Those visuals are awful though. I hate the way Vader’s eyes are like crazy holograms.
I don’t see what’s so awful about those visuals. I can point to many prequel shots, that look bad, or less than convincing. I can point to a number of OT shots that look bad, but awful is reserved for a special kind of bad. This is awful:
In fairness, I think that effect actually resides in a world beyond merely “awful.” That being said, while a lot of the PT CG doesn’t hold up, easily the worst of the saga comes from the special editions (the sarlacc and 97 Jabba are particularly rough).
Hahaha, I guess you’re right. It is in it’s own class. It’s so bad, it’s almost good, or at least entertaining in it’s own horrendous way. That’s one of the things I miss in these CGI ridden days. There was always a sense of wonder in the old days for how they managed to pull off certain effects. Even if it didn’t look quite convincing, there usually was something to admire about it. I never got that same sense with of wonder with CGI. The only exceptions I can think of are dinos in Jurassic Park, and Gollum in LOTR.
Well yeah I guess the issue is, even if a shot is hard to pull off in CG, most don’t really know it because we all assume you can just do everything in a computer. So the shots or effects that really impress are the ones that are narratively compelling or emotionally resonant. Gollum is a great effect because he’s a fully fledged character (similarly, Serkis and others work on the recent Planet of the Apes films help make those effects amazing). Jar Jar was essentially the same effect, three years earlier, but no one cites it because the character didn’t connect in the same way.
The broad ideas of what Palpatine was doing are fine but the execution doesn’t really work when we’re supposed to believe that an entire army of clones was hidden, then used by the Jedi, then they killed the Jedi, all without anyone getting anything more than a “sense” something is wrong. Instead of some kind of actual hunt being shown. The Clone War should have been EPI, the purge should have been EpII and then the dark times EpIII. The whole trilogy should really have been re-structured to resemble a historical epic. The set pieces are there (chariot races and gladiator arenas) but the “Fall of the Roman Empire” style plot is complete shambles. And the wheel of time is again an interesting idea with a series about fated bloodlines and destiny etc but the way it mirrors the OT is far too sloppy. I don’t hate the PT… it’s just so boring and bad that it’s not watchable.
I think you’re absolutely right that the structure was way off. In this way I think Lucas would’ve been better served by trying to more closely align the trilogy with the OT. As is, the PT feels pretty disjointed due to the ten year gap. The first film is supposed to be the set up film but we end up with AOTC doing most of the actual set up (and the important set up from TPM, the characters, not really following through because of the ten year disconnect).
As for plot inconsistencies… I mean why are Luke and Leia in the films? Why is Vader’s resurrection? In fact why are characters like Yoda and Palpatine here? It should have been made to preserve all the twists and character reveals for new audiences but the toy line came first I guess. The OT had some much world building by referencing events and characters off screen, but here it’s all reduced down so that everything happens on Coruscant and Tatooine.
I disagree that the twists necessarily needed to be preserved (I mean basically the whole point of the trilogy was to give backstory to the twists), but I do agree that it seems to be a little too married to making sure that every single little piece is in order to tie into the OT. There’s definitely a distinct de-mystification going on in a lot of ways (obviously there’s stuff like midichlorians, but also things like Palpatine’s transformation).
I personally liked the idea of ol’ Palps being corrupted by the dark side more. I think that initially was what Lucas was going for in AOTC.
Yeah, I would have loved it if we could’ve just assumed he became super wrinkly over a couple decades due to extreme dark side usage.
In ROTS Palpatine looks younger than in the previous installment. Additionally Palpatine allways looks off to me in ROTS, once he goes all out bad, and essentially became a cartoon villain. I thought he was brilliant up until the scene in which he revealed himself to Anakin.
Totally agree. I always want to say that McDiarmid gives the best performance of the PT, but then I remember the hammy moments once Sidious is ‘revealed.’ Not to mention that terrible make-up. Shame.