The Merits of the Prequel Trilogy and the "Saga" — Page 12

Author: Tiptup
Time: 26-Sep-2006 7:13 PM
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I don't see a huge problem with telekinesis at all. I'm almost certain that Darth Vader used telekinesis to put the strangle on that whiny jerk in the original Star Wars. The only problem, and I do remember this as being odd in Empire, is the number of objects and the ease with which Vader threw them around. That seemed a bit extreme to suddenly have taking place and made me think twice as a kid. But, there was nothing in the earlier scenes or the previous movie that really contradicted this, and you could argue that there were no battles or situations where the power would have come up.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

To me ANH doesn't stand up to such strict applications of logic either, so it's all just more of what makes Star Wars what Star Wars is to me.

The original Star Wars (ANH) has a wonderfully solid story that works every time. If it didn’t, I still wouldn’t enjoy it as an adult as I did as a child. Sure, you’re right, it has many problems, and I even made a whole, very-long list of them a short while ago, but those problems are always small issues (like how did the exhaust port vulnerability come about?). There aren’t any major plot points that fall apart like with what we see in Revenge of the Sith. The basic concepts of the first film function at a sufficient level.

Beyond logical criticisms though, there is also emotional motivation. In other words, are the characters likable and do they feel about things in an authentic way? The original Star Wars has this in spades. Empire and Jedi are also very good with this. For me, AotC is the worst film of the PT in this sense. The dialogue, acting, and supposed motivations leave me with nothing to enjoy or become fond of. Revenge of the Sith, while it has the most genuine emotions and involvement with the characters, falls apart the minute Anakin goes psycho. That’s why the Phantom Menace is the highest on my enjoyment factor from the PT. It’s not a great film, but I can follow it and enjoy its lighthearted moments.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

I appreciate fantastic things like these because they ignite my imagination to come up with other possiblities that could make sense of them.

I understand that. I have the same tendencies and I usually get that same enjoyment too.

The secondary reason I made this thread was to have you actually post the things you generally enjoy about the prequel movies and the “saga” and not just defend problems with the films. If you focus on the films in a way that is different from me, and enjoy them on that level, then I would want to understand that point of view. At the same time I would have hoped you could try to understand my point of view.

Oh, and I apologize, Go-Mer, if I seemed too critical in my latest posts. The ethics, morals, and religious ideas to Star Wars are what I value thinking about the most. The prequel trilogy, for me, is just insulting in this area (considering Anakin’s story). It’s as if George Lucas wasn’t even trying, unfortunately. That combined with how it seemed as if you were only nitpicking my values (and not trying to understand them) left me in an overly aggressive mood, I think.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself. It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

Author: Tiptup
Time: 26-Sep-2006 7:18 PM
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Originally posted by: Obi Jeewhyen

I loved the Force at that point ... when it was implied to be a mystical power of energy influence.

As soon as it became a physical power of telekenetic abilities, the Force became hokey to me, and entirely unappealing.

Energy is physical though.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself. It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

Author: Go-Mer-Tonic
Time: 26-Sep-2006 8:16 PM
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I do think I see where most of the rest of you are coming from, and I didn't mean to make you feel as if I couldn't understand some of the things you hold close to your heart.

It's just that to me some things like assuming Luke would be as strong and as powerful as fully trained Jedi in their prime seems so illogical, it makes me really wonder why other things that seem fairly easy to roll along with seem to make no logical sense to you.

I mean you went ahead and assume there must be -some- reason that a lightsaber stops at the end without something there to rflect or absorb it. Even going so far as to suspect it had something to do with the "Force".

Yet whenever someone starts talking about how something doesn't make sense in the prequels, and someone like myself says, "well that's the Force", people act like it's suddenly a huge cop out.

I really treasure the diversity of opinions on this planet, and part of the reason I came here in particular is because I really do enjoy opinions that are entirey opposite of my own.

As much as I respect all of your opinions, I still get this huge feeling like a lot of you don't like the prequels simply because they -aren't- the OT. Sometimes it seems as though a lot of you had no problem effortlessly suspending your disbelief for the classic trilogy, but now it seems like you guys are expecting the prequel trilogy to be more perfect than the classic trilogy had to be.

I know it ends up coming down to the fact that many of you feel there are far fewer of these "logical hurdles" to leap over in the classic trilogy, but at the same time I can't help but feel like you guys didn't want to jump over -any- logic hurdles for the prequels.

Tiptup, you say that the prequels "failed" to ignite that part of your imagination that really enjoys figuring these kinds of things out. Yet here I am telling you I for one found it to be every bit as engaging for my imagination as the classic trilogy was.

Is it really just that I have such a low expectation for quality that I would enjoy watching paint dry? Of course not. Is it rather that you have such an unmeetable expectation for quality that nothing would have done it for you? Of course not.

But I think it's unfortunate that so many feel as you do, and it breaks my heart to know that no matter how much I try to explain my enjoyment to many of you, it won't help at all.

I think you guys have been really great as far as allowing me to talk about this stuff with you guys. You have all been very polite about it and have gone to great lengths to explain why you all feel the way you feel.

Even if I can't change anyone's mind here, I at least feel I understand your position better than I did before.

Even if I have a real hard time relating to it personally.

Your focus determines your reality.

Author: Mike O
Time: 26-Sep-2006 8:18 PM
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
To me ANH doesn't stand up to such strict applications of logic either, so it's all just more of what makes Star Wars what Star Wars is to me.

I appreciate fantastic things like these because they ignite my imagination to come up with other possiblities that could make sense of them.

There's an old movie buff joke about that. Historical accuracy? Which was better Tombstone or Wyatt Earp? One day, when I see, them, maybe I will get the joke.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

Author: CO
Time: 26-Sep-2006 8:56 PM
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[Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

As much as I respect all of your opinions, I still get this huge feeling like a lot of you don't like the prequels simply because they -aren't- the OT. Sometimes it seems as though a lot of you had no problem effortlessly suspending your disbelief for the classic trilogy, but now it seems like you guys are expecting the prequel trilogy to be more perfect than the classic trilogy had to be.
.

GoMer, I think you are genuine in your love for the PT, and I think there will always be a diehard PT fanbase, or saga fanbase out there, but I think many from your side just don't understand that the reason many of us don't love the PT movies is because they are not great movies, plain & simple. I think the debates about all the details we discuss, and there are countless of them from the PT, are just a sideshow or a mask for the real reason we don't love them.

Most friends I know who are SW fans think ANH & ESB are the two best, and it is split among us on which is our favorite. Fans like me who just love the good vs evil feelgood story probably love ANH, and fans that like the gritty, darker tone probably have ESB as their favorite. But make no mistake about it, in just movie terms, they are both classics IMO, and that has nothing to do with being a SW fan.

Those same friends all think ROTJ is inferior, some more then others, and ROTJ is the first movie in movie history that gets a pass because of it predecessors. In a movie sense ROTJ is an average movie that recycles many points from ANH, but in a SW sense, I still love it, why? Because it gives me a conclusion to my two favorite films of all-time, and it is a good enough sequel where it has passed the test of time 23 years later, when if I compared many films to the quality of ROTJ that I saw in 1983 and didn't have SW plastered on it, I wouldn't watch it ever again.

The PT movies are extension of ROTJ for many, but now we don't need the PT story to fulfill the OT story, and that is why many fans will watch an OK/average/pretty good ROTJ and will bury the PT movies. I feel ROTJ & The PT movies are on par: Great moments, and bad moments, and it is OK to have one movie that is alright in my trilogy of the OT, but now after watching 6 movies in the saga, you are asking me to watch 4 average movies?

Everyone here wanted to love the PT, and everyone I feel has given it a chance, and it just comes to down to them not liking it, but cause it is SW, you search for something that may change your mind. I do believe there were a faction of OT fans who would never love the PT, mainly cause of the characters. I do believe there were a faction of OT fans who would never love the PT, mainly cause of the story. But that happens whenever you make any sequel or prequel, cause no SW movie has ever grossed as much as ANH, so Lucas has been losing fans since 1980.

