Our Fault, Not George's? — Page 2

xhonzi said:

I am an RotJ fan.  On the whole, I like it and I think it's one of the few series ending movies that actually works for me.  That is to say, I think it delivers on the main "promises" made by the preceding movies.  The Luke/Vader scenes at the end are near perfect, in my opinion.  The space battle at the end has yet to be matched or surpassed in terms of complexity and excitement.

HOWEVER (and I know there are whole threads dedicated to it, so I won't go into much detail):

The burping?  The Tarzan yell? 

The Ewok's cuteness factor and makretability seemed to be weighed higher than their believability or story relevance.

The aliens in Jabba's place seem to be "cuter" than their Cantina equivalents.

And most importantly, Han and Leia seem to be less three dimensional than their ESB selves.  This can be blamed on the actors (Ford, primarily) but I think it was a sign of the story and style over characters problem that Lucas seemed to be developing.

I guess these are top of the list to me.  Like I said, I actually like RotJ a lot.  I have a hard time chosing between it and ANH for 2nd best of the trilogy.  But I still think it bears the signs that Lucas was starting to make movies for his 3 year old daughter as opposed to his 18 year old self.

 

I certainly wouldn't blame Leia and Han's reduced status on the actors (no, not Ford at all -he was great). It's down to the movie being very Luke-centric. But Leia and Han are still great in it.

The ewoks are a lot better than people give them credit for. They're not just harmless cute teddy bears. They tried to EAT the main characters. They're vicious little fuckers with an attitude. They're so so far away from the cute characters of the SE and PT.

You'll have to remind me where there's burping or a tarzan yell. Such a thing never caught my attention and certainly never bothered me.

The aliens Jabba's palace were SPECTACULAR. So Max Rebo was cute and Droopy Mcool was a bit cute too, but hardly to detrimental degrees.

As for Lucas's three year old daughter, she was only about one when ROTJ was made and I don't think the film was made for a one year old. I don't think any of his Star wars movies were made primarily for his 18 year old self. As far back 1977 Lucas was saying Star Wars was for kids. They were just adult-palatable kid movies. As is ROTJ as long as people don't insist on seeing the ewoks as something they're not.

There's more cuteness in ROTJ than in the previous two movies, but it's a million miles from the cartoon characters of the SE and prequels. To see the contrast, compare the 97 SE Jabba with the 83 ROTJ Jabba. 

CO said:

I still contend the whole idea of the Prequels was a letdown waiting to happen for many reasons:

1.  No Luke, Leia, and Han.  Sorry guys but characters drive movies, characters connect with the audience, there was no way any of us were going to love these movies because they were missing the big 3 from the OT.

2.  The more movies in a series, the more they suck.  The Rocky series started getting ridiculous by Rocky IV, Superman series by Superman III, some will even say the Matrix by the second movie.  How about Lethal Weapon IV, what a piece of crap, same director Richard Donner.  Oh, and that Godfather III debacle.

3.  The Prequels restrict storytelling.  The one thing great about the OT when watching it for the first time is you never know where it is going to take you.  Lucas could take the story wherever he wanted (eventually making Vader Lukes father).  With the prequels, everytime he tried to go somewhere new, he had to keep with the basic outline of how everyone ends up in Episode IV.  And even then he contradicted himself!

4.  Lucas is past his prime.  When was the last time Coppola made a great movie?  Or William Friedken?  Or Brian Depalma?  Does anyone remember Eyes Wide Shut as Stanley Kubricks last movie?  These were all great directors in the 70's, and they all had their run in the 70's, and in the 80's, but I can't think of a great movie any of them made by the late 90's.

5.  Everything eventually loses that magic.  Even great TV shows lose that 'it', as many movie series do somewhere along the line.  Return of the Jedi is a good movie that ends the Trilogy well, IMO, but it does lack that spark of Star Wars and Empire, and it is just so hard to recapture movie magic, that is why classics, are just that, they are come around every so often.

1.  No Luke, Leia, and Han.  Sorry guys but characters drive movies, characters connect with the audience, there was no way any of us were going to love these movies because they were missing the big 3 from the OT.

 

When Luke Leia and Han first appeared we didn't know them. The film and the actors sold us on them. The same could have happened with the PT's characters if they were written, directed and cast right.

