PT Why Are The PT Films criticized? (catch-all thread)

Kaminski used to post on this forum. I recall him constantly railing on and deriding the man for his various imagined hypocrisies, never once having even a single nice or positive thing to say about him, and at one point even bizarrely speculating that Lucas must have been addled on drugs during some innocent talk show interview that was posted. I don't believe he has much, if any, love or respect for Lucas at all, despite what he might claim in his writings for purely rhetorical reasons.

 

He seems respectful and knowledgable..However, you can clearly see the OT bias.

 

I don't care if he off handedly mentions his so-called "respect".....his apparent glee in discussing the horrendous "FILM", The People vs. George Lucas shows what he really thinks.

And really, his claim of his work being the SECRET history of Star Wars? All his stuff comes from readily available print sources and interviews....he just frames it to fit his narrative. He has no inside knowledge of anything.

 

He also fails to take into account many things that would tend to paint many of Lucas's seemingly questionable statements about the history of the saga in a more reasonable light. Like many saga historians of his ilk, he's oddly reluctant to give Lucas any kind of leeway at all when it comes to Lucas being put in situations where he's forced to reduce an incredibly complicated developmental history into a simple sound bite for the media. In reality, very little of what Lucas has said is totally inexplicable or rises to the level of a true lie, and he's never made any serious effort to hide any of the more in-depth information that gives a clearer picture of what went on. He never actually hid the fact that, in the original Rough Draft, the fallen cyborg father who redeems himself though sacrifice and the fallen Sith Knight under the droid-like control of the Empire (who is ultimately redeemed by the cyborg's virtuous son) are separate characters--and the reason is because in his mind, that's exactly what he's referring to when he says the original story was about a son redeeming his father. He just simplifies it that way for interviews, because why not? It's not like he's under oath at a deposition. And it's not even false.

 

He has an opinion, and decided to write a book. Good for him. Just because you disagree with some of his opinions, doesn't make everything he writes BS. Even if he thinks Lucas is the worst person on the planet, doesn't make everything he writes BS. I really don't get this us versus them mentality.

 

never said everything he said was BS.....

But I disagree with a majority his opinions (mostly as how they relate to the PT....I could give a crap about the release of the OOT) and his motivations for writing. I like the PT ( and therefore the whole saga).....its obvious he doesn't. He's another in the long line of people that have set out to belittle Lucas's entire work. And even if he doesn't explicitly state it, the vibe he exudes echoes the same old tired arguments that us fans of Lucas and his work are somehow wrong.

 

Really excellent overview but one of the ultimate points of all of this is that Anakin wants MORE. He knows he isn't the Jedi he should be. He believes the council doesn't trust him and aren't telling him everything about the Force they should. Sidious talks about not getting tied into the dogma of the Jedi. That good and evil are points of view and that the Sith and Jedi are far more the same than different. The Council wanted to use him to spy on Palpatine because they were losing their power.

Mace was going to arrest Palpatine then decided to kill him. Anakin save him ultimately because of selfishness. He NEEDS him to save Padme. He is utterly convinced that Padme will die as he saw in his dream/vision just as his mother did and he swore he would not let that happen again and would seek the power to stop it from happening.

Once he stops Mace but Palpatine kills him he is finished. "What have I done?" He is defeated emotionally, mentally and spiritually. He gives in and pledges allegiance to Sidious and becomes his apprentice. He is now Sith. He is now Darth Vader.

One of the things that always astounds me is that for all the talk of the spiritual/mystical aspect of the Force that is so praised by some as it appears in the OT when the same and actually more in-depth aspects are in the PT they for some reason get largely or totally ignored. Instead the false narrative that the Jedi are all about science and midi-chlorians is put forward.

When Anakin pledges to Sidious and rises what is the first thing we see? Yoda staggering like Obi-Wan does in ANH after millions of people have been killed by the Death Star. Anakin's turn is as large a shift in the Force as Yoda has ever felt and he hasn't done a physical action yet as a Sith.

Lucas called it two hard right turns. He said that what Anakin is struggling with is so subtle that it may be hard for people to understand why his obsession to hold on to Padme is so strong.

Once Anakin becomes Vader then he does the Sith thing and rationalizes it all even if he doesn't really believe it. He makes himself believe it so that he can he right and what he is doing is right. It is right. For him and his selfishness, greed and want of power.

As for MK above he makes points about the production aspect that are true but then mixes that with his own perspective on what now does and doesn't work in terms of story and character. Fair enough but that is not fact. This is taking the approach of the ever changing nature of the way Lucas was always telling his stories and saying that "Well he didn't have it all planned out from the start so it doesn't really work for me here but it works for me in other places to different degrees depending on how much I like it." So when Lucas changes things all around from ANH to TESB then to ROTJ again he has less problems with those but when he does the exact same things for TPM, AOTC and ROTS then he has far more problems even though the PT is far more consistent within itself and to the OT then the OT was within itself at the time they were made.

