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Phantom Menace is the best Prequel.

I expect that Darth Maul would have aspirations of someday overthrowing Darth Sidious, being his apprentice. Sooner or later Darth Sidious would have to deal with a powerful killing machine before he gets too powerful. Darth Sidious was really good in a lightsaber duel, but he wasn't the best.

Isn't that why he keeps switching apprentices? He trains them and keeps them for as long as they don't yet pose a threat to him, then he finds someone else to take over? He wanted Anakin more than Dooku because he was supposedly more powerful than the old man, alright. Besides, Dooku had outlasted his usefulness - he had to be the Saddam Hussein to Palpatine's Bush 43 in their orchestrated war that was designed to do one thing only: cement Palpatine's power as a dictator. Once that was in sight, the war could end by Dooku dying.

But why did he want Luke more than Vader? Had Vader fallen behind expectations after his "accident"? Was Luke so attractive to him because he was playing hard to get? Or did he sense that Vader was now at the point where he was inevitably going to try to overthrow him?

This is one issue with the prequels I never liked. Just because in the Original Trilogy Palpatine wanted to replace Vader with Luke, they made it a RULE that the Sith always come in pairs.
The point about Luke was that he seemed to be more powerful than Vader, and that he was a lot younger than him. If he is able to beat Vader, he'd be a much better henchmen of the Emperor. That's about it.
 
Count Dooku is multi-layered and potentially extremely interesting. As a fallen Jedi of major importance, apparently second only to Anakin, Attack of the Clones should have focused and elaborated on Dooku much more than it did. The fault lies in one of the writers for not emphasizing the character enough. (Not sure which writer to blame though. :rolleyes::p)
That's like saying Empire should have focused on Dengar
 
I always felt Count Dooku was only thrown in because Christopher Lee made for such a wonderful Saruman. The whole Dooku storyline felt extremely tacked on. I would have preferred Darth Maul as the main villain in the prequels. So strong that he can only be beaten if you use the power of the Dark side. Which is what Anakin eventually does (you know, to fight for the GOOD side, and not for the selfish stuff he fought for in the actual movies), and is then trapped and "betrayed and killed by Darth Vader". Instead of killing Mace Windu in desperation, he would have killed Maul in hatred.
 
Count Dooku is multi-layered and potentially extremely interesting. As a fallen Jedi of major importance, apparently second only to Anakin, Attack of the Clones should have focused and elaborated on Dooku much more than it did. The fault lies in one of the writers for not emphasizing the character enough. (Not sure which writer to blame though. :rolleyes::p)
That's like saying Empire should have focused on Dengar

Not really.


I have the feeling though that he expected Luke to win.

Luke did win he just refused to kill Vader and turn to the dark side.
Yes, I saw Return of the Jedi, too. When I say "expected", I mean before the duel, before Endor, through prescience. As in, he had a feeling Luke would prevail in the duel before Luke even turned himself in.
 
I wonder how AOTC (and ROTS) would've developed with a different Sith lord. If you look at all the art books they considered a female Sith Lord (Which eventually became Asajj Ventress of the Expanded Universe) a droid (Which sort of led to General Grievous) and an elderly woman whose more dangerous than she appears (Sort of a female Palpatine, I suppose).


Regarding Dooku's background, the EU such as Yoda: Dark Rendevous and the Jango Fett comic miniseries and video game do go a bit into his background.
 
The Phantom Menace was so awful I wasn't even able to get through it and stopped watching halfway through the movie. It seemed offensively stupid even if you were a 5-year old, which seemed to be the target audience they were going for, let alone an adult. At least I could finish The Attack of the Clones and it was mildly entertaining even though it was bad and the romance scenes were cringeworthy. And The Revenge of the Sith was almost OK... well, almost.
 
The Phantom Menace was so awful I wasn't even able to get through it and stopped watching halfway through the movie. It seemed offensively stupid even if you were a 5-year old, which seemed to be the target audience they were going for, let alone an adult. At least I could finish The Attack of the Clones and it was mildly entertaining even though it was bad and the romance scenes were cringeworthy. And The Revenge of the Sith was almost OK... well, almost.
Lots of people found these films entertaining, including adults. Of course popcorn movies are specifically made to be fun and exciting and to appeal to a broad audience, and I guess it's a little unfair to complain when they're not deep, innovative or thought-provoking. The Star Wars movies, all six of them, are supposed to be modern takes on the old space opera serials, and that's what they are.

Now if you're into highbrow entertainment, there's really no reason for you to watch Star Wars or any other summer blockbuster. I can only advise you to watch Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries again, which, I guess, you'll find much more suited to your tastes.
 
