PT How the Story Arc of the PT Subverts the Traditional Hollywood Hype Machine Experience

I'm starting this thread as in-depth examination and discussion of the Hollywood-hype machine and the psychology of fandom. My purpose is not to be critical of fans or fandom in any sense. Instead, I'm considering fandom in the same way that one might look at sports fandom, and I'm a fan of many sports teams. In fact, I'll be using sports fandom to some extent to explain where I'm coming from. Ultimately, I'll connect this stuff to the PT, but first I'll have to explain how I think our experiences watching a big blockbuster film connect to the hype used to market such a film even more deeply than we think it does.

I actually became especially interested in how films are hyped when I saw how perfectly Disney was marketing the Avenger's first film. They released just the right spoilers to keep fans curious. They had special early screenings for big-time Marvel fans who would undoubtedly start a positive buzz that would spread. They released the film overseas first, so that the US market (the largest for buying film related merchandise) would have even more anticipation as they waited for what foreign audiences were already getting. In addition, Keven Feige, thinking ahead, smartly made individual films for Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor to introduce these characters to the audience, preventing The Avengers from getting bogged down with multiple character introductions needed for the audience to care about all of its unique characters.

Feige was also strategic with his casting. He cast actors who, while not stars, had generally proved themselves in other projects and who had left good impressions with audiences -- Chris Evans who was really the only actor who fit in F4 franchise and who played a heroic lead in Sunshine; Hemsworth notable as Kirk's father in Trek 2009 who sacrifices his life to save his wife, child, and crew (perhaps the most moving sequence in the film), and Mark Ruffalo, a guy everybody seemed to like but had never had a breakout role. Plus, RDJ, I think every one would agree, was the perfect choice to play Tony Stark. What quality was just as important for these actors to share, though, was that they came across as likable, and not just in their roles; but on talk shows, on the convention circuit, during press junkets, all these guys -- and Johansson too -- could really be charming and funny and friendly (while RDJ just did his own thing that works for him).

Now, some of this is just common sense -- cast good actors, that's sort of a no-brainer. What I really want to focus on is not their acting on screen, but instead, their acting skills in the marketing phase of the production cycle, because that's what's key to the hype. And what I think Disney is so expert at doing is connecting that hype to our experience inside the theater. In a way, what Disney does is very similar to how the NFL hypes the Super Bowl, and the NFL knows the hype is integral to getting audiences to care about their teams. That's why the NFL would actually go to the length of fining Marshawn Lynch $50,000 each time he refused to talk to the press, and once they got negative press for that, the NFL smartly turned the Lynch thing around, making one of their stars Lynch more likable in the process. To hype the game, they also pushed the silly controversy of deflate-gate, and even used a long Super Bowl anti-domestic violence ad to "redeem" the league for its shortcomings dealing with domestic violence earlier in the year.

However, while the Super Bowl highlights the way hype is necessary to bring in an audience, what Disney's hype-machine is going for is less like Super Bowl excitement and more like the passion fans have for their favorite football, baseball, or basketball team. When it comes down to it, the enjoyment at a sporting event actually has very little to do with what happens on the field. Instead, it's mostly the hype -- the fan experience -- that makes us care about the outcome. The home team isn't good, and the away team isn't evil. Instead we bring that bias into the game, and when our team (the good guys) wins, we come out happy and when they lose we're deflated.

Well, this is exactly the same experience that Disney is trying to create, and of course, that's true with all PR departments; Disney just happens to be particularly good at it. So, for Disney's marketing to successfully elicit that happy feeling you get when your favorite sports team wins, Disney must create a climate outside the theater that allows us to bring that external bias with us when we go into the theatre and watch their film, and they achieve this goal by pulling many emotional levers --we like the mythology of the comics from our childhood; we like the charming actors playing the heroes, actors who seem perfectly willing to reach out to us as if we were their personal friends; we like waiting in the midnight screening lines with other franchise fans as if we're tailgating before the big game; we like the shared feeling of rooting for the same guys that everyone else in the theater is rooting for. As a consequence, our experience as a fan before the event is inextricably intertwined with the viewing experience itself. Just like a sports fan who passionately wants his team to win, we don't care as much how our guys end up winning as the fact that they do win, and that's what makes the victory at the end of a film so cathartic: it's another victory for the home team, and like a team in the playoffs, it's at just the right time -- during the capstone installment of the franchise -- The Avengers! Of course, it's an extra bonus if our team wins in an exciting fashion in a close contest with a nail-biting ending, but unless it's a fluke victory in which our team does nothing good and just happens to win on a lucky fumble recovery, a victory of any sort will still leave us pretty satisfied. So, in the end, what's most important is that ultimately the guys we like, the guys who we're already biased to support because of what we've brought into the theater after all the build up of hype, end up the winners at the end of the day, and that's exactly the experience we keep getting with these comic book films.

Now my point here is not to criticize those who get enjoyment from a film in this way. That would be like criticizing someone for being happy because their favorite sports team just won. Instead, I'm trying to emphasize how integral fandom is to the actual experience of enjoying a hyped film. I'm also not trying to say that hype is the sole factor that determines whether we like a film or not. The Avengerswas a well-acted film, it had some good one-liners and funny moments, it was visually-interesting at times, and Whedon did a very good job of making believable the interactions of a Norse God, a thawed out World War 2 uber-patriot, and a strangely likable sarcastic jerk in a metallic super-suit. (Let's just hope Snyder can pull of the same feat with the Justice League's Amazons and Mermen.) On the other hand, I think almost anyone would concede that The Avengers also had an incredibly formulaic plot, including a twist stolen straight from The Dark Knight (Loki allowing his own capture), and an ending stolen straight from The Phantom Menace (where that ending did receive some negative criticism), the only difference between the two being that it was clear that none of the Avengers' lives were ever at risk while one of the main characters in The Phantom Menace dies after being impaled by a truly threatening bad guy.

At this point, you may be asking yourself what all this has to do with the Prequel Trilogy apart from the fact that the Star Wars hype-machine is running in high gear once again, and my intention here is not to suggest that the Prequel Trilogy wasn't hyped with a marketing campaign when it came out, as it certainly was, though I don't think any media corporation can match Disney's sophistication. How all this relates to the PT, I would argue, is that the story arc of the PT, especially its second and third installments, completely subverts the traditional expectations of fandom hype. Again, in a nutshell, the intention of pre-release hype is to set up a fan to experience at the end of an eagerly anticipated film a cathartic release when his team, the good guys, the heroes, are ultimately triumphant and victorious, and the PT, unlike almost every Hollywood film, subverts those expectations, and does so more radically the further the PT saga progresses.

In TPM, the good guys are victorious, yet that victory is somewhat undercut by the death of Qui-Gon, arguably the protagonist of the film. At the same time, Palpatine has successfully moved a step closer to achieving his goals, and these events leave us with a mixed feeling at the film's end, ultimately undercutting our ability to achieve the simple, generic fangasm that we are easily rewarded with in film like The Avengers or even ANH -- a fangasm, in this case, that we had been eagerly awaiting during the prior 16 years before TPM's release. The formula of the simple victory is further complicated by the end of ATOC with Palpatine gaining control of the military and starting a false war, Anakin's slaughter of the Tusken Raiders, and our total confusion about whether the clone troopers will ultimately serve as heroes or villains as the Clone Wars continue. Then, unless we are masochists, our collective hopes of experiencing another Star Wars fangasm is completely ripped to shreds by the end of ROTS, with Palpatine seducing Anakin into accepting the dark side with lies and false promises, Padme dying in childbirth, Palpatine using the clones to wipe out virtually all the Jedi, Obi-Wan and Yoda fleeing into exile, and the Republic willingly embracing the rule of a dictator. Even if you fault ROTS for what flaws you might find in its execution, I think anyone would have to admit that the film is the most audacious reversal of film expectations ever brought to life in a blockbuster.

Now again, my intention with this post is not to suggest that if someone dislikes the Prequel Trilogy, then the reason must be that that person only likes formulaic films that suit the build up and release of the fandom hype experience. Just as with any film, there are countless elements in the PT that one might find objectionable according to one's tastes, and just like with most films, the PT may also contain more objective flaws like clear plot holes or narrative inconsistencies. To be honest, I have my own criticisms of each of the PT films, as well as the other films from the Saga. By the same token, if you are the type who finds a great many films that tell much the same story in much the same way both satisfying and enjoying, then I would suggest that perhaps the expectations you brought with you when you saw the PT for the first time might account for some of your disappointment with the films, if you had any. And on the flip side, for those of you who are great fans of the PT, I would wager that part of the reason you do is that deep down you appreciate that its plot goes in unexpected directions that defy genre conventions.

Having a better understanding of the fandom hype experience may also help us better appreciate the upcoming ST films. For those of us who want the ST to expand the franchise in even more unexpected directions, we might be more understanding if the film attempts to achieve in a more traditional way the long awaiting hopes of some fans for another great victory; it has been 32 years since Star Wars has given us one of those.

At the same time, while fan mania may be great fun, if we don't receive our hoped for fangasm by the end of the TFA, we might be able to better see that TFA by design may not be made to follow the normal Hollywood blockbuster flow chart; rather, it might be setting us up for a greater fangasm down the road, just as I think the PT with its depiction of Anakin's fall deepens the emotion of his final redemption 6 films later in ROTJ, a moment so poignant that I think describing it as a mere fangasm isn't really fitting. It ends up being much more emotionally resonant than that, and in part the reason for this is that Vader's redemption is a moment that fulfills convention and transcends convention at the very same time.

 

I admire your intent. However, I intensely dislike hype at all just as I hate being forcefed my views. That's what hype tries to do and I don't buy it.

 

Very interesting and thought provoking read!

To me, I think at the end of the day it's all about expectations, which I think is just a boiled down, simpler way of saying what you're saying. When it was announced that Lucas was going to do the Prequels, the fandom didn't need a hype machine, because the fandom hyped itself up. There was an expectation that because it was Star Wars that we would be going on a familiar ride like we did with the OT. The issue that came about was that Lucas never planned on giving us that ride! He never said he was going to, though people expected him to. Lucas, for years prior to the Prequels, had stated many times that he started where he did, with ANH because it was the part of his story that was the most fun.

Back in the 70's Lucas needed money! He was broke, he had to decide to either try to get Apocalypse Now off the ground, or start from scratch with Star Wars. He obviously chose Star Wars and gave Apocalypse to Coppola (I belive it was Coppola, I don't feel like looking it up).

I think Lucas was under pressure from not only the studio, but himself (because he was broke), to deliver that fangasm experience, thus Star Wars started with ANH. In fact if you look at Empire and Jedi you can see that the tone of the movies change from ANH and it's no surprise that Lucas had more freedom from the studio and more financial freedom. Is Empire anywhere as near as popular if "I am your father" doesn't make it in, with its downbeat ending? Prob not. Empire is hailed as the best, but only because of the context that was given to it by ANH and the knowledge that there was more to the story coming. As a standalone movie, with its downbeat (dare I say prequelish tone) empire prob doesn't do near as well. ROTJ is the same thing, even though the good guys win, it is a somber win, with that fangasm toned down at the end.

So fast forward to the beginning of the prequel era, Lucas is independently wealthy, free from the studios, and free to make the movie(s) he wants to make. However, the fans are expecting a repeat of the OT, even though they were never promised it. So I think your theory has merit to it, in that what the fans expected and the artist wanted were two different things.

I remember in the build-up to AOTC, soooo many fans were so sure Lucas was going to drop that "I am your Father" moment, ya know because that's what he did in the middle movie of the OT. There were countless theories and discussions, and when it wasn't delivered boy were those people mad! Expectations were very different from what Lucas gave people.

