Most hated trilogy: Star Wars prequels or Bayformers?

[Set Harth]

Oddly, all this thread has done is made me want to see a trilogy of new Star Wars movies...directed by...Michael Bay.

The horror... the horror...

 

[Temis the Vorta]

And I can't see as how the Star Wars prequels failed to live up to their potential since they were based on the old Saturday morning serials.

Yeah I don't expect intelligence, but it's amazing that Lucas couldn't even manage to maintain the fun-pulp tone of the originals and instead had to wreck everything by focusing too much on politics (the old movie serials never gave a flip about politics!) and not enough on outsized, epic, crazy elements that are the genre's stock in trade.

That's a major reason why the PT should have made more use of mystical hooey for the core of its story, along the lines of what The Clone Wars did in the Mortis Arc. Now that's the Flash Gordon style.

Maybe the simplicity of the pulp serial style is deceptive - it's not as easy as it looks. Or, he got distracted trying to turn Star Wars into Star Trek, but didn't have the first idea how to pull it off (not that he should have been trying in the first place.) But however it happened, Lucas blew it utterly.

Oddly, all this thread has done is made me want to see a trilogy of new Star Wars movies...directed by...Michael Bay.

AAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

That would be a fascinating experiment! Would they be better or worse than the PT? Don't jump to conclusions - after all, Bay wouldn't bore us with trade routes and taxation and you don't have to suffer through bad dialogue when you can't hear it over the explosions.

We could extrapolate this to other directors and give all of them a chance to do a Star Wars trilogy. I have a theory that Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars would be surprisingly good.

 

[Whofan]

The original Star Wars did have a few political things, especially in the Death Star council room scene. ESB and ROTJ are really the only SW films that almost avoid politics altogether although there is talk of mining guilds in ESB.

The Trade Federation and are mentioned in a good chunk of Lucas's early drafts for the original star wars. Plus there is mention of commercial organizations that helped Palpatine to power in the adaptation novel.

Finally, SW fans should be the last ones to have trouble with the political stuff. There's a LOT of politics/senate scenes/ etc. in the novels, which were the only real SW story stuff apart from the comics and some games between 1983 and 1999.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The OT's politics were kept appropriately simplistic, so as not to get in the way of the action. The PT made the mistake of trying to base the story on politics, which even if Lucas were good at writing (he isn't), shouldn't be the core of the story.

Star Wars' core is the personal story of the Jedi and their relationship to the Force. Does it make them good or evil? Do they know how to "use it" correctly so they don't become evil? What is their destiny? That kind of shit.

Instead of making the PT story "a smart politician manipulates a stupid Jedi into helping him stage a coup," it should have been something along the lines of "a Jedi of great potential tries to find a way to use the Force for good, but because using the Force for Big Things is inherently hazardous, fails and falls to the dark side instead." The first story is about politics (and stupidity), and focuses on the wrong guy - Palps - who isn't even the main character. The second is personal and mystical, and focuses on the right guy - Anakin, the main character.

Star Trek is more political at its core (it's basically "American Political Values Conquer Space") and the TV format is much more appropriate to the complexity of political stories anyway (DS9 being the prime example). The Clone Wars is delving into politics, more successfully than the PT, but that's because it has the luxury of ample screen time. And anyway, they're definitely focusing on Anakin's personal mystical journey more as the core of the story. The movies could have just streamlined the political story and put more effort into the personal - that's the single biggest thing Lucas could have done to salvage the PT (though I certainly wouldn't stop with that).

Finally, SW fans should be the last ones to have trouble with the political stuff. There's a LOT of politics/senate scenes/ etc. in the novels, which were the only real SW story stuff apart from the comics and some games between 1983 and 1999.

I've read only one Star Wars novel (the first one) and wasn't very impressed. Never bothered with the others. But novels are more like TV series in that the format is more conducive to the complexity of politics. And I wouldn't be surprised if the novel writers were far better than Lucas at writing political storylines. It would be hard to be worse.

 

[DWF]

There's far more politics in the Transformers movies than in the Star Wars prequels and in the Star Wars prequels they were hardly the focus of the plotline. But they needed to show some politics to show how Palpatine got into power.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Palps didn't need to become Emperor solely or chiefly via politics. He could have done it, say, because there was an established military that resented the Jedi for taking over the war effort and being a lot more popular than they were because they're so dashing and cool.

