PT What Was the Point of The Prequels? Topic: Necessity of them

The original trilogy focused on a clear hero and you were able to view and experience his trials along with him. The OT then reached a Clear conclusion and the exposition and plot points were clear and we had a clear villain. What was the point of creating the prequels? Main Topic: Necessity of it.

 

Uh, to tell a story?

 

What was the necessity of it?

 

1. How a democracy becomes tyranny with nearly full support of the former democracy
2. How a good and caring person can become the face of evil
3. To put a bow on RotJ

Pretty good story

 

To tell the story of another hero's journey.

 

The point was to finish what was started in Episode IV.

The focus of the OT is not its necessity (there's none, really. Same for any other movie).

 

Interesting question. Is any story ever truly necessary? In any case, the prequel trilogy opened up the galaxy in a way that the original trilogy did not. We were privy to political machinations and power struggles. We were shown the Senate and the Jedi Temple in the galactic capital.

At it's core, the PT was the tragedy of Darth Vader. We were shown the failings of the Republic and the complacency that allowed the Empire to emerge. We were also shown the erosion of Anakin's values and morality. Anakin's fall was shown to be more complex than his simply being seduced by the dark side. Because Anakin's desire to save his wife and unborn child were relatable, it made his fall all the more tragic. It also made his redemption all the more satisfying.

If the prequels had never been made, the originals would have, of course, remained fantastic films. The prequels answered questions that fans had been chewing over for about twenty years. They also gave context to many of the events in the originals. After the prequels, I found events such as Obi Wan's death and the "I am your father" reveal to be even more affecting.

 

The OP is quite obviously trolling, see his post in the TPM vs. AOTC thread
A better question: what's the point of ANY movie?

 

it told a great story...maybe the execution was flawed at some parts, but i have never heard the PT being referred to as waste in terms of the story it had to tell...
star wars has a very big universe and i would like the future movies to be ones which explore new grounds rather than just rehashing resistance vs empire...
a trilogy about the jedi vs sith wars in ancient times...

 

I think it Served 2 Major purposes.

1) It built a functional Wolrd (or rather Galaxy) with Governments, Citizens, Homes, Life, Civilisation. It served to show what the Empire essentially destroyed / controll / Oppressed. Which was done very well!

2) Show the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker.....how he became Darth Vader... Which was done not so well in my opinion (but that's for other discussions)

 

The goal was to transform the story from the adventures of Luke Skywalker to the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker by showing how he turned to the Dark Side and the dangers of corrupt establishments both in the form of the Jedi Council and the Republic.

One could also say what was the necessity of The Empire Strikes Back since A New Hope told a complete story? Instead, only the PT is deemed unnecessary. Personally, it's hard for me to imagine Star Wars without it.

 

It made the redemption of Vader and the entire ending of RotJ work.

 

Make a SF action film without relying on stiff rubber Halloween masks and such. Also give some actors some work beyond that Tennyson Ford guy.

 

To tell the second part of the story that George envisioned for Star Wars.

 

What is the "necessity" of any movie?

 

I agree with a lot of posts here. On the necessity point, let me try to engage with it here -- I think the point of any art by the artist is to express that which is important, the values of the person, or to make some sort of comment about things. Lucas experienced a lot since 1983, he read a lot, his worldview expanded as he had kids of his own and recovered from a divorce. This gave him a new take on things like attachment and fine-tuned his values about the world. A creative person or artist will want to express that in some form, it feels necessary to express the things that one finds important, or to express the core elements of your own experience to the world. Lucas made art with all he learned up to the late 70s/eary 80s, but then it came time for him to express what he learned and cared about up to the late 90s/early 2000s. A lot of is in sync with what he felt before, but there are also some things he emphasizes on or grows compared to the OT.

Here are just a few of the themes he expands on or altogether introduces to the SW saga.

