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Post #1475998

Author
Stardust1138
Parent topic
What do you think of The Prequel Trilogy? A general discussion.
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1475998/action/topic#1475998
Date created
14-Mar-2022, 11:00 PM

ken-obi said:

Firstly, if people enjoy the Prequel films then all power to them. It is pleasing that some people enjoyed these films. A younger generation of fans have now come through online: and the young kids who enjoyed them at the time are now grown up and want to talk about them and why they enjoyed them. Good for them.
 

But for those of us that didn’t enjoy them:

George seemed to forget the golden rule of making movies with the Prequels:

Show. Don’t tell.
 

Show: George should have done was delivered on what he promised - the story of a great man and his fall into darkness. Although The Phantom Menace is probably the best of the three films, but it served little purpose in the greater narrative. He could have centered the first two films on an intelligent, thoughtful but conflicted Jedi who was lured to the Dark Side. The third film would have then chronicled the crusade of a tortured, Vader who traveled the galaxy hunting down the remaining Jedi.

But instead George gave us something very different - the adventures of an annoying hot-shot child who got lucky in a repeat of a space battle seen twice before in previous Star Wars movies, who then started a toxic controlling relationship with the mother of Luke and Leia, and somehow inexplicably morphed into Vader. George also gave the audience countless contradictions to what had already been explained and established in the previous Original films.

When you consider what could have been, and probably should have been, it is difficult not to feel letdown. Disappointed. Frustrated. In need of a good Fan Edit or 50! 😃
 

Don’t Tell: Since the backlash on the Prequel films George, Lucasfilm and many Prequel fans has spent considerable time and effort to explain why the Prequel films were what they were, and that people who didn’t like them just didn’t understand them, or that in not liking the films they were being mean to him. Mental gymnastics is required to take George at his word, And that is a problem in itself - George had the opportunity to show us the films he later espoused about, but he didn’t. The quality, the heart, the thrill, the story, the talent, all in abundance in the Originals, just wasn’t there for the Prequels. The later explanations and attempts at reasoning why the Prequels weren’t widely liked mean little to the people who paid their ticket money on these much hyped and publicized films at the time, sat down to watch them, and left disappointed. Or people who just plain didn’t like them or thought they were “merely okay”. Or just don’t want to watch them again.
 

Licensed books, animated and live actions series trying to explain the contradictions and plot holes between the two trilogies really only serve to remind people how poor, lazy and incoherent the Prequel films were. Selective interviews from George with friendly journalists and pre-approved questions, more retcons, extensive PR campaigns, videos, blogs, articles - all trying to justify, explain, or give some reason why the Prequels were better than we think or remember, or that we just didn’t understand them - all fail in their purpose: to get more people to watch, like and appreciate these films.

Why would George and others who champion the Prequels think people who didn’t enjoy these films want to read articles and watch videos and so on, or have it explained to them they were somehow wrong not to like these films? Or that they didn’t understand them? It seems a waste of time and effort to me, and yes, we understood them perfectly fine, thank you. George would probably have more respect from fans if he was more honest, about his own shortcomings in approaching the Prequels and the films themselves. Answer the tough and hard questions, not avoid them. Sometimes films don’t work out - not every film is going to be a smash and that is okay. It is also okay to say you “got it wrong” or could have done it differently. Many of us would rather find other Star Wars content to enjoy, whether new games, books, comics series and films.

Enjoy what you like. Leave what you don’t enjoy behind.

I’d argue George did show and tell. Just not in the way some expected or wanted him to. It seems to be the biggest criticism I find in people who dislike the Prequels have. It’s about the films they think he should’ve made versus understanding and viewing the films he actually delivered as he intended them. It’s not a bad thing per say as art is subjective but sometimes I find people view things from the idea of what they want from a film or any art instead of taking what is given to them. It’s exactly why Marvel is so popular. They follow a formula and that’s fine I suppose for some as that’s what some want. For me it doesn’t as I like to be challenged and have my ideas of something expanded. I like having the director as the voice and not a committee. That’s exactly what George delivered with the Prequels and arguably the Originals. They both changed cinema in important ways in spite of the system that tried to deny them.

If it were easy we’d have more successful films and series like Star Wars but the reality is these films are very difficult to make. They’re also denied greenlighting or being released like old Soviet films more than likely. I’d hate to know how many great films are denied or censored.

It’s true though in a general sense. Many don’t understand the Prequels and even Original Trilogy for that matter. I’m not an expert on these things but I do try understanding why something is the way it is instead of assuming I know everything there is to know about Star Wars. I’m open to having my ideas of what it can be challenged but understanding context and the rules can’t be forgotten or you end up with films like J.J. gave us. I don’t need to be reminded of A New Hope when watching Star Wars. I can just watch it. I don’t need Palpatine to return with a promise of aggressive revenge as this is out of character with how he’s always been portrayed as calm and collective with patience throughout his previous appearances. I want to see the characters I love respected and to see them grow consistently instead of staying the people we knew them as. It’s exactly what George did. He just recontextualised or expanded upon certain ideas and continued the story differently from how some viewed things with the information given at the time. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact I find it a good thing as it’s a pretty boring thing if a story is only serving as wish fulfillment to give you what you want it to be.

You don’t need books or TV shows to understand George’s stories. Everything you need to know is within the films themselves except the rare exception of Sifo-Dyas but he planned to explain him in his Sequels. Everything else I find like Obi-Wan and Bail or Obi-Wan and Owen Lars could happen off screen. You don’t need to be shown every little detail for a story to work. It’s about creating a sense of scale and world building.

Why? The same reason people look into and use the Original Trilogy to create stories in their head of what something must have meant before seeing the full picture or using Darth Vader in psychology sessions with kids. Star Wars has from the very beginning been studied and examined by scholars. There’s a great documentary about this from History Channel. It’s just the Prequels tend to get more unfairly treated because the media tended to propel the backlash to continue as they attacked Ahmed Best, Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, and Rick McCallum. They attacked George too. Why would they want to listen to people who are going to accuse them of being racists, poor actors, yes men, or out of touch mainly deprived from not giving fans what they want? You get nothing from attacking people personally. Instead that’s exactly what happened and still does with a different group. George did listen to critics but he also recognised most were circlejerking around the ideas of things that just weren’t true about him or his colleagues. Most critics tend to view the films from the view of what they wish had happened in the films versus the actual stories and understanding them for what they are. An artist is equally not obligated to tell you their intentions. Andrei Tarkovsky or even Stanley Kubrick never explained themselves. George doesn’t need to either.

Ulimately everyone has a different point of view in all art forms. It’s a subjective medium and it can mean different things between groups of people. What matters I think though is you try understanding the author’s intentions and how successfully they achieved what they set out to do. The Prequels or any film with an author in particular may still not work but you should at least give things a chance from the filmmaker’s prospective instead of brushing them off and thinking only about what you thought could’ve been better or doesn’t align with the fraction of what you knew already in the case of the Original Trilogy. Why else can I kind of appreciate The Last Jedi for what it is? I try understanding Rian’s intentions with it instead of strictly my own viewpoint. It’s not my Star Wars but it still isn’t all bad on its own merits.