No. You are right about AOTC. They practically shot from the rough draft. The same is true about ROTS. But you are wrong about TPM it was the story that Lucas had spent the longest time writing and revising from the original concept. It's undoubtedly the one story from the prequel trilogy he had invested the most time and energy.
Are the Star Wars prequels really that unpopular?
- Thread starter TalkieToaster
- Start date
No. You are right about AOTC. They practically shot from the rough draft. The same is true about ROTS. But you are wrong about TPM it was the story that Lucas had spent the longest time writing and revising from the original concept. It's undoubtedly the one story from the prequel trilogy he had invested the most time and energy.
Small children, as a "major" percentage of theater patrons? That seems unlikely.
Personally, I enjoy The Phantom Menace and I really mean that. This movie is flawed and uneven, but it does want to entertain and you can see that in it. Unfortunately, for a script he supposedly devoted a lot of time to, the fun of New Hope just is not there. It's ... how can I put it? TPM is "charming," I'll say, despite aspects which bordered on being quite disturbing, like the Annie/Padme angle. There were others, though, like his resorting to giving aliens World War II AXIS caricature personalities.
But when you've got A-List Talent like Liam, Ewan and Natalie carrying the picture, it's going to have some entertainment value and The Phantom Menace certainly does. Qui-Gon is probably my favourite Jedi, exclusively due to the fact of Liam playing him. He's so thinly written, otherwise, I probably wouldn't have cared were it cast by some other. But my heart goes out to Natalie, for having to subject herself to playing a character who's not interested in discouraging the fantasies a particular 9 year old boy has about her. It's not overt, but the attachment is heavily suggested and it's always a foregone conclusion that these two are meant to hook-up, anyway. AND she's seemingly available, throughout this movie, except for Annie's attentions.
It makes one wonder - well, makes me wonder - just what goes on in Lucas' mind? On one hand he declares that this saga is meant for 12 year olds, with all this kind of shit in it. Then he goes on and makes the final chapter - very unnecessarily, I might add - PG13, just to make it inconvenient for his very specific target audience to come out and see it.
But when you've got A-List Talent like Liam, Ewan and Natalie carrying the picture, it's going to have some entertainment value and The Phantom Menace certainly does. Qui-Gon is probably my favourite Jedi, exclusively due to the fact of Liam playing him. He's so thinly written, otherwise, I probably wouldn't have cared were it cast by some other. But my heart goes out to Natalie, for having to subject herself to playing a character who's not interested in discouraging the fantasies a particular 9 year old boy has about her. It's not overt, but the attachment is heavily suggested and it's always a foregone conclusion that these two are meant to hook-up, anyway. AND she's seemingly available, throughout this movie, except for Annie's attentions.
It makes one wonder - well, makes me wonder - just what goes on in Lucas' mind? On one hand he declares that this saga is meant for 12 year olds, with all this kind of shit in it. Then he goes on and makes the final chapter - very unnecessarily, I might add - PG13, just to make it inconvenient for his very specific target audience to come out and see it.
Usually accompanied by an adult or older child. So that's two tickets!
And still is - the LotR trilogy, at any rate. And it's hard to keep discussing them when everyone agrees they're terrific.
It's paradoxical, but if the PT had been better, there would be less to keep discussing after all these years. There's something perversely engaging and even interactive in their epic sloppy/crappy glory. Red Letter Media, for instance, would never have become Internet stars on the backs of their TNG movie reviews alone, and it's no accident that the PT is by far the most fan-edited movie(s) to date. Mix in the two Clone Wars iterations, which further the PT experience by letting fans pic and choose even more.
Also, they're some of the most damn colorful movies ever made, with legitimately enchanting production designs, terrific music, and great sound landscapes. They're kinda like those hot Fox Noise anchors that way - doesn't matter how much the brain says No, the eyes still say Yes.
I would agree that those are two major dynamics. But I'd say there was a third major dynamic - that the prequels were, in fact, enjoyed by plenty of viewers with disposable income, which enjoyed going to see the films, discussing them, and so on. That's a narrative I've also heard (for whatever these hearsay narratives we've both mentioned are worth).
Well the prequels certainly have plenty of visually exciting sequences and dig much deeper into the world of the Jedi and the politics and customs of the SW universe. So I can definitely understand people getting absorbed in all that and not being bothered as much by the clunky dialogue and stiff characters.
But for a lot of us it was the dynamic characters, witty banter, and swashbuckling spirit of the OT that really defined Star Wars, and what made us love it in the first place. And not having any of those things in the prequels is what really makes them so hard to ever accept.
