Saga Point of view - George Lucas was right not to listen to the embittered fans

One reason could be the acting.
If a character is "Rich in metaphor" but the acting isn't good, all that subtext and depth is lost as people won't care and are only annoyed at the poor acting.
That happened to me, on paper, the character of Anakin has a fascinating arc and a rich story.
But the poor acting in TPM made me not see the character at all and in AotC the acting is better but I found the character totally unlikable and wanted someone to take him away from the film or at least smack some sense into him.

Good or bad acting is subjective like any art form. All 6 original films the acting is styled after old serials and old movies. The original True Grit's style of acting is identical to the 6 original SW films. Anakin in AOTC is supposed to be annoying at times, much like Luke was in the OT. TFA uses more in fashion acting styles which I didn't care for. To me all the TFA characters were very shallow and didn't care anything at all for them. They were just generic cutouts, especially Rey, Kylo, and Poe.
In the first half of RotS he finally works ok, he stopped being an annoying **** and I could finally see his friendship with Obi-Wan. But then he has to hold an Idiot ball in the latter half of the movie. ? Anakin is acting out of desperation, desprite people often make poor choices if they even have a choice. For Anakin, Padme's death was unacceptable and would do anything to prevent it no matter how desprite it is.
And I think RotS did a disservice to Padme. She had been established as a strong, independent person and she gets reduced to almost a plot device gives up in the end.
To me, it was as if she didn't exist as her own character but partly as a reason why Anakin turns and partly to make sure that Luke and Leia are born. And once both jobs are done, she is of no further use and dies.
Nope, she is a strong woman who isn't invincible (many strong modern female characters are often portrayed as being invincible to be PC) and has her strength taken from her. Padme is a tragic character, she doesn't get a happy ending.



Bye for now.
Old Stoneface[/quote]

 

Nicely said on the final point, Splicer. Unlike it seems many here, I don't consider Padme 'spineless' because her heart broke. Nor do I consider her not her own vibrant character because she chose to live for her man. I consider such, awesome. People wed *should* put the partner first.

 

It's rather ironic when you think about it.

The very first subject of this thread explained why, despite the controversies Lucas had provoked among fandom with the release PT and the SE of the OT, it hasn't destroyed the reputation of the saga among the general audience, which still had a good reputation and has always known sucess for the past 20 years, even still today.

Yet, those same embittered fans now come back here, on this same thread despite having (or maybe not) read the article on the first page, with the same old complaints and try to prove to us, whom we appreciate the saga as whole and to whom in the general audience those controversies about the PT and the SE don't matter at all, that we are all wrong to think differently from them, with the same old arguments... Same old arguments and complaints that, I've never get tired to hear and always find amusing...

 

What wearied me is that all this 'you're wrong!' is def both ways. Tastes are tastes. Neither is 'wrong' simply different. Rather sad some of the same people still bash *any* that dare differ from stated veiws. Rather glad I don't invest emotionally near as much any more. Not worth it.

 

Thanks.

 

Some people are just too consumed by their passion towards this saga that they still wish they could have been able to impose their own views on the makers' decisions because of their personal preferences, something Lucas never had to comply with when making the OT, neither the other people involved in the process...

 

Agreed. However, his manner of handling wasn't very civil at times, either. Same can be said for some on both sides that act like 'my opinion's law!'

 

Well, even if some of his manner might not have been civil at times, it was still his own work, wether people like it or not... It's just that the result of his work has become too big and popular at the end to handle with the fans' consuming passion...

 

Hey, I support artistic choice and expression. I simply am saying he is part of the problem, Saga.

 

That's not revisionist nonsense. Just because Lucas cut out the scene in ANH and saved Jabba for later, doesn't make putting that scene back in a case of revisionism. The only revisionism in ANH is what Jabba looked like and the inclusion of Boba Fett. Everything about his character in ANH is in ROTJ and is informed by that earlier scene. Your perception is not the same as what Lucas intended for the character when he wrote and filmed the original version of the Jabba. Nor is the inclusion of ANH Jabba a retcon to ROTJ Jabba, since nothing is changed between the two stories.

