Originally posted by: Tiptup
Hmm, perhaps if each Star Wars film, regardless of overlapping characters or themes, had been created with the idea of being a standalone adventure, the series would have benefited greatly. Instead of being a big, illogically constructed saga, it would have been a series of individual tales in the same universe, along the lines of Frank Miller’s Sin City comic-novels (which are great). Though, I do like the rigid nature of a saga over individual stories since it means less quantity and more quality usually.
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Hmm, perhaps if each Star Wars film, regardless of overlapping characters or themes, had been created with the idea of being a standalone adventure, the series would have benefited greatly. Instead of being a big, illogically constructed saga, it would have been a series of individual tales in the same universe, along the lines of Frank Miller’s Sin City comic-novels (which are great). Though, I do like the rigid nature of a saga over individual stories since it means less quantity and more quality usually.
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That is the double edge sword now is that if you look at the saga 1-6, you have to compare the movies, they have to flow seamlessly, and that is why it is so jarring for many.
Lucas should have constructed the saga as all standalone movies with the bigger picture as the theme for each movie (good vs evil or rebublic vs empire, or rebels vs empire)
The biggest problem with TPM & AOTC is you are waiting for the true story, Anakins turn in ROTS, and it makes these movies inferior from a plot point point of view. The problem with the overall saga now is that he focused on the life of Anakin Skywalker, and 6 movies is just a bit too much for that, because it has too much filller time involved.
If Lucas constructed three movies about Padme, Anakin, and Obiwan as 3 different adventures with the main theme in mind that the republic is crumbling and the empire is taking power, he could have done so much more interesting things. TPM is littered with so much pointless stuff cause Anakin is ten years old, and can't really do anything yet. He can't be this powerful jedi, he can't fall in love, and he can't start talking to Palpatine yet, so it leaves the whole movie with the star just being 10 years old and being a cute kid. I could have read that in SW Insider, now get to the real story.
In a sense, the OT is 2 different stories, that are set upon the backdrop of rebels vs empire. SW '77 is a standalone movie, and ESB & ROTJ are a 2 part movie that have totally different themes, but still are about rebels vs empire. Where ROTJ fails is that it has to tie up too many things from ESB and that is where the whole focus of the movie gets lost. They have to rescue Han, Luke has to go back to Dagobah, and he has to confront Vader, all interesting stuff, but there were so many more adventures Lucas could have done with our three heroes, instead of just making it about the redemption of Darth Vader. To me, that whole plot point limited the saga to just one story, and made everything in Lucas's mind, minor and not as necessary to show, so he leaves the Clone Wars to the cartoons, the birth of the Rebellion to the deleted scenes, and the Force Ghost dialogue with QuiGon/Yoda to the ROTS Novel.
I would have loved to have 6-9 SW movies as just individual standalone movies with the basic macro story in mind, good vs evil, and that is what was so great about the Original SW. Now I am not naive to think they would all be as great as SW in 1977, cause it is tough to keep churning out classic movies, but I wouldn't compare them like I do now, cause they wouldn't be one continuous story, they would just be a bunch of different stories in the same universe with the same characters.