PT Did other movies released in 1999-2005 affect perception of the prequels?

But only Jcuk rates a "like."

 

I don't overly care for any of the series you two are on about.

 

I thought The Matrix quite overrated and damn near unwatchable unless you're in dire need of a comic book movie or mindless escapism.

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That's pretty much my sentiment as well, Sandtrooper and neither of those types of thing keep Cushy's interest. I thought Matrix was dull and lame and LotR I wanted too like but it rang hollow and focused to much on glory of war. Not my scene.

 

Hmm..like I said, I only liked the first Matrix. Beyond that it got needlessly complicated. But that's not to say I didn't enjoy the next 2 parts. As for the LOTR? I just enjoyed the overall simplicity and innocence of it. I certainly can't fathom anything that was bombastic or garish about Jacksons vision? It was certainly cinematic. And quite engrossing

 

But "there is no spoon", for example, isn't intended to be "deep", nor is it "gobbledygook". It's merely a statement of fact: the spoon, like every other object in the Matrix, fails to actually exist.

 

Although I'm not a big fan of either The Matrix or LOTR, I agree that both films / series impacted upon the PT.

The Matrix, at the time of its release, had a freshness and a coolness about it, which captured the imagination of a fairly noisy demographic - hip young adults. This, up against "Yippee" and Jar jar... Well, enough said.

The LOTR provided people with what hey had come to believe Star Wars was, but which for the most part it really never was: adult, dark, serious ... loooong! Many people who loved the OT had forgotten that it was really, most of the time, a fairly light, frivolous and child-friendly affair, on the surface of things at least, and when they were served up with more of that in the form of the PT, they balked. So when LOTR came along shortly after, it was easy to say that this is what the PT should have been.

 

Ugh.

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The undercurrent running through ESB will always be adult, dark, serious..despite kids being able to enjoy it at a certain level.

 

Simplicity and innocence? I thought it was supposed to be adult and dark and deep and complex, and that's why it was allegedly "superior" to the "little kiddie" prequels -- certainly that's what its fans claimed. SW was "just a light sugary confection with lots of whiz-bang," while LOTR had "depth and substantialness." (sic) I imagine the Rhodes scholar who claimed that also thought it had "perfectness" and "beautifulness."

I thought it consisted of almost nothing but garish bombast, as well as boring repetition.

 

Some consider different aspects to warrant the label of depth and so on. Everyone is entitled to their own views. He enjoys LotR you don't. It's all fine.

 

This. And I think some seized an opportunity when they saw it arrive and chose to exploit the LOTR movies as a stick to beat the prequels and prequel-lovers with.

"In the same way" -----------> well-put.

Because, to me, it's manifestly the case that Star Wars itself grew up with the prequels, and that this was very deliberate on Lucas' part.

It's just that he wasn't going to compromise on the many lighter elements of the series; the content and execution wouldn't be darker than necessary, and the sillier elements wouldn't be simply swept aside.

Just speaking for myself here, but I find Anakin a lot more compelling than I do Frodo. The latter, to me, is a bit of a nonsense, blank-slate character who stares and falls down a lot, while Anakin is a brash anti-hero who battles authentic human longings and ultimately loses. What Anakin is dealing with is not merely objectified and remote, but emotions and frustrations with which we can all relate (whether people like the character of Anakin or not). I find him a very engaging presence, and someone who I am able to empathize considerably with. Frodo, in comparison, is too much of a goody two-shoes, with a rather strained "dark side" that Peter Jackson keeps trying to hit a viewer over the head with. I don't see many shades to that character, and I don't really buy into his struggles a whole lot. Put simply, I think that, generally, the LOTR movies are one long exercise in gilding the lily.

If it weren't already obvious, this is essentially my view, too. Quite overrated, to me, on a number of levels ----------> including my being unable to look past those aspects.

Though, of course, I'm not going to deny they don't work for others, or that others don't find the prequels trite, fake, boring, or stupid. It is mostly down to opinions/tastes/proclivities, at the end of the day.

"Cinematic" -- well, it has many definitions. To me, the LOTR movies have always felt more like lavish BBC productions. And while you might be unable to fathom there being anything bombastic or garish to them, I find it hard not to notice, and be utterly turned off by, the endless close-ups, swirling camera shots, shallow use of slow-mo, the crimped, melodramatic dialogue, un-subtle emotional beats, and the loud, oppressive scoring. It seems, to me, that Peter Jackson doesn't really trust his audience to develop thoughts and feelings of their own, and instead prefers to drill them into everyone's head, over and over again. To me, they're intensely wearying films, and Lucas' documentary approach seems like the height of cinematic artistry in comparison (it's my preferred style, anyway).

LOL! While you didn't qualify your dislike, that rejoinder also struck me as kinda desperate -- and missing the substance of the original criticism.

