The prequel trilogy constructive criticism thread

[Set Harth]

TPM: Start with Anakin a few years older, and already with a dark aspect to his personality.

But then you portray him as a bad seed from the beginning, which kind of negates the tragic aspect of his fall and craps on the OT. But hold that thought.

AOTC: Anakin's fall to the Dark Side really begins here, so that everything doesn't happen so ridiculously suddenly in ROTS.

...that's how it was in the actual prequels. It looks like a time-traveling George Lucas took your suggestion to heart! But if Anakin had started dark in TPM as you proposed earlier, it would really have started there.

ROTS: Anakin's final turn to the Dark Side is more of a deliberate choice instead of something that he just kind of allows to happen.

It's already a deliberate choice in the ROTS we have.

Somehow leave Anakin's fate a mystery

Why? To prop up the "chronological order" nonsense? Why ruin the end of the film just for the sake of the two or three people in the world who don't know about Anakin's fate?

 

[fireproof78]

I kind of want to build upon this idea here, of chronological order, as mentioned above, because I think that contributes to a larger problem with the PT.

GL seems to treat everything in Star Wars as something we have already seen before. There is no mystery to it, no suspense to build upon because he knows that the audience knows what a lightsaber is, who Yoda is, what a droid is, etc.

But, I think there should be a little more mystery to it, not because of the "chronological order" but because you can use a prequel to show things in a different light. I don't think Anakn's fate should be a mystery, save maybe to Obi-Wan and Yoda. I think that would be an interesting cliffhanger, to have Obi-Wan think Anakin is dead. Yes, the implication is there, but perhaps done a different way it could have been more satisfying.

Have to agree to disagree there, just a different perspective but everything in the story makes the circumstances of his fall sympathetic to me. Overkill revenge on those that kill his mom, followed by a guilty confession? Easy to feel for that. He even tells Mace Windu that Palpatine has to stand trial instead of being killed. He waits until he is forced at the last moment to defend Palpatine. Then the acting in that scene after Windu dies is pretty expressive of his guilt. Obi-wan and the council consistently sidelined him and he had reason to be annoyed by it, especially Yoda's useless help after Padme's death premonition which amounted to "let her die."

If he was just politically opposed to the jedi and they cut out the padme death premonition, then he wouldn't be very sympathetic to me.

Maybe the story would be even more dramatic if the Jedi and the light side seemed more good though, they don't come off too well in the prequels.

I think that is my biggest issue. There is not a lot of sympathy for the Jedi in their presentation, and their downfall not only feels inevitable but wholly lacking in an emotional connection that makes me want the good guys to win. If I felt like the Jedi had more character, and felt more compelling to try and keep Anakin on the Light Side, then maybe his fall would have felt more tragic.

As it is presented, it feels inevitable, like Anakin has no choices in the matter. His guilt is all of two scenes, with his final fall to the Dark Side being protested with a "What have I done?" and then right in to the slaughter. It doesn't feel like he is conflicted, just that he will eventually become darker and that he can't be stopped.

That's not a very interesting character to me is the idea of one that will inevitably become bad and has no shot at redemption.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

It certainly contradicts old Obi-Wan's "he was seduced by the Dark Side" line. Anakin wasn't seduced so much as tricked into becoming evil. Palpatine just happened to mention a solution for a very specific problem of Anakin's (Come to the Dark Side! We have powers to save women from death by baby!), then backpedalled after Anakin killed Mace Windu. The fact that Anakin didn't so much as go "wait, what?" shows that he was already well on his way to becoming a murderous psycho.

 

[Mr Light]

First, change the acting and dialogue and direction. Make the words sound more natural. Use contractions.

Second, change Anakin's character. He's not creepy and whiny. He's charismatic and charming and suave, with a dark secret that no one knows about. To fight the war he's been forced into, he's been giving into the Dark Side when no one was looking.

"The Phantom Menace" should not have been Episode One. It should have been a novel, or a Hobbit style prelude movie, and not part of the trilogy. I mean, think about it. How much from that movie do you actually need to know to follow the rest? The opening of AOTC establishes that Anakin met Padme a decade ago and has fantasized about her ever since. That's all you really need to know. The circumstances of how Anakin and Palpatine got to their positions are interesting but not vital.

