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The Prequels - my personal opinion — Page 3

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and i am still laughing my ass off.
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Wow (have to keep this alive just a little longer). I've never seen 1776, just heard of it (and heard a recording of one of the songs), but that avatar always made me think of what I've heard about it. Maybe it's because my girlfriend identified your quote as being from that movie, but I didn't recognize William Daniels at all, and I've been watching this board since September! I still don't recognize him, but I guess that's just because I've only seen him as Mr. Feeney. Way to bring some class to the boards, Warbler!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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He was alot younger when he played John Adams than when he play Mr. Feeny. That is why you probably did not recognize him. I thank you for your praise, but I feel it is now my duty to end this:

BACK TO TOPIC.
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indeed, that what i tried to do before but you stopped me.
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sorry.

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Originally posted by: Shimraa
so waht are peoples opinion of the PT overall.


Ep 1 and 2: bad.
Ep 3: good.

OT: great.
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good stuff warbler, isnt it ironic that the one you tried to boycott was the good one.
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I suppose, but please remember my attemped boycott had nothing to do any fear of EP III being bad. It was about Lucas's refusal to put the OOT on DVD. If the OOT had been on DVD, I would not have attemped a boycott, despit that fact that I had predicted the EP III was going to be bad. I am glad that I can say that my prediction was incorrect.
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Originally posted by: Warbler
I suppose, but please remember my attemped boycott had nothing to do any fear of EP III being bad. It was about Lucas's refusal to put the OOT on DVD. If the OOT had been on DVD, I would not have attemped a boycott, despit that fact that I had predicted the EP III was going to be bad. I am glad that I can say that my prediction was incorrect.


sure it was warbler we all know whats going on in your mind. you saw it cause everyone was saying it was good, so you werent afriad anymore.
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Well it is partially ture. The good reviews made me realize that I was boycotting a good movie, not a bad one. But I say again it was not the fear of the EPIII being bad that caused the attemped boycott. It was the lack of an OOT DVD. Once I read the reviews the temptation increased, became too much, and to my shame I fell to the darkside. Fortunatly I have gone back to the good side.
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sure it was, your just trying to cover your tracks.
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My two cents:

I watched the Prequels once in theatres. Watched them again. Now, I have no desire to ever own a copy of, or even watch those films again. When people ever ask me what they think of the prequels, I have to say, "What prequels? They made prequels? I think you're looney." I have disowned these films from my love of star wars and instead I am reverting to how I imagined all of this happened before any of these movies came out.

You buy up as many copies as you want, discuss it, convince people it's "not that bad", but I will never - I mean NEVER - look at the old trilogy and think, "Luke has a lot of midiclorians too!", "Darth Vader built C3PO!", "Those stormtroopers are CLONES!", and other inconsistacies that plague those movies.

Here's my undying opinion of the prequels to which none of you will be able to make me change my mind: Episodes 1, 2 and 3 were some of the worst films ever created. They rank up there with Howard the Duck, Catwoman and Gigli. Why? There is no imagination. No wow. Let me go through the films' faults by topics: Effects, Characters/Story and Direction.

Special Effects: To me, this will be the prequels ultimate demise as time goes by. CG, despite what lucas says, is not photorealistic. It's fake. It looks pretty damn good, but it's still fake. Creating an entire movie out of CG - and really rushed CG at that - only adds to the fakeness of the images. Sure it might have looked really cool when the films first came out, but they will age. They will age just as all movies do. In ten years, we'll have video games that will look more realistic than the images in this film and so what will generations in the future say about it? My guess is, they'll say it looks "dated" and "fake" just like some people like to point out that the effects in the old trilogy have unquestionably have. The difference between the two is the "wow factor" in the effects. The special effects in the old days were effects that took a LOT of time and effort to create and because of it, you were always (and still are) saying to yourselves, "Wow! How could they do that?!" Today, when everything is at the touch of a button and even kids in their parent's basements are getting closer to creating images that rival those of the PT, there's none of that wow factor involved. We just swallow the information and go on with the show. As I mentioned before, a lot of the effects don't even live up to their potential! Why is it that all the old star wars movies won best special effects oscars and/or achievement awards, but the new ones haven't won a single one (yet anyway)? There's nothing new to them! There's nothing exciting! I remember when Episode 1 came out, I was reading a magazine about the film's special effects and to demonstrate how "wonderful" Jar Jar was, they wrote in captions under a picture: "Look how his fingers curve around the door realistically!" Ooo. How exciting. At least with Golum in LOTR, they went all out to create the most realistic CG creature possible and pointed out more interesting things such as facial expression and their amazing skin generators.

