RotS Opening Battle

[Tolya]

I had to cool down and think carefully about this, that's why I post this so late after the movie.

Did you like that battle?

I think that back in the 70's, using wooden sticks, glue and plastic model kits, Lucas was able to produce a better battle than the ones seen in the new episodes. Dont get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but I still think it looked too much like a tech demo or something. Visuals were of course flawless, spectacular, great sound effects etc. But what I missed was the INTENSITY of the battles ("they are headed for the medical frigate!") from the old trilogy. It was sort of an impersonal, generic space battle, with some Anakin-Obi Wan exchanges that looked more like they were sitting before TV, watchin' a game, havin' a bud. I know that Jedi's are supposed to be calm, but they could have introduced more characters into the scene, put some more dialogues which would show us that its not squares shooting triangles type of combat. What do you think?

[Mange]

I mostly agree. What the ROTS battle lacked was a sense of urgency. Yes, we know that the Chancellor has been kidnapped, but other than that there's no urgency to the situation such as the Separatist fleet is on it's way to jump into hyperspace and escape or something similar to that.
I can't say that I was disappointed by the opening space battle, but I had expected it to last a bit longer and perhaps being a bit more intense.

[HemlockGrey]

The big problem with the space battle was that they focused too much on Anakin getting rid of the buzz-droids. I have no idea why they thought that would be cooler than a kickass dog-fight.

[Cykeisme]

I agree, the Battle of Endor definitely blows the Battle of Coruscant away, far and wide. The dynamics of the capital ship and starfighter action was so much better in RotJ, seriously.

In its defense, the Battle of Coruscant wasn't a conflict between good and evil with the fate of the galaxy at stake.. the two sides were being played like pawns, so it lacked some emotional power.
Also, I heard that huge chunks of the RotS battle was cut, turning it into little than the heroic duo's jaunt through the chaos, rather than showing the fight itself.
I guess this still falls far short of justifying the limp choreography, though. It also begs the question as to why so much action was cut. As some people said after RotS was just released, this is Star Wars. Why the lack of focus on the war among the stars?


Agreed about the buzz droids, Hemlock. What was that idea all about? They could've done away with it altogether and added crazy Jedi Force-enhanced dogfighting, sort of like what Anakin does in the Clone Wars microseries episode above Muunilist.

[Spacebeard]

Yeah, I hated the beginning of RoTS but loved the rest. It seems to me that all of the vapid, childish antics Lucas is apparently obligated to stuff into newer movies were compressed into the first twenty minutes of RoTS, allowing the remainder of the film to be a serious, emotional, and enjoyable movie.

My beefs were mainly the aforementioned emotional detachment on the part of most characters; R2 and Grievous acted more like they were in a desperate battle for the fate of the galaxy than Obi-Wan, Anakin, or Dooku did. I think a Jedi's stoic calm should feel more like Obi-Wan's cool confidence in ANH, or Luke's in ROTJ, not like two guys cracking jokes as if they're playing a video game. Palpatine's boredom at least seems in character: he's self-satisfied and impatient for his unwitting pawns to carry out his plans.

I also hated the cartoony taunts of the battle droids ("Stupid astro droid!") and the "rock the ship back and forth and make everyone slide across the floor" shtick, which got old after Charlie Chaplin did it and forces you to painfully rationalize it in terms of fluctuating artificial gravity.

The "ray shield" struck me as pointless, also; the battle would have been little different if they had simply charged onto the bridge rather than being captured, and it begs the question of why dangerous prisoners were taken to the ship's control room instead of the brig. They may have disarmed Obi-Wan and Anakin, but R2 still had a trick up his sleeve... leave it to the Trade Federation to underestimate a droid.

Finally, I never noticed anything wrong with "NO!", but the line which made me cringe both times I heard it was the Trade Federation captain whining "All batteries fire, fire!".

[Vympel]

I said right after coming back from the premiere that the space battle was a let-down- the buzz droid idea was lame and could've been taken up with some much needed dogfighting.

I liked what very little we saw of capital ships slugging it out though.

[Grand Admiral Mango]

I quite agree. The opening battle was utterly pointless and the buzz-droids were a waste of time.

[Vympel]

I wouldn't say the choreograpgy of the RotS space battle was bad- I thought it was quite good. The level of detail was amazing. It's just that nothing happened.

In RotJ, you had Ackbar, you had Lando, you had Wedge, you had miscellaneous Rebel pilots, you had the Imperial officers, PLUS the choreography, and of course, length. In RotS it was just Anakin and Obi-Wan, and a few ARC-170 clone pilots who you don't have much emotional investment in. Heck, I possibly would've liked to see Kashyyk cut so we could have a bigger space battle.

