While I'm reluctant to clutter up the board with my in progress treatment (especially given its length) if anyone is interested in reading it, just send me a PM and I'll gladly send you a copy.
Likewise if anyone wants to see Ted Elliott's modification of TPM I'm happy to PM to people. But it is pretty long so posting it here might break the temp board
You might be right. Then again, you might not be right. I certainly don't agree with you. After all, you could be viewing the OT through rose colored glasses. I saw flaws in the OT that needed addressing. But whenever someone does, many fans tend to rush to the trilogy's defense with shallow arguments. It seems as if they don't want to acknowledge that the OT has flaws. This is a load of horse crap to me. I refuse to buy this argument that Lucas' mistakes in the OT should be excused on the grounds that he was a younger and less experienced filmmaker. I never heard such a flimsy excuse in my life.
DITTO. Some, like me, might actually believe Lucas matured as story teller. As for the Sifo plot, from what Dooku tells Obi it can be easily assumed that Dooku in some way influenced Dyas to place the order for TCA and then killed him before he could speak to anyone else about what he had done and shortly after he left the order ... Is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! Don't know why people get so caught up in this. If you want a spoon fed explanation I'm sure the EU has one. Anyway, the only thing I would rewrite would be Anakin destroying the control ship by making it less accidental; The kid's a pod racer for goodness sake! But then again it flows nicely with the chance/accident theme in the movie.
First off, there are plenty of holes in your "easy assumption" that would make a difference to the story. But even if it weren't, that doesn't mean this isn't an instance of terrible story-telling. Lucas makes a point of showing that the characters in the film care a lot about this issue, and want to resolve it. Whether we can figure it out or not is immaterial. He shows them wanting to know really badly. Then, all the sudden, he shows them not only not caring, but acting as if they weren't even aware it was ever an issue to begin with. There is no explanation for this change in attitude, nor even a hint of something that we could stretch into one. The characters just do a complete 180 at the drop of a dime, are infected by mass amnesia about it afterwards. That's not at all a realistic or believable way to act, and it's terrible writing to try and pass it off as such.
There is if we consider something indicated by AOTC and ROTS to be part of standard Jedi practice and merely imagine it to have happened between the two films.
I would say Lucas grew more immature as a filmmaker as he got older. He wanted to do everyone himself and didn't hire the best people to make up in the areas he lacked in. Also he grew a bit lazy. With wanting to do everything in a room with a green screen and rather than use sets.
Just because you and others perceive it as such doesn't make my perception any less valid. That's one aspect I love about the PT: They are highly subjective. My answer for what is worth. The Jedi do care but by the time they start connecting all the dots its too late. Obi fails to bring Jango in for questioning by getting captured and put to execution which would be considered as an act of war from the ICS...Padmè tells as much when she's condemned to death. The Jedi see it as imminent (they need said Army) therefore they agree (in novel) to the call of emergency powers that Jar-Jar does on padmè's behalf...they fall into believing like most the Senate that the time for diplomacy is over and in doing so further corrupting themselves by choosing to become soldiers . Had they learned to listen (to Padmè, Anakin and Dooku) they might have gained the upper hand. Exactly!
I literally have no idea what you are talking about. What "something" do you mean? In any case, though, this would still be a sign of bad writing. Important events are supposed to happen onscreen, or at least be referenced there. Because, you know, they are important. Your solution here starts with Lucas telling us something (the Sifo-Dyas mystery) is very important, then suddenly deciding it is not important at all. Which is it? Why the sudden change? That's a fine way to resolve the mystery. But again, the problem here is not that it's impossible to make up an ending. One can always do that. The problem is that Lucas never carried through and finished the job. He could have either included something in the film that brought a resolution to this mystery or, explained why they didn't have time to pursue it further (as you have done), or simply make the mystery less important to begin with, so no one will care when we stop hearing about it. But you can't make it a huge focal point of the plot and then suddenly treat it as if it's not. It's the random change in attitude that makes it an example of poor writing.
