Saga What do you OT & PT fans think of this opinion?

I don't know why, but for some reason this is never brought up.

I believe that the Prequel Trilogy gave Palpatine's death and Anakin's redemption more emotion and understanding.

Like when Darth Vader kills Palpatine, when I saw that movie for the first time in 2003, i thought it was a VERY GOOD scene. But after I saw Revenge Of The Sith in theaters in 2005, I watched Return Of The Jedi again the next year in 2006, and to me the scene was much more emotional and epic because of Episode III.

Reasons are:

1. We see how great of a character Anakin was (imo)

2. We see how evil Palpatine is in Episode III. When I saw Return Of The Jedi in 2003, to me it as just Darth Vader killing a typical bad guy. But after I saw Episode III, the scene was more powerful because it showed us a completely over the top evil man finally being killed by the hero.

3. We saw in the Prequel Trilogy, many sad things that happened to Anakin; his mother passing away, Padme passing away, him getting burned, him leaving his mother in Episode I, Obi-Wan and Anakin's amazing but sad battle, Anakin getting shocked by Count Dooku's force lightning, his injuries on Mustafar, Anakin's hand being cut off by Count Dooku, and Anakin cutting off Mace Windu's hand. And we think like "what is he thinking right before he kills Palpatine?


To me it made it more emotional. What do you guys think?

 

oh yes it does for me. what i think of when i watch the end of ROTJ now is here's Anakin, he turned to the dark side to save his wife, and now here he is watching the man who promised him help killing his son. Finally that was enough to turn him away from the dark. Even the earlier scene where Luke gives himself up and they talk on Endor has a greater layer to it now.

 

For me (and this is just me), my brain doesn't accept Episodes II & III as the actual backstory. The reason is that when I go from III to IV, the characters just don't feel like the same people anymore. And so, for the majority of my OT viewing, I'm not thinking of the PT at all. The only exception to this is Episode I; that one takes place so far before everything that when it ends, I can really imagine the story & characters going in any direction. So when Luke is burning Vader at the end of ROTJ, I do think back to how Anakin was once just a boy that loved his mom and wanted to help people; and makes things more tragic and definitely enhances the scene for me.

 

Absolutely. I think it added SOOOOO much to RoTJ. It forever changed the way I look at Star Wars, and for the better.

And Luke's, "I am a Jedi, like my father before me." with the indication towards Anakin lying on the floor...oh my gosh, he was SO PROUD of his dad and to be Anakin's son. After knowing everything Anakin went through in ep 2 and 3, and to hear his son being so proud, to declare him a Jedi again, I honestly have no words. It makes me cry every time.

 

Big time

A lot of ROTJ, perhaps more so then the other two OT entries, is made much more powerful by the PT. Seeing Luke kicking ass on the sail barge harkens back to how awesome it was seeing Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon show us how powerful the Jedi are right at the beginning on the Trade Federation control ship. "Return of the Jedi" indeed
And then Palpatine's sinister entrance as he walks from his shuttle to the Death Star. The camera pointing upwards at him, like some kind of god, but you instantly remember "this is like the devil himself"
ALL of the last duel is granted so much more context by the PT. It's a recreation of pretty much all of Anakin's fall - but this time, he makes the right choice. It's a beautiful moment
And of course Anakin's death. "Nothing can stop that now." What was before a brave and noble line now shows the pinnacle of his development - the man who once so feared death to the point of trying to defy natural order, now willingly and knowingly having given his life for the love he had for his son, accepts the inevitability of becoming one with the Force

So yes, in short, I agree

 

On a personal level or thematically? Because regarding the latter, the characters fit to a T. Everything from mannerisms to speech patterns--its all done in a very logucall way.

 

Stuff like this is why I'm tempted to steer SW newbies into watching the saga chronologically, but the polarizing nature of the PT always convinces me to recommend the safe route (ANH). Idealism vs. pragmatism.

I guess this is what drives the 4-5-1-2-3-6 logic. I suppose I like that; newbs get the classics under their belts right away, and if they're put off by TPM, at least they got the "essential" Star Wars experience.

I wish I could have experienced ROTJ as the saga payoff instead of just that of the OT (at the time). I may have hated it less.

As always, IMHO.

 

The Palpatine death scene and the Obi Wan death scene connect well with the PT.

 

I guess what I mean is that a lot of characters in the OT don't act like I would expect them to given the events of the PT. For example, when Obi-wan and Vader are fighting, I'd expect to hear some more emotional dialogue that alludes to their tragic past. Also, given how central to the PT Anakin was, I'd expect a greater emphasis on Vader and more of what he's thinking throughout IV & V. I would also expect the Emperor to have a better plan to turn Luke to the dark side, given that he had begun planting seeds in Anakin years and years in advance.

So to me, the OT doesn't feel like a continuation of the PT for those and other reasons. I have to do too much work in my head to make sense of why certain characters are acting the way they are; and that makes the PT-to-OT transition not feel natural. So I don't think too much about the PT while watching the OT (except about child Anakin at the end of ROTJ). But that's just me. I know a lot of people see it as one big story from I to VI; and that's cool too.

 

I agree. Even if people do not like how the PT was made and how certain characters were portrayed, it added a lot of depth to the originals

 

Yeah, I've always felt that Vader's repentance in Return of the Jedi felt like a cop out without the Prequel backstory in place.

 

Nah; I feel like the idea of the personal bond between father and son (or whatever) being that which overcomes two people's evil is perfectly fine; for me, the P.T. is like J. R. R. Tolkien's appendices to Lord of the Rings, you can read them, and they do add some depth, but you don't need them to understand what's going on.

 

The scene where Palpatine is frying Luke with force bolts and Anakin is watching, reminds me of Padme. In my mind Luke represents more than Luke, but also represents Padme. Its like Anakin can see Padmes pain in Luke.