PT Would it have been better if Dooku was given screentime in EP I?

He had outlived his "usefulness" at that time but it didn't mean he shouldn't get more screen time

 

I wouldn't mind to see a whole movie about Christopher Lee as Dooku, but as far as the saga goes, he had enough screen time to show his character and purpose (that a Jedi could fall from the light).

Just like Maul and Grievous, all three represent Vader: Maul is the warrior Sith Lord, Dooku is the fallen Jedi turned Sith, and Grievous is the cyborg general that he'll eventually become.

 

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I'm sticking with Lucas on this one, we saw all that we needed to see from Dooku.​

 

Clearly not, like many people panned, neither Maul or Dooku got enough time, Maul was just a tool to create a lightsaber fight with like no persona, Dooku's character wasn't shown well either. They even cut the scene in EP II, thus we only knew very little about him. But in truth he is a very important and interesting figure. Cut of Jar Jar's time to show him would have been much better.

No, that was one of PT's greatest flaw, didn't show many thing clear enough, that's why Lucas decided to create TCW.

 

Slowpokeking, SithStarSlayer is an extremely biased person with regards to Dooku. All his posts are usually lamenting about Maul's death while trying to derogate Dooku. This is both a pity and laughable: Dooku is a truly great character that emerged from the PT.

Allow me to take a share of the reins of Dooku's character. Let's see how far SithStarSlayer gets with me.

Official? Are you joking? Please tell me you're joking. That line was Stover's rhetoric, boiled down to a certain climactic event. Not to mention 'roles' are an extremely fallacious way to characterize characters. 'Roles' would equate into a bunch of one-liners for every Star Wars character.

Sidious has never been serious with any of his apprentices; he will dispose each one of them for one more powerful. And this is an extremely narrow-minded sentiment: people aren't defined solely by their deaths but by their experiences, outlooks, their individuality so to speak. Dismissing Dooku because of another character's regards for him is simply, profoundly wrong on many levels.

Alexrd, you got one part of Dooku's purpose in the story but their was another, equally important one you missed. Aside from being a forerunner of a Jedi falling to the Dark Side, Dooku sheds light on the many internal and very real problems that infested the Old Republic. The fact that many are justified in opposing a Republic that is filled with corruption and indecency. There was a deleted scene that articulated Dooku's standpoint on the Republic which should have made it into the movie for it was a very telling scene: where Dooku tries to persuade Padme to join in his confederate alliance. Although, Dooku's words are dishonest, they are revelatory of a key truth of the Sith's movement: the Sith have hijacked issues of very real problems in the Republic and are using it to their ends. Characterized as a "political idealist," Dooku's exposition signifies that there are certain ideals which are presumably not being met in the Republic. The "heroes are on both sides" in the ROTS crawl indicates that there are many well-intentioned people who take opposition to the Republic because of very real flaws. Flaws which the audience saw first-hand in TPM.

For this reason, we could have had a very powerful scene with Dooku in TPM, a film where corruption in the Senate was constantly brought to the forefront. Not just as a character who grows disillusioned because of the government, but because of the Jedi Order's stagnation in blindly serving a corrupt body of government. If Anakin turns to the Dark Side for selfish reasons, then Dooku would make an excellent counterpoint, having fallen from grace due to selfless reasons of trying to reform society but going down a wrong path. There are many ways one can take Dooku that both complement and juxtapose the plights and thematic issues that are dealt with in the PT.

 

Apparently, this seems to be one of the OT's greatest flaws, as well. Especially when you consider that Lucas did not bother to delve deeply into the backgrounds of major characters like Leia and Han.

 

OT's story is overall a lot simpler, it didn't get involved with the politics much and there weren't so many characters. So not many people blamed it. In PT, there was too much to cover.

 

This was already established in TPM.

 

Every fan has their favorites and its not my fault that they tried to replace Darth Maul with more than one character. For me, Dooku's lameness was validated the day Savage found his brother alive, but that's a discussion for another time and place...

You say great, I say lame, welcome to the Boards.

Take the reigns of what, more fan-fiction? We have a place for that: http://boards.theforce.net/categories/fan-fiction.10825/

In the meantime, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with our TOS, because we aren't here to talk about other users in the Movie Forums...

In other words: you won't get very far at all.

What I quoted is from a companion-novel... a movie-tie-in... not some fan fiction "by a very, very talented (but nameless) writer" that you "found on your computer", as stated in post #26. You can dislike that all you want, but the truth of the matter is this: the ROTS novel had GL's stamp of approval. That's as Official as a SW Novel can get.

So no, I wasn't joking...

This isn't about Sidious. We were talking about Dooku's own thoughts, about how powerful his admission was.... that he was delusional to trust his Master. I dismiss the Count because Dooku conceded to himself that his own life was worthless. I don't see how more screen time would improve the Prequels; maybe the balcony cameo that @Timoishere suggested? But even that would be a stretch in my book, because a cameo wouldn't provide any answers or develop the character in any way.

