Log in or Sign up

main

side

curve

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

PT Making My Day! - Pro-Prequel Articles

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by Jarren_Lee-Saber, Dec 10, 2014.

Page 12 of 68

SW Saga Fan Jedi Grand Master

Registered:

Apr 19, 2015

mes520 said: ↑

JoshieHewls said: ↑

I disagree with his assessment that he's in the minority, but it's always nice to see or hear about someone giving the films another chance with an open mind and enjoying them. Good find, mes.
Click to expand...

Same here, but I get where he's coming from.
Click to expand...

I left him a message saying that he's not in the minority.

SW Saga Fan, Aug 29, 2015

#276

Jarren_Lee-Saber, Andy Wylde, mes520 and 2 others like this.
Big_Benn_Klingon Jedi Master

Registered:

Nov 14, 2013

JoshieHewls said: ↑

I disagree with his assessment that he's in the minority, but it's always nice to see or hear about someone giving the films another chance with an open mind and enjoying them. Good find, mes.
Click to expand...

Mes520 always finds the goods online

Big_Benn_Klingon, Aug 29, 2015

#277

Andy Wylde, SW Saga Fan and mes520 like this.
mes520 Jedi Master

Registered:

Nov 3, 2012

Star Wars Poetry

It's a lot like the Ring Theory.

mes520, Sep 1, 2015

#278

Mindless Monster, Jedi-Gambino, Jarren_Lee-Saber and 4 others like this.
Alexrd Chosen One

Registered:

Jul 7, 2009

More like the old 'visual links' thread. The ring theory is about something else.

Alexrd, Sep 2, 2015

#279
mes520 Jedi Master

Registered:

Nov 3, 2012

Lazypadawan's crazy idea over on PAS, but I think it's a great idea!

mes520, Sep 3, 2015

#280

Jedi-Gambino and Andy Wylde like this.
Alienware Jedi Master

Registered:

Apr 19, 2013

Not an article, but here's a kickass photo of Boyega embracing his inner villain from the prequels, it certainly made my day

Alienware, Sep 6, 2015

#281

Jedi-Gambino, Big_Benn_Klingon, JoshieHewls and 3 others like this.
mes520 Jedi Master

Registered:

Nov 3, 2012

Star Wars: Stop Hating The Prequels & Why. | A Rant

mes520, Sep 6, 2015

#282

Mindless Monster, Jedi-Gambino, Gamiel and 4 others like this.
GuardianSoulBlade Jedi Knight

Registered:

May 26, 2015

he Star Wars Prequels: Time for a Re-Evaluation

GuardianSoulBlade, Sep 6, 2015

#283

Jedi-Gambino, Andy Wylde, Alienware and 1 other person like this.
Thiazzi Jedi Padawan

Registered:

Jul 27, 2015

GuaridanSoulBlade said: ↑

he Star Wars Prequels: Time for a Re-Evaluation
Click to expand...

Agreed with some of the review, but almost stopped after he contributed to the deprecatory characterization of the prequels.

Thiazzi, Sep 6, 2015

#284

Alienware likes this.
Alexrd Chosen One

Registered:

Jul 7, 2009

Yeah, the typical "sure they are not great/sure they are not as good as the OT" nonsense to keep the hounds at bay.

Alexrd, Sep 7, 2015

#285

Avid_Prequels_Fan, Jarren_Lee-Saber, Andy Wylde and 3 others like this.
mes520 Jedi Master

Registered:

Nov 3, 2012

Star Wars: Episode 7' News, Plot Details: 'Practical Effects' Marketing Hits New Low as Anthony Daniels Praises Window on Set

"Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens" hits theaters in a few months, and Disney ramped up the marketing on the hotly anticipated new film with toys and books hitting shelves this past Friday.

Yet there is little known about "Episode VII" when it comes to plot. Some points have been revealed here and there, but really only one major talking point about the new movie is known -- practical effects.

The use of practical effects, going back to the "old ways" of making the movies has become such a major point of conversation in the marketing it has gotten rather silly, to be honest.

And it hit a new low this weekend when Anthony Daniels, who plays C3PO, took some time to hit at some of the films in the franchise while praising the ability to work on a set that has a "real window."

"It became clear early on that with JJ we were getting back to the old-fashioned kind of filmmaking. We have walls. Actual sets! All right, so you might not have a view out of the window, but you have a window. Now, what else can I tell you?" he said during an interview with the Guardian that has divided Star Wars fans the world over.

During that same interview, Daniels took a shot at the prequels, the films that Disney and company seem intent on discrediting. CGI, and its overuse, in those movies was the villain, according to Daniels.

"The effects are clever but pointless. The skill is there, but so what? Coldness, that's the word. Bleakness, even," he noted.

It is a markedly different tune than the one Daniels was singing a few years back when "The Phantom Menace" hit theaters in 3D.

So why the change? Daniels' character aside, this has been a major anthem for the new movie with every single person involved singing the praises of the "old ways" in a no-longer-subtle jab at the prequels.