I'll say it again- imagine if the RotJ space battle was remade, with each shot etc identical, but using RotS CGI. *Drool*

[Vicious]

It felt like being on a ride. It's big, it's got lots of shiny cool looking things, but it lacks that emotional oomph. One thing that made the drama almost non-existant is you know that Palpatine, Anakin, Artoo and Obi-Wan all live. It's a given, so you don't feel any concern when they are put in apparent danger. And I agree that the buzz-droids were just stupid.

[Firefox]

I'll say it again- imagine if the RotJ space battle was
remade, with each shot etc identical, but using RotS CGI. *Drool*

Check the Doomsday Scenario thread. You're most certainly not alone in that regard.

Having said that, I agree that the buzz droid scene was gratuitous, even contrived. While I can see a reason for such droids, their use in the opening battle could've been replaced with some hot hot ARC-170 on tri-fighter action, perhaps throwing in some V-wings for good measure.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

The problem with the RotS opening battle was that it seemed to be just a backdrop for Anakin and Obi-Wan to fly through. It's almost as if they could have replaced it with bare, open space with nothing else besides them, the clone pilots, and the droid fighters and it wouldn't have made much of a difference in the suspense level.

[Cal Wright]

The big problem with the space battle was that they focused too much on Anakin getting rid of the buzz-droids. I have no idea why they thought that would be cooler than a kickass dog-fight.

Because it shows what an excellent pilot and combatant he is. Here's Anakin at pretty much his height before his fall.

I loved the Battle of Coruscant personally. It was no Endor, but then again what is? I felt there was an intensity and urgent matter going on, but it was very different. First off, you didn't know exactly what was going to happen at Endor. Really, come on, who knew if Star Wars was going to have an Episode VII? Here, we know Obi Wan and Anakin aren't going to die. We know who the Chancellor is. I think the urgency is built upon itself. Here we see a battle that is extremely hectic and chaotic. They had to dodge debris and laser fire, head on attacks and missile launches not minutes after reverting. Then we know that they still have to get to the ship where the Chancellor is being held and rescue him somehow.

I think it's just a different story altogether, and had to be told in a different way.

[PeZook]

I liked the final space battle of KOTOR more, and it was no more than a minute long, when you count all the CGI cutscenes. There was just so much suspense in there, the feeling of impeding doom that was sorely lacking in RotS. What completely killed the entire sequence for me were the goddamned buzz droids - how could anyone think they'd be cooler than mad force-assisted dogfighting, with Obi and Anaking desperately fending off hordes of droid fighters, trying to reach the Invisible Hand before it clears the fleet and jumps to hyperspace...is beyond me. We could have gotten shots of clone pilots sacrifcing themselves, Venator destroyers striking suicidally at the core of CIS fleet, frigates positioning themselves on the way of the Invisible Hand...everything to win those precious seconds and allow the Jedi to land aboard the ship.

Instead, we got buzz droids. I hate the fucking buzz droids.

[Dalton]

I liked the ROTS opening battle to a point - but why the hell couldn't Anakin just use the Force to get rid of the buzzdroids? That always bugged me. Did they have magnets that were too powerful for a force-push without devoting attention away from flying? However, some of the capship-vs-capship scenes were very cool.

That being said, the Battle of Endor will always hold the honor of being, in my opinion, the greatest SW space battle ever. Less Jedi chit-chat, more dogfighting and explosions.

[SVPD]

I really wanted to see the capital ships slug it out, maneuver, etc. combined with a real dogfight. The buzz droids were, quite frankly, silly

[Noble Ire]

I really didnt mind the opening battle. Certainly, I like the battle of Endor much more, but I think that Coruscant was quite good. Yes, buzz droids were pretty lame, and they should have focused a bit more on the rest of the battle, but still, I thought it was pretty amazing. I really liked the long one-shot opening, that actually had a few hair-raising moments for me. It was a visual thrill, even if it lacked the emotional undertones that the OT battles had, but that can be said about most of the PT (ROTS less so than the others.) I personally found the droid scenes on the Invisible Hand far more objectionable.

[VT-16]

I still think it´s utterly retarded to have a spacebattle in the middle of a story outshine the climactic one at the very end. Which is why I was pleased to see ILM didn´t go overboard with the FX. I can actually see enough similarities between both to accept them as being part of the same universe.

And once again, I think future generations will benefit more from this, when they view it from I to VI the first time around. More suspense that way.

[Hardy]

I think that back in the 70's, using wooden sticks, glue and plastic model kits, Lucas was able to produce a better battle than the ones seen in the new episodes

In terms of emotional intensity, I agree; he already did it with the Battle of Yavin and had shown several Star Destroyers in combat. However, it would be difficult to match the ROTS expositional shot with the model cameras of that time. Simply getting the cameras to pan or getting a ship to turn was extremely difficult to accomplish.

