Saga OT Fans' Reactions to the PT

I'm a little confused with this statement.

I first saw the OT movies back in the 1990s, when they were released as the SE in the theaters. Okay, I take that back. I saw the original versions of the OT on video, when I was a kid. Then I saw the SE versions. I fell in love with the movies, of course. I was about to see "The Phantom Menace" when a relative of mine advised me to ignore it. But I couldn't and saw it anyway. What can I say? I fell in love with that movie and the other two PT films. I saw "Menace" and "Revenge of the Sith" three times. And I saw "Attack of the Clones" four times (once in an IMAX theater). I hope I will eventually feel the same about the ST movies. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

I was three years old when RotJ came out. As a kid, the OT was, basically, everything to me. I was in college when the PT came out. I have to admit, I was a bit of a PT hater for a while. But, as the years have passed, my feelings have changed in unexpected ways.

1. I love TPM. Yes, that's not a popular opinion among my age group. But, as time passes, I enjoy the movie more. It's deeply flawed in terms of plot, yes. But it's just so much fun. I love the Jedi in the movie, the ship designs, the action. It's goofy. It's fun.
2. I am unable to watch AofC without skipping every scene with Padme and Anakin. I love Obi-Wan's Great Detective Adventure in the movie, and the Battle of Geonosis is a lot of fun, but I can't stand any of the scenes with Anakin and Padme. The acting is atrocious, the script terrible. Ugh. Nails on chalkboard.
3. RotS is ok. I guess that's all I have to say about it.

 

Edit: deleted.
Nah. Don't want to do this.

 

That was just one incident during the battle on Geonosis. And Obi-Wan didn't exactly fare any better. I'm still trying to figure out why he had tossed his lightsaber to Anakin, when it would have been more practical for the latter to use only one.

Are people still arguing over this? Wow. I had no problems with Padme's fall into depression. God only know how I would react after learning that the government I had served for years had become an empire, my husband had turned evil and been physically attacked by said husband in a fit of rage, while in the last trimester of my pregnancy. Did fans demand that she remain strong and not give in to despair, because she was a woman and a mother-to-be?

 

Basically feminism at it's finest.

 

Basically because female leads can never ever show any kind of weakness, they must always be ultra badass and be even bigger badasses than males to be ultra PC, otherwise the writer is a awlful sexist pig.

Really though, Padme is a strong woman who doesn't have a happy ending, alot of people had sad endings in ROTS.

 

She said pretty much everything I love about the OT. ROTJ rocks!

I was born in the middle of the 1980s and was introduced to the OT in the early 1990s. Initially, I loved TPM, since I was thirteen. I didn't much like AOTC, but I thought ROTS was great when I first saw it. I went through a phase of hating the prequels during my early to mid-twenties, but I like them better now. I'm more of an EU fan than a prequel fan. But the prequels are fine. They're not as bad as they're made out to be. There are plenty of things we can thank Lucas for and plenty of things we can deride him for. Depends on the situation.

I don't want to get too long-winded, since I do that sometimes. Lol. The only major thing I don't like about the prequels, other than the dialogue in AOTC and lots of things like that, is the general spoiler that shows that Anakin is Vader. The shock on Luke's face is his, not ours. I think it was important for me as a kid to be shocked along with Luke by that revelation. I also felt that, as a ten-year-old, that it was so touching and wonderful and ineffable when Luke helped Vader and Vader decided to save his son from Sidious. The prequels do take away from new generations the opportunity to be shocked that Vader is Anakin. But they don't take away the positive shock of Vader saving Luke from Palpatine. If anything, a good thing about the prequels is that they make Anakin/Vader look so messed up that his redemption is more satisfying or unexpected to some. Or so some say. The EU deals with Anakin/Vader and builds upon those themes and shows how complex he is. Overall, I'd say the prequels are a mixed bag: some good and so bad things, and overall, I'm glad we got them.

 

Because Obi-wan was trying to give Anakin an advantage against Dooku. Though due to the duel being shortened, the sequence was cut down and so we didn't get to see Anakin fighting longer than he did. In the Arena, you can see a Jedi using two sabers.

To which I post this.