It became the overriding theme of the recent Comic-Con Panel in which the video showcased honed in on "real sets and practical effects." But throughout the panel, almost every member involved talked about the same subject incessantly.

Even newcomers Daisy Ridley and John Boyega have gotten in on the act, despite being relatively new to filmmaking on this scale.

The supposed CGI overload in the prequels has come under fire for a decade, but what people neglect to realize is that episodes I, II and III actually had more practical effects in each film than the entire original trilogy combined.

Disney, despite using the prequels for "Disney Infinity," has made it clear where its marketing strategy for the new films lie -- bringing back fans alienated by the prequels by convincing them that the new films will not be as reliant on CGI. The trailers have shown CGI, but there has rarely been any talk of the subject from cast or crew, almost as if it is a forbidden topic.

Ultimately, however, "Episode VII" will not survive based on its use of practical effects. Disney can spoon feed this idea as much as it wants to attract audiences, but if the story in the film does not live up to the hype created from the "old ways of doing it," then this film could be just as divisive as the "CGI-heavy" prequels.

Click to expand...

mes520, Sep 7, 2015

#286

Jarren_Lee-Saber, Thoix Heoro, Andy Wylde and 2 others like this.
Cleo Jinn Jedi Master

Registered:

Jun 7, 2015

mes520 said: ↑

Star Wars: Episode 7' News, Plot Details: 'Practical Effects' Marketing Hits New Low as Anthony Daniels Praises Window on Set

"Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens" hits theaters in a few months, and Disney ramped up the marketing on the hotly anticipated new film with toys and books hitting shelves this past Friday.

Yet there is little known about "Episode VII" when it comes to plot. Some points have been revealed here and there, but really only one major talking point about the new movie is known -- practical effects.

The use of practical effects, going back to the "old ways" of making the movies has become such a major point of conversation in the marketing it has gotten rather silly, to be honest.

And it hit a new low this weekend when Anthony Daniels, who plays C3PO, took some time to hit at some of the films in the franchise while praising the ability to work on a set that has a "real window."

"It became clear early on that with JJ we were getting back to the old-fashioned kind of filmmaking. We have walls. Actual sets! All right, so you might not have a view out of the window, but you have a window. Now, what else can I tell you?" he said during an interview with the Guardian that has divided Star Wars fans the world over.

During that same interview, Daniels took a shot at the prequels, the films that Disney and company seem intent on discrediting. CGI, and its overuse, in those movies was the villain, according to Daniels.

"The effects are clever but pointless. The skill is there, but so what? Coldness, that's the word. Bleakness, even," he noted.

It is a markedly different tune than the one Daniels was singing a few years back when "The Phantom Menace" hit theaters in 3D.

So why the change? Daniels' character aside, this has been a major anthem for the new movie with every single person involved singing the praises of the "old ways" in a no-longer-subtle jab at the prequels.

It became the overriding theme of the recent Comic-Con Panel in which the video showcased honed in on "real sets and practical effects." But throughout the panel, almost every member involved talked about the same subject incessantly.

Even newcomers Daisy Ridley and John Boyega have gotten in on the act, despite being relatively new to filmmaking on this scale.

The supposed CGI overload in the prequels has come under fire for a decade, but what people neglect to realize is that episodes I, II and III actually had more practical effects in each film than the entire original trilogy combined.

Disney, despite using the prequels for "Disney Infinity," has made it clear where its marketing strategy for the new films lie -- bringing back fans alienated by the prequels by convincing them that the new films will not be as reliant on CGI. The trailers have shown CGI, but there has rarely been any talk of the subject from cast or crew, almost as if it is a forbidden topic.

Ultimately, however, "Episode VII" will not survive based on its use of practical effects. Disney can spoon feed this idea as much as it wants to attract audiences, but if the story in the film does not live up to the hype created from the "old ways of doing it," then this film could be just as divisive as the "CGI-heavy" prequels.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Crazy how fast people can change their minds about things
I LOVE the PT! They can NOT make it non-canon and change the whole thing on us!
They made the movies, so why not just leave them as they are?
Why make a few movies, let us all enjoy them and be live in them, then just decide to make a whole new trilogy and expect us to take that as Star Wars!
Ya, I'll enjoy it as a peice of entertainment, but I'll never think of it as the REAL Star Wars.

Cleo Jinn, Sep 7, 2015

#287

EternalHero, Andy Wylde and mes520 like this.
mes520 Jedi Master

Registered:

Nov 3, 2012

A continuation from this post:

mes520 said: ↑

Hey. You know who did like the Star Wars prequels?

Teenage girls.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

And I'll warn you, it's kind of long.

Male Geekdom, Annoying Fangirls, and the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy:

The Star Wars Prequels have a vast, endlessly creative fandom out there. But you don't hear about it. Why not?

Hey. You know who did like the Star Wars prequels?

Girls.

No, really! Since The Force Awakens was announced every dang male comedian/actor/blogger in existence seemed to venture out of the woodwork to discuss their disillusionment with the movies, but there was one key demographic left out of proceedings. The ladies.