5.  Everything eventually loses that magic.  Even great TV shows lose that 'it', as many movie series do somewhere along the line.  Return of the Jedi is a good movie that ends the Trilogy well, IMO, but it does lack that spark of Star Wars and Empire, and it is just so hard to recapture movie magic, that is why classics, are just that, they are come around every so often.

It was not necessary for Star Wars to lose its magic so drastically. Star Wars didn't so much lose its magic as have the magic forcefully ripped from it. ROTJ has every inch the spark of ANH and ESB. The magic wasn't shown to be gone until the SE (unless you count the ewok tv crap) and then the magic was pretty much nuked. There was absolutely no need for the prequels to have been as bad as they were. They demonstrate a shocking lack of concern for consistency with the story, spirit and unspoken rules of the OT. It would not have taken much to try a little harder to make actual Star Wars films rather than just films that bore the star wars name. And then we could have a PT that could be a lot more satisfying than what we have now. To me, it's not that Star Wars so much lost its magic as like there was no attempt whatsoever to keep that magic.

4.  Lucas is past his prime.  When was the last time Coppola made a great movie?  Or William Friedken?  Or Brian Depalma?  Does anyone remember Eyes Wide Shut as Stanley Kubricks last movie?  These were all great directors in the 70's, and they all had their run in the 70's, and in the 80's, but I can't think of a great movie any of them made by the late 90's.

Old fimmakers can make good films too. Plus Lucas could have let other filmmakers play a part.

3.  The Prequels restrict storytelling.  The one thing great about the OT when watching it for the first time is you never know where it is going to take you.  Lucas could take the story wherever he wanted (eventually making Vader Lukes father).  With the prequels, everytime he tried to go somewhere new, he had to keep with the basic outline of how everyone ends up in Episode IV.  And even then he contradicted himself!

There was still a lot we didn't know that could have made a fascinating story, instead of the crap we got.

Honestly, I don't think it's anyone's fault.  Before Episode 1, we all had different perspectives about Anakin Skywalker, the Clone Wars and everything else that occurred before Episode 4.  Even Lucas had his own idea about it.  What we see in the official DVD's is what GL envisioned.  What we see in the fan-edits is what another person or group of people sees.  So naturally compared our ages to GL's, we may have different opinions about what is and what isn't.

And please don't tell me that GL has "crapped this idea in my head."  This is my own saying from my own mind.  GL does inspire me, but he does not mesmerize me in anyway.

G E Predator said:

Honestly, I don't think it's anyone's fault.  Before Episode 1, we all had different perspectives about Anakin Skywalker, the Clone Wars and everything else that occurred before Episode 4.  Even Lucas had his own idea about it.  What we see in the official DVD's is what GL envisioned.  What we see in the fan-edits is what another person or group of people sees.  So naturally compared our ages to GL's, we may have different opinions about what is and what isn't.

And please don't tell me that GL has "crapped this idea in my head."  This is my own saying from my own mind.  GL does inspire me, but he does not mesmerize me in anyway.

What we see in the official DVD's is what GL envisioned. 

 

No. It's what he envisioned in the 90s onwards. Which is very different from what he had envisioned in the earlier times. Even if a lot of the basic details of his Star Wars backstory in the prequels were true to a lot of his old backstory, I'm sure that the spirit of it changed and the nature of the characters (Anakin/Vader at least). As for the characters, for example, it would be pretty weird  to portray Vader as he was portrayed in the OT if he was then envisioned as originally being like the Hayden version of Anakin/Vader. Similarly, I don't think when Anakin was portrayed in ROTJ Lucas could have had the ROTS/AOTC interpretation in mind as Anakin's younger self. It doesn't add up. Clearly Lucas changed the nature of the character at the center of the prequels. And like I said, the spirit of the prequels is very unlikely to be what Lucas had envisioned back in the old days, seeing as it's totally at odds with everything that was Star Wars. The emotional meaning was changed. So no, this stuff was not what GL envisioned, not back in the days he was making the OT, which is what counts.