We can't know this for sure but based on the way Lucas works I think it entirely possible that he took the unplanned arc of changes in Vader (the massive shifts between episodes with lots of things happening in-between them) and purposely did the same with Anakin. Obviously lots of change takes place between TPM AOTC and ROTS for Anakin. These shifts were unplanned with Vader but by the PT are a planned part of the narrative structure he set out for the PT.

 

Kaminski (zombie84), like RLM is pretty dishonest and he has cherry picked and misrepresented stuff to make his arguments seem stronger than they really are.

http://acertainpointofview.net/?p=1779

At the very least, you have to take anything he says with a grain of salt as he is willing to misrepresent stuff to fit his desired conclusions.

 

While I disagree with his rant about taking ownership of Star Wars, which is just ridiculous to the extreme, I think preserving the OOT in the way, that Mike Verta has done for Star Wars is a noble cause. Even if nobody ever sees the OOT again, which was (and maybe is) Lucas' and now is Disney's decision to make, I think the original film in it's original form is important to preserve for posterity in the National Film Registry.

 

I agree about taking away ownership of Star Wars, as well as his tactic of leaving out a critical line from Lucas's 1988 speech to paint him as a hypocrite which ironically makes Kaminski a hypocrite.

The original film should be preserved along with the current SE version in the National Film Registry to respect Lucas's artistic wishes. Lucas has long expressed that the SE is the definitive versions of the OT which fans should respect no matter which version they prefer. But like PT haters, SE haters would like nothing more than cast the SE into obscurity and be long forgotten. I think one of the reasons Lucas didn't release the OOT too much is to prevent some fans to make the OOT the de facto definitive version.

 

I don't think I've ever seen anyone seriously argue, that the SE should be banned from all existence. Some may not like the SE changes, which they are free to do, as others may dislike some of the dated effects of the OOT, which is also fine.

Fans will prefer the version they prefer, and there's nothing a director can change about that. I think it's strange for a director to try and control how people feel about his work to the point, where they more or less refuse to accept, that some may prefer an earlier incarnation over the one the director prefers.

In any case, I suspect, that a 3D release of the SE is in the works for the 40th anniversary, so my guess is that in a few years from now, there will be multiple versions of the film available in 2D and 3D, as is the case for many other classic films, and modern films. Posterity will decide which version is historically considered the most significant.

 

More like It's strange for an audience to be so attached to something such as this. I do think Lucas should have kept the OOT but his argument also stands still. If an artist doesn't want his old work to be really seen as he felt it was incomplete, that is valid. It's not strange for a director in wanting to change things, its the fans that are strange. Acting like it it their property, when really, it never was to begin with.

As it stands, It's good that fans are recreating the OOT, making the original vision a comeback. But there is also too much entitlement in that area, and a bit over emotional. Many fans I've talked with and seen over the course of the years have been too emotionally attached to these movies, in which when something is taken away from a child, they at times act on an impulsive ,wanting what is not theirs. Not even I, a lover of the PT am attached to those movies despite being amazing and me growing up with them.

 

I've seen plenty of people argue that, honestly. It's hardly surprising.

DrDre And that's why.

 

Seconded to both your posts, good thoughts guys.

I pretty much agree with DrDre about the changes to the turn, I would have preferred a generally longer film that stayed truer to the original cut.

I would add to the rebuttal by Qui-Riv-Brid (which makes a lot of great points), that the actual turn is kind of more supernatural in the final version. Anakin truly sells his soul, seemingly lets go of any internal conflict, and in his mind strengthens his resolve with the dark side. The Faustian aspect of course means that it ultimately backfires despite seeming like the best option during his initial desperation.

 

Yeah, the spoiled child analogy is pretty accurate with some of those fans, but Lucas's desire to wipe the originals from the face of the earth is still bizarre nonetheless.

 

I'd rather Lucas have his current version and that is for one reason; Love.

That is what drove Anikan to insanity. It was his love for Padme that made his fall, and I agree with Lucas..It might be flawed, but the payoff and themes are too great to just pass up.

 

Well put.

I agree that the emotional payoff was likely better in the final cut. It is pretty powerful.

But I dunno, it seems with more patience from the audience a longer arc where Anakin is more gradually consumed would have been awesome. Just my opinion.

