Chic, IL Will the trilogy ever be the same again?

I found the Qui-Gon thing to be basically phoned in. That whole deal with becoming one with Da Force(tm) could have been dealt with much much better. As it stands it sounds like something a couple marketing people came up with to sell a figure or two but they ran out of time and couldn't get Neeson because he was too busy on Batman Begins.

Its the "could have beens" that kill the prequels. "This scene was good but it could have been awesome," is something spoken far far too often when referring to the prequels.

 

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[b]Go-Mer (before):[/b] As far as those of you who are suggesting Chewie was put into ROTS to sell toys, that has to be one of the most ridiculous conclusions I have seen on these boards in recent memory. Chewie has always been a fan favorite since ANH. Lucas didn't have to put him into ROTS to sell more Chewie toys.

[b]DarthAstuart:[/b] Okay, so Chewie's in ROTS to bring warm fuzzies to the fans...which inevitably makes them want to run to the stores to buy the new Chewie figure, Chewie Lego set, and Chewie brand beef jerky. Same difference. and I'm saying that as someone who LIKES ROTS at the end of the day.[hr][/blockquote]First of all, it doesn't matter what character Lucas put in to help Yoda escape the clones, they would have still been made into a toy. By using Chewie, Lucas is actually missing out on an opportunity to have a totally new character so he could sell a totally new toy. Chewie figures would have still sold either way.[blockquote][hr] [b]Go-Mer (before):[/b] There is not one minute thing in any of these movies that hasn't been turned into a toy.

[b]DarthAstuart:[/b] Right...but Lucas has gotten far more shameless in his pandering to the marketing and the merchandising of his movies.[hr][/blockquote]What do you mean by this? What has he done that indicates this assessment?[blockquote][hr][b]DarthAstuart:[/b] Yoda is on Kashyyk (sp) to get him off Coruscant so that Anakin/Vader can ransack the temple without the ugly story complication of him having to smack down the most powerful Jedi in the Order. (obi-wan's chasing grievous for similar reasons--he can't be in the temple or on Coruscant when anakin goes crazy.) Why does Yoda HAVE to go to Kashyyk? he doesn't. it's a story device. So sending him to the wookiee planet, THEN having him coincidentally hang with the most famous wookiee ever, is a little shameless to me. And whether it's direct shameless (check out chewie! buy this toy!) or indirect shameless (check out chewie! feel warm fuzzies! buy this toy!), it's still shameless.[hr][/blockquote]It makes perfect sense to me. Yoda had to go to some planet, there had to be someone there to help him get away from the Clones, and Lucas passed up an opportunity to create yet another new toy by using an old alien character. To me, if anything this is one example of him not grabbing for more merchandising dollars.[blockquote][hr][b]DarthAstuart:[/b] Lucas has been making every effort he can to tie this trilogy in with the OT, and sure, they're the same story. but it's also marketing that he has NEEDED as the films have been revealed as essentially weak to awful movies and he's had to play upon the public's sentimental attachment to the first three, awesome movies to get butts in the seats. Again, I say all this as someone who LIKES ROTS.[hr][/blockquote]For being weak to awful movies, they sure turned quite a pretty penny at the box office. As someone who thinks Lucas has been getting steadily better with each of these Star Wars films, I don't think that has anything to do with an increased marketing prowess. Even if you don't, there are a lot of people who love the prequels as much and in some cases, even more than the classic trilogy. You say you like ROTS, but that wasn't the only one that made money. Someone else was obviously picking up your slack on the first two prequels.[blockquote][hr][b]Go-Mer (before):[/b] If you guys think these new movies are devoid of substance, or are even just a shameless attempt to sell toys, then I don't think you are actually putting any effort into looking at these movies. I just don't see how a thinking human being can just jump to that conclusion when if anything, the prequels give the classic trilogy more substance.

