STAR WARS PREQUELS - a love/hate relationship
- Thread starter HAL.9000
- Start date
Unless they've been very, very bad.
Ah, good one. Of course that would involve purchasing them again, so I'd be punishing myself too!
Just illegally download them.
Good lord, how many people do you want to get punished????
Expo67
Captain
I don't know why so many fans have a problem with the prequels, but quite honestly(as a Star Wars fan), I never had a problem with the prequel trilogy. I never had a problem with Jar-Jar Binks or any other issues that some fans seem to have with the prequels.
Granted I would have liked to have seen more of Anakin's dark side come out in The Phantom Menace, more of Chancellor Finis Valorum(Terence Stamp), and a different subtitle for Episode II(Attack Of The Clones didn't sound all that hot), but other than that, I did not have a problem with Episodes I, II, and III.
Like what George Lucas did for the original trilogy for its 20th Anniversary(the re-digitalizing and re-mastering of its SFX), he can do whatever he wants to do with the Star Wars saga. If he wants to update some things to it, that's his choice. As an artist, I respect what he has done in order to shape and mold the saga into what he originally envisioned.
He owns the films. It's his baby. He can do whatever the hell he wants to do with him.
So for Christ's sake, leave the poor man be!
Granted I would have liked to have seen more of Anakin's dark side come out in The Phantom Menace, more of Chancellor Finis Valorum(Terence Stamp), and a different subtitle for Episode II(Attack Of The Clones didn't sound all that hot), but other than that, I did not have a problem with Episodes I, II, and III.
Like what George Lucas did for the original trilogy for its 20th Anniversary(the re-digitalizing and re-mastering of its SFX), he can do whatever he wants to do with the Star Wars saga. If he wants to update some things to it, that's his choice. As an artist, I respect what he has done in order to shape and mold the saga into what he originally envisioned.
He owns the films. It's his baby. He can do whatever the hell he wants to do with him.
So for Christ's sake, leave the poor man be!
I do rather enjoy the prequels but I view the franchise as a series of imaginative children's films, particularly as the dislike of Ja-Ja seems to be largely age-related - children really do love him! In that light, the shallow and unconvincing romance can be forgiven.
I think V is the most popular film because it is also the most adult. I still don't give Lucas a pass for making the prequels so sexist though. He really should have introduced at least one mainstream heroine and about half a dozen supporting women.
Children's movies or not, there was still no need to reveal so many 'spoilers' in the third movie.
I think V is the most popular film because it is also the most adult. I still don't give Lucas a pass for making the prequels so sexist though. He really should have introduced at least one mainstream heroine and about half a dozen supporting women.
Children's movies or not, there was still no need to reveal so many 'spoilers' in the third movie.
Owning a multi-billion dollar franchise somehow makes a man "poor"?
It's not like all the fan bitching bothers him, for crying out loud. His target audience are (by his own admission) kids, and they love what Star Wars is today (primarily, The Clone Wars).
Except that this one here is no fanboy. I don't like the prequels either.
Who's bitter? And who's telling kids what not to see? I just won't tell her they exist...
That strategy works for sex, it works for drugs, why shouldn't it work for Star Wars?
I've been thinking lately that the Transformers films by Michael Bay are sort of the 'current' prequels-a franchise that many people cherish (Although part of that might be clouded by nostalgia) that's been mishandled in the last few films and really, really hated by critics and a good number of fans. A few differences of course-Michael Bay didn't create Transformers, and the Transformers films are an adaptation of the toy line/cartoon, not in the same continuity.
Exactly. Just like those other things when she gets older and curious she can buy it herself and try it out.
I'm not a fan of the lackadaisical attitude toward preexisting canon that's often seen in the Clone Wars series. Mangling the EU is bad enough, but I just heard about an exchange between Lucas and Filoni during the production of the episode with Admiral Trench and a cloaked ship.
At one point Lucas is going on about the cloaked ship and Filoni seizes the moment to interject, "No ship that small has a cloaking device!"
