PT Should Lucas Have Done More to Ensure TPM Didn't Disappoint Some Fans?

I think the last person on earth who gave a **** about what the fans thought, wanted or expected from the movie was George himself and rightly so.
He made the movie he wanted to make and not the movie the fans wanted, that is Lucasfilms-post 2012 job now.

for better or worse

 

The Jedi had nothing to do with his situation. Anakin created it.

The Chosen One is not 'theirs' and they didn't have to do anything more than they had already done.

On the contrary. It acknowledges nature and teaches one to be mindful and rational while working for the greater good.

No, they don't. They expected him to do the right thing and follow the Jedi way. To be selfless instead of selfish. Anakin chose not to do the right thing.

 

I get all that. But to blame a ten-year old for having attachment to his mother seems a little harsh. Of course there was fear in him. Who wouldn't have been afraid in that situation? Sure, I know all about it leading to the dark side and everything. But their strict rejection of human emotions seems unnatural. The Jedi seem overly judgmental. The Jedi had unrealistically high expectations of Anakin. Just my impression when I think back to TPM. Or maybe it's because I never was a huge fan of Jedi philosophy, even in the OT.

 

Anakin created his slave background. Anakin created the harsh environment he left his mother behind in while he enjoys an illustrious career as one of the galaxy's elite. He even created Yoda's attitude of telling him he's not going to train him and that he must train himself to get over his hang ups about where he came from and what he left behind there.

 

True, but he was just a kid. The Jedi should have been wise enough to prevent all that. We don't really see Jedi living a life of luxury. They are not even allowed to possess anything. And Qui-Gon told Anakin "it's a hard life". So I don't really think they had that illustrious a career. Maybe it's in another source, but the movies don't show that. Sure, better than a slave. But he wasn't treated that badly by Watto. He had it relatively easy. Even Shmi was safe enough even in slavery. It was after she was freed that she was in real danger.

 

Slavery cannot be invoked as safer, ever. You are property rather than a person. You are as likely to suffer at the hands of someone happy to pay for the right to abuse as you are someone who values your work and profitability. Slaves were just as vulnerable from Tuskens as free people. The tuskens didn't care if you were person or property. It is completely disingenuous to say that freedom was more dangerous than slavery.

The Jedi appear to have a sumptuous temple with the most commanding view of Coruscant in the centre of and an impressive collection of culture and technology. They are ambassadors courted by all the great and the good of the galaxy. The hard bit is the inability to exploit one's power's for individual gain and certain obedience to the senate via the council and often just the council.

A Jedi is a far more illustrious thing to be than someone's property. If that wasn't the case then Anakin would have recognised that "Hey, being a slave wasn't so bad. I wouldn't mind if I had to be a slave again from now than what I am. And Shmi would want to be a slave always too. Yeah."

I'm always prepared to be open minded to the state of affairs that the storyteller gives us. But never so open minded that my brain falls out or I abandon my own attitudes toward the value of life and freedom.

 

You misunderstand. I'm not defending slavery. In fact I don't like the idea of the main character being a slave in the first place. I would have wanted him to have a different background. But it's not my story, so I'll just accept it how it is. Watching this kind of movie, you have to maybe switch off at least part of your brain, otherwise lots of other things in SW don't make much sense either, if you analyze them too much.

 

If the plausible motivation to be and to do evil is what the entire trilogy is supposed to convey, then switching one's brain off a bit doesn't come in to it.

The movie doesn't tell us and Lucas isn't trying to tell us that slavery is safer than liberty. It is sections of the audience having to work a way round the Jedi's seemingly selective attitude towards guarding "justice", and the lack of perception or care about a young child's feelings about it. Nature and nurture are the key factors in people's development. But a sensible (or sensitive) and coherent narrative in that context is undeveloped in favour of simply positioning Anakin (and the other characters) where George needs them to be in the plot.

Ultimately, Anakin's slave bit is superficially lifted from Ben-Hur (along with its chariot race). But in Ben-Hur the implications of his odyssey are continually re-examined, compellingly.

