PT A question for the oldtimers - did anyone actually enjoy the prequel trilogy?

No, I literally mean maybe I'm over intellectualizing Star Wars but Anakins transition from Jedi to Sith and the love story simply fall flat in my opinion. It doesn't take a degree to come to this conclusion. Stop acting like the prequels won critical acclaim, I'm not the only one who can't just "shut up and like it". I couldn't relate to Anakin, I think 6-14 year old boys could but I couldn't and it was, after all, the story of Anakin/Darth Vader. Didn't we already have this discussion in detail?

Anyway, what I'm saying is it lacked the depth and nuance I prefer when reading or watching films concerning the human condition, specifically the nature of good and evil. Even the story of "becoming" something else (doesn't have to revolve around evil) should be more complicated than the "becoming" in the prequels. I think I remember referencing 'The Sea Wolf' in a discussion with you as an example of something Lucas should have read before doing 3 films on "becoming". The moral absolutism was a tad too strong, this is why the story lacked nuance. One day he's good, split decision, and, the next he's evil. I suppose they could have fixed this by not ending ROTS when they did- Lucas could have gone a lot further with Anakins transition to Darth Vader even after the helmet and suit went on. What was implied was that was it, Vader had been born. Anakin is gone and he is now the embodiment of pure "evil". That's just not the way things work ya know? That split decision to cut off Mace Windu's hand and then all the sudden he's willing to go murder a temple full of children. His eyes even change color, as if possessed by some demon. It was too quick a transition. From yippies at pod races to picking flowers in a field to the mass murder of children. I think The Phantom Menace could have been scrapped all together, maybe keep 30 minutes of it to give a little background as far as his mother and how the Jedi found him then focus the rest of the 2 1/2 films on some believable "becoming" (with a believable love story as well).

 

Born in '71. Loved the PT, and I was pretty hyped for it from the start. They're a beautiful, bold, and emotional set of movies. As I get older my tastes have become more sophisticated, but the PT still had that magic that left me full of wonder at the OT.

A big part of the magic is George Lucas' sincerely naive devotion to innocence. That is also the biggest thing the ST is in danger of losing, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

I think the problem of prequel is
1. The theme is great, many characters are cool, but that's not presented well in the movie, many things got too little screen time, you have to look at the EU to know many characters, even the Clone War well.
2. Lucas's characterization of Anakin is, well a lot different than many people had expected, so people blame him and Hayden a lot. I think Hayden did a good job as an actor, especially in EP III, you can't blame him for the characterization.
3. Lucas is bad at writing love story and he wanted to make the love a major reason of Anakin's fall, the love story of Leia and Han in OT isn't amazing either but it's not that important to the plot.

I like PT a lot, the theme and Palpatine's portrayal is great, but the flaw is also there.

 

Is AFS1983 acting like the prequels won critical acclaim -- although they really did, to a point (ROTS certainly earned a lot of plaudits)?

My opinion is not dependent on what a bunch of non-creative, non-technical bloviators actually think of the prequels; or any movie, for that matter. I contend that this is the best and most sane way to live (versus being reliant on stock majority opinions about, well, anything).

In Lucas' own words, the things that Anakin is dealing with in the PT, and in ROTS especially, are not obvious; they're subtle. Secondly, again, drawing directly from the man's own words, there are two "hard right" turns in ROTS for Anakin's character -- in other words, he turns right (90 degrees), and then turns right again (90 + 90 = 180). In essence, he goes backwards, to a more primitive, pre-dawn state, mythologically speaking, which he then tries to hide and deny to himself (this is symbolized by the roiling lava of Mustafar and its icy pole).

You forget, I think, that Star Wars is painted in very broad strokes, though many subtle interconnections -- patterns within patterns -- remain. And Anakin has the highest midi-chlorian count in the known galaxy. While he may not be aware of it, he can feel the Force in a deeper way than the average Jedi, even if some of its deeper mysteries are clouded to him. A character like this would be very susceptible to a hidden "dark side" and its beguiling lure. Palpatine obviously plays on this, even tempting Anakin with the notion of understanding "the Great Mystery", after having already fed him the Darth Plagueis legend.

In short, I think Lucas is asking us to connect the dots. I guess they're like those little markers on the bluescreen (if you're familiar with behind-the-scenes material, you'll know what I'm referring to). Not much of anything on their own, but a guide nonetheless -- while the literal visual backgrounds appear filled, we must actually fill in the psychological/mythological background in with our own imaginations. This, it seems, some people are unwilling, or perhaps unable, to do.

But it's rather neat if you can.

Episode I is the root of everything: the Parnassus of this epic space yarn.

