PT Making My Day! - Pro-Prequel Articles

Removed.

I think that is exactly why it will. Where it all started is always the most special while what is going on then is the most current.

 

I think it WILL be remembered. A lot will depend on how fans receive the ST. If fans love it, then the PT will be THAT trilogy. If the ST is mediocre, there might be a surge is regard for the PT. I don;t expect that happen, but ya never know. For me, I've learned to appreciate the PT at least some level. I do watch every now and again, though I admit, I sometimes have to force my way through TPM. But if nothing else, the PT brought us Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan, and I'll always be thankful for that.

 

Are there any more interesting articles about the PT?

 

Disney's Solution to the Problem of the Star Wars Prequels

 

Where exactly does Rebels represent "the best parts of The Clone Wars"? Rebels is more of a low budget prologue to ANH than a bridge between the PT and OT.

 

mes520 I really think Disney may let them "fade into obscurity" as the article says and it's a shame. They bought LucasFilm, not the original trilogy only. May as well put all of it to good use.

Plus, doesn't Disney usually cater to kids? Why are they ignoring the kids who saw the prequels?

 

Oh no, they're not going to ignore an entire generation of Star Wars fans, they're just trying realty, really hard to win back the haters, I think they're trying too hard. If the movie's going to be a great movie, it'll be a great movie, they shouldn't need to be shoving practical effects down our throats and just tell us we're going to have fun.

 

Precisely. They should try to get people excited about the new story and characters, not the ways they did things in the OT.

 

I think people shouldn't be near so bitter.

 

Bitterness within the STAR WARS" fandom has been around for 18 years, it seems.

 

I agree with both of you, but these are things we would need to help us get more excited. And we obviously aren't the target audience with the current marketing of the film. I mean I was rolling my eyes at the scene with Han and Chewie, but there were a ton of people that were reaching delirium at that point, so the marketing is doing its job whether we like it or not. It has the opposite effect on me, so I just ignore it and count the days until release (119 days).

 

You have to be a young'an. The Han and Chewie clip was awesome, and only a stone heart would think otherwise.

I kid, but it seems to me the marketing is a good mix of the old and the new. The new Big Three seem like they are going to be great. And us old folks are looking forward to seeing our dear old friends back in action one more time!

 

Has anyone ever read this book called "The Politics of Big Fantasy: The Ideologies of Star Wars, The Matrix and The Avengers"?

What it had to say about the Prequel Trilogy was needless to say, interesting - https://books.google.com/books?id=I...nepage&q=underestimating prequel fans&f=false.

 

Great find. It is indeed a really interesting reading and pretty much in agreement with what has been said here in the forum about certain themes presented by Lucas in the PT.

 

Mystery Box: Padmé and the Senate (Deleted Scene)

 

Remembering 4 moments of the Obi-Wan vs. Anakin Duel


ETA:

I wasn't on the internet then, but I was 13 when ROTS came out and from what I've seen/heard, that's probably true.

 

Could be an accurate observation. I know a couple of younger girls (under 21) who usually put AotC as their favourite.

 

I've been holding the opinion for years that the Prequels are the more "feminine" trilogy while the OT is more "masculine" - not just in regard to representation, but involving their overall feel and character.

The OT was very much defined by Luke's "father conflict" whereas the Prequels introduced the "mother" and they had a different focus and different sensibilties. The OT deals with Luke and how he has to confront his father in order to bring him back to the good side. The PT deals with Anakin and his challenge of letting go and coming to peace with the natural course of things and loss. It's, in its basic state, more passive, less confrontational and more "feminine". The PT also puts a strong focus on the need for diplomacy and trying to avoid war and violence at all costs whereas the OT portrays a period of time in which war and battles have become the only way of solving a conflict.
This difference, though, is the most noticeable in the way both trilogies portray the love stories. Han/Leia are a pretty male-oriented couple, with a macho guy getting the initially resistant girl to melt ultimately. Anakin/Padmé are a the complete opposite, they are a couple in which the man is more vulnerable and emotional and the woman always seems to be in control of things and is clearly played as the one to decide what direction their relationship takes. Anakin and Han, especially, feel like opposing poles.
The whole architectural, environmental and cultural focus on beauty in the PT, as opposed to the sober functionality of the OT, is another sign of that difference.

