March 11, 2002

All I know is that that climactic circle-the-wagons fight looked like a bunch of kids holding up glowing crayons.

There are only three colours of sabre in that scene - green, blue and purple. Add the red of the Sith, and the canon SW universe only has four colours of lightsabre (for now, anyway - where the fsck did purple come from?). It's anybody's guess what the colours signify, if anything.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 3:00 PM on March 11, 2002