PT What do people mean when they say the Prequels lack 'heart and soul'?

Anyone familiar with the "R&R" thread from Game of Thrones?

Imagine those kind of opinions spread and became the overwhelming and "intelectually accepted" mainstream view to hold, and you pretty much arrive at the situation we've got here.

On the plus side, it's exactly this kind of environment that enables you to feel smart just for stating something obvious, instead of having to work for it

 

Ewan exaggerated a little about being alone. Not "spending 3 months in a green stage" though. Remember, no location shooting at all for the RotS actors.

 

Which is understandable considering all the worlds they went to like Utapu, Kashyyyk and Mustafar...

 

Locations vs. sets generally doesn't matter

 

Kashyyyk? Fortunately Rogue One is shooting on a beach. A real beach!

 

I think what people are getting at with the comment that the prequels lack heart and soul really comes down to the characterizations. The way people behave in the prequels feels very unnatural. The emotions are technically there in a very broad strokes sense, but any time characters have to interact with each other, it seems to lack the natural rhythms, beats, and idiosyncracies of real human interaction. It feels very robotic and unemotional. The original trilogy was occasionally a bit corny and hokey, but the beats and rhythms of it felt right overall. The artificial computer-generated environments certainly didn’t help in this regard, but that wouldn’t have been as much of a problem had the human emotion been there.

Stanley Kubrick was mentioned earlier, but with Kubrick, there seems to be more of a method behind it than there is with George Lucas. Arguably, the primary recurring theme throughout Kubrick’s work is the dehumanization of society. We see it in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, we see it in FULL METAL JACKET, we see it in EYES WIDE SHUT. And a film like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is much more of a philosophical and aesthetic wonder than a character study per se. To the extent that 2001 has a main character, I’d argue that the human race itself is the protagonist of that movie. And Kubrick was more than capable of creating vibrant human characters when he wanted to. Just look at the ensemble cast of DR. STRANGELOVE, Alex from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, or the characters played by Vincent D’Onofrio and Lee Ermey in FULL METAL JACKET. I know that CLOCKWORK is an incredibly divisive film (even moreso than 2001 in a weird way), but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone claim that Alex is a dull and lifeless character.

That’s not the story the STAR WARS prequels are telling. The prequels are supposed to be this grand epic tragedy about a great man’s descent into evil set against the backdrop of a democracy turning into a fascist military dictatorship, filled with sharp plotting and political intrigue. Think THE GODFATHER/I, CLAUDIUS/GAME OF THRONES in space. It could’ve really been something great in the hands of a more talented writer and director. Unfortunately, I don’t think George Lucas was up to the task. A more detached style can work for something like 2001 or EYES WIDE SHUT, but not for a grand epic tragedy where we’re supposed to be able to relate to and feel sympathy for the central tragic figure. I’d also argue that 2001, despite its thinly-drawn human characters (I specified “human” because HAL 9000 is actually quite a dynamic and fascinating character), is a very wondrous and awe-inspiring film. Similarly, EYES WIDE SHUT is a very haunting film, suffused with an atmosphere of dread and foreboding, as though throughout something just isn’t quite right. It feels almost Lynchian at times (not surprising considering that Kubrick was a huge fan of David Lynch). Even one of my least favorite Kubrick films, THE SHINING, still has a strong sense of atmosphere going for it, and I’d hardly call it “sterile” or “inhuman”. If anything, my main problem with the film is that Jack Nicholson’s centerpiece performance, while undebatably entertaining, is so broad and campy that it effectively destroys the character, transforming him into a caricature.

Maybe Lucas could’ve hired a different writer and director for each film, with himself as creative overseer of the whole project. I’m not sure who I would’ve hired for ATTACK OF THE CLONES, but I know exactly who I would’ve gotten for the other two prequel films. I would’ve had Terry Gilliam direct THE PHANTOM MENACE and I would’ve had Steven Spielberg direct REVENGE OF THE SITH.

No, people wanted to see the man that Obi-Wan Kenobi described in RETURN OF THE JEDI:

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Your father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man that was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true…from a certain point of view.
LUKE SKYWALKER: A certain point of view?
OBI-WAN KENOBI: Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend.