"It'll be a very different experience, because when Darth Vader walks into that spaceship with the princess, they're going to think, 'Oh my God, that's Anakin!' and they're gonna see Luke and think, 'Oh my God, that's his son!' And rather than a surprise when he says, 'I am your father,' it'll be like, 'Oh my God, finally he's told him!'"

--George Lucas, Guardian Unlimited.

"If you see them in order it completely twists things about. A lot of the tricks of IV, V and VI no longer exist. The real struggle of the twins to save their father becomes apparent, whereas it didn't exist at all the first time [audiences saw Episodes IV, V and VI]. Now Darth Vader is a tragic character who's lost everything. He's basically a bitter old man in a suit.

"I am your father" was a real shock. Now it's a real reward. Finally, the son knows what we already know.

It's a really different suspense structure. Part of the fun for me was completely flipping upside down the dramatic track of the original movies. If you watch them the way it was released, IV, V, VI, I, II, III - you get one kind of movie. If you watch I through VI you get a completely different movie. One or two generations have seen it one way, and the next generations will see it in a completely different way.

It's an extremely modern, almost interactive movie making. You take blocks and move them around, and you come out with different emotional states."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith, pages 84 and 85.

 

I think that myself and a large portion of the fanbase would be willing to overlook the flaws of the PT if they had managed to do Anakin Skywalker justice. Based on the descriptions from the OT, people went into the PT expecting to bad-a war hero who was also a great, respectable and loveable man until he was ultimately seduced by the Dark Side. Instead what we were given is an annoying whiny-teenager who we never become invested in.

If the PT is truly about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker then it needed to first show us his rise. AOTC should have shown Anakin at his highest point. Episode II needed to have him be the dashing charismatic action hero who everybody loves and cheers for. Then in Episode III you can have his tragic fall from grace. However instead of building Anakin up in AOTC they actually spend the entire time tearing him down. Anakin in AOTC is utterly unlikeable and a is horrible human being. He is a jerk to everyone around him, Obi-Wan in particular, and he commits a mass genocide that Padme and the movie gloss over it as if it were nothing. You can show flashes of his flaws and drop hints of his future demise but you shouldn't make them the focus of the movie.

At the end of the day Hayden's portrayal of Anakin is just irreconcilable with both Darth Vader and Obi-Wan's descriptions of who Anakin was.

 

Bravo, sir.

 

Overall i prefer the OT, but RotS is my 2nd fav of the saga.

 

I had a personal interpretation of the symbolism here.

There is sort of a running theme with Anakin's sabers in this film.
During the speeder chase on Coruscant, Anakin loses his saber and Obi-Wan catches it, handing it back to Anakin shortly after and lecturing him with "This weapon is your life!" ... "Why do I get the feeling you will be the death of me?"

Later on Geonosis, Anakin's saber is cut in two in the droid-factory (another user pointed out it is kind of a castration metaphor), and Anakin fittingly remarks "Not again. Obi-Wan is going to kill me."

Finally, Obi-Wan is defeated by Dooku and saved by his Padawan Anakin. Obi-Wan throws the blue saber he was using to Anakin, and Anakin duels with two for a bit before the green saber he came in with is cut in two (again). He then duels with the same saber Obi-Wan lost with, and is dismembered. Either this is a really big coincidence, or that destroyed green saber may represent some lost potential in the character of Anakin. It is the same colour as Qui-Gon's, Yoda's, and Luke's, and Obi-Wan states in ROTS and ROTJ he failed at training Anakin.

The original basis for my theory is of course Luke losing Anakin's old saber in ESB, simultaneously with Vader dismembering Luke and revealing he is in fact Anakin himself. Luke then builds his own green saber as part of his training, and ultimately doesn't follow Anakin's path.

 

The thing you have to remember is that when Lucas wrote ANH, the two were never meant to be the same man. So Anakin as described by Obi-wan was much of what you said in the first paragraph and Vader was the second part. In combining the two characters, Lucas needed to show both the good and bad in Anakin. That's why the story is told the way it is. AOTC doesn't gloss over the Tusken slaughter. It is still there going into ROTS and showcases how far he is willing to go, to protect the ones that he cares for the most. To protect his own happiness and well being. Padme dismisses the Tusken slaughter because she shows a bias towards the Tuskens which is the product of knowing that Shmi was taken and tortured, as well as what Owen and Cliegg said about them. It shows that she made a mistake in covering up his crimes and this in turn feeds into her reaction to the Temple raid and Anakin's own turn into Vader.