I’ll tell you more about them in a sec. First, let’s talk about the relationship between geekdom and women. Remember the rise of the fake geek girl and her nefarious t-shirt wearing, man-bamboozling ways?

Well, in many ways that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In everything from The Big Bang Theory to the Disney store it’s constantly reiterated that sci-fi and Star Wars is for boys, for geeky adult men, but very clearly not for girls of any age. There’s a story going round at the moment about a girl being picked on at school for liking Star Wars. There was a similar story not long ago too. How ridiculous is that?

Anyway, when I was twelve years old I was likewise convinced the movies were for my brothers rather than me. “I don’t LIKE Star Wars,” complained my younger self as my dad handed me a Phantom Menace sticker book. “The girls don’t DO anything.” “Princess Leia does,” Dad said helpfully. “She definitely gets more heroic by the last film.”

Sadly, we didn’t have Return of the Jedi on VHS back then, and Star Wars remained (from my point of view) a thing exclusively for boys. But after The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones came out, suddenly - and to my surprise as much as anyone’s - Star Wars fandom became an all-girl’s world.

It [Star Wars fandom] was really, really welcoming! It was mostly women too so it super awesome to see not only other women who were into the same thing that I was but older women too! That I didn’t have to stop being a fan or be less enthusiastic as I got older. It was really very, very supportive and that was really awesome for preteen me to experience.

Kate / strikingthirteen@tumblr
Click to expand...

But it wasn’t just female fans barrelling into the Galaxy Far Far Away back in 1999-ish. It was fangirls. If you’ve been around the Internet or any mainstream media at all, you know what a fangirl is. They type in all caps. They scream at One Direction concerts. They fill their blogs with sparkly gifs and amateur graphics and emoji. They’re about as far away from the image of the Star Wars Geek that you can imagine, and yet it was the Noughties equivalent of these girls who descended upon the Star Wars fandom as the prequels were coming out.

After the release of The Phantom Menace, “George Lucas raped my childhood” was the rallying cry amongst some of the nastier Star Wars fans, so it’s safe to say that fandom at that time was not a particularly female-friendly environment. But the fangirls had just as much passion as their male counterparts, and just as much to say.

The Prequels helped me cope with my own feelings. Feelings that I usually had a hard time sorting out. I was Anakin and he was me. He was scared, depressed, and anxious. I was scared, depressed, and anxious. I watched him love too hard, I watched him not fit in, I watched him want to badly to help, and I watched him fail epically at it. Just like me. Most importantly, I watched him get redeemed. I watched him become happy, after it all, even if it was just for the moment we saw him as a Force Ghost. It gave me hope.

serial-dreaming@tumblr
Click to expand...

So, what exactly had drawn the fangirls (of which I was one) in in the first place? Well, the increased female presence in the prequel movies probably didn’t hurt. The original Star Wars had Princess Leia as a major character, but the prequels featured whole teams of women. Padmé’s Handmaidens proved to be incredibly popular (with their own website created by their fans!) and indeed, they still are.

Ladies-in-waiting attending a queen are standard archetypes in fairy tales and Arthurian legends, so the handmaidens in the early scenes with Queen Amidala struck me as fitting. Slowly it becomes clear that these young women are no mere attendants; they are politically astute, protectors of a world leader, and skilled warriors.

Star Wars blogger Tricia Barr
Click to expand...

Characters like Zam Wessell, Shmi, and Padmé herself likewise were very well-loved, by the female fandom if not by film critics. Attack of the Clones managed to even do what none of the other Star Wars films had managed, and pass the Bechdel test. (On a few separate occasions, no less.) There were even female Jedi, even if most of them remained in the background with only interesting design work to distinguish them.

The other thing that drew girls in was – and this is probably a surprise to a lot of people – the romance subplot.

I know they [Anakin and Padmé] couldn't really be called the healthiest relationship possible, but to my younger self who was only used to watching the old boring boy-saves-helpless-girl stories you could find in literally every media back then, this was completely new to me! Imagine a small, shy girl with divorced parents finding out about a completely different world with fantastic creatures and places and right there in the middle was a badass queen who kicks ass both in both in politics and in actual battle who still managed to sometimes goof around with her cute boyfriend.

catlying@tumblr
Click to expand...

Me, I’ll concede that the love story between Anakin and Padmé was a rather unhealthy one. But so was Twilight. And we all know that many teenage girls loved Twilight. Oh, and we also know what the reaction was to those teenage girls who loved Twilight… (remember about the relationship between geekdom and girls being fraught with problems? Yeah, that’s going to come up here a lot.)

It was my first internet fandom, it was how I encountered fanfiction, it was how I really encountered same-sex relationships for the first time and I was like 12 and 13 when this was going on. I remember spending hours at the library before we got internet at home reading the crap out of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon adventures.

Kate / strikingthirteen@tumblr

Click to expand...