Author: Obi Jeewhyen
Time: 26-Sep-2006 9:48 PM
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Originally posted by: CO
but I think many from your side just don't understand that the reason many of us don't love the PT movies is because they are not great movies, plain & simple. I think the debates about all the details we discuss, and there are countless of them from the PT, are just a sideshow or a mask for the real reason we don't love them.

Precisely. The details don't matter. To me, and many others, the P.T. films are simply NOT GOOD MOVIES. That's all there is to it. It's not one detail or another, it's that they simply suck (not to put too fine a point on it).

It's been nice reading what fans of the P.T. appreciate about it. I'm glad those folks can get those positive things out of the movies, and I even understand that a great many of those things are supposed to be "gotten." But I don't get them, and I know I'm hardly alone in my assessment of the prequels. Still, it's all a matter of personal opinion. And mine is that those films are terrible movies.

.

Author: Mike O
Time: 26-Sep-2006 9:49 PM
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Originally posted by: CO

Star Wars stood alone. I was what it was. I think that the sequels and the endless marketing have altered peoples' perception of it, but I think that mere fact that people are still interested 30 years later means that the magic is alive.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

Author: vote_for_palpatine
Time: 26-Sep-2006 11:22 PM
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You know, I don't intend to tear down specific groups of fans (or individual fans) when I discuss the shortcomings of the PT. I think there's an interesting dynamic ocurring here: PT fans are defending Star Wars from fans of Star Wars.

Just as Go-Mer quotes Qui-Gon with, "Your focus determines your reality", what we bring to this discussion cannot be overlooked or minimized. We all have our biases, and anyone who tries to sell me "Well, I'm objective, and..." is pretty unlikely to convince me. We're all just better off admitting where we are coming from.

For me, the OT set the bar high for future Star Wars movies. And the PT, while enjoyable at times, did not meet the established standard. Criticism of the story of the PT, while it can be valid criticism, doesn't get to the heart of the matter. The story we got in Ep. I-III, if executed more effectively, would have been satisfactory. Lucas' method of execution relied heavily upon visual effects and he wedged OT references into the PT in such a clumsy, inorganic way - I'm reminded of Boba Fett's "Hey, look at me, I'm Boba Fett" cameo in ANH:SE.

It bothers me that in order for certain PT plot points to work, I have to A) watch the Clone Wars cartoon B) reference a Lucas quote about the given scene C) read a Visual Companion or D) craft some kind of elaborate theory about why ________ happened. Here's a for instance:

Someone named "Darth Toe Jam" on another SW forum (thefarce.net) trumpets in his signature that he thought of the Anakin/Vader "Duel Persona" theory before Lucas confirmed it. The Dual Persona theory, for the unitiated, states that Anakin died when he became Darth Vader and that's why Mannequin Skywalker appears at the end of ROTJ. I have two questions:

1) Why wasn't this made evident in the movies? Why do we need to hear from George Lucas after the fact?
2) Who the Blue Hell threw the Emperor down the freaking Death Star II shaft?!? Lucas made it clear that Anakin was dead at that point!

This is the kind of thing that can drive me up a goddamn wall in the PT. Some stuff gets explained into the ground while other stuff is presented so badly that the question remains unanswered on film.

Again, I don't deny a bias in this matter, but I think by and large the majority of my criticisms of the PT are rooted in storytelling flaws.

Want to book yourself or a guest on THE VFP Show? PM me!

Author: CO
Time: 26-Sep-2006 11:54 PM
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Originally posted by: vote_for_palpatine

It bothers me that in order for certain PT plot points to work, I have to A) watch the Clone Wars cartoon B) reference a Lucas quote about the given scene C) read a Visual Companion or D) craft some kind of elaborate theory about why ________ happened. Here's a for instance:

Someone named "Darth Toe Jam" on another SW forum (thefarce.net) trumpets in his signature that he thought of the Anakin/Vader "Duel Persona" theory before Lucas confirmed it. The Dual Persona theory, for the unitiated, states that Anakin died when he became Darth Vader and that's why Mannequin Skywalker appears at the end of ROTJ. I have two questions:

1) Why wasn't this made evident in the movies? Why do we need to hear from George Lucas after the fact?
2) Who the Blue Hell threw the Emperor down the freaking Death Star II shaft?!? Lucas made it clear that Anakin was dead at that point!

This is the kind of thing that can drive me up a goddamn wall in the PT. Some stuff gets explained into the ground while other stuff is presented so badly that the question remains unanswered on film.

Again, I don't deny a bias in this matter, but I think by and large the majority of my criticisms of the PT are rooted in storytelling flaws.

This is such a key point, and I think the major reason why the films are not great is cause Lucas was trying to make OT style serial type movies with a supposed serious/mature PT story, and the two don't mesh.

The success of the OT was that Lucas used the serial style of the 30's, where he combined the movies to be fun, adventurous, mythological, funny, and serious all at once. I love that the OT movies had humor in it, but not too much where it was forced. I loved that the OT had groundbreaking special effects, but they weren't the reason the movies were great, they were just icing on the cake. I loved that the OT movies had mythological qualities with ObiWan & Yoda and the Jedi, but not too much where it dominated the story. I also love that the OT movies are just plain fun to watch just like any summer blockbuster, but in the same vein they seemed more mature, more adult, seemed to have that depth that summer blockbusters usually lack.

For the PT, Lucas was telling a different story, a character study that turns tragic, and ends on a downer, but the problem is he still tried to use the B-movie serial style of the OT movies, and that is why so many parts of the movies come off as cringeworthy or utterly laughable and those moments just weren't evident in the OT movies.

The humor in the PT is all forced, and just awful compared to the OT movies. And it aint just about not having a Han Solo in the trilogy, it is about forcing the humor in the movie rather then writing it on paper and letting it happen naturally. Jar Jar was put in TPM for humor, plain & simple, and that is why he sticks out in every scene. C3PO was put on Geonosis for humor during the Clone Wars, and that is why he sticks out during those scenes. R2D2 was put in the beginning of ROTS for humor, and again it just seems so forced and gets alittle too much when the droid kicks R2 and he fall down. Now think of the OT movies, and the characters bickering in the deathstar as they try to escape, it is funny cause the characters are just reading their lines and playing their parts, and the chemistry between the actors just clicked, and that is why the humor is not forced, but it is damn funny.

Lucas should have made the PT more serious not just in story as though I feel he did, but target the movies away from children, cause it is so laughable to have a character study trilogy of a man who becomes evil, but target the movies towards children with characters like Jar Jar, it just doesn't mix. The reason the AOTC scenes with Padme/Anakin are so awful and cheesy is because Lucas intended to do that thinking this is Romeo & Juliet, but forgetting that in B-movie serials in the 30's, none of them had a deep romance of two people falling in love for 2 hours, and that is why Han/Leia romance worked in ESB, it was short scenes of just enough to make its point, but not dominate the movie. If Lucas had Han/Leia in more scenes proffessing their love ALL through ESB, it would have been cringeworthy in 1980.

I always say that Lucas wanted it both ways with the PT, and that is why so many have not loved it, or chose to acknowledge as their saga. He wanted to tell a different story, with different characters, in a totally different time period, but still use the exact things that made the OT great, and that is why it came off so cheesy and cringworthy at times, and really just takes you out of the movie.

Just think of all the macro things in the PT, and how good or great some of the scenes were: The duel in TPM, The whole Kamino section with the Clones, the Jedi Council, and the Senate on Coruscant. Sure they are not great all great moments, but they work well in the SW style and I don't gag when watching those scenes, they feel like SW to me. Then think of all the character study things that Lucas attempted with Padme/Anakin, or little Anakin, and how bad they come off in the trilogy. Just think of 10 year old Jake Lloyd saying 'Yipee,' and the whole Anakin/Padme romance in AOTC, the turn in ROTS, and Padme losing the will to live. All that stuff had to be able to show the motivations of the characters to fully understand where they are coming at, and the way SW movies are made, it is just very hard to convey that on screen, and that is why they come off as just plain bad to so many fans.