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We can talk talk about Dooku and his role as a Sith puppet all day long, but we will leave the venom towards others with a different opinion.... at the door. This thread has been warned.

 

I'm not even a fan of that novel, but it had more than just Lucas' approval. To quote Stover himself:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_III:_Revenge_of_the_Sith_(novel)

 

I'm a survivor of the SA wars, I know that quote well.

"What's not in that book is not there because Mr. Lucas wanted it gone." = Lucas Stamp of Approval.

 

Enough time to what exactly?

I disagree as explained before.

It was shown well enough for its purpose.

We know enough since the information provided on that scene was shown throughout the movie.

Nobody is arguing that.

It's not like you can cut time from one movie and put it on another. It doesn't work that way.

No, my point was that the "fallen Jedi" role was the character's main purpose, not the only purpose.

 

So, basically admittance of what I stated about your biases. Great!

I, as well as many others on this board, say great and promptly back it up with reasons and analysis whereas you say lame ... and leave it at that.

Take the reins of what: "take a share of the reins of Dooku's character." This was clearly stated so more negligent reading. I like how you respond to my post and then omit parts of my sentence, and then proclaim confusion of what the reigns are.

I encourage you to not presume my familiarization of the TOS, of which I've read many times. It's a nasty habit.

That's my line. Negligence of reading others' posts and then responding to them won't "get [you] very far at all."

I like how you again overstep your knowledge by flinging mud at my sources, of which I have recently discovered. And the only thing that is official is the prose written by Stover regarding Dooku's feelings at that particular moment. Hardly, a sweeping statement about the character or what the character represents or if more screen time could have been beneficial.

Still haven't convinced me.

Er, no. Nice backtracking you did there but I was responding to your initial statement, before Stover's Novel was even brought up, stating "If Sid's was never serious, then I don't care about what Dooku went through, or why he left the Order."

So yes, you were talking about Sidious, and his "seriousness" on his outlook to Dooku, and no, Dooku's power was never the focal point of the discussion. And your last sentence is a common fact of which there is nothing to discuss.

Inaccurate. In Stover's novelization, Dooku reflects on his life in the eyes of Sidious after his betrayal not of himself. He doesn't consider his own life worthless per se; he realizes that his life and all his traits were worthless to Sidious and to Sidious he has existed as the victim of Anakin's murder. And that Sidious views Dooku as expendable isn't a point--it's a fact--so again there is nothing to say here on the OP.

Now this is something you seem to be legitimately asking and is quite valid if born out of a desire to bring grounding. And I ask you to turn your eyes to my the second half of my post above to provide you with an understanding on how more screen time could have improved the Prequels.

Oddly, I haven't seen any venom in this thread, not even from the posters that I most staunchly disagree with. And I give fair warning to you that sentence omission, false confusion, and backtracking witnessed here do not go unnoticed by me.

Alexrd, Ok, I see. I was indeed under the impression that you thought it was Dooku's "only purpose." Although, I believe that with the inclusion of the aforementioned deleted scene, his major purpose could warrant a lengthy discussion.

 

To establish their character well enough.

That was what most of the people feel when they saw the movie, he had almost 0 characterization.

What purpose? We didn't know his downfall and change well enough. Many people said he wasn't given enough screen time.

Many people didn't think so.

It does.

We didn't his downfall well enough, he was already a Sith when he showed up.

 

It would have been better if Maul hadn't been killed in TPM, Dooku either didn't exist or was just a figure head leader, and Maul is the one Anakin kills at the start of RotS.

 

There simply wasn't room for him in Episode I. We see the Council, but that's all (the purpose being Qui-Gon's proposal to train Anakin); we know that there's plenty of other Jedi out there, though. If an exceptional Jedi, like Qui-Gon, isn't on the Council for his views, we can assume there are other likeminded Jedi out there (makes sense that he's Qui-Gon's master).

Attack of the Clones on the other hand, is a different matter. Infamous for its lengthly deleted segments, I think the only one that was truly a loss was the "Lost 20" scene with Obi-Wan and Jocasta Nu. I believe it wasn't much longer than a few minutes, but it really helped build Dooku's character, as well as better establish that Dooku was not the only Jedi to leave the Order. A personal problem I have when viewing the film is that there's little surprise by the time Dooku's revealed to be a villain after all. Though I do like how the Jedi immediately defend Dooku when Padmé (rather senselessly) accuses the count of her assassination attempt.

And in Revenge of the Sith, Dooku's character was handled well. The beginning and end of the movie are extremely fast-moving, so there was no point to linger on Dooku for too long now that the war was beginning to end.

 

It already was.

