PT Viewing Order 1-6: Describe how the prequels made you feel

lol, okay.

Granted, a mod changed the title on me so I didn't recognize it.

 

But then they remember - "Oh wait, Lucas actually did write the story outline AND acted as supervisor for the ST. Ok we can still push it on him"

Watch, it'll happen <_<

 

lol What? Did you wake up and think PT merged with Saga, or something?

 

oh sorry meant to reply to him not you.

 

So George's intention with the pt basically was about the chosen one.

Pretending you managed to watch the movies 1-6.

You have great hopes for Anakin Skywalker. He's the chosen one. The golden boy. Then he falls. The hero becomes a monster, all in a flash. All hope is lost.

Fast-forward 20-30 years or so (how old is Luke in ANH?)

Anakin Skywalker is now a monster known as Darth Vader. He's grown up under this evil corruption that is the Empire. But there's a new hope, making...ANH kind of like the Godfather 3 (intended) of the series, where after all of the drama has passed, there's a new generation and a new challenge.

Then things pick up, and Luke redeems Anakin. Who fulfills the prophecy in a roundabout way, in a selfish way, and not in any way that the Jedi would have hoped for or predicted. But he fulfills it.

So that was the big picture of what was going on. I get it.

A few things...

1. If so, there should have been more emphasis on the "chosen one" aspects. Instead of mentioning it in passing...he should have been shown to be "exceptionally strong." Think like Yoda lifting the Xwing out of the swamp, which up until then was the most powerful exhibition of force powers in the series. Now that I think about it, it would have been very interesting if he'd been like Jesus. Make him more of a healer/hippie sort who goes around curing people of various ailments, as opposed to your standard fighter guy.

2. John Jackson Miller really nailed the prequel (intended) sensibility with the Knights of the Old Republic comic, and the prophecy gone-wrong, and also the flash transformation aspect as well.

 

Lucas openly admitted making Anakin into a twisted version of Christ in the prequels, which is why he uses the "with or against me" line from the New Testament. Shmi's line of Anakin having no father was also a nod to the virginity of Mary. In an interview for "Revenge of the Sith", Lucas summed up the story with the phrase "Star Wars goes to hell".

Oh, and Luke is supposed to be about 20 or 21 in "A New Hope".

 

Oh for ****s sake.

 

According to the Star Wars timeline, Luke is born at 19 BBY. ANH takes place at year 0 - so Luke would be 19, yes?

 

Hey Ezekial, you might want to ask yourself "why?" every time you want to change something in the PT. Otherwise, you get the the type of points you made here. And if you can reasonably answer "why?", you should then also ask yourself questions like "How will my alteration better the film?", "Do I fully understand what I am talking about here so I can make appropriate connections?", and [Bait removed.] You'll get much more meaningful answers from these type of questions. But since nobody else seems to be bothered enough to dismantle your post, I guess I'll have to.

I don't need to pretend to have watched all the movies Ezekial; I've watched them each countless times. Can you say the same?

Man, that line smells of bull crap. The Chosen One this, the Chosen One that ... not a single PT film goes without one of the Jedi bringing up Anakin being the Chosen One and the prophecy. [Films, not fans.]

Anakin is shown to be exceptionally strong with his victory over Count Dooku in ROTS, the man who went toe to toe with Yoda in in AOTC. That alone is an extremely astounding feat. And you can see just how powerful Anakin is in their rematch, just how much his head and shoulders are above the other Jedi, when he taps into his potential and easily forces the Count back, brushing aside the saber lock like nothing.

Make Darth Vader Jesus ... .
Can we make Mace Windu Bugs Bunny too? I'm sure that would be "interesting" as well.

Get the point?

 

Basically, yes. Merging with one to six thread.

 

And yet, a "Chosen One" who basically never got to shine. A "Chosen One" who never peaked and enjoyed a golden age.

Anakin Skywalker in the movies and in the tv series is just...basically a really good fighter with a sword. He doesn't have any significant authority. You never feel in the entire CLone Wars series that they're relying solely on his heroism. Heck, Obi-Wan Kenobi has more impressive lightsaber battles than Anakin SKywalker in the prequels.

Basically...it could only have worked if he had proven himself to be very special. I mentioned healing. You could also say that he was the only one who could defeat a particularly skilled Sith swordsman, which was kind of implied, or at least intended, but not really done in the film.