This is one issue with the prequels I never liked. Just because in the Original Trilogy Palpatine wanted to replace Vader with Luke, they made it a RULE that the Sith always come in pairs.
The point about Luke was that he seemed to be more powerful than Vader, and that he was a lot younger than him. If he is able to beat Vader, he'd be a much better henchmen of the Emperor. That's about it.

Exactly. That is what I have been debating for some time. It's a silly rule.

Further, if having an apprentice means you are in constant danger of being overthrown, why have an apprentice???

In the real world, the whole purpose of training someone is so you have someone to do the dirty work that can eventually go out and train someone else. If training someone meant they could never be on their own without killing you first, nobody would take that risk!
 
This is one issue with the prequels I never liked. Just because in the Original Trilogy Palpatine wanted to replace Vader with Luke, they made it a RULE that the Sith always come in pairs.
The point about Luke was that he seemed to be more powerful than Vader, and that he was a lot younger than him. If he is able to beat Vader, he'd be a much better henchmen of the Emperor. That's about it.

Exactly. That is what I have been debating for some time. It's a silly rule.

Further, if having an apprentice means you are in constant danger of being overthrown, why have an apprentice???

In the real world, the whole purpose of training someone is so you have someone to do the dirty work that can eventually go out and train someone else. If training someone meant they could never be on their own without killing you first, nobody would take that risk!

I guess you have to argue that, if being a Sith is like a religion, then the followers have faith that this is the way it has to be. The religion states that there can be only two, but the religion also states that the Sith must continue, so you have to train an apprentice in order to keep it going. If you never trained someone to take your place, the Sith order would die off as soon as you kicked the bucket.

It really only works if you accept that all Sith are religious zealots that insist on following the Sith rules to a T.

It's also kind of goofy because, especially in Anakin's case, he was actually "recruited" by Palpatine at a fairly old age. If the OT had played out differently and Vader survived without Luke's interference, would he have ever bothered to train his own apprentice? I doubt it.
 
Lots of people found these films entertaining, including adults. Of course popcorn movies are specifically made to be fun and exciting and to appeal to a broad audience, and I guess it's a little unfair to complain when they're not deep, innovative or thought-provoking. The Star Wars movies, all six of them, are supposed to be modern takes on the old space opera serials, and that's what they are.

I don't think many of the critics of the prequels wanted them to be deep or thought-provoking compared to the classics of cinema. I would have been happy with the same dept as the originals, but we couldn't even get that!

Instead of an imaginative plot, we got politics punctuated by lengthy action scenes. Instead of fun characters, we got monotone Jedi and Jar Jar.
 
I guess you have to argue that, if being a Sith is like a religion, then the followers have faith that this is the way it has to be.

Yes. There are ways to explain it. For example, maybe the master gains power in proportion to the strength of his apprentice. Thus there is incentive to have a strong one.

However, it was never explained.
 
One thing I noticed.. a big difference between the OT and the PT, is how characters are introduced - revealed - to the audience - this is one aspect of cinema that people like Brian Singer spends too much time on, but it's still important.
I mean, look, every major character in A New Hope has an unforgettable, iconic moment in which they are introduced. I mean from Vader to Luke to Han (in the bar) each character steps into the film in a way that defines that character, like the heroic version of the main theme when Luke runs across the homestead to the Force theme that is played to perfection when Ben lifts his hood to talk to R2-D2.

But here, obi and Qui-gon are introduced with a very flat angle and Obi says the old "I have a bad feeling about this" line, as if Lucas couldn't think of any other way to do it. You think I'm wrong: listen to his commentary on AOTC. Originally, these two guys, the main characters, were just going to walk into the door to the apartment. That was written and filmed, and it was only in editing did Lucas realize that he needed more, so he came up with the elevator scene. This is not much an improvement, as it's two guys in an elevator are given thirty seconds to establish a repertoire that has developed for ten years. It's clumsy and ham-fisted. If he cared about the mythic and heroic aspects of Star Wars, he would have considered how characters were revealed. Nope, he cared more about political exposition.
 
The Phantom Menace was so awful I wasn't even able to get through it and stopped watching halfway through the movie. It seemed offensively stupid even if you were a 5-year old, which seemed to be the target audience they were going for, let alone an adult. At least I could finish The Attack of the Clones and it was mildly entertaining even though it was bad and the romance scenes were cringeworthy. And The Revenge of the Sith was almost OK... well, almost.
Lots of people found these films entertaining, including adults. Of course popcorn movies are specifically made to be fun and exciting and to appeal to a broad audience, and I guess it's a little unfair to complain when they're not deep, innovative or thought-provoking. The Star Wars movies, all six of them, are supposed to be modern takes on the old space opera serials, and that's what they are.
The difference is that the original three are good, while The Phantom Menace sucks.