 

Yes, a lot of the story is in fact underdeveloped. The prequels are nowhere near perfect, and lots of things are unexplained. And the Jedi are shown to be much less wise than we thought after the OT. That's why they failed. Of course Lucas doesn't directly tell us slavery is safer, that's just an impression I get from the movies. He should have made Watto a lot more unlikable to make a real point how cruel slavery is. But instead in AOTC he is made almost a little bit likable. And Anakin himself doesn't seem to have any hard feelings. Lots of his scenes are comic relief, instead of presenting him as an evil slaver we can hate.

 

In other words it creates the illusion of depth by co-opting imagery from films that actually explored the implications of that environment compellingly and convincingly.

I don't wish to impune anyone else's enjoyment of the films in spite of that. But the profundity of the story in that respect is,, for me and by any honest, unbiased observer, non-existent except in unhelpfully ambiguous ways.

 

If you are looking for real depth then why watch SW in the first place? Did the OT have much depth? It's another case of people having higher expectations of the prequels than the originals. They were not claiming to be ambitious or profound, that I am aware of, just tell the back story. But then I can't say I watched every single interview.

Again, how is the OT story more profound? In any case when it comes to SW there is really no such thing as an un-biased observer, except maybe kids who never saw the OT. As to the thread topic, I never heard Lucas deny that he would not make the prequels for the fans, but tell his story his way, no matter what fans wanted.

 

I haven't mentioned the OT in any way here.

I'm not looking for much profundity in Star Wars. I do expect that if it wants to co-opt issues like slavery it ought to be in a seemingly less gratuitous way. Particularly when some sections identify the "depth" of the PT as its defining quality.

By unbiased observer I mean anyone trying to discern meaning from the films themselves. Not from the belatedly stated intent of the author, to which the audience selectively applies or ignores whatever evidence there is to it being conveyed consistently or otherwise.

It's not about making the story the fans want. It's about the fans not leaving their critical faculties behind when watching his story. He only made the comment about "his way" after the prequels received criticism for what they turned out to be and what we're supposed to think about them (e.g "They rhyme" "It's deep") There's never been any argument that any of Lucas's films should be made any other way. Yes some fans had expectations. That will always be the case. But not every argument about what didn't work is an argument for what the fans wanted instead. In fact few of them are.

We all knew the story would be Anakin being seduced by the dark side, the Jedi being (ahem) hunted down with Anakin's help and destroyed. We also knew that Obi Wan and Anakin would fight at some point, leaving one of them in need of a suit of armour.

We were also assured that the Jedi were in their prime as guardians of peace and justice. Not that they were to appear as fickle jobsworths. Tools of a system while being supposedly untouchable in their handling of that situation. Or passive-aggressive martinets or pious ass kickers, while all blame for the tragic turn of events is only be aimed at the one guy with revenge on his mind and the even more obviously flawed "chosen one".

 

'Blame'?! Who's blaming anything?

They don't reject emotions, they learn to control them and not act irrationally and passionately (as opposed to rationally and compassionately).

When?

When?

 

Should Lucas have done more to ensure that TESB didn't disappoint some fans?
I mean, he knew that Yoda was risky, as was making a movie without a true ending. These things ended up contributing to the film's success, though.
He took all the movies in directions that he knew would upset some segments of the fanbase. He did this because he likes progression, variation, diversity.
If he'd been afraid of rejection, Star Wars wouldn't have existed in the first place.

 

^^ I don't think the open ended-ness of a middle film in a trilogy is comparable with some of the issues perceived in the prequels.

As for Yoda in ESB. Unless the audience just flat out rejected the stimulating rhetoric that they took care to write surrounding Luke's introduction to certain concepts of the force and to Jedi philosophy, and to Yoda himself, it isn't the script and the storytelling that would have been the issue.


