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When did the prequels officially suck? — Page 9

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C3PX said:

It doesn't really have anything to do with people from the UK, or some irrational dislike of redheaded people they might have. Zombie is from Canada I believe (could be mistaken), and I have heard people in the states use that expression my entire life. It isn't intended to suggest that red headed people are weird or anything, it means the exact same thing as the term "black sheep" the one that doesn't quite fit in, looks differently from the rest, etc. i.e. a family has four kids, three with brown hair, but the oldest child from a previous marriage has red hair and looks different from the others. There are no anti-redhead sentiments here.

Odd. I'd never heard that phrase in my life. (Perhaps Minnesotans don't really use it much.)

Otherwise, on the surface the phrase sounds "anti-redhead" to me. Are you saying that you have firm knowledge that the predominant use of it has had no negative meaning to any degree? (I must question that assertion in the absence of precise evidence.)

"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

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Wow.  I find that odd that you've never heard that before.  I always thought it was very common.  I'm not sure what its origin is or in what context it was originally used, but I think most people familiar with it can agree that it's considered harmless humor nowadays.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Gaffer Tape said:

but I think most people familiar with it can agree that it's considered harmless humor nowadays.

I think C3PX already meant to communicate that and I'd be perfectly willing to believe that most people who use it mean nothing (as with a lot of popular phrases with bad origins). However, the phrase itself sounds like it might have been primarily negative in some way (at some time). I found another version (which people on the interwebs say is even more popular) that goes "I'll beat you like a red headed stepchild." That one definitely seems to have at least a tiny degree of hostility. :)

Either way, this is interesting. If I can find something more substantial that would be cool.

"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

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"Beat you like a red headed stepchild" is another one I heard my whole life. The idea behind the "every family has redheaded stepchild" is the idea that they stand out and look differnt. No reason to infer hostility into that one. Beat you like a red headed step child is a less practical saying, which I have only heard people to use to mean to beat with a severity.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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 (Edited)

It just means "the black sheep." The one who doesn't belong. Red hair is very uncommon, and being a step-child makes you a bit of an outsider, so to be a step-child with red hair would make you especially an outsider. Thats all that expression means. Its a very common expression in north america at least.

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skyjedi2005 said:

...

A reason why i am sure Lucas hates empire, as he has said it is the worst film in the saga.

Sky, I know Lucas had issues with the production of Empire, but I've never heard about this hatred you mention. Do you have any more info on that?

And Tiptup, are you readheaded? ;P

 

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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As far as I remember he just made a tongue-in-cheek remark about how Empire is the worst film in the series.  Whether or not he actually believes that is his own secret, but I don't think he ever seriously publicly stated that he thinks it's the worst.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Erikstormtrooper said:

And Tiptup, are you readheaded? ;P

Nope. I is brown.

My best friend is red headed, and my younger brother is red headed, however. :)

"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

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The opening crawl of Episode 1.

What a pile of nonsense.

See Also: Anakin's Space Jesus Virgin Birth.

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Now with the benefit of hindsight, weren't the prequels bound to suck on some level?  You're going to take a movie franchise that is revered by a generation and revive it with almost completely different characters and set it before the other films so that every meaningful aspect of its story outcome is already known by the audience.  You could still make that entertaining but it's going to depend on your success at creating interesting new characters (Lucas doesn't do characters well, he does archetypes well), making the refreshed characters like Yoda and Obi-Wan work and then making their journey to the forgone conclusion an interesting one.  But that's not all, you also have to stretch this tale out over three films, each of which has to have its own internal story arc that will satisfy the audience.  

I just think that was bound to be a let down for so many reasons.  Add to that the fact that Lucas was apparently writing the story one episode at a time and it comes out a bit of a mess where we basically have a new villain in each film, old characters grafted in for no apparent reason (the SW universe starts feeling a little claustrophobic when the same wookie, bounty hunter and hutt turn up at unconnected points in the story) and much time is spent on the boring details of Palpatine's deception.  Okay, we can see that the whole invasion of Naboo is just a set up to help Palpatine get into power, we already know that Amidala, Anakin and Kenobi will live and Qui Gon and Maul don't have any impact on the overall plot of the original trilogy, so where's the suspense?  Who even cares who wins that battle?

I don't actually hate the prequels, but I do think that they were pretty much doomed to suck at the idea stage of development.  

