Question to those most disappointed with the SW prequels

This, multiplied. Sure, any film risks becoming plodding and dull when it introduces the subjects of politics and internecine legislative bickering into the fray, but Episodes I-III for all their many flaws made the SW universe a bit more three-dimensional and introduced interesting grey area that the OT either underplayed or didn't bother to touch upon.

 

I think that is actually the point! They had become like cult members and it blurred their judgement. The order was more important than the person in front of them at times (don't tell me they couldn't hock some trinket in the Jedi temple and buy Anakin's mother out of slavery). But she was unimportant to them, she was not Jedi and ultimately she only served to bring forth a padawan. A padawan who might have turned out a little more normal if they hadn't taken him away from his family in favor of a cult.

 

And since the past details are so bulldozed or in the case of the Jedi dead I suspect they are doomed to repeat themselves. I like that in the PT secessionists are seen as rocking the boat and not given any real credence by the Jedi because who would want to leave the Federation? Hell, you even want Cloners to join. Root beer for everyone. And then in TCW we see how manipulative and dodgy the repression of the secession really is.. and still the tighter the Republic grip the more star systems slip through their fingers. And in the OT the balance has indeed seesawed the other way.

And of course history will rewrite it because the monstrosity the Empire became is what people will remember. The secessionists were doomed by who they are in bed with but at least in TCW we can see that these two great powers, the Jedi and the Sith, ultimately treat everyone as pawns.

 

Agreed. Very well put, teacake.

I thought that the idea of using a manufactured threat, or in other words a phantom menace (cf a phantom punch or a phantom limb), to draw the Republic into a staged conflict and kick-start the Emperor's rise to power, was extraordinarily intriguing.

In the Death Star conference room scene in the original film, it was made reasonably clear that the Emperor would rise to power by wrapping himself in the cloak of legitimacy and molding the Republic from within, as opposed to overthrowing it outright. Otherwise, why would there still be a Senate left to dissolve? Nevertheless, I enjoyed watching that intrigue play out in the PT, including the expansion of the phantom menace (at least in one sense of the words) into the Separatist movement, and especially the Emperor legally turning the Jedi into outlaws. The assassinations by Special Order 66 are heartbreaking.

 

It's hard going watching The Clone Wars knowing those assassinations are ahead of them.

 

And the fact that the Senate stood for 20 years after the birth of the Empire says a lot about how the Emperor desired to maintain the illusion of electoral democracy to strengthen his grip over his new realm. Had he been just some one-dimensional, power-hungry thug hellbent on seizing ultimate power in one fell swoop he'd have abolished the Senate upon taking the title of Emperor or shortly thereafter and wouldn't have spent so much time talking about restoring peace, freedom and security to the galaxy in the wake of the devastating Clone Wars.

Palpatine was Machiavellian. Cunning. Manipulative. Projecting the illusion that democracy still existed while at the same time he, Vader and high-ranking Imperial bureaucrats and military officers purged dissent from within. He took his time to seize complete dictatorial power because that was the smart thing to do lest he risk a revolt from the new Imperial citizenry before he had firmly solidified his grip.

 

"I love democracy."

One of my favorite lines, the delivery is perfection.

 

Ian McDiarmid owned that role. He was the greatest actor in the entire PT. His lines were so deliciously deceptive and even though you knew he spent those films lying to Anakin to get him to turn to the Dark Side, you can understand why Anakin believed him. He spoke with such authority and such feigned compassion, becoming the father Anakin never had.

 

He had an odd delicacy to him, he really played up the frail benevolence

 

"I'm too weak! Please - don't kill me!" Yeah, right. Whatever.


Ian's face when he recounts the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise and the way his lips curl and he bites them when he tells of killing him in his sleep - so creepy.

"It's ironic. He could save others from death....but not HIMSELF."

