How deeply rooted is "suck" in the Prequels?

xhonzi said:

Are the plot outlines bad?  Or are they just poorly executed?

I don't think there's anything wrong with the PT on a conceptual level. I think it's half-hearted execution, an excess of special effects and a director who admitedly doesn't care about character development.

I firmly believe that with a few extra drafts to polish the dialogue and dangling plot threads (probably involving other writers), a director who cared about human emotions over spectacle, and an editor with a firm hand, the PT (while probably not the level of the OT) would have been a great series of films.

Here I go with AOTC.

Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan are charged with protecting Senator Amidala after an assassination attempt. Their efforts to keep her from danger uncover a .... things blow up and shit.

The building of two armies to start a fake war is a good idea but the whole mystery that isn't actually investigated buisiness really hurts this film as does the unecessary darting about the galaxy just to get Anakin to see his mother die and pick up Threepio who doesn't actually do anything strand.

The growing romance should be important but not seem important (in ESB we know Han and Leia are Jonesing for each other but the film doesn't stop dead while they pontificate about should they or shouldn't they).

The Jedi are made out to be the dumbest of dumb asses in the history of story telling.

Palpatine wants an army, they find an army grown from a bounty hunter linked to the Seperatists who are building their own army and they waste no time using it????

The Chancellor might as well walk around with a big sign on his head saying "I'm the Sith Lord you are looking for" (the Sith mind trick clearly trumps the Jedi one in spades).

It would have made some sense if the Republic didn't know that the Jedi were investigating the clones and used them to rescue the Jedi who become deeply suspicious of the Chancellor (which would lead to their actions in ROTS).

But Yoda and the gang taking charge of them when they know where they came from makes no sense at all.

It might make sense if Fett had no visable links to the Seperatists but he's practically Dooku's bodyguard when he isn't trying to kill the main opponent to legitimising the Clone army he helped create.

Dooku shouldn't be a Sith Lord with a hotline to the Emperor to be.

He should be a manipulated Rebel who is trying to sort the mess out and not know he is working for the man, it would have made his story tragic instead of just stupid.

It's clear from ANH that Uncle Owen knows Obi-Wan and resents him pulling Anakin away so why is his cameo in this film so redundant (Beru even more so)?

What happened to Anakin's dreams of freeing the slaves so clearly set up in TPM?

The PT is too far gone for a simple re-edit, it needs major working on if it's even going to make sense.

The Phantom Menace:

The film opens with several long sequences that no one could possibly be interested in.  Lots of robots, laser swords, and frog-men.

Part way through the film, a brave, handsome, and observant starship captain enters the story.  He makes several witty remarks and generally saves the day.

The rest of the movie continues on like the first part, with more robots, laser swords, and frog-men, with some politics thrown in to really slow things down.

The brave, handsome, and observant starship captain shows up once or twice more, making more witty remarks.  The climax of the film occurs when he helps blow up the evil robot control ship by observing the whiny kid's actions.

The film ends with two scenes:

1) Everyone is sad, not because the force-dude is being burned to a crisp, but rather because the brave, handsome, and observant starship captain does not speak during the scene.

2) Everyone is happy, not because the frog-men get an electro-static ball, but because the brave, handsome, and observant starship captain is promised more work in the next movie.

The prequels do not dramatise a differentiating idea. Whereas, the OT does, in absolute bucket loads.

IV - That's no moon - it's a space station! Loads of cool stuff kids of the '70s had never seen done so well before.

V - They'd be crazy to follow us! Loads of cool stuff the kids of the '70s had never seen done so well before.

VI - Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battlestation! Loads of cool stuff the kids of the '70s had never seen done so well before.

== PAUSED 16 YEARS ==

I - Yippee! Nothing my kids haven't seen before, and done better.

II - Are you okay?! Nothing my kids haven't seen before, and done better.