The other major thing that drew girls and women to the Star Wars prequels was that subculture that, whilst huge, still remains under the radar: slash fanfiction. The Phantom Menace brought with it Obi-Wan Kenobi (as played by Ewan McGregor) and Qui-Gon Jinn (as played by Liam Neeson), two Jedi with an undoubtedly close relationship. Quite literally mere days after the premiere of the movie, the first slash fanfiction archive was set up to accept stories about their relationship, and – just like with Star Trek’s Kirk/Spock – suddenly there was a vast collective of women seeing Star Wars through just one (erotic) lens. Novel-length stories were written, spectacular artworks were created, and Lucasfilm sent out multiple cease-and-desists that failed to have the desired effect.

Wider Star Wars fandom wasn’t overly fond of the slash portion of the fandom, it’s fair to say – slash was banned on most major Star Wars fansites for a very long time, or at least until Lucasfilm got with the times and started finally putting gay characters in the Star Wars books. Slash fandom and fanfiction is very gradually coming more and more into the mainstream, with big TV networks and content creators realising what a great untapped market it is. (Just google “Supernatural + Destiel” or “Sherlock + Johnlock”.) But it also remains firmly a woman’s domain – and one part of Star Wars fandom that, despite having had a major impact, remains now almost completely lost and forgotten about.

(The woman who created that first fanfiction archive tells her story here, by the way. It’s a good read.)

When I was around 10-11 those movies were my life. Since I am a '95 kid I wasn't a teenager and I wasn't part of any fandom when I got into Star Wars, but it was still the thing that got me into the whole science fiction genre.

Ela
Click to expand...

But back to the present. (Be mindful of the future but not at the expense of the moment, etc etc.) Star Wars fandom is still generally quite split along male-female lines – as are many fandoms. Almost all of them, in fact. Article upon article has been written about how most major sci-fi and fantasy fandoms – Doctor Who, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek – will celebrate males enthusiastically participating in fandom, but condemn females for the same behaviour. Kristina Busse’s “Geek hierarchies, boundary policing, and the gendering of the good fan” goes into particularly good detail about all this:

There is a ready truism that enthusiasm for typically male fan objects, such as sports and even music, are generally accepted whereas female fan interests are much more readily mocked. Likewise, fangirls are mocked as is fan fiction, an activity more commonly ascribed to females. More than that, affect and forms of fannish investment get policed along gender lines, so that obsessively collecting comic books or speaking Klingon is more acceptable within and outside of fandom than creating fan vids or cosplaying. Even the same behavior gets read differently when women do it: sexualizing celebrities, for example, is accepted and expected among men but gets quickly read as inappropriate when done by women.

Click to expand...

The concept of ‘fandom gatekeeping’ has been discussed at length in fannish circles recently. Fandom gatekeeping basically refers to any attempt to dismiss another person or group of people’s participation in fandom – whether it’s dismissing cosplayers as “pretty girls pretending to be geeks for attention”, complaining about Benedict Cumberbatch fangirls showing up to his production of Hamlet, or delighting that an older actor playing the Doctor will finally do away with the post-reboot fangirls who were totally only into Doctor Who for the hot guys or whatever. Fandom gatekeeping, as you may have noticed from those links, is far more levelled against girls than against guys – and yep, sometimes it’s as simple as someone assuming that a pretty woman in a Star Wars t-shirt is just a stupid hipster chick. Or violently berating a woman for drawing t-shirts. (Why are t-shirts a theme here? No idea.)

Anyway, what does that have to do with the Star Wars prequels exactly? Well – simply put, there’s a vast, vast network of fans who adored the Star Wars prequels, but they don’t tend to get talked about in the media or featured on the TV shows because they’re girls, fangirls no less, and female geekery is seen as frivolous or annoying whilst male geekery is seen as something valuable.

I am one of the teenage girls who loved Star Wars through prequels. Even "worse", I watched them in high school because my crush was a big fan of SW. So I don't have a good story to tell, but I want to say I'm not ashamed at all! Prequels were pretty fun, intriguing and lovely for getting to know Star Wars, and I still like them very much. I think why I watched the movies or which ones I liked are not that important.

eleanorrgby@tumblr

Click to expand...

Yet it's these fans who have some of the most interesting and important things to say about Star Wars. Another important thing of note is that they are critical of the prequels, but for completely different reasons. They’re much more focused on calling out sexism and racism than pointing out plot holes or talking about how annoying Jar Jar Binks is. Padmé’s fate (dying from a broken heart) quite rightly drew criticism for its use of sexist tropes. But, the character's other actions throughout the trilogy drew praise. To many girls, she was a role model.

I have a mean set of books of which Dressing a Galaxy is the Crown Jewel and am about three? away from owning every Padmé action figure. I will buy anything with her on it.

truthtruthlie@tumblr
Click to expand...

I considered the prequels as telling a whole story, and her character's emotional breakdown over the death of democracy and her marriage's end during a pregnancy seemed understandable.

pronker@livejournal
Click to expand...