I have said it so many times on these forums, I love the prequels because Lucas did not make just make them with a OT filter. He could have just thrown Anakin and Padme, kenobi, r2 etc into a ship as they battle evil over three movies and try to copy that structure of the OT, but, he didn't and he made the movies he wanted to make and I for one am glad he did.

 

About expectations and fans etc.

I think one needs to be careful here because you could easily use an argument that tries to dismiss people's opinion about as film as not having anything to with the quality of the film but only as a result of preconcieved notions.
And this goes both ways, I have far too often seen the argument "You only dislike the PT because it wasn't what you wanted."
And the opposite, "You only like the PT because it is Star Wars."

I think you can cross the line if you start to speak for more people than yourself.

When the PT was announced, I knew that it would not have a happy ending because I had seen the OT. I knew that Anakin would fall, the Empire would rise and the Jedi get killed. So I certainly didn't expect a happy ending nor was I expecting a story like the OT.
I fully expected there to be political plotting and I was looking forward to that.
What I had problmes with and what made the films ok to pretty good instead of great, was the execution.
Sometimes flat and uninteresting characters, very uneven acting, forced and contrived plot points, people having to be stupid in order for the plot to work. In short, my problems wasn't with the story or the direction of the story but how it was told.

I don't know anyone who expected RotS to have a happy ending. The pople that I know had problems with the film in other areas. That it felt rushed, that Gen griev was a pointless character, that Padme became less of a character and more or plot device.

About expectations, a common one that I have come across is that people that dislike the PT "Wanted three films of suited Vader killing Jedi." So the opposite of "People were expecting a happy ending." Other have defended the PT by saying things like "You wanted an evil/dark Anakin from the start, not a sweet kid." Again the opposite of "fun films with Anakin battling evil for three films."

Personally, I totally expected Anakin to be a good person from the start and the problems I had with kid Anakin in TPM wasn't that he was a good kid. Again it was the execution. The acting was very uneven, some plot points became a bit contrived and important character growth occured off-screen and important character relationships weren't developed enough.

@mikeximus

Lucas was certainly under pressure because Sci-Fi films were not big at BO at the time, the studio didn't quite understand the film, that a lot of the effects had not been done before etc.
I don't think he "started" with ANH as such as I don't think he had plans to make any prequels then. He had some backstory yes but that is not the same thing.
As for tone, yes Empire changed the tone quite a bit and had a downbeat ending and a cliff-hanger at that. Which I didn't much like at age 11. I would say that RotJ is more in tone with ANH, more fun and goffy things, happy ending, the empire is defeated, the emperor dead and Luke's father is redeemed. At the time, I liked RotJ better but as I grew older, that film dropped a bit. The acting wasn't quite as good, the somewhat rehashed plot point of the DS and other tings. At the same time, ESB has gotten better, I can now appreciate the acting, the more sombre tone and what not.

As for overall reception, RotJ is not as well regarded as ANH and ESB and a common complaint is more "cutesy" elements, too kid friendly and too much silly and goofy things. Which is similar to some of the complaints directed against TPM, "pandering to kids", "Too much like a Disney film." "way too much silly and goofy things."

Personally I think that Lucas responded to these complaints and made AotC and Anakin darker. In the case of Anakin I think he made Anakin too dark. So much so that I really didn't like the character.

As for making the PT very different from the OT. I think there is a lot of the OT in the PT.
First episode in both series;
Both feature the introduction of a young Skywalker, Tatooine is featured a lot, a royal damsel needs help, the good guys are outnumbered against the big bad guys. There is a fighter attack against a big enemy ship at the end. The wise mentor dies, killed by a Sith.
Second episode;
Things gets darker, the heroes split up, a Fett shows up, there is an asteroid chase, an evil guys tempts one of the heroes to "Join with me". There is a big land battle, Skywalker gets his hand/arm cut off at the end and a romance is going on.
Third episode;
A big battle between starships, the film starts with a rescue, furry creatures fight, a Skywlker fights the guy who cut if his hand while the emperor watches.

Overly simplified yes and there certainly are differences. But I would not say that Lucas didn't use OT elements in the PT.
I know some that feel that he used too many elements and the he repeated himself and resued elements too much.

In closing, was TPM hyped? Yes, probably over-hyped and possibly there was some backlash to that.
Again for myself, I had lowered my expectations to about zero and went in with as little baggage as I could. And I didn't dislike the film but I didn't much like the film either. It was just "Meh, ok I guess."

My overall point, people that don't like the PT have many and varied reasons for doing that. And they can not and should not be simplified to an easy explanation or dismissed as such.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

At least in my initial post, I hope I didn't come across that way, and I hope I made it clear that I was trying to distinguish between two different types of experience -- the hype fangasm experience vs the appreciation of a film for what's on the screen -- and, further, that I was trying to clarify my definition of the former by trying to compare it with our traditional notions of the film-going experience, in this case, the latter. I think I did make the 2 seem a little mutually exclusive, but I think that's not the case. I certainly think there are more elements than those that affect one's viewing experience. At the same time, I think that most of the time our expectations play an integral part in the film viewing experience. For instance, most films are genre films, and each genre has its conventions which give us a rough framework for expectation. If my argument seemed reductive, I think it may be because I didn't want my already long post to become dissertation length. My intention was more to highlight the fan experience and the way hype affects the film viewing experience, as a specific type of fan expectation, one that creates a very strong type of expectation before the viewing experience that one brings into the theater with them.

I do agree with the policy of these forums -- criticize the films, not the fans -- and I certainly hope this thread does not devolve into that garbage! I know that my opinion on this matter isn't anymore important than any other poster's since I'm not a mod, but as the thread starter, I would just want to emphasize that. On the other hand, our expectations are integral to our viewing experience, as my genre point above illustrates, and I think this subject can and should be addressed if done right.

Film in the beginning had a very simplistic visual and editing language. It built on itself, and our expectations for what we would like to see on screen developed over time. Someone from 150 years ago walking into a theater playing 2001's Moulin Rouge (merely a Hollywood production not an art film) would be entirely bewildered by that experience. Our visual, editing, plot, and genre conventions were all expectations that we brought into the theater to make the film understandable. In the same vein, a person with a perfect eidetic memory might have a hard time not being annoyed by the constant inconsistencies in the Bond franchise (if he thought of the 1st 20 or so films as one distinct chronology). What I'm trying to say is that the film-goer and his expectations is just as important as the film itself to why we enjoy a film, and that should not be ignored. In fact, they are almost indistinguishable, two sides of the same coin.

So, I hope this thread doesn't get into attacking individual fans. We have no ability to see into another individual's mind and understand his psychology, so saying "the reason you don't like this film is because you're this type of person (dumb, not thoughtful, easily pleased, whatever)." Still, I don't think there is a reason not to discuss the fandom experience, fan expectations, expectations in general because those are all important factors that shape our viewing experience.

At the same time, I hope this thread does not devolve into listing one's specific criticisms of the PT either -- unless those criticisms of the film itself connect to fandom and media hype. I'm not at all suggesting that it's improper to point out faults in the PT. My point is that other threads like that have talked that subject to death, and getting into that here would detract from the central focus of this thread.

I understand your specific criticisms of the films and agree with some of them. I would just add that I think some people who were really big fans of Star Wars brought with them very different expectations than you had. Some people have voiced them in these forums. With ROTS, many have said that they don't like it because it is unrelentingly dark and tragic, but really, how could ROTS have been very different from that? Others have complained that elements of TPM were too kiddie, and I think those fans brought with them the expectation that the film would be more gritty and realistic, a Star Wars made for adults who loved the OT and were now all grown up, not a film similar to a franchise that had cannibalistic teddy bears.

Also, I would point out that the vast majority of fans are not like us here. They simply loved the films as kids, watched them a few more times over the years, and they had very little understanding in terms of story and tone when they came into the PT. They were simply hoping to enjoy the same experience that they got as kids. To exemplify my point, there were many stoked Star Wars who just realized when watching the recent TFA trailer that Han Solo would be in the ST. People more than 15 years ago were even less informed about what would be in store for them in the PT.

That's interesting how your view of the OT evolved over time.

I think that negative sentiment towards ROTJ has somewhat diminished over time, and I think generally it is still considered a great film by most (though I don't share that view). It's rating on IMDb has been consistently rising over the last 10 years. Now it's in the top 100. I also think the general consensus about ROTS has changed over the years. It was initially considered GL's redemption for the other PT "flops." Then, it started getting lumped in with the other 2 as a failure. Now, as the ROTS kid audience is coming of age, they seem very vocal about defending it on youtube and other regular audience discussion boards. Underneath the ROTS trailers, most posters have positive things to say about it, and the trailer's "likes to dislike" ratio is about the same as those of the new trailers. They post lists that intermingle the PT and OT, typically with ROTS being high and the other 2 PT films being low. And the vocal-haters ("ROTS SUCKS!" "THE PT IS CRAP!!!" etc.) seem to be in the minority and generally ignored or mocked as weirdos. It also seems like ATOC has fallen and is now the ugly stepchild of the PT.

I totally agree with this last point, and I hope I didn't come across that way. If it seems that I am over-simplifying, I want to make it clear that I share your point of view, and so I hope this thread doesn't end up oversimplifying things. At the same time, I hope this discussion retains a narrow focus -- one on fandom and hype, since we're seeing a lot of that now, it's more sophisticated than ever, and I think it's a subject that hasn't been addressed much. So, I hope this doesn't devolve either into people posting complaint lists about the PT's faults or fan-bashing individuals for not having the right POV to understand and appreciate the PT.

 

@darth ladnar

Thank you for your claifications and you have made your intentions about this subject very clear.
Excellent.

About hype and anticipation, yes those certainly are factors.

They can swing both ways tough. You can have such astronomical expectations that nothing could match it.
And you walk away disappointed.
But it is also possible that you have hyped yourself up so much that just seeing the movie becomes an event itself.
I remember well when I saw RotJ for the first time. I had gotten tickets to the opening day and went with two of my friends and all three of us had massive expectations. We had seen the trailers and we wondered, "Was Vader really Luke's father?" "Who is the Other?" and the like.
And all of us were blown away and afterwards we were giddy with excitement.

I saw it again some weeks later and now I noticed a few things that I didn't notice the first time. I still liked it tough.
I saw it a couple of time in the next 2-3 years and then I didn't see it for a number of years until the THX VHS tapes came out in letterbox format. So I saw all three films again, now in my 20's. And ANH still held up, ESB was better than I remembered and RotJ was not quite as good.

Preconceived ideas. That is something that I have come across a fair bit when it comes to Superhero films.
The first time was X-Men 3 and I read a review that didn't really review the film but was only talking about "Dark Phoenix is THIS." "The Cure story is THAT." And the reviewer hated the film, not for what it was but for what it wasn't. The film had those elements but done differently and thus the film sucked.
I have seen the same comments about Alfred in The Dark Knight Rises. He leaves Bruce partway through the film and didn't come back. People hated that, they said "Alfred would NEVER do this." To me, this plot point worked extremely well and flowed naturally from the previous two films and fitted the Alfred character.
Same again with MoS, some people that I've talked to hated the film because it changed Superman. "Superman doesn't kill." "Superman is THIS." and so on.
To me, putting a character inside a rigid little box and if the character moves outside that box then it sucks.

All these films have a number of flaws and other pople have pointed out those flaws and I have no problem with that.
And if you think the change doesn't work for story reasons or was poorly made, then that too is fine.
Just the absolute stance that "This character can only be THIS and nothing else" is a viewpoint that I find a bit limiting.

About RotJ, the reviews were more mixed than ESB, which had slightly more mixed reviews than ANH.
I tried to read as many as I could at the time, but I don't live in the US. ESB got more a few five starts reviews than ANH but also a few more 3 star reviews so the overall view was more mixed. RotJ dropped a fair bit in overall estimate.
It did make more money than RotJ if one only considers INITIAL release. And depending on what you treat as initial release, it outgrossed even ANH.