 

I don't think it was a matter of Padme covering up Anakin's crime. I think her reaction was basically a revelation of her own shortcomings and prejudices.

 

But the problem still remains that Anakin in the prequels is one of the most unlikeable central protagonists in film history. I'm not saying that he needed to be a portrayed as a saint, but he shouldn't have been portrayed as a monster either. In order for a tragic fall to work, the hero must first be a character that the audience can relate to, someone they like, someone they are invested in. They need to be portrayed as a true hero before they fall become the villain.

In The Dark Knight Harvey Dent never killed anyone before coming Two-Face. In the first few seasons of Breaking Bad Walter White would never dream of doing the horrible things he eventually does in Season 5. There needs to be a distinct line that they would never cross before their tragic fall, that they end up crossing after the fall.

However with Anakin this line doesn't exist. Long before he turns to the Dark Side he has already committed a mass genocide. A much better version of the scene would have had Anakin fight and kill a few of the men, and come close to killing a woman or child but not actually go through with it. By having him catch himself before he crosses that line and having him reign in his anger and hate, you would be showing his flaws and his propensity to the Dark Side without ruining his status as a hero.

Having Anakin commit worse acts as the "hero" in ATOC than he does as Darth Vader in the entire OT completely destroys the tragic fall and erases the significance of his turn to the Dark Side.

 

Well said, Blake. Ever since the PT came out I have legitimately said I relate, like, and prefer Vader to Anakin. I didn't expect this to happen given how Ben describes his friend. I empathise with 'dark' and 'lost' ones anyhow, often because they are damaged. However, I agree that Anakin as I perceive him through PT is both unrelatable and unlikable. It's a shame because I don't believe it was 'intended' as some do.

 

Anakin wasn't supposed to be likable. Lucas has long said that Anakin is a pathetic person who has become trapped by his own greed, his selfishness and a lust for power and pays the price for it. Anakin was a hero, but he was not a perfect hero. He was a flawed person as Lucas has also said and those flaws do him in.

 

I do not care what Lucas said, the movies should be able to stand on their own. And if he intentionally made Anakin the most unlikeable protagonist in film history then he has only himself to blame for why the prequels get so much hate.

It's possible to have a flawed, or even evil, protagonist who the audience relates to and becomes invested in. House of Cards does a tremendous job of this. Intentionally making the main character annoying, unlikeable and unbearable is just absurd.

 

Lucas wasn't trying to make him anything. His point was that he created a character who was a good kid, who had a lot of flaws and those flaws did him in. Lucas never said that you had to like Anakin. You may not care about his reasons, but they are the reasons why he wrote the way he wrote.

"What drove me to make these movies is that this is a really interesting story about how people go bad. In this particular case, the premise is: Nobody thinks they're bad. They simply have different points of view. This is about a kid that's really wonderful. He has some flaws - and those flaws ultimately do him in."

--George Lucas, The Making Of ROTS; Page 53.

"It's about a good boy who was loving and had exceptional powers, but how that eventually corrupted him and how he confused possessive love with compassionate love. That happens in Episode II: Regardless of how his mother died, Jedis are not supposed to take vengeance. And that's why they say he was too old to be a Jedi, because he made his emotional connections. His undoing is that he loveth too much."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine Interview; June 2005.

"It’s not as apparent in the earlier movies, but when you see the next trilogy, then you see the issue is, How do we get Darth Vader back? How do we get him back to that little boy that he was in the first movie, that good person who loved and was generous and kind? Who had a good heart."

--George Lucas, Star Wars Trilogy VHS Boxset 2000

"You learn that Darth Vader isn’t this monster. He’s a pathetic individual who made a pact with the Devil and lost. And he’s trapped. He’s a sad, pathetic character, not a big evil monster. I mean, he’s a monster in that he’s turned to the dark side and he’s serving a bad master and he’s into power and he’s lost a lot of his humanity. In that way, he’s a monster, but beneath that, as Luke says in Return of the Jedi, early on, “I know there’s still good in you, I can sense it.” Only through the love of his children and the compassion of his children, who believe in him, even though he’s a monster, does he redeem himself."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005

"...if you start with Star Wars, then Vader’s just the villain, and that’s it. But you don’t realize that he’s a human being, that he’s got problems you don’t realize that he could have been saved, that he was tricked and can be resurrected."