Author: zombie84
Time: 27-Sep-2006 12:05 AM
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The situation is not that hard to understand, and CO has been consistently presenting a logical and--yes, i know it sound cliched--fairly objective observance of the situation.

Making great films is rare. Even good ones. 9 out of 10 films are lousy to okay, and the 1 odd films out is good. About 10% of that 1 out of 10 is great.

Star Wars was the most popular and highest grossing film ever made, and one that has such power that it has shaped the very fabric of the culture that embraced it; amazingly, it is also unanimously hailed by critics as a masterpiece, something that is all the more rarer. Lucas captured lightning in a bottle with ESB, a film many fans and critics feel is in many ways superior to even the first film. The only other film series to do this really is Godfather, and maybe Lord of the Rings. Because of this incredible--and indeed, seemingly impossible and unprecedented--track record and the fact that these two films were now part of a larger narrative, the bar was raised for the subsequent films and those same films were faced with the even greater challenge of linking up and completing the narrative which was began in 1977.
Very unsurprisingly, the final installment of that initial trilogy did not meet the standards of the first two. Normally this would be though of as "duh, what else did you expect," but the fact that ESB met--and perhaps surpassed in some peoples opinions--the original made us believe that the rest could keep up this standard. If ESB had been "average" the way ROTJ we would have gone "meh," enjoyed the original for the masterpiece it was, and painfully acknowledged that a bunch of sequels were unsurprisingly made for it that werent very impressive but had their moments. Like Jaws. Like the Exorcist. Like Rocky. Like Superman. Like The Matrix.
But people enjoy ROTJ because it survived on the coattails of ANH and ESB. It was just average as a whole, good in parts and great in moments. But it was part 2 of 2, the resolution of ESB, and in many other ways part 3 of 3, the resolution to the trilogy of which the other parts were two of the best films ever made. So it gets by, even though it is criticised.

The PT is similar to ROTJ, only a bit less dramaticly compelling in its constructed and execution. The OOT doesn't need it, the OOT survives on its own, thus the immunity granted to large parts of ROTJ isn't given. Thus the PT is what ROTJ without any OOT connection, only even more poorly executed--movies that range from lousy to average as whole, with a bunch of really good parts and moments. But every FX extravaganza has its moments. Bad Boys 2 is a piece of shit but i enjoy watching some of the car chases for instance, and the Matrix sequels follow on an almost identical manner.

Really, is it any surprise that in a series of 6 films, two are great, one is okay and three are below average? I think it is incredible that not just one is great but that two are. I'm sorry but its just so impossible to consistently make films as good as the first two--we got spoiled by ESB because if it wasn't for that then we wouldnt get so attached to "the saga." What makes the PT particularly tragic for its maker, who truely tried his best, is that while ROTJ is accepted into the great pantheon of ANH and ESB to form the original trilogy, the OT doesn't depend on the PT at all, and thus the films are exposed for what they truely are and tossed aside (after spending millions of dollars at the box office and home video of course). But people go to great pains to like the PT and include them simply because the OT is so great, because that first film was so powerful and the story presented in the one great sequel and one okay sequel so fascinating that we can delude ourselves to accepting a quality that we would ordinarily dismiss simply because we love the world and characters introduced way back in 1977. Thats really all there is to it.

Also, some people just have shitty taste. I mean Bad Boys 2 and Lucky Number Slevin do more business than any film by Wong Kar Wai and PT Anderson. Most people are just fucking dumb when it comes to entertainment, and the amount of people who would claim such average films as the PT as "great" is consistent with the idiocy proved in numbers at the box office.

Author: Wesyeed
Time: 27-Sep-2006 12:16 AM
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Good grief I wouldn't waste a second on Gomer normally. his shtick is to boast about lucas' genius on every star wars forum a "billion times" as some idiot put it when they were trying to make me seem like I'm still posting at TFN which I stopped not only because I was banned (that can't stop me) but because it's just a waste of life arguing how much better the PT could have been.

CO I'm glad you have your head on straight. Basically people who love the OT just don't feel the need to lower their standards to Lucas' level to buy his new toy commercials. That's all it is for me.

It really would have been a better trilogy if Lucas stepped back and cared enough to do better with the actors than the fx, and I wanted it to be and people like gomer of course always make it seem like there are those who never wanted the PT to even exist. Couldn't be more wrong. I just didn't want it to be crap.

All GL had to do was let someone else handle the writing and directing for at least the second and third films. I'll give him Phantom since that story is the least necessary of the PT and could have been dropped so we'd really get into the juicy part of the story in episode 2 and 3. 2's basically like phantom but with less jar jar thankfully, but of course it has those awful soap opera scenes.

Once again all GL had to do was admit he sucks at romances and just hand over the camera to someone else just for those scenes and it might have been better. And don't be so gullible to your kids and give Sam motherfucking Jackson and prominent role because he's sam motherfucking jackson. It's too damn distracting.

Anyway I don't understand how someone who seriously enjoyed the OT's quality could look at the PT and not feel dissapointed by the seriously stupid crap that was allowed to be highlighted (GL looks at story boards and highlights what he wants in the movie vs what he doesn't. He highlighted jar jar all the time...) for those films. It's even worse because it'd be so simple to fix up the bad ideas to make the movies better, and make us care about these boring group of people besides Ewan and Ian who are the best things in all three (a shame ewan wasn't given much to do in the first one).

No one, not you gomer, not lucas himself will convince me Yoda riding Chewie was a good idea. The OT was above this crap (well until the SE)

So JEJ said it best after seeing how far star wars had fallen by the time the PT was over. You know the quote.

He big in nothing important in good elephant.

"Miss you, I will, Original Trilogy..."

"Your midichlorians are weak, Old man." -Darth Vader 2007 super deluxe extra special dipped in chocolate sauce edition.

http://prequelsstink.ytmnd.com/

Author: CO
Time: 27-Sep-2006 12:33 AM
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Very unsurprisingly, the final installment of that initial trilogy did not meet the standards of the first two. Normally this would be though of as "duh, what else did you expect," but the fact that ESB met--and perhaps surpassed in some peoples opinions--the original made us believe that the rest could keep up this standard. If ESB had been "average" the way ROTJ we would have gone "meh," enjoyed the original for the masterpiece it was, and painfully acknowledged that a bunch of sequels were unsurprisingly made for it that werent very impressive but had their moments. Like Jaws. Like the Exorcist. Like Rocky. Like Superman. Like The Matrix.
But people enjoy ROTJ because it survived on the coattails of ANH and ESB. It was just average as a whole, good in parts and great in moments. But it was part 2 of 2, the resolution of ESB, and in many other ways part 3 of 3, the resolution to the trilogy of which the other parts were two of the best films ever made. So it gets by, even though it is criticised.

I always say that ANH made me a SW fan, but ESB made me an OT fan. I love The Original SW the most, because as a standalone movie, it is pure movie magic. But ESB is the reason I am an OT fan, and in a sense, a ROTJ fan. As Zombie said, when it comes to other movie trilogies, I only love the originals, and the sequels range from very good to alright, but I usually only revisit the Originals like Superman, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Terminator on DVD in 2006. LOTR to me is an extreme case cause all 3 movies were made at once and taken from literary classics, so those movies to me feel like on big movie, rather than what Lucas tries to say about the saga 1-6.

We were spoiled with ESB, and to this day when I watch it, I can't believe they were able to do it again, and is some way make it better than SW, it is utterly amazing. To make one film with a load of goosebump moments, but then make a sequel with just as many? If ESB were average, or a good sequel, then I wouldn't watch ROTJ at all, cause I wouldn't need that closure, cause I would only be a SW '77 fan just like I am a Back to the Future '85 fan.

