Ehn, they certainly don't do anything for cinema, and I would argue that certain aspects of them are definitely stains.
I don't think a film necessarily has to "do anything for cinema" to be good/enjoyable though. And the PT certainly made advances in special effects, though admittedly not to the degree that the OT did. But let's look at the OT: ANH was far more revolutionary than ESB. That would make it better by your definition, yet many Star Wars fans prefer ESB. Personally, I don't think that your standard of "altering cinema" is particularly effective at measuring how good a film is. Heck, if you look at Rottentomates, ROTS is better rated than ROTJ. If you look at metacritic, AOTC is better rated (53) than ROTJ (52)! Yet I'm sure you wouldn't call ROTJ a stain on cinema, or even having aspects that are stains on cinema. Of course, it's all down to personal opinion and you might hold ROTJ in much higher regard than AOTC. I happen to prefer the prequels -- that doesn't preclude me from loving the originals but large segments of the films do nothing for me (Han and Leia) and I'm sure you could list similar grievances with the PT (Anakin and Padme). I guess what I object to is when people attempt to color another person's perceptions of the films before they have a chance to watch them. And why wouldn't you (general "you") show someone the prequels? What does it matter if they happen to like them more? They're only movies, in the end, even if they're films we love (or, sometimes, hate).
No, no, I don't mean anything about being technically revolutionary. I'm just talking about character, theme, and storytelling. My problem with the prequels is that they don't really have a strong reason to be. They're simply exposition. What's worse is that they're exposition started by someone who had lost sight of what he was doing thirty years ago, and didn't realize it until after the first installment, after which he spent two movies shifting things so they would match up better (though there are still aspects of the two trilogies that will never match up properly, no matter how hard you try to handwave them). Its not so much that there are similar grievances, its that the grievances in the PT are so much bigger and so much more pervasive. I would actually say that there are elements of ROTJ that are stain-like (I should stress that my use of "stain" is comical hyperbole), notably the neutering of Han, the reptition of the film's endgame, the awkward aspects of the Han, Luke, Leia circle, the Jabba's palace sequence, which is overlong and kind of oddly disconnected from the rest of the film (the movie is seriously two schizophrenically different halves), but as a whole it hangs together on a kind of energy and charisma that the prequels never manage to achieve. The prequels do have redeeming moments, but that's what they are: heavily flawed films with some redeeming moments. The originals are good-to-great films with a few distracting flaws. Why wouldn't I show someone the prequels? I don't enjoy them anymore (I used to be a huge booster for them, even for TPM) and I tend not to show people things I don't enjoy. If they want to watch them on their own, they should go for it, by all means, but I'm not going to push for it myself.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I think the Saga as a whole works best if you want to look at character, theme, and storytelling but, if forced to choose, I will certainly say I consider the prequels stronger on all three counts by quite a margin. While the end note of ROTS really does get me down, I still find the the prequels manage to tell a story of their own and really, I have to admit, if only the prequels existed, I would still be a fan of Star Wars. If it was only the originals, I doubt it. Maybe ESB and parts of ROTJ but certainly not ANH (I find it least engaging). I guess what I'm saying is that I view the prequels as definitely flawed, but Great movies. On the other hand, I view something like the Lord of the Rings films (which I was a huge fan of in middle school) as not having obvious flaws but merely good -- entertaining, if you will. That, for me, is where the distinction lies. I realize most people will disagree, though.
Can I ask which you saw first, and (if you don't mind) how old you are? That's not a question of your taste, just interest in how you first experienced Star Wars, I always find that interesting. I guess I'd also ask what it is about the prequels that works on those levels as standalone and why, for instance (since you brought it up) you think that they work better than something like Lord of the Rings?
