“Logical” is the word I’d use. I think the set itself was too big, or too long, to actually fit inside the Falcon “prop” seen in the Mos Eisley hangar. But it works well as a EU illustration/explanation of the Falcon’s layout.

As a side not; I find it funny that there’s only three beds in the same small room. Also doesn’t that imply that one of the characters in ANH had to sleep on the couch in the “rec-room” when they were going to Alderaan?

Creox said:

Look, it’s obvious we have kind of met in the middle. We both agree none of this was intentionally racist or even a good example of stereotypes in some cases. The issue for me is that enough people like myself have seen these movies and did see some quite startling stereotypes that made us uncomfortable.

My last words on the topic is that there will always be such issues from time to time because, as you say, film makers borrow all the time from each other. It is my hope that they will take a little extra time to minimize the potential problems their creations can produce.

Agreed.

Some real-life comparisons will always accompany alien characters such as Tuskens, Hutts, Neimoidians, etc. for a multitude of reasons (that we have both suggested); whether through artistic laziness, artistic imitation of old insensitive films, coincidence, or even pareidolia. But I completely agree that regardless of why/how a character (like Watto) ended up being as they are, it couldn’t have hurt for Lucas and his team to have listened to some proper feedback and then made a few minor adjustments. I’ve harped a lot on the importance of intent (though we seem to agree on that point), however I’m not completely ignoring the importance of outcome.

Handman said:

So, has this been cancelled?

I haven’t found any serious sources confirming it, and Disney/Lucasfilm hasn’t said a things, so I’m personally not taking it seriously for now.

Creox said:

Just a small example…check out the live action tag under “film” for more on SW. These guys are pretty even handed and make room for other thoughts on the subject.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceJews

tvtropes said:

The Sand People/Tusken Raiders in the original films come across as a violent caricature of desert-dwelling Bedouin-like groups, being low-tech, desert-dwelling nomads wearing robes and head coverings. Lucas apparently intended the species to resemble the depiction of American Indians in old Wild West movies through their violent behavior toward the more technologically advanced settlers. The females also wear papoose boards. Whether Lucas realized the Unfortunate Implications or not is anybody’s guess.

This kind of goes back to what’s been mentioned earlier. Lucas said he was going for a sci-fi abstraction of old Western cliches, yet tvtropes specifically refer to them as “Bedouin-like”. That kind of comes off as projecting to me. And the papoose boards goes back tow hat I said that it’s impossible to design stuff without borrowing from real-life. But then the question is; is it wrong to borrow something real for “bad guys” when you’ve borrowed plenty of ideas and concepts for “good” or neutral characters (like f.ex. the Mongolian influences on Amidala’s wardrobe).

tvtropes said:

The Star Wars prequel films also feature the Neimoidians - a race of slit-eyed, inscrutable, unscrupulous villain aliens who speak with a vague Asian accent, wear Qing dynasty robes and hats, and threaten the galaxy with their trade routes and mass production technology. Many English-speaking critics saw the race as a collection of Asian stereotypes.

“Qing dynasty robes” seems just as applicable to Amidala as it does the Neimoidians.
(Though this female Neimodian from the EU definitely went for an obvious Qing dynasty vibe, though this would have been after the movie.)

tvtropes said:

Many critics accused Jar Jar Binks of resembling black caricatures in minstrel shows and early American cinema, highlighting his broken English, clumsiness, naivety and shuffling gait, all typical traits of minstrel characters. Physically, he has large nostrils and his “lips” make up half of his face, both traits commonly exaggerated in black caricatures. The Gungan accent, which sounds vaguely Caribbean, doesn’t help the issue, and his large floppy ears have been compared to dreadlocks. Jar-Jar’s first lines in the series, “Me-sa your humble servant,” call slavery and domestic servitude to mind. The character was voiced and motion-captured by black actor Ahmed Best, who denied any attempt to make Jar Jar a black caricature. The Gungan race as a whole, however, does not embody the trope;…

“he has large nostrils and his “lips” make up half of his face, both traits commonly exaggerated in black caricatures”. I’m not disagreeing with that statement in and of itself, but Jar Jar is after all an amphibian creature. In early concept art he has even less human-like features than what he does in the finished movie. And the whole “servant” thing is taken out of context. He’s essentially a clumsy, comic-relief version of Chewbacca, which had a life-debt to Han for saving his life.