A notable difference, I think, between "The Matrix" and our beloved Star Wars is that, while the TM delivered those epigrams like they were meant to be clever, the SW movies tend to take a more casual stance with characters dispensing wisdom. Qui-Gon's maxims, like "be mindful of the living Force", and "your focus determines your reality", for example, are sort of imparted in an off-the-cuff fashion, without much shaping, trumpery, or singling-out. In contrast, TM seems to offer pseudo-profundities, as a means of sounding hip or cool, calling attention to its own glib punctuation, while Star Wars gets on with the job of being matter-of-fact and all in-media-res. One is about creating a living, authentic (or authentically inauthentic -- genuinely fake), diverse fantasy world, while the other seems more about a bleach-filtered Sydney inhabited by people spouting cheesy syllogisms (read back to @maychild's other comment about The Architect). In other words, some people fell in love with the style of presentation (one that might be said to be a little forced and ultimately hollow), and then turned on the complexities of another film by claiming it was too childish to have anything deep or meaningful to say. That said, I do quite like "The Matrix" features; they're just never going to replace Star Wars for me.

 

As kids, every SW fan I knew wondered wtf Yoda could have possibly been like when he was an active Jedi. How the hell could he have been formidable (aside from slowly raising ships out of water)? Was he once big? Did he have a saber or just use the force? Maybe he didn't fight and he just confused his enemies with riddles? AOTC provided that answer beyond my wildest expectations.

Then don't pose rhetorical questions that you assume are obvious. My (admittedly snide) response was to highlight that folly of your assumptions.

Odd you picked that out of my comment, as it is the least subjective thing I said. "Internally tormented galactic warrior" is literally what the character was, regardless if you hated him or how he was portrayed.

 

If Lord of the Rings is an example of "garish bombast," then hell, I guess I like garish bombast, and I don't feel guilty about it. Frankly, though, the prequels, with frames packed with screaming ships and dialog weighed down by poorly-developed politics, prophecies, and excessive foreshadowing, seem to commit these very sins in far worse form than Lord of the Rings.

As far as innocence is concerned, I think there was a lack of cynicism in the presentation of the characters of LotR which did suggest simplicity and innocence. It's part of the appeal for me, actually, and captures well the style of characterization in the books. It also stood in stark contrast to The Matrix, which was a great film but didn't excel in emotional interactions between central characters (see Neo and Trinity's stiff exchange prior to entering the Matrix to save Morpheus). Both films, however, had solid world-building and were competent in what they were trying to achieve.

At the same time, the story of LotR felt big, the themes sweeping and dark, and there was a gritty internal consistency to the look of the films. In many way, it was "adult." In fact, I appreciate it even more as an adult now than I did as a teenager, when I though apathy was cool. The relationships ring true, even if the dialog is sometimes awkward--the direction and acting sells all of it.

The Lord of the Rings films, though they have very different dialog and characters, are a more modern riff on The Empire Strikes Back to me. They're visually stunning and plunge the characters into dark places, but still encourage us to have faith in them. There is an innocence at its core, as with Empire, a binary of "Good" and "Evil" with room for ambiguity. But the older I get, the more I appreciate both of these narratives.

The prequels lack this internal consistency. Characters like JarJar and young Anakin suggest that it is geared toward children, and indeed, that is the sense I get from many prequel defenses. But Lucas appears to be making an attempt to tackle deep political themes, and they don't move along at a brisk pace like the original films. As a teen, I was immensely bored with the whole thing, from the ill-explained politics to the bizarre fights, which lacked emotional weight because the characters lacked well-developed motives.

This lack of clarity is what I previously referred to as obfuscation. And if Jackson did "sledgehammer" constantly (I don't think his sledgehammering was that much worse in LotR than Spielberg's, Cameron's, or even del Toro, to name other big-budget directors), I'd take that over Lucas' supposed subtlety any day of the week. If Lord of the Rings is bombastic, it is still ten times more aesthetically pleasing to me than the playstation 2 cutscenes of the clone wars, or the artificial hallways that frame the dozens of dry conversations which do little to meaningfully develop relationships in a way that connects with me.


I am not saying the depth isn't there; I'm saying that if it is, it's so poorly presented that it may as well not be there at all.

 

Yes it is all subjective regardless how some take the tone their views are fact. Not everything works for everybody. Some like how it's done, others don't. Individual tastes are fine.

 

I saw both Fellowship of the Ring and The Phantom Menace when they first came out and I was in elementary school. I liked them both, but LotR didn't blow me out of the water nearly as much as TPM did. I still remember being shocked and saddened at Qui-Gon's death. Gandalf's death did little for me comparatively.

 

The word you're looking for is "disputing". I would also suggest "debunking".

 

The word I'm searching for, I can't say, because there's pre-school toys present.

If you want to "dispute" or "debunk", I suggest getting stuck in on a creationist website, or a 9/11 "truth" board.

These are just movies. maychild was within her rights to point out what she personally considered bunkum. You simply have a different view.

 

And every kid gets a trophy, right?