What I see in the future with many new fans who see the saga 1-6 as their first experience, they won't have that one film to fall in love with that we did. Whether it was SW '77 or ESB, one of those films grabbed us and made us SW fans for life, and that is cause they are true classics, and average films just don't do that. Average films are watchable and enjoyable in some instances, but they do not make diehard fans. And I feel that future new SW fans will see it as one saga instead of us, but they won't love it as much cause the quality of all 6 is average when looking at it as a whole, compared to the quality of just 3 with the OT when 2 are classics.

Author: Darth_Evil
Time: 27-Sep-2006 1:01 AM
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Don't lose hope CO. I think it will be a long time before people see the films as a "saga." Lots of parents will show thier kids the original trilogy, simply because its what they know the best, and lots of new parents never even saw the Prequel Trilogy. The general population finds the PT to simply be bad movies. It's not just us OT fans that hate it.

Parents will continue to show thier kids the OT, and those kids will show thier kids the OT, and the PT will stay where it is right now---a nice little addition, but something you can rent and watch when you get the time. Not the OT. Never the OT. Parents won't try doing i in order. They'll go to Blockbuster (or Netflix nowadays) and look for a good family movie. They get to the S section. There's all six films. Which is the film they go for first? ANH. They go for ANH. Because when the words "Star Wars" appear in people's heads, they do not think the words "Anakin," or "1, 2, 3" or saga. They think "trilogy", "Luke," and "Vader." And then grab the ORIGINAL film.

I don't think that the "saga" will ever be realized. In this day and age, people are more impressed with flashy graphics than storytelling, I know. Especially the young people. But hell, I'm young, and I only like special effects when they enhance and add something to the film. Not when they ARE the film. And if at least one person exists in this generation, then all hope is not lost. And for reasons stated above, older generations will not let the flame die out. Their children of this generation will see the films, and though the PT might be something they find more interesting now, when they're young, but by the time they're 14, they'll realize the PT for what they really are, and only watch the OT.

The saga will never realized.

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Author: zombie84
Time: 27-Sep-2006 1:42 AM
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Thats actually very true. Works of art survive by the general consensus of the population. Its like the idea of a meme. If a work is not loved, then it withers away and is forgotten, for it has nothing of value to bring to society. If a work is loved then it is cherished and remembered, for it has something of value to bring to society. Society loved the OT with as much love as the public could have for a film series but its reaction to the PT was one of indifference, at best. The PT will sort of fade away, simply because society wont let it be recognized in the same category as Star Wars or the OOT. Why do you think Lucas is so worried to release the OOT? The decision to only have the OT-SE because "thats the one that is good and thats the one he wants the public to remember" smacks of insecurity at its most blatant. If it is as good as Lucas thinks then society will embrace it regardless of his actions or statements. And Lucas knows that society will reject the SE and uphold the OOT, which is why he has been so active to work against this. But he cant stop it. He can't change society, for all his power and control in every other facet of his life. Public opinion is the one thing that we control.

Author: Mike O
Time: 27-Sep-2006 1:49 AM
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Thats actually very true. Works of art survive by the general consensus of the population. Its like the idea of a meme. If a work is not loved, then it withers away and is forgotten, for it has nothing of value to bring to society. If a work is loved then it is cherished and remembered, for it has something of value to bring to society. Society loved the OT with as much love as the public could have for a film series but its reaction to the PT was one of indifference, at best. The PT will sort of fade away, simply because society wont let it be recognized in the same category as Star Wars or the OOT. Why do you think Lucas is so worried to release the OOT? The decision to only have the OT-SE because "thats the one that is good and thats the one he wants the public to remember" smacks of insecurity at its most blatant. If it is as good as Lucas thinks then society will embrace it regardless of his actions or statements. And Lucas knows that society will reject the SE and uphold the OOT, which is why he has been so active to work against this. But he cant stop it. He can't change society, for all his power and control in every other facet of his life. Public opinion is the one thing that we control.

I hope so. I is true that many people still prefer the OOT. I just hope it can remain so with Lucas's attemtps to destroy it.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

Author: vote_for_palpatine
Time: 27-Sep-2006 2:07 AM
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Just to expand upon this, what moments in the PT have been noted as timeless so far? I know, to quote Bill James, that "...it's impossible to anticipate history", but are there any moments in the PT which compare to any of the following?

- "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."

- Luke staring into the sunset as the Force theme plays, frustrated by "going nowhere"

- "I must face him alone.", later followed by, "I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan."

- Obi-Wan grinning slyly as he bows to accept his end at the blade of Vader

- The entire rest of the film starting with Red Leader's demise

- The Falcon pursued through asteroids

- Luke's failure at the cave

- Lando's betrayal and Han's freezing: "I know."

- "No...I...am your father"

- Yoda's death and the Emperor's arrival on the Death Star

- "It's a trap!!"

- The Emperor's constant taunting of Luke, especially, "You, like your father, are now...mine."

- Father and son cross sabers before the Emperor

- Vader's last psychological ploy, threatening Leia, goading Luke into action

- Luke vanquishes Vader before rejecting the Emperor: "Never. I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed, your highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

- Justifying Luke's faith, Anakin returns to the light and slays his former master

- "Tell your sister...you were right."

- Luke witnesses his father redeemed in the light with Obi-Wan and Yoda

Honestly, there is one PT moment that has the same amount of gravitas for me:

"Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic! To DEMOCRACY!!"

I wish they hadn't used "You were the chosen one!" in the trailers, or that might have been another moment I would have liked. But showing it in trailers let all the air out of that balloon.

Want to book yourself or a guest on THE VFP Show? PM me!

Author: Guy Caballero
Time: 27-Sep-2006 4:48 AM
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I just don't see Anakin as the hero of I-III, (let alone all SIX movies). I see Qui-gon or Obi-Wan filling that role. Anakin is more like a plot device, a dangerous one. I enjoy the movies (well, I and III mainly) in that way, it's just all these friggin interviews after the fact that tell me I'm watching it "the wrong way" that start pissing me off. "Anakin is the hero! Anakin is the victim!" Huh? Anakin's a cunt!

Author: auraloffalwaffle
Time: 27-Sep-2006 9:28 AM
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For me, the PT is not the story that comes before the OOT and that is why it annoys me so much. The characters are different (Obi-Wan, Yoda, Vader, Palpatine), the story doesn't quite mesh with the OOT (Padme dying too soon, backgrounds of the droids) and the PT just doesn't share the look and feel of the OOT. It doesn't convince me as the first three parts of the same story.

This is why Luca$h has felt the need to do more on the SEs than just digital remastering and upgrading a few effects shots.

BTW, Mike O, I believe that Kasdan's Wyatt Earp is more faithful to the facts of Earp's life. It certainly depicts more of Earp's life, both before and after his career as a Marshall, than Cosmatos' Tombstone. I would suppose that, whoever started that joke, feels that Tombstone is the more involving film of the two because it goes for action and high drama rather than slavish depiction of history. I don't agree with that analysis of Wyatt Earp. I think it is as good a western as Tombstone but without that film's more gratuitously violent edge. I also think Kostner and Quaid are a far better Earp and Holliday than Russell and Kilmer. Although I think few measure up to Lancaster and Douglas in that regard.

Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!

Author: Obi Jeewhyen
Time: 27-Sep-2006 3:05 PM
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Originally posted by: auraloffalwaffle
For me, the PT is not the story that comes before the OOT and that is why it annoys me so much. The characters are different, the story doesn't quite mesh with the OOT, and the PT just doesn't share the look and feel of the OOT. It doesn't convince me as the first three parts of the same story.