I wonder; if Jar Jar had been played by another actor, yet had still been written the same, had the same broken-English dialogue, and the other Gungans still behaved exactly the same, would people then have drawn parallels between black caricatures and his lips, nostrils, floppy ears, etc.?

Creox said:

OK, this was kind of long and rant-y, but what I’m trying to say is that the PT accents are such a vague hodgepodge of sounds that I fail to see how they can represent any specific language in an intentional and “insensitive” manner.

And yet…I do see it and hear it. So do many others who have made their thoughts known all over the internet.

I get that. And I get that these characters can be very uncomfortable to people. But the fact that people seem to hear different things I think is very important and telling. What you hear isn’t necessarily heard by others, and where you hear Creole, some hear Indian, and so forth. I even found a forum post from 2002 where someone said that Watto’s hat made him look French.

Creox said:

I understand you and Dre quite well and really do see your side of this debate. I also can appreciate how something vague can be interpreted in many different ways. That being said, enough of us have noticed this since the TPM and the rest of the PT first showed. I haven’t talked about it in years and only brought it up here because someone else had mentioned it. In my recent trip online I have found a lot more people actually think as I do and explain it better than I have.

Some I disagree with. I agree with you that most of the trade delegation don’t sound Asian. Gunray sounds like a really bad Charlie Chan imitation…yes, it’s that bad to my ears.

Really? This guy? I don’t see how he even even barely resembles Gunray. The voice is wrong, the intonations are completely different, and Gunray actually does the grammar properly whereas Chan skips entire words.

Creox said:

I don’t think Jar Jar is this quintessential black sounding and acting character but he has definite attributes that are cringe worthy. The worst by far for me in Watto. They doubled down on his image in the second film and added a Hasidic hat and beard. He sounds JUST like an old Jewish caricature. There is NO way that someone at LA could have looked at Watto in AOTC and not seen that…no way. Does that mean I think it was meant to be racist? No but definitely insensitive or unthinking.

I will say that out of the alternatives you suggest I agree the most with “unthinking”, because I honestly don’t think it crossed any of their minds. At least not the LucasFilm people.

The thing about Watto’s hat though, which was in the TPM storyboards BTW, looks like it’s supposed to be a droid-part or something similar. It looks very much like the pit-droid heads and in the storyboards it even had an antennae sticking out of it. And the rest of Watto’s design really isn’t that illogical from an alien-design perspective. First of all Lucas originally described him (as I recall) as a Tapir with Humming Bird wings and Duck feet. Naturally as a character with a lot of dialogue and personality he had to have somewhat human features; so his face (minus the trunk) is fairly human like. His human-like eyes had to convey a large range of emotions and it helped sell the CGI as a living being. And since he was supposed to be somewhat shabby-looking character they gave him some stubble and a bit of a gut. In AOTC he’s had to sell his last slave and it seems like he’s kind of down on his luck. To show this they’ve given him a shabby beard and what appears to be a re-purposed mechanical part as a hat. Also keep in mind that he’s an amphibian living in the desert. Now did much of this end up giving him a somewhat Hasidic look? I guess? But from Lucas and the designers POV it’s not hard to see why they only saw a weird hovering amphibian with a metal-hat, which is also what a lot of people watching the film simply saw.
Anyway, I’m making way too long a post again.

Creox said:

DrDre said:

Creox said:

DrDre said:

Creox said:

DrDre said:

Creox said:

DrDre said:

Creox said:

ZkinandBonez said:

“West-Indian accent”? I though Jar Jar was supposed to sound Creole. And previously in this thread his accent was described as resembling Jamaican. This is really why the Jar Jar criticism confuses me so much. People can never agree on how exactly he is offensive. Also this is literally the first time I’ve heard mention of Jar Jar’s “buttocks”, and what does that have to do with Indians?

Also when was “crafty Japanese trade villains” ever a thing? I’ve heard people make ‘yellow peril’ comparisons, but apart from the accent (which the voice actor based on Philippino I belive) there’s not much about them that resembles any Asian cultures. Not that I’m aware of at least.