Yet three years are supposed to pass between the films. A strict adherence to the fallacious ethos of "didn't see it, didn't happen" tends to conflict with this understanding. So in other words, it's not enough for him to present a situation which can easily be explained by thinking the situation through and coming to the conclusion expressed in Lady_Skywalker87's post, a conclusion which ultimately just reflects circumstances depicted in the film. He also has to hold your hand and somehow further express this reasoning in the film. Depicting a situation where issues change in importance is not "bad writing", because the importance of a given issue does not necessarily remain constant over time. By the time the Jedi are involved in the Clone Wars, the clones seem to have proven themselves, and the question of the ordering of the army has declined in importance, especially given the fact that the trail has led only to literal dead ends. That's only a description of what happened in the films. By embracing it you admit that the manner in which the films handled the issue was sufficiently coherent.
That's not been my stance at all. I can accept perfectly well that it was resolved. What I have said is that it was poor form for it to have been resolved off-screen. This has nothing to do with whether there is a logical explanation somewhere in the EU, or whether the viewer can figure it out on their own. It's about setting and then breaking expectations. For instance, we really didn't need to see Luke's confrontation in the throne room during ROTJ. Luke had announced his intention to redeem his father. If they'd just cut from him turning himself in to the ending celebration, where he was burying his father and looking happily at his Force Ghost, it would have been obvious that he succeeded. One would have to be an idiot not to grasp what had happened off-screen. But the movie would still be immensely weird for having made such a point of talking about this confrontation and then never actually showing it to us. Or, again, consider the Shawshank Redemption. We didn't need to see the guy's actual escape. Once we understood his plan, they could have just jumped to him walking about as a free man, without the parts with him chiseling a tunnel, crawling through sewers, or exulting in the middle of a rainstorm. Obviously if a guy is in jail, is trying to escape, and then is suddenly out of jail, you assume his attempt was successful. But those were some of the most emotionally powerful moments of the whole movie. Why? Because the movie made a huge point of building up his escape, so the audience actually wanted to see it happen when the time came. Now, by the same logic, look at AOTC. They spend a huge amount of time on the "mystery" of the Clone Army, and who ordered them, and who was Sifo-Dyas. George Lucas explicitly says in the DVD commentaries that he wrote it at that way because he wanted to make a big reveal in ROTS that explained it all. In other words, just as in the other two cases above, he intentionally made the movie so that the audience would both expect and want to see some resolution to this point on the big screen. Then he just changed his mind and abandoned it altogether. I understand that happens sometimes. But it's not good writing. And it is a drawback in a narrative. And it isn't something that happens in the OT.
When Lucas had restrictions on budget and creativity, he did more IMO. He hired people who knew better to help him make the best out of the limited resources he had. He also hired directors he knew could visualise his stories better perhaps than he could (we saw how screwed up Indiana Jones got in KOTCS when he had more say in making the movie than Spielberg) and who could get more out of the acting and dialogue (Kershner listened when Ford wanted to change the line in ESB to "I know" and it works very well). The PT has far too much stuff in it that annoys me and plot points that remain unexplained or are stupid/make no sense, the OT has issues but most of those as far as I can see are down to the age of the movies and the limitations at the time.
But not that anything important happened during a three-year war. The issue of "expectations" has everything to do with whether a viewer can figure things out on their own, because we should expect them to be able to do that. But is it really accurate to use the term "figure it out" to describe things like the deaths of Sifo-Dyas and Jango? We were told Sifo-Dyas was dead; we saw Jango decapitated. What more does the audience have to "figure out" about this situation? Much more energy is expended in committing to the task of finding fault than in simply accepting the facts of the situation. That's not what the word "huge" means. The amount of time spent on this issue is not "huge", as a percentage of total running time or by any other measure. You're hugely bothered by it, which seems to be where the word "huge" got involved. You mean it's not good talking. Lucas promised you something, in a commentary that wasn't part of the theatrical film, and then apparently reneged on his promise. However, you "can accept perfectly well that it was resolved", at least in some paragraphs. So the content of the narrative didn't suffer, apples-and-oranges game-playing aside; Sifo-Dyas is no climax, and was never intended to be. It's just that Lucas personally broke a promise to you, so he's to be punished with the label of "bad writing". I'm sure he'll do better next time.
It's not just that he promised it. It's that he wrote AOTC in a way that set-up for the fulfillment of that promise. In other words, he created the audience expectation. If he didn't want to deal with it, why bring it up at all? Why not just say that Count Dooku ordered it? While the examples I used in the earlier post were climaxes, it needn't be. One notoriously bad move is "The Room." One of the major criticisms is the movie's tendency to have dropped plot threads. The author brings up something, then never mentions it again. In that film, it includes sub-plots about a main character being diagnosed with cancer, and another being involved in drug-dealing. They get brought up, then everyone acts like they never existed thereafter. But what was the point if it doesn't even affect anything the characters do or think? The same thing happens here. What was the point of including this, if Lucas was never going to give any closure? It's a dropped plot thread. There's not really an excuse for this sort of this thing inside of a film.