Repost from the BO-thread.
That depends what one considers initial release.
I looked around on thenumbers.com and from what I could gather the gross of the INITIAL release of the OT is like this;
ANH: 215 M$
ESB: 181 M$
RotJ: 252 M$.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Star-Wars

ANH was in theaters from May 1977 to April 1978, then there is a gap in the data and the next figure is from July 1978 and then August 1979. If we consider the first run to be from May 1977 to April 1978 then the drop to ESB is about 15%. I know that boxofficemojo treats everything from 1977 to 1979 as one release and only has one re-release before the SE.

Also, about the SE. RotJ out grossed ESB on initial release but the SE of RotJ grossed less than ESB SE. So it seems that RotJ had dropped a bit in peoples appreciation.
Or people just wanted to see SW back on the big screen and only saw ANH and then didn't bother with the rest.

As for the PT, I lurked a bit on this site back in the day and I remember that people were ecstatic over AotC.
This was Star Wars as it should be, older Anakin, lots of lightsaber actions, Jango Fett, etc.
Many here viewed it as much better than TPM. But that changed after a while and not too long a while. A year or so later, more and more people had problems with the film.
RotS did get overall better reviews and some felt that this was finally a good PT movie. Other felt that it was rushed and did things too quickly.

Lastly and this a bit off topic but I have seen some posters here talk about the upcoming TFA and some say that since Lucas isn't involved, that his outline has been "dumped" then they will not treat it as "proper" Star Wars. It seems that some have already prejudged the film and decided that it will be poor or at least "Not SW".
I find this somewhat interesting as a common "bash" against those that didn't like the PT is that "They went in wanting to hate the PT."
But this is getting into the area of making poor generalizations so perhaps we should not go there.

On with the thread.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

Yeah, I agree. That "I am your father" moment is one of the great twists in film history. I think there are others that top it in terms of sheer "twistiness" -- Norman Bates really being his "mother," the end of the original Planet of the Apes, maybe what happens to Neo after taking the red pill (or is it the blue pill?) if you had no idea what The Matrix was about going in. However, I think the newness of family-oriented films in the 1970s after all the adult-aimed films in the 60's and 70's made the Vader revelation especially stunning. While people walked out of ANH with the ultimate fangasm, people were walking out of TESB preoccupied with the question of whether Vader was telling the truth or not. For that reason, TESB may have the most memorable twist in film history, and that worked really well for establishing the Saga: 1st film -- best exciting ending up to that point, 2nd film -- best twist in film history. I remember leaving the theater feeling a little like "that's the end?" but ultimately my curiosity about the twist and how it would be resolved, plus the fact that it was a bigger more developed film than ANH made the film satisfying for me, even as a kid.

And I think that expectation is sort of self-defeating. If you expect a twist at the end, that takes something away from the surprise of the twist. In part, what made TESB's twist so effective was that no one even thought that a twist might be coming their way.

I actually think ATOC had a fairly good twist at its end too, though some people take it for granted; its twist being that you realize that Palpatine is actually controlling both sides of the war. People today say, "Oh, that's obvious, because Palpatine needed to do that to gain power." However, Palpatine could've incited war to gain power in many other ways. He could've staged terrorist attacks on Coruscant and blamed them on the Separatists or to start a war, he could've come up with a way to incite the Separatists to want to secede -- taxation without representation, treated members of the separatist planets as second class citizens, etc. I thought the confusion about why the clones were created during the film and how it was explained (at least, to the audience) at the end was a pretty good twist -- there aren't many films where the two sides of the conflict are actually controlled by the same guy. However, while that ending really worked for me, I think some people left the theater feeling just sort of confused.

I appreciate this too. Most of these comic book films seems to follow a formula that more closely resembles ANH, and they are beginning to feel redundant to me.

Yeah, I totally agree. In fact, I often dislike it like when people set strict rules for character behavior even within franchises not connected to other source material. Before ROTS, I was wondering what would turn Anakin to the dark side, and I was thinking Lucas might do a Lancelot, Arthur, Guinevere scenario, and some people said, "Obi-Wan would never do that! He's too noble." And my response was: "Obi-Wan has had maybe 90 minutes of screen time in the first two films, and a lot of that time he was fighting. How could we possibly know his character that well? Plus, many noble people have affairs -- MLK, Oskar Schindler, etc." (I guess making that argument about Obi-Wan would make more sense if you've read a great deal of EU material and brought that into the equation.)

I actually think fandom/the fangasm experience makes things more difficult for critics. Critics are doubtfully huge fans of most franchises. Many of them have seen so many films that they've grown inured to most film formulas and many (at least when it comes to art films, Oscar bait, foreign films, indie films) like a film for originality sake or attempting something new most of all. It seems to me that with many of these films critics are sitting there like outsiders, sociologists, trying to figure out how popular audiences will respond to a film, and their reviews are less about their own responses. I'm sure a lot of critics dislike virtually every popular film that comes out of Hollywood, but they have to like something, or no one will care about their reviews. Readers would just think: "This guy just hates everything." Especially now that rottentomatoes and reduced newspaper circulation has caused so many papers to drop their local film critics, I think they have to be extra calculating about their reviews. "The Crystal Skull, well I think fans will like it; I don't want to be one of the those jerks who disliked TESB or It's a Wonderful Life or Wizard of Oz (which all got mixed reviews). I'll be mocked mercilessly. David Edelstein was receiving death threats for disliking TDK!!!!"

I see your point, and I'm not disagreeing. I have ambivalent feelings about this sort of thing. People like to have the illusion that a film franchise has a sense of reality to it, and one way to give it reality is to imagine that it exists in another person's mind. GL was smart enough to recognize this, and he cultivated this illusion when it was not totally the case (though I think it became much more true after he finished the script for TESB). After the OT, GL became more frank about it, joking about how he felt the need to leave that impression, but some people fault him for being dishonest. I cut him slack, thinking he did it for fans. Also, if TESB had been a bust, he would have been DESTROYED financially.

In the end, I think most people would have the feeling that GL's involvement gives a SW project more authenticity. If you imagine that just as JJ started making his Ep. 7, GL decided to make his own version of Ep. 7 at the same time, I think most people would think that GL's Ep. 7 would be the more authentic, especially if the two films were of equal quality. I think only those who really hate GL would feel otherwise. Again, I think this connection between GL and SW is somewhat illusory, but I think most people buy into that illusion.

I certainly see the irony that you're pointing out when you talk about the PT and ST and their connection to GL's involvement, and extending your point, except for the few who truly hated the SE changes, I think the PT actually got an extra boost because it came from the mind of the creator, and really most people came into the PT, even those who ended up disliking it, considered that the PT was authentic Star Wars. In fact, its authenticity may have annoyed those who disliked it. Their reaction may have been: "Get this out of my Star Wars universe! This isn't Star Wars!" That's why I don't get why some people keep complaining about the PT in a truly hateful way as if it's still hurting them. If I hated it, I'd just reject it as part of my Star Wars universe, just like I totally ignored Disney's proclamation that the EU is not canon anymore -- oh, so the old EU is fictional fiction instead of real fiction? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I do think the SE hate may have grown stronger before the end of the PT. I think the SE hate really kicked in in 2004, just before ROTS. Before that point, fans thought the SE was just a different version of Star Wars, one they didn't like as much. With the 2004 DVD release, it started to sink in that the SE was now the official Star Wars, and that's when the backlash really began. In 2006, some fans were appeased when GL released OT DVDs transferred from the laserdiscs. Then, the 2011 blu-ray release of an even more SE OT made originalists that much more irate. I think this irate group of fans would probably consider a non-GL film more authentic than a GL SW film these days.


By the way, Cryogenic, I thought this thread would be right up your alley. The idea for it came to me out of the "PT nostalgia -- yes, it's real" discussion we were having. I'm curious what your thoughts are on the media hype fangasm experience we're talking about here.

 

I've partially drafted up a post for this very topic. Hope to have it finished later.

 

Well I don't quite agree. I think AotC tried to have a twist but it didn't really work.
For example, I think the film tried to blur the lines with Dooku, that he was supposed to be an ambiguous character and we the audience would not be sure whose side he was on.
To me it didn't work because the opening crawl made him seem like a bad guy and then Padme accuses him of attempted murder and while her accusation makes little logical sense, since we know nothing about Dooku, he seems like a bad guy. And when we finally see, surprise, we see that he really is a bad guy.
Potential wasted I feel.

As for the twist with Palaptine. To me it didn't work either as mostly it seemed to me that everyone else in the galaxy had to be stupid in order for his plan to work.
I was a bit confused and wondered why the Jedi didn't ask more questions and why they didn't suspect the war was fake as they knew more than enough to realize this.
I knew in TPM that Palpatine was Sidious and yes I had seen the OT but it wasn't very hard to spot in TPM. With the pan over to Palpatine after Mace and Yoda wonder who the other Sith was. You could miss it sure but I don't think TPM worked very hard to hide this.

The clone army plot, to me, suffered from last minute changes and not being fully thought out. The plot in AotC is pretty complicated but a complicated plot takes time and care to write well.
Changes from Sido-Dyas to Sifo-Dyas, EU first saying that Sifo-Dyas probably did order the army to later EU saying that he was dead before the order and Dooku killed him so that he could pose as Sifo-Dyas. The earlier versions of AotC had the Jedi seem smarter and more aware of what is going on. They know that there is no Jedi Sido-Dyas and they suspect that someone in the Senate is behind the army. They wonder and consider various options, in short they appear competent.
Less so in the finished film, where such crucial stuff as, Jango works for Dooku, as Sith, what could that mean? Who really ordered the army if Sifo-Dyas was dead when it happened? Who tampered with the Jedi files? All that is just brushed aside and then ignored in the next film.

Well with Anakins turn I was pretty sure how it would play out just from TPM. In that film, little Anakin is separated from his mother, that he loves very much and he misses her and worries about her.
I knew then that she would die in the next film and this would impact Anakin a lot. And surprise, she died. After AotC and how Anakin swore that he would not let anyone he cares about die, I had a good idea what would happened in RotS. Something would happen to Padme and this would turn Anakin.

I think there are good elements in RotS about Anakin's turn, that he gets a premonition about something and tries to prevent it from happening and he winds up causing the very thing he wanted to prevent. Neat. Some details are not as good, I didn't much like how Anakin seemingly don't notice when Palaptine says he doesn't actually have the power to stop death and Anakin buys into what he says a little too quickly. It might have helped that Anakin had studied the Jedi records from when the Sith were around the last time and come across instances of Sith healing mortal injuries and staying alive far longer than normal. And he gets fascinated with this power and wants to learn more.

I think there is some truth to this but I also think it is not a new thing exactly. I know some critic got his house pelted by rotten eggs for writing a bad review of the first Star Trek film.
And I have seen a review of a Star Trek film where the review starts by saying that he had a good time in the cinema, he laughed, was excited and involved throughout the film and then he proceeds to slam the film. Saying that all Trek films are garbage and only appeals to idiots and such things.

But I think that not all franchises are in the boat. For ex, the LotR films got very good reviews form the type of film that they were and their big popularity.
I would say that there is a considerable difference in critical consensus between say the Harry Potter films and the Twilight series. Both are very popular but the latter has gotten a lot more bad reviews, from both critics and audience. Same with the Transformers films.

With the PT, the overall critical response was quite positive, all three films got more than 50% positive reviews, RotS a lot more. There were mixed and some bad reviews as well but the critics didn't pan the films as a whole group.
But here there was also the OT factor, those films had gone on to be cultural classics and highly regarded even among critics. So there was that as well. Does this new thing measure up against the great films of the past? I think something similar happened with the Hobbit films, which got more mixed reviews than the LotR films. Not undeserved in my opinion.

Well back in the early 80's we did have two Bond films coming out close to each other, Moore's Octopussy, the "official" Bond and Connery's Never Say Never again. And while the former made more money at the BO, the difference wasn't huge.