LoL

Well, sure but the point is that Jar Jar sounds decidedly stereotyped in that fashion. Be it Caribbean or Jamaican they all have a very noticeable trait that is very much human being of color. The trade federation have very obvious, thick Asian accents with large slitted eyes…they walk around like Geishas with their hands folded in front of them. I took the “crafty” in that phrase to just illustrate they were stereotypes that were cast as villains. Nothing more. Yellow peril certainly would fit that stereotype.

Watto and Jewish is ( I hope) not in need of an explanation?

Large slitted eyes…that’s a contradiction in terms if I ever saw one.

Obviously Asian…

The alien on the right is definitely Asian in facial characteristics but that is not the only trait I’m talking about. At any rate it is not important for my basic premise to be true. Many thought similarly, including the persons in the piece I linked. All my friends felt this way at the first viewing.

Yes, but the fact that many thought similarly doesn’t make it true.

Really? How does that make sense? If one person or a few dozen thought this then you might have a case. The debate over this issue in general with the TPM and the PT is well known and well documented. As noted before, I don’t believe Lucas was going out of his way here but To say this has no legs is just false.

Watto in the next movie has a small beard and hat that looks decidedly Hasidic. Am I really just imagining this? Seriously?

Humans see patterns in things that simply aren’t there. It is our nature.

Is the cloud deliberately or subconciously attempting to look like Winnie the Poo, or is it all in the eyes of the beholder?

Actually that is a cloud that looks very much like Winnie the Pooh. Not sure how that helps your case.

You’re missing the point. Looks like and is are two different things. The cloud looks like Winnie the Pooh, because we through our history associate the shape with Winnie the Pooh, but the cloud isn’t Winnie the Pooh. The cloud doesn’t look like Winnie the Pooh by design. It’s just incidental. In the same way some of us see racial stereotypes in some of Lucas’ characters, but that is not the same as them being racial stereotypes. The characters don’t look like racial stereotypes by design. It’s just incidental. We think we see a pattern, but it isn’t there. We think we see Winnie the Pooh, but it’s just a cloud that for no reason whatsoever shares some similarities with Winnie the Pooh. To me those here that try to convince me, that Neimoidians are Asian, and Jar Jar a black dude, are trying to convince me that the cloud is actually Winnie the Pooh. The fact that some of these characters share some vague similarities with racial stereotypes (along with plenty of differences) doesn’t make them racial stereotypes.

I understand what point you are trying to make but it doesn’t ring true for me. I know the cloud is not Winnie the Pooh…but anyone who has ever seen the character would immediately recognize the formation as that bear in a heart beat. Many who have seen and heard a racist stereotype of an Asian or Jew would recognize and have recognized Watto and the Neimoidians.

Doesn’t that last sentence kinda fit with what dredre is trying to say though? Just because you recognize a similarity, doesn’t mean it was intentional (or even subconsciously based off of something). And it implies that it could have been coincidental.

Like I said earlier about how the Gungans speak; people can’t even agree what accents they’re supposed to sound like. There’s only so many sounds youn can make, and in the end its bound to end up sounding like something that already exists. I mentioned Boss Nass and Tarpals earlier. Neither follow any clear accents, but still resemble in subtle ways the speech patterns of people from vastly different cultures. Sometimes the voice actor of captain Tarpals makes the character sound Samurai-like. I don’t think the he specifically thought about Samurais, I think he was just trying to make the character sound a bit gruff and it accidentally ended up sounding a bit like typical movie-Samurais. Same things goes for Brian Blessed’s take on Boss Nass; with the odd dialogue written by Lucas, the words he choose to alter and emphasize, combined with his deep vocals, it can sound vaguely Caribbean. It’s not an actual Jamaican accent like they chose to give Kit Fisto in the Clone Wars, but some of the same “gestural” aspects are in there. Ahmed Best seemed to add some retroflex to some of the sounds, especially the D’s, and as such he can sound sort of Indian at times. It seems like an odd conscious choice, but it’s possible that he did it simply because it’s such an unnatural sound for English speakers to make (hence it sounds “foreign/alien”). When Blessed does these sounds with his deeper tone of voice, you get that vaguely South African feel.