And for some people, the humility, the profundity and the magic that Yoda represented did not prepare them for the disappointingly unmagical, ineffectual and sometimes borderline glib patriarch at the head of Jedi council we are introduced to in TPM. We were introduced to a flawed system headed by a character should have been even more impressive than the one we saw in ESB but also more sympathetic. But Yoda's goodwill was, for me, supplied mostly by a movie set later. If it was nostalgia that influenced my assessment of TPM, the nostalgia was not strong enough for me to transpose that sympathy for OT Yoda to the Yoda we meet in the Prequels. Because of the way the story was told and the characters developed in the PT.

We don't get a character who has it but loses our sympathy over the course of the first trilogy and who begins redeeming it near the end until we are fully sympathetic with his handling of Luke in the OT. We expected more from the head of council at the supposed height of the era of the Jedi order.

And it appears that it is not because Lucas wanted us to feel that way about Yoda. It's because he was busy telling his story the way he wanted it to be told. I imagine that if he'd been told beforehand that while he's getting his story told he's allowing the audience to see Yoda this way he might have made provision for Yoda presenting a more sympathetically tragic arc.

The idea of the tragedy of Darth Vader seems to have distracted Lucas from the fact that all this was a tragedy for the Jedi, particularly Yoda. But in Yoda's case it becomes too easy to say he had it coming. Not because he was as evil as Anakin or anything like that. But because he wasn't as great as we were led to believe he was.

Unless I'm wrong and Lucas wanted the Jedi and Yoda punished for being pious and arrogant.

 

Different fans complain about different aspects.

 

That's true. You can't please everyone all the time.

But there are fundamental differences in the nature of ESB and the context in which it was made. Plus the reception and the general perception of ESB influences the way that the fans perceived the way that prequels told their story and developed characters already established in ESB.

Plus not being able to please everyone all the time, while true, doesn't preclude a conversation about how more people might have had less to disappoint them.

 

That's their problem not Lucas'. TESB is before that. That they thought that Yoda was always exactly like than and never changing is the fundamental underlying problem for them. Of Vader, Obi-Wan, Yoda and the Emperor only the last was doing largely what was expected of him in a way that was roughly in line with what had been thought of over the years. Which is pretty much the point. What he did worked and put him where he was. He succeeded. The other 3 as well as the Jedi Order and Republic failed. They all in one way or another were failures because they lost power, status, and influence. This was always the case but when presented with it some seemed to not accept that Yoda was a failure. He couldn't stop the Dark Side and even in the OT he's wrong about Vader and his plan to use Luke is terribly flawed.

I don't know what it is you wanted. It's not about sympathy.

Again his handling of Luke was not that great in the first place but the best they could do. If Yoda was that insightful then he wouldn't have been utterly outclassed by Sidious on just about every level.

Yoda is a support character. I'd said he was given ample time and presented as the events being tragic and it's effects upon him.

Great in what sense? He was all but completely defeated and the only plan was to wait for Luke and at some point crash train him and hope that he was the Chosen One that Anakin was not. Yoda was trusting to the Force because he knew that otherwise Luke could never stop the Emperor.

 

You just answered all your own questions of why does X need to be y by stating y is irrelevant but also X is y enough for you.

 

How can you say this? If you don't have sympathy for a character, what happens to them is much less impactful. I think it's fair to say, that if Yoda and the Jedi in general were presented less cold and detached the impact of order 66 would have been greater. Similarly, if Anakin had been presented as a more sympathetic character in AOTC, his eventual fall would have been more dramatic. Many viewers were turned off by the seemingly cold and detached depiction of the Jedi order in TPM and it's sequels. IMO sympathy is key.

 

Why? Does the Jedi being cold and detached make them bad people? They're still essentially good. Do you really need to see them have more of a warmer side for order 66 to be more impactful? That's just the way the Jedi were. Yes, in that way they were flawed. But that is really part of what Yoda is talking about when a Jedi must have the deepest commitment- the most serious mind.

 

Yes. Generating sympathy from a character's actions, not the nominal good intentions that their institution are said to have, is what makes drama and tragedy more compelling.