 

I can't recall where i heard it, but George Lucas said that he personally identifies with Anakin Skywalker. One can assume that this affected Hayden's performance as Anakin. Lucas did write the scripts for Episodes I-III by himself. So I blame Lucas for not stepping back and let Hayden create a character. One of the genuine moments of Hayden's acting shining through would be the scene on the balcony in Episode III. Padme said something like "So love has blinded you?", and Anakin laughs. Hayden couldn't take the line seriously so he kept laughing everytime they tried to shoot it straight. Eventually they just left it in there. You'll notice how Anakin giggles, then turns on the serious look and says "That's not exactly what I meant". I believe Harrison Ford also complained about Lucas' crappy dialogue writing in the OT.

 

Both Harrison and Carrie like to say: "George, you can write this shit but we can't say it" or something along those lines. Ford's joked on several occasions that George filled the OT scripts with a lot of jargon that the actors could barely master yet Lucas thought were normal and second nature.

"It's right there in the script, guys. Just....do that. Say that."

 

I also agree that one of the masterstrokes of The Clone Wars was in portraying at least some of the Separatists as people with legitimate interests struggling with actual failures in the Republic. That layer of tragedy made the Prequel era seem even more three-dimensional.

Expanding upon the OP question, I think that TCW has earned a place on more or less the same canonical plane as the PT, and making the Prequel era seem more three-dimensional is one of the reasons why.

 

Barriss Offee's speech at the very end of Season 5 about the failures and internal decay of both the Republic and the Jedi Order was one of the best speeches in the entire SW universe if you ask me. A Jedi Padawan dedicated to good, truth and justice realized that the Jedi had been blinded and compromised and that the Republic was doomed by its own corruption whether Masters Yoda and Windu and the others believed so or not.

 

So does anyone know if Ahsoka survived the slaying of the Jedi?

And yes to the speech cooleddie, great character all round.

I remember watching Hayden in Life as a House and being shocked at the perfectly good acting. It was funny to watch too because so many little expressions reminded me of Anakin, we watched it and kept interjecting Anakin lines

 

Ahsoka's fate is unknown and has never been established, probably because Lucasfilm wants to leave the door open a little bit just in case they revived her character at some future point.

Who knows - she might show up on Rebels.

 

I don't have the text of the speech either in front or me or memorized (as for example I do OT dialog ), but the gist of it that I remember is that she was basically correct in everything she said there. As I recall it, her main blunder seemed to be in believing that the ends justify the means, something that she appeared to be painfully aware of even while she was setting up Ahsoka. Somehow, she'd gotten too jaded to listen to her inner feelings and realize that, even though her estimation of what lay in store for the Republic was correct, her way of dealing with it was precisely the wrong way, as it only sped up the process of decay.

That's (some of) what I remember about the final episodes, anyway.

 

I really enjoyed the New Jedi Order books and thought they did some interesting stuff. I think they hold up as good sci-fi as opposed to just good Star Wars books. Outside of the NJO, it's more hit and miss.

 

I recently did a rewatch of the whole Star Wars saga (Episodes I-VI). I'd rank the films from best to worst as:

1. ANH
2. ESB
3. ROTS
4. ROTJ
5. AOTC
6. TPM

While I admit the Prequels are not perfect. I also think the OT isn't amazing as detractors of the Prequels claim.

TPM suffers from not having a main character and having a plot we the audience don't care about. If Obi-Wan had been the character we focused and followed throughout the film, I think it would be better. I think that's the biggest issue right there. The characters that everyone paid to see/cared about (the guys with the lightsabers) have very little effect to the resolution of the story.

I noticed and UGLY parallel between the TPM and ROTJ. I think they have a lot of the same problems.

Gungans made to appeal to children = Ewoks made to appeal to children. While the Gungans did have better tech to deal with the droid army, and actually seemed to be adept warriors. Jar Jar's idiot antics poisons the well for the whole batch. I'd rather that than the implausible defeat storm troopers suffered at the hand of 3 feet teddy bears. Like WTF.