They work fine for what they are, I suppose, but they're still missing the main ingredients we grew up with and most want to see in SW.
I wasn't expecting them to be the "best thing ever". I just expected them to be at least somewhat fun and engaging and to have some memorable characters along the lines of the OT.
>>SNORT!!!<<Yeah, so it's the audience's fault the Prequels suck! Of course, it is ...
This is a lame excuse from LUCASFILM and fans who will love STAR WARS "anything," no matter what.
<<It makes one wonder - well, makes me wonder - just what goes on in Lucas' mind? On one hand he declares that this saga is meant for 12 year olds, with all this kind of shit in it. Then he goes on and makes the final chapter - very unnecessarily, I might add - PG13, just to make it inconvenient for his very specific target audience to come out and see it. >>
A 12 year old in 1999 would be 18 in 2005 when ROTS came out
A 12 year old in 1999 would be 18 in 2005 when ROTS came out
((...snicker))
<<It makes one wonder - well, makes me wonder - just what goes on in Lucas' mind? On one hand he declares that this saga is meant for 12 year olds, with all this kind of shit in it. Then he goes on and makes the final chapter - very unnecessarily, I might add - PG13, just to make it inconvenient for his very specific target audience to come out and see it. >>
A 12 year old in 1999 would be 18 in 2005 when ROTS came out
I think he was thinking the 12 year olds who were 6 when Star Wars came out, and anticipating the prequels. Lucas just forgot that many of those 12 years olds actually grew up in the mean time.
Such a mistake was made by the producers of TNG... the 12 year old Wil Wheaton was a 15 year old teenager by the time TNG first aired, but they wrote stories that were meant for a 12 year old character. (I'm looking at you Justice. Well, not looking anymore-- my wife would kill me)
It's pretty clear to me Lucas knows his audience (and he had a son about that age) and knows they'll lap up the violence. In the original ANH he deliberately went for a PG rating because he thought the kids would be more receptive to it than a movie that was rated G.
I only found the PG13 rating unnecessary, not because I find violence distasteful, or "intense," or anything, but because what "Graphic Violence" is actually present in REVENGE of the SITH simply doesn't merit it. It was an undeserved, overkill rating, most probably intended to give the false impression that the Vader/Obi-wan sword fight was everything fans could've hoped after their long wait.
I must admit, when I first saw ROTS, I was a little surprised by how many seconds the camera stayed on Vader as he burned considering how many kids see SW movies.
I think that you have a point here. There is not really much that needs to be changed in these movies to make them feel more like Star Wars.
If Anakin had been more of a charming and charismatic rebel, he could have filled the Han Solo role for example. It would have made his fall to the dark side much more dramatic as well. The movies touched on this potential during the opening sequence in the third movie.
The Clone Wars would have been much better if Padme and Anakin fell in love while on the run from Bounty Hunters in a way that paralleled Han and Leia in ESB. An extended series of action sequences during this part of the film would have balanced nicely with Obi Wan's investigation.
Also, C3PO was nothing more than a hood ornament in the prequels. One of the charms of the OT was that all the heroes had some role in the outcome of the events. 3PO had at least one moment in each film where he actually DID something, but not in the OT.
The OT was just as flawed as the PT, but much more fun.
I give Lucas credit, he definitely made ROTS just as dark and edgy as the story required it to be. And on their own, there are a lot of sequences that work really damn well in that movie.
Unfortunately in the end none of it really adds up to much, since Lucas was never able to make us care about any of the characters and relationships affected by the story in the first place-- especially the most important ones involving Anakin/Padme and Anakin/Obi-Wan.
What we see unfold looks like it should be really difficult and painful to watch, but it never is.
Annie's choking his wife was done via "magic" and did not require the actor to be shown throttling her. Likewise, when Annie is ordered to kill "Yuenglings," he fires up his LASER Sword and a kid is startled, but that is all. When Ben Kenobi lops off Annie's limbs, this is shown by some split second waving his weapon in the air and almost doesn't even equate to the fact. All of these are nasty events in this movie, certainly, but nothing is actually graphic about it. The action is implied, for the most part. The only potentially disturbing graphic is when Annie's presented to the audience flambé. Even this is so artistically stylized that I wasn't sure if that was meant to imply Annie's doing his best to contain it with the Force - especially as he's wearing the contacts. It just didn't seem real, is what I'm getting at. For these reasons, the PG13 rating did seem a conceit, by Lucas, but now that it's been talked about, I suppose a kid might find all of that in one movie to be upsetting ...