If he is strong with the Force to a degree, then that degree is why the conditioning failed to maintain its hold on him. Force users are supposed to be strong willed.

 

Revisionist nonsense combined with a nice tall glass of Lucas Kool-aid.

 

Firstly, if you don't want to get into long winded arguments with people who don't share the same views on how wonderful certain films are, don't respond with illogical rants against a post that basically argued that perception and media affect how things seem to fit with certain established films aesthetics and about how there is more to universe-building than simply 'showing' alien-looking landscapes. Particularly, when I say 'I feel', or more importantly, 'many people feel', I am referring to perception and trying to argue from your implicit position of superior knowledge won't do anything there.

Why would there be no ships resembling anything from an era twenty years ago in the O.T.? The Star Destroyers are an easy one to do, of course, because they really evolved backwards design-wise, and start out looking very similar anyway, which is not the case for other things. Of course, describing things as more 'elegant' is subjective (I could describe it as squashed, pinched or whatever, but I suppose that your opinion is the correct one because you're you), but you brought up something about colour, and this is one of my points, that we could have had the same or similar vehicles as the O.T., newer-looking, shinier and more colourful, and it would have the same effect symbolism-wise whilst being better for providing a universal continuity. Instead, we have the usual style of P.T. fighter with pop-up wings that aren't really very prominent, and often aren't used anyway, and strange things with six wings that resemble X-wings much as a pheasant resembles an albatross. You complain about there being no 'rationalisation' for T.F.A. designs whilst the P.T. vehicles being so divergent create an unreasonable 'time-warp' where they have suddenly disappeared completely from use whilst the same ship is still used by the Alderaan people; just throwing 'rationalisation' out there doesn't make your argument more convincing.

Straight off the bat, you are comparing three films to one film; do you really think that this is logical? Rey's abandonment issues will hopefully be explained in later films, but I'd say that her realisation that she has this power breaks open the world a bit for her, and she is a more developed character after one film than Anakin was after one film. You are basically repeating your earlier statements, thinly re-worded, and even common criticisms of the P.T. with words switched out, like that poster in a thread once who, to 'argue', copy-pasted my arguments into his own posts with the words switched out, thereby not actually making any argument in the process. Anakin's reactions in T.P.M. after leaving his mother are perfectly normal, in fact, I'd say if his mother is the only person in his life to that point, he handled it pretty well; only part-way into the next film does it re-appear as 'over-attachment' and become something that makes him insane; again, he apparently coped fine for ten years. You'd think that he'd have had enough time in ten years to do something about his mother, or at least talk it over with other people; and that she apparently live happily for these ten years doesn't temper anything, nor does anybody point this out to him in an attempt to defuse his anger. And why is he lusting after Padme—before actually meeting her that day—when he had not seen her in ten years, for which at least four of which (assuming humans develop the same way) he would not even have the emotions of sexual attraction? We don't see how he develops into an argumentative brat either; there is a gap in his development making his subsequent actions less explainable.
This could be argued out ad infinitum, but claiming that Anakin's character is more realistic than Rey's is a stretch to say the least, and claiming the Anakin's is more developed than Rey's is an extraordinarily dishonest argument given that we are comparing three films to one, and I'm sure that you know it, but you won't admit it to yourself. As for things happening 'for no real reason', it's not as if the P.T. or even the O.T. are free of that (again, another thread's worth of argument). Perhaps she thought it suspicious that Unkar was clearly itching to get his hands on BB-8; certainly it is human to forstall one acting suspiciously even if we don't really have a concrete reason to do so.
Anyway, it's strange how you argue that, "Depth doesn't need to be metaphor filled," when you'd previously said that, "Why are these shallow characters considered deeper than someone like Anakin, a character rich in metaphor and depth," thereby indicating that having 'metaphor' is important for being 'not shallow'; you abandon one of your previous points because it's inconvenient when making later ones. I could distill it down to, 'Anakin is angry because things don't go his way', and argue that some of the decisions he makes don't make sense, and that the reason why he 'turns' is because Palpatine will give him his way—so to speak—and say that because there is more than just description to building a film character, his poor portrayal detracts from his character and makes him seem just p—ed off through the second two films which causes his 'turn'. No doubt you'll now accuse me of ignoring this, that, and the other, but my main point here is that you are doing just the same about Rey as you implicitly accuse others of doing, and ignore that how a character is portrayed affects their depth, and that many people feel that the characters in T.F.A. were put on the screen better than those in the P.T.