Sorry Lucas.

Characters/Story: What this movie really lacks is a set of defined characters and a tighter story. Throughout the prequels we have a lot of characters who are important to the plot but just sort of pop up here and there and exit very unsatisfactory. This is most apparent with the sith lords/generals who are many in numbers but few in importance. Episode 1: Darth Maul/Trade Organization. Episode 2: Count Dooku
Episode 3: Dooku (sort of)/Grievous (sort of)/Palpatine. What would have been better for the whole trilogy would be to have one apprentice and Palpatine throughout ALL 3 films. None of these semi-siths who just say a line and then die later on. No generals who just happen to be the most dangerous threat to the galaxy, only to be destroyed by a smiling Obi-Wan (who might as well have been filing his nails seeing the ease it took to finish him). We should have established these characters from stage one...that being episode 1. We should have had seen Dooku in Episode 1 planning to leave the Jedi Council, fake his death and join the dark side. Same thing with Grievous. Even if he was just introduced in Episode 2, we would have at least had SOME kind of establishment. The fact that the only character development he gets is from a Cartoon Network mini-series is both lazy and insulting. If episode 2 were the Clone Wars miniseries, imagine how much better of a plot that would have made? Not to mention better development overall. Finally in episode 3, Dooku dies at the beginning. What a lame exit for such an important character! In my opinion, it would have made more sense if Palpatine had set up a duel between Dooku and Anakin much later in the film a la Luke vs Vader in Return of the Jedi. And that this duel would seal his fate for his journey towards the darkside. Much like Luke's hateful destruction of Vader would have turned him towards the dark side, Anakin's hateful destruction of Dooku would have made him a sith.

Enough, "what if" talk. Let me critic the films at hand. The stories that we have on the store shelves today are plagued with exposition and an excess of storylines. Episode 1 deals with a trade federation embargo, Anakin being found as a powerful Jedi and saving him from slavery, issues concerning the stability and reliability of the Galactic Republic and the return of the Sith. Gah! Too much information! Keep the story simple George. I don't wish to sound like a know-it-all, but having taken a screenwriting class, one of the fundamental rules they teach you is to keep it simple. Don't go overboard with backstories and subplots. Keep it as simple as you possibly can. I'm not saying the story was bad, but Lucas could have tied everything together much neatly. Another rule in Screenwriting was to avoid what my teacher called, "Doctor Exposition": that annoying habit to tell everything through dialogue. I'm sure I don't need to give examples of this in the PT. It's basically insulting to the audience.

Of course, the reason you take classes or learn about things is to know the rules...and then break them. But Lucas is not making the type of film that screams the need to rebel against common rules of storytelling. His films EMBODY the very fabric of the traditional 3-act structure.

The lot of these films are plagued with these sort of annoying storyline issues that chefelf and mannox has more successfully delt with than I could put to words. Go to their respective websites for futher comments.

Direction: George Lucas cannot direct. He could. He can't now. I don't understand why. Maybe the real George Lucas was abducted by aliens and he's looking down at us right now saying, "Nooo! I didn't want Ewoks! I didn't want Jar jar! Nooo!". That's a nice thought, but given the likliness of that happening, I must come to the ultimate conclusion that George Lucas has lost the touch. He's not the only one, mind you. I've noticed lot of directors start out wonderfully in their careers only to be bogged down with a list of mediocre films later in their lives. Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Federico Fellini, Kevin Smith. I'm sure these names will create massive panic on this thread, but people: when was the last time Spielberg made a movie that didn't have a unnecessarily sappy, sentimental ending? When was the last time Scorcese made a film whose calibre was equal to those in the 70 and 80s? Fellini was a genius in the 50s. Was. Kevin Smith...makes good movies when he has no budget and isn't pleasing fanboys. But of all these examples, none is more tragic than George Lucas. The same person who said that Science Fiction films were too dominated by special effects makes three films that are nothing but. The same person who says that story is the most important thing in a film makes three films that