Newt Gunray’s voice has a gruff-ness (best way I can describe it) similar to Tarpals, but the other Neimoidians don’t have it. The Neimoidian pilot (the one with the weird metal mouth-piece and goggles) speak in a more higher pitched and ‘stilted’ manner that kinda resemble Indian, as opposed to Japanese. Same thing goes for Watto, who’s accent, despite being compared to Jewish or Arab accents, also has a tendency to add little vowel sounds at the end of- or in the middle of sentences (I think this is called epenthesis), which is more commonly associated with stereotypical Italian accents. Again, this has nothing to do with imitating a real accent, but rather adding sounds and grammatical errors that makes a character sound like a non-native speaker, and in the end this is absolutely bound to resemble real accents and dialects.

Even the Geonosians in AOTC, despite being insect people, have, out of necessity, similarities to real languages, either intentionally or unintentionally. The sentence structure has a lot of glottal stops, ejectives and rolling R’s which really have nothing to do with bug sounds, but it exists in Polynesian languages and (to a lesser degree) Xhosa dialects, both of which are about as far away from familiar Western languages as you can get. This could have been intentionally, but it could easily have been a case of simply asking the English-speaking voice-actor “do the most unnatural sound you can make”.

OK, this was kind of long and rant-y, but what I’m trying to say is that the PT accents are such a vague hodgepodge of sounds that I fail to see how they can represent any specific language in an intentional and “insensitive” manner.

Creox said:

Regardless, how one thinks or interprets an image or portrayal is an important aspect of art compared to how that image or portrayal was originally intended. It is arrogant imo to suggest that what people see and hear is “not there” though, Dre. To me they are as obvious as that bear looking EXACTLY like Pooh. I am truly puzzled how these caricatures got by the the design team and Lucas, frankly. I just think they were a bit lazy in trying to come up with these characters and/or thought using cliches would send the message they wanted with respects to who the villains were, who the sidekick was…who knows. I don’t think there was any conscious effort to appear racist but insensitive? Yeah.

As for the character appearances, I think similar concepts apply there. The designers had to have borrowed from real-life simply out of necessity, but hat doesn’t mean that the Neimoidians wear Chinese-outfits, any more than Amidala is wearing a Mongolian dress and hair-style, despite that having been an inspiration. Hell, the Neimoidians’ weird hats might as well be inspired by the Pope as opposed to anything Chinese.

When making aliens, regardless of whether you borrow something intentionally, or you simply make something you think is completely made up, there’s only so much to take from, and there is only so much the human brain can imagine. And we do tend to look for patterns and similarities, so naturally, we will find cultural similarities in both the human and alien characters; their clothes, speech, mannerisms, etc. when we are watching a space-fantasy where everything has to me made up from scratch (or as much from scratch as is actually possible).

Creox said:

snooker said:

Supposedly Watto’s accent is ‘Italian’

0_O

There are a few Mario-like stereotypical intonations in Watto’s speech. Even his word endings can come off as stereotypically Italian at times.

The real problem with the PT accents is that there’s only so many sounds and intonations to take from, so it’s bound to resemble something.

I’m sure Ahmed Best added some of his own to Jar Jar (or at least something he was familiar with). Then Brian Blessed interpreted Best’s accent with his own deeper voice, which results in intonations and inflections that can come off as cartoonishly Jamaican at times. Gen. Tarpals actually sounds Japanese at times. His tone of voice and inflections sound very Samurai-like some sentences, then suddenly the dialogue takes on certain South African-like sounds. Seriously, listen to Tarpals first few lines in TPM. It’s a hodgepodge of several accents.

Creox said:

DrDre said:

Creox said:

ZkinandBonez said:

“West-Indian accent”? I though Jar Jar was supposed to sound Creole. And previously in this thread his accent was described as resembling Jamaican. This is really why the Jar Jar criticism confuses me so much. People can never agree on how exactly he is offensive. Also this is literally the first time I’ve heard mention of Jar Jar’s “buttocks”, and what does that have to do with Indians?

Also when was “crafty Japanese trade villains” ever a thing? I’ve heard people make ‘yellow peril’ comparisons, but apart from the accent (which the voice actor based on Philippino I belive) there’s not much about them that resembles any Asian cultures. Not that I’m aware of at least.

LoL

Well, sure but the point is that Jar Jar sounds decidedly stereotyped in that fashion. Be it Caribbean or Jamaican they all have a very noticeable trait that is very much human being of color. The trade federation have very obvious, thick Asian accents with large slitted eyes…they walk around like Geishas with their hands folded in front of them. I took the “crafty” in that phrase to just illustrate they were stereotypes that were cast as villains. Nothing more. Yellow peril certainly would fit that stereotype.

