STAR WARS PREQUELS - a love/hate relationship

[Set Harth]

I asked Stoklasa about it during a brief internet chat and he won't bother responding to the rebuttal.

It's called "pleading the fifth".

The rebuttal in an entertaining, nerdy-geek fest, but in the end it fails to respond to the MAJOR point that Stoklasa was making.. the failure to have any of the individiual scenes, characters, drama, or adventure CONNECT with the audience in a meaningful way.

Which is purely a matter of subjective opinion, and obviously doesn't apply to the non-hater group. It's in the proverbial eye of the beholder, and as such there's no smoking gun to back up such a contention in the film itself, which is why Stoklasa has to spend so much time on inaccurate fallacies and serial-killer "look at the monkey" games, and so little ( if any ) on the alleged "MAJOR point".

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I asked Stoklasa about it during a brief internet chat and he won't bother responding to the rebuttal. This is not an "official" response. But there it is.

The rebuttal in an entertaining, nerdy-geek fest, but in the end it fails to respond to the MAJOR point that Stoklasa was making.. the failure to have any of the individi\ual scenes, characters, drama, or adventure CONNECT with the audience in a meaningful way. There are a lot of things technically wrong with a New Hope (why didn't the Death Star blow up the gas giant, that would have screwed the moon up) but the story, the characters, and the adventure are done so well, and they are not mis-handled, so it is easy to overlook the plot holes, and the ones that are not overlooked are easy to forgive. All the rebuttal does is argue the little points, making excuses for scenes and characters that are poorly though-out rather than addressing the experience as a whole, which Stoklasa does in spades.

Translation: I like the original Star Wars so I will overlook the flaws. On the other hand I dislike the prequels so I will not give them any benefit of the doubt.

It really comes down to a matter of taste. I think the prequels connected with the audience just fine.

no, your translation is wrong. It's about filmmaking, the techniques that go into it, all of that. Since you are making an aguement ad populum, I'll go along with it, that, yeah sure, people like the prequels (I'll even say I like the prequels) but the tale of mythological archetypes being updated for the modern audience applies only to the OT as a great film, not the NT. We watch A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back in my senior seminar in college relating to heroes in literature in film... it's not just the heroes themselves, but the techniques used to connect those heroic journeys to the audience. They are not showing the Phantom Menace in literary classes.

 

[JarodRussell]

And there it was, the subtle "anyone who likes it is an idiot" hint.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I even said that I like the prequels... some of my defenses of them are in this very thread.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

It really comes down to a matter of taste.

Only if you assume there are no actual rules to storytelling, and that any arbitrary collection of events form as good a story as any other.

Here's a story: a turtle walks across a desert and falls in a hole, where he is eaten by a tarantula. That's just as good as Hamlet. Anyone who disagrees is wrong. It's all just a matter of taste.

Damn, I just wrote a story just as good as Shakespeare in under a minute!!!! Well, I think that's enough work for one day...

 

[JarodRussell]

It really comes down to a matter of taste.

Only if you assume there are no actual rules to storytelling, and that any arbitrary collection of events form as good a story as any other.

Here's a story: a turtle walks across a desert and falls in a hole, where he is eaten by a tarantula. That's just as good as Hamlet. Anyone who disagrees is wrong. It's all just a matter of taste.

Damn, I just wrote a story just as good as Shakespeare in under a minute!!!! Well, I think that's enough work for one day...

Is the good thing about Hamlet the story or the dialog and the characters?

Shakespeare's stories aren't that exceptional either.

 

[Kegg]

Only if you assume there are no actual rules to storytelling, and that any arbitrary collection of events form as good a story as any other.

I'm not sure there's any universal rules to what makes a good piece of drama, really.

What I mean is you could say 'in most cases' so-and-so is a good tack to take, but one example of a film or a novel or a play flatly ignoring that rule while still being brilliant probably exists.

In fairness to the Red Letter Media reviews, that's something the writer(s) at least genuflect towards, saying that a string of film auteurs are probably above the rules of moviemaking but that doesn't mean Lucas didn't botch them anyway.

I don't think the prequel films are that well written, but they're pretty close both to the pseudo-Flash Gordon serial style Lucas often strove to emulate. I'm thinking the early stretch of The Phnatom Menace in particular, which is just a series of faux-serial cliffhangers the heroes keep whizzing out of, visiting exotic friendlies on the way and eventually jetting off into another story. In the case of The Phantom Menace in general, it's pretty obvious Lucas is recycling stuff that got cut from his original Star Wars draft - floating tanks, the planet where the Princess is from being the main focus of the bad people's attention, and so on.

 

[Whofan]

^If I recall there's even a scene where a Jedi battles a Sith in a desert that's very similar to the short desert battle in the film.

 

[InklingStar]

I asked Stoklasa about it during a brief internet chat and he won't bother responding to the rebuttal. This is not an "official" response. But there it is.