 

Yes of course. It's not enough to be able to rationalize that the Jedi were good, at least for me. In ANH Obi-Wan is presented as a warm personality. We like Obi-Wan, and thus we can emphatize with Luke as he watches his mentor being sliced in half. If Obi-Wan had been presented as cold and detached like Yoda and Mace in TPM, I very much doubt the scene would have had the same impact. In many ways Qui-Gon Jinn fulfilled that role in TPM, and sort of represents the more humane Jedi some of us were expecting, but TPM makes it very clear Qui-Gon is sort of an outcast, who won't play by the rules, and sadly his like was never seen again. It would have been something, if Obi-Wan had followed in his master's footsteps, gradually convincing Yoda of the downside of the institutionalization of the Jedi order. In TESB we are told Obi-Wan used to be reckless, but in the PT reality he never really was. In TPM he's actively trying to convince his master to adhere to the Jedi code, and by ROTS Obi-Wan is very much part of the Jedi establishment.

 

Just because they're good guys doesn't make them protagonists.

 

In this case though we're talking about an entire order of thousands of people not one single character. Do you not feel sympathy for an army in a movie way when they are the "good guys" and are getting destroyed?

In comparison to Jedha, Alderaan or Hosnian prime being destroyed the Jedi purge is far more impactful due to the trust and betrayal aspect and seeing the Order 66 sequence plus Bail at the Jedi Temple, the March, the younglings etc as well as Yoda's distress etc etc. then the actual effects this has on the galaxy as with them gone the Republic falls and the Empire is born.

That'd be a very poor trade-off to my mind and get in the way of the story. I don't know how you'd do it in any impactful anyway without undercutting the entire fabric of the story. Jedi can't get married or have families, they don't know their parents because they enter the order so young they don't remember them. These are essential to the story. Making Mace and Yoda more personable isn't going to help the story.

In terms of actual characters of the Jedi we get very few. Essentially we have Yoda, Mace then a few line from Ki-Adi Mundi outside of Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Anakin.

He is a sympathetic character in AOTC though. Some just wanted him to be a more archetype standard hero at 19 like Luke and Rey are. That isn't what Lucas wanted or he would have done it. This is someone who is going to become Darth Vader. Lucas is asking for more empathy for Anakin as opposed to sympathy. The character devices used to generate sympathy ie a selflessness aspect are not used by Lucas in the same way he did so with Luke. Anakin is drawn to selfish acts. He wants to do the right things that heroes do but not necessarily for the right underlying reasons..

Yet right in TESB Yoda is saying sacrifice your friends and complete your training. In ROTJ many people noted the far more detached manner of Luke as he was now a Jedi. It's like people weren't really paying attention to how Obi-Wan and Yoda were in the OT or what Luke was becoming.

The Jedi care about everyone and everything but they don't become attached. This is the difference. Luke was still learning to let go. His father then his friends were used against him and he started dueling Vader. He pulled back to only defend himself but then Vader used Leia against him and he attacked once again drawing on the Dark Side. It's only after that he decided to let totally go that he inspired Anakin who couldn't let go to finally do so.

He finally chose to be the Chosen One and fulfill his true destiny not the ones set before him by the way the Jedi thought it would be or the way Sidious told him it would be.

Luke loves his friends but he wasn't going to go down the dark path to "save" them because he knows that it doesn't work.

No, Lucas answered my questions because the answers are there if you look for them but he doesn't just present them to you with an in-your-face here it is audience way which is why Star Wars is so fascinating while other franchises pale in comparison. They spend time to spell things out to tell you what to feel and when and why it's happening.

That's fine in the moment but fades over time. Holding back is a key part of what makes Star Wars and the prequels in particular so layered. TFA for example is so overtly heart on the sleeve that it simply feels out of place in Star Wars while Rogue One isn't near as blatant. If anything the reshoots of Rogue One which obscured aspects of Jyn's story which was probably was more straightforward for her motivations unintentionally helped make her that much less obvious which fits into the prequels character ethic.

Even if something is presented on the surface more straightforward there is the below the surface unspoken aspect which is what is going on with the 4 main PT characters that cross into the OT.