DC ROTS Premiere Report

[kremzike]

Just some quick points for now. I'll update later with more details if needed.

I was second in line with a friend. 1st guy was there since 7am and was from Vancouver. He says he visits MF.com. MrSmileyFaceDude was just a few spots behind me.

Local TV & radio as well as this German TV station interviewed him, myself and several others. I've got a little video of me in line from channel 9. It'd be great if anyone in Germany sees & uploads any video from the DC premiere.

Nice handful of Stormtroopers, a TIE Pilot, a biker scout, a few jedi here & there, and a Darth Maul.

Recreating the "Look, sir. Droids." scene


Goodie bags handed out with either a Burger King toy, a comic or trading cards along with some other stuff.

Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds showed up & made their way to their seats about 10-15 minutes after the movie was supposed to start. Don't know if they were waiting for them or what.

The volume on the movie was very low until about 2/3 of the opening crawl was done. The Uptown has a HUGE screen, so it was hard to take in everything at times.

As for the film itself. Fucking loved it! The acting is fantastic! The bits of romance are EXTREMELY better than in AOTC. I can't say enough about it. There were very, very, very few small things I would've done differently, but none took away from the story. The one big thing I would've done is leave in all those great scenes we knew about that were cut.

The movie moves FAST! It sometimes seemed to be going by so quickly until you remembered that you'd already seen so much. I've got many more viewings to go but ROTS is currently tied to be my favorite of all SW films.

EDIT: One thing I did want to add because I was curious about this as a musician & SW music fan. They severly edit the credits sequence & totally cut out the Throne Room revival that's on the soundtrack. People were wondering just how long the credits would be with such a long track on the CD. Well, they cut that out & edited down the rest a bit as well.

[Joe1138]

Thanks for the report.

EDIT: One thing I did want to add because I was curious about this as a musician & SW music fan. They severly edit the credits sequence & totally cut out the Throne Room revival that's on the soundtrack. People were wondering just how long the credits would be with such a long track on the CD. Well, they cut that out & edited down the rest a bit as well.

I had a feeling the End Credits medley would be cut short in the final film; I noticed the track on the CD itself was a bit longer than previous End Credits tracks.

[kremzike]

Yeah, I always stick around for the credits in SW films, but this time I was more interested to see if they were going to keep it that long. The credits seened to be rolling by quickly, so I was thinking (No way it's gonna be that long now." and I was right. I actually wanted to hear it all in the theater, but it was not to be.

[Steelsheen]

any pictures dude?

what about crowd reaction?

[DeltaJimi]

Best/Worst Actor

Best/Worst Action Sequence

Best/Worst Scenes

How was the Yoda vs. Sidious fight? Mace vs. Palpatine?

How was the elimination of the Speratists scene?

[kremzike]

any pictures dude?

A few more on the way. Nothing major, but they're from my friend's camera phone (they told us not to bring cameras so I wasn't about to risk getting kicked out!) :P Carrie Fisher just strolled down the aisle & there wasn't really any good chance for us to get a good pic of her.

what about crowd reaction?

Very positive! Cheers for the big moments & character names (Like when Chewbacca gets his close-up). Laughs for the actual gags (the early R2 stuff, which was also cheered). Large round of applause at the end. Very safe to say everyone seemed very happy with the film.

I'll try my best to answer these...

Best/Worst Actor:
Best - Ewan, just barely beating Ian. I judt thought that Ian hammed it up a bit too far for one scene. other than that, he's golden.
Worst - maybe Samuel L Jackson! He wasn't bad. Nobody was. And this, to me, was his best Mace Windu yet. But I didn't buy a slight bit of his performance, and everyone is so good that he's gotta be the "worst" by default

Best/Worst Action Sequence:
Best: Anakin/Obi-Wan. Certain parts I didn't expect/know about really got me psyched
Worst: Damn, hard ass question. The opening space battle is impressive looking, but it shouldn't be thought of as a Yavin or Endor type battle. The space part of it is actually kinda brief. The scene is simply about following Anakin & Obi-Wan on their quest to rescue Palpatine. So, as an action sequence, the space "battle" will be my default choice for worst.

Best/Worst Scenes:
Best: Man... there's a lot of good scenes. A lot of these questions will be easier to answer after repeated viewings. Vader's helmet going on is pretty damn great, though. Seeing from inside his mask, the sounc of it latching on (just like the sound in ESB) and his very first mechanical breath. That's a moment for you in a movie full of moments. Order 66 is all powerful stuff. I especially liked when Zett Jukassa came out & put up a fight, as did a good portion of the audience judging by the cheers he got.

Worst:
There was one scene with Anakin & Padmé that could've had the ending cut off, but that's so small. It's hard to pick a worst anything when it was all so good.

How was the Yoda vs. Sidious fight? Mace vs. Palpatine?
Yoda/Sidious was good, but I don't agree with others that this was the best duel in the film. It's all subjective. I suppose it does have that undercurrent of the best of the light side vs. the best of the dark side, but it's not better than Ani-Obi to me.

Mace/Palpatine was better than I had read. It was quite good. The end of this scene & the bitr after it's over is where Ian hams it up a bit too much, but it's not unbearble.

How was the elimination of the Speratists scene?
Started coldly, but it's intercut with Obi-Wan & Yoda inspecting the temple, so the scenes of AniVader cutting down the Seperatists are very short & quick, almost like they seem in the trailers. Like, a shot of it you see in the trailer is not much shorter than a cut in the film. Only Nute Gunray has some begging dialog, and he just gets sliced down as well.

Sidethought: I would've liked a little more interaction between C-3PO & R2-D2 than we got. It would lend itself a little better to ANH. They seemed to do a lot more together in AOTC.

[kremzike]

The German TV footage is HERE

I'm totally not in it at all. The two people who are in it are the ones camping out for the midnight showing on the 19th. I don't see any of us in the background, so this footage may have been shot before we arrived, though I think I remember seeing them do it while there were only 3 of us in line for the screening (and we're just off camera for this stuff). The only reason i'm mad that i'm not in this footage is because I wanted to be dubbed in german before I die!