To use "what most people feel" as an argument is fallacious, specially when it's just your assumption.

That even a Jedi (Master) could fall from the light (and having Christopher Lee as a Sith Lord).

"Well enough" is relative.

Once again, ad populum is not a valid argument.

No, it doesn't.

Irrelevant. We don't need to see what happened to know what happened. The dialogue is there for that.

 

No, we didn't see the cunning Maul showed in TCW and EU. We didn't see how did Dooku's view change from Jedi to Sith, or his charisma to bring the CIS together, which is a very important piece of his character.

It's true, many people blamed that.

But we didn't see how did he fall, thus the point became a lot weaker. To show this you need to let people see his change from a Jedi Master to a Sith Lord. Pretty much every "hero's downfall" has to do it.

Dialogue is not enough, should we just delete Qui Gon's scene and just use a few dialogues to tell people what happened to him? No. Should we just delete everything and use like 5 mins dialogue to show us what happened in OT and PT? No.

 

None of that is relevant to the story George told throughout the movies. And time is limited.

We saw the formation of the CIS in AotC and heard how he allied himself with the TF during his conversation with Obi-Wan.

No, it's not true because nobody here can claim to know "what most people feel". And again, ad populum is a fallacy.

The point was to establish that a Jedi can fall, not how it fell.

But Dooku is not the hero or protagonist of the story.

Once again, missing the point.

 

The mud is still up on the wall, in case you missed it. Have you sourced that in here yet?

Gets filed under fan-fiction till then.

As for Dooku's Lucas-approved-POV, if you think he looked at his life through the eyes of his master, then I encourage you to read the passage again. "His whole life—all his victories, all his struggles, all his heritage, all his principles and his sacrifices, everything he's done..." --Dooku was a decent man with a big ego who lost his way before he left the Jedi Order... so he reflected on everything, not just his time spent as Palpatine's puppet. In the Plagueis novel Palpatine didn't give a rip about his own heritage, but Dooku thought about his with regret... Sad way to go, feeling worthless.









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And good to know that you've read up on the TOS, makes my job easier.

 

No, why would I? Iron_lord asked me, not you, and I can respond to him in pm.

Those thoughts are byproducts of his realization on his worth as a Sith, i.e, apprentice to Darth Sidious. Obviously, he doesn't think he's worthless per se, but he realizes all of him meant nothing to the Sith which was the path that he walked down, after defecting from the Order. All of those things described in Stover's line are realized by Dooku to be inconsequential to Sidious hence his line about only existing for his murder at the hands of Anakin Skywalker.

Furthermore, Dooku was constantly described as patient and trusting in the Order and the Republic, continuing to serve despite running through more than his fair share of circumstances that illustrated the corruption in the Republic. He curbed any ego, which is not intrinsically a bad thing, for several decades before his departure.

Plagueis novel is irrelevant to this discussion and to the thread. It is Luceno's take and, in my opinion, a horrendous attempt to be an exposition for all things pre-PT. Regardless, it is not germane to the discussion.

 

In order to get every single thing explained, these movies should have been three hours long. On top of that, all those explanations would have derailed us from the main story of Anakin's fall. You can nitpick every detail and proclaim it a flaw, but it is still more explained than the other trilogy in which there are no explanations of how Vader found out about Luke or how Luke became the leader of the rebel group, how Luke learned those Jedi powers from Ep 5 to Ep 6 or how the rebels stole the DS plans.

Dooku is a villain. Tarkin is a villain. Which one we know more about?

 

Count Dooku is a good character, and was a change aside from all these barbarian lackeys.
Maybe more screen time would have made him more interesting, but I personally think he fulfilled his purpose.

 

How? Clearly Lucas was talking about how did the Old Republic and the Jedi Order corrupt from within and was used by evil and destroyed, how did Anakin became Vader.

Dooku played a very important role in both stories, his own journey is a perfect way to reflect the Jedi and the Old Republic's problem.

That's far from enough, especially we don't see the major events during the Clone Wars.

The reviews, the critics made it quite clear. The PT DIDN'T tell things well enough because there were too much to cover.

We already saw Vader's example in OT, we already know Jedi can fall. If no explanation was given, it would be pointless.

He was a great hero,.

?

Just remove Jar Jar's scenes and it would have been enough. The PT is not just about Anakin's downfall, but also the Old Republic and the Jedi Order's downfall, Lucas spent much effort to show us, and Dooku is a good example to let us see how did such corruption let him go to the dark path.

Dooku is a villain, Vader is a villain. Which one we know more about?

Seriously, Tarkin is used to show the Empire's cold cruelty, Dooku is used to show the downfall of the Old Republic and Jedi Order. They are different.

 

(1) Review & critics are not "most people," or representative of them, and as such don't reflect "what most people feel," and (2) most reviewers enjoyed AOTC just fine.