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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

PT Is Revenge of the Sith the greatest work of art in the past 30 years?

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by SW Saga Fan, Jun 11, 2015.

  1. Dandelo

    Dandelo SW and Film Music Interview Host star 10 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Aug 25, 2014
    It is true that it is the best of the Star Wars prequels.
    --------

    that isn't truth, that's an opinion.
     
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  2. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    This is the greatest work of art in the last thirty years:

    (A beautifully young Whitney Houston)

     
  3. Zer0

    Zer0 Jedi Master star 3

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    Sep 3, 2012
    No, but it's a fantastic film, nonetheless.
     
  4. KING_KENOBI

    KING_KENOBI Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Oct 19, 2004
    I really like this movie for what it is,but proclaiming it the best work of art in the last 30 years might be stretching it just a tiny bit..just saying
     
  5. Ewan

    Ewan Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    May 4, 1999
    I don't think it's stretching it if you include the entire 2nd half of Revenge of the Sith. From the point where Anakin tells Palpatine "There are things about The Force they're not telling me..."
     
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  6. MarcJordan

    MarcJordan Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2014
    I think AOTC is taking the edge over ROTS for yours truly. If someone thinks ROTS is Tops I have no problem with it. As long as GL gets some awesome recognition, Im all for it!
     
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  7. ObiAlKenobi

    ObiAlKenobi Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 10, 2012
    Certainly one of the more entertaining threads in a long time :)
     
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  8. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    Alright, my moderately more serious response:

    (But I was still being quite serious about the gorgeousness of Whitney in the video and the amazing zest of that song -- the synergy of the two carry me places)

    This, in my opinion, is a commendable break-down. Camille Paglia obviously finds the bold synthesis of so many disparate strands enthralling. That's what I also love about the climax of ROTS, the prequel trilogy, and the Star Wars saga generally.

    She also seems slightly amazed -- if you've read her original piece on George Lucas -- at Lucas' timorous personality, contrasted against the vast ambition, passion, and achievement of the Star Wars enterprise. Her final sentence from that piece:

    He is a man of machines yet a lover of nature, his wily persona of genial blandness masking one of the most powerful and tenacious minds in contemporary culture.

    All of the saga may be essential, and all of it may be needed for its cumulative, synergistic, "total artwork" effect, but there is salience in picking out the final part of ROTS, the final part of Lucas' grand opera.

    The climax of ROTS is obviously where everything comes to completion (well, from a certain point-of-view), where the combined force (pun intended) of six episodes of epic artistic experimentation, and classic literary themes, from murder and betrayal, to the dysfunctionality of peer bonds and environmental devastation, is extruded on the screen with fantastic co-ordination and verve. The series is like a huge cake and this is that cake deliberately exploding: the huge, wrenching, apocalyptic climax that has been teased from inception.

    How could that not be a little exciting, a little bit worthy of notice and acclaim? It's putting it very strongly and clearly, and in a very attention-grabbing way, to deem the climax of ROTS the "greatest work of art in the past thirty years", but the sheer operatic intensity of it urges me to agree. I am not sure it is entirely appropriate, however, to deem one thing the best thing ever (more or less), but there is a complexity to the way the climax of ROTS was fashioned, and it's immeasurably satisfying (each and every time) to see it played out, in my view; so I certainly don't see Paglia's choice as absurd or anything like that.

    I love how unequivocal she is. This confidence -- a positive confidence -- is something the Star Wars prequel trilogy fan-base is sometimes found wanting for. Finally, here is someone saying (I know this goes back to 2012, already) that there is a brilliance to the PT, a brilliance to Star Wars, a brilliance to Lucas, that more people should take note of, or go away and think about. That art is broad, art is fluid, and one particular genre or realm doesn't have a monopoly on audacity or quality of expression. And that having a dissenting opinion is completely fine, even cool. It is, in fact, the life-blood of a healthy democratic society, and something we need more of.
     
  9. L110

    L110 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 26, 2014
    The greatest work of art in past 30 years?
    No.

    One of great works of art in past 30 years?
    Yes.
     
  10. SW Saga Fan

    SW Saga Fan Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Apr 19, 2015
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  11. Pyrogenic

    Pyrogenic Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Nov 17, 2006
    The boldness of ROTS compared to every other cinematic artwork I have experienced...what even comes close?!
     
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  12. Darth Sequel Trilogy

    Darth Sequel Trilogy Jedi Padawan star 1

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    Jul 13, 2015
    It's not even the best Prequel movie, so I can't say its the greatest work of art in the past 30 years. TPM & AOTC are better movies.
     
  13. Qui-Riv-Brid

    Qui-Riv-Brid Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 18, 2013
    I am reminded about how many films that at the time of release were not near as well received critically as ROTS was (which basically in Star Wars terms is TESB, ROTJ, TPM and AOTC)

    Other great artistic films that weren't when they first started are Vertigo and The Searchers:


    http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_dilettante/2006/07/the_worst_best_movie.html

    pop critics like Pauline Kael, who found much in the film "awkward," "static," and "corny," and Roger Ebert, who finds the movie flawed and "nervous," have been the most vocal dissenters in the cult of The Searchers. Its reputation lies elsewhere, with two influential and mutually reinforcing constituencies: critics whose careers emerged out of the rise of "film studies" as a discrete and self-respecting academic discipline, and the first generation of filmmakers—Scorsese and Schrader, but also Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius, and George Lucas—whose careers began in film school. The hosanna chorus for The Searchers is impossible to imagine, in other words, without the formalized presence of film in the university curriculum. The question, then, is: Why did the curriculum attach so intensely to so obviously flawed a movie?
     
