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

"You scruffy looking, half witted nerfherder" is a bad line? There's nothing wrong with it at all. It's not Oscar worthy, but it's just an insult. It's supposed to sound goofy. And of course, the real kicker is the witty retort from Han: "who's scruffy lookin'?"

The Battle of Hoth is a masterpiece of tension, and to be honest I'm just a bit shocked that you honestly think Genosis, which was devoid of any tension and was largely a sideshow to the chase of Count Dooku, was the better piece of film. At Hoth, the music, cinematography, and editing combine to create a profound sense of desperation and dread as the unstoppable walkers slowly lumbering towards the rebels who are throwing everything they have just to slow them down. At Geonosis, disposable clones and droids fight each other while all the plot-important stuff happens away from the battlefield.

"Prequels have way more character arcs than the OT" is, uh, what? Let's see, you have Anakin turning evil and... I'm drawing a blank here. And Anakin's turn is kind of messed up by the details. He goes from "WHAT HAVE I DONE" to slaughtering children in less than an hour. The arcs of Han and Luke are far more subtle and well-done. Luke starts as an idealistic young man eager to adventure, but becomes grizzled and darkened by the traumatizing events of the trilogy. Despite this, he overcomes his temptation to evil and ultimately maintains a spirit of hope, and that hope ultimately redeems his father and saves the galaxy. Han, on the other hand, literally goes from just being in it for the money to being ready to sacrifice everything for his friends and the cause.

I could have phrased it better, but I'm honestly curious that anyone would actually claim that the writing problems of the prequels are no less significant than those of the OT. To me, that's like arguing that the writing problems with Twilight are no less significant than those in Lord of the Rings. To me, the latter argument is the one that's "not worth engaging with".

 

Also, I'm not sure I'd describe the Battle of Geonosis as one that was "filmed". Since perhaps 99% of it was produced in a computer. Personally I find it quite a soulless & pointless affair. Disposable animated clones grown in a lab fighting against disposable animated robots. All fighting in a pointless war that's being manipulated on both sides by the same person. The only thing that's on the line are Palpatine's ambitions. In contrast, the OT features desperate human beings fighting for their lives & their freedom. In the PT I also find that one issue feeds into & exacerbates the other. You see artificial combatants killing each other in big colorful messy battles. All rendered with very artificial looking early 2000's computer animation. These scenes are often broken up, at times by quite artificial dialogue & performances. It's all a cumulative effect that lead many people to be left cold by the viewing experience.

 

I was always under the impression ANH and ROTS both got very good reviews from critics on initial release with everything else in between being more mixed and TFA getting the highest marks of any of them in that phase.

 

Not objectively because nothing is but yes, one can argue it is a terrible line. It's suppose to be goofy doesn't constitute it as good.

Tension? The bad guys winning is the only way I can see how. The battle lacks any infantry combat and it's executed very small-scale. Geonoisis sound design, effects, and literally being what everyone wanted to see in the PT (Jedi kicking ass) is all there. And it's the accumulation of the start of the first Galactic war in thousands of years. Hoth is just another battle in a civil war that has been raging for years. Unless this was the first time the rebels lost a battle, which we never could know and I doubt it, then maybe it's more. But the pre-execution, Anakin, Padme and Obi-Wan trying to fight off the beats themselves and the Jedi forces being decimated before the clones I'd say is a form of tension.


Wow. So you didn't get the subtle seeds planted throughout the entire PT and the dark side consuming. By that logic, wholesome Luke just beat the crap out of his father with anger and then decides "oh wait, I'm the hero" and decides to not to turn to the dark side thanks to plot? Wow. Luke's adversity is nowhere near Anakins. It's clear Luke doesn't hold the same relationship issues as he pretty much mourns for a few seconds when his Aunt and Uncle die and it's never mentioned again. No one (unless your 12) would think that Luke was actually gonna be corrupted by the dark side. It's personality flaws were never as dark as Anakin's. Han? The guy goes from stereotype action hero (and the switch isn't warranted) Han gets attached to a cause for people he only knew for a few hours, to really just being there for Empire and Jedi. He cared about Luke even in the Death Star and doesn't have any on screen development in the long run. Hell, he even becomes a smuggler again in TFA.

