Not even then. It's sick, period.
Plinkett is back
- Thread starter Flying Spaghetti Monster
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While it may not be for everyone, it's not sick, either. It's humor. It's subjective.
I think it's hilarious.
My take is that it is very much self deprecating humor. That people get so worked up and upset of the Star Wars prequels sucking that they are crazy people- like Plinkett.
And geez, if people are so upset over the Plinkett character do you actively petition against movies like Hostel and Saw? Because those are much more mainstream and much worse than anything that Plinkett does.
My take is that it is very much self deprecating humor. That people get so worked up and upset of the Star Wars prequels sucking that they are crazy people- like Plinkett.
And geez, if people are so upset over the Plinkett character do you actively petition against movies like Hostel and Saw? Because those are much more mainstream and much worse than anything that Plinkett does.
Because he's the one who arcs. Beginning of the movie, he's a rulebook-quoting hidebound jackass who's probably going to get his face chopped off because he keeps twirling his lightsaber as a nervous tick. By the end, he's learned to be more unconventional and confident and has come into his own, becoming the new master with Anakin as his apprentice.
But that's just one possible reading. It's criticism, not kreminology. We're not all sifting through clues to figure out what character has "protagonist" tattooed on his forehead.
Nope. Ferris doesn't arc. Cameron arcs. At the beginning, he's a milquetoast, at the end, he's gotten the stones to stand up to his dad. Cameron is the protagonist, even though he isn't the main character, and Cameron wasn't at any point driving the story. "Protagonist" has a very specific meaning in literary terms, and it's not "the guy played by the actor whose name is biggest on the poster. It's "the guy who needs something."
That one's right, but the plot still ends the same way even if he stays home. Nazis track down the Ark, crack it open, get their faces melted off. He did not have agency in the plot.
I refer to my scale above.
And I wouldn't be surprised if the crazy fanboy reaction of Plinkett was based on message board reactions.
I don't think you quite get what a protagonist is or what is required of one.
A protagonist doesn't have to have an arc. Though usually there is one, a character arc is not required. For example, look at nearly every James Bond film. With the rare exception, Bond is the exact same person he was at the end of the film as he was at the beginning of the film, and I think it is fair to conclude that he is the protagonist of all of his films.
The only requirement of a protagonist is that he or she drives the action/narrative of the story that is squarely centered on them as a main character. In that regard, then Ferris and Indiana Jones are the protagonists of their respective movies.
In regards to The Phantom Menace, I can see an argument in that Qui-Gon is the protagonist of the film. However, where the problem lies in that is that there is so much going on in the film that A) he is difficult to relate to; B) there are key elements of the main story of the film that he has no bearing or interaction with; C) the film will occasionally ditch him for stretches to focus on something/someone else. As a result, it makes him a bit of a weak protagonist.
However, I will argue that Phantom Menace is more of a ensemble piece as many of the characters have their own things that are going on that move the story forward. However, that story is so clumsily handled that it muddles what could have been a fantastic ensemble concept and can leave viewers scratching their heads on who the film is actually about.
First of all, I never argued that Indiana Jones isn't the protagonist or main character, I argued that he didn't have influence on the plot of the movie, countering the argument that Anakin was a bad protagonist because he was a powerless, ignorant child. Likewise, Cameron doesn't drive the action, and isn't even the main character, but is the nevertheless the protagonist, again countering the idea that eight-year-old Anakin was too ineffectual to be a protagonist.
And in response to your example of James Bond, he's the protagonist because he does arc. It's just a narrative arc, and not a character arc. He may start and end the movie being a suave/womanizing spy/sociopath (YMMV), but he sure as hell doesn't start and end the movie knowing that Auric Goldfinger is planning to blow up Fort Knox and how to stop him and his henchmen Oddjob and Pussy Galore.
If you'd like more discussion on whether "protagonist" and "main character" are synonymous and who's the protagonist of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," take it up with John August.
Weird, I was only 14 when I first saw TPM and I don't remember scratching my head...
The basic plot really isn't that much of a mess as some people are making it out to be.
Whose motivations don't you understand, Bishop? Palpatine's?
Once upon a time... No, wait, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was this ambitious politician, who also happened to be an evil, power hungry Sith lord. One day, he decided to rise to power by stirring up some shit.
How's that?
Money and profit, what else? Their blindness allowed them to be easily maneuvered by Palpatine.
Oh. Well, even if they didn't know that Sidious and Palpatine were the same person, it was clear that they knew that Sid had some serious influence in the Senate. Assuming their motivation wasn't solely money, a person with that much influence could have promised them all kinds of trade concessions and what not.
"Hi Viceroy, I'm Darth Sidius, a very powerful Sith lord. I wan't you to help me become Emperor. In return, I'll make sure you have trade monopoly once I've taken over the galaxy."