 

Woof


Sent from my brain using thumbs.

 

& parents of newborn children who need love & protection should put them before anything. That's the problem with portraying Padme as having lost the will to live. She should've had more will to live in that moment than at any time in her life. Instead she said "Bye kids, I'm checking out now. Good luck!".

You're talking in past tense about Anakin's arc across the whole PT & the Saga. You're comparing that to Rey...in just one movie! It's ludicrous. There was no enormous level of depth to Anakin in TPM alone. Nor was there really with Luke in ANH alone. I'd argue that there was more nuance & depth to the performance of Rey in TFA than either of those examples. It comes down to opinion though. In any case, Rian Johnson put it best recently at Celebration:

"The first film (TFA) was this incredible explosion of adventure & excitement that sets up these characters, & then just out of necessity it's very natural that the second film is where we start zooming in on the characters...& getting to the heart of them & challenging them & pushing them deeper."

...& that exact same quote can be applied to Luke, Han & Leia going from ANH to ESB.

 

That's the way you take it, DD. Not me. Some simply can't endure beyond the loss of a mate. It simply is.

 

Something similar is said in Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince:


“So we know that, near the end of her pregnancy, Merope was alone in London and in desperate need of gold, desperate enough to sell her one and only valuable possession, the locket that was one of Marvolo’s treasured family heirlooms.”
“But she could do magic!” said Harry impatiently. “She could have got food and everything for herself by magic, couldn’t she?”
“Ah,” said Dumbledore, “perhaps she could. But it is my belief—I am guessing again, but I am sure I am right—that when her husband abandoned her, Merope stopped using magic. I do not think that she wanted to be a witch any longer. Of course, it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen. In any case, as you are about to see, Merope refused to raise her wand even to save her own life.”
“She wouldn’t even stay alive for her son?”
Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “Could you possibly be feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort?”
“No,” said Harry quickly, “but she had a choice, didn’t she, not like my mother—”
“Your mother had a choice too,” said Dumbledore gently. “Yes, Merope Riddle chose death in spite of a son who needed her, but do not judge her too harshly, Harry. She was greatly weakened by long suffering and she never had your mother’s courage. And now, if you will stand…”
“Where are we going?” Harry asked, as Dumbledore joined him at the front of the desk.
“This time,” said Dumbledore, “we are going to enter my memory. I think you will find it both rich in detail and satisfyingly accurate. After you, Harry…”


Padme's not a wizard though - regardless of what the droids say, she might have less choice whether to die or not than the movie implies.

 

I've read all the Harry Potter books, but thanks to that, there's something interesting regarding the phase in red above and made me think again about that last act in ROTS.

Could it be possible that, by allowing herself to die, Padme didn't have enough courage to face all the darkness that has envelopped the universe at the end of ROTS and the courage to protect her own children, all alone, from it (which, when you think about it twice, would be a very, very, very complicated task, especially when they would be hunted down if Sidious learned that they were still alive)? Or, at the same time, by allowing herself to die and make the galaxy believe that she and the children she carried were dead, it was a way to protect them from the Sith?

That's rather very ambiguous...

 

The movie is the story. Expert doctors declared that medically she was fine.

That's far fetched in the extreme. It implies some calculated choice by her, & an ability to turn herself off like a droid.

Agreed, & in those sad cases someone might hurl themselves off a bridge. However as far as I know a healthy young person can't concentrate really hard & hit an internal off switch.

 

The ships in the PT didn't disappear, there was 20 years of evolution towards a more industrialised galaxy after the fall of the Republic. The PT ships aren't really that divergent. Venators are still Star Destroyers. V-wins have the basic shape of a TIE fighter. The ROTS Jedi interceptors have the same outline as the TIE advanced. Why would the Republic, an ancient community filled with artisans and freedom create the colourless simple shaped Star Destroyers of the OT (not to say that they have a bad design, but is is clearly simpler and less artistic)? There's also a clear evolution in the PT in general, from the bright yellow, spotless Naboo fighters, to much grimier red and white Arc Fighters to show the decline of the Republic. Or the Jedi fighters, which go from weaponless and smoothly shaped to clunky and weaponised.

