Discussion What needs to happen to make you say, "The ST was as good as the OT"?

Having listened to the respective positions & the reasoning behind this "Empire has no plot" business, I have come to the conclusion that I don't agree with any of them in the slightest. On the contrary, the story unfolds in such a natural way as one event leads to the next that it seems to have half the running time of the other films. There aren't any wasted scenes.

 

So your saying the reason people only like the OT over the PT is because of nostalgia, and not because they are better movies?

That might be the dumbest thing I've heard on this forums yet. Congrats!!!

 

OT nostalgia actually made me want to like the prequels, and because of that I gave them chance after chance to win me over. Ultimately they failed.

 

I said nostalgia has an influence on people's perception of the OT, nothing more. But please keep up the classy posts.

 

Always count on me for a classy post. Oh, and I prove your theory wrong. I like the ot over the pt because they are better movies, not because of nostalgia. I'm more of a movie fan instead if a Star Wars fan, and the ot are better crafted movies in my opinion. There's a reason why the ot movies are in the library of congress and the pt never will.

 

As far as I know, ROTJ has not yet joined ANH and TESB in the National Film Registry, but the reason these films made it in has more to do with their cultural impact than being good films. I don't actually think any of the Star Wars films are all that great on their own, but they are all a fun ride and rich with detail, and taken as a whole they tell a great story, and it's that combination that makes me watch them more often than other films that I think are actually better and more well made. And as long as we're waving our lightsabers around, I'm a movie fan as well and have thousands of movies in my collection from many countries and every era, so it's not like Star Wars is the be all end all of cinema for me.

And once again, I never said nostalgia is the reason people prefer the OT over the PT. It was Roberto Calrissian who said that. But I don't see how it's disputable that if you were a child when you first saw the OT, you're going to have some nostalgia for those movies which plays a part in your love for them, and I'm no different. But at the same time, if the PT had never been made, my interest in Star Wars would probably be pretty low at this point in my life, and I certainly wouldn't be having this conversation with you right now. Nostalgia alone only warrants occasional viewings of a movie from me, and nostalgic value would be the main thing that those movies would have to offer for me on their own.

 

ROTJ felt like a retread of ANH. The confrontation scenes with Luke, Vader, and Palpatine were very good as was the space battle, but the first half takes far too long.

 

I think it is disputable. Are most of the people who thought the remakes of Total Recall, Conan the Barbarian,etc. sucked all blinded by Nostalgia? Maybe the originals were just better movies. And maybe the OT were just better crafted films than the PT.

 

To me everything but the stuff on Endor was great. The Endor bit of the plot really drags it down, and really only has the speeder chase to show for it.

 

I HATED the Ewoks. In some ways, they are just as bad as the Gungans. I also was not a fan of Luke's "nerf saber" on the slaver barge over the Sarlaac pit.

 

Did I say anything about being blinded by nostalgia? If you saw those movies when you were young then you probably have some nostalgia for them too, but I never said anything about the quality of the movies versus the nostalgia you have for them. If you insist on arguing a straw man then I'll let you do that on your own.

 

That was just to get us all ready for TFU's nerfsaberathon.

 

I know when I first TPM I was amazed. I didn't care about the silliness of Jar Jar or the kid's acting. I just marveled at how all the CGI looked good...I mean the gungan droid battle is completely CGI...no actual people. It was kick ass. And the clone fighting on Genosis is outstanding. Sure ROTS is the best one and it should be as its the darkest and we see Vader for the first time. Stop bashing the PT. If the ST has even half of the cool stuff of the PT I will be happy...and if it has characters from the OT doing different stuff than what we are used to than we will all be happy to an extent...just don't get your expectations up too high or you will be let down like people claim they were with the PT.

 

I don't disagree that the characters are brought to their lowest point. But my main criticism was that ESB, although it tells the personal, more intimate story well, does not have nearly as strong of an overarching, large-scale plot as the other films. What I mean is, it doesn't really do anything to expand the central conflict of Empire vs. Rebellion. By the end of the film, there's no way to tell if either the Empire or the Rebels are any worse for wear. The only thing that happens is the battle of Hoth, but we never really see any fallout from that. It just seems like the Rebels leave and nothing about the status quo really changes. So sure Luke's personal story is advanced very well, but in terms of telling a story about a war, ESB seems a bit arbitrary in the grand scheme of things.

Right, but what's the overarching plot? After all, these films are called Star Wars, so one imagines that the backdrop to these events is some kind of war, and yet, very little is done to advance a larger-scale conflict.

TPM: Palpatine ascends to the Chancellorship and Naboo is liberated
AOTC: The Clone Wars, after much debate, begin
ROTS: The Clone Wars end and the Empire rises
ANH: The Rebellion gets its first major victory against the Empire and destroys the Death Star
ROTJ: The Empire is overthrown and the second Death Star is destroyed

Compared to the other films, the only thing in ESB even tangentially related to the Empire vs. Rebellion conflict is the battle of Hoth and, as I pointed out, even that seems to have little effect on either side. It's very much all about Luke.