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 (Edited)

Well the prequels and the special editions are not so bad.  As long as you don't mind watching 12 hours of video game footage, that destroys the original star wars trilogy and put it on the fast track to being a fucking joke rather than two stellar and one really good but kinda flawed film. 

 

The novelists took weak material and made it a little bit better.  It is almost universally agreed that the novelizations of the prequel trilogy were better than the films.  Still not being good literature or good books but any stretch of the imagination.  Their is a reason tie in fiction gets a bad reputation when people could choose to read real literary science fiction or fantasy, they choose something that is a bit of cheat.  Something based on a television show or a movie.

Everybody has their own opinion.  I just don't see the prequels as being anything but the blockbuster, of the week, month or year they were released if even.  30 years from now i don't think they will be remembered as classic films.  While the original trilogy still will be in its original form, even if fans can't watch it how they want to see it.

That prequels come out of a more detached and jaded modern sensibility and therefore do not mesh well with the original films.  Lucas own politics, philosophy and belief systems may have also changed between the making of return of the jedi and the phantom menace which led to this disconnect in continuity between the films.

As well as his philosophy of how movies should be made, edited and what place visual effects have in them.

I don't think the evoke the same fanaticism and devotion the original trilogy did or quite spark the imagination of millions of young people in the same way.  They are bubblegum pop films without any redeeming value, they are like junk food.  And once the visual effects have been surpassed which was their only strong suit not the characters or stories, they will be forgotten and swept under the rug.

I am as guilty as others for liking and being entertained by some films that are only mind numbingly bad entertainments full of cgi, like Stargate and ID4.  But i would not pretend them to be classic films by any stretch of the imagination.  The prequels get even worse scrutiny because they dare to call themselves "star wars" films.  It takes more than cardboard cutout characters sci fi and fantasy tropes, and dudes wearing cloaks and kiminos and wielding laser swords to be a star wars film.

But bespite criticisms of the prequels at the end of the day the world of film is still a much more interesting place because of George Lucas.  Films like Lord of The Rings by Peter Jackson would not exist if not for Lucas pioneering the key digital effects technologies utilised in making modern movies and films.

Before the existence of these new technologies a book like tolkiens was unfilmable.

Just like movies like the Watchmen film that is upcoming would have been unfilmable because they either could not do the effects traditionally or it would have been cost prohibitive or looked fake.  Like a guy in a blue rubber suit or makeup instead of a digital character that lives and breathes on the screen.

Still you can have breathtaking digital creations on screen and without a solid script and story it all falls apart.

If Howard the Duck was made today for instance and instead of a man in a rubber suit you had a digital character like Jar Jar it would still suck because the concept sucked and so did the script.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Crygor64 said:

The opening crawl of Episode 1.

What a pile of nonsense.

See Also: Anakin's Space Jesus Virgin Birth.

 

LOL, right after ROTS was released I sat down and wrote a mini screenplay that spoofed on Terminator. In my screenplay, sometime in the years between ROTS and ANH, an IG-88 assassin droid was sent back in time to kill Shmi Skywalker, and a young Han Solo was sent back to protect her. Following the major plot twist from Terminator, during Han's time with Shmi Anakin is conceived. Once the droid is destroyed and Shmi is safe, like a jerk Han leaves her and goes back to his own time. Shmi finds she is pregnant, angry and ashamed she tells everyone that there is no father and she has no idea how she got pregnant, she really can't explain it.

Of course, nobody believes her, but she persists in her story even into her old age.

Makes the whole OT love triangle even more warped and incestuous than George managed to make it. :p

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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yea, that whole "ZOMG SPACE IMPREGNATION" thing is probably the worst part of the PT.  At least, I think so...

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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C3PX said:
Crygor64 said:

The opening crawl of Episode 1.

What a pile of nonsense.

See Also: Anakin's Space Jesus Virgin Birth.

 

LOL, right after ROTS was released I sat down and wrote a mini screenplay that spoofed on Terminator. In my screenplay, sometime in the years between ROTS and ANH, an IG-88 assassin droid was sent back in time to kill Shmi Skywalker, and a young Han Solo was sent back to protect her. Following the major plot twist from Terminator, during Han's time with Shmi Anakin is conceived. Once the droid is destroyed and Shmi is safe, like a jerk Han leaves her and goes back to his own time. Shmi finds she is pregnant, angry and ashamed she tells everyone that there is no father and she has no idea how she got pregnant, she really can't explain it.