 

I don't see how there's too much entitlement. People are simply asking for a good quality release of the original film, which in many cases is the film they saw when they were younger, which isn't much to ask at all, yet for nearly twenty years now they've been told to bugger off. The film that won seven Oscars and was the highest grossing of all time isn't available in its original form because one of the people responsible for its creation has a nebulous, ever changing goal and petty attitude.
You mightn't have much any major emotional connection to the PT but there are some around here who do, and in any case those films are available in either their original form or a form that's been altered in a way generally considered constructive and not destructive.
And in any case some people get more attached to films than others.

 

But it wasn't love, IMO. It was a kind of obsession bordering on possessiveness. It was selfishness taken to extremes. Anakin had little actual regard for Padme and what she might want. It was all about what Anakin wanted. This was all tied (rather poorly, IMO) to the loss of his mother. Lucas was emphasizing, I think that it was fear of loss, rather than loss itself, that drove Anakin to the Dark Side. Not a terrible idea, I guess, but I personally found that whole plot line contrived and forced. It's my second biggest criticism of the PT. Having said that, I think Lucas underlined that it was all about how the universe, and everyone in it oriented around Anakin in his mind. When he thinks Padme has "betrayed" him, his instinct is not to reconsider his horrible crimes out of love for her, it is to attack her. To punish her. When he says "you are either with me or against me" to Obi-Wan he is expressing that supreme selfishness that drove him to murder a few dozen children for Padme's sake, and which she most certainly would not have wanted for her own sake, no matter the consequences.

Anakin, in the PT, is an incredibly selfish man with Mommy issues. Meh. I think he is actually drawn with rather more complexity in TCW, which is why I prefer that representation of him. I can honestly see that version of Anakin as a tragic hero.

 

You are entitled to your opinion, but one point I would refute is your claim of a weak connection between the loss of Anakin's mother and Anakin's later fears. At face value it may seem shallow, but if you actually analyse the films there is a hell of a lot of mirroring and foreshadowing that I think may go pretty unnoticed by many.
For example, Anakin making essentially an "opposite" journey in TPM and AOTC respectively. Both literally in locations featured, and spiritually in "leaving" Shmi in one movie, spending (subconsciously) a good part of the first film and AOTC really wishing he was still on Tattooine (Padme notes this almost straight away on first trip to Coruscant in TPM) ... reuniting with Shmi (back to Tatooine) before almost instantly having to "leave" her again. It might sound obvious, but it seems pretty intentionally woven.

And a neat "inversion" for lack of a better word - Shmi tells Anakin he has to "choose his own path", and make his own decision on following Qui-Gon and becoming a Jedi padawan, then in ROTS Padme ironically states "You're going down a path I can't follow" about Anakin's decision to follow Sidious. Padme making her own decision, and refusing to follow Anakin's own path, one Palpatine (unlike Anakin's mother) pushed him into in the first place. It's a little trippy I think.

Then of course Leia follows in her mother and grandmother's footsteps when she states Han "has to follow his own path, no one can choose it for him." Then Han makes the right decision on his own and saves the day.

 

Plus, Anakin's lost parental figures (Qui-Gon and Shmi) create kind of a symbolic void, which he tries to fill with Obi-Wan and Padme, is then pounced on by Palpatine, and ultimately turns his relationship with Padme from co-dependent to destructive. it's kind of hard to portray in words, but there is a lot of imagery if you watch it onscreen.

 

It's not that I think the connection to the loss of Anakin's mother is "weak," it's that it feels contrived. Anakin is SO traumatized by his mother being kidnapped and dying that he goes on a murderous spree, but there is no hint that he made any attempt to even keep track of her for the 10 years before that? Seem ridiculous to me. But it's one of my major issues with how Lucas decided to structure the PT. I think that weakness is hard to avoid given the choices he made.

And this also plays into that weakness. Lucas decides that Anakin is a selfish man with Mommy issues and that drives his descent into the Dark Side. In my view, that's a pretty facile and shallow way of justifying an angry mass murderer. It really irritated me until TCW came out and I saw an Anakin with lots of pent-up anger which expresses itself in more complex ways. For me, TCW improves the PT so much because I can pretent that TCW is what we get in the PT (which we do eventually, I guess, in some way... a sort of ret-conned Anakin).

I know what Lucas was going for here, it just didn't work for me. I'm not saying it can't work for anyone, but I'll take the Matt Lanter version/TCW version, who I can actually feel some sympathy for.

 

Just wanted to add a comment to this board. I originally wrote this for the practical effects thread but thought it'd be more appropriate here:

I love the world building in the PT. It is incredibly imaginative and, in my opinion, a justification for the entire trilogy. Like many have said in the practical effects thread, I am surprised at the amount of practical sets that went into it.

But this insight doesn't help me to resolve the problem I do have with the PT. My criticism -- and, I think, many others' -- about the use of CGI is not with the sets, it's with the characters.

