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Star Wars: Detours

Omaru1982

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Any thoughts on this?


I'm not fond of silly humour too much myself and it's one of the reasons why I gave up watching Ultimate spider-man. Think I might be giving this a miss too.
 

Brumous

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The bastard offspring of Clone Wars + Robot Chicken. Has all the humor of Clone Wars and all the suspense of...well, that's all.
 

TomH1138

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Heh. I posted about this in the Star Wars thread - strange that no one saw it.

Anyway, I liked the Robot Chicken specials, and the clips are funny, so I'm looking forward to this.

More troubling to me is how little respect George Lucas has for the OT. The PT gets a serious weekly cartoon that just goes on and on, with no end in sight. But something involving the original characters can only be a parody, apparently. It's like he's constantly gushing over the recent films and apologizing for the early ones.

Then again, Clone Wars is so boring and lifeless, maybe it's better that Lucas just signed off on this animated project without becoming deeply involved. Maybe the makers of that show will have the chance to inject some creativity.
 

DominicCobb

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Well the Clone Wars isn't too bad, but I've never been a fan of its humor so I wasn't expecting much from this. But, after watching the trailer, I was pleasantly surprised. I actually thought some of that was funny. As for the OT being the center of attention, I think that's a good thing. From the trailer, it looks like the PT will be the butt of some jokes as well, so the OT being front and center seems to be more like because the OT is better. At least with a fan like Seth Green in charge it seems like that's the reason. And that's good. So I'll watch.
 

white43

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This looks like someone(George) has been watching Robot Chicken and wants in. It even sounds like Seth MacFarlane is doing the emperor......

Wait a minute. Google......

Detours IS by the Robot Chicken dudes. Sorry - didn't realise that.
 

TomH1138

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DominicCobb said:
Well the Clone Wars isn't too bad, but I've never been a fan of its humor so I wasn't expecting much from this.

The Clone Wars has humor in it? Since when?

Oooh, yeah . . . Stinky the Hutt. That stuff was so bad, I didn't even file it under "humor" in my brain.

DominicCobb said:
But, after watching the trailer, I was pleasantly surprised. I actually thought some of that was funny. As for the OT being the center of attention, I think that's a good thing. From the trailer, it looks like the PT will be the butt of some jokes as well, so the OT being front and center seems to be more like because the OT is better. At least with a fan like Seth Green in charge it seems like that's the reason. And that's good. So I'll watch.

Yeah, that's probably true. I'm suspicious of George's reasons behind this (Is he using this to further tear down the OT? Is he just cashing in the success of the Robot Chicken specials, without concern for how damaging it could be to the respect of the characters to have a weekly series like this?). But Seth Green is coming from a place of love, I think. If more of the jokes center around the OT, it's because he and his team have seen the OT more times and know what the funny parts are to pull out of it.

If I had to guess at the time period, I would think it's probably just a few years before ANH. Vader and Palpy are in charge; Leia seems to be a preteen; Luke is nowhere to be found; etc.
 

Sunarep

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Is he using this to further tear down the OT?

Do people really believe that Lucas is intentionally ruining the OT characters?
I bet if this was not animated but in th style of robot chicken everyone would gush over it. It is pretty much the same idea and done by the same guys

the robot chicken characters from the specials are just fantastic ways to reexplore and reinterpret the star wars material
it speaks for the longevity of the OT that one can produce a comedy series about those characters

 

TomH1138

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Sunarep said:
I bet if this was not animated but in th style of robot chicken everyone would gush over it. It is pretty much the same idea and done by the same guys

The animation style has nothing to do with it. I said in my first post that I love the Robot Chicken stuff and that I think this preview is hilarious.

The issue is the idea of doing a weekly series (as opposed to an occasional special) making the OT characters look as stupid and silly as possible, while Lucas lavishes attention on the "real" Star Wars in his mind, which is his boring, lifeless Clone Wars series.

Lucas has made 8,000 changes to the OT while continuing to leave his "masterpiece" prequel trilogy untouched. He has publicly said that he likes nothing about the 1977 film except for John Williams' score. He said that Empire was the "worst" film of the saga (?!?!?). So, call me paranoid, but I think he has a chip on his shoulder.

I think Seth Green and company really love Star Wars. And who wouldn't make a Star Wars series, funny or otherwise, if George Lucas paid them to do so? So I'll still watch it, but it doesn't do a lot to make me trust George more.
 

Aztek463

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He said that Empire was the "worst" film of the saga (?!?!?).

I remember reading somewhere (I need to find it) that that particular sound bite was taken completely out of context, and that he was just joking around when he said it.

Here is a story on /Film that gives the context for the quote. Given during an award ceremony, I think he was just busting the guy's chops and everyone got all up in arms because, well, it's Lucas. I almost feel bad...on the one hand, all the unnecessary alterations are stupid, but at the same time, the man can't even joke about his own films without being torn a new one.

OT: The trailer...well, I think that was plenty. I think trying to hold that concept out for more than a handful of episodes is going to get very stale, very quickly.
 

TomH1138

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I stand corrected on the Empire comment. I hadn't read that article before.

It's funny that I have a dimmer view of Lucas than you do, but I'm looking more forward to the series than you are. ;-) Different strokes for different folks, of course.
 

Gaith

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Well, that was... horrible. :-o
 

Aztek463

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TomH1138 said:
I stand corrected on the Empire comment. I hadn't read that article before.