Nor is the SE 97/2004 version what Lucas envisioned back then. If Lucas envisioned Han shooting second back in 77 why didn't he make him shoot second back then? And no he didn't originally envision a ridiculous cartoon Jabba talking to Han in ANH. We were told it was supposed to be a stop-motion creature, which would have been very different. (Michael Kaminski has an article theorizing that at one point it was supposed to be a human in the final film.) I doubt he envisioned Jedi Rocks back in the early 80s either (it was very 90s and had cartoon characters who weren't the style of what he was doing back then and depend on cgi). Or sticking in stupid celebration scenes on other planets into the ROTJ ending. The ROTJ ending was carefuly designed so that the funeral pyre mood flows into the celebration mood. The interruption jars. Which implies to me it was something alien to the film put in, not something that was missing since the early 80s when Lucas wanted to put it in. My guess is it was put in to counter the 90s expanded universe version of the story that had the empire continuing after death star 2 was destroyed. Experimenting with Coruscant with TPM in mind was also likely to be a motivation. Not "I envisioned it all along". And if Luke was originally envisioned as screaming when he fell in Bespin, why didn't Lucas put it it in then? Also I doubt footage from ROTJ (complete with Jerjerrod) was originally envisioned in ESB to get Vader from Bespin back to his Star Destroyer. It's well-documented that Lucas always wanted a bigger Mos Eisley in ANH, but the one we got in the SE looked kinda 90s to me and I bet Lucas's original envisioning of a bigger Mos Eisley was pretty different.  I also doubt he originally envisioned Hayden's ghost at the end of ROTJ or Temuera Morrison doing the Boba Fett lines. So no, I don't think the SE represents what Lucas envisioned way back.

skyjedi2005 said:

This wimpy whiny little bitch of a sociopath is supposed to be the badass charismatic, feared dark lord of the sith, and the father of the sagas greatest hero Luke Skywalker, wtf.

My thoughts exactly.

And Mark was good in the OT. Plus, while Luke whined he was never defined by it. Annie is all whine. And is unlikeable while Luke was plenty likeable. 

And for your list of quotes, don't forget "I hate you!" lol! Awful writing perfectly teamed with awful acting.

C3PX said:

G E Predator said:

What we see in the official DVD's is what GL envisioned. 

 

Vaderisnothayden already covered this, but yeah, you can't really say that is what Lucas "envisioned". That makes it sound like what we have now was somehow his plan all along, and clearly it wasn't. If he had had the whole thing planned out all along, you can bet things would have been much better thoughtout. Instead we end of with a lot of afterthoughts, convoluted plot points, and massive gaps in the plot. Honestly, I could have forgiven the prequels for a good deal of their awfulness if they actually possessed the ability to go along side the original trilogy to some extent. But it takes an awful lot of over thinking and self delusion to plaster over all the cracks in order to come up with a smooth enough surface to safely walk across without tripping. It is really hard to suspend your disbelief enough to make these fims work, for those that are able to, more power to you, but for some of us it is simply impossible.

To make the six films work as one story you have to convince yourself that Annie in the prequels is the same guy as Vader and Anakin in the OT, and that really takes some doing. I can't stand the six-film-saga myth. One big six part movie, my ass hole. Two different trilogies are that not believably in the same universe. And while Lucas did have prequels of some sort in mind when he made the OT, he most definitely did not design the OT to be seen after prequels -that's evident in their structure.

skyjedi2005 said:

 seriously i wonder if that was georges acting advice for him, sneer like an asshole and whine like a spoiled rotten brat.

Honestly I think it was. I think George actually wanted what Hayden delivered, bizarre as that may seem. Not that it makes Hayden's acting any more excusable. It's not an actor doing a brilliant job playing lame. It's just Hayden doing his usual schtick to the extreme. In every performance I've seen Hayden do, in multiple films, he's always failed to give his characters substance and made them lame. As far as I can tell, it's something he does to one extent or another in all his films, whether or not it's called for. I think a better actor would have given Anakin more substance and dignity, which would have satisfied George less but worked a lot better for Anakin and Vader. I mean, for god's sake, it's supposed to be VADER.

C3PX said:

G E Predator said:

What we see in the official DVD's is what GL envisioned. 