I think Lucasfilm missed a great oppurtunity back in 2000-2005. They should have embraced that sort of audience a lot more openly and actively - especially after having realized that the "original" SW audience isn't the most grateful or willing to accept new things and I also think the more "feminine" nature of the PT has affected its reputation among the predominantly male-focused geek media. Missed chance, another approach could have given the PT a more solid and vocal supporting base online. That whole concept also leads me to some of my concerns about Abrams, who I feel tends to make products that leans too much towards the "masculine" side of things. For instance, it's not uncommon in his productions that a (mostly, not always) female character tries to stick to the rules and law and solve things the way they are supposed to be solved until into a man (sometimes woman) steps in, secretely breaks the law and succeeds famously with that. Hate that.

 

Cogent insights, yet again, Samnz!!!

Brilliant.

It's very notable, to me, and a wonderful, wonderful story detail, in my estimation, that Padme is a good deal older than Anakin (50% his age again) in Episode I, with a lot more responsibility on her shoulders, and that she essentially takes a maternalistic, protective attitude toward him (though also gets lost in her own sense of duty to her people in taking back the palace). This leads very nicely into Episode II, where that age differential (no longer 50%, but with Padme still the older, more adjusted one) informs Anakin's pursuit of Padme, where he is both brash and ****-scared owed to deep-seated awareness of that relative difference in age and experience. Accordingly, we have Anakin trying to prove himself, and Padme taking the lead as she remains quite sure of herself and overtly has more power and influence and "regality" and restraint than Anakin. I love the tension that that brings to the movie and the arc of Anakin and Padme generally. Power differentials basically shape every aspect of human society.

Expounding on your thesis, Vader is also a supremely "macho" villain; especially in TESB (essentially a male power fantasy figure where Vader gets to boss everyone around, gloat it up over others, oversee acts of torture, and telepathically choke anyone who fails to please him). In contrast, the prequels put more remotely macho figures into the "Vader" slot in each movie. Maul is the peripheral "other", Dooku is refined and elegant, but nowhere near as overbearing as Vader, and Grievous is the moustache-twirling Richard III figure who would rather run than fight. And they're all tools of Palpatine. So, of course, is Vader, but this is less obvious going by Vader's behaviour in ANH and TESB alone. I do wonder, especially now you've spelled it out, if some of the resistance to the PT is down to people subliminally tapping into this "feminine" fabric and recoiling against it.

Let's face it, the feminine hero dying a terribly young death and seeming to "give up", or beseeching her husband to turn from evil and that all she wants is his love, may be fittingly tragic, but it's not the toughest of conclusions; well, from a certain point of view. Leia, in the concluding installment of the OT, gets to choke Jabba the Hutt, befriend Ewoks, ride a speeder bike, and blast I-don't-know-how-many stormtroopers in a climactic battle to restore freedom to the galaxy. Both trilogies are brimming with machismo, but there's a more brooding and sensual quality to some of the designs, environments, and circumstances of the PT. There's probably no area that better exemplifies this aspect than the costumes. John Mollo designed the original trilogy costumes, based on military styles, for the larger part; and expert designs they are, too. But it was Trisha Biggar, a lady, who was ultimately tasked with bringing the prequel trilogy's richer fabrics vibrantly to life; something for which you and I agree, she should probably have received an Academy Award (or at least a nomination) for. Mollo won an Oscar for his work on the original trilogy; it just seems scandalous to have not acknowledged the greater complexity of the prequel costumes and all the work that went into them in the same way.