[b]DarthAstuart:[/b] And I could just as easily say that I just don't see how a thinking human being can sit through the unmitigated pile of stinking dog **** that is TPM, or the limp and lifeless snoozefest that is AOTC, and actually LIKE those movies, which I hate.[hr][/blockquote]I am sorry, I just assumed most people who put TPM

 

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[b]DarthAstuart:[/b] Are you a real person? seriously?[hr][/blockquote]I am pretty sure. But it's hard to know for sure. Perhaps you are just dreaming that I am posting these things.[blockquote][hr][b]DarthAstuart:[/b] You honestly think that in the twenty-odd years that Yoda and Obi-Wan had to chat about this, that, and the other, that Yoda would have said, "Way the by. A cool Wookiee I did meet. Chewbacca, his name is. Fly with him on a smuggler ship, you should, if an opportunity you should have." Besides, we have no evidence to suggest that Yoda and Obi-Wan can or do chat at all during those twenty years. I'm sure the EU will change this right quick, however.[hr][/blockquote]Well, there is no evidence that they didn't talk about that over the 20 years they were both in exile, and they are supposedly both going to be leanring from Qui-Gon during that time, so it would make sense that they communicate in some way through the Force, if not directly, then perhaps through Qui-Gon. Also, out of an entire Cantina of aliens and smugglers, Obi-Wan just happens to pick out the one guy who happened to help Yoda 20 years prior? And you accuse ROTS of making an obvious marketing grab with Chewie. :) [blockquote][hr][b]DarthAstuart:[/b] As apologist claptrap to cover up plot holes, that takes the cake, my man![hr][/blockquote]Thank you. :)

 

darthgoat, Liam was all set to return as Qui-Gon's ghost in ROTS. Lucas even had Ben Burtt do his dialogue for the animatics cut of the film. Ultimately Lucas decided to cut that scene, so that it could be left more to the audience's imagination.

I don't think there is anything in any of the Star Wars films that I hadn't wished there was more of. But the reality is there is a story to be told, and a finite amount of time to tell that story. I think that while Lucas does tend to boil things down in the editing room, what is left covers the most important beats of those elements.

 

I am sorry, I just assumed most people who put TPM and AOTC down probably didn't put a whole lot of thought into it, perhaps its the way a lot of them dismiss them as "an unmitigated pile of stinking dog ****", or a "limp and lifeless snoozefest" that made me think most of them were just reacting emotionally and not really giving them an honest chance.

For that I am sorry.

If you hadn't just wandered in here 5 minutes ago trolling for arguments with RotS detractors, you'd have seen the miles and miles of well thought out dissection of why TPM and AotC suck ass.

Here, let me dumb this down for you: It isn't that Lucas missed out on an opportunity to new create weird alien #27837 for a an exciting new Star Wars figure. You don't see Tion Medon doing Cingular commercials. Pretty much everything Lucas has created in the past 6 years is throw-away. Sure, core fans will remember Ki-Adi Mundi, but no one else will. The OT sells, and will continue to sell. Marketing and advertising is about getting the attention from the public and having them feel something. No one gives a crap about "that robot guy in the new Star Wars that looks like a skeleton or something", but everyone recognizes and loves Chewy and Vader.

Bosh
"Why doesn't Kate Mulgrew do Priceline commercials?"

 

Lucas sold the rights to Star Wars Saga characters, and Cingular decided to use the characters they used in their ads, as you have said, Chewie, Vader, Yoda and R2 were all recognizable and adored from their inclusion in the classic trilogy. They didn't need Chewie to be in ROTS to use him in their ads.

I may be new to this forum, but I have been standing up for the prequels since '99 in the movie forums. I have seen just about every argument made against them, and I would be suprised if I found anything new in the arguments you are referring to.

Just because you have been throwing away everything Lucas has done in the last 6 years doesn't mean everyone has. These prequels still ended up being just about as sucessful as the classic trilogy was, so someone is picking up these newer films that you are tossing to the curb.

You can go join the people who threw away the classic trilogy when they were released, because believe me they exist. You don't hear from them all that much because after they were let down by the classic trilogy, they went on with their lives.