A practical set can look wonderful, but if there's some videogame character traipsing through it, I can't keep myself in the story. CGI characters are the great misstep of the PT in my opinion (nonsequitor: it baffles me that TFA made the same mistake).

And the real rub comes from the fact that it was so deliberate. There was no reason for GL to make so many characters CGI, aside from 'just because.'

I enjoy all of the PT, but I don't think I'll ever love them because I can't stay engaged in the story due to the CGI characters.

My favorite part of AOTC is the rompy, world-hopping middle section that many decry. The Battle of Geonosis is the part I can't get into -- and knowing that the videogame battle was staged on a real miniature set doesn't do anything to fix this. The problem is not the background, it's the foreground.

The Prequel Trilogy had all the potential in the world. Watching it, I feel like Obi-Wan watching Anakin burn : You were the chosen one!

 

You could put that down to Anakin trying hard to do what he is taught is right by the Jedi at first. A self-imposed prison keeping him from acting on his longing, that leads to it all blowing up in the worst possible way when he gives in to his fears and heads to Tattooine too late. So he would resent the Jedi, and his own perceived weakness in himself, for this. He also promises he won't fail again. This might not sound that meaningful other than at the obvious level, but I think it is hinted that Jedi in the films have a kind of honour system regarding promises. It's not just a word.
- Qui-Gon promises he will watch over Anakin, and while he dies before he can truly achieve this, you can hear his voice during the Tusken slaughter indicating he still watched over the boy in his own way.
- Obi-Wan promises to train Anakin to knighthood, and makes good on his word.
- Anakin: "We will find out who is trying to kill you Padme, I promise you." (They do).
- Anakin states to Obi-Wan: "I swear to you, I didn't ask to be put on the Council."
- Anakin promises his dead mother he won't be too weak next time, and even implores Padme "I promise you (Padme won't die)".
Luke in ESB - "...And I will return. I promise."

It partially shows Anakin will do literally almost anything to keep his word. The Jedi in ROTS prove to be kind of a dead-end from Anakin's point of view, he will try anything. Plus, in the novelisations his dreams are shown (on more than these two occasions) to be entirely prophetic. It isn't just a hunch, for Anakin.

In the AOTC script Anakin makes mentions of his mother that are admittedly less morbid. To Padme - "I never really had a home. Home was always where my mom was." is a warmer statement.
And Obi-Wan knows Anakin has been worried about his mother for some time... "I don't sleep well anymore." "Because of your mother?" 'I don't know why I keep dreaming about her." 'Dreams pass in time."

Tying into this, Yoda's advice "Rejoice for those who transform into the force. Mourn them do not." is arguably an oversight on the Jedi's part, afterall; Luke healthily mourns when he loses Obi-Wan, Yoda, and when he eventually loses his father after a brief reunion.

Well, I would say the word "justifies" would only apply to Palpatine and Vader's point of view.
Anakin has been missing sleep when he turns (partly to avoid his nightmares), is stressfully relaying pointlessly between his duties to Palpatine and the Jedi Council, has delved into the dark side several times before, and sees Mace confirm (coloured by Anakin's fragile mind-state) the devil's claims of the Jedi's fear of losing power. He was already willing to do anything to help Padme, and Palpatine and circumstance put him in the wrong place at the wrong time, so he takes the easier way out, doing anything he can to quell his torment. Anything from here is just a rationalisation, aided by the perceived release of the dark side.

I don't know what else to add, but it works for me.


Edit - If you were talking specifically about the Tusken slaughter rather, well this isn't hardly rationalised by Anakin at all. He just loses it. They hurt him , so he hurts them. He knows it was wrong after, but still hates them. An indication he will be quite vengeful and vindictive if you strike at something so intrinsical to him.

On the breakdown in Anakin and Padme's relationship, this is really the dark side corruption turning itself from a means into an end itself. He loses sight of his initial goals, even who he was moments after pledging.

 

Well yeah obsession was very much apart of that. It was shown that he did have internal issues, but my main point is that he did love Padme. So much that he would go lengths and beyond to save her. He still loved her, but that love had holes and flaws into how he percived it. Anakin had much love for Padme, and it was clearly shown in AOTC and ROTS. ROTS later showed how love can become corrupted despite good intentions.

And really, people can't compare a freaking 4 season TV sho that has even more freedom because it's all CGI to a movie. You might as well say TCW was better than the OT because it was more complex.

The shows are similar but incredibly different. You see much of Anakin being good because he is at a more peaceful time with himself.

You can have your own"TCW was better than the PT" but I don't see that viewpoint as valid at all or fair. I in fact discard it. TV shows to movies are an entirely different medium, and comparisons to those can't really be all that valid to me.