Well I am not so sure. If the PT were directed by other people but Lucas was still involved as producer, coming up with the story and involved in the writing etc, then I don't think that would have hurt the PT.
People were excited for more SW. If he had sold SW prior to the PT and was not involved at all then some might have been a bit skeptical but remember, Lucas only directed one of the three OT films. I and remember reading that Lucas would not direct ESB and at first I was a bit annoyed but I still saw the film. And I didn't really blame the problems I had with the film on Lucas not directing.
And I knew he didn't direct RotJ and that didn't bother me.

I have made this comparison before but take Roddenberry and Star Trek. Gene created Star Trek and wrote some really good episodes. But also some less than great ones and to me at least, there have been a lot of Star Trek that I consider great and Gene that Gene were not involved in. Some I know he could not have made as they were not in line with his vision of Star Trek.
So I have great respect for Gene as a writer and creator but Star Trek lived on without him and made great things. Also some less than great things.
I don't really know that many Trek fans that only like the Trek that Gene had a direct hand in creating and dislike everything else. Early seasons TNG were the ones were Gene had the most control but TNG didn't pick up steam until season 3-4, where Gene had much less input.

[/QUOTE]

The dislike for the SE, I don't like the word hate as I think that most that use word when it comes to films are just exaggerating and using hyperbole. I have said this before but here Lucas has partly himself to blame. Had the OOT been released on DVD along with the SE in 2004, then much if not all of this would never have existed.
Before 2004, the SE and OOT were both on VHS and in some ways "equal". People could choose which one they preferred.
With the decision to favor one version to exclusion of the other, that made some people irritated.
Several other films had been released with both original and special editions preserved so that the audience could choose which one they liked.
Here that choice was partly removed as people could only choose between the SE and nothing.
So I do not find it strange that the dislike for the SE grew. People that overall liked it but preferred the OOT, their choice was denied and the SE was made the only choice. So not so odd that they might get angry at this.

I think some of this anger also might have affected the PT as some of the changes to the OT was done because of the PT. So a person that likes the OOT and would want to have on DVD and is told "No you can't have it because of the SE and PT." They might start disliking the SE and PT as they are the reason why they can't have something they like.

Personally, I think Lucas is wrong for not releasing the OOT in up to date quality and that he brought some of this ire on himself. He has or rather had the right to do as he wished but for someone that cares so much about film preservation and that wants future generations to see films as they were originally, he doesn't really follow what he preaches.
And I get that he prefers the SE but if the OOT exists in good, up to date quality, how does that in any way harm the SE? I know which version of Blade Runner Ridley Scott prefers but he still put out all versions and let people choose for themselves.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

NOTE: This came out a bit more clumsy and random than I had hoped. But I hope it gets some reasonably relevant points across.

Firstly, let me commend you for an excellent thread, as well as some excellent replies. You've done a great job with this thread, darth ladnar. And I appreciate you asking for my input.

I'm going to take a stab at this a slightly different way. I feel that, in support of some of your points, it's worth noting the particular aesthetic and psychological qualities of the OT; and how many of them manifest in a famous ship and its various exploits.

I'm going to start by quoting a post made on IMDb almost one year ago; and after that follows my response to that post from that time. Subsequent to those segments of text is my additional or expanded response; that final portion has been made today for the purposes of this thread.



Originally posted by zaphod on May 21 2014:

I've noticed that the original trilogy was fairly historical in a lot of its context. Looking at the movies, released in '77, '80 and '83, one can see imagery and themes which seemed to analyze and mythologize the decade of the 1960's. Star Wars begins with Luke cruising around Tatooine before being swept up in an intergalactic adventure. In the early '60's, cruising was still very popular, but also, rather abruptly, young men were being drafted and sent off to fight in Vietnam. In Empire Strikes Back, Luke gets lessons in The Force from Yoda in scenes which seemed reminiscent of the countercultural spiritual gurus which were popular in the late '60's. In Return of the Jedi, a technologically superior force is defeated by a technologically inferior one, much as some perceived was the final outcome of the Vietnam war.

These are of course loose images, and one can read a wide variety of potential political subtext into it. But the biggest takeaway was that on some level, the original trilogy mythologized and in some ways romanticized a decade of great turmoil for the U.S.

But then we get to the Prequels, which were much more contemporary in its subtext, almost to the point of being prescient. Take Phantom Menace, released in 1999, where Palpatine says that Chancellor Valorum is "Mired in baseless accusations of corruption." President Clinton had spent his full eight years of his presidency being investigated for a real estate deal that he had been involved in in the late 70's, and then for an affair. None of these investigations had anything to do with his actions as president, however they did dominate the front pages and at least somewhat muted his overall effectiveness.

In Attack of the Clones, released in 2002, Chancellor Palpatine exploits a crisis to consolidate authority to his own office, which was what President George W. Bush did in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Revenge of the Sith even used variances of some famous quotes of George W. Bush and his supporters in its dialogue.

This might be one reason for the fan backlash. While the original trilogy provided a sense of comfort and a way to soften the blow of a turbulent time in American history, the prequels were on the edge, much more immediate in their portrayal, making for a series which might have been even darker and more disturbing than Lucas intended.



My response also posted on May 21 2014:

You make a strong case here, in my opinion, that Lucas and perhaps those he worked closest with deliberately channeled a lot of contemporary misgivings about the world into each film as they went along, grounding every installment in residual issues and concerns. And it seems that where they, or Lucas, were able to make the original trilogy relatively optimistic, even sanguine (despite flirtations with darkness in TESB), a certain cynicism or unease took over as the original trilogy neared completion, with Lucas promising that the prequel saga would be "Machiavellian", with "more plotting" and "less humour", which is largely what it became. It's not that all the political details coincide precisely, but that, to use an aphorism, "there was something in the air", which the more prescient among us can sometimes pick up and tap into for artistic purposes and whatever else.

I think a related, but even more elemental, explanation, concerns the idealistic paradigm of self-reliance, which the original trilogy powerfully exploits through the character of Han Solo, its resolutely scrappy world aesthetic, and pretty much the entire rebels-versus-Empire storyline. If you compare fan attitudes between Han and Jar Jar, for example, they are more or less polar opposites. One reason for that, beyond any surface issues and claims that "one is a real person, the other is an annoying cartoon", is that Han is pretty independent when we first see him, follows his own instincts, doesn't lean on anyone for support, and is easily able to take care of himself in violent situations. In contrast, Jar Jar's very first act is to freak out and block a "hero" character's way, then nag to be pressed into service as, indeed, a "humble servant", followed by increased bursts of agitation and fright as he again requires protection, or later in the sub, a calming hand to the shoulder. These characters are something like spirits or "jinn" -- as Jar Jar's spatial and thematic closeness to Qui-Gon Jinn implies -- for some of the ideas and attitudes that permeate their respective trilogies.

Similarly, where the OT is a relatively "nostalgic" series, in that it romanticizes real Earth pasts and its own fictional past concurrently, and has the intonation to match -- John Williams' music, especially in ANH, is very old-fashioned -- the PT is more "Golden Age", willfully and quite brazenly utilizing an antiquated aesthetic, which even many of the people growing up with the OT wouldn't be all that familiar with, and many might find discomfiting, even grating (e.g., place "12 Years A Slave" next to "Gone With The Wind"). Fans will sometimes argue, in fact, that the the beauty of the OT was that it stimulated their imaginations and allowed them to dream up their own history, while actually showing it was unnecessary and even ruinous, perhaps like someone annotating Mozart or jazz music. Witness the on-going furore over midi-chlorians. Some people don't want their myths explained to them or muddied up with galling complexity, even of a relatively mild and benign kind. No CG, no pontification, no elaboration. Just neat, raw, straight-up. Or as Han Solo puts it: "hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Their battle cry could almost be, "Leave the Force histrionics and virgin births out of it." Trade disputes? Jedi that don't care about slavery? Anakin's dream-driven psychosis? Han Solo, the "genie" of the OT, had no time for theogony, so why should they? Myth, not mythopoeia. What they want is simplicity -- after all, what could be simpler than that?

And this is merely one angle. It certainly doesn't cover everything, but these issues alone could have presented a significant stumbling block on the sometimes rocky road to love. I think the PT was always doomed to fail for some.



My expanded response:

The plotline and entire visual construction of the OT essentially encouraged audiences to root for the underdog -- a powerfully exploitative ideological framework; with content playing to a generation starved of a cinematic mythology that would a) counter many of the bleaker film works that had been made in the past decade, and which were b) increasingly reflective of a gloomy or rapidly shifting socio-political landscape marked by challenges to the nuclear family unit, gradually increasing secularization, inner-city violence, ramping-up miscegenation, energy crises, and corruption at the highest levels of government. Basically, Star Wars was something many people had been waiting for; even if they didn't know it. A rejuvenation of the spirit. Cinematic paydirt.

There was an eccentricity, energy, camaraderie, and whimsy to the original film that remains unique. While it may sometimes be derided as obvious or schlocky, few people are prepared to say that it isn't an effective film on its own terms. And if half of everything in life is timing, then the original film certainly timed its appearance well, offering a sort of cornucopic, can-do sensibility as its basic -- but highly addictive -- plot unfolded; and bringing with it a nervy filmic brio which other film-makers have tried to duplicate but failed to match. Only the original film's own sequels come anywhere near to recapturing or solidifying that formative experience. One secret to this, which I will discuss in just a moment, is a clever linking element, or monad, that effortlessly bridges the three films: a microcosm of the whole; the fun dialectic the OT generously asks a viewer to drink down until their stomach is full.

While the PT certainly recycles many tropes from the original film and the remainder of the OT, it doesn't attempt to tell the same story, or offer exactly the same experience, all over again; but that effectively makes it one of many competing film franchises made in the wake of the OT that people like or dislike to different degrees. It isn't some starkly sainted mummified event happening; the prequel movies aren't capsules of nostalgia or reverentially regarded escapist texts. Indeed, on some levels, the PT is more a deconstruction of nostalgia and escapism; despite having to link up with three movies that are considered the exemplar of those things.

Further, as has been contended, the PT has a particularly dour storyline beneath all the spectacle and the technical bells and whistles. TPM even ends in a darkly offbeat manner, suggesting that all of the characters are in a trance, from Anakin's fluke victory over the Trade Federation (portending his hollow defeat of its leadership in the third and final prequel), to Obi-Wan's impetuous decision to train Anakin at the end (a sudden reversal of his earlier position) and the Jedi's extreme moral blindness concerning Palpatine and the Sith-driven, cloak-and-dagger takeover of the Republic; including their own complicity in stagnant and enslaving ideals.

Psychology counts.

Themes count.

And the idiosyncracies of The Maker -- George Lucas -- cannot just be scrubbed out of Star Wars; and certainly not the PT (which is clearly a work of some personal investment on his part). I don't think people were really ready for a Machiavellian tale snuggled within the confines of a "Flash Gordon" homage, let alone one told in the slightly jazzy, abstract way that Lucas went and told it.

The allegorical nature of Star Wars seems to mean less to people than the visceral sensation of it. In the PT, I think George decided to be more tangential, more metaphysical, more outrageous -- in a way that fits the darker storyline, but also makes it tougher for people to regard as worthy entertainment, let alone serious art. Allegory only seems to make sense to most people when the visceral component conveys it in a concise and pleasing way; and when what is being allegorized is what they'd prefer to get lost in; what they already psychologically find appealing or hold (or imagine) to be true.