Of course, nobody believes her, but she persists in her story even into her old age.

Makes the whole OT love triangle even more warped and incestuous than George managed to make it. :p

 

 you've just warped my mind! ;)

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 (Edited)
zombie84 said:

It just means "the black sheep." The one who doesn't belong. Red hair is very uncommon, and being a step-child makes you a bit of an outsider, so to be a step-child with red hair would make you especially an outsider. Thats all that expression means. Its a very common expression in north america at least.

I have red hair and hate that saying.

I think seeing it about being an outsider it needs to be update to:

"I Beat you like you were a Star Wars Dork"

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When did the prequels officially suck?

That is a good Question....
for me it was EP II. Ep I Sucked but it took seeing Ep II to see that all prequels Films would suck.

But after looking around the web, I would say the SE was the starting point and that EP I was the real official point in which people turned on the "new vision" Star Wars. Allot of People in 1999 really hated EP I. Ep I was the first movie of prequels' story arc and EP I being bad destroyed the prequels' story arc for some. So it look like 1999 was when the prequels officially suck.

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bkev said:

yea, that whole "ZOMG SPACE IMPREGNATION" thing is probably the worst part of the PT.  At least, I think so...

It was awful. It was arrogant and it didn't fit at all. It made the Star wars universe that bit less real. It was part of this transformation of Anakin into a messiah figure and making the whole story of Star Wars revolve around him. Lucas likes to say how Star Wars is the story of Darth Vader, but we still remember the time when it was the story of Luke Skywalker.

 

skyjedi2005 said:

Just like movies like the Watchmen film that is upcoming would have been unfilmable because they either could not do the effects traditionally or it would have been cost prohibitive or looked fake.  Like a guy in a blue rubber suit or makeup instead of a digital character that lives and breathes on the screen.

 

I have to say, seeing the preview photos for the Watchmen film, I may end up wishing that film had remained impossible to make.

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Vaderisnothayden said:
bkev said:

yea, that whole "ZOMG SPACE IMPREGNATION" thing is probably the worst part of the PT. At least, I think so...

It was awful. It was arrogant and it didn't fit at all. It made the Star wars universe that bit less real.

the star wars universe was never 'real' to begin with in the first place (see lightsaber,

spaceship flying physics, hyperspace, the force, etc, etc, etc)...

 

this didn't change one bit of that at all, that's like saying because : 'a' was real,

and 'b' was less real, that makes 'a' less real... there's no logic to that statement that a lot

of people are claiming....     when you start off with a untrue statement (ie: your assertion

that star wars was 'real'), and then conjecture the follow up statement is true :(ie : the

virgin birth is 'unreal')... then you can never logically make the claim the first statement

was ever true in the first place...

 

i still have no idea why people have trouble NOT believing in midichrolians or

anything that lucas comes up with... if you take the first trilogy as canon, or

a closed set of values (logically speaking) .. and you extend it with the values

from the prequel trilogies, it does not NEGATE the original values.... yes, aesthetically

it may bother you, and it may not be your preference, BUT YOU COULD NEVER ARGUE

LOGICALLY that there is a falsehood, or negation of the original values because lucas

left the entire saga as AN OPEN SET of values, that could be extended however he felt

like...

 

i have no problem with any of the explanations or convolutions that have occured, why?

 

because everything doesn't have to FIT LOGICALLY for it to 'work' for me... i'm open to

whatever incidents occured and changes were made..yeah han shot first, the first time!

but not after that...to some people that is their reality..... and if its not yours, then ignore it.

you don't like the explanation of the force? then ignore it... lucas is not FORCING YOU to

believe everything he says, its just another explanation..

 

if you're looking for logical or reasonable CLOSURE (which it seems a lot of you are) to

the series, its mythos, its values, and ideals, you WILL NEVER BE ABLE to reconcile it

with the prequels, because that's a logical fallacy (as i described above)..

 

 

It was part of this transformation of Anakin into a messiah figure and making the whole story of Star Wars revolve around him.

again, depending on how you saw the movies, and in which order you saw it,

this may be true.. not an issue.. (logically speaking)

 

Lucas likes to say how Star Wars is the story of Darth Vader, but we still remember the time when it was the story of Luke Skywalker.

 

careful how you use the word 'we'.... i know what you're talking about, but not everyone does.