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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wow that was very deep, and what i would like all people who say that hate the PT to stat before they start bashing it. you my friend may bash away.

i do have one thing, the CG your point isnt really a valid one, it applies to movies that uses lots of CGI, not just the PT lotr no matter how good it looks will be dated, i can already see it in Return of the king. same goes for others as well. so that cant be a valid reason you hate the PT, CGI is the new tool for creating effect, it is easier and cheaper to use, and more diverse then models. the fact that anyone can us it is a good thing, it means that directors will have to put more in stories as effects will no longer carry movies.

your other points are very good, and very well supported, and i can easily empathise with you when you say you hate them. I personally took them for what they were meant to do, entertain me for 2 and a half hours, and maybe make me think a little afterwords, the movies did those two things very well and so i liked them.
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Originally posted by: Shimraa
you my friend may bash away.



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I should have made myself clearer when I talked about CG.

I personally don't have a problem with CG in general. I think as well that it is definitely a helpful tool in the creation of movies and creatures that wouldn't have been possible with traditional methods. What I do have a problem with is directors thinking that they should use CG because they can and/or use it so much to the extent that it becomes style over content.

It's the overuse and misuse of CG that is a determining factor (not the sole one as you might have read :-) ) in my dislike of the prequels.

In the original trilogy there are many SFX shots and they have shown their age. However, unlike the new ones, 99.9% of the film is not a constent special effect. Had every background been a matte shot, every alien creature a "cartoon", had every piece of fruit been an animation, the film would appear to be very fragmented, dull and fake right? Imagine if the whole film looked like that scene when Luke and Han are talking on the barge on their way to the Scarlac? Wouldn't that have been...well, really cheesy? That's how I feel with the special effects in these new films. Everything is a special effect and because of that decision, the whole film will age...badly.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Mavimao is right. I think Spider-Man 2 is an example of a movie that combined CG and more traditional effects very well. Most of the CG in that movie is either in Doc Ock's tentacles or in some landscapes in those instances where it would just be impracticle to use mechanical effects. But a lot of the movie is shot on locations in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Real tentacles were built and used in as many scenes as possible. Almost every scene was shot either on location or on a traditional set. And the reasons...? One, real props and real locations look real, and that's important for the audiences to accept it. And that's why a lot of the shots from the original trilogy hold up. Those ships actually existed. It would have been possible to have actually touched them. They would be really small and wouldn't be able to fly through space, but those models actually existed, so they seemed real. Second, actors work better when they're actually playing against something real. Acting is hard enough as it is without being constantly surrounded by blue walls and talking or interacting with something that you can't even tell exists. Yes, it is possible and even necessary to learn to do in acting classes and auditions, but being able to play off of something in real environments can often bring an actor to a whole new level of technique and pull out performances he might not have known he could do. In contrast, almost every scene in the prequels had some sort of computer effect in it. Rather than build sets or creatures, George just kept his actors on the same blue stages over and over again just adding in background later. Why is building a set such a bad thing? It isn't. There was no reason why most of those scenes couldn't have been shot on an actual set. It's just laziness, and it shows. Third, just like Mavimao said, it's important to mix it up. Don't do every shot the exact same way. It keeps the audience guessing and hinders them from immediately figuring out how an effect was done. The constant CG and bluescreen in the prequels is obvious enough that you can't help but notice it.

In my opinion, CG is that special tool you keep locked away in a box only to be opened for emergencies. If it's not possible or plausible to do it any other way, then you bring out the computers. George, however, used CG as a crutch throughout the prequels, and it shows that he took the easy way out.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: Warbler
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Originally posted by: Shimraa
you my friend may bash away.



why so surprised
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Originally posted by: Mavimao
I should have made myself clearer when I talked about CG.