 

ESB has a plot. However, the whole film is simply one long chase sequence:
Bad guys attack good guys.
Good guys run.
Bad guys chase good guys.
Good guys split up.
Bad guys find good guys.
Main good guy arrives to fight Main bad guy.
Main bad guy wins.
Main good guy lives to fight another day.

The main things that develop characters are:
1. Sexual tensions between Han and Leia
2. Yoda trains/lectures Luke
3. Vader lures Luke to the Dark Side.

It deals with complex ideas subtextually and within a simplistic, easy-to-follow framework.

ANH is basically:
Princess is kidnapped by Black Knight and taken to Evil Fortress.
Bumpkin/Arthurian Hero in Training is taken on an adventure by an Old Wizard to rescue the Princess.
Bumpkin, Wizard, Pirate and bumbling second-tier assistants storm the Dark Fortress.
Dark Knight kills Old Wizard, everyone escapes Fortress.
Good guys rally and assault the Fortress, destroying it and exiling the Dark Knight.

Not really a lot there, either.

 

Any plot can be broken down into simplicity if you try hard enough.

Wizard of Oz = Girl tries to get home with friends' help

Schindler's List = Guy tries to save Jews

ET = Boy tries to help alien get home

Bridge on the River Kwai = Guys build bridge for enemy

It's like sports. Baseball is = hit ball with wooden stick. Football is = take ball and cross a line. But it is obviously more complicated than that.

 

That's not what a plot is. The plot of a story is the events of a story as they relate to one another. The classic example (google this) is as follows:
(a) The king died, and then the queen died.
(b) The king died, and then the queen died of a broken heart.
So, (a) is a story without plot; (b) is a story with plot.

 

I will no longer be one of those, "kids that like the new star wars, tuh". I'll be able to say that soon!!

It will have to stay true to "star wars". It won't be any good if they modify everything to make it enjoyable for just kids that like disney.

"Mum, can we go watch that new disney film?...Sure, which one star wars?" AAaahhhhhh!!

 

That I can relate to the characters, great story, good dialogue, more practical SFX, complimented by minimal, good quality CGI and great acting!

 

I wasn't simplifying the *plots*, I was illustrating that the plots of ANH and ESB operate within a very simple story framework. The actual plots, as I indicated with ESB, are more layered. That's why little kids watch the space chases and fight scenes and adults wonder about Obi Wan's motives and Luke's emotional struggle.

It's just when people say "ESB has no plot", they're really looking at this simplistic framework. And I posit the same is true for ANH. This is Star Wars, not "Ulysses".

 

Right, I'm assuming that people who say that ESB has no plot mean that, from the perspective of the plot as "Empire pursues good guys; good guys escape; Empire pursues good guys; good guys escape; Empire pursues good guys; good guys escape," you can take large chunks out of the plot and/or switch it around with minor rewrites, and you'd not notice a whole lot (for instance, the whole asteroid chase/space slug thing can be taken out).



I'd argue that that sort of ignores the actual plot, and ESB's actual plot is (or attempts to be, anyway) a fairly straightforward, classic 5-point dramatic structure (exposition; rising action following inciting event; climax; falling action resulting in resolution; dénouement), just like ROTS. So just to C&P bits from a post I made a week ago on the Saga board:



As I'm sure a lot of people here know, most modern movies and stories follow a 3-act structure. In contrast, classic tragedies (Greek, Shakespearean, etc.) tend to follow a fairly strict 5-point structure:

1. Exposition: the setting, characters, and their motivation is introduced.

2. Rising action: following an inciting incident (or complication), the conflict for the protagonist is introduced and develops.

3. Climax or turning point: following anagnorisis (paraphrasing from Wikipedia: recognition, not only of a person but also of what that person stood for; the hero's sudden awareness of a real situation, the realisation of things as they stood, and finally, the hero's insight into a relationship with an often antagonistic character), the protagonist makes a decision that defines the rest of the story. In a tragedy, this decision is a bad one.
(Note that the use of the word "climax" in the context of dramatic structure is different from that in a typical movie, where it just refers to "all the action stuff at the end".)

4. Falling action: Conflicts unravel, with the effects of the protagonist's decision playing out, ending in the resolution, which is where the main conflict is resolved (in a tragedy, in a bad way).

5. Dénouement, in a tragedy as called catastrophe: following the resolution, we see how the aftermath of the conflict and its resolution, and characters deal with the situation.


To me, ESB tries to follow this structure. IMO: the exposition is the Hoth setting, Luke getting mauled by the wampa snow monster, Luke and Chewie blowing up the probe droid, the Hoth ground battle with the Imperial walkers, and everyone escaping into separate directions. The inciting incident is Luke seeing Obi-Wan's ghost who tells him to go to Dagobah, and rising action starts with Luke going to Dagobah and further develops with Vader chasing Han and Leia, while Luke is being trained by Yoda. There's no real anagnorisis (I think...), but the climx consists of Luke having a vision of Han and Leia in pain, and deciding to go to Cloud City to rescue them. Falling action: Vader captures Hand&Leia, tortures and freezes Han, and fights Luke. The resolution is where Vader chops off Luke's hand and tells him he's his father, and Luke escapes; the dénouement is Boba Fett getting away with frozen Han, while Luke gets an artificial hand and is left feeling conflicted about Vader and Ben.