Lucas looks at him and says, "This one does."
Someone should have punched him.
At one point Lucas is going on about the cloaked ship and Filoni seizes the moment to interject, "No ship that small has a cloaking device!"
Lucas looks at him and says, "This one does."
Someone should have punched him.
Consistency and creativity are not mutually exclusive. The current incarnation of Lucas seems to think that it's necessary to shit on previously established facts in order to tell a good story, but a truly creative writer would be able to find a way to tell a good story without shitting on canon. In other words, screwing up is not the only conceivable option. There's also not screwing up, which is harder.
It's Lucas. The EU exists at his whim and can be just as summarily ignored. In the EU, the wolf mask in the Mos Eisely Cantina becomes a rebel fighter or something like that, for Lucas, it was a somewhat embarrasing mask he wanted to remove from the movie and mostly did with the special editions.
It's true he has a pulp serial's sense of continuity, but that if nothing else bespeaks to Star Wars' origins.
And it's possible Admiral Needa didn't know about that ship. An easier fix then some, I think.
Kegg said:
But that's just it. The show insists on using planets from the EU but also refuses to do the research necessary to not screw them up. And by research I don't mean some kind of exhaustive on-the-spot perusal of all existing fiction, there's always wikipedia. If these people are such gods of creativity, why not create a new planet instead of getting an existing EU planet wrong?
I think you're confusing ignorance with uninterest.
Dave Filoni is on record as being an unreasonable Star Wars nerd and one quite familiar with the EU. The guy has dressed up as Plo Koon, of all things. Besides his own geek cred, as you say, they can literally look things up.
But they're not obligated to follow the EU, and Lucas may not be interested in following the EU.
Cherrypicking some ideas from the EU while ignoring others is nothing new - The Phantom Menace took the name Coruscant right from Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, and the Twi'lek Jedi Aayla Secura who's appeared in Attack of the Clones and onwards is a character who originated in the expanded universe.
I think at times the only reason they use EU worlds at all is because Filoni likes to nod to the EU - like having Ashoka use a Thrawn strategy in season one - but Lucas isn't as interested.
Being on record anointing oneself a "SW nerd quite familiar with the EU" is one thing, but if the same person fucks up Ryloth, doesn't that tend to support the concept that saying you're familiar with the EU and being functionally conversant with the EU are two different things?
Kegg said:
And in each of those cases, the planet or character was used without screwing up anything about them, so it's not really what I'm talking about.
What I'm suggesting is Filoni was aware of those issues regarding Ryloth and decided to depict Ryloth differently.
Ah, but The Phantom Menace changed the age of the Republic vis a vis the EU and Attack of the Clones retconned Boba Fett's Jester Mareel origin story into oblivion. The same products that took parts of the EU rejected others.
The approach to the EU from the stuff Lucas is involved with is pretty much as a buffet: Picking and choosing whatever what they want, as if it's a suggestions box if possible cool ideas to run with. I can certainly appreciate why that's frustrating for an EU fan, but it doesn't mean they're doing it out of simple ignorance - they may prefer the version they have, or find it works better for the kind of story they're doing on TV.
Then why call it Ryloth at all? Name it "Oobaboobooine" and say it's a Twi'lek colony world. Everybody wins.
Kegg said:
First, you're thinking of AOTC, not TPM. Second, the age of the Republic was established by ANH, not the EU. So at first glance this is a question of Lucas apparently contradicting himself in different films, not an instance of taking something from the EU. ( In actuality AOTC never said that the Republic was only a thousand years old. ) Similarly, while AOTC contradicted the EU on the issue of the Boba Fett backstory, its Fett material was not taken from the EU.
( Also, a canon completist type would tell you that later EU material constitutes a retcon of the Fett retcon and that the Fett story in Tales from the Bounty Hunters is still somehow canon. I don't tend to agree, but that's what the canon completists would say. )
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