Since when? Lucas had originally tossed that rule out of the window with the OT. Something that many fans hardly ever admit.
What dropped plot threads do you see in the OT? I honestly don't hesitate to admit there are faults with the first three movies, but I'm not sure what you're referring to here.
This isn't really a dropped plot thread, per se, but it still confuses me greatly: why does Han still need to pay back Jabba the Hutt? In ANH, we see that he gets his reward -- he's loading it up when Luke goes to confront him before the assault on the Death Star. Given that between ANH and ESB, the Rebellion had time to relocate all their forces to Hoth, I don't understand why Han would not have paid Jabba back before ESB began. It wouldn't bother me so much, but they make a big deal about it throughout the film: Han keeps telling Leia he has to leave, the bounty hunters (specifically Boba Fett) are after him for this reason, and his rescue from Jabba takes up a large part of ROTJ. For the life of me, I don't understand why this is even an issue following ANH. So while it's not a dropped plot thread, it does seem to be unnecessarily reviving an issue that was resolved in ANH. Maybe someone has an explanation?
Yeah, I always found that stupid, too. Even assuming he would have to hand deliver the money (where are the banks?), it would be what, a week's journey at best? Are we really supposed to believe he was so busy with the Alliance that he couldn't take off a few days to prevent someone from putting up an assassination contract on him? It's like getting your electricity cut off because even though you have the money and put it in a stamped and addressed envelope, you are just to lazy to ever drop it in the mailbox. Except instead of getting your lights turned off, you die.
Sifo-Dyas is not a dropped story arc. The story arc was introduced in AOTC and further elaborated on in two novels. In the OT, I was surprised to learn that Vader knew about Luke in ESB. I later found out that particular story arc was elaborated in a novel (or comic, I don't know which). The completion of Luke's Jedi training happened off screen. Worse, it was done in a manner that I still find ludicrous. And when did Han and Leia's relationship go from flirting in ANH (on Han's part) to them exchanging soulful glances in ESB? This all happened in a novel or in some comic novel. The matter of the point is that Lucas has a habit of introducing a plot in a movie and elaborating on it in a novel . . . or introducing a plot in one of the novel and concluding it in a movie (as he did with the Luke/Vader relationship and General Grievious), a habit he had began with, while working on the OT. The idea that the Sifo-Dyas story arc was dropped is one I cannot accept, since it was dealt with in two novels that I had earlier mentioned.
Really? So if RotJ had begun with Han already freed from Jabba and noone made any mention of how this came to be, you would think this is fine and dandy? After all Luke and the others were going to free him at the end of ESB so we could just imagine what happened. Or if RotJ never made any mention of who the "other" was? **** say that the next film began with Vader dead and the empire destroyed and noone said anything how this came to be and the audience would be told to read some books. You don't think this would lead to criticism? Lucas is a film maker and he made a film trilogy. Before Ep I came out, it was made very clear that there would be three films. So it is not unreasonable to expect that plot threads set up in one film would be resolved in the next film. As I mentioned above, after ESB many in the audience wondered who the "other" was or wheter Vader was telling the thruth or not. Would it really be good writing/film making to totally ignore those questions and have them be answered in some book? Take TV and ST TNG, season three ended with "The best of both worlds part I" and this ends with Picard turned into a Borg and Riker is trying to kill him. Say that the next season had started with Picard just fine, no longer a Borg and noone said anything about what had happened. And the conclusion instead happened in some book. Don't you think people would have noticed and complained? Any story, regardless of the medium, should be able to stand alone. The exception is sequels within the same medium, the Harry Potter books, the Game of Thrones TV series or the SW movies. If J.K. Rowling developed a plot thread, say wheter Snape was a traitor or not, and then ignored that bit in the last book and instead had that happen in some comic book, there would be complaints. About the only example I can think of where a story takes place in multiple mediums is the Matrix sequels. Some stuff happened in animated shorts, other stuff happened in the computer game. But it is not like that approach was met with a resounding succes. Bye for now. Samuel Vimes