 

Vaderisnothayden already covered this, but yeah, you can't really say that is what Lucas "envisioned". That makes it sound like what we have now was somehow his plan all along, and clearly it wasn't. If he had had the whole thing planned out all along, you can bet things would have been much better thoughtout. Instead we end of with a lot of afterthoughts, convoluted plot points, and massive gaps in the plot. Honestly, I could have forgiven the prequels for a good deal of their awfulness if they actually possessed the ability to go along side the original trilogy to some extent. But it takes an awful lot of over thinking and self delusion to plaster over all the cracks in order to come up with a smooth enough surface to safely walk across without tripping. It is really hard to suspend your disbelief enough to make these fims work, for those that are able to, more power to you, but for some of us it is simply impossible.

Well I'm not in self-delusion, but I have done a lot of thinking about the prequels that helps me see that they do make sense.  Maybe they are what GL envisioned.  Maybe they're not.  I don't know for sure because I'm not GL.  What I was implying that there is a difference between hating the films and bashing the artist for making the films.  GL did graduate from USC with a BA in fine arts, and he is one of the American film industry's most financially successful independent directors/producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion.  The reason I defend him is because he has more experience in film making that we do.  So while we don't have to agree with he vision of the Prequels or his idea about the OT:SE, it is not his fault if we choose not to like them.

G E Predator said:

C3PX said:

G E Predator said:

What we see in the official DVD's is what GL envisioned. 

 

Vaderisnothayden already covered this, but yeah, you can't really say that is what Lucas "envisioned". That makes it sound like what we have now was somehow his plan all along, and clearly it wasn't. If he had had the whole thing planned out all along, you can bet things would have been much better thoughtout. Instead we end of with a lot of afterthoughts, convoluted plot points, and massive gaps in the plot. Honestly, I could have forgiven the prequels for a good deal of their awfulness if they actually possessed the ability to go along side the original trilogy to some extent. But it takes an awful lot of over thinking and self delusion to plaster over all the cracks in order to come up with a smooth enough surface to safely walk across without tripping. It is really hard to suspend your disbelief enough to make these fims work, for those that are able to, more power to you, but for some of us it is simply impossible.

 

Well I'm not in self-delusion, but I have done a lot of thinking about the prequels that helps me see that they do make sense.  Maybe they are what GL envisioned.  Maybe they're not.  I don't know for sure because I'm not GL.  What I was implying that there is a difference between hating the films and bashing the artist for making the films.  GL did graduate from USC with a BA in fine arts, and he is one of the American film industry's most financially successful independent directors/producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion.  The reason I defend him is because he has more experience in film making that we do.  So while we don't have to agree with he vision of the Prequels or his idea about the OT:SE, it is not his fault if we choose not to like them.

It's his fault that he made awful films. There was no need whatsoever to do that. We didn't just come along and dandily say "Well, I think I'll dislike this film, because it'll entertain me to do so." We love Star Wars. We had every reason to want to love these films. But for all that, George made it impossible to love them, because he made them so far out awful. That's his fault.

And they aren't just awful -they also totally crap on the Star Wars story. It's perfectly reasonable for us to be pissed off with him for that. Just like his SE revisions totally crap on the original films. There was every reason to dislike those. And it's his fault that there was every reason to dislike them, because it was George Lucas who made them like that.

With the SE he mutilated the OT, and then there was all this talk from him about how the originals will vanish and all that will be left will be his horrible mutilated versions and sorry you fell in live with a half-finished movie. And the OOT isn't getting restored and can't get a decent dvd release and probably won't be on blu-ray or future formats, so we probably won't be able to watch it on the long term. Between the SE and the PT and the treatment of the OOT, this guy totally destroyed Star Wars. And we have good reason, plenty justification, to be pissed off at him for that. 

The prequels don't make sense. I've done a lot of thinking about the prequels too and they don't work and they don't add up.

Lucas's finanicial success is not in any way an argument that he's not responsible for screwing up with the prequels or that he shouldn't be held responsible. The same goes for him having a BA in fine arts, which is a pretty common degree by the way.

So what if he has more experience in filmmaking than we do. That doesn't mean he understands Star Wars better than us. Quite the opposite. The SE changes proved that he doesn't understand Star Wars anymore, as does the nature of the PT. He lost his understanding of Star Wars and screwed up the whole thing and no amount of filmmaking experience absolves him of the guilt for that. He crapped all over a beloved classic. Something beloved of millions should not be destroyed to satsify the whims of one man.

Vaderisnothayden said:

G E Predator said:

C3PX said:

G E Predator said:

What we see in the official DVD's is what GL envisioned. 