Watto and Jewish is ( I hope) not in need of an explanation?

Large slitted eyes…that’s a contradiction in terms if I ever saw one.

Obviously Asian…

The alien on the right is definitely Asian in facial characteristics but that is not the only trait I’m talking about. At any rate it is not important for my basic premise to be true. Many thought similarly, including the persons in the piece I linked. All my friends felt this way at the first viewing. They also bow a lot, mix up their I’s and R’s. Sound familiar? C’mon guys.

Most characters in the prequels bow a lot, including the Jedi and the senators, so the Neimoidians are hardly unique in that aspect (they bow very little, and not very far down, compared to the humans overall). And quickly scanning through their scenes in TPM I couldn’t find a single moment where they mix up their J’s and R’s.

I’m not saying that there’s not vaguely Asian characteristics to the accents. Their tone of voice has similarities to traditional Samurai, or Edo period characters in general. Some of the enunciation are also similar. But to say that they walk like Geishas, have Asian-looking eyes,Asian facial features, that they represent duplicitous yellow peril stereotypes despite their made-up alien look and behavior, is just plain odd to me. If they had long nails and fu-manchu mustaches, then I’d agree that they were blatant stereotypes.

Like I said, there are some Asian similarities, or rather influences when they made the accents, but I have to agree with DreDre that the extent to which people go to compare them to Asians, or specifically Japanese (or in some cases Chinese), seems to be quite a stretch. I have the same problem with how people perceive Jar Jar. He’s become a perceived amalgamation of several contradictory stereotypes; based on very different cultures and accents.

Creox said:

ZkinandBonez said:

“West-Indian accent”? I though Jar Jar was supposed to sound Creole. And previously in this thread his accent was described as resembling Jamaican. This is really why the Jar Jar criticism confuses me so much. People can never agree on how exactly he is offensive. Also this is literally the first time I’ve heard mention of Jar Jar’s “buttocks”, and what does that have to do with Indians?

Also when was “crafty Japanese trade villains” ever a thing? I’ve heard people make ‘yellow peril’ comparisons, but apart from the accent (which the voice actor based on Philippino I belive) there’s not much about them that resembles any Asian cultures. Not that I’m aware of at least.

LoL

Well, sure but the point is that Jar Jar sounds decidedly stereotyped in that fashion. Be it Caribbean or Jamaican they all have a very noticeable trait that is very much human being of color.

That’s a bit of an odd statement. They are all ‘people of colour’, yes, but Indian, Jamaican and Creole are three very different cultures with noticeably different accents. I fail to see how Jar Jar can be a stereotype of all three at the same time.

Creox said:

The trade federation have very obvious, thick Asian accents with large slitted eyes…they walk around like Geishas with their hands folded in front of them. I took the “crafty” in that phrase to just illustrate they were stereotypes that were cast as villains. Nothing more. Yellow peril certainly would fit that stereotype.

Bulbous fish-eyes hardly make them look Asian. “Walk around like Geishas”? That’s a really weird comparison. can’t say I’ve seen a lot of Geishas walking around, but that’s not a comparison I’d ever make. The Neimoidians are meant to be cowardly fish-men that walk around nervously with their hands in an awkward manner.

“West-Indian accent”? I though Jar Jar was supposed to sound Creole. And previously in this thread his accent was described as resembling Jamaican. This is really why the Jar Jar criticism confuses me so much. People can never agree on how exactly he is offensive. Also this is literally the first time I’ve heard mention of Jar Jar’s “buttocks”, and what does that have to do with Indians?

Also when was “crafty Japanese trade villains” ever a thing? I’ve heard people make ‘yellow peril’ comparisons, but apart from the accent (which the voice actor based on Philippino I belive) there’s not much about them that resembles any Asian cultures. Not that I’m aware of at least.

Watto is kinda iffy though, I’ll give him that.

https://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2018/08/images-from-the-star-wars-episode-ix-set-have-leaked.html

Is the plot really that convoluted and irrelevant though? TPM has very few Palpatine scenes, and mostly sticks to the action-plot and eventually Anakin’s story (which ties in with Qui-Gon’s story). There’s not too much going on character-wise, but it is supposed to simply set the stage and establish the characters.