Episode One is Attack of the Clones. With a drastically different love story. Since Anakin is so cool and charming, it makes sense for Padme to fall for him. But he keeps the darkness secret from her. He's always lying to her about it. He doesn't tell her he slaughtered a bunch of women and children.

Episode Two is events from the Clone Wars, climaxing with Grevious invading Coruscant to grab Palpatine.

Episode Three I would barely touch aside from giving Padme more to do and changing her death.

Ooo, late thought! Darth Maul replaces Count Dooku! I still want Grevious though. Grevious is awesome

 

[TremblingBluStar]

The problem is that I don't ever feel like his fall is in question. I don't feel any tension, or that he is a good guy forced to do bad things until he eventually falls. His fall happens with little in the way of drama, save for his brief moment of "What have I done?" I felt more agonizing over his slaughter of Tuskens then his murder of Mace Windu.

I agree that his fall to the Dark Side should have been done much, much better. it doesn't help that he goes from a completely altruistic, if annoying, little boy to an egomaniac who murders people, lusts for power, and supports a dictator, back to an altruistic young man who only wants to save his dying wife who he ends up trying to kill himself. To say his character was inconsistent is being too kind. He swung wherever the plot needed him to.

I like that he was forced to chose the Dark Side, to sacrifice himself to do what he felt was right - but it should have been far more dramatic than killing hundreds of innocents to save Padme. What if he turned to evil to save the galaxy, or prevent some sort of great catastrophe, where he had to chose between the lives of thousands or the lives of billions (which, in the end should have not been his choice to make)?

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Why? To prop up the "chronological order" nonsense? Why ruin the end of the film just for the sake of the two or three people in the world who don't know about Anakin's fate?

It felt like Vader was included in RoTS for marketing purposes than anything, so they could put his face on everything under the sun. I agree that not showing him become Vader would have been a mistake.

. Yeah, most people who grew up with the originals could easily figure this out. But the movies didn't have to be such a hamfisted attempt to set up the original films. The mystery could have been easily preserved for future generations by either not giving Anakin's surname, not showing Luke and Leia being named, and not showing Luke being handed to his aunt and uncle.

I mean, people are speculating all over the place over who Rey is. If Lucas had handled this, he would have shown baby Rey being born in the first 10 minute and Luke (or her actual father) dropping her off.

 

[Set Harth]

That's not a very interesting character to me is the idea of one that will inevitably become bad and has no shot at redemption.

But in Anakin's case neither of those things were true.

it doesn't help that he goes from a completely altruistic, if annoying, little boy to an egomaniac who murders people, lusts for power, and supports a dictator, back to an altruistic young man who only wants to save his dying wife who he ends up trying to kill himself.

This essentially misrepresents the timeline in various ways. First, the embryonic version of what you're calling egomania is arguably already there in the beginning. In both cases he is simply more skilled than his peers and he knows it. The Tusken slaughter is a discontinuity; it's not like he was into murdering people in general at that point, for no reason or for personal gain. Of course, once one has turned to the dark side, murdering people goes with the territory. Wanting to save his dying wife isn't a return to altruism. It's all about him. And his "lust for power", such as it is, is consistent across II and III, only magnified by his turn.

It certainly contradicts old Obi-Wan's "he was seduced by the Dark Side" line.

Only if you assume Obi-Wan was talking about a fixed point, an atomic moment, and try to map that to what you see in ROTS. But the thing about the dark side is that once you start using it with impunity you become increasingly "seduced" by it in the sense that you are drawn deeper and deeper in. This view is consistent with ROTS and even manifested in some of what Palpatine says to Anakin.

The fact that Anakin didn't so much as go "wait, what?" shows that he was already well on his way to becoming a murderous psycho.

On the contrary, it shows that he had reached a point of no return in that there was clearly no going back to his old life, so really his only viable path at that point ( if he still intended to learn the ability to cheat death ) was continuing to go along with Palpatine.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

Erm...that's what I said. That he was on his way for a while.

 

[fireproof78]

But in Anakin's case neither of those things were true.

True, but that isn't how the films treat it. His fall to the Dark Side is inevitable, and he doesn't seem to care, save for brief moments of clarity.