This is where we come to the show-stopping design piece of the OT, the single element that really takes it over the edge, the monad of all monads: the Millennium Falcon. For starters, despite being described by Luke Skywalker, the central protagonist of the OT, as a "piece of junk", the Millennium Falcon is never really presented as anything less than cool, magical, or redoubtable. Ever. (On some levels, because Luke's description fits). Indeed, despite occasionally being shot at and losing its lights and overheating, having its hyperdrive tampered with, or losing a precious dish, it seems virtually invulnerable: both impregnable and impossible to destroy or redefine. It carries on like some magnificent, ageless bird -- which its name calls to mind -- impressively swooping and arcing through space, or turbo-ing away from some beclouded city, always darting from one fight or jumping into the next, forever able to endure, thwart the bad guys, and save its heroes from danger.

But even more significantly, what the Millennium Falcon really represents is that idealistic paradigm of self-reliance I mentioned before, which is more or less the myth that America (and the west generally) is built on; for better and for worse. In the manner of its tinkered construction, daredevil piloting, and what it plays host to inside its tube-like innards, it also stands for political incorrectness, embodies a sort of rough-n-ready humanity, and is a powerful symbol of rag-tag individualism. The nearest parallel that I can see in the PT to the Millennium Falcon is AOTC Anakin. However, whereas the Millennium Falcon is (subjectively speaking of course) beautiful and effortless, Anakin tends to offer contrasting rhythms of individualism: despite possessing an inner grace and charm, he is also contentious, morose, clumsy, and awkward. And he's meant to be a chivalrous angel -- the "good man" that mutates into the dark machine Darth Vader.

What occurs inside the Millennium Falcon is also surprisingly ribald. The ship changed owners through gambling, it offers games and makeshift Jedi training opportunities in its main habitation area, it has performed many smuggling operations and there are compartments for smuggling which the characters momentarily hide away in, there is sexual tension and licentiousness, it has a boastful, cocky pilot, and it is involved in thrilling combat, outrunning and outgunning sleek TIE Fighters and helping to blow up not one but two Death Stars: the latter of which the MF plays a rather direct part in, destroying it from within in ROTJ (while doing so more abstractly in ANH: as the visuals of it inside one of the Death Star's many cargo bays makes clear), tantalizingly evading an engulfing inferno (the opposite of Anakin's fate on Mustafar at the end of ROTS) as it narrowly outruns an expanding wall of flame as the second Death Star yields to its fate.

A running theme of sorts is how the Millennium Falcon constantly does things under the Empire's nose and evades permanent capture or destruction. In ANH, it is pulled into the Empire's first Death Star, but it is left untainted and later escapes, only to assist in its destruction with remarkable last-second timing. In TESB, through some particularly reckless piloting, it momentarily escapes obliteration by seeking refuge in an asteroid field, and when forced to give away its position, it quickly goes stealth for a second time, managing to hide from an entire Imperial fleet by merging itself, butterfly-like, in an AOTC echo, with the much larger Star Destroyer's hull; and then ducks detection a third time (albeit short-lived) by floating away with Imperial garbage. At the end of the film, it evades the Imperial fleet yet again, after Artoo manages to fix the hyperdrive and leaves Piett with egg on his face. In ROTJ, it openly defies the cramped interior of the second Death Star, flying inside with accompanying X-Wings and TIE Fighters in hot pursuit. It loses a dish for its defiance, but not much else.

Crucially, some important transition moments for key characters also occur inside the Millennium Falcon. Luke practices against a remote, echoing a training sequence in AOTC, and learns not to rely on simply what he can see, and also takes his "first step into a larger world". Han later flirts with Leia onboard the MF as they hide from the Empire and the two share their first kiss in a maintenance area. Two epochal Force events also occur on the MF in the same films. Obi-Wan feels the terrible moment of Alderaan's passing and Luke communicates from afar with Leia and then hears Vader calling to him after being rescued. In this regard, and for sheltering all the important OT good-guy characters at different times from harm, the Falcon is like its own mini-society: a sub-culture that is the REAL culture, the real spirit of the films, juxtaposed against the rigid, conformist, mono-racial, relentlessly unimaginative Empire.

Contrast the singularity of the Millennium Falcon, and everything it represents, with the ships and situations of the PT. There is no equivalent ship; and all the situations the characters find themselves in tend to be much dryer, more formal, more square, more about good manners, procedures, and at least the appearance of righteousness and rectitude. Look how taut or respectful, for examples, exchanges are on the queen's ship in TPM. Then load up ANH and notice all the bickering/bantering on the Falcon. Tarkin actually admonishes his Imperial herd by telling them that their bickering is "pointless" -- the Millennium Falcon, still to be introduced, serves as counterpoint to that idea. The bickering, the tension, the spontaneity... those are the point. But again, looking at the PT, there is no central, repeating ship that offers such refuge or charming, ham-dramatics for its characters. The prequel characters inhabit a much larger canvas. They are part of the establishment. They aren't rebels and they don't really behave like rebels. Each has some rebellious instincts, but they are kept somewhat in-check by obedience to authority or ritual.

And that is something I think people have a problem with. The Millennium Falcon offers an iconoclastic, counter-cultural quality that stays strong in the OT. It could quite literally be construed as Star Wars "flipping the bird" to other movies, other memes, other movements, and even itself. And it seems incredibly deliberate, perceptive, provocative, and wise for Disney to have emblazoned the Millennium Falcon into both teasers for TFA released thus far. It is only when the Millennium Falcon appears at the end of the first teaser -- set, naturally enough, to the main Star Wars theme -- barrelling through the sky that it feels like Star Wars; or the kind of Star Wars Disney has used the Falcon to sanctify and promise to its receptive audience. The second teaser also ends with the Millennium Falcon being pursued and closing with an explosion. But with its presence established from the first teaser, the second adds a coda: none other than Han and Chewie arriving back inside the ship; clearly after a period of prolonged absence. The very basic symbolic meanings could hardly be any clearer.

I think this is all something to consider. If the PT felt crowded in with stuffiness and seriousness for some, and perhaps many, then the OT, via the Millennium Falcon, would seem to offer a more rounded, viscerally stimulating, and "raw" experience -- in a manner that seems to transcend complaints about the PT's allegedly overdone visual effects, arcane plotting, stale characters, weak writing, poor direction, etc. And Disney are exploiting that classic Star Wars feel, via the Millennium Falcon, to the three-bladed hilt.

People are primed for fun heroics, not doleful or absurdist reflections on human nature. Both trilogies are effective on these levels simultaneously, in my opinion. But whereas the OT is a relatively straight-forward (if artfully rendered) "Hero's Journey" with a positive ending and warm, engaging characters, the PT seems to deliberately be more or less the exact opposite. And it doesn't bother trying to replicate the steady brilliance of the Millennium Falcon; nor grant itself much of an opportunity to do so.

There are so many ways to dive into this complex issue. If I were to add a second observation, it would be that you could look upon the OT (building on my last paragraph) as offering an almost sublime homeostasis. Even though a funereal pall moves in in TESB, TESB still adroitly counters its own darkness with moments of humour, black and otherwise, and the trilogy ultimately snaps back to a lighter resolution; albeit with just enough melancholy left on the table for a backstory to richly explore. The OT never becomes too serious or too light to serve as any kind of viewing deterrent. And ultimately, it resolves into being a relatively happy ending, with the bad guys vanquished (or at least dealt a seriously heavy blow), and the good guys huddled together in celebration.

But how DOES the backstory explore that table of goods left behind by the OT? Richly? For me, yes. It's hard to deny, however, that the PT has a more discursive fabric; indeed, I don't deny it, but embrace that as a positive. That is, the prequel movies depict a more varied, shaken-up landscape, with a lot of visual and plot elements in a sort of snapshot transition. Consider Queen Amidala's dresses in TPM. Leia basically has one costume throughout ANH. Even Obi-Wan maintains the same look throughout ANH; while his mentor, at least, switches into a dashing disguise for one-third of TPM. Things in the prequels are split more. Amidala manifestly puts some distance between her ruling persona and Padme; and TPM is basically about this split happening in her and other characters (and institutions) concurrently. Even Jar Jar, who never changes his appearance in TPM (though his appearance has changed in AOTC), is an amphibious being with a "dual" identity of sorts.

So, in addition to being darker or at least more dour, the prequels are also busier at moving the story along. They cover more ground. While the OT feels more centred and intimate. And the PT, unlike the OT, does not balance itself out with a happy ending. It essentially keeps getting darker as it goes; though the last minutes of the last film are somewhat positive or cautiously ruminative. Audiences are never offered any true, lasting relief in the PT. The symbolic landscape never lets up, an impending apocalypse is taunted at every turn, and we watch not-the-most-heroic of heroes struggling within institutions that are hostile to their existence, yet they try and make nice with those institutions, anyway. There is a lot of murk and compromise going on in the PT -- as in the real world. And maybe people just don't want their entertainment to reflect that too strongly for too long. Even "The Dark Knight" is followed by the more conciliatory "The Dark Knight Rises". Bad guys are normally taken out and their schemes ruined in the same block of movies; one way or another. The PT is simply different.

And again... consider that thousand-year Falcon.

 

The problem I have with this recurring opinion that the prequels are not appreciated due to their dark tone is that it doesn't account for the wild success of some movies and shows with dark elements.

I like watching neither sports nor most superhero films(certainly not Marvel), so none of this applies to me. Want to know what I love?

Breaking Bad.

Talk about your downer endings. By the time I reached the end of season 2 I was emotionally exhausted, but I kept watching because I loved the writing, performances, and presentation.

And look, it's a wildly successful show. No surprise.

Even in popular films you can find a similar phenomenon. Did you forget about The Dark Knight? Heck, most of Nolan's films aren't uniformly victorious. Again, wildly successful.

I love the OT for what it is, but if the PT had been more Breaking Bad, for example, and less... Whatever it was (honestly, its tone, story, and script just left me intellectually and emotionally confused), I would have loved it. Because honestly, as a Star Wars fan since 1993, I was well aware that Anakin would fall and looked forward to the ride. I was left only confused.

 

That's something I'll never be able to fathom. I didn't expect anything similar to the OT except that Lucas' fingerprints as a filmmaker would be all over it, which they were. Clearly, the story would be the inverse of the OT. I can't for a moment see how one could even hope for anything different. Perhaps it's because the foreward to the Star Wars A New Hope novel set the tone of the PT, and focus on political corruption, so perfectly. Perhaps it's because I expected a Jar Jar type character after enjoying the Ewoks and all the little humor of the OT. Perhaps it's because the Special Editions lowered my expectations for photorealism in alien creatures. I was well prepared and in fact satisfied beyond expectations.

 

A lot of interesting responses on this thread topic. I'm more busy than usual, so I can't get back immediately, but I want to get back to this.

BTW, Cryogenic, a few weeks ago, I was re-watching the different PT trailers on youtube after the 2nd ST trailer came out. The responses on this particular PT thread were mostly positive, but there were a few critics, and one of the pro-PT-posters responded with something like this, "Oh, there's so much more to the PT than you originally realize. There's a guy name Cryogenic on the Jedi Council Forums who writes all about it. You should check his posts out. You'd learn a lot." I lost track of where that post was on youtube, but I thought you'd get a kick out of that. What you're doing is making a difference!

 

WOW!!!

That is so neat!

Not only are some people fighting the PT's corner on YouTube, but I'm getting a mention (and this place), as well?

What's next? We'll receive a reliable signal from an extra-terrestrial civilization tomorrow?

Too cool, too cool. Thanks for sharing that.

 

Speaking for myself. I spoke in generalizations. I thought it would be obvious I was.

I for one have gotten quite tired of having to preface anything I say by making sure I point out that I understand that when I speak in generalizations that there might be those out there that don't fit into that generalization. I have grown quite tired of making sure I have to be pc by prefacing my posts with a statement that says I am not trying to insult an individual or group of individuals by making a generalization or by making sure that I don't step on the toes of those that might be insecure and need acknowledgement at every turn.