The only PT film where I find that the politics/plot gets out of hand is AOTC. Though even it stays very focused on both Anakin and Obi-Wan, mostly using the politics as part of the “mystery-plot” that Obi-Wan has to solve, while Anakin is off having his awkwardly written emotional conflicts. AOTC is a very clumsy story in many ways, but I’d say the fault mostly lies in awkward characterization and simple technical execution). The important thing is Anakin’s development, which despite its weird execution, it does communicate quite clearly.

ROTS has a lot of politics and Palpatine scenes, but all of it relates to Anakin’s story and character development, and clearly follows up on what was established in AOTC. I don’t see how the Palpatine scenes can be considered irrelevant to Anakin’s story, when his whole plot relates to Anakin in one way or another. There’s hardly any Palpatine scenes in ROTS that doesn’t directly or indirectly affect Anakin and move his character forward.

It’s far from perfect, but I’d hardly say Lucas forgot he was making a trilogy about Anakin as the main character and just focused on the world-building.
(Plus, in many ways, but to a slightly lesser degree, it’s also Obi-Wan’s story. Which in-of-itself is very important to Anakin’s story.)

DominicCobb said:

yotsuya said:

I have just been revisiting the PT because I decided return to tackling them before trying TESB, ROTJ, or TFA. After watching them again I have to agree that ROTS is the most dramatic and is a great fast paced action film and tragedy. But I still feel that TPM got the universe right. Yes, we see the galaxy looking pretty good, but like fruit that is about to spoil, it looks good on the outside while hiding the rot on the inside. And the story goes where the characters are. The focus in the fall of the Republic so spending so much time on Coruscant makes sense.

I think one would argue though that the focus should not have been on the fall of the Republic, that should have merely been the backdrop to Anakin’s story. It isn’t quite in keeping with the other SW films to have galactic politics so far at the forefront of the story.

It was certainly a risky thing to do, but the change in themes/style is actually one of the things that I admire the most of the PT. I kind of wish that each trilogy would be as thematically and stylistically different as the PT was compared to the OT. I think it would have been much more interesting, but of course that would have created a plethora of problems from a commercial standpoint. But I do admire Lucas for doing something different.

However I completely agree with yotsuya that the PT doesn’t work as the first films in a series (for several reasons), but works fine as a follow-up story or spin-off.

From what I’ve gathered; people’s enjoyment/tolerance of the PT tends to hinge on either filmmaking execution or lore-importance.

Some people prefer TPM simply because it’s (arguably) the most well made of the three.

Though I personally think ROTS is the better story, I find TPM much more interesting overall. I’ve also noticed that many film-buffs, as well as film students (like myself), tend to be very fascinated by TPM.

True. But these things still “happened” so-to-speak.

I’m sure the Clone Wars was meant to be devestating, regardless of what we were shown. Then again we hardly saw anything from the actual war in the movies. We only got the first and last two battles.

a_o said:

the clone war had thee lowest stakes for a fictional war
clones…versus droids
both expensive to produce, sure
but besides the jedi, there were few actual casualties

Clones don’t count as casualties?

And I’m sure there were civilian deaths as well in a war of that scale.

DominicCobb said:

ZkinandBonez said:

DominicCobb said:

It’s interesting seeing people say that TPM looked “the most like Star Wars.” Certainly in terms of shooting on film, less CGI overall and more practical effects and real locations it looks more like SW than the other two. But in terms of designs I’m not entirely sure I agree. They definitely had some leeway with the film’s setting being years before and on some different worlds, but I think in some areas things definitely went too far afield and look like they’re from a different franchise altogether.

Well, I was more going for the over-all “feel” of the film, not necessarily specific designs.

I’ve learned to really appreciate the designs in the PT in the last few years, and I actually think it’s a good thing that the PT looks very different from the OT. I even thinks it makes sense for it to feel different too, which is why I like ROTS, though I don’t complain when they do feel OT-like either.

As for straying too far from the OT designs/feel, I personally think AOTC, and to a lesser degree ROTS, are the biggest sinners there. I’m curious about what things in particular from TPM you’re referring to. I always felt that TPM balanced new and old concepts really well.