I personally don't have a problem with CG in general. I think as well that it is definitely a helpful tool in the creation of movies and creatures that wouldn't have been possible with traditional methods. What I do have a problem with is directors thinking that they should use CG because they can and/or use it so much to the extent that it becomes style over content.

It's the overuse and misuse of CG that is a determining factor (not the sole one as you might have read :-) ) in my dislike of the prequels.

In the original trilogy there are many SFX shots and they have shown their age. However, unlike the new ones, 99.9% of the film is not a constent special effect. Had every background been a matte shot, every alien creature a "cartoon", had every piece of fruit been an animation, the film would appear to be very fragmented, dull and fake right? Imagine if the whole film looked like that scene when Luke and Han are talking on the barge on their way to the Scarlac? Wouldn't that have been...well, really cheesy? That's how I feel with the special effects in these new films. Everything is a special effect and because of that decision, the whole film will age...badly.


sry but wasnt that the case having a puppet is a special effect, running around with models are special effects. the OT had alot of Special effects too. your right the PT has way more but my point is that in some cases it unavoidable, give me some big CG shots that were in ep1 or 3, (not 2 cause that was an experiment that went wrong for lucas, shoting th whole film in digital) that would have been better done by puppet.

even spiderman 2 i can see places where it isnt perfect, there are lots of times, almost every CG shot in that movie with spiderman looked a little fake, but i am not complaining jsut pointing it out, all CG will look fake to some degree just as all models and puppets will look fake to some degree. you can make something look perfectly real unless it is. bt you can get close and both CG and Puppets do it, neither is better then the other, however one is more practical cause its alot cheaper.
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Originally posted by: Mavimao
Gary Kurtz gave a calm and fruitful balance to George's wild imagination and created history. Without Kurtz, the star wars movies became bloated with commercialization and weak plots.



Excellent point.
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Episode 3 was shot on digital as well. That's a whole new can of worms I won't open.

I wasn't saying that Lucas should have ONLY used puppets (although i do prefer a puppet yoda, sue me). What I'm trying to say is, everything was so digitally overblown that even the clone STORMTROOPERS were CG! Real live humanoids were CG characters! What's worse, in episode 3, instead of putting Temuera Morrison in a stormtrooper outfit when they took off their helmets, they pasted his head onto a digital CG body. This, in my opinion, was too much. It was lazy. It looked bad. His head keeps floating off his body at the neck. It was really obvious.

He should have built sets and backgrounds. He should have made Padmé eat real fruit in Episode 2.

In any case you're missing my point that each frame of these movies (especially Episodes 2 and 3 where the CG was used extensively) will age. If George had used a nice balance his films wouldn't age so quickly.

As a side note: one thing that really bugs me about the use of CG in modern films is the fact that people go all crazy with it in terms of cinematography. "Oh look! We can do this ariel shot, swoop in under his crotch, catch some lens flare. A big spider will appear and his tenticles will swoop towards the protagonist and it'll miss and instead....hit the camera!" Granted it helps create shots that were never before possible, but is it a good thing? Is it a good thing to do whatever you can? Even at the expense of losing your audience's suspension of disbelief?

Example: that fight scene between Neo and those hundred Agent Smiths in Matrix Reloaded. Perfect example of CG hyperbol.

Counterexample: The original Matrix. Award-winning special effects. Why? They were amazing at the time! And in many respects, they hold up today. That infamous shot of neo ducking the bullets at the end was a mixture of live footage and computer animation. A nice blend of it too. Had they more money, I'm sure the directors would say, "Hey! Let's just make that whole shot CG because we can. It gives us freedom!" But would the original Matrix been as good had they had all the resources in the world?