I didn't say he did it because he planned on making them into prequels, I said he did it because it was the better part of the story. At some point in his writing process he realized the story was too big, and decided to back track and start focusing where he thought was the better part of the story (movie). Lucas wanted to make sure he made as successful a movie as he could, so he started with the part of the story that he knew would put more asses in the seats in the theaters, well, that would have the best chance anyway. He needed the money, and that need motivated him to write a more "hollywood type" movie. When Lucas is able to gain more freedom from that absolute need to make money just to put food on his table, we see a difference in Empire and Jedi.

However, it still isn't that traditional hollywood style ending. There is still a tragic and somber overtone there that isn't seen in ANH. Luke is in mourning as others celebrate, he has lost his Father... again. If the studios were still involved as deeply in Jedi as they were in ANH, or Lucas was in dire need of money, I don't think you see the same ending.

So when we get into the Prequels, Lucas is independently wealthy, free from the studios. He made the movies he wanted, not the movies the fandom wanted, or his friends wanted, or from what the people that worked for him wanted. Whereas when he made ANH, the fact that there were others in higher places than he was with expectations and also the fact that he needed money forced his hand a little and he made a more traditional styled story with the upbeat and overly happy ending.

He did make them very different, yes he had some side themes that were the same, but the story is still different. As I said he didn't use an OT filter when he made the PT. A filter changes everything according to the filter being applied. So again, he didn't make the PT's in an OT filter where everything we see in the PT, the story, the characters, the costumes, the aliens, the planets, the size, the scope etc etc etc are just a filtered reproduction of the OT.

I never said he didn't, i said he didn't use an OT filter, which I already have pointed out would mean everything in the PT was made to look like a copy of the OT in order to give that same ride and experience that so many were looking for. The PT was hugely different.

I refer you back to my first point at the beginning of this post...

 

I can honestly say I only had one expectation going into the Prequels, and that was at some point I was going to see Anakin get burned to a crisp. I didn't even expect to see the Vader suit, I wanted too, I wanted to see that moment of transformation, but, with not having any clue about how Lucas was going to approach the story, my expectations were extremely extremely subdued.

Same goes for the ST. My expectations are very very low. There was one expectation that I had that they already crushed, and that was that we wouldn't see the Empire. I thought ROTJ was quite clear in it's ending that the Empire crumbled. However, wouldn't ya know, the Empire is back. We get to see Stormies, and Tie Fighters, and Darth Vader (just a little melted) again. Will this stop me from going to the movie? No, I will still go, I will still give it as fair a chance as I can, but, it has ground to make up for sure. However, if I come out of that movie and hate it, what I won't do is what a lot of the PT haters like to do. Every time someone talks about the movie, I won't interrupt and make sure to point out why I don't like it. If someone's pointing out Luke Skywalkers grey hair, i won't barge in and make sure to tell them how I didn't like the movie because the Empire was back. There will be time enough to have those discussions about why we do or don't like the ST, but, I will do it in the appropriate places.

Which is the problem that the pt faces from the ot purists/pt haters. We could be talking about Anakin Skywalkers ingrown toe nail, and someone will barge in and make sure that they tell us how they thought the acting was bad, Jar Jar was bad, the CGI was bad, the dialogue was bad, the story was contrived Lucas sucks, etc etc. Cause you know, the PT's all of a sudden made millions upon millions of critics and experts that know everything there is to know about acting, writing, cgi, etc etc

 

I like the Original Trilogy very much. But one of the main reasons why I liked the Prequel Trilogy is that Lucas told a different and perhaps a slightly more complex story. This was a story that was bound to end unhappily, especially if it was to lead to the birth of the Empire and the downfall of the Jedi. And what I liked about this trilogy is that Lucas allowed the so-called "good guys" to be partially responsible for these disasters. That was very brave of him. Yes, Palpatine had a major hand in what happened to the Republic and the Jedi. But he had help by those who meant well, but made the wrong choices. I thought that was a very brave thing to do.

Besides, I didn't want Lucas to repeat himself with what he had done with the first trilogy. There is nothing wrong with the Original Trilogy. But I don't think I would have had much respect for Lucas if he had taken the easy road and tried to repeat himself.

 

I have only got a little time so just a few replies.

I don't think this is accurate, looking at the various drafts from the 73-75, they all have the same basic story. Outnumbered good guys fighting an evil Empire. The Jedi are very few and many have been hunted down. There is a big battle at the end against the enemy's big space station.
One of the first story synopsis from 1973 sounded like a SF remake of the Hidden Fortress.

The first full length draft, from 1974 has this as the opening crawl.

This draft has stuff in it that were removed and instead used in ESB( an asteroid chase) and RotJ (battle on a forest moon, aided by furry creatures.) A few elements were picked up by the PT.

I think that Lucas started with the basic story that became ANH, few good guys vs powerful bad guys. He wrote some backstory to explain the universe he had set up. But the first rough draft was too long, too unwieldy and had too many characters. So he then set about to trim it down and simplify it so that it could work as a film.

So he wrote the story that became ANH and parts of the OT. While doing that he made up some backstory for the characters and the galaxy. Only later did he get the idea to make that backstory into films. So I don't think that he "choose" to start with the OT/ANH as it was easier to make into film or anything like that. The story he wanted to make was ANH/OT and the rest was just backstory.

Lucas was at first interested in doing Flash Gordon but he couldn't get the rights so he wanted to make a film in that style. Serial type film.

The number of SW films was very much in flux, even after the success of the first one.
At first Lucas spoke of two films after ANH and maybe one prequel film, showing young Kenobi.
Then there were 12 films and ANH was ep VI, then there were the trilogy of trilogies.

How so? A father sacrificing his life for his son, that sounds right up "Hollywood's" alley to me. Take the film Armageddon where the father, Bruce Willis character, stays behind and blows up the asteroid to save Earth. Typical tearjerker thing in my book.

Also, Luke's father dies a good man after a years of evil and we see his ghost standing with Obi-Wan and Yoda and all of them are smiling. Very much a happy ending.
And how many of the heroes die in the film? Yoda dies but he is old and more of a mentor type character. And Vader turns good again and lays down his life for his son. Luke, Han, Leia, Lando etc, all of them are alive at the end.

Sorry, I don't think a studio would have too much to say about that ending. And I know some critics complained that the ending was a little too sugar sweet. And some also complained that Vader was forgiven a little too quickly. That one good deed was enough to atone for a decades of wickedness.
So a "studio" might not have done that. And it seems that the first rough draft of Jedi had it be a bit vague if Vader was totally redeemed or not.

Ex, that the first Terminator film from 1984. Did that have a happy ending? Not really, Sarah Connor is still alive and pregnant with her son. But she lost Kyle Reese and she knows that the future to come is very bleak.

Again the ending of all the various early drafts have a similar kind of ending, the empire looses and the good guys win and they celebrate.

The type of film that ANH is, was actually a bit unusual for the time. In the 70's you had lot of bleak films, with anti heroes, cynical characters and downer endings. SF films at the time were often set in various dystopia kinds of future. Planet of the Apes, Silent Running, Logan's Run.

ANH was a total change of pace, clear good guys vs bad guys, clear good vs evil and fun story filled with excitement. Even the soundtrack for ANH was somewhat against the norm, a classic soundtrack in the age of disco.
I think this was one reason why it resonated with so many people, the time they lived in was bleak and the films they saw were bleak and here comes this happy, fun filled film.

[/QUOTE]

I don't think they are as different as you think. The basic story in the OT is good guys (rebels) vs bad guys (Empire) The basic story in the PT is different in that the bad guys win and the plot is more complicated. Both set of film have very clear bad guys, Maul, the TF, the seps, Griev, all are as clear and simple bad guys as Tarkin, the Empire, Jabba in the OT.

Where there is a bigger difference is with the good guys, they are more grey, more flaws and what not. Unfortunately the effect that this had on me was that I didn't care much about the good guys. I didn't really root from them and when they lost and died, I was unmoved and basically shrugged my shoulders. This I doubt was intended by Lucas.

The PT not a copy of the OT to be sure but a lot of elements, characters, plot points, set pieces etc are reused from the OT. I think that some of those were used just to pull viewers in and play on nostalgia. Like Boba Fett, Chewie.

I also think the PT films contain a few "Hollywood" clichés as well.
In TPM you have the "wunder" kid that saves the day. Seen that in other films.
"Comical" and ineffective secondary villains, the TF/battle droids. Seen that in other films too.
Comic relief side kick. Seen that many times, ex Rob Schneiders character in Judge Dredd.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

Time to get in-depth about SW on May the 4th!

A few other things I've noted about the fandom hype experience after reading responses to AoU. I went onto the main Marvel forum to read fan reaction to AoU, and it seemed to me that a lot of posters were complaining that the new film lacked the feel good experience of the original. Most of them liked the film, though only a small fraction liked it more than its predecessor, and most liked it less. Some of them even said it was a better made film than the original, but it just wasn't as fun. I thought this was strange because the ending of AoU, while not as clear cut as the wholly happy ending of Avengers, still is far from dark. I won't give spoilers, but one Avengers is AWOL and another is a little unhappy with himself. AoU certainly still has the big triumph of the good guys at its end (I don't think this is much of a spoiler). In fact, the source of the biggest threat in AoU to the hero comes from a false spoiler that Whedon released and not from anything in the film itself.

I bring up AoU because I think The Avengers as well as Star Trek (2009) really fall into fandom hype experience I was talking about earlier. I think AoU provides a great example of how the strict formula for creating a film meant to fulfill the fandom hype experience makes re-creating that type of experience once again very difficult. If you attempt to recreate the big fangasm experience of the earlier film, then it's difficult to make your film feel original. On the Marvel boards, fans were complaining that AoU felt like it was trying to replicate the Battle of Manhattan experience, this time replacing Chitari with tons of robots. However, if you stray too far from the formula, then fans complain that they're not getting the same thrill and fun of the original. With the original Avengers film, I think AoU had to go in a new direction since the original so closely fit into hype fangasm formula; ANH, which is probably the simplest of the 6 Saga films is far more original -- twenty minutes of following droids bicker in the desert, an old spiritual teacher, Vader letting the Falcon escape on purpose, etc. Again, I'm not criticizing the original Avengers for being formulaic, though personally I generally prefer films to be more on the original side of things, but there are formulaic films that I do like. (My main criticism of the original is that it relied on earlier films for character development, the enemy was clearly outmatched, every fight between the heroes ended in a tie or was interrupted, and the final fight was boring b/c the bad guys were a wimpy generic hoard, b/c the heroes' lives weren't in jeopardy, and b/c the fight's resolution came right from TPM.) I think AoU couldn't recreate the feel of the original without feeling totally repetitive since the original's storyline was so simple, but it seems its small attempts to deepen the franchise and go in new directions didn't work well with big time fans either. I also don't think these are the only "problems" with AoU. (I'm not sure they're even problems at all with the film itself, but instead show the impossibility of meeting the narrow demands of fan expectations, especially those that come from the build-up of hype -- "We're trying our best to surpass the thrill of the original!" -- in other words, we're going to giving you an even bigger fangasm at the film's climax) It seems like fans of the original as well as general movie-goers have other complaints about the film, as negative reviews of it dominate IMDb's viewer reviews. However, I thought the reaction on the Marvel boards to AoU was interesting because they seemed to indicate AoU's difficulty in replicating the fangasm experience of the original but also the perils of straying too far from the blockbuster formula of the original.

The ending of TESB would clearly have been shot down by studios, especially back then when sequels had such a bad track record. I think studio heads would've been satisfied with the ending of ROTJ, but I don't think they ever would've come up with that ending themselves. I think studios just would've ended it with a fight where the good guy kills the bad guy as they always do. How ROTJ ended seems to me to be a totally original ending in the history of story-telling. In literature, I can think of sons being punished for their fathers' sins or sons making amends for their fathers' sins, but I can't think of another instance in literature/film where an evil father is redeemed by his son, especially in a scenario in which the father must choose between saving his son's life (who simply refuses to fight) and sacrificing his own life at the expense of his own "evil" ambitions, ultimately returning him to the good side. (If any of you guys can think of another work of literature that has this scenario that works out in this way, I'd be interested to hear it. I can't think of one).