Padmé was so beautiful and feminine and badass at the same time, she fell in love and could have both weak and strong moments. She was allowed to be human and imperfect. You could say she was my role model growing up. And she wasn’t the only woman, even though the others had small roles it wasn’t difficult to find fascinating back stories about them online. I spent most of my days at that time reading as much as I could about all the characters, even the ones that had like 2 minutes of screen time and made up stories of my own about them. This world was just so vast and full of infinite possibilities!

villainnmoustache@tumblr
Click to expand...

Other Prequel fangirls write essays, carefully analyse frames of the movies, make beautiful graphics with popular song lyrics overlaid over characters, make gifs, or cosplay. Frequently, they also wear t-shirts.

I had posters of all the characters and those small little poster books. I had legos. I had those beautiful Padme dolls. I remember for TPM there were these great Padmé t-shirts for girls and I had every single one and made them last until I was a teen. Happy to see female Star Wars t-shirts making a come back!

princess-anakin@tumblr
Click to expand...

As for me…

Well, I had almost finished this article and I was handing my laptop over to my fiancé so he could proofread it. I was making excuses, you know, “It’s very geeky, sort of niche…”

“Why are you so embarrassed about it?” he asked.

“Well,” I said, “it just seems a bit silly, you know, for a nearly thirty-year-old woman to be writing about Star Wars...”

Then I remembered that Simon Pegg is well into his forties and has built a surprising amount of his career out of loving and then hating Star Wars, and that most of the new Star Wars writers now are older men, and that people don't expect fangirls to grow up into fanwomen and retain their love of whatever made them fangirls in the first place, and that I'd just proved my own point rather spectacularly.

So I took my laptop back and went to the DVD player and put The Phantom Menace on. And it was very very good.

Click to expand...

mes520, Sep 9, 2015

#288

xezene, Jedi-Gambino, Jarren_Lee-Saber and 2 others like this.
JoshieHewls Jedi Grand Master

Registered:

May 16, 2013

Cleo Jinn said: ↑

I LOVE the PT! They can NOT make it non-canon and change the whole thing on us!
They made the movies, so why not just leave them as they are?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry about that. The prequels ARE canon still, and there's never been a true threat that they wouldn't be canon, outside of internet fanboys who haven't gotten over their disdain after 16 years. Heck, open up any Star Wars novel and you'll see the canon:

Nobody's touching them. They, along with everything Lucas had a personal hand in, are the "immovable objects" of the canon. They're safe.

JoshieHewls, Sep 9, 2015

#289

Jedi-Gambino, minnishe, Shamear and 4 others like this.
Cleo Jinn Jedi Master

Registered:

Jun 7, 2015

JoshieHewls said: ↑

Cleo Jinn said: ↑

I LOVE the PT! They can NOT make it non-canon and change the whole thing on us!
They made the movies, so why not just leave them as they are?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry about that. The prequels ARE canon still, and there's never been a true threat that they wouldn't be canon, outside of internet fanboys who haven't gotten over their disdain after 16 years. Heck, open up any Star Wars novel and you'll see the canon:

Nobody's touching them. They, along with everything Lucas had a personal hand in, are the "immovable objects" of the canon. They're safe.
Click to expand...

Thank God!
And thank you for that welcome information.

Cleo Jinn, Sep 9, 2015

#290

Jedi-Gambino, Andy Wylde and mes520 like this.
Thiazzi Jedi Padawan

Registered:

Jul 27, 2015

mes520 said: ↑

A continuation from this post:

mes520 said: ↑

Hey. You know who did like the Star Wars prequels?

Teenage girls.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

And I'll warn you, it's kind of long.

Male Geekdom, Annoying Fangirls, and the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy:

The Star Wars Prequels have a vast, endlessly creative fandom out there. But you don't hear about it. Why not?

Hey. You know who did like the Star Wars prequels?

Girls.

No, really! Since The Force Awakens was announced every dang male comedian/actor/blogger in existence seemed to venture out of the woodwork to discuss their disillusionment with the movies, but there was one key demographic left out of proceedings. The ladies.

I’ll tell you more about them in a sec. First, let’s talk about the relationship between geekdom and women. Remember the rise of the fake geek girl and her nefarious t-shirt wearing, man-bamboozling ways?

Well, in many ways that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In everything from The Big Bang Theory to the Disney store it’s constantly reiterated that sci-fi and Star Wars is for boys, for geeky adult men, but very clearly not for girls of any age. There’s a story going round at the moment about a girl being picked on at school for liking Star Wars. There was a similar story not long ago too. How ridiculous is that?

Anyway, when I was twelve years old I was likewise convinced the movies were for my brothers rather than me. “I don’t LIKE Star Wars,” complained my younger self as my dad handed me a Phantom Menace sticker book. “The girls don’t DO anything.” “Princess Leia does,” Dad said helpfully. “She definitely gets more heroic by the last film.”