The rebuttal in an entertaining, nerdy-geek fest, but in the end it fails to respond to the MAJOR point that Stoklasa was making.. the failure to have any of the individi\ual scenes, characters, drama, or adventure CONNECT with the audience in a meaningful way. There are a lot of things technically wrong with a New Hope (why didn't the Death Star blow up the gas giant, that would have screwed the moon up) but the story, the characters, and the adventure are done so well, and they are not mis-handled, so it is easy to overlook the plot holes, and the ones that are not overlooked are easy to forgive. All the rebuttal does is argue the little points, making excuses for scenes and characters that are poorly though-out rather than addressing the experience as a whole, which Stoklasa does in spades.

Translation: I like the original Star Wars so I will overlook the flaws. On the other hand I dislike the prequels so I will not give them any benefit of the doubt.

It really comes down to a matter of taste. I think the prequels connected with the audience just fine.

no, your translation is wrong. It's about filmmaking, the techniques that go into it, all of that. Since you are making an aguement ad populum, I'll go along with it, that, yeah sure, people like the prequels (I'll even say I like the prequels) but the tale of mythological archetypes being updated for the modern audience applies only to the OT as a great film, not the NT. We watch A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back in my senior seminar in college relating to heroes in literature in film... it's not just the heroes themselves, but the techniques used to connect those heroic journeys to the audience. They are not showing the Phantom Menace in literary classes.

Ah, I didn't know I was dealing with someone college-educated. Forgive me, and please disregard any opinions that are beneath you.

I don't understand why people act like the prequels needed to tell the exact same story as the originals. The original Star Wars is held up as some sort of flawless perfection, which is a rather ridiculous notion. Have you ever seen Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress? It is the exact same story, created decades before George Lucas filmed a single scene. I bet that if TPM had been released in 1977, people would be just as devoted to it as they are to the original Star Wars. None of the stories are original. ANH just has had the advantage of being around for 35 years.

The prequel bashers are a dying breed. Just as the generation of children who grew up with ANH, TESB, and RotJ confounded their parents by falling in love with this goofy, pulpy space opera, so do today's children confound their elders by falling in love with the prequels and the cartoons. To today's youth, Star Wars is not Luke, Han, and Leia. It is Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme. It is the clonetroopers. It is Mace and Yoda flashing their lightsabers around.

To those who say they prequels are not their cup of tea, I say fine. Live and let live. But to those who say the prequels are objectively worse movies than the originals, I say you are wrong.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I don't understand why people act like the prequels needed to tell the exact same story as the originals. The original Star Wars is held up as some sort of flawless perfection, which is a rather ridiculous notion. Have you ever seen Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress? It is the exact same story, created decades before George Lucas filmed a single scene. I bet that if TPM had been released in 1977, people would be just as devoted to it as they are to the original Star Wars. None of the stories are original. ANH just has had the advantage of being around for 35 years.

There is a great deal that is wrong here. I'll take it one sentence at a time.

I don't understand why people act like the prequels needed to tell the exact same story as the originals.

Who are these people? I've never encountered them in real life or online. If anything, I've encountered fans who think just the opposite, that the PT rehashes elements of the OT too much (for example, R2 and 3PO together on Tatooine at the Lars homestead , the throne room on the Invisible Hand ).

What I wanted was backstory that made sense, and I wanted to feel like the PT was showing me things alluded to in the actual OT. The PT failed on both these accounts.

Now, I'm not a PT hater. It's just that I rank the PT only with second tier films, while the OT is top notch.

The original Star Wars is held up as some sort of flawless perfection, which is a rather ridiculous notion.

People who say the OT films are literally flawless are indeed blinded by their admiration. But then again, who are these people you are referring to?

To say that it is irrational for someone to like the OT better than the PT, because the OT is demonstrably not perfectly flawless, is a perfect example of a straw man fallacy.

Have you ever seen Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress?

Yes.

It is the exact same story, created decades before George Lucas filmed a single scene.

George Lucas frequently cites The Hidden Fortress as a major inspiration.

I bet that if TPM had been released in 1977, people would be just as devoted to it as they are to the original Star Wars.

Bullshit.

For one thing, if The Phantom Menace had been made in 1977, the special effects would have been made using the technology of the time. That means, for example, stop motion, models and blue screen, optical printers, hand-painted static matte paintings, puppets, makeup, and no CGI.

Getting Harryhausen himself to work on the effects would have likely been impossible, since he was working on Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, and this would have hurt the film even more.

The number and complexity of the effects shots would have been drastically reduced. Given the budget of around ten million dollars, I'd say there's an excellent chance that the movie never would have been completed in the first place. If you know your history, then you know that Lucas was scrambling just to get the first film completed on time. Many of its effects shots were seriously flawed (e.g. the landspeeder).

Furthermore, since the effects would not have been able to carry the movie, the flaws in its story would have been even more apparent. I believe that from the standpoint of the culture at large, it would have blended in with all of the other fantasy movies of the time, like the Sinbad film, which today are all but forgotten.

And without blockbuster momentum, the sequel budget would have been less than that of the original, and the series would have died with the second film, assuming it was even made.

None of the stories are original.

Well, if by this you mean that none of the stories are entirely original, then that's true. But so what? Quite obviously, in 1977 Star Wars showed its audience something they had never seen the likes of before, and something they wanted to rewatch again, again, and again.

ANH just has had the advantage of being around for 35 years.