But based on the prequels, here’s how that exchange should’ve gone:

LUKE SKYWALKER: Obi-Wan! Why didn’t you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father.
OBI-WAN KENOBI: Rightly or wrongly, I feared that you might follow in his footsteps. In order to prevent that from happening, I kept this from you. But now that you know, it’s time for me to be candid and tell you what your father was actually like. While he was a kind-hearted and generous child, he spent his entire adult life as a horrible, vicious, murderous psychopath with absolutely no redeeming qualities. He routinely murdered children, and he attempted to murder your mother when she was pregnant with you, even though he pretended that his entire reason for joining the Empire was to save her life. And we were never friends. In fact, we despised each other and we could barely tolerate being in each other’s presence. I considered him an reckless, egotistical and idiotic little ingrate who never should’ve been considered for Jedi training in the first place. He deeply resented me and believed me to be responsible for everything that went wrong in his life because he believed that he was entitled by divine right to be handed the keys to unlimited power, despite the fact that his temperament was completely ill-suited to such responsibility, and that I was somehow viciously persecuting him by encouraging him to be patient and try to develop a bit of compassion and basic human decency. Fortunately, Luke, you’re nothing like your father, and I’m quite proud of how you’ve turned out.

In other words, Anakin should’ve been more like this:



and less like this:

 

I do agree that Anakin was extremely entitled to the point of disrespecting his master, carrying out the genocide of an entire village just because he's mad, and murdering children for the sole purpose of preserving his wife.

However......the Joffrey comparison is a bit exaggerated lol. Joffrey takes pleasure in other people's suffering; Anakin does not. And that's the key difference. While Anakin does display some narcissistic traits, he's no sociopath. He's just.....selfish, and to a great degree. But I don't get the sense that he's having the time of his life whilst murdering all those younglings. Joffrey is a 10/10 on the evil scale. Anakin is not quite there. He does have many negative qualities (which only get worse), no question about that. But he doesn't ever quite reach the Joffrey extreme. Like Joffrey is the guy who would abduct kittens & torture them for fun; I just can't see Anakin ever engaging in such activities.......you know, unless a wrinkly old guy said it could save his wife from dying. Then he'd be all in!

Going back to the topic of the thread, I think if Anakin's character had been made more likeable and believable in his motivations, people might feel more "heart & soul" in these movies because his fall to the dark side would be all the more tragic.

 

Anakin isn’t necessarily as sadistic as Joffrey is, but their similarities are far more striking than their differences. They both have this incredibly petty sense of entitlement, neither of them has any respect for those who know much more than they do (seriously, the way Anakin treats Obi-Wan isn’t that dissimilar from the way Joffrey treats Tyrion Lannister), they both treat everyone around them like garbage, they’re both incredibly petulant and whiny and prone to throwing temper tantrums, they both believe that they have the right to murder anyone who displeases them or makes them unhappy, neither of them possesses any charisma or social skills, and frankly, they’re both equally idiotic.

I’m sorry, but Anakin really does remind me of Joffrey. I certainly find both of them equally irritating and loathsome. In fact, I remember seeing REVENGE OF THE SITH in a packed theater. The scene where Anakin writhes in agony as he’s burning to a crisp got a standing ovation from the audience, which found Anakin’s suffering, pain and anguish to be immensely satisfying.

 

Lol... between Qui-WivBrid's "Lucas is god of SW and can do no wrong", and "Anakin is almost totally like Joffrey, seriously", can anyone tell me who's the reasonable party in this debate?

Christ.

 

The theater you attended was packed with either sadists or masochists. I can't tell which.

 

Why not

 

If we saw a movie that chronicled the change of Anakin from TPM to AOTC, that might help me a bit.

As it stands now, we have TPM Anakin and AOTC Anakin just feels completely rebooted. New actor and complete new personality.

 

And third one's the same actor, but also rebooted

 

You may, or may not know, but there was another direct nod to Kubrick from Lucas in TPM...

 

Mentioned whithin minutes of each other.
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...clones-→-i-the-phantom-menace.50037652/page-3

"This means something."

 

According to many modern psychologists, it doesn't matter, actually they are the the sides of the same thing. And in most of the cases a serious treatment is needed.
But maybe many people are too infested with unimaginative, imitative pieces as GoT and even they prefer as junk food instead of good local cuisine ( as would be the books of Maurice Druon in the case of GoT for example). Anyway, I hope the typical fans of SW are different.

