Star Wars II: Return of the Name

Mutant was among the onslaught of readers who submitted that the final name has been chosen for Star Wars Episode II. It is... Attack of the Clones. Let the sarcasm commence. I'll pass judgement after I see it.

Just remember....

[mattsking]

Is Georgie boy going a wee bit nuts again? Anyone remember the Battlestar Galactica episode? Probably not. If you view ANH as it was intended, as a love letter to Akira Korosawa, (Watch the Hidden Fortress.) then you will see the many parallels between the two films, (and Willow too for that matter.)This includes characters and scenes. As to the naming thing, just rememeber that if you go by statements in ANH, (e.g., "General Kenobi, hero of the Clone Wars",) you will see the next two movies are the clone wars period. The second movie is the beginning, the third the end of the wars and the fall of the Jedi. Aside from that, who cares about the title when there are supposed to be scenes of up to 30-40 Jedi fighting? Fnord

Re:Might this not be a ploy

[well_jung]

I prefer:

Star Wars Episode II: A Darkened Heart.

Would be a good title given the primary story line in this edition (Anakin->Vader), and would be a good-natured poke at El Presidente.

Re:The real face of scifi fandom & the geek commun

[magic]

Thank you-- you hit the nail on the head. Serious geeks spend a lot of time trying to be geeks (wearing black, having the best techno-toys, seeing the right movies, glowering over their monitors at happy co-workers). But this just substitutes one social ladder for another.

It is lame to bash or even look down on other geeks because you think their tastes aren't hardcore enough-- isn't it enough that half the world already looks down on us? Do we need to add to the persecution?

-m

Re:Star Wars all sucks, but it's hard to notice

[CaptainCarrot]

The good/bad polarity of light/dark sides of the force was absolute, easy enough for all us 4 year olds to understand at the time.

Or even us 13 year olds. But it wasn't just the kids who were taken in. Sober, serious, adult critics were almost uniform in their praise. Harlan Ellison's was the sole, lonely critical voice to be raised against it, and even in his case his point wasn't so much that it sucked, but just that it wasn't quite as good as everyone else was saying. I suspect that even Lucas was surprised at the critics' reaction, but he knew good luck when he saw it and ran with it. Can't blame him for that, but I can blame him for pretending to have made something profound.

Give me a break

[Nevrar]

People should stop complaining about the title. I mean, come on... It's Lucas's movie so he has every right to call it whatever he likes. He invented Star Wars!!!

Just because you consider yourself to be a member of the S.W. cult, doesn't make you more qualified than Lucas to decide on a title. It's a movie - not an open source software project that is named through a democratic process.

first logged in sarcasm!

[MOMOCROME]

omfg! 'a new hope' 'empire strikes back' and 'revenge of the jedi' are all dark and epic titles....

Lucas has lost it.

I was about to apply for a job at Lucasarts, now I just might be too embarrased!~

Gah

[interiot]

From the official annonucement [starwars.com]:

• It [using chapter titles] harkens back to the sense of pure fun, imagination and excitement that characterized the classic movie serials and pulp space fantasy adventures that inspired the Star Wars saga.

Gag me. Worse than merely being cheesy, it's an evil blend of marketing and cheese.

Clone wars - read Frank Herbert

[legLess]

This issue will cause a war at some point in the future, I bet. For the old science fiction fans amongst us, check out Frank Herbert's Destination Void. Guaranteed to hurt your brain. Here's a very simple summary that doesn't give away much:

X years in the future, human cloning is commonplace. Perhaps inevitably, clones are treated as far less than human, simply disposable lumps of flesh. A "Void Ship" (thus the name) is shot out into interstellar space with a crew of clones, and their task is to create artificial life (not intelligence - life), using the ship itself as the raw material. They use clones because the people on moon base are

very afraid of creating life they can't control - they want the data, but not the actuality. With a crew of clones, they can blow up the ship before any artificial life is realized, but hopefully after they have a little more data. And it doesn't matter, because the crew are only clones. There are many layers of irony, and tragedy, here.

If you read much Herbert, you may see the very beginnings of the "Butlerian Jihad" in this story. Remember all the "Mentats" in the Dune books? Human computers? They existed because of the one prohibition that came out of the Butlerian Jihad: "Thou shalt not make a machine in the image of a man's mind." They discovered, almost too late, that relying on machines to do your work turns you into a slave.

Read more Herbert - he was one of the most important minds in fiction all last century.

Parenthetically, Herbert followed this 20 years later with a trilogy: The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor. It's really some of his best work, aside from the Dune books. Sadly, he died before he finished the last one, and his co-author for the series (Bill Ransom) finished it. Bill Ransom's a decent poet, but a lousy novelist, and The Ascension Factor was pretty weak. The first two are great though, and spend more time with the clone issue.

Re:Might this not be a ploy

[hucke]

"Revenge of the Jedi" wasn't a ploy; the name was changed at the last minute.

True; it was changed to prevent confusion with Star Trek II: The Revenge of Khan, which was in production at the same time. Upon discovering the similarity, both movie studios agreed to change their titles.

The real problem...

[chazzf]

...is that George Lucas isn't fit to direct or be otherwise associated with any Star Wars film. Of the four that have been released, which one would most fans say had the best script, the best directing, the best overall tone, and the best all around story-telling? The Empire Strikes Back. Coincidentally, this is the film that Lucas had the least involvement with.

Who else was disappointed by the last two films, ROTJ and TPM? Hands up, I know you were. Ewoks? Jar Jar? With the three prequels ROTJ just doesn't hold up as the finisher. It took the novels (i.e., Zahn), to to that. Fire Lucas and put some Sci-Fi folks in charge, someone who hasn't tackled Star Wars. I fear George simply doesn't have it.

Why wasn't this posted earlier?

[Julius X]

This may seem like a flame--and it probably is, but why the reluctance to post this news bit?

"was among the onslaught of readers who submitted"

I know I submitted it nine hours ago, and it was almost immediately rejected. I figured someone else had already submitted it and that it would be up on the Frontpage almost immediately. Yet, hours go by, and still no news.

If anything would qualify as "news for nerds"--I figure this would. Why the delay?

Lame Name

[Aqua OS X]

Attack of the Clones? How "B" movie is that? eh?

Movies that usually have a title containing "attack of..," "weekend at...," or "bikini.." are usually failr bad movies. I guess Attack of the clones is better then "Weekend Attack of the Bikini Clones," but it's still bad.

Why couldn't it just be called Episode II, The Clone Wars... or something to that degree. Ehh, who am I kiding, I'll still see it... I just hope Jar Jar doesn't get cloned... I'll walk out.