 

Vaderisnothayden already covered this, but yeah, you can't really say that is what Lucas "envisioned". That makes it sound like what we have now was somehow his plan all along, and clearly it wasn't. If he had had the whole thing planned out all along, you can bet things would have been much better thoughtout. Instead we end of with a lot of afterthoughts, convoluted plot points, and massive gaps in the plot. Honestly, I could have forgiven the prequels for a good deal of their awfulness if they actually possessed the ability to go along side the original trilogy to some extent. But it takes an awful lot of over thinking and self delusion to plaster over all the cracks in order to come up with a smooth enough surface to safely walk across without tripping. It is really hard to suspend your disbelief enough to make these fims work, for those that are able to, more power to you, but for some of us it is simply impossible.

 

Well I'm not in self-delusion, but I have done a lot of thinking about the prequels that helps me see that they do make sense.  Maybe they are what GL envisioned.  Maybe they're not.  I don't know for sure because I'm not GL.  What I was implying that there is a difference between hating the films and bashing the artist for making the films.  GL did graduate from USC with a BA in fine arts, and he is one of the American film industry's most financially successful independent directors/producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion.  The reason I defend him is because he has more experience in film making that we do.  So while we don't have to agree with he vision of the Prequels or his idea about the OT:SE, it is not his fault if we choose not to like them.

 

It's his fault that he made awful films. There was no need whatsoever to do that. We didn't just come along and dandily say "Well, I think I'll dislike this film, because it'll entertain me to do so." We love Star Wars. We had every reason to want to love these films. But for all that, George made it impossible to love them, because he made them so far out awful. That's his fault.

And they aren't just awful -they also totally crap on the Star Wars story. It's perfectly reasonable for us to be pissed off with him for that. Just like his SE revisions totally crap on the original films. There was every reason to dislike those. And it's his fault that there was every reason to dislike them, because it was George Lucas who made them like that.

With the SE he mutilated the OT, and then there was all this talk from him about how the originals will vanish and all that will be left will be his horrible mutilated versions and sorry you fell in live with a half-finished movie. And the OOT isn't getting restored and can't get a decent dvd release and probably won't be on blu-ray or future formats, so we probably won't be able to watch it on the long term. Between the SE and the PT and the treatment of the OOT, this guy totally destroyed Star Wars. And we have good reason, plenty justification, to be pissed off at him for that. 

The prequels don't make sense. I've done a lot of thinking about the prequels too and they don't work and they don't add up.

Lucas's finanicial success is not in any way an argument that he's not responsible for screwing up with the prequels or that he shouldn't be held responsible. The same goes for him having a BA in fine arts, which is a pretty common degree by the way.

So what if he has more experience in filmmaking than we do. That doesn't mean he understands Star Wars better than us. Quite the opposite. The SE changes proved that he doesn't understand Star Wars anymore, as does the nature of the PT. He lost his understanding of Star Wars and screwed up the whole thing and no amount of filmmaking experience absolves him of the guilt for that. He crapped all over a beloved classic. Something beloved of millions should not be destroyed to satsify the whims of one man.

How can you say that he doesn't understand Star Wars more than us?  He created Star Wars.  It's his artwork.  And George did not make it impossible to love them.  "Love" and "Hate" are ideal opinions.

G E Predator said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

G E Predator said:

C3PX said:

G E Predator said:

What we see in the official DVD's is what GL envisioned. 

 

Vaderisnothayden already covered this, but yeah, you can't really say that is what Lucas "envisioned". That makes it sound like what we have now was somehow his plan all along, and clearly it wasn't. If he had had the whole thing planned out all along, you can bet things would have been much better thoughtout. Instead we end of with a lot of afterthoughts, convoluted plot points, and massive gaps in the plot. Honestly, I could have forgiven the prequels for a good deal of their awfulness if they actually possessed the ability to go along side the original trilogy to some extent. But it takes an awful lot of over thinking and self delusion to plaster over all the cracks in order to come up with a smooth enough surface to safely walk across without tripping. It is really hard to suspend your disbelief enough to make these fims work, for those that are able to, more power to you, but for some of us it is simply impossible.