With only the script to go by, I think many executives would've been wary of going against the typical good guy defeats bad ending. (These aren't guys who have great imaginations; they were arguing about whether Chewie should wear pants). Even Kasdan didn't totally get it. He wanted to make the unmasked Vader look much more menacing, and GL didn't like how gruesome Kershner made the back of Vader's head. I'm not sure they totally got what GL was going for -- Vader being a pathetic shell of a man hidden behind a fearsome mask; maybe part of that was because GL was never very good at explaining himself. I think if the studio execs gave Lucas the chance to film his ending, they would've found GL's ending satisfying, but before it made it to film, I question whether they would have had the imagination to see how it would play out, and they might have axed it for that reason.

In regards to the PT, I think studios would have become increasingly worried about the direction the PT was taking, especially ROTS. Really, what happens at the end of ROTS is on par with tragedies like Hamlet. Every good guy is dead or in exile by the end, and there's hardly a hint that things will be better any time soon. Even Fortinbras pops in at the end of Hamlet to give it a slightly more optimistic ending (or maybe Fortinbras is on his way). All we get in ROTS is 2 babies being hidden from an Empire that would want them murdered. I'm sure if Disney was in charge of ROTS, they'd have created a counter heroic storyline about the creation of the rebellion with some bang bang victories to offset all the terrible stuff. I'm glad GL dropped those "formation of the rebellion" scenes. They didn't work, and I think a counter storyline with an early Rebel victory (as studios would do it), would've made the ending feel blah -- neither uplifting or tragic. At least for me, ROTS's ending effectively evokes a tragic feel.

I also agree that many fans were expecting a dark ending to the PT, but I think what they were imagining was Vader slashing up Jedi for half the film. To me, that's not a film. That's a video game. I think if fans who expected that got what they wanted, they would've been quite dissatisfied. Also, I bet a studio would feel obligated to give fans what they wanted, and we'd get a weird action movie where the evil guy keeps winning or something like that. I don't think many fans were expecting a true tragedy of the likes of a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy.

Yes, also, unlike Vietnam, our culture has never really tried to come to terms with what happened during the bogus impeachment of Clinton, the Bush administration's unconstitutional acts, and the disastrous consequences of the preemptive Iraq War. Most consider the war a mistake now, but mostly we want to sweep that history under the rug. Our society has never wanted to confront our era's mistakes the way the US confronted the mistakes of Vietnam and Watergate. Consequently, the PT might have feel of airing dirty linen.

When looking at the OT in its cultural context, I can't help but see some similarities in the spirit on those films and the spirit Reagan was trying to evoke in his 1980's campaign, even though a deeper analysis of the films, especially the PT, put them mostly at odds with Reagan's demagoguery and his policies (though certainly not as much as those of Nixon or W).

As Samuel Vimes also pointed out, films meant for popular audiences before ANH often did have a more pessimistic tone -- Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Capricorn One, etc. ANH seems to have flipped that formula, and for the most part, Hollywood has never returned to the film expectations of the 70's. A few Nolan films break from the simple heroic triumphant ending, the 3rd Matrix did something original, but the vast majority of films -- especially today's comic book films which are probably most akin to the peers of the Saga -- end with that same generic good guy killing the bad guy scenario. (Heck, even the comic books on which these films are based take more chances.)

This is a great point, especially in the context of the thread. When it comes to film expectations, I doubt many fans expected the trilogy that followed the OT (in terms of release dates) to complicate and at times even deconstruct the original trilogy. To some, this approach might even seem like an attack on the OT, though I thought it was very fitting approach for a Republic that was in part destroying itself from the inside out. Maybe pairing these complicating/de-constructing elements with elements more reminiscent of the PT made some in its audience uneasy. (Of course, the PT had to be reminiscent of the OT in many ways; it's part of the same film universe and it maintained much of the OT's film aesthetic for the sake of continuity.)

I know there are some people who divide films into fun escapism and serious art, as if the two can't commingle. At times, for me, the PT has trouble with this balance/mixing, but at other times, when it achieves this balance, it's at its most effective. I think this is where ATOC somewhat falls short. People complained that TPM was too slow and talky, as if ANH wasn't. Personally, I liked both films' scenes on Tatooine and the sense of regular life we got there. Before the release of ATOC, Lucas, in response to those criticisms, boasted how ATOC would be full of action and fans would eat it up. I think people liked that aspect of ATOC the first time through, but the film now feels too action-heavy, with audiences becoming bored with the hour-long action sequence that ends the film. Of course, there are other complaints people make about the film as well.

I think this entire analysis of the Falcon's role in the OT is magnificent. What I find ironic is how Disney is using the Falcon in its advertising. The Falcon -- an emblem of individualism, freedom, the counter-culture -- has now been re-purposed as symbol of nostalgia and conformity. It reminds me of those car commercials set to a 70's song like "Born To Be Wild" that emphasize "be an individual" when really they're pushing people to conform and do something particularly boring -- buy a new sedan -- the exact opposite of any counter-culture idea of what being wild really means.

I also think it's interesting how the Falcon has grown to become one the best symbols of the franchise and how some its significance probably came about through happenstance and gut instinct. After ANH, I think many would put Luke's X-wing on par with the Falcon, a few even above it. However, there was nothing to mark Luke's X-wing with any individuality. In fact, we have no idea whether the X-wing he flies in TESB is the same one he flew in ANH. If that connection had been made, then the pivotal role that that one X-wing served in the Death Star's destruction and in Yoda's spiritual instruction would've made that X-wing much more iconic, so much so that people probably would've been asking--"Who's flying Luke's X-wing in ROTJ?"--or we'd be given a scene where Han and Luke together hand off the keys to their respective vehicles to Lando and Wedge (perhaps). Since the individuality of Luke's X-wing was never established, we don't care what ends up happening to it.

Again, some great points.

Yes, this is exceedingly annoying! Then it's even more annoying when posters criticize the hater for interrupting the thread, then the hater starts an argument, then the mods lock the thread!

 

I only have time for a quick post but I think there might be more films than you think.

Ex the first Terminator, happy ending? The hero survives but the future is anything but sunny.
Or take Terminator 3, Rise of the machines. Here Judgement day happens and most of humanity is wiped out. The heroes survive but fail to stop the rise of SkyNet.

Alien 3, happy ending? The Thing? The heroes are pretty much doomed.They Live? The heroes die but manage to reveal the aliens.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? One of the main heroes die stopping the villain. Not a terribly happy ending.

The last two Apes films have not really had very "happy" endings. The first ends with a plague spreading, which will wipe out most of humanity.

And other Fincher films like Se7en and Fight Club, very bleak films.

As for comic book films, the Watchmen film is not exacly a "happy" film. Man of Steel isn't all fun and games. The follow up Batman v Superman doesn't look very sunny either. And I know that a number of people complained about Man of Steel, that it was too dark, too grim etc.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Yeah, I think you're right. I think maybe I was talking about the PT too simplistically as a whole. I'd say that ROTS is different than those films you mention. It is a modern Shakespearean tragedy -- one still meant to appeal to teenagers as much as adults, and popular audiences in general, which is why GL was most concerned with how audiences would respond to it, as that's a pretty weird demographic for a tragedy. I don't think any of the films you mentioned would qualify as true tragedies.

The mixed feeling at the end of TPM (protagonist's death, Sith's return, pan to Palpatine, inverted Emperor's theme as the happy music at its end, etc.) and the foreboding sense at the end of ATOC (clone wars begun, mystery bad guy, Palpatine gained power over the military, etc.) both seem more in line with what you're talking about. Many of the films you list end with a heroic victory, but a threat looming on the horizon -- Terminator films, the new Apes franchise (haven't seen 2nd), Matrix. The threat allows for sequels, and I think as the years have passed, studios have shied away from showing the darkness of the endings. For instance, the nukes fly off in T3, then we see a couple of explosions at a distance, then a shot of the earth from outer space. We don't see anyone incinerated or people suffering in the aftermath. The bad stuff upcoming at the end of Rise of the POTAs is also soft-sold. I think it's told to us by news reports. What we see on screen with the main characters is actually pretty upbeat. It has Franco's character looking at Caesar presumably hoping that he'll create a new society for himself with his ape buddies. I'd say the ending of ATOC is still more downbeat than either of these films because it emphasizes that bad things are in store.

Some of the other films that you mentioned, in my view, aren't really in the same category as Star Wars. Se7en is a horror film, Fight Club is meant to be a "serious" film commenting on our society, and Watchmen is a very faithful adaption of a nihilistic comic book. Without the popularity of the comic, it would've never been made. Carpenter's "The Thing" is much more of a downer/self-sacrifice ending, but that came out 33 years ago. Mad Max is another one, but that also came out a long time ago.

I'm not trying to say that no dark films or films with dark endings are being made now. All 3 DK films were dark, though you kind of expect that with Batman to some degree, and the best of them, TDK has a mixed ending somewhat open to interpretation about who has really won. Alien 3 is a good example of a film with a serious ending, and I thought it was pretty good, but critics and audiences seemed put off by it (Ripley/Alien hybrid was dumb-looking IMO, though); Matrix 3's ending had a similar feel but was more complex; it was one of the few aspects I liked about that film. Perhaps complaints about MoS's dark tone helped me enjoy it more. I was expecting something as dark as the Nolan films (which sounded weird to me) and I was surprised that, though serious, MoS wasn't really all that somber and that the ending, while not artfully done, wasn't very extreme for me. Among critics, MoS actually had very strong defenders as well as strong detractors. It was pretty polarizing, but now it seems stuck in the "It sucks" camp. (It seems that a lot of people don't understand that Honest Trailers is meant to be satire.) It seems that Snyder is trying to be ambitious with BvS, but I'm afraid he's not up to the challenge.

I also think that with a lot of these films audiences knew beforehand to expect a dark tone or dark ending. With Batman or a film like the Terminator or Alien 3, which is an extension of a horror franchise, the audience has a built in expectation that the film will be dark. I think a lot of people went into the PT expecting the same feel good experience that they got from the OT, at least with the 1st 2 PT films, and especially with casual audiences. With TPM, I think the film even gives the feel that it's building toward that big victory ending, but in the end, the most dramatic moment of the ending wasn't the victory but Qui-Gon's death. Someone above in this thread said the PT left him feeling "confused," and I can certainly see where he's coming from. There's a great military victory led by a young hero, but that's offset by the death of the film's protagonist, and his death is right at the end, not like Obi-Wan's in ANH, who also had far less screen time than Qui-Gon. With TPM, that mixture of victory, loss, and foreboding makes it hard for the audience to feel any one predominant emotion. I really don't know if a film is a failure for trying to elicit multiple competing emotions. In fact, TPM actually seems like it's trying to elicit a feeling of mixed emotion, which kind of is a feeling of confusion. An ending like that would certainly diminish any big fangasm at the film's climax. Personally, I don't think a film fails because it doesn't attempt to elicit one unified emotion. I think it's just a different type of experience and one that is less satisfying to mass audiences. Again, I'm not trying to reduce criticism of TPM to the reaction to its ending and tone. Certainly, there are things like Jar Jar who works for most little kids but not for most adults, and other aspects, that one might find fault with.

