What did Lucas do?

[BillJ]

Silvercrest wrote:

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No, it would have added more depth if he was actually likeable first. The fall of Vader was supposed to be a tragedy, which it isn't if you don't like him in the first place. It's more like, "Fine, good riddance."

Plus it kind of undercuts his redemption in ROTJ. The natural reaction is, "So what if he came back to the side of good? HE'S STILL A JERK!"

Seems we're in the same exact page regarding Anakin.

[Temis the Vorta]

BillJ wrote:

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By making Anakin whiny, no one actually cared about his path to becoming Vader. There was no moment where we felt for the characters downfall because we didn't care about the character.

Yeah, there's so many things wrong with the prequels, it's hard to know where to start, and we've been over it so many times before, it's hard to get motivated to start listing them all, but Anakin's characterization is the single worst thing, and even if that had been the only problem, it would have been enough to sink the prequels on its own,

A story starts with the main character and the audience's interest lies in having some sympathy for that character. The guy could be a gangster or a serial killer, but as long as the writer give us some "in" to liking the charatcer in some way, we're along for the ride.

But Lucas gave Anakin no likable qualities at all, or even qualities we could respect. He wasn't smart, he wasn't strong, he wasn't noble, he wasn't even a cool, powerful, villian. He was contemptable, which is far worse than merely being evil.

Contrast him with the Emporer, who everyone seems to like as a character. Why? He's not a weakling, that's why! Lucas picked the one ironclad way to sabotage his main character. After that, there was no salvaging the story.

If you want to see what Lucas ahould have done instead, watch The Clone Wars.

[Temis the Vorta]

What sabotaged the prequels in a larger sense is that Lucas had no adult supervision since he was not working for a public corporation with shareholders and a board of directors to answer to, who could have kicked butt if substandard movies were made that underperformed.

The prequels did well, but in this era of mega-hits, they probably could have done much better if they had had competent storylines and a character who had some quality that made the audience interested in his saga.

The most damning evidence in the box office is that Phantom Menace did the best out of all three. It got the benefit of pent-up demand and squandered it. The other two shold have built on that lead, especially ROTS, the big finale with the epic battle everyone's been waiting 30 years to see. But by then, too much of the audience had been alienated.

It may sound strange to be happy that the bean counters are taking over, but even the most cold-blooded corporate hacks wouldn't permit the kind of total ineptitude that characterized the prequels. For starters, the scripts seemed like first drafts, and somebody should have demanded a rewrite to whip them into even a craftsmanlike level of competence, nevermind brilliance.

Disney's going to at least shoot for the level of the Marvel movies. Not all of them have been equally good, Iron Man 2 for instance, but that quality would be a vast improvement over the prequels. And churning movies out every few years shouldn't be an issue if its not an issue for all the other action-fantasy franchises.

[Mister Fandango]

Rothschild wrote:

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I never expected any "haughty" science fiction from these movies. They are what they are. Some people just like their original popcorn flicks from the modern popcorn flicks.

Watching embarrassingly dumb portrayals of governments in action, listening to old guys spew out incredibly asinine philosophies, enduring "political intrigue" as understood by an 8-year-old, and watching mostly good to decent actors intentionally directed into wooden planks does not make for a popcorn movie.

But hey, the scenery was pretty, so all is forgiven.

[davejames]

1. He made every character stiff and boring as hell.

2. He wrote the most stilted dialogue imagineable.

3. He made Anakin an annoying, whiny, unlikeable dick.

4. He completely left out any of the wonderful charm and spirit of the OT.

[Temis the Vorta]

And let's not forget the dialogue! A competent director would NEVER have let shit like this happen. Literally nothing about this scene works, except as unintentional comedy. (Or intentional, courtesy of rifftrax).

[Silvercrest]

Mister Fandango wrote:

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Watching embarrassingly dumb portrayals of governments in action, listening to old guys spew out incredibly asinine philosophies, enduring "political intrigue" as understood by an 8-year-old, and watching mostly good to decent actors intentionally directed into wooden planks does not make for a popcorn movie.

When you put it that way, it sounds like real life!

[chardman]

One of the biggest problem with the prequels, as far as I'm concerned, isn't just Christensen's wooden performance as Anikin, but specifically the fact that he and Portman's Amidala had absolutely no chemistry between them whatsoever. I didn't "buy" them as a couple. Not even for a second. Hell, even Jake Lloyd had better chemistry with Portman in Ep 1 than Christensen did in Eps 2 & 3, albeit in an obnoxious little brother sort of way, but at least their relationship seemed vaguely plausible.

[Silvercrest]

Temis the Friendly Ghost wrote:

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But Lucas gave Anakin no likable qualities at all, or even qualities we could respect. He wasn't smart, he wasn't strong, he wasn't noble, he wasn't even a cool, powerful, villian. He was contemptable, which is far worse than merely being evil.

You know, I just had this sudden image of the character of Anakin being swapped with the character of Frank Burns. And the spooky thing is I think the PT would have played out exactly the same.

[Temis the Vorta]

Weird thing is, there was something likeable at the core of Frank Burns. Somehow he tapped into a sympathy-for-the-underdog vein. Maybe because Hawkeye et al seemed like the cool kids and Burns was he dweeby outsider.

So maybe if the Jedi have been portrayed as insufferably arrogant, we wold have liked Anakin more. There was certainly a lot of surface evidence of arrogance, but the prequels didn't really follow up that possibility. Lucas never allowed the Jedi to be portrayed in a bad light like that.

And that leads me to another problem - the clones! If the Jedi are supposed to be so good and holy, why are they breeding cannon fodder? They should have shut down the clone factory as soon as they discovered it, as an obvious crime against humanity and all the other species-anity.

If conversely they were faring so badly in the war that they were forced to use cannon fodder, then what does that say for a Republic who can't get its own citizens to fight for it?

[davejames]

Temis the Friendly Ghost wrote:

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And that leads me to another problem - the clones! If the Jedi are supposed to be so good and holy, why are they breeding cannon fodder? They should have shut down the clone factory as soon as they discovered it, as an obvious crime against humanity and all the other species-anity.

Good point, hadn't thought of that.

Although frankly I never cared for ANY part of the clone story, or the "twist" of having them start out as the good guys. It just seemed contrived as hell to me.

And really? The clones in the infamous "Clone Wars" are nothing but some earlier versions of the bumbling stormtroopers from the OT??

Lucas had the opportunity to create a whole new, cool kind of threat for the Jedis to go up against in these movies, but instead he just made them.... a bunch of stormtroopers. Ugh.

[Galileo7]

Hound of UIster wrote:

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Essentially he choose to direct all three prequels and did a terrible job at it.

Agree. Sad, but true.

[Klaus]

Hound of UIster wrote:

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Essentially he choose to direct all three prequels and did a terrible job at it.

That's it right there...

[Admiral Buzzkill]

What did he do?

He did what he wanted to do with something that belonged to him and made huge piles of money from a world of people anxious to pay to watch him do it.

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

He made a really badly executed trilogy (or as I call it, "Arrivals and Departures" since it feels like almost every scene in the movie is people walking down hallways, departing, and arriving, or having meetings about departing or arriving)... in a series that a lot of fans had childhood attachments to.