Best thing that happened while watching any of the PT in the cinema?

Yoda disposing of the Sith Lord's guards.

Amusing.

 

Glad you liked it. Many feel as you do. Alas, I am not among them.

First viewings of PT films elicit a forgiving expectation, followed by subdued satisfaction that later manifests a need for a more focused and logical analysis. Subsequent viewings expose logical faults and plot discontinuities, story succession irregularities and violations of existing SW canon.

Repeated viewings break through the last vestiges of positive emotions experienced in the first theater experience, compounding the faults exposed by disassociated and disconnected plot points more complex than the bubble chamber diagram of the CERN Large Hadron Collider.

The beauty of the OT was its simplicity and purity -- one's hopes versus one's destiny, good versus evil, father versus son, failure versus redemption. By comparison the PT is a carnival ride full of cheap thrills footnoted in the last half of the last film by the tragic fall of Anakin Skywalker.

Yes, TPM begins in classic SW serial style. And yes, the subtext of the final montage in ROTS elicits hope, "A New Hope" that effectively emphasizes the style and simplicity embodied in the OT, along with the sacred SW message: 'bad guys never win!'

But sandwiched in-between the TPM opening and the end of ROTS is a stale diet of special effects pablum full of the staccato of empty dialog and sterile emotions. We see, we hear, but we do not feel nor do we understand.

Now we are about to be 'treated' to a new and improved Clone Wars cartoon -- a movie, no less, which launches a vaunted new TV series. Why? What have we missed? More importantly, why aren't such cartoons necessary for the periods between ANH and TESB, or between TESB and ROTJ?

Why? Because the OT is pure, whole and true.

The PT? I'd argue these three films were 90% marketing and 10% message/meaning. Lucas fell to the dark side, no longer the siren of the underdog, the champion of an underlying social message.

That's just my opinion! What's yours?

 

You have said what I could not put into words.
I have deleted a few responses that didn't cut the mustard.
I'm glad I didn't post them.

"Repeated viewings break through the last vestiges of positive emotions experienced in the first theater experience, compounding the faults exposed by disassociated and disconnected plot points more complex than the bubble chamber diagram of the CERN Large Hadron Collider."
Can I paste that on my bio?

 

I like how the prequels challenged us to think beyond simple black and white. It sort of pulls the viewer back conceptually to a point where they can see the bigger picture. It goes beyond right and wrong into the realm of perspective.

It's a lot to ask of an audience, and as someone who is growing weary of the "simplicity" of modern Hollywood fare, I found it to be a refreshing change of pace.

 

TPM. I spent 25 hours in line to get tickets. We showed up for the midnight showing, me, my fam, and friends, 12 in all. I work for the fire department and an idiot actually started smoking right before the movie started. I showed my badge. Told him to put it out, which he did, and went back to watching the opening trailers. I loved TPM from beginning to end even if my fam and friends hated Jar Jar.

 

Oh, bravo. Those are just about my thoughts exactly. The Originals are black and white, its easy to see who's bad and who is good, the Prequels are all about the grey.

 

The PT wasn't challenging in any way. We all knew what was going to happen. It's grey because it never digs deeper into any of its important points or characters.

This is all done off screen and we are meant to accept this? The more time I spend here the more I think GL hadn't a clue what he was doing when he was writing/directing the PT. And now he's got episode 2.5 coming because he couldn't fit everything into 3 movies which he has stated were mostly filler in the first place.

Like someone else said GL has fallen to the dark side as far as film making goes. Holding back info so you can make another movie and in turn more money..... well what could be more Hollywood than that.

 

So Darth_Smelly_Feet - are you saying the best thing that happened while watching the PT films is that GL made lots more money?

 

Maybe it was the best thing for GL.

 

I have no idea what you are talking about. You are saying Lucas has fallen to the "dark side" of film making for wanting to expand on the clone wars? That because he wants to expand on the prequel characters in this new series that somehow that's a "failing" of the prequels?

Are you joking?

 

Why couldnt he do it in the 3 PT movies? Why all the filler if there's so much else to tell?

Here's why its bad story telling,writing and planning with a little bit of greed thrown in for good measure.

No I'm not joking.

 

Because the clone wars itself wouldn't fit in 3 movies, even if they dropped the Anakin Skywalker story all together.

I think it's a little unrealistic to have expected Lucas to have fit the entirety of the Clone Wars into the prequels. For the purposes of telling the story of Anakin's fall, and Palpatine's rise, the Clone Wars were merely a device that Sidious used to secure ultimate power. For the prequels, it wasn't the specifics of what went on during the Clone Wars, but the fact that Palpatine had been controlling both sides for his own gain.

Personally I think this is a great idea to spin the Clone Wars off as a series of CG cartoons.

I don't understand why you think this makes Lucas evil, or "dark side".

As far as there being "filler" in the prequels, I ask you to give me an example of such.

I know Lucas said that the original outline he had while working on the classic trilogy only had the basic points, and that he had to "fill in" the rest. But I have yet to come across a scene in the prequels that wasn't functional in telling the main story of the Star Wars saga.

In fact, he ended up cutting out some great scenes for lack of time, most notably revolving around Padme and her family, and the birth of the rebellion.

 

The problem isn't Lucas changed his mind, the problem is Lucas tried to feed us some cacca del toro and then expects everything to be honkey-dorrey when he only wants to siphon more dough from our wallets. Best Star Wars line to be used against him?