It's funny that I have a dimmer view of Lucas than you do, but I'm looking more forward to the series than you are. ;-) Different strokes for different folks, of course.

No worries mate! My view of him isn't exactly as glowing as it used to be, but at the same time, it was an off-hand joke that was taken way out of context (and thus way out of proportion) and I think a lot of the bile that resulted from this was unnecessary. Trust me, I very quickly cancelled my Star Wars BD preorder when I saw the changes that were made ("No...noooo!" is what really did it). And anyways, the DVDs I have from 2004 are fine, and as the Revisited Cuts come out, those are replacing my DVDs. And when Adywan releases them in HD/Blu-ray? Well, I won't have to buy them! Though I am a little bummed out at missing the Blu-ray extras, those seem pretty sweet!

But hey, different strokes indeed. :)

EDIT: Hey! Post #1000! Woot!
 

TomH1138

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Nice! Congratulations on 1K posts, Aztek! :)

And, yeah, the special features are pretty nice. I have a friend who owns the Blu-rays who let me watch them. I highly recommend watching them at a friend's house so that you don't have to pay for them yourself. ;-)

Gaith said:
Well, that was... hilarious.

Fixed. :p
 

Frantic Canadian

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I just watched it and I thought it was hilarious. I especially liked the Admiral Ackbar scene. :lol: I think it has potential as a straight-to-DVD/Blu-Ray movie, but I don't know about an actual series. What network is going to be producing this?
 

Neglify

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Gaith said:
Well, that was... horrible. :-o

this1.jpg


I'm actually pretty upset at Seth and Matt for this.

Robot Chicken = awesome show that lovingly pays tribute to pop culture icons by making fun of them in adult/insane situations.
Star Wars: Detours = sh**ty sh*t sh*t that does the exact same thing as RC, but written for 8-year-olds, using the godawful animation style of Clone Wars (2008) instead of the awesome style of the 2003 series.

Frantic Canadian said:
I just watched it and I thought it was hilarious.

FC, you need to watch these.





 

Rogue-theX

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So they didn't make Prune Face The Series? Idiots. :tsk:
 

Frantic Canadian

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Neglify said:
FC, you need to watch these.

I'm quite familiar with Robot Chicken, I've got the first three seasons on DVD and I've seen their first Star Wars special, although I haven't seen the show in a couple of years. Watching these clips, and re-watching the original video on the first page, I have to agree, it's pretty f'n horrible. If this was a beer it would be called Robot Chicken Extra Extra Lite. I do like the animation style though.
 

TomH1138

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Neglify said:
Robot Chicken = awesome show that lovingly pays tribute to pop culture icons by making fun of them in adult/insane situations.
Star Wars: Detours = sh**ty sh*t sh*t that does the exact same thing as RC, but written for 8-year-olds, using the godawful animation style of Clone Wars (2008) instead of the awesome style of the 2003 series.

Boy, do I have to disagree with a lot of that. I would say that there's very little about RC that "lovingly pays tribute" to the subjects of its parodies, most of the time. It's more like, "Let's take every show that was cherished and loved by our viewers during their childhoods, and assume that the characters were drunk / high / all sleeping with each other / serial killers / swearing profusely / died in horrible ways / prostitutes / all of the above." Then for the next sketch, move on to the next franchise and drag that one through the mud.

The Star Wars specials are a bit different because they're forced to do more than one or two sketches at a time, thus forcing them to be more creative. "Admiral Ackbar Cereal" is still my all-time favorite sketch, but the sketches you posted are also among the funniest that the show has ever done, and if you'll notice, most of them have little to do with "adult content": "Prune Face," "Slight Weapons Malfunction," and "One-Armed Wampa" could all basically be done on the new show just as they are.

"Jar Jar Returns" (also hysterically funny) does go a bit farther than that with Jar Jar getting pushed out of the airlock, but to be honest, I wouldn't be deeply bothered by showing that to either of my nephews (who are 10 and 13).

And, yes, sometimes it's funnier when the show suggests a horrible fate for the characters (such as the explanation of how Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's house ultimately caught fire). But I don't think it's usually deeply necessary. Too often, that kind of thing is used as a crutch for lazy writing.

One time, RC had Mark Hammill reprise his role as the Joker. All of the comic potential there . . . and they turned the sketch into a five-minute poop joke. This is "adult content"?

I think the greater concern is probably what someone else said: that after a handful of episodes, they're going to run out of material really fast.

But, hey, we'll all see when the show comes out. We might all flip positions (for good or ill) once we see the full thing.

On a side note, I wouldn't say that this is the same animation style as the Clone Wars series. Yeah, they're both CGI, instead of the new series being stop-motion. But everything is rather hyper-serious and meticulously illustrated on Clone Wars. That doesn't seem to be the case here at all.

OK, enough yammering from me. :)
 

lpd

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Star Wars really has become a bit of a joke.
What a shame, I really liked it too.
Ah well never mind, it'll all come out in the wash.
 

TomH1138

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lpd said:
Star Wars really has become a bit of a joke.

Yeah, I guess that was part of my initial negative reaction to this (on some levels. On other levels, I don't have a problem). It's like, Star Wars used to be the gold standard for everything, and now it's on the level of Shrek Forever After, where the franchise is just everywhere and you can't get rid of it and there's nothing special about it at all. There's so little that's special about it that there can be a weekly series just to make fun of it.

Then again, who knows what this current period will look like from a later vantage point? Detours may wind up just being a footnote, like the Ewoks and Droids cartoons. We'll just have to wait and see. :)
 
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