Is it me, or is the Prequel hate based on a whole lot of double-standards?

If this sounds like a rant, well it's because it is. Maybe I'm obsessing too much on this but, I dearly love Star Wars and hat injustices so...


Like I said, it seems that the "PT" haters opinions is shock full of double-standards. And also a bit on Indy 4.

For example, Yoda fighting. Though it's actually the first thing fans all thought of when details of the prequels surfacing, it's now widly considered as "stupid". Usually it's justified that Yoda is crippled and old, and according to ESB, he could just use the Force to beat someone up without lifting a finger. Seeing him fighting is pointless!
But then, Darth Vader is very crippled and is not very fast during the OT, and he could (as he does) take out people across space with just a thought. But he insists on fighting with a lightsaber! But that's ok I guess... because it's not in the prequels.

Or a point made in the RedLetterMedia reviews, that the prequels make lightsabers uncool, because they get whipped out for anything. Of course the comments are all "Dat iz so tru, lolz!", even if they were expecting before Episode I, and I quote, "Lightsaber battles the size of Braveheart". But since the prequels suck, it made lightsabers uncool.

Or another point made in the RLM reviews, was that Palpatine's plan was dunderheaded because it was pointless and could've gone wrong in so many ways that could've cost the chancelor's life. Then why doesn't anyone complain in, say "The Dark Knight", Joker's ability to stay always ahead of everyone else to the point of clarivoyance (something that Palpatine, ironically, posseses)? I love "The Dark Knight", but come on!

Or that Midichlorians and it's link to the Force actually is similar in concpet to "Dust" in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, or some of the religious and poetic texts that inspired it? (See the Gospel According to Lucas)

Or that for all the way some characters act in the prequels we have Luke and Leia shrugging off the destruction of their loved ones, homes and friends qith nothing more than a "bummer".

Or even back at the release of AOTC, everyone was pleasently surprised and were willing to forgive Lucas' former "sins". Now iMDB might have some issues, specially in the forums (God, those forums...), but I think it's a pretty good barometer of how a movie is recieved by the general public. So, back then, it was pretty well recieved even making into the Top 250 (albeit for no more than two weeks) and then sitting confortably with a rating of 7.4, the same as another rather well recieved blockbuster by the name of "Spider-Man". Cut to three years later, sometime after ROTS was released (which also was massively well recieved, but now it's considered "crap" because it's a prequel) that rating dropped to 6.8, which is where it's at now. Why this sudden drop? Yes, ratings in iMDB change all the time, but not this drastically. I've had someone tell me in a forum that iMDB enforces a stricter policy in ratings. Bull****. I witnessed the same kind of drop for "Shrek", which is now uncool to like because of its sequels (glossing over the fact that the first "Shrek" is still a damn fine movie).

And Indy 4, which had Darabont's draft released on the web recently, and I was able to read some reviews of it. They all are unanimous in saying that it's "superior" in everyway to the released movie. But then you start to read into these reviews and see that pratically all the things that are criticized on the released movie are present in this draft as well: aliens, the infamous "nuke the fridge", the waterfall scene (but instead of falling down two waterfalls, they fall out of five!), Doomtown, a cameo of the Ark, the Soviets... and even with added insult to injury with a scene where Indy shoots an alien and utters a Big Willie Styled "Welcome to Earth". But it was better, because Lucas rejected it. And another review in Ain't It Cool News, the reviewer was enraged that the climax of Indy 4 had Indiana Jones taking no part of it whatsoever... Then, right afterwards, someone praised the hell out of Rai

 