If you say that reusing designs with a shinier coat of paint would've been better than designs that actually imply some history then that still doesn't explain TFA. In that film, the colours imply nothing. These ships should be ancient. But they're orange now! Which means absolutely nothing. I can see how shinier X-wings can imply their newness. But TFA's X-wings and TIES have no such excuses.

Another minor thing, but if the pop-up wings are weak to you, then why do X-wings even have to unfold their wings? Why couldn't they start off in 'attack mode' all the time?

Straight off the bat, you are comparing three films to one film; do you really think that this is logical? Rey's abandonment issues will hopefully be explained in later films, but I'd say that her realisation that she has this power breaks open the world a bit for her, and she is a more developed character after one film than Anakin was after one film. You are basically repeating your earlier statements, thinly re-worded, and even common criticisms of the P.T. with words switched out, like that poster in a thread once who, to 'argue', copy-pasted my arguments into his own posts with the words switched out, thereby not actually making any argument in the process. Anakin's reactions in T.P.M. after leaving his mother are perfectly normal, in fact, I'd say if his mother is the only person in his life to that point, he handled it pretty well; only part-way into the next film does it re-appear as 'over-attachment' and become something that makes him insane; again, he apparently coped fine for ten years. You'd think that he'd have had enough time in ten years to do something about his mother, or at least talk it over with other people; and that she apparently live happily for these ten years doesn't temper anything, nor does anybody point this out to him in an attempt to defuse his anger. And why is he lusting after Padme—before actually meeting her that day—when he had not seen her in ten years, for which at least four of which (assuming humans develop the same way) he would not even have the emotions of sexual attraction? We don't see how he develops into an argumentative brat either; there is a gap in his development making his subsequent actions less explainable.
This could be argued out ad infinitum, but claiming that Anakin's character is more realistic than Rey's is a stretch to say the least, and claiming the Anakin's is more developed than Rey's is an extraordinarily dishonest argument given that we are comparing three films to one, and I'm sure that you know it, but you won't admit it to yourself. As for things happening 'for no real reason', it's not as if the P.T. or even the O.T. are free of that (again, another thread's worth of argument). Perhaps she thought it suspicious that Unkar was clearly itching to get his hands on BB-8; certainly it is human to forstall one acting suspiciously even if we don't really have a concrete reason to do so.
Anyway, it's strange how you argue that, "Depth doesn't need to be metaphor filled," when you'd previously said that, "Why are these shallow characters considered deeper than someone like Anakin, a character rich in metaphor and depth," thereby indicating that having 'metaphor' is important for being 'not shallow'; you abandon one of your previous points because it's inconvenient when making later ones. I could distill it down to, 'Anakin is angry because things don't go his way', and argue that some of the decisions he makes don't make sense, and that the reason why he 'turns' is because Palpatine will give him his way—so to speak—and say that because there is more than just description to building a film character, his poor portrayal detracts from his character and makes him seem just p—ed off through the second two films which causes his 'turn'. No doubt you'll now accuse me of ignoring this, that, and the other, but my main point here is that you are doing just the same about Rey as you implicitly accuse others of doing, and ignore that how a character is portrayed affects their depth, and that many people feel that the characters in T.F.A. were put on the screen better than those in the P.T.[/quote]

If Rey is supposedly deeper than other characters, I'd like to actually see some of that depth. Nobody had yet shown me anything beyond the most shallow aspects of her. Please, do list what you can lean from her in TFA, because I got barely anything from her.

From Anakin you get his desire to help people and his dreams of freeing slaves, which is contrasted with Qui-Gon's insistence that he's not here to free slaves, and the Jedi's relative inaction on the Naboo front. There's the death of Qui-Gon, which leads Anakin to Obi-Wan, sowing the seeds of resentment between them, as Obi-Wan is forced to carry out his master's last wished and Anakin has to conform to Obi-Wan's differing views to Qui-Gon. I could go on.