In my opinion, you should watch it with a more willing set of eyes.

Also, Anakin is never the embodiment of "pure evil". Neither is the Emperor.

NO-ONE IN STAR WARS IS.

You're meant to pay attention to the smaller details; the larger ones are almost a distraction.

I'd also like to say that you should look upon the Vader suit as an unnatural imposition: an imprisoning device; the outward manifestation of a binding contract which was signed when Anakin made a "Faustian pact" (Lucas' wording again) with Darth Sidious.

He is a twisted, contorted being (Grievous is an eerie analog -- less for his mechanistic qualities and more because he's wretched and hunched over: bent and wrecked). The "Frankenstein" quoting in Vader's birth scene is a big clue.

Anakin being Vader is not a natural, healthy, pro-Force state for him to be in. Ultimately, while the Vader suit gives him ambulatory support, it's actually immobilizing: the paradox of Vader (both animated and crippled). Only when Anakin relinquishes this -- and we see how horribly aged he is in his last physical moments -- can he release his choking hold on the inevitable and slip away and die (as he should have done, and very nearly did, on the shores of Mustafar). He was spared so he could be redeemed.

Or something like that.

 

No not really no. No critical acclaim. I also don't base my criticisms of the prequels on anything but my experience with the films I only bring up the fact that so many people disliked the prequels so the "debate" here can't be framed in manner that makes every criticism a personal attack on those who like the films. Grow some skin people or at least thicken up the skin you have. Welcome to life.

I'm not interested in Lucas critique of his own film I'm interested in my experience which tells me he had such a drastic personality change rather quickly and obviously to save his wife from his "prophetic" nightmare (death). There was no subtly, no nuance. It was all there in plain black and white (with the one or two comments about dictators while he was rolling around in fields of flowers).

There were no patters within patters in the Darth Vader prequels. It was simply a story about a whiny moma's boy who was conned by an actual villain to do his bidding. In this sense Darth Vader is pathetic. He remained pathetic until the moment he realized what a fool he was and threw Sidious to his death in ROTJ. After viewing the prequels Vaders story in the OT wasn't a story of moral redemption it was a story of intellectual redemption. That was the day he actually became a man. In the prequils he should have been a man (this may sound a tad chauvinist) with more on the line (philosophically) than just his little love affair. With more to it than just being conned "into the dark side". I've lost family members, would I kill a temple full of children to save them? No. There was no subtlety in his turn to the dark side. That was it. That was the driving force. It was lazy writing, bland, dry, predicable just like the love story itself. The lack luster love story made his extreme spur of the moment decision even more hard to find plausible. There was no indication in the film, subtle or obvious, that the dark side of the force was behind the scenes "possessing" him slowly. There was just his temper tantrums, his complaining surrounding the Jedi order/OB1 and his killing of Sand people. It was bad writing. Period. The only reason people are so blunt about it is because some of us waited almost 20 years for the Darth Vader story and yes the expectations were high.

No no no no....there's no hidden meaning in the prequels. What you see is what you get.

I'm capable of imagining all sorts of things but the prequels weren't some sort of deconstructionist postmodern hodge podge of ideas it was all pretty much lain out before us. Kafka in space? Nope.

I tried and reading the Darth Plagueis book helped make TPM a little better there's no changing the Vader story line. It is what it is what it is what it was. I tried to like it. I really did and to an extent parts of TPM are entertaining, the Darth Maul bits and other non young Vader bits like I said they could have morphed TPM and AOTC into one film but who cares. It's over. Only reason I'm talking about it is because of the announcement of a new trilogy- the idea is, don't let Disney forget what made the prequels a letdown as to not repeat the experience.

 

I actually have a picture of you standing with a nightstick slapping it in the palm of your hand whilst saying such.



Thought police doubleplusgood. MMM ya! ^ Joking ^ Just don't take my or anyone's criticisms of the prequels personal. Especially mine as I'm a pessimistic morally bankrupt deviant (which is probably why I can't relate to Anakins story of "becoming" as I've experienced it myself).