Maybe taken in the whole six films it has more punch, but the PT doesn't feel very conflicted. It feels inevitable, it feels like Anakin is dark, and has little inkling towards the light. Which, given how stupid the Jedi are presented in the PT I can't fault him.

Regardless, his brief moments of clarity are not enough for me to feel like he wants to be good. Anakin wants shortcuts, wants satisfaction and is whiny when he doesn't get it. That's barely a character, and not an interesting one.

 

[Set Harth]

Erm...that's what I said. That he was on his way for a while.

He could have chosen differently at that crucial moment and everything would have turned out very differently. The point was that his choice after the fact was entirely rational as opposed to evidence of psychosis.

His fall to the Dark Side is inevitable

The films don't treat his fall to the dark side as truly inevitable IMO.

Anakin wants shortcuts, wants satisfaction and is whiny when he doesn't get it. That's barely a character

I don't see what the rules are for being "a character". He resembles a lot of people in the real world in that respect. It's surely more interesting than a white knight who can do no wrong, which seems a bit one-note.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm not asking for a white knight who can do no wrong, but I also don't want someone who by all appearances doesn't want to do the right thing, and everyone treats as irredeemable.
We might have to agree to disagree. In my opinion, the films treat Anakin's becoming Vader an inevitable outcome. The Jedi do little to help, and Palpatine comes across not only as a nice guy, but the only one who makes sense in the entire PT.

Sorry, that doesn't feel conflicted. That feels like the bad guy makes sense and we should agree with him because the good guys are too stupid to realized their being played. That's not interesting to me, no matter what real world parallels might appear.

 

[Makarov]

I like that he was forced to chose the Dark Side, to sacrifice himself to do what he felt was right - but it should have been far more dramatic than killing hundreds of innocents to save Padme. What if he turned to evil to save the galaxy, or prevent some sort of great catastrophe, where he had to chose between the lives of thousands or the lives of billions (which, in the end should have not been his choice to make)?

If they did do that with his origin then it wouldn't be as much of a family drama revolving around the Skywalker family, sacrificing the few to save the many isn't nearly as dark as what he ends up doing in ROTS for his family.

 

[Ithekro]

Darth Vader is meant to seem irredeemable, save by Luke striking the one place Anakin Skywalker still lives...Family.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

If they did do that with his origin then it wouldn't be as much of a family drama revolving around the Skywalker family

Hamlet is a family drama. Star Wars is not. Besides, there is nothing saying Padme couldn't be involved in some way, or even a central figure in his fall.

sacrificing the few to save the many isn't nearly as dark as what he ends up doing in ROTS for his family.

,
But the sudden turn Anakin makes to darkness really comes out of nowhere. Yes, fans can speculate that Anakin was warped by his mother's death, but there is nothing in the film indicating this is true. There was no history of Anakin making extreme choices for family, so his sudden turn to Galactic Hitler to save Padme's life was more confusing than anything. It didn't flow with what we has seen of the character so far, unless you go through the work of explaining it for Lucas - which isn't something any fan should need to do.

 

[fireproof78]

Hamlet is a family drama. Star Wars is not. Besides, there is nothing saying Padme couldn't be involved in some way, or even a central figure in his fall. ,
But the sudden turn Anakin makes to darkness really comes out of nowhere. Yes, fans can speculate that Anakin was warped by his mother's death, but there is nothing in the film indicating this is true. There was no history of Anakin making extreme choices for family, so his sudden turn to Galactic Hitler to save Padme's life was more confusing than anything. It didn't flow with what we has seen of the character so far, unless you go through the work of explaining it for Lucas - which isn't something any fan should need to do.

I'm in agreement here on this point. In addition, my sympathy for Anakin has grown somewhat over the years, by virtue of reading the ROTS novel and some of the Clone Wars series.

All that said, I really feel like Anakin could have been closer to Macbeth, being told a prophecy and rather than allowing to play out, tries to force it to happen. Which, is the perspective that the novelization takes. However, it doesn't change the fact that I don't really sympathize with Anakin, and he doesn't feel very heroic to me or tragic. Just a bad guy who gives in to being bad.

 

[Set Harth]

In this case, tries to force it to not happen.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I actually enjoy the prequels quite a bit. Sure, there are some things that could be removed for the better *cough*JAR JAR*cough* but there's very little else I would change about them, except for a few things.