That's just from TPM.

With the metaphor thing, I said that Anakin was rich in metaphor and depth. Metaphors can add a lot of symbolic weight and reward lateral thinking about the characters. But without any depth to the actual characterisation, there's nothing to build any symbolism out.

 

"From Anakin you get his desire to help people and his dreams of freeing slaves, which is contrasted with Qui-Gon's insistence that he's not here to free slaves, and the Jedi's relative inaction on the Naboo front. There's the death of Qui-Gon, which leads Anakin to Obi-Wan, sowing the seeds of resentment between them, as Obi-Wan is forced to carry out his master's last wished and Anakin has to conform to Obi-Wan's differing views to Qui-Gon. I could go on."

I don't see how having dreams of helping people actually adds more depth, than seeing Rey actually help people? Neither do I see, how the Jedi stance on Naboo in any way adds depth the Anakin, who's completely oblivious to the Naboo situation. The other points you mention do not add depth, because it relies on knowledge of the next two films in the trilogy. All we know from TPM is that Qui-Gon dies, and Obi-Wan decides to follow his master's footsteps. "The seeds of resentment" is something that can only be inferred from seeing the couple's strained relationship in AOTC.

 

When does Rey actually help anyone?

And it doesn't rely on AOTC, it can be inferred by the ending of TPM that Qui-Gon's death will lead to this.

The first point shows how Anakin is idealistic to start with, and how the Jedi council can't save everyone.

 

Did you even see TFA? Rey saves BB-8 from the scavenger. She attacks Finn, when she believes he has done something to BB-8's master, because Finn is wearing Poe's jacket. She rescues Finn from the FO, taking his hand, when he's lying on the ground after the explosion, and leads him to the Falcon, such that they can escape. She literally says, she will help BB-8 get to the resistance, despite wanting to go back to Jakku. She rescues Finn from the Rathar.

It cannot be inferred at all, that from TPM. All TPM shows us, is that Obi-Wan now sees things Qui-Gon's way, and takes Anakin under his wings. Additionally, all we knew from the OT, is that Anakin and Obi-Wan were best of friends. It came as a pretty big surprise, when they were behaving like d**ks towards each other in AOTC.

 

It can easily be inferred. Obi-Wan is already arguing with Qui-Gon's point of view, which Anakin has taken in entirely. That's already a seed of conflict between the 2 from TPM.

I'm still waiting for some Rey depth too. She has no motivation for any of that. Does she like BB-8? Who knows. She knows about Poe, yet does nothing to help BB-8 till Finn shows up.

Edit: The only person who says that Anakin was a good man is Obi-Wan, an old man reminiscing about better times, which is also up-ended by the Vader-Anakin reveal. Annd besides, they are friendly with each other in AOTC and ROTS, from the elevator scene in AOTC, the scenes on Geonosis, Anakin's departure with Padme, and so on.

But if there was no conflict between them, why would Anakin's turn be at all convincing. Vader obviously hates Obi-Wan, so why shouldn't Anakin too? It would be jarring to go from the best of friends with no flaws in their relationship to pure hatred.

 

What was Anakin's motivation to want to help slaves? Apparently both Anakin and Rey care about others. Except, in the case of Rey, she's able to act on those emotions, while Anakin is a kid, and is restricted to dreaming.

The entire arc of Obi-Wan in TPM, is that he starts out as a critic of Qui-Gon, defending the Jedi council, and ends up following in Qui-Gon's footsteps, defying the council. So, by the end of TPM there's no reason to infer that Anakin and Obi-Wan will have a conflict, as Obi-Wan has already reconciled himself with Qui-Gon's views, to the point, that he will train Anakin, whether the council allow him or not. So, if anything the experiences Anakin and Obi-Wan had together has created a bond between the two, which could have led to a great friendship, as hinted at by the OT.

The fact that the great friendship sours is what's called development. A traumatic event, or a love triangle with Padme, or any other number of reasons, could strain the friendship.

 

Which is what happens when the council gets Anakin to spy on Palpatine, shaking their trust.