Now we have some people who thought those movies were great, but for whatever reason refuse to give the prequels the time of day now. You hear from them all the time becuase they can't let it go. It even gives some people the perception that nobody liked the prequels, but if that were truly the case, they would have crashed and burned at the box office.

I am not trying to upset you guys, and if you consider sticking up for Star Wars films on a Star Wars board trolling, I will gladly go back to the movie forums.

 

That's what they're there for I suppose.

Bosh

 

Sigh....

Will this madness ever end?


I do love all of the Star Wars films equally...they all have their tale to tell...their bright spots...and their weaknesses...

Many of the films coming out include merchandising....Lucas just started it...and that merchandising helped get the rest of the movies made.

The PT has a place...rather than have a short clip at the beginning of ROTS of Anakin's life leading up to the events of ROTS (like a lot of films do-the old "then"...and "present day")..Lucas decided to tell the "whole story"...I personally enjoyed the journey....others wanted the story to "cut to the chase".....never the twain shall meet....

Those who love the PT will not be convinced to hate them because of any arguement...just as those who hate the PT will be convinced to love them based on any arguement....

that's my story...and I'm sticking to it...

 

He did not sell the rights, he licensed them. Selling the rights implies that those entities have full control over the characters where they actually do not. They only have the right to use their likenesses in their products and marketing media.

 

Darthgoat,

you are so right, and by the way, isn't Lucas credited
as being one of the first, if not the first, to show
how profitable licensing can be.

Wonder if he is trying to buy 20-th Century Fox,
so that he can license it back to them....

Ed

 

AND i will bet the life of my first-born child that ANY marketing campaign concocted by ANYONE who has licensed the star wars characters is heavily supervised and approved by LFL.

cingular just doesn't decide, "hey, let's put vader and chewie in these ads." they receive materials from LFL, most of which was probably OT warm fuzzy stuff, and they use it, and then they probably send proofs of all the materials to LFL for comments and approval. that's how licensing works--you don't just hand off your characters to anyone who'll pay for the right and let them do whatever the heck they want. especially when they're some of the most beloved and valuable characters in pop culture history.

in other words, cingular isn't exploiting the legacy of the classic trilogy with their ad campaign--LFL is. which is why the same characters are prominent in the burger king campaign as well.

 

How could anyone argue against such rampant speculation on your part?

 

actually, by using Chewie, he's not only playing a savvy marketing game that continues to tie this lesser film trilogy into a classic epic filmmaking saga he created twenty-odd years ago, he ALSO takes the creatively lazy route by throwing us a character we already have established emotional connections toward instead of giving us new characters and/or a new world to explore and enjoy.

oh, LOTS. look solely at the burger king campaign. darth vader as we know him from the OT is in all of five minutes tops of ROTS. yet there he is on every damn poster, fry box, soft drink cup, kids meal bag, etc etc etc and so on.

you're telling me that's not savvy marketing? you're telling me that's not BENDING a story to sell some whoppers and some beach towels and some action figures?

answer me this: how does darth vader, either in name or in suit, enhance ROTS? he doesn't. you cut one line of palpy's, you cut the vader "NOOOOOO!" scene from the last ten minutes, and it makes the story STRONGER. it allows you to have a dark, evil anakin who then gets fried in lava...and then goes who knows where.

THEN when vader says, "no, I am your father," it's a shocking moment again, because the audience doesn't know that vader and anakin are the same person.

there's no real dramatic purpose served by darth vader being in ROTS in name or form. so why is he there?

to SELL STUFF. plain and simple.

or, look at ALL of the PT trailers. where is the classic prequel music? where are the classic prequel characters? who knows? these are films sold to us by telling us that they'll be as good as films we used to like. in other words, they're marketed as sequels. it doesn't matter that in my opinion, TPM and AOTC aren't fit to carry the used jock strap of any of the OT films. they're sold as classic SW films. i don't think they are, but even if you do, you cannot deny that the PT has always been sold as Star Wars, meaning that they're sold to us as part of this amazing cinematic legacy of Lucas', and not as films designed with an intent toward creating their own cinematic legacy.