BTW, who cares about their motivations anyway? It's not like they were anything other than mere pawns... Palpatine could have easily used Jedi (Sith) mind tricks on Gunray and his retarded entourage.
Sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with you. I just don't agree with the notion that Indy isn't a protagonist just because the results would have been the same. Regardless of if Indy stayed home that the Nazis would have been screwed anyway, he does have influence in the story and action of the film. Indy's actions clearly show the Nazis down, inadvertently gives them misinformation, nabs the ark from them (twice), got Salla involved, and pushes the final destination of the ark from Germany to that island they ended up at (although, this can be argued). Whether or not the end result would have been the same for the Nazis, Indy clearly had a lot of influence in the narrative of the movie.
You make an interesting point. The problem with Anakin is that he was written in such a way that doesn't make it seem as if he is understanding what is actually going on and doesn't really show any visible change.
It is interesting you bring this up, because the line is starting to blur in regards to Ferris-as-protagonist (wasn't this thread about Star Wars at one point?). While he doesn't change, he clearly has a narrative arc.
In any event, there is a quote in one of the articles you linked that seems to nicely fit for the Ferris debate:
This is also important in regards to Phantom Menace. Besides the fact that the story doesn't really work, it is incredibly difficult to determine who the movie is suppose to be about. Forget if they are suppose to be the "hero", "main character", or "protagonist". It is almost as if the movie is done in the style of a history textbook: Here is this event and these are the people that did stuff in regards to this event.
To veer on a side note, I guess one of the problems I have noticed with Phantom Menace is in regards that Lucas set-up is story. In the OT Lucas based a lot of his stuff on Joseph Campbell. In the case of Phantom Menace, he doesn't tap this well in regards to characters (or doesn't do so in a successful manner). This can be jarring if expecting one thing and getting another. Not that it is a bad thing, but it also isn't handled very well either. If he was going for an ensemble cast, cool approach, but it didn't work.
Not helping the matter is that the characters are not all that developed. Granted, the characters in the ANH are not developed much, but they are given a specific personality type which was able to balance out the undeveloped nature. In TPM, many of the main characters have very interchangeable personalities and that they are not developed beyond that, hurts the characters and brings the film down.
Weird, I was only 14 when I first saw TPM and I don't remember scratching my head...
The basic plot really isn't that much of a mess as some people are making it out to be.
Sigh. Please re-read my post. 1) I said *who* the film is about; not *what* the film is about. 2) I said can leave viewers scratching their heads not that it will.
"Assuming." "Could have." That is the problem. We don't know why they were doing what they were doing. True, Sidious told them to do it, but what caused them to go along with it? We know they were getting some sort of deal, but it is never explained what that exactly was. How did the Trade Federation benefit? You are just speculating. Nothing wrong with that, but it isn't in the movie. We could easily speculate that they agreed to invade the Naboo because they knew that they would get delicious Naboo Bananas. Speculating doesn't correct a problem within a movie.
People who want to know why things are happening in a movie, so we have a reason to care about the events and maybe understand why the bad guys are the bad guys other than we are just told they are.
True, but in a film that depicts them as the primary bad guys, knowing why they are being bad guys usually helps.
That was actually the bigger problem for me. It was pretty obvious from the PT that almost everyone was under the clout of the dark side. The entire senate seemed to be populated by idiots, the queen turn ambassador becomes a fool by Episode II, even the entire Jedi order pretty much acted with both incompetence and ignorance.
If Palpatine was able to influence everyone, why bother such a convoluted plot to take power? But that's even besides the point. The PT was supposed to be about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker. Everyone else were supposed to be background characters. Except we didn't really see Anakin rise, and the way Anakin fell to the dark side of the force is just so.... forced....
Wait a second... They're either pawns or primary bad guys. They cannot be both.
And I think it's pretty clear from the beginning that Sidious was the primary bad guy, and that they were just being used.
That fact that absolutely everyone in the PT (including Yoda) is stupid beyond words is my main problem with these movies.
But the basic idea behind Anakin's fall isn't really that bad, IMO. Making a deal with the devil to save a loved one sounds ok to me in theory, but the execution was poor.
I my opinion, the entire prequel trilogy should have been about Anakin being torn between the three most important people in his life; Obi-Wan - a mentor and a best frend/brother, Padme - a woman he'd risk anything for and Palpatine - a man he admired, a man who held the keys to a forbidden world he was painfully curious about. Anakin should have been portrayed as a brave, exceptionally smart, heroic guy whose only real sin was desiring more than the Jedi could offer him. Instead, we were given a whiny little bitch...