In parallel Anakin could have been on a mystical journey and become convinced that everyone else was frakking up and only he had the answer to everything. The Jedi, wary of the potential for Anakin to fall to the dark side, council him (correctly) to cool his jets. But all that accomplishes is to make him join forces with the military, who jump at any opportunity to push their rivals, the Jedi, out of the picture. Since Palps has his eye on Anakin the whole time, Palps sides with the military and Anakin in the coup they engineer.

It's largely the same story as we got, but the focus is on Anakin's mystical journey and his sense of what he can do, rather than him being a nitwit who gets manipulated. In this scenario, he could be perfectly aware that the military is just jealous of the Jedi, that Palps is up to no good, and even that Palps is a Sith. But if Anakin gets the notion that he's above simplistic notions of dark side vs light, he could figure Palps will be serving him, not the other way around, and the pathetic, petty jealousy of the military can be put to good use.

It's basically the Icarus myth - the way to keep Star Wars feeling like Star Wars is to draw upon myths and fairy tales for its basic structure. There are no fairy tales about trade federations.

Lucas went off the rails in attempting to shoehorn some stupid Iraq War analogy into the PT (I think that's what he was going for). Leave that stuff to Star Trek and BSG. And the stuff with the threat to Padme's life could have been deleted altogether. There's more than enough story to deal with.

I'd also lose the idea that the good guys were fielding a clone army - there's just no way to avoid the inherent immorality of using sentient beings as cannon fodder. Better for the Seppys to be the ones using clones. If the Republic has a real military, the clones angle isn't needed.

 

[Kegg]

after all, Bay wouldn't bore us with trade routes and taxation and you don't have to suffer through bad dialogue when you can't hear it over the explosions.

Don't be so sure. Bay's approach is more 'ninety minutes of bad dialogue and then we finally get to the stupid action.'

I'd also lose the idea that the good guys were fielding a clone army - there's just no way to avoid the inherent immorality of using sentient beings as cannon fodder. Better for the Seppys to be the ones using clones. If the Republic has a real military, the clones angle isn't needed.

Sapient, you mean.

Anyway, the way the prequel films show it, though, it doesn't look like there is a 'Republic' military. In The Phantom Menace we see that the Trade Federation, a corporation that exists within the Republic, has its own private army, and Naboo, which is a member world of the Republic, also has its own armed guards and a space fleet. The Republic with a capital R's involvement boils down to two Jedi, and they only offer a diplomatic solution to the crisis - not a military intervention. There's no hint that this option is even open to Chancellor Valorum later in the film.

Attack of the Clones, meanwhile, makes a big deal about Palpatine creating 'a Grand Army of the Republic' - not just a clone army, but a Republic army, with a name that's intentionally reminscient of the American army in the Civil War. It seems part of the whole point of the civil war was to provide the Chancellor his own army independent of the member worlds and corporations of the Republic... which he could later use to enforce authortarian order.

I mean the basic arc of how Palpatine gets power honestly is fine. It's about the only thing that works in the 'political' part of the prequels.

 

[Set Harth]

Finally, SW fans should be the last ones to have trouble with the political stuff. There's a LOT of politics/senate scenes/ etc. in the novels, which were the only real SW story stuff apart from the comics and some games between 1983 and 1999.

Cloak of Deception especially. When people say there's "too much" politics in TPM/the PT, I think "you ain't seen nothin' yet".

Lucas went off the rails in attempting to shoehorn some stupid Iraq War analogy into the PT (I think that's what he was going for).

Maybe in one or two lines of dialogue in ROTS, but most of it is less specific than that, serving as a callback to various earlier historical periods ( and not just in America or the 20th century ).

 

[Blue_Trek]

I like both series, Star wars more than transformers, both have there weakness of that there is no doubt. But they also have the best of hero's and worst of villains.
Who is the more righteous hero, Optimus Prime or Yoda?

 

[Python Trek]

I like both series, Star wars more than transformers, both have there weakness of that there is no doubt. But they also have the best of hero's and worst of villains.
Who is the more righteous hero, Optimus Prime or Yoda?

Now you've done it! Some damn fanboy has just begun working on a Yoda-fights-Prime video for YouTube!

 

[Ninjacore]

Bayformers suck much worse...

 

[Whofan]

Indeed, the Republic has no real army, just the local planet stuff like Naboo. The Republic disarmed with the exception of the Jedi after the last battle with the Sith Lords, as hinted at in the films and also elaborated on more in the Expanded Universe books.