It's not just you. The one that gets me is the charge that Lucas reduced Jar Jar's screen time in AOTC due to backlash. This lacks all evidence and seems dismissive of context. A large part of the reason -- logistically speaking -- that Jar Jar was even in TPM so much, beyond symbolism and marketing, was simply because he got mixed up with the Jedi, helping them and establishing a life debt with Qui-Gon. Once Qui-Gon died, Jar Jar moved on and up into the world of Coruscant. One shouldn't expect to see so much of him after TPM. Then there's an obvious scaling down in the screen time of other TPM characters like Watto and Shmi in AOTC. The downsizing seems proportional to the screen time all these characters had in TPM. Funny how you never hear people complaining about the latters' diminished presence. There's also the fact that Lucas planned to start light and go darker with each PT film. Jar Jar is a happy-go-lucky character who fits TPM the best of the three movies. His innocence is gradually squelched over the three movies, in parallel to the descent of Anakin. What makes all of this so bitterly ironic is you never hear people questioning the behind-the-scenes wrangling that led to Katie Holmes being replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal in Nolan's Batman films. Although an official reason was given, it's a particularly dubious one: scheduling conflicts? On a multi-million dollar blockbuster franchise? When all the other principals were brought back, even Cillian Murphy for a one-scene cameo? It's even more suspect when you look at the drubbing Holmes received in Batman Begins. And not just for her acting, but for being the wife of Tom Cruise. So there were image-based reasons for ditching her. Also, Batman Begins, despite the critical and audience acclaim, was only a modest box office success. I can imagine that Nolan, or Nolan at the behest of Warner Bros., zoned in on that widely-reported weakness and promised to fix it. And just the name GYLLENHAAL, paired with the name LEDGER, gives The Dark Knight a certain credibility, by pivoting off an Oscar-nominated film (that ironically came out the same year as Batman Begins). Maybe the suits at Warner Bros. or Nolan himself were also worried over Katie Holmes and Aaron Eckhart having already appeared in "Thank You For Smoking" and were eager to avoid strong association with it (political overtones, sex scenes, etc.)? And in all of this, there's a real loss there: the love interest of the main character is replaced and then killed, dulling the emotional arc of the films. There was also little attempt to have the actual writing and acting of the character match between the two films. When Maggie Gyllenhaal was cast, she claimed that she would give a new interpretation of the character, and that the writing would reflect her input. So, basically, we have a situation where there was no attempt at continuity, and a fishy recasting that smells of capitulation and half-truth. Lucas got backlash with Jar Jar as we all know, but TPM was also a stunning box office success. There was no motive for him to cave in. By contrast, there were very clear-cut in-narrative reasons for Jar Jar featuring less in subsequent movies. But it's Lucas who gets this accusation leveled at him while Nolan is hailed as a genius and even given credit for the recasting. In the words of The Joker: it's a funny world we live in.

 

Yep! 100% agree. I've always argued that Lucas probably increased Jar Jar's role in AOTC based on the backlash alone. I mean Jar Jar goes on to have a pretty significant part to play in the context of the saga - but that part could have been performed by anyone. The character needn't have been in the film at all. Jar Jar's role in the movies logically came to an end in TPM.

I think Lucas probably realised the character was popular with kids and therefore it was a given he'd try to write him in there somewhere. But I think for devilment Lucas probably amped that role up just to stick two-fingers up to the bashers.

 

Since Lucas is American it would be one finger.

 

Fair point

 

I hear ya. I was very interested in reading that "much better" draft. Darabont was so pissed off about it, and said stupid things in the media, like it's not common practice in that industry for scripts to be rejected. It's just that in this case, it was Lucas (bad) rejecting Darabont (good).

Well, I beg to differ. I thought the Darabont draft was generally unpleasant, particularly in two areas: First, the handling of the Indy character (of all things!). Imo, he used his fists way too much and his brains way too little. There's also a moment of complete character mess-up when Indy goes on a drunken rampage and destroys his museum. My mouth was hanging open at that point. It was completely out-of-character and unbelievable. The second thing was the humour. I just thought there was way too many cheap in-jokes in there, like the one about Willie Scott going off to Hollywood and marrying "some big-shot director". It was just lame, in my opinion.

There's also something to be said for Darabont's own character creations. He is so dead-set on each and every character servicing one particular element of the story, he ends up with 7 (!) characters tied to a pole or something at the film's climax... I found the whole thing way too convoluted and too "crafted" for lack of a better word.

I prefer the finished film to that draft of it.

It's also interesting that Kasdan credits Lucas for doing most of the work on the Empire script. He'd obviously worked up an outline that Brackett based her draft on, but that draft is not at all in fighting shape. Lucas then wrote a complete second draft himself, which according to Kasdan is very much like the final shooting script, although it's obvious that Kasdan contributed immensely to that.

