Difference of opinions on the prequels

One thing to consider is that this story wasnt told the way we are used to. Instead of a typical western cultures linear A to Z story telling it was instead told almost backwards. We had seen Episodes 4 through 6 and in our minds were probably ready for the logical thing which was the next part of the story. But instead we went in reverse, and instead of primarily building upon the original trilogy it was actually more "redefined". And I think people were afraid to have there already existing ideas about the sacred OT messed with. Another point to look at is that these 3 new episodes were told quite a bit differently. Most of us have heard GL talk about how after Jurrasic Park he felt that the technology was at a point to where he could go back and finish telling the Star Wars backstory. Hes also said that he is a visual storyteller as opposed to a literal one. Well, in the context of the 3 new episodes thats important as the narratives in these episodes obviously is much more dependent upon CG and visual effects. This is both a good and a bad thing...I'll tell you why. In my experience as an artist I've noticed that there are two types of people (in extreme terms) there are those who can think visually and those who can not. So on the one hand you have visual people who can follow the visual narrative and get whats going on and on the other hand you have the non-visual person who when he or she sees a special effect or a big CG sequence there brain sort of takes them out of the story and instead of continuing to follow the story it registers more as "Oh look, a special effect". Of course there are levels of in-between here, but the point is that this type of story telling can be problematic for some people.

This fits in with what these guys are talking about here.

 

Good points.

I think that most prequel haters are simply mad because they had always imagined a few things about Star Wars that turned out to be incorrect...

1) They imagined Anakin as a younger looking Sebastian Shaw ghost.

2) They never imagined to see Anakin as a child.

3) They assumed the "Clone Wars" would be Jedi vs. Clones the whole time, or Jedi vs. Mandalorian Warriors (Boba & Jango Fetts with that armor & weaponry).

4) They assumed that Anakin would become Vader in the suit by the start or end of episode 2.

5) They assumed there would be at least a whole movie of suited Vader running around killing people. More specifically, they expected suited Vader to kill ALL of the Jedi single-handedly, and to see each assassination.

6) They assumed there would be at least a whole movie of young "rebels" fighting the new empire. ...Complete with stormtroopers chasing guys with goofy helmets down hallways, exchanging blaster fire. Same goes for X-wings chasing Tie fighters through space.

I think that (for some people), anything other than these scenarios would crush the ideas they've had in their heads since the 1970's and 1980's. They cannot and will not accept that the story is different than what they had expected, and (therefore) refuse to like it.

 

I agree. When watching the OT long before the PT was made I too had my opinions on how the backstory would be, but at the same time I managed to remain open-minded when TPM came out so that my own expectations did not ruin the experience in any way. On the contrary I was impressed. To put it on the edge; some fans thought the Prequels would be three movies looking like the dark Luke/Vader/Emperor sequence aboard the Death Star in ROTJ. Obviously that was not what Lucas wanted them to look like. Accepting that this is Lucas' vision and story is really the only way. And what a perfect trilogy the Prequels are!

 

Like WEEBACCA, I agree with Ben R's last statement (and signature, too). MasterObaryu's comments about the visual effects are also interesting - I hadn't really looked at it in terms of audiences literally not being able to process them before. That's a valid thought, and I expect there's a lot of truth to it, for some people, anyway.