 

look, i don't mean to be arguing semantics, or reducing arguments to absurdist statements

(this isn't exactly logic theory class)........ but everytime i see : statement p (false) and statement q  (false)-> implies statement p(less false)... it bothers me..

 

and yes, you can sue me for being a math major.

 

later

-1

 

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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 (Edited)

Hey is you want to throw around logic and semantics, there is no logical reason for Lucas changing the prequels in the 90's from the concept he had in the seventies, and not taking the care to rewatch the old trilogy for continuities sake.

Unless he is willing to make it plain that in the early nineties he pretty much rebooted the star wars universe to fit his newer and evolving convoluted vision. 

He elected to add unessary things to the original films he was unhappy with instead of just remake them entirely.  If he remade them the films we all grew up with in the seventies and eighties would not be constanly crapped upon.

The prequels should have meshed with the original films.  If they did we would not need a ruined original trilogy that is not so special edition except for lucas, and or the films having to be recut and lines redubbed and ridiculous excuses for bad prequel continuity in the EU. 

The EU authors made a valiant effort to close the gap in continuity that is so big you could fly a death star through it,lol.   Too bad they failed.

The plot,  the script, and the way the movies were made should have conformed to the original trilogy.  If they were made that way fans would not have to make fanedits that try to fix the problems Lucas introduced and it is not a couple of things either, there are people that find hundreds of mistakes and dicontinuities while i can probably only spot a few in each film.

At the end of the day though most people can forgive continuity that is in flux and changing if the story is good, and the acting credible. This whole prequel trilogy hinged on making anakin's turn believable.  They botched it miserably.

I never liked Darth as a whiny emo goth teen punk, who has echos of the columbine murderors.  We are supposed to feel attached to a douchebag asswhole who chokes his wife to death and  and before that cuts little kids into pieces with his laser sword.   This serial killer is the hero children are supposed to look up to and is creepily the hero of the entire saga now.  I'll take a real archetypical hero like Luke Skywalker over Hayden Skywalker anyday.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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 (Edited)
negative1 said:
Vaderisnothayden said:
bkev said:

yea, that whole "ZOMG SPACE IMPREGNATION" thing is probably the worst part of the PT. At least, I think so...

It was awful. It was arrogant and it didn't fit at all. It made the Star wars universe that bit less real.

the star wars universe was never 'real' to begin with in the first place (see lightsaber,

spaceship flying physics, hyperspace, the force, etc, etc, etc)...

 

this didn't change one bit of that at all, that's like saying because : 'a' was real,

and 'b' was less real, that makes 'a' less real... there's no logic to that statement that a lot

of people are claiming....     when you start off with a untrue statement (ie: your assertion

that star wars was 'real'), and then conjecture the follow up statement is true :(ie : the

virgin birth is 'unreal')... then you can never logically make the claim the first statement

was ever true in the first place...

 

i still have no idea why people have trouble NOT believing in midichrolians or

anything that lucas comes up with... if you take the first trilogy as canon, or

a closed set of values (logically speaking) .. and you extend it with the values

from the prequel trilogies, it does not NEGATE the original values.... yes, aesthetically

it may bother you, and it may not be your preference, BUT YOU COULD NEVER ARGUE

LOGICALLY that there is a falsehood, or negation of the original values because lucas

left the entire saga as AN OPEN SET of values, that could be extended however he felt

like...

 

i have no problem with any of the explanations or convolutions that have occured, why?

 

because everything doesn't have to FIT LOGICALLY for it to 'work' for me... i'm open to

whatever incidents occured and changes were made..yeah han shot first, the first time!

but not after that...to some people that is their reality..... and if its not yours, then ignore it.

you don't like the explanation of the force? then ignore it... lucas is not FORCING YOU to

believe everything he says, its just another explanation..

 

if you're looking for logical or reasonable CLOSURE (which it seems a lot of you are) to

the series, its mythos, its values, and ideals, you WILL NEVER BE ABLE to reconcile it

with the prequels, because that's a logical fallacy (as i described above)..

 

 

It was part of this transformation of Anakin into a messiah figure and making the whole story of Star Wars revolve around him.

again, depending on how you saw the movies, and in which order you saw it,

this may be true.. not an issue.. (logically speaking)

 

Lucas likes to say how Star Wars is the story of Darth Vader, but we still remember the time when it was the story of Luke Skywalker.

 

careful how you use the word 'we'.... i know what you're talking about, but not everyone does.