Obi-Wan doesn't have much development in TPM but we see he's much more of a boy scout in his early years. An inverse from the "out of control" apprentice trope. AOTC and ROTS, we see a much more flexible but flawed Obi-Wan who has Anakin on a leash but cares about his well-being. In ROTS, we see his relationship with Anakin improve but it's too late for Anakin and we see how ROTS switches protagonists from Anakin's fall to Obi-Wan's reluctant duty to kill Vader. We later see him vent his frustrations on his failure to Vader but he still is too young to past some of his dogmatic views. Which he also doesnt learn in the OT either. It gives more context to the stereotype he is in ANH and an actual human experience to his character.

 

I don't get it. What's bad about the nerf herder line? If it were a movie set here & an annoyed woman said "You stuck up half-witted scruffy looking sheep herder!" would it be a bad line? I doubt it. The only difference is the word "nerf". What do people have against nerfs? She's just claiming that he's a crass backwards thinking oaf. I've also noticed a few people over the years criticise the "dustin' crops" line. Don't get that either. Just Han saying that flying through interstellar space isn't like flying a crop duster aircraft on a farm. Which I think is a great line. The funniest part being that Han is ignorant &/or doesn't care about the kind of farm that Luke grew up on. In both cases I can't spot any issues with those lines. Maybe someone could explain the problem

 

DarthDownUnder The problem is that they've noticed it and...er.... that's it.

 

"Herder" instead of "herd" is a bit clunky.

That said, in a modern or futuristic setting "you --, --, --, swineherd" or "you "you --, --, --, goatherd" , as an insult, is a bit lame.

Which is probably the point - that Leia is sheltered in some ways - and can't come up with an impressive insult - so she can only give a tamer, lamer one.

 

I grasp your objections; but I disagree with your larger thesis. It's not just Palpatine's ambitions. Anakin's soul is also on the line. That's really the whole reason to watch the prequels. As the backstory to the "man in the suit", which we get just a few teasing glimpses of in the original trilogy, the prequels' whole raison d'etre, in a raw dramatic sense, is the process-driven nature of Anakin's decline and ultimate fate; and who and what that affects along the way. Intellectually, it's also about Palpatine's machinations and an over-arching political crisis that turns into a full-blown democratic melt-down; but Anakin's story also interacts with that larger, more abstract story, thereby deepening its meaning and sprawling implications. And during the Battle of Geonosis, Anakin's story continues to vivify the political decline of the Republic and vice versa. We see it in the camaraderie between Anakin and Obi-Wan (e.g., "Good call, my young padawan!" -- and Anakin's look of pride) and the argument that subsequently develops in the gunship after Padme is thrown out ("You will be expelled from the Jedi Order!"). There is also a sense of danger and menace about the whole thing after the Jedi take to the skies and one of the other transports is blown to pieces. And then there is the perversity of Yoda ordering an attack on a fleeing Separatist ship; despite his words to Luke ("A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defence, never for attack") in the iconic Dagobah passage of TESB. What is up on screen is a sort of "Willy Wonka"-ish descent into the sickly and surreal: a bawdy, loud, adroitly-assembled visually and morally chaotic fugue. Artificial combatants, as you term them, merely feed into a wider symbolic ambivalence about the origin and scale of the conflict. What is real? Is anything real? Whoso can trace the contours of the world? "We live in a real world, come back to it..."

My own opinion is that both the action direction and overall filmmaking in the last act of AOTC alone are much bolder than anything in TFA or R1. I disagree with your earlier assertion that R1 set a new standard for action in Star Wars. Yes, the finale is impressively staged; but the shaping and overall arranging of the various action pieces, along with a pro-forma score, makes the whole thing feel relatively unengaging and ho-hum, in my opinion. That, and sorry, but I don't much care for the film's action choreography or the cinematographic approach. They're both too modern, in my opinion, and sap the series of the lyricism it formerly maintained across six radically tonally divergent (but interconnected) entities. It is further the case, in my opinion, that the finale to R1, in terms of its basic schema of ships, vehicles, planetary setting, lines of action, and overall interweaving, owes too much of a debt to the Kashyyyk beach scenes in ROTS, the Battle of Hoth in TESB, and the Battle of Endor in ROTJ (all sprinkled with a bit of the Battle of Yavin). The latter quotation is especially problematic, in my opinion, because the Battle of Endor (while loosely quoted in ROTS' opening sequence) is meant to be the grand finale of all six saga movies -- the gripping, high-stakes, multi-pronged tussle between good and evil, and quite obviously the pictorially-dense, viscerally-compelling, emotionally-gratifying conclusion; a thrilling way to round out and button-up the entire series. R1 somewhat cheats itself to a big conclusion by mining similar imagery and redeploying the same device: a big confrontation between grey wedges and barnacled cruisers is occurring while smaller snub fighters, in the basic configuration of "X"-wings and "TIE" fighters, weave around one another and try and land damage or aggressively defend; meanwhile, down below, a bunker installation is being stormed/infiltrated, and then there is some business on a small platform between three characters; one of whom is a somewhat tragic villain within the Empire inevitably about to die.