Functionally, Anakin Skywalker isn't even as impressive as Mace Windu throughout the entire series. So...a Chosen One falling to the Dark Side doesn't matter as much when the Chosen One never proves himself as special. He's just an above-average swordsman.

 

He was not chosen to shine.

Wrong. See you later.

He was not chosen to have significant authority.

He was not chosen to heal.

That doesn't make sense. He was shown to defeat a Sith swordsman.
How do you measure "particularly skilled" swordsmanship? We saw three Sith Lords in the films (Maul, Tyranus, Sidious). Anakin fought one of them and defeated him (Tyranus). Obi-Wan, who defeated another one of these Sith Lords (Maul), failed against that said Sith-Lord.

He was not chosen to be "impressive".

He proved himself to be special, which brings me back to this...

...he peaked when he killed the Emperor and fulfilled the prophecy.
He was chosen to destroy the Sith. And he destroyed them. Everything else is irrelevant.

 

You do not see Dooku being particularly skilled with a lightsaber, however. There are ways that he can be built up...Maul was somewhat built up...Dooku not really. Not at all. Especially when most of his fight in AOTC was CGI idiocy.

So killing Dooku was about as impressive as beating him in a basketball free throw contest.

 

Hello? Are you serious? Dooku not particularly skilled? DID YOU SEE AOTC?




Did you not then see Dooku effortlessly hold off Obi-Wan AND Anakin in the next film? Need I also remind you that, in ROTS, Obi-Wan was then a Jedi Master and Jedi Council Member and had Anakin, the Chosen One, right by his side?



How the **** are you allowed to get away with typing this ****? Trolling cannot get anymore obvious than this.

 

The lightsaber battle was a bore. There was practically no emotion. Especially against a CGI Yoda in which the actual filming was...Christopher Lee swinging around a stick by himself like the Star Wars kid



As for ROTS, we barely knew him. He shows up pretty much at the end of AOTC and is dead at the beginning of ROTS. So there's no dread...he's just...there...another diluted villain. There's no like...urgency...HE MUST BE STOPPED, that sort of deal. Him being like 70 years old doesn't help things either.

 

He's already had a mod call him out in one of his topics (while locking it) for his trolling. Pretty much warning him (or daring him not to?) knock it off. Would love to see something actually done about him.

 

Made me feel good.

 

really???

 

Well, I see a very skilled swordman. I have no information about your sight, though.

Regardless, Ezekial, you seem to miss the essence of the "Chosen One" storyline in Star Wars.

You're besotted with your own, hypothetical version of a "Chosen One" which is completely out of sync with Lucas's intention for Anakin. As I have already said, Anakin is not supposed to be some kind of superman. He is not necessarily supposed to be an invincible super-fighter and perfect guy who could do no wrong. That's not what the prophecy says.

Anakin is supposed to bring the the Force back into balance.
The Jedi thought bringing balance to the Force equals destroying the Sith. The tragic aspect about that "Chose One" story line is that the Jedi misread the prophecy (as already Yoda speculated). The Jedi couldn't realize that Anakin needed to destroy the Jedi as an Order and an institution first, before he could eventually destroy the Sith. He needed to experience darkness in himself in order to be able to get rid of it.

So the Tragedy about that specific story line ("Chosen One") is not about "a golden boy" who fails but that the realization of the Jedi's prophecy requires their own fall as an institution.
After the old generation (Yoda, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and the other Jedi, Anakin himself and the Emperor) had gone, Luke had the chance to start from scratch and find a new "balanced" way to approach the Force (I actually hope the ST deals with that, but I have serious doubts).

Again. You missed the point and seem to be the first to dismiss Christopher Lee's inimitable presence on screen ("like 70 years").

 

I have seen the Saga in both orders. Some things make a bit more sense watching it 1-6 but far more is muddled for me. There are far too many inconsistencies between the trilogies to make a cohesive whole. That isn't any of the performers or characters' faults either. Chiefly I think it's GL's.

Dooku was great with a blade.

What is it with some people always dismissing elders like they are pointless. Dooku and Lee were both much closer to 80 and he did wonderfully. I am very glad Dooku is in the PT because he again shows a villian can have class just like Tarkin.

 

I saw the prequel trilogy first. Revenge of the Sith was just about to be released in theaters and a good friend of mine was really excited about it, talking Star Wars non-stop for weeks. I finally let him talk me into going with him to see it after watching the first two movies (Phantom Menace & Clones) and I fell absolutely in love with the story. I loved the politics, the complexity of the storyline, the forbidden romance between Anakin and Padme. It was the perfect movie series I never knew I wanted to see. I always thought I'd hate it because all the advertisements made it look like another one of those lame, futuristic space things, but the characters and story are so much fun, you really forget its a different universe.