Sure, it's no problem (and even if you were questioning my taste, you wouldn't be the first!). I'm twenty (almost 21) and I saw them in order of 1,2,4,5,6,3 . It's a bit confusing though, in that I didn't immediately catch the connection between the PT and the OT, so Episode 3 was a big shock the first time I saw it. I believe I was traveling to the airport when I first saw the films (1,2,4,5,6) in 2004 and that's probably why I didn't pay attention that much -- I'm pretty sure I only saw each of them in segments. I watched ROTS at a later time in 2005 and then I actually sat down and watched them properly in order of 1 through 6 at home a bit later. For me, the prequels worked because I thought Lucas really went out on a limb with a lot of the plot and the characters. I didn't expect Anakin's turn in the slightest so it really hit me hard when I saw, not just that he was falling into evil, but the depth to which he sank (killing children, choking Padme) and then to see him literally burn on Mustafar and entombed -- it was like nothing I'd ever seen. How often do you present a kind,loving child in one film and then, two films later, show him burning alive? To say it caught me off guard is really an understatement. I also appreciated that Lucas really didn't force us to sympathize with the characters. We were allowed to see them as they were and, aside from the music, they were framed much more unemotionally than I was used to. Lucas didn't try to soften the impact of Anakin's descent into evil and I found that admirable. Where the Lord of the Rings fits in is that, during middle school, I thought they were the greatest films ever. But as I got older, I really became disenchanted with them. They work on the level of spectacle, of course, but they tell basically at the core, the most generic of stories (though well). I also came to dislike the characters a great deal. What are Aragorn's flaws? Gandalfs? Sam's? They just didn't seem like characters -- they felt like hollowed out archetypes. Each character seemed to just be there to get the required audience reaction -- Aragorn's there to be heroic, Merry and Pippin are there to be funny, Legolas pulls of the badass stunts, Frodo tugs at our heartstrings. And lately, I just find they're too emotionally shot -- with sickeningly long close ups and slow motion and a plethora of background wailing. It's like Jackson doesn't trust us to look at a horrible situation and have a human response -- he has to beat the emotion into us. Lucas, whatever his faults, I feel is more effective at summoning up what's there without forcing his point on you.
Oh I agree -- there was definitely a lot of technical talent surrounding him during the PT. But with the talent and the OT --- I was talking about the story. The other writers, directors, and even actors that contributed, altered, or even overruled Lucas to the betterment of the stories. That wasn't possible in the PT because no one was on par with him authoritatively. I saw TPM three times in the first five days it was in was in the theater. I told myself I loved it...I just needed to see it again..and again. I saw it a total of six times before it left theaters. I wanted to love that movie more than any movie I've ever seen on the big screen during it's first run. It just never really happened. The point being -- I noticed the flaws in the PT because I already had access to what came before (or...in this case...later) and why certain things didn't mesh well with what I already knew. Yes, this is a great point, and this is actually one of the things the prequels did effectively, imo. And there's no wrong answer here because it's just a matter of taste. The visual/tonal differences in the two trilogies are deliberate and they reflect the narrative differences of each trilogy itself. OT: Happy-Dark-Happy (classical mythological narrative rhythm) PT: Happy-Dark-Darker (declension narrative) This was unavoidable because the OT and the PT are fundamentally different types of stories. For all the faults of the prequels, Lucas does provide the right visual atmospheres that reflect the broader themes of each film and the changes of mood throughout both trilogies -- and they both make sense, given how he chose to tell the stories. Again, though --- there's no wrong answer here. It's just a matter of taste. One story is an up-and-down-and-up-again redemption story. The other is steady stroll downward.
I felt the same way about TPM when I saw it in theatres. I went to the midnight premiere. I really wanted to like it. I made an honest effort to like it, to explain away all the stuff that bugged me with some wild theory that in the end just didn't work. Sadly, though, the more I watched it, the more things I noticed, and the less I liked it. Perhaps watching it only once was the key... I watch the PT, and there are a number of aspects of the movies that I like. I watch TPM, and there are some aspects that I like. I watch them from an artistic standpoint and view the costuming and effects carefully. And I've watched the movies in order, from PT to OT. If I were to show the movies to a new viewer, I would give them a choice in watching them all in order, or watching the OT first. However, since I have a bias, I would be promoting the OT first, then watching the PT.