--George Lucas, Empire Magazine 2001.

 

I'm one of the "older fans" I suppose. One of my first memories of life was being in the theatre with my mom when ANH was released. And then, of course, Star Wars was basically the religion of my childhood as the subsequent two films were released. I don't hate the PT by any means, I just think there's a lot of wasted potential there. You look at the well done Bail Organa/Padme/Mon Mothma scenes and Anakin/Palpatine scenes that got left on the cutting room floor so Lucas could have more screen time for overly long battles between Kenobi/Grievous and Kenobi/Anakin, or ridiculous droid foundry Super Mario Bros-esque platforming scenes with atrociously bad attempts at humor with 3PO's head on the battle droid, etc. I can't buy any rationalization that tries to push the idea that the onscreen chemistry (and the associated dialogue) between Hayden and Portman was anything but completely cringe-worthy.......although it was redeemed to some degree in ROTS. Hayden's career has never recovered. And Portman is on record that she feels the PT hurt her career as a serious actress.

There is a lot in the PT that is very good, but usually a few times during each episode (and i'll admit I find TPM mostly unwatchable) i'll just shake my head thinking "oh my god that was so bad". And I don't think it was necessary to tell the story of Anakin's early childhood. We didn't need to see it to know he was once a good hearted soul. I wish the PT had started with Anakin as a teen and had spent significantly more screen time on the Palpatine seduction mechanic throughout the trilogy.

The CG aspect doesn't bother me at all as those movies look fantastic. But I felt Lucas was sacrificing story elements to use CG as a crutch. We needed those scenes with Palpatine working Anakin to make the final Turn more believable. We needed those scenes with Mon Mothma to highlight the fact that there was a lot more unease in the senate at Palpatine's accumulation of power, and to add the dark atmosphere of the politics and manipulation involved. We didn't need scenes with Kenobi riding a big stupid looking lizard chasing Greivous in a battle that was too long. We didn't need droid foundry platforming scenes. We didn't need screen time wasted on elevator escapes after the ROTS Dooku fight.

I realize alot of the PT die hards are emotionally invested and, frankly, a lot of the rationale they post in defense of some of the bad things that IMO tarnish the PT are the same things I remember telling myself and others when I was trying to convince myself those films were great (despite the sinking feeling in my gut to the contrary). But after a while I couldn't lie to myself anymore. If a lot of the "PT haters" are us older people that grew up with the OT, then it's probably safe to say the PT defenders were likely pretty young when the PT was being released and were able to look past some truly horrible acting and just flat out bad scenes. I believe we all truly wanted to love the PT, and it's true that many had unrealistic expectations as far as recapturing their youth for them and all that, but I just flat out don't think they are great films. Just my opinion. If you love the PT then great. I can still watch them and enjoy them, but it's tough for me personally to overlook some of the things I believe were very poorly done and it affects my enjoyment on some level.

To each his own.

 

Autobahn: unreasonable assumption that PT fans are (all) younger - I was college age when ANH came out.

I do agree with you regarding "ridiculous droid foundry Super Mario Bros-esque platforming scenes with atrociously bad attempts at humor with 3PO's head on the battle droid." That and too long a pod racing sequence in TPM - neither really advanced the story.

But I still like the PT for all its actual goodness and despite its few misses.

 

I was twenty one when TPM came out. So age isn't a factor in liking the PT. As to the Droid Factory, Lucas added it because he felt that the film needed another action sequence. The Podrace does advance the story since it is how Anakin is freed.

 

And he was right.( AOTC needed another action scene there)

Am I the only one who thinks (or at least is willing to admit aloud) that the 3PO stuff in the factory is hilarious? "It's a NIGHTMARE!" cracks me up every time.

 

I liked it. I know when my mom first saw it, she said that it was, "Too funny!" which for her means that she liked it.

 

IMHO both the pod-racing scene and the merry hijinks at Geonosis were far too long; I don't argue for their elimination but for less screen time.