STAR WARS PREQUELS - a love/hate relationship

[Gotham Central]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

I think that one thing that has become abundant,y clear since the release of the prequels is that there really is an audience for just about everything. I've never fully understood how it is that people can be entertained by bad/bland acting, sterile and unimaginative film making and stories that defy basic logic....and then you see that there are people that love that stuff and not in an ironic way. I guess if there are people that actually like living in dictatorships, or can knowingly fall in love with axe murderers...the existence of people that like really bad art is not that much of a stretch.

It does, however, leave me baffled as to why? The Redlettermedia videos pretty much sum up everything that was wrong with the prequels at a basic level...as bad films. Yet there are people that will swear up and down that they were pure gold...and I can only ask..why?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

I liked the prequel trilogy better than the original trilogy.

And I'm not joking either.

I believe you.

I hope that you are not (as my Brit brother-in-law might say) "taking the mickey"...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

What? Why would I be?

 

[Biffette]

Re: I hate the STAR WARS PREQUELS!!!

Thanks for ruining my adult childhood George Lucas.

Don't let nostalgia rape your adulthood.

 

[HAL.9000]

Re: I hate the STAR WARS PREQUELS!!!

Thanks for ruining my adult childhood George Lucas.

Don't let nostalgia rape your adulthood.

That's quite deep. Thanks for the reminder.
This was a recurring theme from Rod Serling in some of his Twilight Zone episodes. Often time softens memories of the past...makes them ideal.

Given the chance though to return to "simpler times," once there the chances are we would realize that they were not really all that simple...we just forgot it.

One of my favorite quotes is :"the 1990s made the 1970s look like the 1950s."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

^ It's just my own paranoia, I guess. I did not mean to insult you. It's just that this PT-vs-OT thing has gotten way the hell out of hand and tempers do tend to fray. Very nice that this has not happened here.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

You will find me on both the hating and loving threads for these films. They are not the story as I would have liked to see them told, and the narrative approach is kind of flat, but it is still Star Wars in some way, and I can take in the sights and sounds. and here is the thing: one area where I disagree with Plinkett is in his episode 3 review when he suggested that the Clone Wars could refer to some alien clones that were invading and Palpatine drafted many soldiers to fight off the threat.. I disagree with that. Even in the original novelization of Star Wars, written by Lucas but actually Alan Dean Foster I believe, it was always implied that the Republic was a like a rotten tree, rotting from the inside, and with the prequels, Lucas was trying to tell the story of how a democracy can become a republic. This is quite an ambitious theme to take on, and it makes me drawn to certain scenes in the prequels that might not have worked as-is, but could be tweaked and made possibly better. A different director who knew about pacing and drama might have made the senate scene in TPM really work as a dramatic turning point even while keeping the dialogue as it is. It's a pivotal scene, but didn't feel that way.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

And let me be clear on one other thing: I love the prequels, and prefer them, but this does not by ANY stretch of the imagination mean that I do, or even should, hate the originals. I don't hate the OT. I just like the PT more.

Fair enough, innit?

 

[TheBrew]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

And let me be clear on one other thing: I love the prequels, and prefer them, but this does not by ANY stretch of the imagination mean that I do, or even should, hate the originals. I don't hate the OT. I just like the PT more.

Fair enough, innit?

Not really. For some people here, you are sub-human unless you hate the same things they do.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Re: I hate the STAR WARS PREQUELS!!!

Maybe I should do a long-winded anal-retentive nitpicky review of it in my most annoying voice possible...

And be sure to litter it with the excessive puerile wanking and quipped non sequiturs that every high basemen-dweller came up with decades ago.

And yes, the prequels (and the "Special Editions") are awful films. A New Hope really does appear to be a fluke and Empire good in spite of his (Lucas') involvement.

THX? American Graffiti? Raiders of the Lost Ark? Willow? Stop me when I run out of flukes.

I was thinking the same. In hindsight "A New Hope" is comparatively equal to the "one-hit-wonders" you find in the music industry.

Except it wasn't his first hit.

The best thing Lucas did was let other people direct "Empire" and "Jedi."

And if people stopped drinking the kool-aid, they might realize that Jedi is the real turdfest of the SW verse.