If you assume The Matrix is selling "philosophy" meant to apply to the viewer's real life, that's your problem. To my knowledge the creators of the films have indicated no such thing. Thus it becomes - as far as we know - an extraneous assumption projected upon the work by members of the audience. So any putative criticism predicated on this assumption is really worth nothing. The would-be critic is merely setting up a false image and subsequently tearing it down, a masturbatory exercise which lacks relevance to the actual story being told.

 

Critiquing the surface is not invalid, though -- not when you think the artwork doesn't measure up. And invoking the creators is an argument from authority.

 

Maybe it would be, if I was basing my argument on something they had said. Unfortunately the situation is quite the opposite. My point was that they have said nothing to indicate that they are selling philosophy to the masses as opposed to telling a science fiction story. You don't get "argument from authority" from their silence, while you do get fallacy from knocking down straw men.

 

That's unique. You wrote -- quoting:

"To my knowledge the creators of the films have indicated no such thing. Thus it becomes - as far as we know - an extraneous assumption projected upon the work by members of the audience."

The word thus indicates an explicit logical relationship between your conclusion, "an extraneous assumption projected upon the work by members of the audience", and your premise, "the creators of the films have indicated no such thing".

Your premise is an invocation of authority. Your conclusion is subject to alteration, and is entirely contingent upon, what you believe the creators have said, or haven't said, as per your premise.

You are holding the creators as an authority one should look to, to determine whether a subjective response to their art is valid or not. Hence it is an argument from authority. Which is nominally fallacious; and I hold it to be so in this case.

 

About LotR, simply because a film is adapted from a book does not give it "unearned" dramatic heft. Does Kubrick's "The Shining" have "unearned" tension and suspense just because it is based on a book? I have come across the argument that it is much "easier "to make a film based on a book than one based on an original screenplay. This is a faulty argument, neither is easier than the other. They both are challenging, some of the challanges are different others are the same.
Second, simply because a film is based on a book doesn't mean it will automatically make big bucks or get great reviews, see the animated LotR for that example.
Third, some of the most savage critics of the LotR films are Tolkien purists.

If we look at the BO of FotR it didn't have a very huge opening, less than 50 M$ the first weekend. However it had really great legs. Which suggest that it wasn't a mad rush to see it right away but people came to the film gradually, which suggest good WOM. The same can be said for TPM, it has the lowest opening of all three PT films and yet the highest gross. It had very good legs and this too suggest good WOM.

As for the Matrix having "style" or "cool", yes that is a fair point. The design and the costumes were important. It made it more "topical" but it can also date the film. For myself, I had very few expectations of the film and was very pleasantly suprised and the look of the film I liked and the effects did wow me.

RE the PT, people have been saying that LotR is very obvious, heavy handed and not very subtle.
I would agree in part but I find the PT quite obvious, over the top and using a sledgehammer approach some of the time too. Jar Jar I found to be a very much in your face "Funny" character which I sadly didn't laugh at. The romance in AotC I felt very much had a sledgehammer approach, very romatic settings, very ornate, overly flowery dialogue. Sadly again, it rang false to me so I didn't buy it. Maul, style over substance there, all surface, little depth. Looks cool and has a cool dubblebladed lightsabre to compensate for his lack of character. Gen Griev, has a character but is all talk and no delivery. And here we get four lightsabers.
Anakin, here I felt that there was too many things this characters had to be. A tech wiz, a racer of pods, a slave, close to his mother, "miracle" birth, the chosen one, more midis than anyone, etc.
There was enough going on with his character that he didn't need all of this and by putting this much stuff on him, he worked less well to me.

In closing, about the prophecy, I think the Matrix films did something more interesting with this than the PT films. In the PT the prophecy was just thrown out there with little development and it seems just to make the story more "Epic". Had they dodne somethign interesting with it then fine, as is, the films would be better without it.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

The Matrix certainly did, I think that movie kinda shocked everyone, but it quickly became a pop culture phenomenon.

I remember thinking the movie would be a Johnny Mnemonic, low range sci-fi bust, but 10 minutes into the film when Trinity kicks that cop, I remember the audience went dead silent but there was tangible feeling of "holy .... crap" in the room. No one really had seen anything quite like ... that. The Matrix was the "Death Star flying in overhead" moment for people who grew up in the 90s rather than the 70s.

The first Matrix is brilliant IMO, the sequels were garbage, but the first one is easily one of the best action/sci-fi movies that Hollywood has put out since 1999.

And yeah, for a lot of people what the LOTR trilogy was, was in the effect "the trilogy" they wanted from the prequels.

Spider-Man kinda took the piss and vinegar out of Episode II too I think. In summer 2002, Spider-Man was *the* movie event to see, Star Wars kinda pushed to second billing. Spidey was everywhere.

 

Yup, you like what you like. No one is wrong here. Personally, after the first Matrix and LoTR, I gave up on both and eagerly awaited the prequels (Despite Christopher Lee and Viggo Mortensen being in LoTR.)

The one thing that the Matrix and LoTR have given me hope about is an eventual Logan's Run remake loyal to the source material. I just hope they get around to it while I am still functioning.