This is completely right and can attest to it. I decided to watch all the Star Wars movies one day so I bought them all and watched them in numerical order. The Prequels were okay, I sort of liked them but I always felt that something deeper was missing. Also the movies went way to slow for me, I knew that Anakin was going to be Darth Vader and having the second and third movies build up to that were so boring. ROTS seemed like it never committed, it wasn't untill Mace's death that I finally knew there was no going back and that Anakin was destined to be Vader, the movie got a lot more interesting after that. The last scene with Obi-wan giving Luke to Beru was beautifully done. Next, I moved on to the OT. The movie looked old and it was way different in feel to the PT, which were all clean but also more distant. The things in ANH felt more real, like you could reach out and touch them. The ineffectiveness of the stormtroopers pissed me off. Going from the Clones who were very effective shots to the incompetent Stormtroopers was frustrating. Also the plot armor the main characters had was annoying. In the PT, unless someone was were very powerful (or Padme), even if someone was a trained Jedi, that character would could drop like a fly (Although poor Coleman Trebor's death was ridiculous, I thought was good is training your entire life and then dying by three shots). So basically the plot armor for the characters was justified in the PT in the OT it wasn't, this wouldn't be a problem on its own, it just seemed dumb that trained Jedi had an easier time dying than random rebels (the main cast). But whatever. Then, came the fight between Ben and Vader, I was pumped. Vader had now become this bad mofo Sith Lord and was going to get his revenge. Then the fight happened and I was like WTF?! I knew because of the technology at the time it was going to be bad but I didn't think it was going to be that lame. And Vader's attitude was ridiculous. He acted so calm and collected. Vader this guy you are fighting sliced your limbs and left you to die in one of the worst deaths imaginable (burned alive!) and for all you know took away your wife and all you have to say is "when we last met, I was but the learner now I am the master". WTF? You should be furious, force crushing his neck or something, anything more than just waving your stick around. The end of the movie was weird because Vader risked himself a great deal in his chase of the rebels and Luke. That's just ANH. ESB wasn't all that jarring, I actually thought it was enjoyable. Yoda was magnificent, I finally saw why Yoda was such a respected and admired character in pop culture. Yoda's wisdom was special. In comparison, PT looks so lame and all his 'wisdom' seems like platitudes. Lucas failed miserably on PT Yoda imo.Also Yoda's feat of lifting up the x-wing wasn't that impressive considering I had seen similar thing before in the PT. Rotj was actually my favotie movie. It started out with a badass Luke owning Jabba. With Boba Fett, I was confused as to why he is considered a badass. He failed miserably to even kill a half-trained Jedi, when his father killed several, and then died like a b*tch. I wasn't impressed at all and still am not. Next, Yoda telling Luke his training was complete was stupid. Training in the PT was given since birth, Luke only trained for what seemed like a few days. It didn't make any sense. Then, seeing Luke defeat Vader was stupid based on my understanding of Vader's power and what Luke's power should be based on his training. Anakin after 10 years of training in AOTC wouldn't stand a chance against Darth Vader and he was the chosen one! And here we have Luke who barely was trained at all and he defeats one of the most powerful Siths in the galaxy. Geez maybe Darth Vader ISN'T one of the strongest Sith ever. The ewoks stuff was ridiculous and almost took me out of the movie, it was annoying and took time away from the Vader and Luke fight which was epic. I loved the fight (it was only with Vader's defeat I had a problem). The ewoks defeating the best soldiers of the galaxy was so stupid. The clones had wiped out an entire order of super powered beings and here we see the stormtroopers losing to teddy bears. Seeing Vader without his mask, felt like the real first time I saw Anakin. Anakin from the PT wasn't the 'real' Anakin to me, he always seemed like an asshole. I like the Anakin at the end of Rotj. At was frustrated at the movie, but the ending changed it all for me. It was so beautiful I let go of all my complaints and celebrated their victory with the rebels. It made me forget all the stuff that frustrated me and made me love Star Wars.
Well, you know, Lucas can go suck it. He has changed his mind so many time and then later says that the new way is "how he always intended it to be" and so on so forth. Like with the whole Greedo/Han shooting thing. Who cares what Lucas says, Han shot only, and he knows it. And like i've described in the post above, it's not just "hard-core OT fans" who hate the inconsistencies but people who watch the entire saga for the first time (like me). It just seems so off, watching the two sagas. Lucas really messed up on the PT.
