Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I finally spotted the new OT boxset at a Borders. I picked it up just to see what it was all about. The description on the back of the box floored me. It started out with something like, "The Jedi Knights have been exterminated, and Anakin Skywalker is now Darth Vader. Now his son, Luke Skywalker..." et cetera. I'm sure you all agree that that's cringeworthy (whoops, I should say most of us before someone (you know who you are) comes in and excuses me for speaking on behalf of everybody) and completely inane way of marketing the movie. Does it come as a surprise, though? Probably not, since George is obsessed with people watching the movies in numerical order. But seeing as how they're still being officially separated as "Star Wars Trilogy" and "Prequel Trilogy," I would think they'd ease off on the spoilers. As out of touch as they are, I'm sure they're aware that there are people who do view the Star Wars trilogy by itself or at least first.
And for those of you thinking, "Well, everybody knows that Darth Vader is Luke's father," that's really not the point. It's about how any movie's plot is presented in a summary like this. Do you expect to pick up Citizen Kane and have it say, "This is the story of Charles Foster Kane. Relive the classic tale of a man whose childhood sled prompts him to utter 'Rosebud' on his deathbed, causing an international stir as to why he would say this mysterious word." Or how about Casablanca? "...as, in the pivotal moment where he tells her to get on the plane." No matter how well-known a movie is, you don't give away plot points like that on the back of the box. Even the '04 and '06 sets, while alluding to the prequel trilogy, were still subtle and professional, with the ESB blurb reads, "... learns a terrible truth about the Skywalker legacy." There. It still goes a bit too far in my book, but it does hint at the plot and generate interest without giving anything away.
The real reason I bring this up, though, is because I didn't see the Prequel Trilogy set, and I have to wonder how they're presenting it this time. The original releases and marketing had no trouble constantly reinforcing the idea that Anakin was going to become Darth Vader. The back of Revenge of the Sith's DVD even says this outright. Now, as prequels expected to be seen after and in the context of the original movies, this isn't as bad because they're expecting you to have that perspective, even though they constantly contradict themselves by saying the prequels should be watched first. However, if they have totally given into that idea now, and the prequels are still promoting Anakin as Darth Vader, then that's just screwed up. Because now you have both sets, from the very beginning, giving away a major plot point before it's revealed in the case of the OT and before it chronologically happens in the case of the PT. It seems to me that LucasFilm have absolutely no idea how they want to market these movies, and, in the process, have destroyed the drama involved in watching them no matter what order you decide to watch them in.
Has anybody here seen the back of the box for the prequels so that I can come to a conclusion on this?