Well, then I hope you (and perhaps others here) won't think ill of me for applying the same emotional response to the O.T. Empire and Jedi are not the story that comes after Star Wars - because that film presents a universe where Luke's father, Anakin, was betrayed and murdered (not in an imaginary sense) by someone entirely different, i.e., Darth Vader ... and Princess Leia is a legitimate love interest for the hero, and not the hero's sister.

The follow-up movie is so completely different in story, and in tone, and in throwing in both retarded childishness and boring maturity (faults thrown at the P.T., but sooooo applicable to The Empire Strikes Back) ... and frankly is different in everything I found enjoyable in Star Wars such that I don't consider it a "continuance" at all ... but rather an offshoot that has almost no continuity with the source.

The same can be said of the prequels. They are an offshoot that doesn't match with the story they claim to be part of. Completely disregarding so-called Star Wars movies as authentically Star Wars comes easier to me, because I've been doing it since 1980.

But I can still enjoy Empire and Jedi to an extent. And I can't even sit through any of the prequels. Heck, I tried to watch my favorite of them just the other night, and I couldn't stand more than half-an-hour of it. Gak!

Anyway, Back to the Future is a series where I happen to like each of the films - and, sacrilige though it might be on this forum, Star Wars is my stand-alone 1977 movie with some mediocre sequels and some craptacular prequels. Hey, but it also inspired some great toys and some cool Burger King glassware!

.

Author: CO
Time: 27-Sep-2006 3:26 PM
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Originally posted by

bi Jeewhyen

Well, then I hope you (and perhaps others here) won't think ill of me for applying the same emotional response to the O.T. Empire and Jedi are not the story that comes after Star Wars - because that film presents a universe where Luke's father, Anakin, was betrayed and murdered (not in an imaginary sense) by someone entirely different, i.e., Darth Vader ... and Princess Leia is a legitimate love interest for the hero, and not the hero's sister.

The follow-up movie is so completely different in story, and in tone, and in throwing in both retarded childishness and boring maturity (faults thrown at the P.T., but sooooo applicable to The Empire Strikes Back) ... and frankly is different in everything I found enjoyable in Star Wars such that I don't consider it a "continuance" at all ... but rather an offshoot that has almost no continuity with the source.

But I can still enjoy Empire and Jedi to an extent. And I can't even sit through any of the prequels. Heck, I tried to watch my favorite of them just the other night, and I couldn't stand more than half-an-hour of it. Gak!
.

Part of me feels exactly like you do towards the original SW, but part of me loves the OT too. I am one that feels SW '77 is so different in any of the other 5 movies, cause it was the only one that didn't have Vader as a relevant character, other than just a bad guy. Even though I think ESB is as great as SW '77, I don't love it as much, cause I just love the story that Lucas set up in 1977, and it really is a much different road that originally mapped out. I can't explain it, but it just feels different then the other 5 movies, cause Lucas was trying to convey a simple good vs evil story in the original, and wasn't going for the juggular with the characters meaning he was just giving us a rough overview of the universe, and to me that is its biggest strength.

But in the same respect, I do love the OT as a trilogy, cause it still kept the focus on Han, Luke and Leia for all 3 movies, and the Vader redemption was just a subplot. And I will say the Vader redemption never really did anything for me even in 1983, and I know many of you will disagree with me on that one. To me, once Lucas got too indepth with Vader as per ROTJ and his 'emotions' that is when SW went from being fun to just another serious scifi movie plot point that never reaches his dramatic potentional cause it is very hard to write something like that. What I am saying is once Lucas went Vader crazy, that is when he kinda lost me as a diehard fan, and just became interested in the macro stuff from the PT.

If Star Wars from 1977 never had sequels, or prequels, I would still be happy and content, and I have no doubt it would still be my favorite movie of all-time, so ObiJeewyhn I see where you are coming from about the story stopping with SW in 1977, for me the story stops with ROTJ, and Jar Jar, Hayden, and General Grevious, they never existed.

Author: Tiptup
Time: 29-Sep-2006 7:40 AM
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

I mean you went ahead and assume there must be -some- reason that a lightsaber stops at the end without something there to rflect or absorb it. Even going so far as to suspect it had something to do with the "Force".

No offense, but your stated assumptions about what I supposedly assume are hardly accurate at all. In fact, they are a little insulting to me. A word of advice: It’s not good to invent straw-man arguments, from whole cloth, in your head, and then attribute them to people for no reason whatsoever. That’s a good way to make enemies if anything. When you debate people, you should try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Nowhere did I ever “assume” that lightsaber’s having nothing to absorb or reflect beams of energy with. And nowhere did I tie the “stops-at-the-end” factor to the Force as a logical explanation in my mind. How on earth can you accuse me of those two, rather stupid assumptions? Considering how I have said nothing of the kind, that makes me a bit angry.

And if it is really so interesting for you to know what I actually assumed when watching Star Wars, then I’ll tell you: As a child, when I first saw the movies, I believed that lightsaber beams contained energy in some form. Like “light” or fire. I also believed that the force had something to do with how they worked, but that had nothing to do with reflection. I’m not some idiot who assumes that I “know” how a piece of technology works within a freakin’ science fiction fantasy story. What is the point to making assumptions about something that cannot, by definition, be understood in modern terms and is ultimately not even real?

Fucking lightsabers are a piece of advanced, alien technology from a fantasy world! If you’ll forgive me, I believe it’s idiotic and stupid to absolutely “assume” that something is even being absorbed or reflected in the first place. Those ideas aren’t even stated in the film! They’re fucking, sword weapons! There was nothing presented in the first movie about lightsabers that we could analyze as illogical in terms of their construction or technology.

Do you really believe that an energy-beam-looking sword is truly impossible, Go-Mer? According to your intellect, something like that could never be invented by anyone in the universe, ever?

Here, let’s even assume that lightsabers work like a beam of light and need to be reflected back toward the hilt or absorbed at the hilt. (Those two ideas are stupid assumptions to ever be sure of, since, based upon the movies, you have no idea that reflection or absorption are even necessary for lightsaber technology, but let’s just assume that one of them is true for the sake of argument.) Even in that case, how can you assume that there is no reflecting or absorbing mechanism in the technology that you can’t see or understand?

Lightsabers are so totally cool precisely because you can accept them readily without finding contradictions. You don’t need the “Force” to accept them either. Simple, sci-fi wonder will do the trick.

I think you might need a lesson in logic, Go-Mer.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Yet whenever someone starts talking about how something doesn't make sense in the prequels, and someone like myself says, "well that's the Force", people act like it's suddenly a huge cop out.

Hmm, well, I would say that providing the force as a reason why Anakin didn’t turn into a bloody pulp after crashing into that hover-car is a bit of a cop out. Are we to assume that Jedi can somehow make themselves invincible to that degree? If so, then that’s somewhat contradictory and discordantly jarring. Jedi are depicted as being far more fragile elsewhere in the movies.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Sometimes it seems as though a lot of you had no problem effortlessly suspending your disbelief for the classic trilogy, but now it seems like you guys are expecting the prequel trilogy to be more perfect than the classic trilogy had to be.

I see how it could seem that way to you, but you’d be wrong. The logical hurdles I have with the PT and the “saga” are the internally contradicting or discordant concepts. If a concept that is expressed in a film contradicts other concepts expressed in that same film, then you’re damn right that I will consider that to be a logical hurdle and not accept it easily. If a film is internally hypocritical with emotions or motivations then I will also consider that to be a logical flaw. The original trilogy had very little of this compared to the prequels or the “PT+OTSE” perspective. The prequel trilogy is far less perfect from my point of view.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

But I think it's unfortunate that so many feel as you do, and it breaks my heart to know that no matter how much I try to explain my enjoyment to many of you, it won't help at all.

Well, to be honest, you and other prequel trilogy defenders don’t spend a lot of time talking about the positive elements of the films in terms of the perspective that makes them positive to you. Most of the time, you simply spend your time making endless excuses as to why a certain negative element shouldn’t be a problem for another person. Or, even worse, you try to attack the Original Trilogy equally by making unfair comparisons. And, when you rarely do talk about something positive, you usually state that you enjoy something that someone else finds un-enjoyable, and that simply re-ignites the cycle.