With ATOC, I think the film's ending is more unified -- a victory with an ominous future impending. I think ATOC is closest to the film's you mentioned above. My personal recollection was that most people liked ATOC the first time through, and that opinion of it soured with multiple viewings. The big complaint was the romance, which I think was completely fair. Even without the dialogue problems, that romance scenario didn't work well. Watching people fall in love is not a romance. Virtually every genre romance has a huge obstacle that prevents the 2 lovers from being together -- other competing lovers who are jerks, rival families, huge gaps in social status, etc. ATOC almost completely fails in this respect. I think Obi-Wan's storyline worked one time through -- partially because mysteries keep pushing the story forward. However, mysteries also don't hold up well during multiple viewings since you already know the answer to what the character is looking for. If the mystery had forced Obi-Wan to encounter some shady underworld characters that were some threat, then that part might have held up better, but that mystery was inevitably going to seem less interesting with multiple viewings no matter how it was done.

In regards to the mystery story, there's one point I agree with you on, and one where I disagree. I don't think that one could deduce beforehand that Palpatine was in league with Dooku from the events earlier in the film. You may have come to that conclusion, because that was one possibility. However, I think there were other viable possibilities too. (Actually, didn't that hand-drawn cartoon give away that Dooku and Palpatine were in league? I didn't see it before ATOC.) Among these other possibilities, Dooku could've been a rival dark-sider who wanted power on his own. Dooku could've been a good guy who had a legit grievance against Palpatine -- Palpatine may have been behind a terrorist attack on Dooku's planet, Dooku may have known that Palpatine was evil and wanted to overthrow an upcoming tyrannical government, etc. While watching the film, it popped into my mind that Palpatine was controlling both sides of the conflict, but I considered other options too. Until that last scene, I don't think there's anything in the film that makes it obvious that Palpatine is behind it all. There's indication that Dooku and Jango are in league together, though it might be that Jango's just so awesome that the clone army's creator (another guy in this scenario) wanted his DNA and Dooku also wanted his services for the same reason -- Jango being so awesome. There's also the question whether Sifo-Dyas was behind the creation of the clone army, which would trace its creation back to the Jedi, or a fallen Jedi, or Dooku. However, I don't there's anything that links it back to Palpatine until we see that last scene. Again, you may have been clever enough to think of that possibility, but that's simply a credit to you, not a failure of the plot. The idea that the evil mastermind is controlling both sides of a war is pretty original, but totally in keeping with how Palpatine manipulates things, so I think that was a pretty good twist, one that I had also considered as a possibility, but appreciated nonetheless.

Where I think Lucas failed was the order in which he revealed the mystery. Mysteries are like peeling off layers off an onion. Showing Dooku and Sidious together is the very center of the onion. If ATOC followed traditional mystery plotting, then figuring out what happened with Sifo-Dyas, Dooku, and Palpatine 10 years ago are layers of the onion that needed to be discovered before the big reveal of Dooku and Sidious working together. Since GL revealed the center of the onion previous to revealing the outer layers that surrounded it, GL later realized when writing ROTS that many people would not be interested in learning about the details of those outer layers because we already had discovered what was at the heart of the mystery. That left fans who wanted those details explained unhappy, but GL had put himself between a rock and a hard place because he had not handled the unraveling of the mystery correctly, or at least in the traditional manner. Consequently, the audience was divided into two camps -- one that wanted the details explained, and another that didn't care about the smaller details because GL had already given us the big final reveal of the mystery.

 

Here is the thing and this applies to what you wrote about what people were expecting.
The OT already existed when the PT was made and I would say that a large majority of the audience had already seen the OT when they saw the PT. And I think the PT was made knowing this.
This is why, I think, why some things were not as well hidden as they could be. Ex. Palpatine being Sidious. Yes you could miss it but it wasn't hard to spot. Anakin's dark urges were shown quite a lot.
That the clone army was shady etc. There are also a number of winks and nods in the PT to those that know the OT "Why do I get the feeling you'll be the death of me."

Even a casual movie-goer that have seen the OT would know enough to figure out the basic gist of the PT. The Empire will rise, the Jedi will get hunted down, Anakin will turn and Luke and Leia will be born.
So if you were familiar with the OT, the basic story of the PT would be known.

How many that saw RotS were really surprised that Anakin turned and got put in the suit?
I would say a large part of the audience was instead looking forward to that happening.

So the PT was made to be the story showing how a good man falls. Not the surprising story of a good man turning evil.

I think that the PT could get away with having such a downer ending in RotS because the OT existed. Most knew this wasn't the end, they knew that Anakin will turn back, the Empire will fall, Luke and Leia will turn out fine.

I think and this is just my opinion, HAD Lucas made the PT first. Not only would the PT overall be somewhat different, I also think RotS would not have had such a downer ending.
Without the OT to soften the blow, I think it would have been a bit different.

Lastly, about expectations, ESB defied expectations quite a bit in 1980.
Tonally it was quite a bit darker and more serious than the first film. It had the big action climax in the first part of the film and not the end. The heroes are shown loosing a lot and only barely get away.
They survive but don't win.
In the end, one hero is gone, taken captive, another looses his hand and learns something that shakes his world. At the time, no one knew what would happen next, did Vader tell truth? If so, why did Obi-Wan lie? How will Luke deal with this? Etc.

With the PT, either you have seen the OT and can figure something out or at least you know it will turn out fine in the end. And if you haven't, then you can get easily see the OT and find out.

Well as I said, prior to ANH, a number of films had fairly bleak and downer endings. They had cynical characters, anti-heroes and the like. That didn't stop after ANH, a number of films after that were made in that mold. You said " ANH seems to have flipped that formula, and for the most part, Hollywood has never returned to the film expectations of the 70's."
I gave examples of films made after ANH that still had that vibe.

The Ripley/Alien hybrid was in Alien Resurrection, not Alien 3.
And personally, I found Alien 3 too bleak, it was a pretty good movie, just not to my taste.
Alien Resurrection was pretty good until the newborn poped up then it turned awful

I agree with most of this. The romance did not work at all for me. I never bought it, what they said sounded so fake and forced and thus I didn't see two people in love, I saw two actors reciting lines.
As such, every time the film cut over the Anakin/Padme thing, the film just ground to a halt.
I did enjoy the Obi-Wan plot, though it needed a bit of work, but it was fun and engaging.
But then, cut over to Anakin/Padme's forced romance and the film lost me. Then back to Obi-Wan and things get interesting again and then more forced romance and the film stops yet again.

About this, I think an attempt was made to blur the lines with Dooku and try and make him a bit ambiguous. But I don't think it worked.
In TPM we learned that there are always two sith, no more, no less. We know about Maul and Sidious and that Sidious is actually Palpatine isn't very hard to figure out.
So with Maul dead, Sidious would be in need of a new apprentice. So a new Sith is expected.
And since nothing showed Maul being anything other than an obedient apprentice, there was nothing that suggested the new apprentice would be any less obedient.

With AotC we hear about Christopher Lee playing Count Dooku. You didn't need to read spoilers to hear about that. So an actor very well known for playing bad guys playing a character that sounds not unlike Count Dracula. Gee, could he be a bad guy?
Plus if you had seen some of the trailers you would see Sir Lee with a Red ligthsabre, a Sith weapon.
Making it even more obvious that he is a bad guy.

The opening crawl then makes Dooku sound like he is up to no good, then Padme accuses him of trying to murder her. While making little logical sense, her accusation makes him seem even more shady. And when we finally see him we find out, no surprise, he was behind the attempts on her life.
Had Dooku been in TPM and shown to be good person and a friend to Qui-Gon then he might have worked much better.

In fact what I think could have been brilliant is if Dooku WASN'T a Sith. That he really was a renegade Jedi that had a genuine belief about the corrupt Republic and was trying to make something better but Palpatine was able to manipulate him or had agents with Dooku's people.
That would have been a great reversal, everyone would have expected Dooku to be the bad guy but he really wasn't.

As for the Sifo-Dyas plot. Sifo-Dyas is a Jedi we have never seen before and then we are told he apparently ordered a clone army ten years ago. But soon thereafter Obi-Wan says that as far he knows, Sifo-Dyas was already dead when he supposedly ordered the army. Meaning that he couldn't have done it and instead someone else was involved. Plus we had already been told about the tampering of the Jedi files and that only a Jedi could have done this.
Since the two events are obviously connected then a Jedi must be involved in the clone army order, just not Sifo-Dyas as he was dead. Dooku is the only logical suspect here, we know he used to be a Jedi so he could have deleted the file and posed as Sifo-Dyas. We see that Jango flees to him, making his involvement even more a sure thing. So the scene at the end told me nothing new.

If the film wanted the audience to at least consider that Sifo-Dyas did this then a) don't have Obi-Wan say he was killed before the order was placed. Instead have him die some time after the order. And b) have Mace and Yoda speculate if he could have done this and they say "It is possible, he was often at odds with the council and he had warned us that the Republic needed an army."

[/QUOTE]

I think the clone army mystery has more failings that this.
I think it suffers from not being well thought out and being changed at the last minute.
A complex plot takes care and attention to detail to write well. I think Lucas rushed this plot point.
In the shooting script, we had a fake Jedi, Sido-Dyas and the Jedi were aware that he was a fake.
They suspected someone in the senate, a war monger perhaps. Had this been kept along with Padme accusing the someone in the senate for being behind the attempt on her life as a way to pass the army bill. Then all leads point to the senate and not Dooku.

Lucas changed it in pick ups and now we had a real but dead Jedi but Lucas also had Obi-Wan say "I was under the impression he was dead before that." making it sound like Sifo-Dyas was just a name that someone had used. The Jedi suspecting someone in the senate was removed and Padme accused Dooku of murder. So the evidence instead pointed to Dooku and so when we see him with Sidious, it is no surprise.

I think Lucas tried to make this plot point clear to the audience but this made the Jedi look clueless.
They knew everything the audience knew except that Dooku was working with Palpatine and he was this Tyrannus. And the second part they knew enough to at least suspect. And in the third film the clone army turn on the Jedi and they never see it coming. This greatly reduced the tragedy of their deaths to me. Watching a bunch of clueless dolts get blown to bits because of their own idiocy isn't very dramatic.

You are right in that people can make the deduction that Sifo-Dyas had nothing to do with the clone army and so saying that in the third film could be redundant. But since the Jedi also seemed to be aware of this then why they are so careless with the clone army makes them seem dumb.
The mystery left unanswered is who do the Jedi think ordered the army since they seem to be aware that Sifo-Dyas didn't
I know some EU tried to blur the lines by making it seem that Sifo-Dyas was actually involved but more recent EU have made even more clear that he wasn't and his death is moved to Valorums time, so ten or more years ago. And the Jedi are apparently aware that Dooku is this Tyrannus and yet they still don't worry about the clones.

And this plot point has other problems too. The Republic apparently has not got any soldiers except for the Jedi. How can this work in a galaxy where you also have a number of private armies?
What stopped the TF from attacking Coruscant in TPM? The republic had no defenses other than the Jedi.
And the number of clones is totally inadequate for a galactic war. 1,2 million soldiers. Even on Earth we have armies bigger than that.

What might have worked is that the seps were not the greedy corporations like the TF. Instead they were smaller worlds like Naboo that had gotten fed up with the corrupt senate that were in the pockets of the TF. They had acquired a clone army and the republic did have an army but it was small and a bit out of date. So at first the seps have great success with their clones and so the republic is forced to get clones of their own. Despite this being a slave army and this issue could actually be discussed but winning the war took precedent over moral obligations.
You don't even need order 66. Just have Palpatine issue an order for the arrest of all Jedi for being involved in a coup. He could say that those that submit will be given a fair trial. So some Jedi are shot as they resist but other allow themselves to be arrested. But they don't get a trial, they are simply killed.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Captivating!
I also can't help but see an auspicious significance in the Falcon appearing in Ep III moments before Padme tells Anakin she's pregnant.
- with the crowned and conquering children.

 

"Nothing happens by accident"
-- Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn

 

Most audiences are still "expecting" the PT to be something that, with adequate foresight and hindsight, should have been understood by now. The movies they "wanted" are the movies as presented in retro order: III, II, I.