Now if you're into highbrow entertainment, there's really no reason for you to watch Star Wars or any other summer blockbuster. I can only advise you to watch Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries again, which, I guess, you'll find much more suited to your tastes.
:lol: So if you thought The Phantom Menace sucked, you must be someone who can only enjoy Bergman's films? There is nothing in between? :wtf: That's the most absurd thing I've seen posted on this forum in a long time. Entertainment doesn't equal stupidity.

Cowboy and Aliens was mindless fun that was ridden with cliches and wasn't deep, innovative, or thought-provoking, and I enjoyed it for what it was. The Phantom Menace wasn't even fun and was just annoying.
 
But here, obi and Qui-gon are introduced with a very flat angle and Obi says the old "I have a bad feeling about this" line, as if Lucas couldn't think of any other way to do it.

I can see what you are saying. I'm just not sure how, given the structure of TPM that the two Jedi could have been given an iconic moment.

I mean, their very first action was going to negotiate a trade deal. That doesn't exactly lend itself to a memorable scene.
 
But here, obi and Qui-gon are introduced with a very flat angle and Obi says the old "I have a bad feeling about this" line, as if Lucas couldn't think of any other way to do it.

I can see what you are saying. I'm just not sure how, given the structure of TPM that the two Jedi could have been given an iconic moment.

I mean, their very first action was going to negotiate a trade deal. That doesn't exactly lend itself to a memorable scene.
It would have helped if the characters themselves were interesting. Even some snappy dialogue or a fun attitude from them would have been enough. My biggest problem with the PT has always been that the characters are flat and boring. Luke is a whiney little bitch in the ANH, but at least I can say that he's a whiney little bitch. Qui-Gon Jin is...well...he's there.
 
I watched Phantom Menace of the first time in about 5 years yesterday. I've never had any problems with it. But having been spoilt by Clone Wars over the past 3 years it does seem weaker than I remembered. But the first half of Attack seems stronger too.
 
The Phantom Menace was so awful I wasn't even able to get through it and stopped watching halfway through the movie. It seemed offensively stupid even if you were a 5-year old, which seemed to be the target audience they were going for, let alone an adult. At least I could finish The Attack of the Clones and it was mildly entertaining even though it was bad and the romance scenes were cringeworthy. And The Revenge of the Sith was almost OK... well, almost.
Lots of people found these films entertaining, including adults. Of course popcorn movies are specifically made to be fun and exciting and to appeal to a broad audience, and I guess it's a little unfair to complain when they're not deep, innovative or thought-provoking. The Star Wars movies, all six of them, are supposed to be modern takes on the old space opera serials, and that's what they are.
The difference is that the original three are good, while The Phantom Menace sucks.

Now if you're into highbrow entertainment, there's really no reason for you to watch Star Wars or any other summer blockbuster. I can only advise you to watch Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries again, which, I guess, you'll find much more suited to your tastes.
:lol: So if you thought The Phantom Menace sucked, you must be someone who can only enjoy Bergman's films? There is nothing in between? :wtf: That's the most absurd thing I've seen posted on this forum in a long time. Entertainment doesn't equal stupidity.

Cowboy and Aliens was mindless fun that was ridden with cliches and wasn't deep, innovative, or thought-provoking, and I enjoyed it for what it was. The Phantom Menace wasn't even fun and was just annoying.


You see this line of argument a lot among strong supporters of the PT, and it's kind of a funny one-they're basically putting down the classic OT to make the much inferior PT look better.


Variations include "but the dialogue was bad in the OT, too!" or "the OT story was just as filled with plot holes as the PT!"


Or the common argument that suddenly SW had always been meant largely for kids. You never really heard that until TPM actually was released to lukewarm reception, but all of the sudden the sentiment that "Star Wars is and always has been for kids!" was everywhere.


Despite the SE changes and the more recent modifications to the OT, I still find the PT to be jarringly dissimilar to the classic trilogy. It just doesn't gell at all to me.


I can enjoy AOTC and ROTS to some extent, but they're nowhere close the OT.
 
Or the common argument that suddenly SW had always been meant largely for kids. You never really heard that until TPM actually was released to lukewarm reception, but all of the sudden the sentiment that "Star Wars is and always has been for kids!" was everywhere.

Yeah. I have never gotten that argument either. The originals were films that resonated with kids because they were imaginative and colorful, and had neat space battles - not because they had a cartoon rabbit who steps in the poo poo.

The argument that the films are meant for kids kind of falls flat when you look at Episode III, which easily has more violent moments than any of the SW films.
 
Please. Kids shows are full of people getting their limbs chopped off and being set on fire by lava. :shifty:
 
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