 

Well I'm not in self-delusion, but I have done a lot of thinking about the prequels that helps me see that they do make sense.  Maybe they are what GL envisioned.  Maybe they're not.  I don't know for sure because I'm not GL.  What I was implying that there is a difference between hating the films and bashing the artist for making the films.  GL did graduate from USC with a BA in fine arts, and he is one of the American film industry's most financially successful independent directors/producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion.  The reason I defend him is because he has more experience in film making that we do.  So while we don't have to agree with he vision of the Prequels or his idea about the OT:SE, it is not his fault if we choose not to like them.

 

It's his fault that he made awful films. There was no need whatsoever to do that. We didn't just come along and dandily say "Well, I think I'll dislike this film, because it'll entertain me to do so." We love Star Wars. We had every reason to want to love these films. But for all that, George made it impossible to love them, because he made them so far out awful. That's his fault.

And they aren't just awful -they also totally crap on the Star Wars story. It's perfectly reasonable for us to be pissed off with him for that. Just like his SE revisions totally crap on the original films. There was every reason to dislike those. And it's his fault that there was every reason to dislike them, because it was George Lucas who made them like that.

With the SE he mutilated the OT, and then there was all this talk from him about how the originals will vanish and all that will be left will be his horrible mutilated versions and sorry you fell in live with a half-finished movie. And the OOT isn't getting restored and can't get a decent dvd release and probably won't be on blu-ray or future formats, so we probably won't be able to watch it on the long term. Between the SE and the PT and the treatment of the OOT, this guy totally destroyed Star Wars. And we have good reason, plenty justification, to be pissed off at him for that. 

The prequels don't make sense. I've done a lot of thinking about the prequels too and they don't work and they don't add up.

Lucas's finanicial success is not in any way an argument that he's not responsible for screwing up with the prequels or that he shouldn't be held responsible. The same goes for him having a BA in fine arts, which is a pretty common degree by the way.

So what if he has more experience in filmmaking than we do. That doesn't mean he understands Star Wars better than us. Quite the opposite. The SE changes proved that he doesn't understand Star Wars anymore, as does the nature of the PT. He lost his understanding of Star Wars and screwed up the whole thing and no amount of filmmaking experience absolves him of the guilt for that. He crapped all over a beloved classic. Something beloved of millions should not be destroyed to satsify the whims of one man.

How can you say that he doesn't understand Star Wars more than us?  He created Star Wars.  It's his artwork.  And George did not make it impossible to love them.  "Love" and "Hate" are ideal opinions.

 

How can I say it? Easily. Because I think the changes he made in the SE showed a blatant lack of understanding of the films and how they worked (see below). Because I think the portrayal of Anakin in the prequels showed a lack of understanding of what he'd already established in the OT for the character (both Vader and Anakin sides). Because a whole collection of things in the prequels showed what I think is a lack of understanding of how Star Wars works. As for "He created Star Wars. It's his artwork.", I disagree. The YOUNGER George Lucas created Star Wars. Then, like everybody does, he developed and changed as a person as he got older. The person we are at one time is not the same person we are even a decade later. It's easy to lose touch with something you did years ago when you were a different person. So no, I don't think it's his artwork -I think it's the artwork of the younger Lucas, who no longer exists, because he has been replaced by the older Lucas. And just as I am not the same person I was back then, I don't think he is the same person he was back then. I think he's lost touch with what he did back then. And I think some of us have lost touch with it less.  

Don't get caught up in the mistaken practice of worshipping an artistic creator figure and thinking their judgement with regard to their work is infallible. Creative types misunderstand their work and fuck it up all the time and sometimes people on the sidelines can see it more clearly than they do.

Examples of SE changes that in my opinion demonstrate a lack of understanding of how the films work: Turning Jabba into a silly cartoon that was a total betrayal of the character and was at odds with the whole feel of the film, compromising the character and the believability of the film's fictional reality. Fucking up Han Solo's character development for the sake of artificial pseudo-morality (Han shoots second). Putting in a new ROTJ music number in Jabba's palace that was totally at odds with the whole nature of the film, including putting in cartoon characters whose totally unreal nature compromised the way the old films tried hard to make its imagined reality believable. Making the dying Anakin look less human and less relatable by excising his eyebrows, when the humanity and relatability of the dying Anakin was essential to the functioning of the whole trilogy. Replacing the ghost of old Anakin with young Annie despite the fact that the ghost of old Anakin is essential for making the emotional connection with the film's redemption theme that is a crucial part of the trilogy. Breaking of the crucial emotional flow from Vader funeral pyre to Endor celebrations that was a crucial part of the graceful closing of the whole trilogy (by stuffing in those other-world celebrations), which suggests to me that he doesn't understand how that part of the film works. These changes in my opinion demonstrate  a clear lack of understanding of how the films work and of how Star Wars works.

