AICN has a new report from someone who's seen the first 8 minutes of ROTS at a marketing meeting.

http://aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=18805

Hi Harry,

Long time reader of the site - appreciate all the info you guys manage to pull together. Not sure if this has been posted yet, however I figured I'd send it in just in case.

The company I work for recently was visited by representatives from LucasFilm and a marketing firm, and I was fortunate enough to sneak my way in to the licencing meeting they held. I thought I was going to see some cool new toys, posters, clothing, etc, etc. and was pretty hyped to at least get a peek at some juicy tidbits... little did I know that they had planned to screen the recent Teaser Trailer (this was days before the official release). That was a cool bonus and I was happy just getting to see that early. However, I wasn't expecting that they had brought with them the first eight minutes of the movie! I just about hugged the person who "snuck" me in! But I'm a man.. and men do not hug other men... right? Right?

Well anyway, the scenes were not 100% finished - there were temp soundtracks in place (can't wait to see it with a full John Williams score in place!), computer renditions of sequences and even some voice dubbing for seens that had dialog but not actual shots of the actors - that was funny to hear Anakin's voice to drop a couple octaves when cutting to an exterior shot of his ship. It opens traditionally with the scroll which had some temp text in place as well - at least I hope it did (it was a bit choppy in spots), explaining that General Grevous(sp?) has struck at Coruscant and in a bold move, kidnapped and is holding hostage, Chancellor Palpatine. He is attempting to make his escape from the planet which leads to a HUGE capital ship battle over Coruscant - which is where the opening footage starts. The new ships look great - especially the new (old?) Star Destroyers (which have been shown briefly in the new trailer). The shots of the cap ships slugging it out toe-to-toe are amazing! Never really have we gotten to see that in a Star Wars flick before - so it's something to see here.

It closes in on two new Jedi fighters that are cruising there way along one of the larger ships - followed closely by clone-piloted Republic fighters (look like predecessors to the X-Wing). Anakin and Obiwan are piloting the Jedi fighters and are attempting to get to Grevous' flag ship in order to stage a rescue of Palpatine. All the while the camera is zooming in and out as the enemy ships come screaming in and clone ships are exploding all around them. Anakin and Obi-wan do a lot of back and forth banter with Anakin wanting to help clone pilots in trouble but Obi reigns him in and keeps him on track. Hayden's acting seems a bit wooden in spots but there were a couple of good moments - especially one where Obiwan gives orders to engage enemy craft and Anakin grins evily and says "this is where the fun begins" or something like that. You can see his love for battle and how he views it quite clearly at this point.

Most of the other details are sketchy because it comes at you so fast - the dog fighting and ship combat (at least the finished stuff) was excellent - the opening scene blew away the space battle in Return of the Jedi in it's intensity, in my opinion. The scene that we saw winds up with Obi's ship getting hit with some kind of "missle" that expels a whole bunch of little "bug" droids that climb all over his ship and start dismantling it bit by bit. He tells Anakin to go on ahead but the ever stubborn Anakin tries shooting them off of Obi's ship, which pisses Obi off a wee bit. After getting yelled at, he then pulls up alongside and tries to knock them off with his wing, pissing Obi off even more, who keeps yelling at Anakin to go on without him and get to the Chancellor. As Anakin continues to bat at the small droids, one hops over to Anakins ship and starts to attack R2 while Anakin yells at R2 to "get it!". That's where it ended for us.

The LucasFilm rep went on to tell us about some key points in the movie as well as show us some concept art from the film. The first painting was once Anakin gets on board the Seperatist ship - it shows him standing facing Count Dooku, with Palpatine sitting in a throne of sorts in his Darth Sidious garb (very reminiscent of the throne room in RotJ). He says this is where Anakin kills Dooku/Tyrannus and becomes Sidious' new apprentice. This appears to happen very early in the movie which I wasn't really expecting... The next picture/painting he screened while talking a bit about the Anakin-Obiwan duel showed the two of them hovering (at least that's what it looked like) on some kind of floating platforms over bubbling lava! The last pic he showed was a painting from what he said would be the biggest, BADDEST, lightsaber duel - if not the most anticipated one - of the movie (which we got a hint at in the Trailer): The Emperor versus Yoda! That one caught me by surprise because for some reason I never thought they would have Palpy fighting with anything other than Force-lightning...

I usually tend to stay away from spoilers and have up until that day with RotS... but seeing what I did really got me excited to see what Lucas has up his sleeve for this chapter - it looks to be fairly dark and FILLED with lightsaber battles from beginning to end. I... can't... WAIT!

If I'm not terribly out of date and you do use this, my name is Remo. Thanks Harry!

I believe the person may have mistaken Anakin becoming Palpatine's apprentice when actually becoming the bodyguard. The art descripts were interesting.

Coming from AICN, I think its bollocks !

The Dooku one sounds like that pic that was leaked recently with Palps in the chair. Did we ever find out the source of that?

Maybe that pic that was leaked was part of this marketing footage. Which means maybe someone has the footage, or more screen shots.

The screenshot picture posted by the sock "spoileriffic" came from Griffen and his footage(s). It was posted after Griffen's (what some would call lackluster) resignation article, presumably as a swipe against the critics. A "see I told ya so" if you will.

Screenshots and pictures were supplied by Griffin to select TFN'ers a day or so before "spoileriffic" posted it.