Maybe in 1980, it would have been possible, considering what we see the Millenium Falcon is capable of doing and also considering the shots we see of the medical frigate and the rebel fleet at the end. The ROTJ space battle has already well exceeded the emotional intensity of the ROTS battle, despite not having minute-long tracking shots. This battle was more about the desperation of the Rebels, and was brilliantly intercut with Palaptine's bragging about how he has the rebels in a no-win situation.

Now, the expositional shot of ROTS was really the only part of the battle that had truely awed me. The spectacular multi-minute-long shot began with a tranquil shot of a Venator passing below us. For the first time, I think we truely got the idea of how immense a Star Destroyer really is. Most model shots of ISDs in the OT tended to show power, rather than scale. Williams really helped this one out with the steady drumbeats and then the changing to the steady brass march.

That dive off of the Venator's bow was perhaps the most exciting part of that shot. The chaos below was amazing, and was well accentuated by the shot being deliberately disorienting. The sound effects were surpsiingly familiar, however. Musically, John Williams had then switched to a steady march-like version of the Force/Skywalker theme by then, and the camera re-aquired our Starfighters and continued to follow them. From here, we can cealry see that the density of weapons is incredible when compared to the OT.

I do note that the Starfighters do have an individual personality. Obi-Wan ussually remained on a straight path, banking only when necessary, whereas Anakin took more sporadic paths, banking and rolling gratuitously. Credit to ILM if that was intentional.

Throughout that shot, I do recall ducking out of the way of debris and realigning my head to compensate for the disorientation. Williams was smart enough to add upswings in tone to accentuate explosions and deliberate disorientations.

One can imagine how beautiful it would have been if it were released in IMAX, IMAXdome, or 3D.

That shot wasn't without flaws, though. Sometimes, it seemed way too choreographed, like when the camera pre-emptively repositioned itself to allow the two Jedi Starfighters to fly past. Fortunately, I think we heard the sound effect before the Starfighters were seen. There was also the instance of the SPHA-T mounted in a Venator's hangar firing on a Separatist ship; I believe the camera got perfectly centered on the Venator just before it fired. The utter simplicity of the firing and the camera's motion made it look too sterile and it almost screamed "CGI!". Similar events tended to happen in that shot.

I'm guessing that msot professional cinamatographers would view it as highly immature.

My main problem was that it went far too long without dialogue. ESB managed to do this correctly, because we were left in mystery as to what was going on; the opening crawl bing our only clues. However, going without dialogue for too long in ROTS made the entire shot seem pretty sterile. As soon as we get to the first transition of the movie, the long-awaited character shots are somewhat boring. In ESB, we were half-wondering who the guy in the winter-gear was, and it was gracefully revealed that it was a more mature Luke Skywalker. In ROTS, the guys in the starfighters were very unceremoniously revealed. To borrow some earlier analogies, it really did look like two guys playing video games, which managed to throw off the pacing of the battle. Fortunately John Williams was nice enough to accomodate that by turning to a subtle and repetitive tune while our heroes spoke.

After that shot (which did seem a bit out of context in the Star Wars universe, despite its beauty), the battle got a little too boring, having only the occasional disorientations and induced duckings. Like others have said before, the Buzz droids took away from the action, but did help to amuse the audience and show us how Anakin and Obi-Wan's relationship had progressed since AOTC.

Though, there was that broadside between the Guarlara and the Invisible Hand that might be considered an exception since it delivered a mortal blow while our heroes were still aboard the ship.

And once again, I think future generations will benefit more from this, when they view it from I to VI the first time around. More suspense that way.

I agree. Younger audiences, who haven't seen the OT prior to ROTS won't have the absolute assurance that the characters will live, thus adding to the action and supense.

[Jim Raynor]

The opening battle in ROTS was fine. It lacked the intensity of some of the other big battles in the SW saga, but I don't think Lucas really intended for it to be a "big" battle. It was just an excuse to get Anakin on the Invisible Hand so he could kill Dooku. I think the biggest problem was the hype the battle got. The Clone Wars cartoon showed the beginning of a HUGE battle with literally thousands of capital ships. Pablo claimed that the Battle of Coruscant would outdo Endor. The hype, combined with us fans' hopes of finally getting a huge fleet battle in the final SW movie really set us all up for disappointment.

[Cykeisme]

The lack of urgency is inexcusable.
Sure, we knew our heroes would survive, but they could have made it more clear that the Invisible Hand was attempting to break free of the battle and jump into hyperspace. There could've been wider shots of the IH to show that it was moving through the battle as the Venators attempted to prevent it from getting away, till the Jedi heroes got close enough.