Similarly, I think  the casting of Hayden Christensen and the writing of Anakin in the prequels demonstrates a lack of understanding of what he'd established Anakin to be in the OT (most notably through the crucial Sebastian Shaw scenes) and of what Vader had been established to be in the OT and of how important this established stuff was to the functioning of the story. The nature of Anakin and of Vader is absolutely central to Star Wars. Also, the inclusion of totally cartoonish characters in the prequels was against a crucial principle the old films clearly function by -that they should try to make their imagined reality feel believable in terms of presentation of imaginary creatures and things. The old films functioning by that rule established it as a fundamental rule of the Star Wars fictional reality. If you're going to put something in the same fictonal reality then it has to function by the same rules. That's basic. The cartoon creatures were totally against this principle and totally undermined the fictional reality of the prequels and their connection with the old films. Demonstrating to my kind a lack of undersatanding of how the Star Wars fictional reality works. Another example is the virgin birth, which was totally at odds with the kind of story Star Wars is and the kind of standards it set for its fictional reality.

There were other things in the SE and PT that to my mind demonstrate a lack of understanding of Star Wars and of the films. Some of them are more complicated to explain and some of them are more minor. But all around I think it's a damning testimony. I think it demonstrates that Lucas forgot how Star Wars works.

And George did not make it impossible to love them.  "Love" and "Hate" are ideal opinions.

Huh? Yes he did. Oh, if somebody looks at the prequels and SEs with a rose-tinted vision or doesn't look at them too deeply or completely then yeah they can like them. But if you look at them clearly and see them for what they are then you will dislike them. And this is because George made them crap. So yeah I think he did make them impossible to like, except for those people whose perceptions on the matter are blurred one way or another. It's impossible to see the SEs and PT as what they are and like them, and that's because George made them the way they are. We didn't "choose" to dislike them. We had no option. Our choice was made for us by the nature of the thing. And the nature of the thing (the SE and PT) is down to George. So I think he gave us no option and is indeed responsible for us disliking the damn things.

Note, there are some positive things about the SE and PT (like some elements of TPM and the semi-restoration of the Biggs scene in the SE), so it is possible to see them for what they are and like some elements, but liking the PT overall or the SE overall is I think impossible if you recognize their true nature and what they mean for Star Wars. At least if you care about Star Wars and give a damn about the OT. Our love of Star Wars leaves us no option but to hate this travesty of Star Wars.

I'm not convinced.  Not in the slightest.  I stick with my beliefs about GL because I too am a creator.  I too have visions, and though they may not be agreeable to some people does not mean that I would have to give in to those peers.  Same thing with GL.

So while I can't force you to appreciate Lucas or his recent works, I will not give in and become a basher and a hater.  I am a SW fan for the enjoyment of the films, for the fun of playing with the action figures and pretending to be the hero or the villain, and for the inspiration to write me own creative masterpieces.

xhonzi said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

And back in the old days I wanted new Star Wars films like most people. I didn't realize Lucas was going to (as I see it) go out of his way to make them bad movies. In retrospect I realize I should have been happy with just 3, but who knew? After the awfulnes of the SE we should have seen the writing on the wall, but before that?

As for ROTJ bashing, that will never fail to bewilder me. ROTJ is a great movie, the equal of the other two, and it has some of the best stuff in the trilogy.

 

 Some of the best of the trilogy and also some of the worst.  I don't need to go into detail here, but if the SE's were the writing on the wall, RotJ was George walking up to the wall, checking it for writability and considering just what he might put on it.

xhonzi - bravo on that last bit, very well-said.

ROTJ is not bad on the scale of the SEs or the PT, but you can see the beginnings of the infection beginning to fester.  Especially after the bleak, brutal ending of ESB, the way the whole Han/Jabba storyline is wrapped up in a very cartoonish fashion really grates.  Also, you can already see Lucas going back and redoing the bits of ANH that he was unsatisfied with, both with the "faster, more intense" space battle, and the overdone nature of Jabba's palace.  It just gets worse in the SEs and the PT.