I think that might actually be the key flaw in the PT. I've been coming around more and more to the belief that the PT should've been structurally more like the OT. I mean, as it is, the Star Trek trilogy (TWOK, TSFS, TVH) has more in common with the OT than the PT does, and, adding insult to injury, the trilogy structure in Star Trek's case essentially happened accidentally. The PT does so many things wrong. They swap out one of their main actors after the first film and drop another character entirely. The films are set years apart with vast changes in the setting happening in between films. And not just the political stuff like the Clone War happening entirely in the meantime. Even the damn spaceships aren't the same from one movie to the other. There aren't any analogues to the Millennium Falcon or Star Destroyers. The most visually consistent elements are Naboo, Corescant, or Tatooine. This is Star Wars, but they don't really seem to go anywhere anymore. Yet. Whatever.
I think they would've benefited from a character-based conceptualization that worked backwards from the structure of the existing three films. Imagine how they would've been structured if the PT actually had been made first, looking at the OT as a natural continuation of it. Revenge of the Sith did the best with this, making Bail Organa an important part of the story, and including Chewbacca, but it was really too little, too late.
If I were going to do it, now, then I'd look at similar serialized works and how they developed and take them as models and inspiration. For instance, since there was going to be a large gap between Episode III and Episode IV (since Vader's fall would be the logical endpoint, mirroring Luke's not-fall), I'd look at similar time-jumps in "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica." One of the big things in those cases was that the entire cast wasn't rotated out, so the first thing would make sure that every main character or their direct ancestor is a primary character in the film. If you were watching these films in chronological order, you're big thing would be wanting to see what happened to all the guys from the PT that you know and love over the intervening years. Your reaction to the introduction of every main character should be "Holy shit, X is Y, now? Things must've really Z'ed since the last film."
So, have Tarkin in it as a sort of Admiral Cain figure, on the side of the Republic, but way more ruthless than you'd like from your good guys so you're unsurprised and disturbed to learn he's become a top man in the Empire and has command of a planet-gun. Have, I don't know, Alandria Solo in it as a scrupulous Republic officer who gets railroaded out of the new Imperial order on trumped-up charges because she helped out Obi-Wan and who vows to keep her head held high and keep fighting the good fight even out of uniform so we're shocked that her son ended up a disillusioned dirtbag drugrunner. Bail Organa definitely needs to be in it, and it needs to be structured so that it looks like he's going to be sort of a Lucious Fox figure who's going to be bankrolling the rebellion and providing ships and me. Have it look like he's building up a grand resistance to strike at the Emperor when the time is right, so the audience thinks that Luke is going to meet him and start fighting from there, and then has the rug pulled out from under them when Alderaan is destroyed. Hell, have the Millennium Falcon in it (under a different name, of course) as Obi-Wan and Anakin's Q-ship. It'd make for such a good retcon-gag in the Cantina. "You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?" "Should I have?"
Of course, while working backwards from the OT through the PT, you'd have to also work forwards with stuff like Anakin's fall (which, like you said, should've followed the same exact classical structuring as Luke's arc) and the individual plots of the films.
Unfortunately, someone decided that the only thing that mattered in the OT was Darth Vader's arc in Return of the Jedi, and to build the core narrative around that and that alone, with the entire rest of the films being essentially historical-fiction-styled filler.
You want a mirror of Luke's story?
Episode IV:
Luke, living on the desolate planet of Tatooine escapes with Obi-Wan after his aunt and uncles tragic death. He joins Obi-Wan in searching for Princess Leia, recuited into the rebellion, destroys the Death Star, and begins a journey into The Force.
Episode I:
Anakin, living as a slave on Tatooine wins his freedom in a Pod Race. Joining Obi-Wan and Qui Gon, Anakin helps the Jedi protect Queen Amidala, joins a raid on a greedy conglomerate's flagship, and destroys it. Anakin then begins a Jouney into The Force.
Luke and Anakin's story are very similar in Episodes I & IV. It's only in Episodes II & V where their paths start to drift to opposite ends of The Force. It would be interesting to watch the movies as follows: I IV II V III VI. Then you can get a better understanding of the story.
Episode IV:
Luke, living on the desolate planet of Tatooine escapes with Obi-Wan after his aunt and uncles tragic death. He joins Obi-Wan in searching for Princess Leia, recuited into the rebellion, destroys the Death Star, and begins a journey into The Force.
Episode I:
Anakin, living as a slave on Tatooine wins his freedom in a Pod Race. Joining Obi-Wan and Qui Gon, Anakin helps the Jedi protect Queen Amidala, joins a raid on a greedy conglomerate's flagship, and destroys it. Anakin then begins a Jouney into The Force.
Luke and Anakin's story are very similar in Episodes I & IV. It's only in Episodes II & V where their paths start to drift to opposite ends of The Force. It would be interesting to watch the movies as follows: I IV II V III VI. Then you can get a better understanding of the story.
I'll next use the Chewbacca method! lol
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