I’ve had a busy couple of weeks getting Artoo ready for Clone Wars and attending 3 screening events. Started off with the pre-screening in San Francisco on Monday which was great, followed by the midnight opening on Thursday at the local Theater in San Bruno, then an all day event with the Rebel Legion and 501st down in San Jose for Saturday.

Thursday night was fun, but very quiet with not many people turning out for the midnight showing. Maybe 40 or 50 people tops. I guess the days of blockbusters are long gone 🙂

I did get to see the movie again, and enjoyed it just as much the second time around. The lip syncing still bugged the hell of of me though.

Saturday was a little busier, but not by much. The Rebel Legion were there in force and throughout the day one or two 501st members popped in and out.

The Rebel Legion did a great job organizing a raffle for each performance giving away t-shirts, figures and other prices to those in attendance.

More photos in the gallery

My 5 second review of the movie:

• Lots of action.
• Replacement voice actors did a great job.
• To me, it’s clearly 3 TV episodes bolted together.
• Considering it’s TV roots and budget the animation wasn’t bad – but not in the same league as Wall-E or even the much older Toy Story.
• Somewhat weak plot – why they had to pick a Hutt story for the movie is beyond me.
• The lip sync issue drove me nut.
• Inconsistent style for the characters, e.g. Obi-Wan is blocky and jerky where as Asajj Ventress is almost life-like with smooth flowing animation.
• What’s with the Ziro the Hutt speaking English?
• Hated the new nicknames banded around, from “Stinky” to “Artoo-ee”. I guess little kids will love it.

Having said all that, I enjoyed it, really looking forward to the weekly TV show. Overall rating a B-.

Couple of technical highlights from the weekend:

• When I switched to the Futaba, I replaced the original 600 mHa NiCad battery pack with a 2,100 mHa NiMH. Runtime went from just a few hours to over 11 hours. More than enough for a days outing.
• Periscope worked great with a few minor problems.
• With so many servos in the dome (8 at the last count), the little 7805 5VDC regulator IC on the power distribution board wasn’t up for the job (it can only deliver 1A at most). It would quickly overheat and shutdown stopping all servos in their tracks, so I had to quickly make a new beefed up power supply on Friday night.
• The new CTEC keycoder worked out great. I can’t see how I used Artoo without it.