As a fan-boy all I can say is that originally the SW saga was to be nine movies....three sets of three. Them middle was produced and succeeded.

This is apocryphal at best. No one ever "plans" for nine movies. Not ever--not now, and especially not then.

We went from little boys to middle aged men hoping and waiting.

Got it in one, Mr. Garibaldi!

Spectacular special effects with no story is just a waste of time and energy.

Tell that to the guys at ILM.

It's like Hitchcock's "Psycho." I fail to see the "greatness" of the film personally, but I'm sure it was a great movie at its time.

Except Psycho is hardly ever considered "great." It's just the most iconic. In terms of Hitchcock's work, scholars tend to put it towards the bottom.

Personally I think Kubrick's "The Shinning" blows it away in terms of sheer terror.

Talk about a movie that ruined my adult childhood. OMG!

Yes. The Shining is a technical marvel. But that's all it is. The film was stripped bare of all the artistic value found in King's masterpiece.

But it's interesting you bring it up because it introduces the one thing for which Lucas is never given credit by the fans: his ability to merge the technical and artistic. All four films are full of masterfully crafted frames--this especially true of the prequels. There are several frames of the prequels were one could screencap, frame, and hang in a museum. And, no, I'm not kidding.

Kershner was able to do this to a lesser degree, but only when he was clearly trying to emulate Lucas. Marquand, on the other hand, was simply lost.

Yet because people are so mired in the hate, they don't bother to stop and take notice.

The thing of it is, in Lucas's work, the pictures have always told the story--he takes the idea of the "moving picture" to the extreme. Unfortunately, because of this, he started to see dialog as a superfluous afterthought and thus treated it as such.

Aside from the miscasting of the male lead, the other stuff people generally complain about it is just hate-filled nitpicking to spite it all.

Is a Jamaican reptillian anymore ridiculous than a seven-foot talk grunting and groaning rug (or it's three-foot tall counterparts)? I don't think so.

And screen wipes--people have complained about the number of screen wipes. I mean, seriously...

 

[CorporalClegg]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

I do too. Loads of fun.

They're certainly all worlds better than that clusterfuck they call Return of the Jedi.

 

[Agenda]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

ROTJ wasn't on the same level as the first two, but at the very least it was entertaining, and it had some genuinely glorious moments. I can't say that TPM is even entertaining. It's boring, with the only decent scene being the lightsaber fight. I've watched TPM twice, only because I used to be an incurable Star Wars diehard. Actually, I think TPM helped cure me of that. But never again. On the other hand, ROTJ I've watched many a time, and I still will.

 

[Dream]

Re: I hate the STAR WARS PREQUELS!!!

PT bashing is so six years ago...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: I hate the STAR WARS PREQUELS!!!

I'd rather watch all of the prequels than waste another twenty seconds watching one of those "reviews."

I have to agree, and I very much dislike/am bored by the SW prequels.

Unattractive people with no screen presence or speaking skills maundering on about personal obsessions and half-baked opinions is neither entertainment nor information. If they could be bothered to put their thoughts into coherent written form and publish/post them I might bother...with a few.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Re: I hate the STAR WARS PREQUELS!!!

Or how aout calling them, witty, edgy comedic reviews on the visual and storiellinf approaches that didn't work for the prequels in a format designed to entertain!

 

[InklingStar]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

ROTJ wasn't on the same level as the first two, but at the very least it was entertaining, and it had some genuinely glorious moments. I can't say that TPM is even entertaining. It's boring, with the only decent scene being the lightsaber fight. I've watched TPM twice, only because I used to be an incurable Star Wars diehard. Actually, I think TPM helped cure me of that. But never again. On the other hand, ROTJ I've watched many a time, and I still will.

Being a Star Wars fan, I find RotJ an absolute mess. Why? Luke's plan to free Han makes no sense at all. The second Death Star is a plot retread. (If RotS had reused a plot point from TPM, critics would be all over it.) Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher are sleepwalking through the whole movie. Ewoks. Need I say more?

On the other hand, TPM has the Jedi in their prime, the foundation of Palpatine's machinations, the wonderful Liam Neesom, the awesome music for Duel of the Fates, the great lightsaber duel with Darth Maul, and our first ever sight of the Galactic Senate.