Now, AOTC's big-tastic action finale certainly quotes the Battle of Hoth, and even the Battle of Yavin (direction of travel), but I think it's also a heck of a lot more inventive. When Lucas rhymed the earlier films, he made sure to alter the musculature a great deal. Each of his films may have a similar skeleton, but the flesh varies and the skin of each film is radically different. Put anything in R1 against the podrace, the lightsaber duel at the end of TPM (or even the short duel between Qui-Gon and Maul in the desert), the air speeder chase in AOTC, the ring/asteroid chase between Jango and Obi-Wan, the abstract delight of the droid factory sequence, the aforementioned Battle of Geonosis, Anakin and Yoda battling Dooku, the opening sequence of ROTS, Obi-Wan vs. Grievous, Order 66, or the duels at the end, and I think the situation only gets worse for the Gareth Edwards movie, myself. They even had the audacity in R1 to recycle actual pilot footage from ANH! It wasn't enough that, in what is ostensibly a "heist" movie, they ported in the Death Star itself, CG Leia, CG Tarkin, Vader mowing down rebel soldiers, blue milk, vaporators, the cantina bullies, etc., no -- they even had to transplant actual footage and pilot chatter from the Battle of Yavin; just to make it even more "familiar" I suppose. You know... I geddit. Another space conflict between the "classic" ships and good guys/bad guys of Star Wars. Ergo R1 is "quintessential" Star Wars; just with a twist. Apparently doing it once already with TFA wasn't good enough. The action at the end of R1 at least has a big feel; but by coasting on former glories. And without the expansive design work, careful choreography, lucid cinematography, crisp editing, gorgeous sonic invention, and beautiful music of the Lucas films. Personally... I think they've gotten more credit (and certainly more defence) than they deserve.

 

Impressive as the realisation of the whole scene was at the time, it quickly began to make less and less sense for the Jedi.

The Jedi know they cannot take on an army by themselves, yet they send scores of knights to Geonosis to fight an army in order to rescue three people. Meanwhile, Yoda has gone only to check out the clone army but immediately mobilises them to rescue the remaining Jedi.( Did the Kimonoans clone SDs and gunships too?)

It's all very un-Jedi, from what we're told.

 

I sure never feel an inkling of that while watching the pyrotechnics that are the TCW battles in the PT. Like I said, just clones vs robots. A science experiment vs a trade conglomerate makes for a dull & uninspiring affair. One almost completely lacking in heart. IMO anyway. It's all a sideshow to Anakin's fall, which is predicated in his personal issues. Leaving his mother>>her death>>his fear of Padme's death, all supplemented with Palpatine's lies. The war going on in the background could've been between any other combatants & Anakin's situation could've played out the same. So why not make those combatants beings that the audience can relate to & care about? Lucas achieved this in the OT, even with the much derided Ewoks. Who were shown caring about each other. Who had families & who mourned the death of their friends & comrades killed in battle.

I tend to think the opposite. It's the PT who's action scenes come off as jarringly modern & far less consistent with the other 5 movies. Visually their aesthetic is similar to TCW series, or cut scenes featured in video games. Personally I think that computer animation wasn't at the standard to've been embraced to the extent that Lucas did in the late 90's-early 2000's. ILM & Lucas all seem to've been seduced & become carried away with the infinite options that CGI presents. They just throw too much "stuff" onto the screen at once. McCallum's infamous "it's so dense" line really sums up these problems. Lucas/ILM come across as over-excited kids with a new toy. The action is just far too excessive bcs it was so easy to include more & then more. The action in the newer movies is far more focused. Improvements in computer tech provide far more visual realism, & it's all staged & directed in a more coherent way.

