Discussion What needs to happen to make you say, "The ST was as good as the OT"?

For it to be as good to us older viewers real risk to the characters. Games of thrones thrives on this. The ony problem is starswars is a kids movie and to do this would mess with the formula.
The better question is how could they make this amazing for the seven year olds of 2015

 

I would need to enter a machine which could alter my brain to be that of a 15 year old boy who had just got into the originals for the first time. All trace of the rest of my life should be erased, experience, maturation, taste and cynicism. Bring back the magic and ignorance. The joy of youth.

Then. Only then, better the ST will be.

 

I hope and pray that the collaboration of all the people involved will ensure the film's success... I mean, maybe Michael Arndt can pull out a script that's the Star Wars equivalent of Wraith of Kahn, but then we have to hope the director, actors, and so forth can pull off the story.

I really want events, movements and actions are driven more by characters then the plot... But if you really want to crank up the awesome, I hope they cherry pick the best bits of the expanded universe for inclusion where they'd fit. For example, imagine a scene such as this.

INT. JEDI TEMPLE - MEETING ROOM

Luke Skywalker, CORRAN HORN, MARA JADE SKYWALKER, KYLE KATARN, and KYP DURRON sit in a rough circle around a table strewn with datapads and other items. The room has a used and lived in feel and most of the Jedi have drinks sitting before their places. The setting Coruscant sun casts long shadows in the room as Luke picks up one of the datapads and leans back in his chair.

LUKE​

Alright, now moving onto the assignment of apprentices.​

​

MARA​

We need to choose a master of Ben, I nominate Jaina for the honor.​

​

CORRAN​

Keeping it a bit close to home there, having you apprentice train your son, Jade.​

​

LUKE​

Do you really think Jaina is up to having an apprentice, or that she wants one?​

​

MARA​

It's time she got one. She's been a Knight for over five years now Luke, and Ben already looks up to her. Plus she'll look after him.​

​

LUKE​

Hey, he's my son too...​

​

EVERYONE BUT LUKE​

(Laughter)​

​

LUKE​

I guess Mara's suggestion is approved then.​

​

WIPE TO:​

​

I mean it's not really an important scene but it demonstrates something that I think could be latched onto. One, the PT lacks a real world feel... everything is to clean, to spartan, to pretty. If the Jedi have a meeting give them a table... cover it with paperwork, data-pads, something to make it look like people are working there. Two, a discussion is a good way to deliver information that would be useful to the audience. In this example, how long Jaina has been a knight, who was her master, who Ben's parents are, and so forth. Three, a discussion amongst the Jedi in a meeting is the ideal place to slip in expanded universe characters. They don't need a big role... in the example above Mara's role is basically no bigger then Mace Windu in the PT, and Corran's is about as big as Ki-Adi-Mundi.​

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Overall I really hope that all the flaws of the PT are removed at least as a start point for the story.​

 

A WINNER IS YOU!

 

Do remember that until 1983, we didn't know Han was hanging out in Jabba's neighborhood. I agree that Han perhaps didn't fear Jabba the Hutt, be he did fear getting blasted to pieces ("that bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell changed my mind").

 

It will be as good as. Cuz it's Teh Star Wars.

 

Eh, it's just boring to watch. It's very reminiscent of the Revolutionary War. And, really, there's no real reason for the organics to go along with it. Why wouldn't the Gungans attempt to draw the droids back into the forest/swamp? Why are the Wookies merely waiting for the droids to come to them? It made sense in ESB on Hoth because the Rebels were merely trying to delay the Imperials so that most could escape and regroup, but it doesn't make sense here.

I disagree, strongly. Geonosis was the best ground battle, at least in the coliseum, and even that degraded into lines of clones marching against lines of droids. Admittedly, the surface of Geonosis is very flat, but why not move some of the fighting to the catacombs? Or design a planet that has more rock formations to allow for a more dynamic battlefield?

Contrast that with the Endor fight, where the Ewoks goad the Imperials into the forest and use the environment against them. Now, it's a bit of straight up plot contrivance that the little guys actually succeeded (rocks and sticks and arrows against armor, blasters, and mechs?), but the tactical idea is sound, and it's better from a visual standpoint as well, IMO.

It's sad that the Clone Wars cartoon regularly shows better ground battles than the PT.

The problem is that his involvement in the story is a critical point of the plot. A Jedi ordered the creation of a clone army. There's no real answer or even speculation why. There's no attempt to investigate or follow up in any way. A new character added to the story specifically to move the plot one step further, only to be completely forgotten about. That's horrible storytelling. It's completely unnecessary. Change it to:

"Yes, it was ordered by a Jedi named Sidious."
"...Sidious?"
"That's correct."

And suddenly the pieces come together. Instead, there's this dangling thread that adds unnecessary confusion (who is Sifo-Dyas?) and makes the Jedi look incompetent. I mean, why wouldn't the defenders of galactic peace at least question why one of their own ordered an army of clones years before the Separatist movement was even a thing? The more I think about it, the more I feel like that should have been a major part of the plot for RotS. Instead, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Mace Windu rhetorically ask "A clone army?" and then merrily go about using it to wage war without a second thought. Ridiculous.