Lucas became the very thing he left hollywood for.

 

Yeah but what about the millions of fans who love the prequels and are looking forward to the Clone Wars CG cartoons?

Why don't the people who think this is all "cacca del toro" find something else more worth their time? Why would they feel compelled to buy into the new stuff if they haven't been able to enjoy anything Star Wars since 1985?

Lucas isn't forcing anyone to buy anything they don't want to. So I don't understand why people act like he is greedy and evil simply because he wants to make more Star Wars entertainment.

The thing he left Hollywood for was his own sense of creative freedom. With the money providers hovering over him during the production of ANH, he didn't have the control he wanted over his own art. He -became- the money provider so he could have complete artistic control.

So he -became- that which he was trying to get away from, which was the control over his artistic expression.

We should be applauding him for this accomplishment, and some of us act like he's evil or greedy for this.

 

^^ Amen to that. I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

If Lucas wasn't/isn't greedy, then why did he stretch-out content for one movie, into three? Lucas milked everyone, like it or not... and has admitted to selling us a product made mostly of filler. He kissed babies and spit on the shoes of their parents.
Obi-Chron said it best.

 

I don't see how you come to the conclusion that the prequels have only 1 movie's worth of content. To me they are packed full of so much stuff, they had to cut a lot out. Stuff that would have been great to see, but didn't focus closely enough on Anakin's fall.

Lucas had to pull his scope back for the purposes of doing Anakin's story justice. A lot of -you- guys who say Lucas screwed up the prequels like to go on and on about how they didn't do enough to characterize everyone. That there wasn't enough there to solidify the concept that Obi-Wan and Anakin had been friends, that they didn't have enough to justify Anakin's turn to the dark side, and yet a lot of you turn around and act like there was only one movie's worth of content, and the rest was all just filler?

Again I ask you guys to list the "filler" so I can have half a chance of understanding where you are coming from.

You guys take his words about how he only had a rough outline of the prequels to start with and then had to "fill it out" and twist them around to pretend he's admitting that most of the prequels were "meaningless".

As if the only way something could have "meaning" is if Lucas wrote it down before ANH hit theaters.

 

Lucas himself has said that when he sat down to write the PT he realized he didn't have enough story for three movies. So he put 20% into TPM, 20% into AOTC, and then had to shove the remaining 60% into ROTS. The rest was just "filler".

This from Entertainment Weekly, May 20, 2005:

"By his own calculation, 60 percent of the prequel plot he dreamed up decades earlier takes place in Sith. The remaining 40 percent he split evenly between Menace and Clones, meaning each film contained a lot of... filler. Or in Lucas parlance, "jazz riffs... things that I enjoy... just doodle around a lot" - mostly in the form of blending live action and animation to create exotic worlds and emotionally resonant characters. You know, like Jar Jar. "That's the whole point to me. Making it the way I want it to be. That's what it comes down to", he says. ""Someboyd's got to be happy out of all of this. It might as well be me.""

So in the creator's own words... fully 80% of TPM and AOTC was just him "doodling". This from the same guy that says he wants to create "emotionally resonant" characters and then the one he cites is Jar Jar.

 

Doodling = milking us for millions.
He knew he could throw crap to the wall and bait with hopes of catching a glimpse of Vaderness. We got 45 minutes worth of decent stuff in 3 movies. Good job.

Now, with the "new movie" the joke is really on us.
I love it.

 

I wish he'd do a massive edit/re-shoot and give us a new TPM/AOTC/ROTS... he'd get richer and we might end up with the movies we all crave having seen what we ended up with.

To be sure... moments in TPM and AOTC "geek" me out. I love probably 20 minutes of each. And I think ROTS... save mostly for the conversion scene... is incredible stuff.

I just think GL blew it when he didn't give enough "oompf" to TPM and AOTC. For movies that took him almost 20-years to get around to making... they seem so hurried and rushed.

No one is saying the whole of the Clone Wars needed to be put in the PT. But how about a few battles? It begins at the end of AOTC and is basically over by the start of ROTS. Would have just been nice to have seen more on film... not 30 hours worth (though I'd have sat there)... but 30-50 minutes at the least.

 

?The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity?
~ Andre Gide

Author and Nobel Prize winner Gide seems to speak of the great flanneled one. Messr. Lucas truly believes his own deceptions.

Artistic credibility aside, Lucas has used his billions for much notable charity work:

- Artists for a New South Africa
- Edutopia - The George Lucas Educational Foundation
- Film Foundation
- Racing for Kids

His faults, in the end, have some degree of moral redemption -- a familiar theme, no?

 

Oh please. Lucas bilked you out of $7 for each film. Why would any sensible human being fork over more income for repeat viewings/DVDs of movies they didn't even like?

Guess what? I think Return of the Jedi sucked. Know what I did in '06? I only bought the two OT flicks I'd actually watch. Saved me ten dollars.

Then don't watch the bloody thing--I'm not. No one's holding a gun to your head. Give the money to the Food Bank instead. You might do some good.

 

Pod Race.

 

The Pod Race kicked ass.

To me this means he doodled a rough outline way back, and later doodled it out further until it was fully fleshed out.

All of these movies have been Lucas' "doodles".

 

It was way to drawn out, most likely due to the lack of story, hence filler. Or at least that's what I thought at the time.

But now we know this isn't the case, GL just held back on the story so he could have episode 2.5.


all the way to the bank.