Anyway, differing opinions & all that. Getting back to this thread question, the problem with the artificial animated look of the PT (that many but not all perceived), was IMO that it was another brick in a wall which featured different yet similar problems. Like I said earlier, artificial/wooden dialogue & performances. Which many of the cast freely admit to. "Artificial" characters like lab raised clones vs hordes of enemy robots. Which in both cases we see literally coming off the production line. So that on either side of the war, dozens, hundreds or thousands could be killed, hacked to pieces or dismembered & what did it matter? Who cares?

I think that any one of these factors could've been easily overlooked by most. When they all merge together in combination I feel like it was a significant reason for why so many couldn't get engaged, moved by, or invested in these movies. Then there's the personal story of Anakin which you alluded to. When you have a central personal story focusing on a person who along the way, murders women & children & turns against his friends & companions, you really need some secondary stories that provide as much heart, compassion & inspiration as possible. To balance out the darkness that the SW Prequel story brings with it. Which is why again, having so much artificial coldness in the other areas of this trilogy was a bad call IMO. I think Lucas got the tone wrong (for many but not all viewers). It's all quite out of balance & skews towards the unsympathetic. In short, there just aren't enough characters or factions to get behind, root for & like or love in the PT. When the most likeable characters are probably the cold & stoic Jedi who avoid emotional attachment to others, you have problems. Even more so when the one Jedi who breaks these restrictive rules slaughters innocent people in his spare time.

All of that IMO goes a small part of the way to answering this thread question. Doesn't matter if people don't personally have those same problems with the PT, or have any problems with it. The task here is to describe why some people do.

 

This is exactly what the film should be about! But they don't focus on it enough for me. I mentioned this yesterday on another thread, I forget which one now, but the core of the story and the chracters don't do enough for me to care about whats going on with them. They split them up, they concentrate on a lot of other stuff instead of whats going on between Anakin, Obi Wan and Padme (and Palpatine too). They make Anakin a child in the first one so by the second film we're starting again as the first one hasn't established much between them at all. We get to the third and its too rushed IMO, they have too much to cram in to it. In AOTC we see him lose his mother and then kill some Tusken Raiders, thats a good catalyst to start his descent, but then nothing happens. ROTS starts much better with him taking out Dooku, then hes worried about Padme dying and we get the fantastic opera scene with Palpatine - this is great stuff, but its so late in the story and is quickly over and before we know it we're off on to something else to detract. A couple of angry moody stares and a few rants weren't enough for me to buy in to his fall to the dark side to become a child murderer and a monster. Not enough has happened or been seen on screen or established as to why, come the end, he hates Obi Wan and the Jedi.

I think the core stength of the OT is the leads, the sidekicks, the villain. We care about them, we are invested in the action, the action looks like its happening right there with them in the thick of it. I think the PT doesn't get this fundamental right. Characters are split up, we have no sense of relationship between them, no decent sidekicks, chopping and changing of villains throughout. I find myself not caring about whats going on on screen. Its not about cramming as much in as possible in to every frame, its about putting our heroes in peril and having them at the centre of the action, having camardarie and a relationship between them, the stakes for them are high. I don't get that feeling with the PT, I get detached from whats going on. I think in an effort to show as much going on as they could it becomes soulless and they lost sight of what the PT should have been about and thats (as you say Cryo) Anakins soul and why he went the way he did. All that seems secondary to me, instead we get bogged down more in the political machinations of Palpatine. Thats what the PT comes across as, not the story of the fall of Anakin Skywalker and the rise of Darth Vader, but its played more as the rise to power of Emperor Palpatine.

Your'e trying to imply theres more going on than meets the eye to the prequels in the one liners or the knowing glances, but for me that just doesn't wash, the films aren't some high level, high brow experience that is going over peoples heads except a select few who get them. Fundamentally they fail on the basic thing it set out to do, convincing us why Vader turned to the dark side. When you sit down and watch the films and analyse the events as to the why and the timeline of that, they don't show us enough of the why and they leave it too late to try and do it.