Not at all. And that's because that line is merely used to establish Han's current dilemma and foreshadow the involvement of bounty hunters in the plot. The bounty hunter on Ord Mantell, regardless of who it is, is not one of the linchpins of the entire trilogy. Sifo-Dyas, on the other hand, plays a direct role in allowing Palpatine to plunge the galaxy into darkness.

Yeah, I concede this point. I think I was reading too much into certain things.

 

Not just America Revolutionary, but pretty much every war up to WWI - soldiers were expendable cannon fodder.

I think this is Lucas' point - the PT battles are reminiscent of European wars up to TCW, where the Jedi have come to see the Clones as more than just resources, and it becomes more like WWII.

As to Sifo-Dyas, it had to be a Jedi that commissioned the Clones - if the Kaminoans had used a name that the Jedi didn't know they wouldn't have been so quick to trust them.

Sifo-Dyas is simply a character that we don't need to know anything about except he ordered production of the Clones and dies shortly after.

 

As long as it's not stupid.

 

Actually I don't think I want to compare it to the OT or the PT. I want it to stand on its own.

But to answer the question, it needs to have a good plot & good direction that will re-kindle the chemistry between the actors.

 

They are all Star Wars... if this feels like Star Wars when I watch it... it will all be interconnected for me.

 

I think it's entirely within possibility.

Ready to see me upset people?

The PT was just as good as the OT.
You heard me.
Not sarcasm. (I've got a giant essay about how people have glorified the OT and that there isn't a single problem in the PT that isn't also in the OT with equal prevalence. Maybe I'll dig it up.)

Wanna see me do it again?

ESB was more flawed than TPM.
Not trolling.

/flameshield

 

Don't worry, you're not alone.

In fact, I'd take it one step further: I think the PT is better than the OT (although I love all the films -- they really all are wonderful pictures).

Like you, I also have more issues with ESB than TPM (or AOTC or ROTS for that matter), but that doesn't take away from my joy of watching the film, especially Luke's parts.

I don't care if the ST is better or worse than the PT or OT, I just want to like it. It'll have its fair share of problems, I expect, but what I really live for are those flares of brilliance that come up in Star Wars. You just have to be prepared to take the good with the bad.

 

I like your post. However, my friend, you are playing with fire with the enboldened line. IMO TESB is the best SW movie of them all!

 

The good thing about the PT is that expectations will not be as high. The PT could have cured cancer while you watched it and people would have asked why not AIDS as well.

 

Just get a better actor than Hayden Christensen that's all you need. To be fair he improved a lot from episode II to III. Attack of the clones performance was so horrible you need pepto bismol to get rid of the sick feeling in your stomach.

 

I was going to say it should be like The Avengers or the Star Wars-inspired J.J. Abrams Star Trek, but then I realized that the OT movies really weren't like that. Those movies are very modern in that they're fast-paced action films that only give bare moments for the audience to catch their collective breaths. The OT had its action sequences but it also had its long stretches where we could pause, reflect, watch characters interact and grow. The asteroid chase is just a few minutes, same with the speeder bike chase. The longest smaller action scene might be the crazy stuff on the first Death Star. Either way, it never seemed as drawn out or front and center as, say, The Avengers attack on the helicarrier that released the Hulk the first time.

So, what should these be? I guess what we've wanted the EU to be as it gets up there in years, a epic, grand story with a smaller, passing-the-torch personal story. A coming of age for a new character while still having some fun and adventure in this beloved universe. And Artoo and Threepio making snarky one-sided conversation about all of it.

 

Oh, I'll agree that it at least shares the top spot, but let's look at it objectively. The movie HAS NO PLOT.

None.

While the writing is definitely good, it still has some pretty weak moments. Hamill's acting has gotten better, but it's still not great at that time. There's plenty of cheese to go around, and if you're one who likes to complain about how fake CGI looks, take a look at the original cut of ESB and tell me about the mindblowing realism of the snowspeeder cockpits on Hoth, the asteroid monster, or the I'm-not-kidding-one-of-the-asteroids-in-the-field-was-actually-a-potato.

 

Those are your gripes?! No one knew there was a potato until it was told to people. That's the point. Filmmaking isn't paint by numbers. Its creative. Just think of all the weird stuff in sci-fi movies. The Millennium Falcon was based on a hamburger and olive. The communicators in the PT are really repurposed Lady Gillette razors. Lightsabers are flash handles from the old style cameras. Geeze, talk about nit-picky.

As for the Hoth scene, that is one of the reasons why GL made SE's, to clean up glaring mistakes.

As for the plot, you're wrong. The plot was the Empire attempting to capture the rebel leaders and end the war. That's all the plot it needed because it was one long exciting chase. I respect people's opinions but, damn, hating on the best of the SW movies?!

 

I may not agree with your opinion, but I respect and appreciate it. That's how civilized people respond In all seriousness though I think it's fine if some people have that view. More power to them. All it means is they value certain qualities higher or lesser than I do. Anything different would just make life boring.

 

I still don't know what people mean when they say this.

 

No, that wasn't the plot. That's not even a plot, that's a setting. Plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_(narrative)


But yeah, I agree that compared to he other movie, ESB is way overrated, IMO. Primarily because of its mess of a plot.