Sadly, we didn’t have Return of the Jedi on VHS back then, and Star Wars remained (from my point of view) a thing exclusively for boys. But after The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones came out, suddenly - and to my surprise as much as anyone’s - Star Wars fandom became an all-girl’s world.

It [Star Wars fandom] was really, really welcoming! It was mostly women too so it super awesome to see not only other women who were into the same thing that I was but older women too! That I didn’t have to stop being a fan or be less enthusiastic as I got older. It was really very, very supportive and that was really awesome for preteen me to experience.

Kate / strikingthirteen@tumblr
Click to expand...

But it wasn’t just female fans barrelling into the Galaxy Far Far Away back in 1999-ish. It was fangirls. If you’ve been around the Internet or any mainstream media at all, you know what a fangirl is. They type in all caps. They scream at One Direction concerts. They fill their blogs with sparkly gifs and amateur graphics and emoji. They’re about as far away from the image of the Star Wars Geek that you can imagine, and yet it was the Noughties equivalent of these girls who descended upon the Star Wars fandom as the prequels were coming out.

After the release of The Phantom Menace, “George Lucas raped my childhood” was the rallying cry amongst some of the nastier Star Wars fans, so it’s safe to say that fandom at that time was not a particularly female-friendly environment. But the fangirls had just as much passion as their male counterparts, and just as much to say.

The Prequels helped me cope with my own feelings. Feelings that I usually had a hard time sorting out. I was Anakin and he was me. He was scared, depressed, and anxious. I was scared, depressed, and anxious. I watched him love too hard, I watched him not fit in, I watched him want to badly to help, and I watched him fail epically at it. Just like me. Most importantly, I watched him get redeemed. I watched him become happy, after it all, even if it was just for the moment we saw him as a Force Ghost. It gave me hope.

serial-dreaming@tumblr
Click to expand...

So, what exactly had drawn the fangirls (of which I was one) in in the first place? Well, the increased female presence in the prequel movies probably didn’t hurt. The original Star Wars had Princess Leia as a major character, but the prequels featured whole teams of women. Padmé’s Handmaidens proved to be incredibly popular (with their own website created by their fans!) and indeed, they still are.

Ladies-in-waiting attending a queen are standard archetypes in fairy tales and Arthurian legends, so the handmaidens in the early scenes with Queen Amidala struck me as fitting. Slowly it becomes clear that these young women are no mere attendants; they are politically astute, protectors of a world leader, and skilled warriors.

Star Wars blogger Tricia Barr
Click to expand...

Characters like Zam Wessell, Shmi, and Padmé herself likewise were very well-loved, by the female fandom if not by film critics. Attack of the Clones managed to even do what none of the other Star Wars films had managed, and pass the Bechdel test. (On a few separate occasions, no less.) There were even female Jedi, even if most of them remained in the background with only interesting design work to distinguish them.

The other thing that drew girls in was – and this is probably a surprise to a lot of people – the romance subplot.

I know they [Anakin and Padmé] couldn't really be called the healthiest relationship possible, but to my younger self who was only used to watching the old boring boy-saves-helpless-girl stories you could find in literally every media back then, this was completely new to me! Imagine a small, shy girl with divorced parents finding out about a completely different world with fantastic creatures and places and right there in the middle was a badass queen who kicks ass both in both in politics and in actual battle who still managed to sometimes goof around with her cute boyfriend.

catlying@tumblr
Click to expand...

Me, I’ll concede that the love story between Anakin and Padmé was a rather unhealthy one. But so was Twilight. And we all know that many teenage girls loved Twilight. Oh, and we also know what the reaction was to those teenage girls who loved Twilight… (remember about the relationship between geekdom and girls being fraught with problems? Yeah, that’s going to come up here a lot.)

It was my first internet fandom, it was how I encountered fanfiction, it was how I really encountered same-sex relationships for the first time and I was like 12 and 13 when this was going on. I remember spending hours at the library before we got internet at home reading the crap out of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon adventures.

Kate / strikingthirteen@tumblr

Click to expand...

The other major thing that drew girls and women to the Star Wars prequels was that subculture that, whilst huge, still remains under the radar: slash fanfiction. The Phantom Menace brought with it Obi-Wan Kenobi (as played by Ewan McGregor) and Qui-Gon Jinn (as played by Liam Neeson), two Jedi with an undoubtedly close relationship. Quite literally mere days after the premiere of the movie, the first slash fanfiction archive was set up to accept stories about their relationship, and – just like with Star Trek’s Kirk/Spock – suddenly there was a vast collective of women seeing Star Wars through just one (erotic) lens. Novel-length stories were written, spectacular artworks were created, and Lucasfilm sent out multiple cease-and-desists that failed to have the desired effect.

Wider Star Wars fandom wasn’t overly fond of the slash portion of the fandom, it’s fair to say – slash was banned on most major Star Wars fansites for a very long time, or at least until Lucasfilm got with the times and started finally putting gay characters in the Star Wars books. Slash fandom and fanfiction is very gradually coming more and more into the mainstream, with big TV networks and content creators realising what a great untapped market it is. (Just google “Supernatural + Destiel” or “Sherlock + Johnlock”.) But it also remains firmly a woman’s domain – and one part of Star Wars fandom that, despite having had a major impact, remains now almost completely lost and forgotten about.