Its a Star Wars film about stealing the plans for the Death Star set directly before the original so why wouldn't they show all those things? Due to the setting of the film and timeline its much more natural that we see them, (the only out of place one was the Cantina criminals for me). But they're much more natural appearances in RO than trying to force connections and shoe horn in as much stuff as possible like we saw the PT do, like Vader building 3PO, Obi Wan knew R2 and 3PO all along, Boba Fett was a clone of the guy they used as the clone trooper template, Chewie knew Yoda..... There was no need for all that to be forced in there, the connections become a joke in the end and come across as a way to get fans on board (or coast on former glories).

Your last rant was of course purely your opinion about RO, but it seems you have a huge problem with films not made by Lucas getting a lot of success and credit? Personally I can detach myself from Lucas and accept that these new ones are Star Wars films set in the universe George created and I think so far they've done a good job. Long may that success and credit continue I say, because SW isn't going to go away yet and all that is going to be built off the back of what Lucas has established.

 

Anakins story was basically about attachment, and that is something the jedi ain't allowed to have.

Qui gon took him away from his mother because he felt he was the chosen one who would bring balance to the force but yoda was concerned he was too old and had to much emotional attachment to his mother which would risk alot of bad feelings

He gets older and is haunted by a dream of the death of his mother, he finds her and she dies in his arms making him emotionally compromised.

By the end of AOTC he has got close to padme and grows a new emotional attachment to her, but this time one an attachment he won't walk away from.

ROTS is basically the same deal, a bad dream that haunts him but this time he talks to yoda about his concerns and is basically told to get over it.

The rest of the film is a desperate measure for anakin to save padme while slowly embracing the dark side.

Although in terms of how the dark side works i have brought this up in another thread but in ROTJ the idea is almost that if luke kills vader he would automatically turn to the dark side, as if he would have no choice in the matter... kill Vader and your journey towards the dark side will be complete! just that easy.

 

Yes I know the timeline but what are there, not more than what around 2 scenes in each of the final 2 films? Plus a few frowns and a couple of tantrums, I didn't think it was enough to give a convincing protrayal of someone who will betray everything hes stood for as a Jedi hero to descend into turning to the darkside, killing kids and becoming Darth Vader, a monster. Nothing else indicates whats under the surface, because theres no depth to it all as he doesn't convince me as someone in turmoil. I feel they were just paying lip service to it with what we got on screen, as if that will do and we'll quickly move on the next big effects battle. I didn't think he was the focus he should have been.

 

I really can't see how Anakin and his issues are not the focus of the trilogy. If that's your main concern, then it's really unfortunate.

 

Imo SW fans who complain about/hate/"hate" the PT are generally worked up by the dialogue, acting, and directing, even if they mostly complain about the visuals. If they weren't, I suspect they'd give the visuals more of a pass.

Btw, I saw Natalie Portman in Diary of Anne Frank prior to TPM and Liam Neeson in The Crucible ~2002, and both gave *much* better performances than they gave in the PT, imo.

I haven't read gobs of PT criticism, but I haven't really seen criticism of the PT's *story.* From what I have read about GL, he seems to be lauded most highly for his *stories,* not his directing or screenwriting. To me, the PT was consistant with those views.

I dunno. I don't adore Star Wars because they're masterfully-crafted films, although I do love the OT movies and TFA. The fact is, I felt that Lucas's explanation of Anakin's fall was very sayisfying. I would have preferred more insight into the failings of the Jedi Order and how it differed from what it once was, but overall I really liked how it was depicted, and the contrast with how Yoda and Obi-wan viewed the Force 20 years later.

To be blunt - "It's the STORIES, stupid!!!"

 

I never thought the content quite lived up to the series title until I saw the battle of Geonosis. 15 years later it remains a stunning sequence for me, capturing a sense of expansive chaos before bringing it all back to tie in wonderfully to Anakin's personal arc. When the movie first hit I remember talk of the last 45 minutes of Clones being the most exciting stretch of Star Wars, and that view holds up for me today. True, R1 managed something kind of similar and definitely stands out as far as emphasizing the war part of Star Wars, although overall I wasn't as impressed by the scale and staging of the action in that film. And the (imo) thin characterization of R1 meant I wasn't very emotionally engaged during the action finale, unlike in Clones.

 

Well I don't share your opinion of the battles of the PT, most esp AotC and RotS.
I didn't find them very innovative or daring. Mostly the sense I got was just "More."
If in the OT we had 20 ships fighting, now we should have 200 ships fighting in the PT.