• Importance of early childhood attachment to caregivers as well as early emotional separation
• Effects of child abuse (slavery) on resulting development
• Importance of balance in the world, understanding everything is interdependent and relies upon everything else
• Institutions in ivory towers can become rigid and disconnected from the realities of what is happening in the world
• The corrupting nature of corporate interest
• How often good people can be manipulated to make the world worse (examples: Jar Jar, Anakin, etc)
• How relationships and lives can be destroyed by emotional greed and need for power/security
• How loss and fear can distort people's perceptions
• The frailty of democracy

Here are some stylistic choices he expands on or introduces:

• A retelling and modern re-appraisal of the story of Faust
• A harkening back to elements of Greek tragedy
• Revival and portrayal of courtly romance from many centuries past
• The use of new digital mediums to create visual paintings and tone poems (in this case, used in a narrative setting)
• A SW continuation and emphasizing of older styles of acting and dialogue, that have long since fallen out of vogue in modernity
• Orchestral score choices that harken back to more choral-form arrangements as well as Wagnerian epics
• The largeness of the SW universe is made clear to the viewer through stunning displays of new foreign environments

Finally the implications for the whole saga:

• The parallels and the differences between father and son
• The importance of the mother's lineage
• Man's relationship to nature is developed in detail [as we see its progression from balance (Naboo), to imbalance, to balance (Endor) again]
• The idea that children can right the wrongs of the parents, the idea that the future can be different than the past
• The value of cooperation and compassion in success against tyranny
• The importance of personal choices

 

1.To depict the Clone Wars
2.To bring back Star Wars and expand its lore (the Sith, mostly)
3.To tell new stories about charismatic (yet non-starring) characters of the OT like Yoda, the Emperor, Obi-Wan and...Anakin Skywalker
4.To know the mother of Luke and Leia
5.To know exactly how Anakin fell to the DS
6.To see the Old Republic and the Jedi before the dark times, before THE Empire

 

I agree with a lot of what's been said in here.

I also want to echo what @xezene said about emphasizing older acting styles.

Something I was struck by earlier this year in watching Hitchcock classics like Rope and Strangers on a Train was how similar Farley Granger's acting mannerisms were to Hayden Christensen's in AOTC. I thought, "Woah! The spirit of this guy must have possessed Christensen."

I'm not sure if anyone else has made this observation, so I just wanted to point it out here while it was relevant.

 

To make the children of the neighborhood happy.

 

I believe the execs at 20th Century Fox at first thought the original Star Wars wasn't necessary back in the '70s, which was why GL's first pitch was a failure.

There are some good answers here, but they're diverse and subjective. You could ask the same question about any creative project, and the answers would be just as varied and subjective. Why was Apocalypse Now necessary? Why was Scooby Doo necessary? Because the creators of those works thought they were necessary. George Lucas thought the prequels were necessary, and he had the means and the will to follow through. The prequels are necessary because someone wanted them to exist.

 

The better question is: do the prequels have their own story to tell? I'd say yes (the rise of Palpatine, the fall of the Republic and Anakin becoming Darth Vader). Removed

 

It was always a 6 story arc. The prequels tell the story leading up to the OT. It's what all us fans wanted to see for 16 years but once released said they never wanted to see these stories...

 

Simple really.

The OT was the second half of the story IV, V and VI. It was necessary to have I,II and III to complete the story otherwise it could never be complete and we would never know that it was really all about.

Now we do. It was about the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker through his son and because of him he chose his destiny to become the Chosen One and restore the balance of the Force by destroying the Sith.

 

The story of the prequels is great. Execution was mixed. But the prequels strongest selling point, was its backdrop, its story of drama, and of terrible tragedy. Powerful story there.
The originals have a somewhat more personal and smaller scale story, but executed very well.

 

I'm surprised no one has said "money" yet.

Besides that, Lucas had always wanted to explain Vader's fall, so that is the overall arc of the trilogy. Some may say it does nothing to the OT, and others may say it enhances it. I'd like the original trilogy the same with or without the prequels before it, but when I watch the originals now (usually the OOT) I enjoy comparing the films to their prequels and vise versa. It's very analogous to how ANH works both on its own and in the context of its trilogy.