The ship, set, and costume designs in general are too ornate and (on the whole) lack the rugged, lived-in and (most importantly) utilitarian feel of the OT. Even if they are justified in universe because of the film’s areas of interest (rich Naboo and Coruscant), it just doesn’t feel quite right for a SW film to have that kind of stuff as a primary focus. If the out-there designs weren’t so abundant, it probably wouldn’t feel like a problem to me.

But that’s not all of it. Pretty much all CG aliens in the film look silly and out of place. Not to mention the Gungans and their underwater city, which straddles a line between somewhat inspired and just plain wacky.

I will say I’m a fan of the battle droids. I probably would’ve preferred them a tad bulkier but they look pretty good.

That’s interesting, I’ve personally always felt that the Gungan City was one of the most Star Wars-y things in the PT. It’s like a cross between the basic ideas behind Cloud City and the Ewok village. One of the biggest problems for me with the whole idea of an “OT aesthetic” is that we never really saw that much of the galaxy in those movies, only a tiny, tiny glimpse of it. Tatooine, Hoth and Endor hardly gave us a real sense of what the rest of the galaxy might look like. The shiny-ness and elegance of Cloud City, which btw is supposed to be a small mining operation, always justified the look of Coruscant (and the “fancier” PT locales) to me. Though I do agree that some of the designs are way too fancy. I especially think Kamino looks very out of place compared to both trilogies.

And, yes, the TPM aliens can be a tad silly, especially the pod-racers. I think that’s a side-effect of Lucas specifically wanting make aliens that would be impossible as people in suits.

The way I see it the PT is supposed to be a “fall of Rome” kind of story, as opposed to the gritty, 1970’s, WWII influenced interpretation of sci-fi vibe that we associate with the OT. I’ve always felt that the Empire, despite it’s obvious references to Nazi Germany, has more of a Soviet Union feel to it over-all. Everything they make is kinda drab and angular, like a lot of Russian architecture and engineering used to be. It’s a galaxy with all the colour and life sucked out of it, and naturally, to rebel against all that, the heroes are all swashbuckling pirates and rebels. In order for the PT to work, IMO, it had to be more colourful, formal, and regal to show that bygone golden age that Obi Wan alludes to in ANH. At east that’s how I see it, and what I believe Lucas was going for when he made the PT.

DominicCobb said:

It’s interesting seeing people say that TPM looked “the most like Star Wars.” Certainly in terms of shooting on film, less CGI overall and more practical effects and real locations it looks more like SW than the other two. But in terms of designs I’m not entirely sure I agree. They definitely had some leeway with the film’s setting being years before and on some different worlds, but I think in some areas things definitely went too far afield and look like they’re from a different franchise altogether.

Well, I was more going for the over-all “feel” of the film, not necessarily specific designs.

I’ve learned to really appreciate the designs in the PT in the last few years, and I actually think it’s a good thing that the PT looks very different from the OT. I even thinks it makes sense for it to feel different too, which is why I like ROTS, though I don’t complain when they do feel OT-like either.

As for straying too far from the OT designs/feel, I personally think AOTC, and to a lesser degree ROTS, are the biggest sinners there. I’m curious about what things in particular from TPM you’re referring to. I always felt that TPM balanced new and old concepts really well.

Story-wise I think ROTS is definitely the best PT films, visually however I think it’s the worst of the three.

Based purely on nostalgia I prefer TPM out of the three, but just practically speaking I think ROTS is the best of the PT over-all. It’ has the most solid story, fairly good good pacing, the acting (although a tad weird at times) is solid, and it feels like it actually matters. TPM and ATOC both feel like they’re just setting up a bigger story that we never really got to see (unless you count the Clone Wars series or the EU in general).

I’ve personally really warmed up to ROTS lately, and I even, dare I say it, think it’s a fairly good film just in general. AOTC is still a complete mess that’s hard for me to excuse even as a SW fan, though I still like the Obi-Wan scenes, and the first act is pretty solid for the most part. TPM’s biggest sin is just being kind of boring and telling a fairly unimportant story (it feels more like the plot of a SW tie-in novel). But I would say that it feels the most Star Wars-y of the three PT films, and visually I think it looks great. The practical effects are among some of the best I’ve seen (especially the miniatures), and the CG, though dated, is good for its time. That’s really my biggest gripe with ROTS, it looks really fake and the action is so over-the-top at times. Though when it calms down and focuses on the characters, I think it works pretty well. It’s a movie that I think suffers a lot from it not conforming to fan expectations.