I wasn't trying to suggest that what Lucas said should matter -- I was just responding to a quote someone posted. I frequently ignore what Lucas says too . I don't think it's that big of a deal. I didn't say that only "hard-core OT fans" hate the inconsistencies, but it's just an observation I've made that, in general, this specific subset tends to be more upset by it. Take into consideration, though, that some of my only other points of comparison are children (whom I've found like the PT and the Clone Wars too) or the people around me -- most of whom are pretty ambivalent concerning Star Wars. I will say, though, Charlie that your experience was significantly different than mine in that I had no idea that Anakin would turn which I really think cut down on the impatience factor a whole lot. I don't know if it would have really made a difference for you however. Just goes to show how little differences can mean large changes in perception, I guess.
From the I-VI viewpoint, I actually really love the older feel to the OT movies, the counter-intuitively far-superior technology in the prequels, that sort of thing. It's almost like a Roman Empire descended into the Dark Ages sort of feel... we see the height of the Republic's glory and then a sharp decline and general bleakness 20 years later. Of course, that doesn't help the fact that the Vader/Obi-wan duel on the Death Star is painful to watch.
Yeah, but the technology drop is wildly counterintuitive. Why would the Empire's technology suddenly drop off the face of the earth? If anything it should be more advanced. PiettsHat: Very interested to read what you said, will respond in a little bit, but I need to catch some z's.
Imperial brain-drain due to anti-alien policies and biases? I'm not saying it necessarily makes sense, just that I like the feel of it. Adds another element to the darkness of Palpatine's reign.
Yeah I can see what you're saying. You probably watched them when they came out in theaters or soon after. I didn't. I got interested in Star Wars because of the Battlefront Games and thought I wanted to see the movies to the franchise to see what Star Wars was about. I had watched Aotc in the theatres when I was young though, it wasn't very memorable though, I didn't remember anything about it. But I watched already knowing what Star Wars was in popular culture way after they had been released thus it was inevitable for me to know that the PT was a story of Darth Vader. Who again I only knew because he was an movie icon. So I knew Anakin was Vader. I didn't know Palpatine was the Emperor (as I hadn't watched the OT), but it was pretty apparent to me that he was the Sith Master or the very least evil. He looked evil and I guess I was just genre savvy. To be honest though, unless they aren't really too into fiction pop culture, today it's very hard to find people who don't know that PT Anakin is about Vader. I guess only little kids wouldn't know.
This is something interesting i've found among Star Wars fans (many of them anyway) that differs from fans from other fandoms (i'm mainly referring to DBZ fandom). In DBZ, fandom, if something isn't hinted it in the story, they say "that's never indicated or mentioned or shown etc etc" and collectively the majority dismiss the theory to inconsistencies because there is no evidence for it (most of the time anyways). In Star Wars fandom, however, theories are made up all the time to try to explain inconsistencies even if they are never hinted at in the story. Thus, in SW fandom they are more likely to relieve themselves from plot holes, by making up a plausible theory (even if it is never shown in the movies) and once most agree on it, it becomes fanon. In, other words, in DBZ, if something isn't shown in the story then it gets dismissed, in a "there's no reason to believe that" argument. But in Star Wars, that argument isn't enough and if one wants to tackle a made up theory its based on whether it makes sense given the confines of the story NOT if it was ever mentioned or hinted at in the movies. Just an interesting observation. Also to respond to what you said. I actually prefer it also. It feels more real and tangable, having a lot to do with the use of real sets and props. In the prequels everything looks clean but it also looks fake. The temple never looks like a real place and R2 looks fake. There's no charm to anything. The temple never seemed like a real place one could go into and explore.
Personally i suggest watching the original sequel first as although the prequel trilogy brings about the origins of everything that happens in the original trilogy, i think the prequels lost sight of the what was actually star wars. George Lucas' succumb to special effects resulted in just another sci-fi with a weak plot (JAJA!) but great effects even though he could have stuck to the original style (even though a little dated) and created another 3 legendary films. By watching the original 3 you get what star wars was all about. Watching them in production order is in no way detrimental as (as most of you have clarified) you can just watch the film from a different perspective and link the characters to what happens in the original prequel. Plus doing numerically would mean starting with the phantom menace which would not be a massive selling point to anyone unfamiliar with the franchise... agree?
I say the OT then the PT, although I do like the idea of watching it IV-V-I-II-III-VI. I think I'll watch it that way when I do my next SW marathon.