VINH - you make a lot of good points in this thread, but I think you give ROTJ a pass it doesn't deserve.  It is, on balance, a decent movie, and it does wrap things up in a relatively satisfying (if too pat) way, but its flaws are major and definitely point the way to some of the major problems with the tone of the prequels.

A couple major issues:

1)  You've never noticed the belches and Tarzan yell? Really?  These are obvious precursors to JJB stepping in poodoo in TPM, and I honestly can't believe you didn't notice the obvious nods to what Lucas believes a 6-year-old will find funny, and his wrong-headed belief that they had any place in a Star Wars movie.

2)  Jabba's palace is not brilliant in any way beyond the design of the aliens and the environment.  It's supposed to feel threatening, but instead comes off as a big cartoon - the aliens (particularly the large ones - Ephant Mon, Hermi Odle) are nicely-designed, but they're totally anonymous in action, and never feel like a threat to the main characters.  Even though Luke's lightsaber mysteriously turns into a baseball bat when asked to slice through organic material, the denizens of Jabba's palace exist primarily so they can laugh cartoonishly and die in the explosion.

3)  The Ewoks - yes, they are more threatening than usually given credit for, but the character design (admittedly limited by the technology of the time) is clearly driven a bit too much by marketing considerations.  There's nothing about their physical appearance that denotes "fierceness" in any way, and again, the cartoonish nature of the combat in the movie undermines any impression of it, regardless.

It's been pretty firmly established that Lucas hated the lack of control he exercised over Kershner on ESB, going so far as to do a radical re-cut of the movie that everybody agreed was a major step backwards.  After ESB established "Star Wars" as a brand, however, and got Lucas out of the Hollywood wars, he did everything he could to control the brand in ROTJ and remove any potentially-objectionable elements that were allowed in the first two movies (more realistic violence, etc) in order to make the movie more palatable to the parents of younger children.

ROTJ may have had some of the successful elements of the earlier movies, but it also continues the "incredible shrinking galaxy" issue that began with "I am your father" in ESB, and cements it with its repeated lack of originality (back to Tatooine, redo the cantina, attack a new Death Star, etc).  More importantly for future developments, the way that Lucas chose to change the tone of the movie pointed to the further changes he would later make in the SEs, and the lamentable direction he would decide to go with the Prequels.  In my ranking of the episodes, it's clearly a poor third to ESB and ANH, but still far, far better than any of the prequels (the very definition of damning with faint praise, I'm afraid).

C3PX said:

When I was a kid I really enjoyed Return of the Jedi, and thought my older cousin was a retard because he felt it was poorly written and childish. To me this was unbelieveable, I felt Return of the Jedi was one of the greatest films every made, my cousin obviously didn't know what he was talking about! Well, now that I am older and can look at Return of the Jedi with more mature eyes, I can see very clearly that my cousin was absolutely right about that film.

To some of us older guys, it is just impossible to find fart jokes and Jar Jar's antics in the least bit humorous or enjoyable to watch, or to find Anakin's character the least bit heroic or his turn the least bit tragic. The PT is clearly missing a lot of the magic that made the originals loved by so many. Some of us lament the situation, because honestly, a prequel trilogy had a lot of potential, and sadly, that potential was wasted on films with insanely high budgets, but writing, situations, and acting slightly under par for a Disney Channel original movie.

As a kid, I also enjoyed Return of the Jedi.  And now that I'm less than four months from turning 28, I still like it.  I know that the rescue scene in Jabba's Palace could have gone better, but it's those moments where not everything goes according to plan and the hero's chances of success become slimmer that can really heighten a moment.  I believe that Ady understood that while he reworked that Battle of Yavin in ANH:R.

Last I recalled, there was only 1 fart joke in the whole saga, and Jar-Jar's antics were short lived.  Both of these were in TPM.  And maybe Anakin wasn't as heroic was we might have depicted, but I do agree that the galaxies greatest villain would have started out as a whiny teenager.  As for his turn to the dark side, I felt it was very tragic.  He sold his soul the devil and ended up loosing everything, all because he want to save his wife from dying.  He starts off being motivated by love and attachment, and evolves into lust for domination.