Being around for 35 years doesn't explain why Star Wars was so monumentally successful at the time it was released. It practically defined the concept of a blockbuster.

 

[Sean Aaron]

@inklingstar: As I get older the idea that Star Wars is inherently crap is one I'm able to live with, so you're probably right in your final statement.

I had no expectations from the prequel films beyond good stories and I didn't get that. Ultimately they seem to have been hamstrung by whatever requirements Lucas had in his mind to reimagine the entire series of films as the story of the corruption and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. The fundamental problem is that the last three episodes DON'T TELL THAT STORY.

Anakin's redemption is only one aspect of Return of the Jedi. In Star Wars he's a B-movie villain; a nasty henchman, that's it. He isn't the right hand of the Emperor or in that many scenes. He's the antagonist in Empire and has more to do, but the movie is about Luke. Luke is the main character throughout eps 4-6, not Vader; you'd need to remake the latter three films to change the intent of the series and make it work. As it is I don't feel much connection between the story of the prequels and the original trilogy. It's clearly Star Wars, but they don't make one narrative.

 

[DarKush]

^
I agree a lot with what you said. I don't know if TPM would've been as well received if it had premiered in 1977. It might be regarded as a FX marvel, but Star Wars was more than that, it had great, engaging characters, where TPM had bland characters, and ANH's story was simpler to grasp. ANH could also better play at being a one-shot film whereas TPM was supposed to be the first of a trilogy.

I think GL made a mistake by making the Star Wars saga all about Vader. The Chosen One thing was unncessary and trying to make six films about this great tragic figure was beyond GL's grasp. Anakin's development was too uneven. (Thank goodness the EU is helping to flesh out the character more for those who are still sticking around). I still think that it made more sense for Luke to be the Chosen One if you had to go that route at all. The hero of the prequels should've been Obi Wan and not Anakin, which could've freed up GL to make Anakin more shady from jump which could make his progression to mass murderer, particularly of his former friends and colleagues, more understandable.

I think he mistook our love for the character and decided to give us more, when perhaps he should've given us less of him. I can't quite ever square again the Vader of my youth with the Vader of my adulthood now that I've seen the prequels. He just doesn't seem that badass anymore. Perhaps that was Lucas's goal, to have this seemingly badass warrior be this sad, pathetic, lovelorn old man in a suit (which we got anyway in ROTJ).

 

[Sean Aaron]

Yeah, but if you watch the prequels I don't think you even get the lovelorn character in the suit thing. I mean with the backstory we've seen in the prequels I don't understand how Vader could even make the connection that Luke is his son since he didn't even know he was born. I could see splitting up the kids keeping knowledge of Leia from him, but clearly he somehow already knew that he had a son which I had always figured was in the back story somewhere, though now it's not. And hiding his son on his old planet? I don't know what to say about that.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I do. Very dumb.

 

[JarodRussell]

Yeah, but if you watch the prequels I don't think you even get the lovelorn character in the suit thing. I mean with the backstory we've seen in the prequels I don't understand how Vader could even make the connection that Luke is his son since he didn't even know he was born. I could see splitting up the kids keeping knowledge of Leia from him, but clearly he somehow already knew that he had a son which I had always was figured was in the back story somewhere, though now it's not. And hiding his son on his old planet? I don't know what to say about that.

It's like hiding Bin Laden in Pakistan. Ridiculous thought.

 

[Sean Aaron]

It's like hiding Bin Laden in Pakistan. Ridiculous thought.

Actually it's more like hiding Bin Laden in Saudi Arabia, but okay.

 

[Distorted Humor]

Outside of Jar-Jar binks the prequals are not BAD per say, but so many fans have ignored the issues with the original three. That, and killing off the best bad guy in the first movie didn't help. Have to remember, a lot of the prequals was to prove new Lucas-arts technology to be sold or leased to other studios.

 

[I Grok Spock]

there is an orthodoxy, a majority opinion, from which one deviates only at their own risk.

No, there isn't.

 

[Kegg]

That, and killing off the best bad guy in the first movie didn't help.

Darth Maul was pure Boba Fett: Some guy who looks cool and says nothing, a perfect toy but a little light on the ground as far as villains went. I think he actually had more dialogue in his teaser then he did in the actual film:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZE1UM6xpjM[/yt]

(Aside: What kind of line is 'Fear attracts the fearful', anyway?)

Maul's just this guy, you know, but yes, for the pretty limited aims of the character it was successful.

Have to remember, a lot of the prequals was to prove new Lucas-arts technology to be sold or leased to other studios.

And they still look pretty nice. I've compared The Phantom Menace to other worse duds of 1999 upthread - Wing Commander and Wild Wild West - and either of those films have aged a lot worse then the Star Wars prequel.

 

[Distorted Humor]

Still you remember Darth Maul, which says a lot more about then most of the other villains.

As for Lucas-arts Technology, I am not bashing it, Lucas is a brilliant businessman and has done quite well developing new technology for making of his films, then for a fee having others use his technology to make movies. That is good business, and in no way is it bashing him, just that the prequels was a good way to sell his other products that most of us never see that are not involved or interested in the production aspects.