It would be best, if you actually stated why certain problems with the PT aren’t important to you from your perspective, instead of wasting the majority of your time pretending those problems don’t even exist. Remember that when discussing artistic points of view, IMPORTANCE is the key! You need to tell us what is important to you. For instance, I would like to know what the PRIMARY focus of Revenge of the Sith actually is from your point of view. From my perspective, the film teaches hypocritical morals, its story is messy and disjointed, and way too long. I do not enjoy the film precisely because I find little coherent value in it.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself. It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

Author: Jumpman
Time: 29-Sep-2006 11:01 AM
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Tiptup,

Are we talking about the primary focus of Episode III pertaining to Anakin or the plot? Because, I thought the ideas expressed in the film, whether you agree or not, were pretty clear, from the Anakin arc.

And the reason Prequel "defenders" don't discuss positive aspects of the films (especially here) is because the debate is framed by Original Trilogy fans...which always veer toward the "suppose" negatives of the Prequels.

And CO, your point about the Prequels having the macro story being Anakin's is technically wrong. If you divorce yourself away from the Original Trilogy and see how the Prequels are structured, the macro story isn't Anakin.

The opening crawl to Episode I don't announce that this film is the story of how Anakin became Darth Vader. Like Episode IV, we are introduced to a conflict. We have our heroes and villians in the conflict. And like Episode IV, the story goes off on a tangent where we meet a character who ends up thrust into the events of the main conflict. Throughout the next two films, like the Original Trilogy, we follow this character. But even then, he's still the micro story.

The difference between now and then is the Original Trilogy. You take any person who has no knowledge of Star Wars and sit them down and show Episode I first, they won't think that this is the story of Anakin....and it will be the same as they go through the rest of the Prequels. It's a story of two conflicts (The Blockade of Naboo in Episode I and The Separatist vs The Republic of Episode II) with three characters (Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme) as our anchors to the end result.

Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.

Author: Go-Mer-Tonic
Time: 29-Sep-2006 2:50 PM
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Originally posted by: Tiptup

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
It's just that to me some things like assuming Luke would be as strong and as powerful as fully trained Jedi in their prime seems so illogical, it makes me really wonder why other things that seem fairly easy to roll along with seem to make no logical sense to you. Alright, I’ll talk about force jumps again . . . .

In my mind, I totally agree with you that Luke wouldn’t be as skilled with the force as a padawan that has trained to use the force his entire life, like Obi-Wan had. I just thought that Luke would have still been fairly skilled enough that, combined with his natural affinity with the force, his jumps would have been somewhat close. Even Darth Vader was impressed with Luke.

Yet you express that it is so illogical to believe that it is extreme to have Jedi jumping twice as high all of a sudden? You don’t see how this could be odd to me? Not even a little bit? You can’t see why I’d prefer the subtle jumps of the OT?

Even as much as I love the original trilogy, even I can admit potentially problematic elements. First of all, I think it's great that you and I in particular are able to talk so civilly from entirely different points of view. I am not insulted by the way you perceive my comments, and I really don't mean to personally insult you.

About force jumps, I still don't see the problem. It's not like Luke's jumps weren't fantastic, and to me, most of the Jedi jumps in the prequels aren't all that much higher than Luke's. I understand -that- you prefer more subtle jumps. I don't quite understand why. To me, the Jedi in their prime have always been this mysterious thing I wished I could see, and now the prequels have delivered that to me. I never even had a moment where I said: "whoah, those Jedi are too powerful". I guess that's because I personally hadn't decided on my own how they would be. I -wondered- how it would be, but I never once took any of my assumptions for "the way it really was". I took the prequels at face value and just accepted it right out of the gate as "how it really was".

Obviously to you this is a fairly large deal, and one you have a hard time rolling along with. I don't mean to suggest you are wrong. It's just your problems with this never even occurred to me until I heard you talk about it here. To me this all follows a consistent logic across the board, because Luke isn't as powerful. When Vader says "impressive" it's because Luke is more advanced than Vader would have suspected, not compared to other Jedi in their prime.

Originally posted by: Tiptup

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I mean you went ahead and assume there must be -some- reason that a light saber stops at the end without something there to reflect or absorb it. Even going so far as to suspect it had something to do with the "Force".

No offense, but your stated assumptions about what I supposedly assume are hardly accurate at all. In fact, they are a little insulting to me. A word of advice: It’s not good to invent straw-man arguments, from whole cloth, in your head, and then attribute them to people for no reason whatsoever. That’s a good way to make enemies if anything. When you debate people, you should try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Nowhere did I ever “assume” that light saber’s having nothing to absorb or reflect beams of energy with. And nowhere did I tie the “stops-at-the-end” factor to the Force as a logical explanation in my mind. How on earth can you accuse me of those two, rather stupid assumptions? Considering how I have said nothing of the kind, that makes me a bit angry. No offense but you aren't exactly the most difficult person to make angry. Here is what I was keying in on that you had said in response to me explaining that light sabers don't make logical sense, because lasers wouldn't just stop at one end like that without something to reflect or absorb the energy.

Originally posted by: Tiptup
Nonsense. Light sabers were always presented in a very logically beautiful way in the films. They were mysterious and magical weapons that somehow needed the force to work and, unlike what you claim, they were clearly different from the laser blasters in the film (please don’t make flippant points). All in all, light sabers are a very simple and acceptable subject from a logical standpoint, and very enjoyable from a logical standpoint as well.

Now, if we were to have logically delved deeper into how light sabers supposedly worked in the films themselves and talked about plasma and shit like that, sure that might well have been an unsuccessful addition, artistically speaking. There’s no way for us to know though, since the films never went that route. You think it's nonsense to question the logical veracity of a light saber, I think it's nonsense to question the logical veracity of Jedi that can jump twice as high as Luke.

Originally posted by: Tiptup
And if it is really so interesting for you to know what I actually assumed when watching Star Wars, then I’ll tell you: As a child, when I first saw the movies, I believed that light saber beams contained energy in some form. Like “light” or fire. I also believed that the force had something to do with how they worked, but that had nothing to do with reflection. I’m not some idiot who assumes that I “know” how a piece of technology works within a freakin’ science fiction fantasy story. What is the point to making assumptions about something that cannot, by definition, be understood in modern terms and is ultimately not even real? There -is- no point. But I don't think there's a point in making assumptions about how high Jedi can jump either. It's not like we have Jedi running around here on Earth, and it's not like Luke's jump wasn't also in defiance of how high people can jump here on Earth. So again we have what seems to me like a huge double standard.

Originally posted by: Tiptup
Fucking light sabers are a piece of advanced, alien technology from a fantasy world! If you’ll forgive me, I believe it’s idiotic and stupid to absolutely “assume” that something is even being absorbed or reflected in the first place. Those ideas aren’t even stated in the film! They’re fucking, sword weapons! There was nothing presented in the first movie about light sabers that we could analyze as illogical in terms of their construction or technology. Forgive me, but I believe it's stupid to absolutely "assume" that Jedi in their prime wouldn't be able to jump as high as they ended up doing in the prequels.

Originally posted by: Tiptup
Do you really believe that an energy-beam-looking sword is truly impossible, Go-Mer? According to your intellect, something like that could never be invented by anyone in the universe, ever? No I don't. I accept it as something that just goes beyond our society's current understanding. At the risk of making you repeat yourself, do you really believe that Jedi in their prime wouldn't be able to jump as high as they do in the prequels?