(The woman who created that first fanfiction archive tells her story here, by the way. It’s a good read.)

When I was around 10-11 those movies were my life. Since I am a '95 kid I wasn't a teenager and I wasn't part of any fandom when I got into Star Wars, but it was still the thing that got me into the whole science fiction genre.

Ela
Click to expand...

But back to the present. (Be mindful of the future but not at the expense of the moment, etc etc.) Star Wars fandom is still generally quite split along male-female lines – as are many fandoms. Almost all of them, in fact. Article upon article has been written about how most major sci-fi and fantasy fandoms – Doctor Who, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek – will celebrate males enthusiastically participating in fandom, but condemn females for the same behaviour. Kristina Busse’s “Geek hierarchies, boundary policing, and the gendering of the good fan” goes into particularly good detail about all this:

There is a ready truism that enthusiasm for typically male fan objects, such as sports and even music, are generally accepted whereas female fan interests are much more readily mocked. Likewise, fangirls are mocked as is fan fiction, an activity more commonly ascribed to females. More than that, affect and forms of fannish investment get policed along gender lines, so that obsessively collecting comic books or speaking Klingon is more acceptable within and outside of fandom than creating fan vids or cosplaying. Even the same behavior gets read differently when women do it: sexualizing celebrities, for example, is accepted and expected among men but gets quickly read as inappropriate when done by women.

Click to expand...

The concept of ‘fandom gatekeeping’ has been discussed at length in fannish circles recently. Fandom gatekeeping basically refers to any attempt to dismiss another person or group of people’s participation in fandom – whether it’s dismissing cosplayers as “pretty girls pretending to be geeks for attention”, complaining about Benedict Cumberbatch fangirls showing up to his production of Hamlet, or delighting that an older actor playing the Doctor will finally do away with the post-reboot fangirls who were totally only into Doctor Who for the hot guys or whatever. Fandom gatekeeping, as you may have noticed from those links, is far more levelled against girls than against guys – and yep, sometimes it’s as simple as someone assuming that a pretty woman in a Star Wars t-shirt is just a stupid hipster chick. Or violently berating a woman for drawing t-shirts. (Why are t-shirts a theme here? No idea.)

Anyway, what does that have to do with the Star Wars prequels exactly? Well – simply put, there’s a vast, vast network of fans who adored the Star Wars prequels, but they don’t tend to get talked about in the media or featured on the TV shows because they’re girls, fangirls no less, and female geekery is seen as frivolous or annoying whilst male geekery is seen as something valuable.

I am one of the teenage girls who loved Star Wars through prequels. Even "worse", I watched them in high school because my crush was a big fan of SW. So I don't have a good story to tell, but I want to say I'm not ashamed at all! Prequels were pretty fun, intriguing and lovely for getting to know Star Wars, and I still like them very much. I think why I watched the movies or which ones I liked are not that important.

eleanorrgby@tumblr

Click to expand...

Yet it's these fans who have some of the most interesting and important things to say about Star Wars. Another important thing of note is that they are critical of the prequels, but for completely different reasons. They’re much more focused on calling out sexism and racism than pointing out plot holes or talking about how annoying Jar Jar Binks is. Padmé’s fate (dying from a broken heart) quite rightly drew criticism for its use of sexist tropes. But, the character's other actions throughout the trilogy drew praise. To many girls, she was a role model.

I have a mean set of books of which Dressing a Galaxy is the Crown Jewel and am about three? away from owning every Padmé action figure. I will buy anything with her on it.

truthtruthlie@tumblr
Click to expand...

I considered the prequels as telling a whole story, and her character's emotional breakdown over the death of democracy and her marriage's end during a pregnancy seemed understandable.

pronker@livejournal
Click to expand...

Padmé was so beautiful and feminine and badass at the same time, she fell in love and could have both weak and strong moments. She was allowed to be human and imperfect. You could say she was my role model growing up. And she wasn’t the only woman, even though the others had small roles it wasn’t difficult to find fascinating back stories about them online. I spent most of my days at that time reading as much as I could about all the characters, even the ones that had like 2 minutes of screen time and made up stories of my own about them. This world was just so vast and full of infinite possibilities!

villainnmoustache@tumblr
Click to expand...

Other Prequel fangirls write essays, carefully analyse frames of the movies, make beautiful graphics with popular song lyrics overlaid over characters, make gifs, or cosplay. Frequently, they also wear t-shirts.

I had posters of all the characters and those small little poster books. I had legos. I had those beautiful Padme dolls. I remember for TPM there were these great Padmé t-shirts for girls and I had every single one and made them last until I was a teen. Happy to see female Star Wars t-shirts making a come back!

princess-anakin@tumblr
Click to expand...