uh...yeah. we'll have to agree to disagree there. i'm sure Whovax Wharblefartz from planet Criminy would have sold JUST as many kids meals as our pal Chewie.

explain the dip in dollars for AOTC, then. okay, i will: everyone had to see TPM cause no one knew it would stink and it was new star wars. when it stunk, no one but the die-hards and those few mainstreamers who actually liked the PT went to see it. now we've got some bigger box office dollars cause lucas went ahead and (surprise!) m

 

it's not. it's based on seven years working experience in the licensing industry on fox properties like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files. unless Lucas is somehow more sloppy about how Vader is handled than Chris Carter is about how Mulder and Scully are handled--two characters with WAY less cultural penetration than any SW character--i'm not rampantly speculating AT ALL.

 

Yeah you are. Speculation is when you guess at things you don't know based on whatever it is you do know.

 

Excellent. Now can we get a definition of "rampant" to complete the series?

 

Okay he has licensing experience I take back the rampant part, but that doesn't mean he isn't speculating.

 

how is it speculating if i have real-world first-hand experience of how an industry works and i'm applying it to a given situation? that's what speculating is NOT.

 

Sorry to interrupt such spirited discussion, but this statement caught my eye. If you compare apples to apples, the films of the OT far and away exceed what the PT movies brought in - with the exception of TPM, which at least approched ROTJ. I realize there were re-releases of the OT that help their numbers, but still....

This is all from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm (rank in parentheses, followed by adjusted gross)

(2) Star Wars: $1,139,965,400
(12) The Empire Strikes Back: $628,356,100
(14) Return of the Jedi: $601,980,200
(19) The Phantom Menace: $542,885,200
(62) Revenge of the Sith: $358,606,000
(81) Attack of the Clones: $342,198,200

 

Tautaun We?


Where ya been?

 

god bless ya, tauntaun_we.

check out that precipitous DIP from the TPM numbers to the AOTC numbers. that, my friends, is the wising-up of a filmgoing public to the mediocrity/awfulness of the PT.

not that it's relevant, cause as I've said, i don't give a flip what people buy tickets to. but still.

 

Bosh Sez: You mean sort of like Yoda talking up Chewie to Obi-Wan?

Bosh

"Schwingg"

 

Tautaun We, my point is that if you were to give the prequels another 20 years, it could easily catch up to where the classic trilogy is today.

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[b]Go-Mer (before):[/b] First of all, it doesn't matter what character Lucas put in to help Yoda escape the clones, they would have still been made into a toy. By using Chewie, Lucas is actually missing out on an opportunity to have a totally new character so he could sell a totally new toy. Chewie figures would have still sold either way.

[b]DarthAstuart:[/b] Actually, by using Chewie, he's not only playing a savvy marketing game that continues to tie this lesser film trilogy into a classic epic filmmaking saga he created twenty-odd years ago, he ALSO takes the creatively lazy route by throwing us a character we already have established emotional connections toward instead of giving us new characters and/or a new world to explore and enjoy.[hr][/blockquote]You are kidding right? Tie the film trilogies together? They are all part of one single story. Without the prequels, the classic trilogy, as good as it was on it's own, was only half a story. Bridging the two trilogies isn't some backhanded way to try and sell you on the prequels, it's how he should be doing this in the first place. In ANH, Obi-Wan goes to Chewie for help, it makes sense to set up the reason for that in the prequels.[blockquote][hr][b]DarthAstuart (before):[/b] Right...but Lucas has gotten far more shameless in his pandering to the marketing and the merchandising of his movies.

[b]Go-Mer (before):[/b] What do you mean by this? What has he done that indicates this assessment?