The only TFN/Griffin stuff I knew about was last summers Vader pictures and ARC plane, whose name I didn't even know at the time. I suspect this new round of stuff Griffin posted last month came from collecting promo materials/footage supplied to The Griff via Big Daddy (and Steve Sansweet connected) Philip Wi$e.

AICN's new report could be fleshed out fan fiction based up AICN's shocking and now proved true August 2003 report, with new info from the Episode III Trailers and Video Game stuffs thrown in.

I'm all for spoilers coming out and don't care where they came from whether it be from AICN or CollectingHQ.com's TheForce.net.

Sounds legit to me. The only new bit is the apprentice thing, but I'm pretty sure someone's just reading that into the scene. Some people have the strange idea that killing a Sith means you automatically take his place. Dunno why.

If Palpatine actually revealed himself as a Sith that early, though, it would certainly change the motivational dynamics of the first half of the movie. Would make for some fun speculation; but I don't think it's worth the effort.

Since the Josh Griffin's Spoiler Seasons thread was locked, I'll include this here:

From Josh via RolandofGilead of TFN:

"As the Red guards move to action as Yoda comes in to confront Palpatine ... he dispatches them with the greatest of ease. With a wave of his hand the two guarding the door are rendered helpless and lay in a heap beside the door.

Yoda grimmaces ... Chancellor Palpatine? Or Darth Sidious, should I say?"

JG

Looks like Josh will continue to throw us some scraps from time to time

That AICN spy report is complete and utter bullshit.
Every single bit of information in that has already been known to fans through Hyperspace articles and artwork etc.
There is not a SINGLE piece of new info in that report... and you know what? If I was a Star Wars fan and got to see this, I don't think it would be too hard to remember something NEW from the footage that hadn't been reported on. He doesn't even remember the dialogue - how convenient.
Stinking garbage folks.

What the hell would be the point of that?? If it was fake, then why would someone take the time to write out the letter. It's the fact that there isn't anything new that makes the letter more legit.

Everything he is states is reasonable, why would you think it's fake?

either or it's insignificant if everything said was already known.

It does sound a lot of recycling of previous spoilers and some imagination. Nothing in it was surprising to me.

I'm not saying its real or fake, but it is possible that Lucasfilm has held similar presentations for many different groups involved with the marketing of the film. Many people in these meetings will not have the detailed knowledge of the film that we have by following it on the web for so long. While the source did repeat a lot of things we already knew, he did share some details on the banter between Obi-Wan and Anakin before the buzzdroids.

And you know this `banter` is for real ?

He may have just made it up...AICN do that lot.

So if he doesn't offer something new, he's repackaging old info?

If he does offer something new, he made it up?

It seems no matter what he does, some people won't believe it.
Nevertheless, we can't prove it either way until May.

Although, AICN was the first to report Grevious

If somebody compiled old spoilers and submitted them anonymously to AICN, it doesn't gain or lose anybody anything, right? Who the fuck gets worked up over that? Oh, right, guys who hunger for the merest mention of Harry Knowles so they can launch into another rehashed tirade. Like 3/4 of the media fans I know, who hunger for the merest mention of George Lucas.

Get over it. Some guy saw the scene we know most about. If his info doesn't rock your world, well no shit - we're Ep3 geeks of the highest caliber. We know more about this movie than most people know about their cars. If your blood pressure raises because you don't get a new Scooby Snack with every report, maybe you need a new obsession. You're gonna have a coronary before May.

great post

Sounds like an omitted scene from the AOTC script where Yoda lays wastes to the Superbattledroids guarding Dooku's solar sailor in the hangar.

Boring. Heard it all before....give me something new please.

I have a vaguest recollection that Nick Gillard said in one of his chats during principle photography that Imperial Guards would not be seeing action in Ep3 (back when nobody was sure wtf Grevious' henchmen were and many mistook a description of them from a set diary for Imperial Guards).

So either the Griff is full of shit...again...or Gillard didn't tell the truth in that chat.
I know which source I choose believe

Pablo's comment was that the guards do something, but he hesitated to call it "action." My money's on them lasting about four milliseconds against Yoda.

Indeed. If Yoda just wipes them away by rising a hand.. I wouldn't call that as an action.

Carl Cunningham over at CHUD on the AICN report:

They've posted a description from another person who claims to have seen the start of the movie.

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=18816

With the exception of a few words changed, it's pretty much the same report.


Moreover, I heard there will be another trailer in January.

Anyone else hear the same?

"my uncle, how am I ever going to explain this....?"


No i guess that argentinian.

Although, AICN was the first to report Grevious

They were the first to report that The Shadow Falls was the title of Episode III, as officially confirmed by Harry himself.

How wrong he was then and how wrong he is now.

Me, too.

Hello...I am new posting here...but I have been reading these boards for a bit while I am at work.

I wanted to post just to let you all know this is accurate and I do know only because I know the guy in RL who sent this in to AICN. He works for a company up in Canada and they do some sales to department stores and other retail places...basically they are a way in for Lucas to sell more products.

In the past AICN was wrong...dead wrong. But I can guarantee that they are correct this time.

While he was watching this he drew up a few sketches of the ships to show me.....

BTW.....thanks for giving me a nice place to read about starwars while I work.

The company firewall usually blocks out most of the other sites on me....nice to meet you all.

Yes...that was the one new to me as well...i was trying to slow down the Trailer and looking in the background...but I didnt seem to get any good views of that.

He also had received a few copies of some products coming and scanned them...but they were nothing really new...at least nothing you couldnt find already.