 

Just to add something, am I the only one who gains a certain pleasure in finding the little red notifications on the right top corner of the screen when I log on? It's like, the more there is the merrier I feel (for about ten seconds). Once I logged on and there was 20 notifications. When people "like" my posts it's even better. I obviously have low self esteem so my opinion of the prequels shouldn't matter

 

When I first saw ROTS in 2005 & for years afterwards, I felt that Anakin's turn to the darkside in ROTS was rushed, unjustified, and sloppy. However, after recently seeing all six SW films back-to-back (for the first time in years), IMHO the turn makes perfect sense in the context of the other films

- Anakin obviously had strong feelings towards his mother (as most children do), and felt guilty for leaving her on Tattoine in TPM. When he went back in AOTC (because of prophetic dreams that ended up being true), he was too late to save her, and the guilt he himself felt for "abandoning" her (or at least that's the way he perceived this) + the rage he felt towards the sandpeople, led to his slaughtering all of them - it's arguable that this event was the beginning of Anakin's turn to the DS. Then, in ROTS, he was manipulated by Darth Sideous to believe that Sideous had the power to restore life to the dead - and, since he couldn't bear lose to Padme like he had lost his mother, he was willing to do whatever it took to keep Sideous around, even if it meant doing some horrific things (killing Mace Wiindu, other Jedi, the younglings, etc.)

- Going along with the above, the good person that Anakin had been (and still was, to some extent) showed through in ESB & ROTJ: In ESB, Vader could almost certainly have easily killed Luke, but spared him - granted, this was so they could "rule the galaxy as father and son", but the point here is that he didn't kill him when he had the chance. During the lightsaber battle in Jedi, DV also showed that he couldn't kill Luke, though he had plenty of opportunity (i.e., Luke's comment to Leia, "There is still good in him").

The big question here is: After Anakin became DV & he found out Padme had died, why didn't he try to get Palpatine to bring her back to life? Well, this is puzzling but not entirely suprising. Maybe he confronted Palpatine regarding this, but Palps gave some excuse as to why it couldn't be done. And, if this is what happened, Vader obviously bought it & ended up staying with Palpatine out of possibly?! misguided loyalty, since Palps saved his life on Mustafar.

 

I suspect she had been dead too long at that point. You'd have to create a clone, which I don't think Anakin wanted, or even worse, a TCW-style zombie. Besides, we don't really know the extent of Palpatine's abilities in this area. He and Anakin were supposed to work together to develop the power.

At this point, Disney looks poised to ruin things in a somewhat different way by oversaturating the brand.

 

In a way you're right and you're wrong.

TPM was about planting the seeds of a civil war and the finding of the chosen one that would end it.

AOTC was about killing the leader of the opposition of this civil war and the inevitible start of it.

ROTS was about the end of this civil war and the changing of a government into a dictatorship.

Now, I agree it could have been filmed better and acted better. But to say these films tell us nothing? Nah, man, you're wrong.

 

As one of the "oldtimers" I overall like the PT but don't think they are great.
TPM is average, AotC a little better and RotS better still.

For TPM what dragged it down was that almost none of the characters seemed to care much about each other or about what was going on. They said the words but to me it didn't sound like they really meant it.
The acting came across as too removed and distant, almost uninvolved.

There are a few warm scenes, like with Qui-Gon and Shmi, but far too few. Many of the Jedi comes across as cold and uncaring. Possibly this was by design but it made the drama carry less weight as the characters IN the story didn't seem to care and if they don't care then it weakens my involvement. As a whole, when I watched TPM, I felt rather passive throughout the movie. Some of it was interesting, there was some good action but I was never really engaged, never felt the blows the characters suffered, never feeling the elation or sadness. When it was over I felt that it was ok, nothing more.
I most certainly did not go in wanting to dislike it and I still don't but I wasn't thrilled about it either.

AotC and RotS are better in many ways and a bit worse in a few.

AotC, the two main problems is that I didn't like Anakin at all, he annoyed me and got on my nerves.
Second, the love story didn't work. Again they said the lines but I never believed they meant what they said. It felt forced and unnatural.
On the plus side, Ewan is much better and mostly due to the fact that he has more to do in this movie and his scenes work well and are interesting. Dooku was a better villain than Maul and I like Mr Lee but his character could have benefitted by being in the film a bit more, or been established in TPM.
AotC suffers a bit in the editing department and many of the fight/battle scenes, while cool the first time, have not aged well.

RotS has a much better Anakin in the first part and here I actually liked him and the friendship with Obi-Wan comes across well. The main flaw is that RotS feels rushed, too many things has to happen. And there are a slight overkill with lightsaber fights. Also I was sad to loose Dooku so soon and Griev was a waste of time in my view. Uninteresting and not much of a threat.

That is my take on them. Oh and I saw TPM once in theaters, AotC twice and RotS once. I have seen them on DVD after that but their flaws still remain and still bug me.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

Yep. The plan was, after Vader went and beat Kenobi on Mustafar, they were supposed to go in the basement and torture Maul together.

 

I was born in '74... saw SW (ANH) in theaters when I was three and of course saw the rest of the OT in theaters too. So I obviously grew up with the OT, but I loved the PT movies too. My view of SW easily shifted from "the trilogy" to "the saga".