Originally posted by: Tiptup
Here, let’s even assume that light sabers work like a beam of light and need to be reflected back toward the hilt or absorbed at the hilt. (Those two ideas are stupid assumptions to ever be sure of, since, based upon the movies, you have no idea that reflection or absorption are even necessary for light saber technology, but let’s just assume that one of them is true for the sake of argument.) Even in that case, how can you assume that there is no reflecting or absorbing mechanism in the technology that you can’t see or understand? How? By not seeing anything there to reflect it, and knowing how lasers seem to work here on Earth, that's how I can assume that. Assumptions by their very nature rest on perception and limits of imagination, and are not dependant on facts.

Originally posted by: Tiptup
Light sabers are so totally cool precisely because you can accept them readily without finding contradictions. You don’t need the “Force” to accept them either. Simple, sci-fi wonder will do the trick.

Exactly, same goes for Jedi Jumping. I never actually got hung up on light sabers, I was just explaining that they are no more logical than Jedi being able to jump as high as they do. Simple "sci-fi -FANTASY- wonder" will do the trick. At least for me it does.Originally posted by: Tiptup
I think you might need a lesson in logic, Go-Mer.

Do I now?

I would suggest that you could use a lesson in fantasy.
Originally posted by: Tiptup
Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
Yet whenever someone starts talking about how something doesn't make sense in the prequels, and someone like myself says, "well that's the Force", people act like it's suddenly a huge cop out.

Well we know Jedi have powers of telekinesis, it's not that illogical to me to assume that if they were falling, and they were concentrating hard enough on their landing, they could use that kind of telekinesis to help slow their fall before impact. In other areas where I can think of Jedi being far more fragile, they were falling from a great height while they were unconscious, which would handily explain this to me.Originally posted by: Tiptup
Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
Sometimes it seems as though a lot of you had no problem effortlessly suspending your disbelief for the classic trilogy, but now it seems like you guys are expecting the prequel trilogy to be more perfect than the classic trilogy had to be.

Quite honestly, it seems to me that you aren't having trouble with the way concepts are expressed, but with what you assume beyond what is expressed. Jedi jumping twice as high as Luke isn't a contradiction, because Luke is Luke, and the prequel era Jedi are prequel era Jedi. The only thing it's really "contradicting" is your personal assumptions based on what was presented that Jedi in their prime shouldn't be able to jump "that" high, which in and of itself is contradicting what has been presented in the movies (if you count the prequels).Originally posted by: Tiptup
Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
But I think it's unfortunate that so many feel as you do, and it breaks my heart to know that no matter how much I try to explain my enjoyment to many of you, it won't help at all.

I'm the one making "unfair" comparisons? I'm just illustrating what I find to be a huge double standard here.Originally posted by: Tiptup
It would be best, if you actually stated why certain problems with the PT aren’t important to you from your perspective, instead of wasting the majority of your time pretending those problems don’t even exist.

Similarly to the way you pretend the logical problems with the concept of a light saber don't exist?Originally posted by: Tiptup
Remember that when discussing artistic points of view, IMPORTANCE is the key! You need to tell us what is important to you. For instance, I would like to know what the PRIMARY focus of Revenge of the Sith actually is from your point of view. From my perspective, the film teaches hypocritical morals, its story is messy and disjointed, and way too long. I do not enjoy the film precisely because I find little coherent value in it.

To me it's important to enjoy these movies as much as possible. The focus of Revenge of the Sith to me is the manifestation of the grey area involved with good and evil. The morals of ROTS are very similar to the morals presented across the entire saga. That love is better than hate, and compassion is better than greed, but also that life doesn't always make the right choices very clear.

On the one hand, saving Padme and Shmi are noble, compassionate things. Anakin strives to obtain the power to control these things, and is then consumed by the desire to control the plight of the entire galaxy, so he "can make things the way he wants them to be", but as Padme asks, "at what cost"?

It's an examination of what's "right" for an individual and at what point that becomes less important than what's "right" for the greater good.

I really don't see why you would say it's incoherent.

Your focus determines your reality.

Author: Obi Jeewhyen
Time: 29-Sep-2006 5:00 PM
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There's lots of technology presented in the Star Wars universe that is advanced. Artifical gravity for one, light-speed travel for another (though don't get me started on how absurd I found it that X-Wings suddenly had light speed travel capabilities in Empire Strikes Back)

However ... the humanoid characters in the Star Wars universe are never presented as having extra-human abilities ... and mere training as a Jedi does not seem feasible to change physiology to a degree that enables a man to jump 100 feet. Unless they do it with the Force (in which case they could simply levitate), they would need entirely different body structures and muscle configurations to make such leaps with the power of their legs.

To me, this is even more absurd than the telekenisis ... which at least is done with the mind or spirit, and no limits have been illustrated in the movies as to how far a Jedi's mind or spirit may be developed. But to simply assume that they have superhuman abilities, or frelling X-Ray vision for that matter, seems FAKE on its face when no explanation is given for why Jedi can defy the existing physics presented quite clearly to the audience.

And the audience is not doing a scientific analysis when they see an improbable Jedi Jump; they are merely using their eyes and minds to instantly assess what looks "right" for familiar humanity in a physical sense.

(If Luke and Obi-Wan are not human for all intents and purposes, that is nowhere indicated in Star Wars.)

Author: Tiptup
Time: 29-Sep-2006 9:40 PM
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

No offense but you aren't exactly the most difficult person to make angry.

Yes, thank you, I’m already well aware of that. I do like to let people know these things though. Helps smooth things over.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

First of all, I think it's great that you and I in particular are able to talk so civilly from entirely different points of view. I am not insulted by the way you perceive my comments, and I really don't mean to personally insult you.

I am not angered by your comments unless they accuse me of something for no provided reason. Thankfully you haven’t done that too often.

Good Lord. This is really getting retarded. Once again I am forced to talk about the force jumps. Oh joy . . .

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

About force jumps, I still don't see the problem. It's not like Luke's jumps weren't fantastic, and to me, most of the Jedi jumps in the prequels aren't all that much higher than Luke's. I understand -that- you prefer more subtle jumps. I don't quite understand why.

I see. So, this is still a very extreme issue for you then? Interesting.

I am truly sorry Go-Mer. I mean, I understand that you have a fixation upon this subject, but as I have already stated many times, I do not. The super jumps are not any kind of an extreme problem for me at all. I simply mentioned it off the top of my head in my first post. It was something that didn’t match up with the rest of the “saga” to me in a vague sense and that’s all. I’m now sorry that the Jedi jumps have now struck such a strong nerve with you. As I have already said before in this thread, and for many of the precise reasons you outlined in your last post, I am easily able to overlook this issue and pretend it somehow works.

Sure, I’ll admit that I still consider the super-jumps to be small flaw in the sense that the previous movies had already ingrained such a strong image of the Jedi into my mind. They moved like ordinary people for the most part and could only perform miraculous feats with great labor and concentration. Perhaps Luke was just an unskilled novice as you say, but I always got the impression that Luke was a pretty capable Jedi in terms of his physical capabilities. But, as you said, I never knew any of those things for certain, and I’m thus able to overlook and accept the super jumps.

What I’m unable to overlook or accept however, is your outright dismissal of my point of view. You have implied that I am supremely illogical for gathering the impression that I did. Apparently, to formulate a general concept of the Jedi, based upon what the movies themselves have made me accustomed to, is some sort of supreme crime in your eyes. I’m sorry but I find that odd. After all, I able to understand your point of view to a degree, and yet you somehow cannot even see where I am coming at all.

I get the impression that if George Lucas were to decide tomorrow that Jedi can shoot beams of radiation from their eyeballs and melt storm troopers in a single second with them, you would then wholeheartedly accept that concept. And, if I were to then express even the slightest reservation about that power, I can only guess that you would accuse me of being completely illogical and unfair.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Obviously to you this is a fairly large deal, and one you have a hard time rolling along with.