Great documentary, thanks for restoring it.

I got really bummed out when the “good” version was removed from YouTube a few years ago, and this version is such an improvement in every way. The high-res footage from the movies really helps to illustrate the points they were making in the documentary; like the white TIE’s overlapping the Falcon in shot SB19. I could never quite see what they were referring to in the either of the low-res VHS versions.

OutboundFlight said:

SilverWook said:

If AOTC is any indication, there are a lot of seedy bars with Deathstick dealers on Coruscant they could practice in. 😉

Shady Figure: Hey you wanna buy some deathsticks?

Young Padawan (mind trick): You will give me the deathsticks for free.

Is that a reference to this bit from Darths and Droids?

DuracellEnergizer said:

Mocata said:

In other random thoughts has anyone else ever noticed that the actor who play Jerec in Dark Forces II was the MI6 agent that tries to drug James Bond after he goes rogue in License to Kill? Probably just me.

I’ve noticed he’s the guy who interrogated Sinclair in that one episode of Babylon 5, and he was in an episode of Sliders, too.

He also played two different MacGyver villains, and a Nazi in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.

lovelikewinter said:

The two new Prequel-era books and the return of Clone Wars. Its like 2008 all over again. When Lucas’ Preqeul bias was rampant. At least I save some money I guess.

Well, if there’s fans of it, why not make more of it?

It seems likely that they’ll skip Dark Disciple and Son of Dathomir as they’ve already been turned into a novel and a comic series. I’d personally love to see the Dark Disciple story-arc in episode form, but finishing the half-completed episodes (which also focus more on more important main-characters like Anakin, Ashoka, etc.) seems to make more sense financially.

Yeah, I just saw the trailer, but I’m not quite sure yet what exactly it is. I’m assuming they’ve finally finished the previously cancelled and half-finished seventh season, right? Or is this something new?

Wikipedia (currently) only says they’re releasing 12 new episodes.

DominicCobb said:

ZkinandBonez said:

dahmage said:

ZkinandBonez said:

I’m curious as to how people would have reacted to the “flying Leia” scene had something similar been done back in the 80’s. I really think this scene has the most polarized reactions in the entirety of TLJ. Some people love it, and others think it’s complete nonsense. Even my first reaction was “is this brilliant or silly?”. Maybe it’s the obvious CG-look of the moment that puts people off?

Or maybe it’s the fact that many anticipated a Leia death scene,

then all of a sudden she “flies” back to safety (it’s pretty jarring the first time). Or maybe GotG vol.2 was still to fresh in people’s memory and all they could think of was Yondu’s Mary Poppins scene.

I personally think it’s a really interesting idea, but I can’t help but find the execution of the scene to be a tad off. It’s the wide-shot of her flying (this shot) that weirds me out a bit. But none of this makes it a “bad” scene in my mind. Plus, it’s a scene that to me gets less weird the more I watch it, though I can’t tell if that’s a good or bad sign.

emphasis mine, i agree with much of your post, but that part stands out, and i think it is impossible for most of us to effectively gauge what our subconscious was doing as we watched this, but i strongly suspect that our collective thought was “ok, this is how she dies”, and then we were all wrong.

That’s exactly what I thought the first time I saw TLJ, so when her hand suddenly started twitching and her eyes opened it really caught me off guard. It’s a scene I didn’t really appreciate until I saw it a second time. For me that actually applies to all of the new films; I don’t properly watch them on their own terms until I sew it a second time.

I think the Internet has shifted a lot of the focus on the actual production of movies, and as a result we’re simply watching movies differently than before. Nowadays we expect so much beforhand, and there’s such a diverse range of opinions, preferences and pre-suppositions. Back in the 80s people really just wanted more SW. Now people want their interpretation of what SW should be. And of course there’s no established template for what that is.

This feels spot on. I had a similar experience watching TFA the first time where I had trouble accepting what it actually was trying to do and didn’t fully love it until my second viewing. Didn’t make the same mistake with TLJ and went in with no expectations and allowed it to tell the story it wanted to tell. Loved it right away.

The new SW movies have really taught me the importance of not projecting your own ideas onto movies and judge them on their own terms. I still have issues with certain things, but I now try to only judge the quality of the filmmaking.