Originally posted by: theredbaron
I think the OT is infinitely better than the PT, because Lucas knew what Star Wars was all about when the OT was made. The OT was about fulfilling his duty as a storyteller, to reframe the myths and legends that mankind has been telling since the dawn of history as a heroic science fantasy. He was the finest student of Joseph Campbell in his hey-day, but I have to say he has lost his way from *at least* '97 onwards. Campbell would be disappointed in Lucas if he was around to see the PT, because the PT only shares surface references to iconic myths and legends. For instance 'Padme' means 'lotus' in ancient Chinese - there was a saying that 'the jewel is in the lotus' - meaning (to simplify it) that "the truth is in the world". In the OT, Lucas would have sought to illustrate the ideal of the proverb itself rather than simply naming a character after a word in the proverb, and then having her hold a massive glowing jewel at the end of TPM, not to illuminate any meaning whatsoever, but to carbon-copy 'manifest' a proverb in a bunch of on-screen actions...don't know if any of that made sense to you guys, but basically, Lucas couldn't see the forest from the trees. He was too busy drawing pretty little trees instead of looking at the whole forest of myth and legend and manifesting it in a new trilogy of sci-fi stories...
Oh, and I'm 21 and my opinion counts.
I think the OT is infinitely better than the PT, because Lucas knew what Star Wars was all about when the OT was made. The OT was about fulfilling his duty as a storyteller, to reframe the myths and legends that mankind has been telling since the dawn of history as a heroic science fantasy. He was the finest student of Joseph Campbell in his hey-day, but I have to say he has lost his way from *at least* '97 onwards. Campbell would be disappointed in Lucas if he was around to see the PT, because the PT only shares surface references to iconic myths and legends. For instance 'Padme' means 'lotus' in ancient Chinese - there was a saying that 'the jewel is in the lotus' - meaning (to simplify it) that "the truth is in the world". In the OT, Lucas would have sought to illustrate the ideal of the proverb itself rather than simply naming a character after a word in the proverb, and then having her hold a massive glowing jewel at the end of TPM, not to illuminate any meaning whatsoever, but to carbon-copy 'manifest' a proverb in a bunch of on-screen actions...don't know if any of that made sense to you guys, but basically, Lucas couldn't see the forest from the trees. He was too busy drawing pretty little trees instead of looking at the whole forest of myth and legend and manifesting it in a new trilogy of sci-fi stories...
Oh, and I'm 21 and my opinion counts.
But see, that's the point. Even in the early 80's, Lucas warned people that the PT would be quite different from what you would expect. The new trilogy would not resemble the other.
So... comparing the two based on the OT just doesn't work. The two trilogy are not meant to be compared, with one being judged against another. They're simply two parts of an overall story that he chose to create in two totally different ways. The OT was designed to be based on mythology.
The PT basically tells you where all those mythic guys came from.