[b]DarthAstuart:[/b] Oh, LOTS. look solely at the Burger King campaign. Darth Vader as we know him from the OT is in all of five minutes tops of ROTS. Yet there he is on every damn poster, fry box, soft drink cup, kids meal bag, etc etc etc and so on.[hr][/blockquote]That's because he wasn't selling the rights to ROTS on it's own, he sold the rights to characters that span the entire 6 film saga.[blockquote][hr][b]DarthAstuart:[/b] You're telling me that's not savvy marketing? You're telling me that's not BENDING a story to sell some whoppers and some beach towels and some action figures? Answer me this: how does Darth Vader, either in name or in suit, enhance ROTS? he doesn't. You cut one line of Palpy's, you cut the Vader "NOOOOOO!" scene from the last ten minutes, and it makes the story STRONGER. it allows you to have a dark, evil Anakin who then gets fried in lava...and then goes who knows where. THEN when Vader says, "no, I am your father," it's a shocking moment again, because the audience doesn't know that Vader and Anakin are the same person. There's no real dramatic purpose served by Darth Vader being in ROTS in name or form. so why is he there? To SELL STUFF. plain and simple.[hr][/blockquote]The whole point to the prequels is that Anakin ends up becoming Darth Vader. To even suggest Lucas put Vader into the prequels to pander to marketing concerns at the expense of what the story should be artistically, well it is bolstering my notion that you aren't really putting much thought into your utter disregard of the prequels at all.

There is a great deal of dramatic purpose for showing the actuality of Anakin's transformation into Vader in ROTS, it changes the nature of the "I am your father" revelation from being a surprise to the audience to being merely a surprise for Luke, but if you have been watching these films in proper order, you will have just been traumatized by the surprise that Anakin falls to the dark side, and you will understand the reason Obi-Wan is keeping this surprise from Luke, and now that he knows the truth, it adds a lot of tension to the question of whether or not Luke will turn like his father did. Before the prequels, we didn't think for a minute that Luke would turn to the dark side, because he was the hero. We knew it would get hairy here and there, but in the end he would pull out of it. Now that we have seen Anakin fail, we aren't quite so sure about Luke anymore.

Su

 

Something has changed, I just don't think it's Lucas who has changed.

Don't you guys get it? Go-Mer-Tonic IS Lucas, man!

(FWIW, I don't have anything intelligent to add to the conversation. Go Cubs/Sox/whomever you root for!)

 

Wrong.

I've seen 3 movies so far this summer that have surpassed the prequels. Hitchiker's Guide, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Batman Begins. Those three, to me, were far more enjoyable than the prequels could ever be and the summer isn't even over yet and there is more goodness, hopefully, to come. In the last few years, X-Men(1 and 2), Spider-Man(1 and 2), Equilibrium, The Matrix trilogy and of course LOTR all blew the prequels away.

I've written tons of reasons why I thought the prequels stunk and it boils down to one key point, I really just don't care about anyof the characters save for Obi-Wan. I didn't care about Anakin. I didn't care about Padme("I'm glad she's dead and I hope she burns in Hell!"). I don't care about the Republic. I don't care about Naboo. I don't care about the Jedi.

Why don't I care about them?

Well first off, the acting in this series SUCKS period. Ewan, and Liam are the only ones who showed up for work basically. They are the only ones who had performances worth noting and sadly Liam's character was a complete waste.

Second, I know what their fate is so who cares about the pretext. I know Anakin turns into a "naughty naughty man". I know Padme kicks the bucket(c'mon guys we all knew she wasn't gonna survive). I know the Republic is doomed and I know the Jedi are gonna get pwned by n00bz. Why bother setting up this grand pretext without delivering to us some new interesting revealations about Anakin or about Obi-Wan?

The weakening of a classic villian is perhaps the deathblow. I can't look at Vader and think, "what a complete bad ass!" I think, "what a friggin puss." We've already written much about this subject in other threads. The fall of Anakin ruins the character of Vader. He becomes not the evil dark knight but a spoiled punk kid. That effect carries back into the originals for me and that ruins the originals which I once had much love for.