There's nothing wrong with buzz droids on their own, but the whole fiasco took up too much time. They could've added more traditional seat-of-the-pants dogfighting before the buzz droid sequence.
I'd like to see the deleted ARC-170 vs Vulture action; I'll bet cutting it did more harm than good (assuming it did any good). It could also have made Commander Cody's betrayal on Utapau more poignant, if when just days before, he was willing to risk his life to protect Obi-Wan.

The big problem with the space battle was that they focused too much on Anakin getting rid of the buzz-droids. I have no idea why they thought that would be cooler than a kickass dog-fight.

Because it shows what an excellent pilot and combatant he is. Here's Anakin at pretty much his height before his fall.

At the risk of sounding like a wide-eyed kid, I think showing Anakin blast a ridiculous number of droid starfighters while blaster bolts sizzle through space inches away from his own fighter would have demonstrated this far better.

When I saw the Battle of Muunilist in the Clone Wars microseries, the first thought that popped into my head was, "I can't wait to see this sort of combat in full-blown CGI!", but alas, it was not to be.
The incredible number of ships that appear as the heroes' Venator drops out of hyperspace over Coruscant (ending seconds of the CW series) set me up with even greater expectations.

imagine if the RotJ space battle was remade, with each shot etc identical, but using RotS CGI. *Drool*

Ohh, yeah.. *gets a change of clean pants*

[Hardy]

The lack of urgency is inexcusable.
Sure, we knew our heroes would survive, but they could have made it more clear that the Invisible Hand was attempting to break free of the battle and jump into hyperspace. There could've been wider shots of the IH to show that it was moving through the battle as the Venators attempted to prevent it from getting away, till the Jedi heroes got close enough.

I would have preferred this, since non-fan audiences have wondered what's stopping the ship from jumping into hyperspace (we know about the shield and the many obstructions). That could have been alluded to, without detracting from the plot, thus adding that urgency.

They could've added more traditional seat-of-the-pants dogfighting before the buzz droid sequence.

It's better without it. Remember, Anakin and Obi-Wan are there merely to rescue the Chancellor, and not fight. I really don't have much of a problem with Obi-Wan and Anakin simply being spectators in the battle, and doing nothing more than defnding themselves and carrying out their mission, despite it being oneof the reasons reason why the battle lacked emotional intensity.

I'd like to see the deleted ARC-170 vs Vulture action; I'll bet cutting it did more harm than good (assuming it did any good). It could also have made Commander Cody's betrayal on Utapau more poignant, if when just days before, he was willing to risk his life to protect Obi-Wan.

Oddball, you mean. Cody wasn't a pilot, and I doubt he was a participant in the Battle of Coruscant.

However, adding the ARC-170 footage would have allowed for ham-fisted, seat-of-the-pants dogfights, while still making sense. Remember, Anakin and Obi-Wan's first priority was to get to the IH, whereas Oddball and his men were there to protect the two with their own dogfighting.

At the risk of sounding like a wide-eyed kid, I think showing Anakin blast a ridiculous number of droid starfighters while blaster bolts sizzle through space inches away from his own fighter would have demonstrated this far better.

Again, dogfighting with the Jedi Starfighters would be gratuitous and not necessary. Also, according to the ICS, they have very low fire rates, which would make for a very boring dogfight. Now, watching the two dodge bolts and then elaborately evade their attackers, all within the context of their mission would carry similar excitement, but without the gratuity.

I think Obi-Wan made it pretty clear that it was important to get to the Chancellor, throughout the entire scene.

[Jason von Evil]

They should've shown the Victory class stardestroyers.

[HemlockGrey]

Because it shows what an excellent pilot and combatant he is. Here's Anakin at pretty much his height before his fall.

Sorry, I'm going to have to call bullshit on that one. Him getting rid of the buzzdroids involved banging into Obi's fighter a few times and then shooting at them. Boring. You don't think a much better display of his piloting skills would have been Anakin caught up in a chaotic, swirling dogfight, blasting everything in sight and narrowly avoiding enemy laser blasts?

[Darth Yoshi]

Anakin evading those missiles was a better demonstration of his skill than the buzzdroids, methinks. It may have just been me, but the impression I got was that he used some TK on the missiles.

[Dangermouse]

Anakin evading those missiles was a better demonstration of his skill than the buzzdroids, methinks. It may have just been me, but the impression I got was that he used some TK on the missiles.

I never got that impression. To me, it appeared that he rolled and weaved until the missles' paths converged leading to the collision and explosion of the missles.