I would place both TPM and RotJ at about the same level, honestly. The problem though is that TPM was the first chapter, and you can expect the story to build and improve from there. RotJ is the finale. It should have been the best movie of them all.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: I hate the STAR WARS PREQUELS!!!

Well, I wouldn't call them that because if I did it would be tedious, deluded boosterism in addition to being a lie.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

I think that one thing that has become abundant,y clear since the release of the prequels is that there really is an audience for just about everything.

Yep.

The PT has massive problems. They go far beyond the usual mundane problems of bad movies, and that's why they're so fascinating. They are a true rarity in their badness, in both degree and scope.

The first problem is that they're centered around a character who is such a whiny little punk that no story should be written for him, much less one that is supposed to be a grand, sweeping epic. When he was a kid, he wasn't so bad, but as an alleged adult, he was simply intolerable. It's possible to build a good drama around an imperfect character, or an anti-hero, but not a pathetic, contemptible putz. For that, you need to make it a comedy (which in the end, the PT was, unintentionally).

There are lots other things wrong with the PT, but the total botch that was Anakin is so huge that there's no point going beyond that. He alone would have sunk the entire thing, even if everything else had clicked perfectly into place.

Bad movies are usually still at least workmanlike at some level, because they are created by corporations with shareholders to answer to. You don't usually see movies made that are so completely and utterly wretched that even the money-grubbing suits can see it and put a stop to it.

But Lucasfilm is a private company, and there are no shareholders or money-grubbing suits to answer to. Any idiotic notion that popped into Lucas' head mades its way onto the screen. Imagine what ass-kissing yes-men he must have been surrounded by, that nobody dared tell him how badly his dialogue stunk, or how completely incompetent of a director he was.

Fortunately he's cleaned up his act with The Clone Wars, which has re-written Anakin into the character who he should have been - who would have worked great in the live action movies - and at long last is finally turning the prequel story into the worthwhile epic adventure it should have been all along. Maybe even Lucas got sick of the ass-kissers eventually?

 

[Dream]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

The PT is decidely average. The movies aren't the worst things ever, and I laugh at all the flame wars that always happen ever since they came out.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Re: I love the Star Wars prequels!

DISCLAIMER:
All of this is IMHO, and as always, YMMV. I am not a grand arbiter of truth, bringing knowledge to lesser beings. Liking the prequels does not make you a bad person.

On the other hand, TPM has the Jedi in their prime,

They were flat-out ignorant in the prequels. And not just tactically and spacially, which are the usual complaints. I'm talking philosophically. The Jedi Way of the prequels was not the Jedi Way described to Luke Skywalker.

There's less introspection, less self-awareness, no emphasis on grappling with oneself, and an easy leap to violence.

the foundation of Palpatine's machinations,

I, an 11-year old kid barely knew Palpatine was in the movie when I saw it. I had very little idea that machinations were going on. Star Wars ought to be simple, not needlessly complicated. Lucas needed someone to cut the fat from his script, and from his editing.

the wonderful Liam Neesom,

I love the guy, but it kinda seems like he was sleepwalking through his lines in TPM. The prequels had a wonderful cast... how their performances managed to be so consistently underwhelming is entirely beyond me. Just looking at who they lined up for TPM, it should have been the best Star Wars ever.

the awesome music for Duel of the Fates,

Yes, it was awesome music.

the great lightsaber duel with Darth Maul,

TBH never liked the saber duels in the prequels. They're too obviously choreographed - the moves are all weightless flair and flashyness. There's no physical effort, and no emotion invested into it.

Compare to Luke wailing on Vader in RoTJ. A less fancy fight scene, but a more satisfying one.

and our first ever sight of the Galactic Senate.

The level it contributed to my enjoyment (or lack of) of the film was zero. It's a set, not a character, not an action, not a moment.

I would place both TPM and RotJ at about the same level, honestly. The problem though is that TPM was the first chapter, and you can expect the story to build and improve from there. RotJ is the finale. It should have been the best movie of them all.

RotJ is a bit the beginning of the trend of Star Wars becoming bloated and ungainly. Its obvious that its a conglomeration of about a million different ideas, none of which were eliminated, and very few of which were trimmed down and streamlined.

This continued unrestricted up until RotS.