To me, what makes an onscreen battle great is both buildup, a sense of the tactics involved and that there is a story to the actual battle. Beats and points in the battle that tell it's own story.
One side does this, the other side respons and so on.

In both AotC and RotS, the actual battle is more of a sideshow and the main characters are not that involved in the battle. It is just something that goes on while they were doing their own thing.
The Geonisis battle, the focus is on Obi-Wan and Anakin and they leave the battle very quickly to chase Dooku. Then you have a few glimpses of Yoda and Mace but otherwise it is just lots of fighting. Not much sense of strategy and the two sides are nameless, faceless droids vs nameless clones. So I wasn't engaged.

The RotS battle has no buildup and again we follow Anakin and Obi-Wan and once they got in the ship, the outside battle is just stuff happening the background.
No sense of strategy again, no sense of one side doing this or the other side responding by doing that.

They are technically well made and are visually impressive but they feel a bit hollow to me.

In all OT films, you had people we knew and cared about involved in the fighting and that made it more engaging, at least to me.

Ex, take the battle of Hoth and remove Luke from the battle.
Just have him helping Han to repair the MF and no known character is outside.
We see some of it but it is just a backdrop to Han and co reparing the MF.
Would it be as good?

Take the RotJ battle and say that Luke is the only known character involved.
He is on the DS2 and it plays as is. But no Lando, Han or Leia. Just rebels ships and pilots fighting in space and rebels and ewoks fighting on the ground. No known characters.

Or say that RotJ opened with the battle.
The opening crawl gives the set up and the film starts with the rebel ships fighting the ISDs.
Would it work as well?

The aerial battle in TFA is not that good and way too much alike ANH.
The interesting thing is between the characters in the ground.

R1 has plenty of issues, CG Tarkin looked ok but the voice was off. And that bothered me more as the look did not quite match the voice. Plus his eyes did not always match like he was looking at the person he was talking to.
CG Leia looked really off, it had a shine that did not help at all.
But I would hold the end battle as really good, better than anything in the PT.
Buildup, we follow characters all over the battle, better sense of strategy and tactics.
It was more engaging, I cared.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Did you care about most of those random rebels who were killed in the take down of the 1st deathstar in ANH?

Did you care about Porkings? did you? DID YOU?!!!

 

I really cared about Dak when I first saw ESB as a wee little lad. But that's because I thought Luke was saying "dad" and they killed off Luke's father on screen.

 

Personally, I don't get the age old argument about the prequels that constantly gets thrown around......

"We didn't care about the characters"

It puzzles me.

 

It's clear you're missing the point that's trying to be made. Something just visually over the top for the sake of it with nothing to be vested in (i.e. the characters at the core of it with something at stake for them) makes it just an effects fest with no soul.

That's good that they worked for you.

They didn't for me.

No one talks about the core characters of the PT or the villains in the same way as the OT characters are. That should tell you enough about the effect of the story and writing and lack of dynamic they had and how memorable they weren't.

 

I'm okay if people feel that way, but what bugs me is when I've praised the PT visuals/effects only to be met with "what good is that if you don't care about the characters?" That assumption is pretty annoying given that the PT characters and story set a new standard for what I expect from Star Wars. Frankly it's hard for me to go back to much of the OT after the emotional mileage I got from the PT.

 

I really wonder how much of that is a "when you saw SW for the first time" type of thing. I'd bet it has more than a little bit to do with it.

 

Of course we cared about Porkins! Don't you know that his death so upset moviegoers that there's a slew of fanfics and EU stories devoted to his tragic life?! (Seriously, there probably are. Virtually every critter in the Mos Eisley cantina got a backstory in an EU collection of short stories, so why not Porkins as well?) We wept and keened over every Rebel who bit the dust in each and every onscreen battle in the OT, because they were such deep and developed characters!

Oddly, I've seen certain...people complain that Darth Maul was a great character who didn't deserve his early demise (and yes, I know they resurrected him for the Clone Wars cartoons, which was a mistake, IMO), and also complained about how upsetting it was to see the various cool-looking Jedi get slaughtered in ROTS, thus wasting their potential, although of course everyone knew the purge was coming. So maybe certain...people cared about the PT characters a little more than they claim.