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  14. SW Saga Fan

    SW Saga Fan Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Apr 19, 2015

    The same critics were published about the original Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope):

    And it is written on the T-Shirt that George Lucas wore when filming The Phantom Menace:

    [​IMG]
     
  15. ewoksimon

    ewoksimon Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 26, 2009
    I mean, its up there in terms of sheer mythic and operatic storytelling. Sure, I guess.
     
  16. Qui-Riv-Brid

    Qui-Riv-Brid Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 18, 2013
    Exactly right.

    Here is a fascinating story of Vertigo connected to it's flashback reveal being in, out then in again and how that played to critics and the audience.

    http://somethingelsereviews.com/2015/05/04/alfred-hitchcock-vertigo-flashback-dan-auiler/

    In addition the point of argument is made that is very salient to Star Wars in 1977:

    Wood is one of many who had made the case of how the film gains even more in depth with multiple viewings. This may be a key reason why the film wasn’t as heralded in 1958. At that time the movie-going experience was altogether different than in later decades. With rare exceptions (e.g., event films, like The Ten Commandments) films usually lasted only a week as part of a double feature then vanished entirely. Repertory theaters didn’t exist at this time, and videotapes were still a couple of decades away. People rarely went to a theater to see the same movie twice during that short viewing window. After it was gone, it wasn’t within reach to revisit. While it’s conceivable there were those who returned to the theater to see Vertigo again, they were in the minority. It was also a time when people tended to walk into the movie after it started, and stay for the next showing to see the beginning. In that sense, it was a bit of a dry run for Psycho, which was the first film that required theater staff to not let anyone in after it had begun.
     
  17. elfdart

    elfdart Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Apr 1, 2001
    At first I thought Paglia was talking nonsense, but then I started thinking about works of art from the last 30 years that were more impressive than ROTS and I had nothing. She may be right.
     
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  18. RC-2473

    RC-2473 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 14, 2015
    great thread title!!!


    Yeezus is way better let's be real.

    not even joking either.

    ROTS is good but it's nowhere near greatest work of art in the past thirty years. also that duel is boring after the first few minutes and they keep interrupting it with that dumb yoda vs. sidious fight lol honestly not even the best part of the film.
     
  19. SW Saga Fan

    SW Saga Fan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 19, 2015
    I've found the duels in the OT to be poorly choreographed, slow and sometimes boring. It's like if the actors were always afraid to break their stick when manipulating their lightsaber. :p
     
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  20. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2001
    Movies are a form of art. Is RotS the best movie in the past 30 years? Hell no. So how could it possibly be the greatest work of art in that time? Makes no sense.
     
  21. SW Saga Fan

    SW Saga Fan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 19, 2015

    You should listen to what Camille Paglia said and read the article that Cryogenic posted above before saying that it makes no sense. But you can disagree with here.
     
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  22. Luukeskywalker

    Luukeskywalker Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 23, 1999
    Art is subjective if you knew anything about it. Therefore it IS possible for someone to regard it as the greatest work of art in the last 30 years.

    Also, if you look at a movie like a painting, you could easily regard it more highly as a piece of art than you would from a technical movie making perspective. Lots of ways to come at it, that is what makes art so great.

    Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk
     
  23. SW Saga Fan

    SW Saga Fan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 19, 2015
    Couldn't agree more. There's plenty of fan-art of that duel on Mustafar. If you look at those scenes in the movie and pause, it certainly evokes a lot of things, like those pictures for example:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
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  24. The_Phantom_Calamari

    The_Phantom_Calamari Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 10, 2011

    Hell, the actual screencap from the movie looks like a painting already:

    [​IMG]

    Lucas really wasn't messing around when he compared himself to a painter.
     
  25. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2001
    Except we don't look at movies like a painting. We look at movies like movies & paintings like paintings. If you want to take a still from a movie & assess it that's fine. Then you're not talking about motion pictures, you're talking about movie stills. Different topic.

    Also there's nothing "technical" about the quality of the acting or the writing. They're crucial elements in the art of film making.

    I listened. What I'd say is this thread has been completely mis-titled. She doesn't say RotS is the "greatest work of art". She says:
    "nothing in the last 30 years in any of the arts has been produced as emotionally compelling & significant as the finale of RotS"

    She again repeats her point in the interview & says she's specifically only referring to the finale & that she thinks it's the most emotional & significant work of art. That's completely different to what this thread claims her to have said. All she's saying is that in her personal experience she hasn't found anything as emotionally affecting to her. Who knows what movies, songs, operas or paintings she hasn't seen over the past 3 decades, all of which have been excluded from her comparison with RotS.

    She also expresses her opinion poorly. She should know better than to make absolute blanket statements about art. It's probably the most subjective topic there is. She should express her view as "the most emotionally significant work of art to me personally". After all, the concept of "emotionally significant" implies an affect on the observer. If she's with 5 other people watching RotS & they don't find it emotionally affecting will she tell them that despite their feelings RotS is in fact the most emotional & significant work of art in 30 years? What does that make those people, emotional retards? She should be more humble about her personal opinion & not try & pass it off as fact.

    So, there's really nothing to see here. It's just one persons opinion among billions of opinions out there. She personally was emotionally touched by the last part of RotS. Cool, I'm happy for her. I was too. This is no groundbreaking headline though. Due to the misleading thread title most of the debate here about the entirety of RotS being the "greatest work of art" is a bit silly & off the point of what this person has said.
     
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