But I'd like to discuss some arguments that are abundant in this thread. For example, this argument: 'And the second point is as has already been said since the acting is all done against a green screen across from imaginary opponents and backgrounds it comes across a little wooden" always surprise me. The stage actors had always acted in front of something as green screen. The decors of the stage are like green screen, i.e. they are insufficient and the actors should imagine: what is this piece of paper and plastic in front of them. Maybe this is one of the reasons that in the last years Hollywood hires non USA actors: because outside of USA most of the actors are universal actors: they always have experience in the stage as there is the real school. I think Peter Jackson was the first one who made it in such scale. Don’t get wrong, is not that they are better or worse, just they are used to play not in real sets, if I can say so. But when the prequels came out, the green/blue screens were relatively new and rare and because of that were unusual even for stage actors. But as you can see in the documentaries, the actors just had to adapt to them, that's all.

About the acting itself: well, that really makes me cringe. Don't like the acting in PT: fine, but comparing it with OT as OT some kind of Shakespearian adaptation of Kenneth Branah or one of the classic literature adaptations of Franco Zeffirelli or for example, Citizen Kane.. Give me a break. As much as I like Star Wars Saga I know very well that it is not an acting masterpiece. It is a masterpiece in different aspects. Is not that the acting s not important, all the opposite, is just different kind of movie where the dialogue (my other 'favorite' theme) is not the center of the scene, just part of it and second, the acting is more important in expressing emotions without words or despite of the words. I can give plenty of examples where OT fails in that and PT succeed but let's not derail the thread. All these arguments for me suspiciously look as the motive: the prequels lack of heart and soul as I'm already a mature person, I have lost the connection with my inner child but I like this magic again. It cannot be got back, unfortunately.

 

Movie debates haven't wounded my inner child. The real world, its politics and tragedies have. Escapism is still that fantastic tool where one can shed off the concerns for a while and let the inner child play. I love Star Wars, it's a big part of who I am in a way, and being able to dissect what works and what doesn't is in some ways as interesting as sitting back and enjoying a view of it.

Methinks you pulled that argument out of thin air with little research or knowledge of the BDSM community, its practices, the psychological health of said folks there. "Many" psychologists is another broad sweeping generalization that has no basis in fact, only assumption.

Also:

Sadists - Take pleasure in others' pain.

Masochists - Take pleasure in their own pain.

Of the two groups that went back to the theaters to watch ROTS I am sure there were "many" masochists, lol, or people like me who just had to see how the story ended and get it over with. (Same reason I watched the third Matrix film after the 2nd one... ugh!)

Unimaginative and imitative are the same things? Because didn't Papa George expressly say he was imitating Buck Rogers and the serials of his youth? Did he not draw from the wellspring of the entertainment he enjoyed in his youth?

I'm not necessarily calling Game of Thrones brilliant, though it does have its moments of brilliance. However, identifiable characters with which one can emote, in a story that has stakes and consequences, do make the show immensely watchable and enjoyable.

You are going to undermine any attempt to elevate Star Wars to some higher plane of quality if you're also going to refer to enjoyable films that aren't necessarily Citizen Kane as junk food.

Btw, Citizen Kane? Meh. Didn't care for it. I recognize that it was the first film to use techniques that are now a part of film language and that is an achievement in and of itself, but the film itself... didn't really care for it.

Also, saying the OT acting was more naturalistic wasn't comparing the OT to Shakespeare, he was saying the acting was more natural and felt more real and identifiable. You completely tried to change what he was saying there, and to conflate his argument so wrongly is a straw man fallacy at its most basic.

 

We're comparing Anakin to Joffrey now? Wut

 

Two guys above.

Characters emote themselves, you then identify with them

Now why would you emphasize those things as if not every show and movie already contained them?

 

Because not every show succeeds at it.

 

Well, every show that's been brought up here so far does, so what's the point I mean.


; - )

 

I think this thread has made its point.

 

Exactly.

 

Hey, some people make points. Others don't discuss, they just post reductive responses in an attempt to kill the thread. Sometimes all that ends up getting is a reductive meme pic in response. Passive-aggressive downward spiral ensues.

P.S. - I don't agree with Kuro's Joffrey comparison, but I did agree with the earlier parts of that post. Happy to discuss this with people interested in having the discussion that was already going on. If one is not really wanting to do so, why even reply?