 

look, i don't mean to be arguing semantics, or reducing arguments to absurdist statements

(this isn't exactly logic theory class)........ but everytime i see : statement p (false) and statement q  (false)-> implies statement p(less false)... it bothers me..

 

and yes, you can sue me for being a math major.

 

later

-1

 

 

The Star Wars universe was never realistic, but just because you have unrealistic things doesn't mean you can't have a certain level of believability and pretend realism. The original films set up a certain level of pretend realism and lightsabers etc worked fine with that. Virgin births do not. And all that was really obvious and shouldn't need to be explained to you. There was nothing illogical in what I said, rather your understanding of its logic was limited.

lucas left the entire saga as AN OPEN SET of values, that could be extended however he felt like...

No he didn't. The original trilogy implied certain boundaries. Which is why the early Marvel comics giant green rabbit doesn't fit and Jar Jar doesn't fit. Maybe you can't see how the original films express those boundaries, but a lot of people can.

Before you assume other people have faulty logic maybe you should consider that you might in fact be a fallible human being and therefore might have failed to understand something in their logic.

And I couldn't give a screw if you're a math major.

 

 

 

 

 

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 (Edited)

Jar jar fits as a character IMO, he was just overused, he stole the focus of every scene. Grievous is worse, there is no character there. I agree that the PT broke the rules in a lot of places though. Sci-fi and fantasy, need something to ground the movie and reality and it wasn't there in the PT IMO. I also have no problem with the virgin birth. It's great symbolism IMO and it expresses Vader's character psychologically a little better. He never had a father which is one reason why is son is important to him.

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C3PX said:
Crygor64 said:

The opening crawl of Episode 1.

What a pile of nonsense.

See Also: Anakin's Space Jesus Virgin Birth.

 

LOL, right after ROTS was released I sat down and wrote a mini screenplay that spoofed on Terminator. In my screenplay, sometime in the years between ROTS and ANH, an IG-88 assassin droid was sent back in time to kill Shmi Skywalker, and a young Han Solo was sent back to protect her. Following the major plot twist from Terminator, during Han's time with Shmi Anakin is conceived. Once the droid is destroyed and Shmi is safe, like a jerk Han leaves her and goes back to his own time. Shmi finds she is pregnant, angry and ashamed she tells everyone that there is no father and she has no idea how she got pregnant, she really can't explain it.

Of course, nobody believes her, but she persists in her story even into her old age.

Makes the whole OT love triangle even more warped and incestuous than George managed to make it. :p

 

I would pay exorbitant amounts of money to see that film if it was ever made.

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg

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 (Edited)

The original films set up a certain level of pretend realism and lightsabers etc worked fine with that. Virgin births do not.

I guess you could say that it was the Force that influenced midichlorians to create Anakin. You know, the prophecy thing.

In some early scripts it was Palpatine who creates Anakin through midichlorians manipulations (he almost say that in the opera scene if you read between the lines). Of course it's a bit silly because even Palpatine could not foreseen that Qui Gon would find Anakin on Tatooine...

Anyway I always thought that midichlorians could (should!) have been an interresting sub plot instead of just a disturbing useless addition to the world of Star Wars.

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Nanner Split said:
C3PX said:
Crygor64 said:

The opening crawl of Episode 1.

What a pile of nonsense.

See Also: Anakin's Space Jesus Virgin Birth.

 

LOL, right after ROTS was released I sat down and wrote a mini screenplay that spoofed on Terminator. In my screenplay, sometime in the years between ROTS and ANH, an IG-88 assassin droid was sent back in time to kill Shmi Skywalker, and a young Han Solo was sent back to protect her. Following the major plot twist from Terminator, during Han's time with Shmi Anakin is conceived. Once the droid is destroyed and Shmi is safe, like a jerk Han leaves her and goes back to his own time. Shmi finds she is pregnant, angry and ashamed she tells everyone that there is no father and she has no idea how she got pregnant, she really can't explain it.

Of course, nobody believes her, but she persists in her story even into her old age.

Makes the whole OT love triangle even more warped and incestuous than George managed to make it. :p

 

I would pay exorbitant amounts of money to see that film if it was ever made.

 

So, you saying I got a producer for my movie? I think an exorbitant amount of money ought to be more than enough to get this thing filmed. Let's do it.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I see a future Youtube classic. Send me this script. :P

http://i.imgur.com/7N84TM8.jpg