As for me…

Well, I had almost finished this article and I was handing my laptop over to my fiancé so he could proofread it. I was making excuses, you know, “It’s very geeky, sort of niche…”

“Why are you so embarrassed about it?” he asked.

“Well,” I said, “it just seems a bit silly, you know, for a nearly thirty-year-old woman to be writing about Star Wars...”

Then I remembered that Simon Pegg is well into his forties and has built a surprising amount of his career out of loving and then hating Star Wars, and that most of the new Star Wars writers now are older men, and that people don't expect fangirls to grow up into fanwomen and retain their love of whatever made them fangirls in the first place, and that I'd just proved my own point rather spectacularly.

So I took my laptop back and went to the DVD player and put The Phantom Menace on. And it was very very good.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Thank you SOO much for this mes! I had to read something like this. Even on these forums, fangirls have been subject to unfair scrutiny and criticism as described, and it's so endearing and encouraging to know that some outside of the 'culture' are open minded enough to realize that we aren't all interested in Star Wars purely because of slash or cute boys. We like Star Wars because it's Star Wars and SW is awesome. And I also like Hayden Christensen, but...

Thiazzi, Sep 9, 2015

#291

Big_Benn_Klingon, Alienware, Andy Wylde and 1 other person like this.
Cushing's Admirer Chosen One

Registered:

Jun 8, 2006

It doesn't matter who likes SW or why.

Cushing's Admirer, Sep 9, 2015

#292

mes520 likes this.
mes520 Jedi Master

Registered:

Nov 3, 2012

Thiazzi said: ↑

Thank you SOO much for this mes! I had to read something like this. Even on these forums, fangirls have been subject to unfair scrutiny and criticism as described, and it's so endearing and encouraging to know that some outside of the 'culture' are open minded enough to realize that we aren't all interested in Star Wars purely because of slash or cute boys. We like Star Wars because it's Star Wars and SW is awesome. And I also like Hayden Christensen, but...
Click to expand...

Agreed, Anakin Skywalker is one my favorite characters, but Hayden's looks aren't the only reason why I like him/his character. I think of his looks like the cherry on top.

And besides it's not like fans don't have the hots for Leia and people found Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill attractive too. There's no difference.

mes520, Sep 9, 2015

#293

MissJo, Jarren_Lee-Saber, minnishe and 2 others like this.
Cushing's Admirer Chosen One

Registered:

Jun 8, 2006

It's not merely the leads that are attractive either. But, seriously, why do so many get so worked up over what others think? We're here for diverse reasons and points of interest. Others' assumptions, projections, and 'demands' shouldn't effect individual fandom. No reason for being a fan is more valid than another no matter how minor or sweeping.

Cushing's Admirer, Sep 9, 2015

#294

Alienware likes this.
lovelikewinter Jedi Knight

Registered:

May 28, 2014

Cushing's Admirer said: ↑

It doesn't matter who likes SW or why.
Click to expand...

Slash is terrible though. It is a way for hetro women to take parts of gay culture and subvert it for their own perverse needs, adding to the idea that gay men and the gay lifestyle are fun accessories for straight women. Also, they have no {[Inappropriate Language]} idea how gay sex or gay relationships work and it usually ends up offensive.

lovelikewinter, Sep 9, 2015

#295

Jarren_Lee-Saber and Big_Benn_Klingon like this.
Thiazzi Jedi Padawan

Registered:

Jul 27, 2015

By the way, I didn't mean to imply that all fangirls like Star Wars because of slash as well. A few of my friends detest it, and some slash is harmful, I agree, and being a member of the LGBTQ community, I didn't mean to imply it wasn't at all since that would be hypocritical and I hate being hypocritical (despite my many offenses), and I'm sorry if the post gave anyone that impression.

Thiazzi, Sep 9, 2015

#296

Jarren_Lee-Saber and Big_Benn_Klingon like this.
lovelikewinter Jedi Knight

Registered:

May 28, 2014

You didn't.

lovelikewinter, Sep 9, 2015

#297
SgtTimBob Manager Emeritus VIP - Former Mod/RSA

Registered:

Jun 5, 2014

Please keep the discussion on track to do with the prequels without getting pulled down into the socio-political depths of disparity.

SgtTimBob, Sep 10, 2015

#298

Avid_Prequels_Fan, Jarren_Lee-Saber and mes520 like this.
ewoksimon Chosen One

Registered:

Oct 26, 2009

Here's 5000-ish words I wrote about in defense of the prequels, with a few concessions.

Link.

ewoksimon, Sep 13, 2015

#299

SW Saga Fan, Alienware, Iron_lord and 2 others like this.
mes520 Jedi Master

Registered:

Nov 3, 2012

ewoksimon said: ↑

Here's 5000-ish words I wrote about in defense of the prequels, with a few concessions.

Link.
Click to expand...

LOL I was about to post that.

mes520, Sep 13, 2015

#300

Andy Wylde likes this.

(You must log in or sign up to reply here.)

Page 12 of 68