This is what I call the Kevin Smith syndrome. For some reason Kevin Smith makes crappier films the bigger his budget is. Clerks and Chasing Amy were decent flicks which cost 20, 000 and 200, 000 dollars respectfully. Do these films compare with the bigger budget films such as Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and even Mallrats? I personally don't think so. Why? Limitations are good for a director. Limitations make you sit down and think, "OK, how can I do this with the little resources I have?" They force you to use all the grey matter in your little head to come up with solutions. Computers have erased this. Everyone's mentality is, it seems, "Fix it in post." They get lazy. They start not caring about how the film. "it's good enough"...enough. Just enough. Goddamnit! Strive for perfection!

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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What is this, Star Wars Fans Anonymous?
Let me contribute!

I'm also 19, loved TPM when it came out and came to realise over the years that it wasn't that great. But I've matured FURTHER, and accepted that the original movies weren't perfect either. Let's face it, movies inherently suck. You've just got to accept that basic fact and decide not to focus on the fact that The Red Sea parting looks hokey, or the fact that in front of Gandalf's 'heroic charge' is some blatant Adobe CLONE STAMPING, or the fact that Anakin's knife doesn't accurately chop up his CG Pear, or the fact that Bruce Willis' gun never runs out of ammo until the worst possible moment...


Jeeze! You don't have to defend the movies, and you don't have to defend your liking them, or even your right to like them. They're just a bunch of images and sound played concurrently, and believe it or not whether or not they suck or are great is ACTUALLY dependent on the person. A perfect movie (and I've been shown quite a few of those, and nearly always think they suck) would have everyone agreeing that it's perfect. Personal opinion would not come down to it - this movie (the hypothetical perfect one) would cross all barriers of taste and criticism and simply be the best. It doesn't exist and it never will, which basically means if you show a good movie and a bad movie to a rock, they'll recieve the same reception - Total Silence.

This means that there is no good movie, and no bad movie. It's all in your head.

I can't deny I like some movies more than others (among my favoured movies are "You Can't Stop the Murders", "Napoleon Dynamite", "The Princess Bride" "Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars"), but at least I can accept that these preferences are my qualities/failings alone. They are not the fault of the filmmaker.
VADER: Let me look on you with my own eyes...

LUKE: Dad, where are your eyebrows?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WO_S6UgkQk0
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Originally posted by: Zebonka
What is this, Star Wars Fans Anonymous?
Let me contribute!

I'm also 19, loved TPM when it came out and came to realise over the years that it wasn't that great. But I've matured FURTHER, and accepted that the original movies weren't perfect either. Let's face it, movies inherently suck. You've just got to accept that basic fact and decide not to focus on the fact that The Red Sea parting looks hokey, or the fact that in front of Gandalf's 'heroic charge' is some blatant Adobe CLONE STAMPING, or the fact that Anakin's knife doesn't accurately chop up his CG Pear, or the fact that Bruce Willis' gun never runs out of ammo until the worst possible moment...


Jeeze! You don't have to defend the movies, and you don't have to defend your liking them, or even your right to like them. They're just a bunch of images and sound played concurrently, and believe it or not whether or not they suck or are great is ACTUALLY dependent on the person. A perfect movie (and I've been shown quite a few of those, and nearly always think they suck) would have everyone agreeing that it's perfect. Personal opinion would not come down to it - this movie (the hypothetical perfect one) would cross all barriers of taste and criticism and simply be the best. It doesn't exist and it never will, which basically means if you show a good movie and a bad movie to a rock, they'll recieve the same reception - Total Silence.

This means that there is no good movie, and no bad movie. It's all in your head.

I can't deny I like some movies more than others (among my favoured movies are "You Can't Stop the Murders", "Napoleon Dynamite", "The Princess Bride" "Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars"), but at least I can accept that these preferences are my qualities/failings alone. They are not the fault of the filmmaker.



someone who understands me yay
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Originally posted by: Anchorhead
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Originally posted by: Mavimao
Gary Kurtz gave a calm and fruitful balance to George's wild imagination and created history. Without Kurtz, the star wars movies became bloated with commercialization and weak plots.



Excellent point.


+1 million. the lack of anything but mccallum-esque yes men in Lucas' inner circle is to me what has doomed the prequel trilogy to mostly awfulness.

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