 

Something else, which I just thought of:

Not to sound like I'm beating up on Chris Nolan or TDK or anything -- perish the thought! -- but I've noticed that Lucas is sometimes lambasted for "obvious" foreshadowing lines like Obi-Wan's "Why do I get the feeling that you're going to be the death of me?" Yet TDK has at least two occurrences of something similar: the classic secret-identity pun. When Bruce meets Dent in the restaurant, Dent says, "Rachel's told me everything about you", and Bruce quips back, "I certainly hope not!". A little later, when Dent is at the party, he small-talks about Rachel with Alfred and asks, "Any psychotic ex-boyfriends I should know about?" and Alfred responds, "Oh, you have no idea!". Let's also not forget Dent's trailer line, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain". And that's only scratching the surface. It seems that a film a lot of people went ga-ga over -- for its professed depth, the quality of its acting, scripting, drama, etc. -- is filled with exactly the kind of punning and foreshadowy stuff Lucas is sometimes raked over the coals for.

 

What? Rejecting scripts is common practice in Hollywood! I can think of a whole handfull of them who were rejected or were completly rewritten (which I think is worse.) That's why they have script doctors and the such. Unless Darabont never had HIS scripts rejected... The guy did good movies and a great Tv show, but he's being an asshat.

 

Hmmm...

I suppose double standards might be part of it. Personally, I think a good part of it is based on two sets of unreasonable expectations.

First, a lot of fans went into TPM not thinking, "This is going to be a really good movie." They started off with the idea, "This will be the defining moment of my entire existence." Well, I think TPM is a good movie, but it certainly can't measure up to the latter standard. People just got so hopped up for it (and the pre-release hype certainly didn't help) that nothing could live up to the standard many fans wanted. And, in order to justify their disappointment, they decided that the other movies had to be lacking, as well.

Second, in a related point, some fans felt it didn't live up to what they wanted in a prequel. Remember, between 1983 and 1999, every fan had their own idea of what the backstory would be like, from the cause of Anakin's fall to just what the Clone Wars would be like. And, as could be expected, Lucas' ideas didn't completely match up. So, the PT was considered bad because it wasn't "my" idea, which is one that "I" made up and really liked. And, rather than simply accept the PT as one idea and just take the "Girl in Lover's Lane" approach, the fans in question just condemned the whole thing outright and wouldn't budge.

Is the PT perfect? Certainly not. Is is what I would've done had I been given the opportunity? No, it isn't. But, I still like it, and it's better than anything I would've come up with.

Well, that's my opinion anyway. Feel free to disagree.

 

I didn't mean Darabont said it wasn't common practice, I just phrased it badly. I meant to say he was pissed off, like it isn't common practice. Which of course it is.

No one can take from him The Shawshank Redemption, but personally I'm not that keen on The Green Mile or The Majestic, and I thought The Mist was completely lame. He has however written an excellent screenplay for Fahrenheit 451 that I would like to see, but preferably by a different director.

 

RedLetterMedia's review here, RedLetterMedia's review there... I mean, why is that guy even taken seriously? There's already a .pdf to clarify what's wrong with that review, for those who couldn't see it the first time they saw.

Regarding Yoda's fight, for example: people cheered at the theater. At least the session I was in. That's what counts. Who cares about the hypocrisy of some haters?

 

I guess some folks will continue to miss some of RLM's obvious tongue in cheek and self-satirical remarks and actions in his reviews.

Taking him seriously is not a necessity to lol at some of his editing styles and wordplay.

 

This may come as a shock, but I think people hate the PT because the films aren't all that good.

There were other movies with high expectations that fans loved. (LoTR trilogy, new Batman series, ESB, RoTJ, etc)

 

Fixed.

"The films aren't all that good" is not a statement of fact, it's strictly an opinion, and no more valuable an opinion than that of those of us who liked the prequels. And nobody can make the indisputable statement that "the majority of America/the majority of fans agreed with my opinion".

Therefore it's circular reasoning. "I hated the prequels because I didn't think they were good." OK.

And KennethMorgan, I agree, at least to a point. I also think that the OT would probably be bashed just as broadly if the Internet were in common household use in the late 70s or early 80s.

 

To me, if you have to explain to the audience why the movie they just saw was good, it wasn't very good.

We all get why the OT was great. When it comes to the PT people always have to post long winded explanations explaining why the movie they think was bad, was in fact good. If its good, it should just click.