The only thing I knew prior to watching them (just because I hadn't been living under a rock) was that Darth Vader was Luke's father; I had no idea that Anakin was Darth Vader at all, so you can imagine that I was pretty traumatized coming out of the theater after having seen Episode III. It was one of the most emotionally riveting and surprising movies I think I've ever seen, even to this day.

After that, I had to get my hands on the orignal trilogy to see how it was all resolved. I bought them all really soon after having seen Episode III, but I was extremely disappointed with them. I knew going in that they had been made decades before Episode I was released, but I guess I just expected that the prequels would have been written in a way that would still leave SOME surprises for Episodes IV-VI. Not one, though. I already knew the two biggest plot twists (Luke being Vader's son & Leia and Luke being twins), and I have to say it took a lot of the enjoyment out of the experience.

The only one I really liked was Return of the Jedi, mostly the ending. It was the resolution I set out to see in the first place, and the only part of the original story I hadn't had spoiled already. When Luke unmasked Vader and saw his father for the first time, it brought back alot of the emotions Episodes I-III brought out in me. Watching the Empire fall was great, and I can imagine a lot more rewarding of an experience having seen how it all started first instead of jumping into the story midway.

Keep in mind though that those reactions were just ones that I formed my first time watching the movies. Now that I've had time to go back and rewatch them each about 100 times, my opinions have changed drastically. Since then, I've had time to look at the original movies as a stand-alone trilogy, and, in comparison to the prequels as stand alone movies, it's clear that they are superior in almost every way besides effects. I can't believe I didn't like The Empire Strikes back my first time seeing it because it's one of my favorite movies of all time now. They do not work well at all watching Episodes I-VI in order, though.

Despite my appreciation for the originals, the prequels are still my favorites. It may have nothing more to do with the fact that I saw them first and all the memories tied to those first experiences, I don't know.

I think this is the same reason fans of the original trilogy hate the prequels so much. They're just so different and leave no surprises if you've seen the originals first. It's totally understandable how that could put someone off at first, because it certainly did for me... it's the same way for people who saw the prequels first. Whichever trilogy you see first, you're going to appreciate more.

 

I like your perspective, Carrie.

IMO, at best ROTS might be like a pulpy novel which grabs your attention, but kind of falls apart on further viewing, while ESB (which has its own big reveal) is actually strengthened upon repeat viewings.

Glad to see that you enjoyed it all. Yeah, if you went through 3 movies thinking Anakin was this great hero, it is shocking to see the transformation.

 

Interesting post, Carrie. Though I think you're amusing a bit much saying everyone likes whichever set we see first. I think it's more likely the set that speaks to the individual more, makes more sense, and appeals that each likes more. Not necessarily order.

 

I think Carrie's post kind of proves that for a Star Wars "virgin", regardless of which of the two trilogies said virgin ends up watching first, that will be the trilogy with all of the surprises for them and the second trilogy they watch will merely serve as the resolution/backstory to explain things.

If you watch the prequels first, Anakin turning evil and becoming Vader is a shock and Palpatine being the sith lord is also a surprise. When you then watch the OT, the "I am your father" twist and the brother/sister twists are no longer a surprise.

If you watch the OT first, then the "I am your father" is a shock and the brother/sister twist is also a surprise. When you get around to viewing the PT, you know Anakin becomes Vader.....I was almost going to type that you also know Palpatine is The Emperor, but I am not 100% certain it is completely clear since they never call him Palpatine in the OT and nothing about his back story or rise to power is referenced. I supposed that could still be a twist for some people.

In the end, regardless of which trilogy a virgin views first, you are getting two major twists that should surprise you. The idea that people NEED to watch the OT first (or at least ANH and ESB) because of the shocking twist, is overrated IMHO. Watching 1-6 in order allows a person to experience Anakin's journey from innocent little boy to evil sith lord to a redeemed father that is saved by his son, the transformation of the galaxy, as well as Palpatine's arc in a proper storytelling flow. Meanwhile, you still get two pretty good twists that should surprise you.

I don't care what anyone says. When my daughter is old enough to watch the films (she is only 5 months old now), I will show them to her 1-6 (actually 1-9, haha) no question.