Look also at the symbolism of how each trilogy begins. The OT, of course, starts above Tatooine: an arid, lawless planet controlled by slimy gangsters and punctuated here and there by spaceports home to smugglers, not to mention desert scavengers and numerous Tusken Raider encampments and the odd taciturn moisture farmer in a luckless turf war with members of the former. The PT, in a stunning contrast, unfolds against the gleaming jewel of Naboo: a lush, feminine realm presided over by young teenage girls pressed into an ancient ceremonial role (with the clothing to prove it) with real democratic responsibility, amazing natural architecture (waterfalls, lakes, meadows), and a secret underwater society (water being a hugely symbolic -- and actual -- source of life and purity). On Naboo, coincidentally enough, we also find the crazy fool of Jar Jar, who might just be the saga's most sexually-ambiguous character, straddling some androgynous/asexual middle ground, and yet evoking extremes of self-expression at the same time. The prequels, in a sense, are Star Wars reborn: reborn to an awareness of more than just masculine empires, cocky smugglers, and unforgiving desert planets.

One thing I will defend Abrams on (as of this writing) is his depiction of femininity in "Super 8" (I suppose this fits your "mostly, but not always" categorization). It's interesting how the plot essentially unfolds because two male characters are obsessed with the character of Alice played by Elle Fanning. Just the casting of that young actress, in my opinion, lends a touch of extra sophistication to the movie. Anyway, without giving too much away, for anyone who hasn't seen it, she disappears for some of the movie, and her absence arguably makes a broader comment for what is at stake. Even her name is subtly suggestive of another very famous "Alice" in young fiction. Moreover, before this happens, she and the main male protagonist share a very sweet scene together, in what is arguably the centre-piece of the movie. Visually and otherwise, that scene reminded me of the bed scene in "Lost In Translation" between Bob and Charlotte (apologies if I seem to be speaking an alien language right now), and it's Elle who carries it (the inverse of the scene in LIT, I would argue, where it's really Bill Murray -- as seen through Sofia Coppola's camera -- who makes that scene what it is). Perhaps the best measure of the film's thematic tapestry ("Super 8"), however, is in a shorter scene involving an argument, in which the main protagonist (himself meek and humble for the most part) defends his attachment to Alice on the basis that "she's kind". Kindness forms a big part of the movie's resolution; and I can't help but think that Abrams made a more sophisticated film there. I look at his Star Trek movies, which basically resolve with ultra-violent shootings/beatings, and the difference is shocking.

Just thought I'd throw that last paragraph in -- in defence of J.J. Abrams! The sky is falling...

 

I must admit to having had guilty pleasures coming across such fan sites. The more sites I stumbled across about Anakin and Padme's romance or celebrating their costumes and the more 'beautiful' aspects of these films, the more I pictured the angry ones desperate to bust into their sisters bedroom, pull the heads off her dolls, deface the posters and melt stuff in rage.

I know it's a stereotype to say the girls love the doomed couple, but it was obvious that a great amount of serious work had gone into this aspect of the film - it was a travesty that Trisha Biggar was not acknowledged for her work. All those nods to Pre-Raphaelite painting etc just wasted on laser brains.

People like to mention that 'there is so much going on, every frame is so dense' quote as some sort of criticism, but they spent three years on each film, and packed it so full, so that there would be enough to chew on, and enough for all kinds of viewers - for a lifetime.

 

Not exactly an article, but I thought people would enjoy this.

 

This is a good article: No its not. Not related to thread topic and is baiting.

 

That explains a lot, and is a hypothesis I have had for a long time. I have never understood the fangirl thing. It seems they just like the guys for being "hot" and extra points if they are tortured, which I guess Anakin is supposed to be. It would make sense they went for him, his characterization was shallow enough they could play around with it easily. Like those sparkly Twilight vampires. I feel bad for the female fans who get lumped in with the crazies, because fangirls really are the dreck of fandom. I have a specific example below.

Fangirls ruined Doctor Who: and by pandering to them, the show has gone down in quality year after year with soap opera bs replacing actual plot.

 

That may be your perception but it seems harsh to be only critising female fans. Not all 'fan girls' are immature over reacting Ani Zealots. Liking or empathizing with Anakin doesn't make anyone shallow either.