 

The point is that for many of us, it did "just click." And I don't really care whether other people liked it or not, but I do bristle at statements such as "Everyone thought the PT was bad." Nobody should assume that "everyone" shares his or her personal opinion. And no, not "everyone" liked the OT either, nor does "everyone get" why the OT was good. (My explanation would involve two words: Han Solo. But I'd be willing to bet that other OT fans would have a different explanation.) Some people prefer the PT. I happen to like both trilogies equally for different reasons, but there are people out there who prefer the PT.

 

Can you link me to that pdf? Thanks.

I'm sorry, but Return of the Jedi has been falling more and more from grace ever since the prequels came out. Reasons is because George Lucas was more involved with the movie than he was in Empire or even (gasp!) the original Star Wars. Another is Ewoks. If you ask someone why they don't like RotJ they'll only say "Ewoks". Because they are childish, serve only to sell merchandise and they don't fit into the Star Wars universe (though A New Hope had Jawas, and was a couple of charred bodies away from a "G" rating".)

 

How is that possible, given that Lucas directed Star Wars but Marquand directed ROTJ?

 

That is what is usually said... Also because George Lucas gets a screenwriting credit for RotJ, whether in ESB he doesn't.

 

Says who?

Based on my observations ROTJ is still immensely popular.

 

Among Star Wars fans ROTJ still seems quite popular, but I think it's a different situation among critics and the general public. On rottentomatoes, for example, ROTJ is rated below ROTS: 78% to 80%. And on metacritic ROTJ is rated 52, the same as TPM, and lower than AOTC (53) and ROTS (68). I know my mother always says "any one you want, but not the one with the Teddy Bears!" whenever I suggest we watch a Star Wars film.

Of course, other people's opinions shouldn't affect how you view the film. If you enjoy it, then pop it in and let yourself be swept away. In my experience, that's the best way to appreciate a film.

 

There's very little difference between 78% and 80%, and given the fact that ROTJ was a film from the 80s, there are likely few reviews for it aggregated on RottenTomatoes, unlike modern films released during the age of the Internet, with data streaming in. What are the number of reviews for each?

Regardless, it's not that surprising. Filmgoers of the 2000s and film goers of the 1980s have distinctly different tastes, notably towards darker, gray/gray morality stories and further away from kid-friendliness or stalwartly idealism. What might have been considered acceptable back then looks like utter kitsch now, hence the negative reaction toward Ewoks. And it's not likely to reverse.

 

I think thats one of the most absurd statements I've ever read.

George Lucas contriubuted just as much to ESB as he did ROTJ. Regardless of who you officially see credited, he co-wrote both (Kasdan actually credits the writing on Empire to be predominantly Lucas'). Leigh Brackett might have "officially" co-wrote Empire, but nothing that was her own work remained in the movie. Her draft was ditched.

 

Indeed. And obviously it becomes impossible to argue that Lucas had a greater influence over Jedi than the original Star Wars, and therefore Jedi is not as good. Well, not just impossible, but frankly absurd.

Personally, I think Jedi would have been better with more Lucas involvment. In my mind he's a much better director than Marquand. It's a shame that Kershner didn't want to do Jedi when he was asked, and a shame that Lucas didn't think "never mind, I'll just do it myself."

Some of my favourite stuff in Empire is the Dagobah sequence, and that's one where Lucas had a real hands-on presence.

And then there's Hope, which he wrote and directed. I'd say Lucas influence was a good thing for the OT.

 

Well from what I understand Lucas directed the funeral pyre scene in ROTJ (which is a pretty poignant thing given the context and its position in the overall saga) and there are rumours he directed the unmasking scene (though I dont see the logic or reason for that speculation). I dont know whether he's a better director than Marquand. I think he'd have done a decent job, but at that point his heart wasn't in directing and I can't blame him for thinking someone else might be more appropriate. Spielberg was an option and I'm sure one or two would lament him not getting the gig - if any of the movies was the one for Spielberg it would have been Jedi. I'm not sure Kershner would have been the solution either. David Lynch was approached of course. Goodness knows how that would have turned out. I don't think it'd have turned out for the better because he just wasn't into it.

For me, the problems with Jedi are mostly found in the script anyway. When its working, its great. When its not, its pretty lousy (and thats coming from a guy who likes the ewoks!).