PT Interesting: The PT was rendered thematically darker than necessary

Inordinate attention is drawn to the more juvenile and whimsical flourishes to the Prequels, which often leads to disparaging Lucas as a sellout, who sacrificed his artistic vision at the altar of mass appeal. And yet, when taking even a cursory look at the underpinnings to the PT?-and even the critiques of such?-one can't help but marvel at just how dark this story is.

Think for a moment what was required of the PT: the ascendancy of Palpatine and the downfall of Anakin. Grim subject matter, to be sure, but in what manner did Lucas opt to fill in the blanks?

Did we see much of the sacrosanct Republic? No. The corruption was already deep-rooted at first exposure.

Did we see the hallowed exploits of the Jedi Knights? Hardly. The principal hero of TPM was revealed to be a maverick, set aside from a cadre of obtuse monks in an ivory tower, who would sell their souls to be Palpatine's ?useful idiots? and consequently pay the price for their lack of vision.

Did we see heroism? Not really. Each and every protagonist possessed a fundamental character flaw that enabled Palpatine and helped destroy Anakin.

Did we see a romanticized Clone War? Not in any sense. From its very inception, the conflict was presented as a mordant joke. Engineered by a villain playing both sides.


A crumbling government. A spiritually bankrupt religious order. Lovers harboring murderous secrets. A false flag operation. Toy soldiers. Lucas didn't have to go this far-?not for something like Star Wars. And yet he did. Look beyond the Gungan antics and CGI gloss, and you're left with a decidedly darker fantasy than anything offered up by the competing franchises. (Harry Potter? Lord of the Rings? Heck, most of those characters have their acts together, save for a little moping.)

How did you respond to this vision? Was this the right sensibility for the series? What might the PT tell us about Lucas as an artist, philosopher, and citizen?

 

Dark isn't automatically better. The tone of the story should fit the content. It does in the PT so I'm happy with the amount of darkness in it.

 

I heartily agree with this assessment. I don't believe that all stories should end or even proceed with a certain tone. I believe it depends upon the story. And the dark tone of the PT story seemed perfectly fine to me, just as the lighter tone of the OT fit that particular story.

 

Of course it's darker than OT and other franchises. The bad guys win after all. It also deals with more darker and even disturbing themes than OT ever had.

Speaking of LOTR, the books are far from light-hearted flight too (and the Silmarillion is downright dark and tragic). Unfortunately, PJ was incapable of conveying most of the LOTR themes on screen, he seemed more interested in tentacles and shield-surfing.

 

The lava duel was the moment fans were waiting to see for decades. Young, agile, vader and middle aged yet agile, obi wan fight on an epic, symbolic, hellish, otherworldy, lava land and vader losing his handsome features falling into the lava and turning to the cyborg samurai with the deep JES voice and robot breathing we all know and love. And then, they fight each other 20 years later on a space station, in a more weaker, less theatric duel, as old man and cyborg.

I enjoy the Vader obi wan duel in a new hope far more because of the prequels, more specifically, the Mustafar duel in Revenge of the Sith! They should add flashbacks in a new star wars edition, with scenes from the prequels of them fighting in the past! They have a video of that on youtube, with, as the 2 fight on the death star, there is a flashback of their younger versions climbing that tower on mustafar, dueling each other, with epic music, and a totally different style!

 

"Dark", as in physically dark, or emotionally dark, or both?

 

I like star wars way better than either harry potter or LOTR. I like both HP and LOTR, they have cool stories and characters, but compared to Star wars, I just like it a lot more for some reason.