Uhh, no, I already said in this thread that this issue isn’t a “fairly large deal” to me at all. In fact, I have stated the opposite a number of times now. For crying out loud, the first time I watched The Phantom Menace, I didn’t even notice the jumps were as high as they were! It was not until a later viewing that I saw how extreme they were and, sure, became somewhat bothered by them. But still, it’s not this important to me. It is nothing to debate to the extreme degree you apparently want to debate it. I’ve been trying to dispense with the issue for a number of my posts now. I already stated that they can work from a different point of view.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

I think it's nonsense to question the logical veracity of Jedi that can jump twice as high as Luke.

Hmm, once again, you have the arrogance to completely dismiss my point of view as “nonsense.” Is that what you call being open-minded Go-Mer? If so, then I’m impressed by your gall.

Again, the reason I had a small problem with the super jumps was because the previous films had given me a far more subtle concept of the Jedi in terms of their physical prowess. I’m glad that you are making me restate that so many times.

Quite frankly, it’s not an extreme problem for me. My previous concept of the Jedi was not that important to me and I’ve stated that many times now. I am able to accept the new jumps and overlook my previous concept. Can we move on now?

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Forgive me, but I believe it's stupid to absolutely "assume" that Jedi in their prime wouldn't be able to jump as high as they ended up doing in the prequels.

Ahh, well I’m beginning to think that you are stupid for assuming that I “absolutely” believed Jedi couldn’t make super jumps. I never said that anywhere in this thread and I have even clearly denied that sentiment a number of times now. You have provided no reasons to accuse me of making such an extreme assumption and yet you keep accusing me of it. Why is that, Go-Mer?

Yay. Now I have the joy of dealing with Go-Mer’s lightsaber nonsense again . . .

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Here is what I was keying in on that you had said in response to me explaining that light sabers don't make logical sense, because lasers wouldn't just stop at one end like that without something to reflect or absorb the energy.

Originally posted by: Tiptup
Nonsense. Light sabers were always presented in a very logically beautiful way in the films. They were mysterious and magical weapons that somehow needed the force to work and, unlike what you claim, they were clearly different from the laser blasters in the film (please don’t make flippant points). All in all, light sabers are a very simple and acceptable subject from a logical standpoint, and very enjoyable from a logical standpoint as well.

Now, if we were to have logically delved deeper into how light sabers supposedly worked in the films themselves and talked about plasma and shit like that, sure that might well have been an unsuccessful addition, artistically speaking. There’s no way for us to know though, since the films never went that route.

Wow, so that’s where you were going with that? You’re so brilliant Go-Mer!

Of course, first let’s totally miss the fact that I have already communicated why lightsaber problems and my super jump problems are not similarly problematic, like fifty times. And, lets overlook the fact that I can overlook my problem with the super jumps, but let’s instead talk about how incredibly smart you are, Go-Mer.

Ahh, but wait, you said that you believe that lasers “wouldn’t just stop at one end,” Go-Mer? Well, in that “keying” text you quoted of mine, I actually stated why that was a clearly stupid assumption for you to make. Lightsabers are not laser guns! They’re lightsabers! According to the story, according to the way they look, and according to the way they are used, lightsabers are clearly designed to work like swords and not laser guns!

Your lightsaber problems are not directly comparable to my small problem with the super jumps. Again, over a long period of time, the previous films gave an impression of what Jedi could do, and from that artistic standpoint, the super jumps seemed to be outside of those capabilities. (Nothing more, nothing less. I have no extreme opinion on this matter.) Your problem with lightsabers on the other hand is based upon nothing in the films or anything in reality for that matter.

Why don’t you focus on a more difficult, prequel problem, Go-Mer? Are you afraid that you can’t defend them with your straw-man arguments as easily?

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

By not seeing anything there to reflect it, and knowing how lasers seem to work here on Earth, that's how I can assume that. Assumptions by their very nature rest on perception and limits of imagination, and are not dependant on facts.

That’s PRECISELY why you shouldn’t rigidly hold to your assumptions, Go-Mer. As I said in my previous post, sometimes it’s good to approach something with wonder and NOT have a clear perception for everything that you experience.

I’ll state this once more: There was nothing in the films to intelligently support your assumption that lightsabers were “lasers.” There were also no intelligent reasons in the film to support your assumption that anything concerning lightsabers needed to be “reflected.” Therefore, to argue that lightsabers have a problem on either basis is far from intelligent.

On the other hand, my general concept of the Jedi and their physical capabilities does have a small degree of support in the actual films. Is it a super strong degree of support? No, and I never said that it was. Can I openly reject super jumps as illogical? No, I have never said that I could. I simply said that I don’t particularly like them from an artistic standpoint, not that I could reject them completely. I would hope that you can finally get that into your skull, Go-Mer.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Originally posted by: Tiptup
I think you might need a lesson in logic, Go-Mer.

Do I now?

I would suggest that you could use a lesson in fantasy.

Yes I do actually think you might need a lesson in proper logic, in fact your last post was horrendous in this regard. And, I believe your suggestion is empty, since I am well versed in fantasy as a method, thank you.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

I'm the one making "unfair" comparisons? I'm just illustrating what I find to be a huge double standard here.

Lightsabers are not a double standard for me. There’s no valid reason you can provide to prove that I am being hypocritical here. (Though, if it is not obvious to you and you need everything to be clearly stated, I will say that you have so far tried to present many invalid reasons in your attempt to label me a hypocrite, but that I have now explained why those reasons are wrong. If you are unable to understand my explanations then I would certainly be willing to help clarify.)

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Similarly to the way you pretend the logical problems with the concept of a light saber don't exist?

Similarly is an adverb.

Ahh, and now we finally have some real differences to analyze . . .

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Well we know Jedi have powers of telekinesis, it's not that illogical to me to assume that if they were falling, and they were concentrating hard enough on their landing, they could use that kind of telekinesis to help slow their fall before impact. In other areas where I can think of Jedi being far more fragile, they were falling from a great height while they were unconscious, which would handily explain this to me.

Hmm, that’s an interesting concept. I would ask, then, why cannot Jedi levitate? Or are you suggesting that Anakin used his telekinesis to alter the hover-car’s movement in order to lessen the impact? If so, then how come it doesn’t look like the hover car is being moved through telekinesis? And, either way, why doesn’t Anakin look as if he is concentrating on the force to use his telekinesis?

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

To me it's important to enjoy these movies as much as possible.

The focus of Revenge of the Sith to me is the manifestation of the grey area involved with good and evil. The morals of ROTS are very similar to the morals presented across the entire saga. That love is better than hate, and compassion is better than greed, but also that life doesn't always make the right choices very clear.

On the one hand, saving Padme and Shmi are noble, compassionate things. Anakin strives to obtain the power to control these things, and is then consumed by the desire to control the plight of the entire galaxy, so he "can make things the way he wants them to be", but as Padme asks, "at what cost"?

It's an examination of what's "right" for an individual and at what point that becomes less important than what's "right" for the greater good.

First, why is it important to enjoy the prequels “as much as possible”? Do you say that with every movie or just with movies that are related to Star Wars? Do you say that with every TV show that happens to come along? Isn’t better to enjoy what you actually find enjoyable and not force yourself to enjoy a film simply because it’s a film or simply because it’s related to Star Wars?

Otherwise, I see how you could enjoy that focus from the prequels. However, I have trouble seeing that focus in the films. How are you able to overlook the many times that the films are clearly hypocritical in regard to that focus? I see many times where the films display the fact that what’s “right” for an individual is what actually determines what is then right for the greater good more than anything else. To me that clear display seems to contradict the focus you enjoy. Therefore, how are you able to overlook inconsistency? Why is that seeming hypocrisy unimportant to you?

I really do want to understand your point of view, Go-Mer. Assuming you can act with a reasonable mind.

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

I really don't see why you would say it's incoherent.

From my point of view, RotS is either incoherent or Anakin is a psychopath. Either way I can’t enjoy the movie. I’ve already told you this before and you totally failed to reply. Oh well, if you can’t understand my point of view even to the slightest degree, then you can hardly claim to have an open mind.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself. It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005