 

I really enjoy the prequels while agreeing that ANH and ESB are better films. In actuality, ROTJ is my least favorite SW film.

 

I like them a bit but I feel they were a wasted opportunity. I'm disappointed in them.

I find them missing the charm and sense of adventure, wonder, magic that the OT had. I also get distracted by the overused plasticky CG and overchoreographed fights.

I really try to eliminate my tainted viewpoint of the OT being the center of the universe, having seen them as a young kid. The PT just are not engaging movies in the way the old ones were when I sit back and analyze them as films, as examples of storytelling. The OT had some great storytelling and the PT fails hard at this.

Overall the biggest disappointment was the story -- Anakin didn't really fall, he wasn't seduced by power... He was tricked.

 

Fixed.

The Jabba scene inserted into ANH and the Landspeeder entry into Mos Eisley stick out. Plenty of sore thumbs in the PT as well.

 

Star Wars is tricky. It's subtext is so deep at times that it fools you into expecting it to be more than a Flash Gordon serial. Cue the disappointments over rushed characterizations and plot details.

Broad strokes, breezy plotting, and action "sequences" are how Star Wars tells it's story. It's always been part Biblical epic, part 1940s adventure movie, and part Muppet Show. And that's what I've always understood about it, and why I love the prequel films as much as IV-VI.

 

No trick.

The overall plan was in effect, but that doesn't mean minutiae such as the events above were planned. Jango is visibly disturbed by Obi-Wan's appearance at Kamino, then later tries to obliterate him. The Jedi temple analysis droids couldn't identify the saberdart. Obi-Wan only found out about Kamino because he happened to know Dex and because Dex had happened to see a saberdart on Subterrel. Also, for the saberdart to have been part of the plan, it would mean that the attack on the landing platform would have to have been planned to fail.

Why would they have a problem with using an army cloned from some mercenary who had worked for a Separatist? Were they supposed to be concerned that loyalty to the Separatists would end up being cloned into the army?

Is there supposed to be a book in the Jedi library entitled "Why I Would Want to Build an Army" by Sifo-Dyas? Maybe someone checked it out and didn't return it.

 

The OT (with the exception of the Ewoks) stands the test of time. To me the PT does not.

My expectations in 99, were simply too see some exciting and enjoyable films and watch a good story. In this case the rise and fall of the tragic hero, a classic archetype. Sadly that did not happen for me.

The hints about the PT from the OT were interesting and what I was interested in seeing

1) Anakin Skywalker This Powerful Jedi, Good friend, best star pilot ever, and his rise and tragic seduction and fall to the darkside to become Darth Vader

2)The Jedi, the guardians of peace and justice and how they were destroyed.

3) The Fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire

4) Seeing the mysterious Mrs Vader for the first time.

5) The friendship between him and Obi-wan that was so strong they still both talk about it and each other 20 years on. I was interested to see Obi-wan once thinking like Luke but in this case failing.

6) The Clone Wars, If the OT used WW2 imagery and terms like Stormtroopers, then this should have been the Starwars version of WW1

Now there was probably more but those 8 story points I was expecting a great set of films with the amazing story potential there.

Put simply I didn't

 

Didja have your glasses on? Or did you and they just needed a really good cleaning. Popcorn butter can wreak havoc.

 

You're right, I don't want any sore thumbs in Star Wars. From now on the wolfman version of ANH is banned from my household. That will fix things up real good.

 

Not much, PT did a fine job.

 

Born in '79, UK. I grew up with the toys, books, comics, videos and cartoons.

I loved TPM, but I recognised it wasn't a 'proper' Star Wars film.

When AOTC was released, I was ambivalent. My best friend at the time was moved to tears by it, but I ...wasn't. I've warmed to it since then, I realise it's a better film than TPM, but it's still deeply flawed filler.

When ROTS was released, I loved it all and cried like a baby at the end.

The prequels are good science fiction/fantasy films, but they're not stylistically congruent with episodes 4-6. ROTS comes closest, but still no cigar. The originals have intimacy, urgency and coherency that the PT doesn't, the prequels have such bad direction, aimless scripts and a serious problem with the lack of interaction between actors and environment.

I do enjoy them, I also enjoy the fanedits. I just saw Star Wars: Rise Of The Empire which combines 1, 2 and 3. In it they change Jarjar's character and voice, remove Dooku entirely and reinserted the political deleted scenes. It did things I'd never have thought of, much of which I disagree with, the editing was sloppy but it felt more like a Star Wars film and, yes, I cried buckets at the end.