1) Hire someone to polish the scripts.

2) Start Anakin off as a regular Jedi. No Chosen One nonsense. No magical conception by the midi-chlorians. He's likable, highly skilled and quickly moving up the ranks of the Jedi Council, impressing even his former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

3) If Qui-Gon Jinn is in these movies, show him having a close relationship with his former pupil, Obi-Wan. Episode One plays out as before, except with the Jedi discovering there could be a traitor in their midst. They discover the newly slain Darth Maul was actually a pupil that started off as a Jedi cadet, but ended up quitting and emerged as a trained Sith Lord.

It is in the events of Episode II, when Obi-Wan is tracking down the bounty hunter Jango Fett and his employer, Darth Tyranus, that he discovers the true identity of Tyranus is, in fact, Qui-Gon Jinn, which leads to the Clone War battle on Geonosis and a three way lightsaber battle between Anakin, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon.

Revenge of the Sith plays out pretty much as it already does.

As much as I love Christopher Lee, I feel it would've been much more dramatic for Anakin to kill a Sith Lord he was already familiar with than a former Jedi Master that quit about the time he started his training. Of course, you could always recast Qui-Gon with Christopher Lee, but seriously, how badass would it have been to see Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting an evil Liam Neeson?

 

[Makarov]

There was no history of Anakin making extreme choices for family, so his sudden turn to Galactic Hitler to save Padme's life was more confusing than anything. It didn't flow with what we has seen of the character so far, unless you go through the work of explaining it for Lucas - which isn't something any fan should need to do.

The dark side reaction and slaughter of a bunch of people in response to his mom's death already happened in AOTC. He leaves to find her in the middle of his assignment - that's also pretty extreme reaction for a jedi on his most important mission yet. In this case his slaughter of the jedi comes right after committing fully to Palpatine. It's set up nicely in his backstory and at the same time shows that there's a big change once he makes the final choice to fully commit to the dark side.

This sudden change to dark side is pretty in line with what we saw in Return of the Jedi when he suddenly turns into a good guy in about two seconds with one dramatic action - again for his family.

And star wars is completely a family drama dressed as a space opera, it's apparent that the next trilogy is going to be that again, just from Force Awaken's storyline alone.

Of course, you could always recast Qui-Gon with Christopher Lee, but seriously, how badass would it have been to see Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting an evil Liam Neeson?

Now that is a great idea

 

[JediKnightButler]

I always thought that starting the PT with AOTC and a movie based on Luceno's "Labyrinth of Evil" (which focuses on the Clone Wars as well as the search for Darth Sidious) as Episode II, which leads right into ROTS would have worked better. TPM always felt like an extended prologue that really set up a few bits of the PT but didn't feel as connected to the rest of the PT, being 10 years before AOTC. In the movies, we also just don't get to see much of the fabled "Clone Wars" (though the 2008 series did pretty much address that issue). I also feel that they needed to re-work Padme's death to have it be more in line with Leia's recollections in ROTJ. Some of the dialogue could have been much better as well.

 

[fireproof78]

The dark side reaction and slaughter of a bunch of people in response to his mom's death already happened in AOTC. He leaves to find her in the middle of his assignment - that's also pretty extreme reaction for a jedi on his most important mission yet. In this case his slaughter of the jedi comes right after committing fully to Palpatine. It's set up nicely in his backstory and at the same time shows that there's a big change once he makes the final choice to fully commit to the dark side.

This sudden change to dark side is pretty in line with what we saw in Return of the Jedi when he suddenly turns into a good guy in about two seconds with one dramatic action - again for his family.

And star wars is completely a family drama dressed as a space opera, it's apparent that the next trilogy is going to be that again, just from Force Awaken's storyline alone.

I just don't agree, and don't find Anakin's reaction, especially in ROTS, compelling. Maybe it is simply that I don't like the character, I don't buy in to his behaviors to things, aside from brief moments, and I find him generally one-dimensional.

The fact that Star Wars is a family drama and has sudden changes doesn't really excuse it, in my opinion. I don't really find it believable in ROTJ and I don't find it believable in the PT.

YMMV and probably does. I just hope TFA has a different dynamic than what has come before.