III - She died of a broken heart! Nothing my kids haven't seen before, and done better.

xhonzi said:

I think that was my pont.  (I think.)  That the part of the story that is ?good? is reduced to half an hour or so.  I think the way Palpatine manipulates the galaxy in the Prequels is actually rather well done... but that seems to be the focus of the PT and not "The Adventures of Anakin Skywalker."

 If you threatened me with a blaster to my head, then I'd admit that the Palpatine manipulates the galaxy was my favorite idea of the prequels.  And this idea was actually pretty well treated in the EU novels between the movies (I think one was called Labyrinth of Evil or something like that).  I'd actually watch a film series about how Sidious is always one step ahead of the Jedi.  In the books, the Jedi weren't so naive.

The biggest problem in the prequels is Anakin's turn to the Dark Side.  Lucas's idea that 'attachment' is the root to the dark side seems philosophically problematic.  What happened to "Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice."? 

Sluggo said:

The biggest problem in the prequels is Anakin's turn to the Dark Side.  Lucas's idea that 'attachment' is the root to the dark side seems philosophically problematic.  What happened to "Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice."? 

 

Yeah, suddenly all the stuff that was supposed to be the dark side is no longer relevant and Anakin turns dark because he's in love. And since when was being attached to people an evil thing? That strikes me as a pretty disturbing attitude. I think ROTS preaches an anti-love anti-human attitude.

xhonzi said:

The Phantom Menace:

A boy born into slavery on a backwater planet meets some strangers who are actually warriors marooned on his planet after a battle in an intergalactic Space War.  The boy is intrigued by the strangers and the idea of life away slavery.  He helps them repair their damaged spacecraft so they can return to the War.  The boy leaves his life of slavery with the warriors and is introduced to the vastness of the galaxy.  He joins the War effort and is trained by the warriors.

Well...  that's maybe shorter than it needs to be, but that's the kernel of story in Phantom Menace that I do like and think could actually be quite good if executed differently than TPM.  Reminds me of the White Mountains of the Tripod Trilogy for those that have read them.

Knock out the "warriors" and make it "warrior". There was no Qui Gon in the original story. It was all Kenobi. And Anakin was probably imagined as an adult when he first met Kenobi in the version of the story Lucas had back crica 1983.

xhonzi said:

We normally blame the acting (which is bad (except for Ewan who was excellent!))

I disagree. He was ok in the first film (in which Liam Neeson was excellent), but in the second film he came off 100% false and in the third film he was just bland. His performances as Kenobi regularly get praised for the simple reason that he didn't fuck up as much as Hayden or as Padme in the later two films. But it's really not so good. He fails to make the sort of connection betwen the audience and the character that there was with the characters in the OT and in the PT Neeson managed a lot more connection and feeling than he did.

Re the title question of this thread, suck is rooted in the overall foundation mentality of the prequels, how Lucas reenvisioned the story once he came back to it (or even a few years earlier -a comment from MCallum makes me think the suck goes back to at least 1990) and also the mentality with which Lucas approached making the prequels, as expressed by so much of what's in the films themselves. The prequels are screwed from the ground up. It's not just a few faults here or there, or even a lot of faults. It's an overall mentality that's not Star wars and is toxic to Star Wars. Worse in AOTC and ROTS than in TPM, but pretty bad in TPM too.

Vaderisnothayden said:

xhonzi said:

We normally blame the acting (which is bad (except for Ric who was excellent!))

I agree. He was super awesome in the first film (in which Ric was also super handsome), but in the second film he came off 100% even better and in the third film he was just completely awesome. His performances as himself regularly get praised for the simple reason that he was amazing and talented and handsome as hell. But it's really more impressive than that. He completely manages to make the sort of connection betwen the audience and the character that there was with the characters in the OT and in the PT Ric managed a lot more connection and feeling than anyone ever has or will again.

Fixed!

Hey dude, leave my posts alone. Go fix somebody else's posts, you you... PILOT you.

xhonzi said:

I can't believe how many mistakes VINH made in his original post!

*ahem*

Ric Olie said:

xhonzi said:

We normally blame the acting (which is bad (except for Ric who was excellent!))

Fixed!