PT Making My Day! - Pro-Prequel Articles

True, same with my experiences. I didnt kow anyone offline who didnt took them for what they are and didnt like them. Wasnt until 2002 when I started to engage in conversations at Online Forums and met people who were against the movies...

 

Another Natalie Portman interview:

"With the perspective of time, it’s been re-evaluated by a lot of people who actually really love them now . . . There’s a very avid group of people who think they’re the best ones now!"

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/natalie-portman-star-wars-prequels-backlash-bummer/

 

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-prequels-understood-fixed/

 

Very good. I was afraid of some anti-PT backtracking that some articles do where they go, "Oh, but don't get me wrong, the prequels are awful abominations but they deserve some respect...right? Right?"

But the writer completely stuck to his narrative, didn't back down, or apologize in advance for his views.

And his idea that TCW, or other material, didn't fix the films because the PT never was fundamentally broken to begin with is a true, if unpopular, way of stating that everything we see outside of the films wouldn't even exist if the PT didn't introduce all of it first.

 

"It wasn't so much that the audiences failed to understand the prequels - it wouldn't be the first time a movie was misunderstood - but there was no drive to find an understanding, and instead, they instantly became pop-culture joke fodder, and quickly became shorthand for "bad."

..."Unfortunately, this kind of reflection wasn't in high demand when George Lucas made the prequel trilogy..."



That's almost all that needs to be said.

 

The official Rotten Tomatoes score for ROTS went up 1% from 79 to 80%.

 

TPM deserve at least over 70 percent in my eyes.

 

I know The Simpsons cracked a couple of jokes at the Prequels. it was very much star wars fans throwing out digs at the PT because it was the cool thing.

Funny enough, what changed was the ST was made and suddenly the PT were wasn't the butt of the joke anymore because apparently the ST and other movies are now among the hated too. and the excuses as to why start to get tricky when you don't have lucas to blame anymore.

I think many also realized that perhaps alot of the problem isn't totally on the PT. some of its also on nostalgia.

 

Honestly I think the main Problem is the nostalgia part. People did run into TFA to see the old stuff from the OT again: X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Millennium Falcon, Han, Chewie, Leia...when TLJ didnt put them into Center as much as TFA did and when TLJ didnt treated them like fans thought they should have been treated (or to put it differently: how they developed and acted in their head Canon) they started ti jump on it.

In my eyes SW has a Problem with nostalgia and how its valued. It's like "NOSTALGIA over everything" when it should be a small part and small fan Service like in the Prequels.

 

Here's another reasonable article with a realistic look back:
https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-generation-looks-back-at-20-years-of-star-wars-episod-1834653722/amp

 

"It gave us midi-chlorians." 20 years and people still dont understand the concept behind it snf how it relates to force which still is this mystic engery field *facepalm*

I hope for a nice homage from LFL Official and sw.com tomorrow. Like a BIG one. Ep IV 20th anniversary was celebrated like hell. Give us the something for TPM!

 

I do like the actual positivity to TPM but I hate the "The Phantom Menace is the best of the prequels" as a backhanded compliment. It always ends up being them saying how TPM still wasn't good but then comparing it to how much they hate AOTC and ROTS.

(of course, Im not talking about those who do like TPM more than AOTC and ROTS but still like the other two )

 

Agreed. Still its good to see the appreciation grows for the prequels. But in the end I guess it was always there, there was just that bashing from inside the fandom and some nerd media sources. If I ask general movie watchers and friends nobody has a problem with any of the prequels. I really have not meet ONE person!

Btw: I consider TPM the most well crafted of any Lucas Films. He went full throttle here and I love it!

 

Nostalgia/expectations or however you want to call it.

Lucas goes the unexpected route over and over again. That is what ANH was, what TESB was, what ROTJ was but what happens is that over time that unexpected becomes the accepted. In fact that is what AG and THX were as well. That Lucas does the unexpected again (which is what actually should have been expected) and then there is upset for doing what he always did. Which he did again in AOTC. The only movie that Lucas did that was the actual closest to the expected was ROTS because he had to based on his original story ideas from the 70's and having to be the connector between the PT and the OT. Even then it wasn't quite not quite as much as some would expect (see the upset over Leia's memories).

With the Disney movies it was nostalgia and doing the expected with TFA and even R1 for the most part. TLJ used nostalgia as well but to laugh at the audience for liking the movies in the first place by subverting the story and satirizing them.

Removed. Violates board rules. /heels

 

Why 'The Phantom Menace' Need Not Divide 'Star Wars' Fans
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/why-star-wars-phantom-menace-should-no-longer-divide-fans-1212032

 

Here's a positive Facebook post about TPM from Star Wars' page. Notice most of the comments below it are positive as well:

 

Thought you might like to see the video I've just released on my personal YouTube channel about "The Art Of George Lucas" looking at classic images and homages and especially focusing on in the Prequels



#Enjoy

 

Fantastic video, man. Also, great to see ya around. I remember you during TFA-PT debates on the forum.

 

Thanks my friend.

Well in the words of Luke Skywalker... No one's ever really gone!

 

I would argue that ROTS is more Greek tragedy than Shakespearean. The latter is defined by the main character always dying in the end, whereas the former involves the main character suffering a fate worse than death.

 

Not necessarily, some of them die also. And also is not that Shakespear wasn't influenced by the Greek tragedies. The main difference here is that the end of the PT is actually the lower point in the middle of the whole story (in the real end that for Lucas is episode 6) And it the end the main character is redeemed and comes back to the right path which has nothing to do with the Greek tragedies, there is no hope for the tragic heroes there. This is the Christian influence here: the hope and the redemption. And even in the end of ROTS (the darkest hour, the rise of the Empire, there is someone who says: there is still good in him and there is hope (as the movie ends with the suns of Tattoine not with everyone dying and crying).
@G-FETT , great observations. You know, when I first saw ROTS I was wondering why the way Padme is dressed in the end of the movie looks so familiar to me then years later I realize that this is homage to Ophelia who dies for Hamlet's madness. But also there is more. The flowers look more like the bride flowers which for example in Spain traditionally the brides put in their hair so in a way I consider this also as a sign of hope as Padme will be forever connected with Anakin through their love.

 

I read somewhere that Coppola recommended Lucas learn from Shakespeare how to structure the drama so there must be at least some Shakespearean influence in Star Wars.

 

I hate to go on a tangent here, but I'll do it anyway. To me, the thing about ROTS that makes it most like a Greek tragedy (and some Shakespearean tragedies), even moreso than the self-fulfilling prophecy and the death-by-heartbreak, is its dramatic structure.

Most stories these days--including the other Star Wars movies--have a three act structure. ROTS has, like a traditional Greek tragedy, a five-point structure:

- exposition: introduction of the characters and situations
- rising action, started by an inciting event
- climax, during which the protagonist makes a critical decision in dealing with the inciting event
- falling action, resulting in a resolution: event resulting from the climax and resolving the inciting event
- Denouement: aftermath



In ROTS, the inciting event is Anakin's vision of Padme dying in childbirth; the climax is Anakin deciding to join Palpatine; the resolution is Padme dying of a broken heart (because of Anakin's decision during the climax, thus rendering the inciting event a self-fulfilling prophecy). Pretty cool.