Qui-Gon and Obi vs Maul = Luke vs Vader + Sidious: Their confrontation had no effect to the resolution of the plot. Seriously the guys with lightsabers are little more than supporting characters in their own movie. It's worse for ROTJ because Luke and Vader were the characters we had been following up to that point from ANH and ESB. The scenes on Endor are longer and more prevalent than Luke's confrontation with his father and the Emperor.

Too many things going on in the final acts.
TPM:
Battle on Naboo (Padme)
Battle on Naboo( Jar Jar)
Battle in space (Anakin)
Battle on Naboo( Obi and Qui)

ROTJ
Battle on Endor (Han and Leia)
Battle in space (Lando) With a complete repeat of the space battle from ANH. Only this time the Death Star has an even more implausible weakness.
Battle on Death Star (Luke and Vader)

There are other things but I can't recall them atm.


With AOTC is an ok movie. The love stuff is horrible but that is such a small part of the film. I think AOTC suffers from being the middle movie in a trilogy and being a check list film. AOTC sets up the clone wars but very little of the actual war is shown in the film. AOTC is also there to set up the part 3 of the prequel trilogy but doesn't have enough umph to make it standout.

AOTC comes off as a checklist film IMO. It has all the things people want to see in a Star Wars film.
Jedi using lightsaber
Big battles involving numerous Jedi
Storm Troopers
Space Battles
Boba Fett
Yoda fighting
Jedi fighting guys with red lightsabers
Battle droids
Tattoine

None of these are bad things but it just didn't make me care. I felt the same way about STID. It's a checklist of things people want to see in a Trek movie but nothing in it made me care.


ROTS really ironed out a lot of the bugs from the first two prequels. Aside from Lucas' shitty romance dialogue and Padme's death by losing the will to live. Anakin's fall is believable and the fall of the Jedi is so tragic. While Anakin was a whiner and a jerk at times. He did have his moments of heroism in the film. If anyone has seen the two Clone Wars series, there are more examples of Anakin being heroic there. Anakin is not as likable as Luke, i agree. However I do appreciate that Anakin is unique, and that Lucas didn't write Anakin to be Luke 2.0 for his prequels.

ROTS was a strong end to a rather weak series. Contrary to ROTJ which was a weak end to an otherwise great series.



Follow-up
Compare how Anakin and Luke deliver these lines.



By this point Anakin had already fallen to the dark side and murdered dozens of Jedi (including children). Luke is warning Jabba not to take him lightly, and would later hack and slash Jabba's men to death. When Luke entered Jabba's palace he force choked two of the pig guards. Force choking is a dark move Jedi don't use. Luke was in real danger of falling to the dark side in ROTJ. Maybe if ROTJ had more scenes with Luke drifting closer to the dark side, it may have been a stronger movie.

 

I think it's ambiguous whether Luke Force chokes the pig guards to death, or if it's essentially just a Force sleeper hold. I went with the latter (sleeper hold) on first viewing, since I expected Luke to avoid killing as long as possible. However, I admit that the film provides no way to know for sure. Also, the argument that ambiguity in the context of any similar technique that we've been shown being lethal would tend to make things lean towards Luke choking them to death.

There's not even anything in the script at Blue Harvest about it, only:

However, the absence of the script saying that he kills them would seem to imply that he doesn't, at least as of that draft.

(I also looked at three threads that I Googled on the topic, and suffice it to say that there is not uniform agreement.)

I agree that it should seem that Luke is teetering on the edge between the dark and the light sides of the Force, by using any such kind of technique. It's also significant that his robe and clothes are black.

Luke pausing to regain his composure after dispensing with the pig guards (whether he'd dispatched them or not) might have been a nice touch. It wouldn't have compromised the overall light-hearted tone of ROTJ, which evidently the powers on high felt was needed after going so dark in TESB. However, it would have slowed down the flow of that part of the film, as it is presently edited.

Good catch regarding the similar dialog, by the way.