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The PT was doomed from the opening crawl and here is why

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The biggest issue in my mind with the PT is that TPM starts when anikin is nine/ten. The kiddy themes that are introduced to the saga way down the more heavy elements to come. TPM would have been much more affective with Aniken being a normal padawan at 17 facing the trials at the beginning of the first movie. Anakin could already have a accomplished great deeds and have a developing reputation. A 17 yr old anankin far aged far beyound his years, brave, wise, humble. The character could have been set up as a true hero, with all the classical character traits that one would attach to a true hero. Lucas tried too hard to make him a mystical figure, virgin birth and all. We never see Anakin that was anything near heroic or that should true character. Instead we see a annoying little kid, and a moody teen. When anakin falls in ROTS i wont care, no one will. The character that has developed so far is anything but relatable. By shifting the age of anakin, and erasing the nonsense created by TPM GL could have developed a character that people wanted to cheer for, a character people wanted to cry for, and most importantly a character that the audience could have sorrow/pitty for when fate turns anakin into vader. Luke, Han, and Leia all had this going for them in the o-ot. Heck even vader has it going by the end of ROTJ. Who amongst us wasnt stongly effected by the final battle scene where Vader saves his son and defeats the emporer?

gl greatest error was trying to make the movie kid friendly, instead of making it apeal to the kid in all of us...


sorry for all the gramatical and spelling errors in this, i am lazy, and sorry if this has all been covered before.
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I agree that in retrospect, Episode II would have been a much better way to start off the series than Episode I. However, if done right, I think the idea of starting the story with Anakin as a small boy would have been very interesting. I'm thinking of Godfather II as a correct way for a "prequel" to begin Don Corleone's story from the time when he was a small boy, then showing him grow into a young man.

So I think having all six episodes cover the life of Anakin since he was very young up to his death gives it a more epic story arc, but I don't think it was executed very well. For starters, I would eliminate the "Spy Kids"-like finale in Episode I where cute little Anakin accidentally destroys the command ship and saves the day.

"I'll try spinning! That's a neat trick!" (I hope I never watch that scene while going through a deep depression, or it might send me over the edge.)
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you know, I think that the series would have been much better off if it had started with AOTC. Because we all know that there's simply too much ground to be covered in ROTS for there to be good storytelling...
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heh, George Lucas is a prime example of why collaboration yields the best results
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Originally posted by: adlai
you know, I think that the series would have been much better off if it had started with AOTC. Because we all know that there's simply too much ground to be covered in ROTS for there to be good storytelling...



This is my biggest fear - unless it's suddenly announced ROTS has a running time equal to Return of the King! Not only do we have to see Anakin turn to the dark side (in a believable way, I might add), but we also have to see some history of Obi-Wan trying to turn him back before their climatic battle. (As referenced by Vader in ROTJ when he says to Luke, "Obi-Wan once thought as you do.")
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By that, Vader only meant that Luke thought of the dark side as evil. Many Sith don't consider the Dark Side, evil, but the natural way of the force.

Obi-wan thought that way before he died.

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Agreed on the needed run time for ROTS. The clone wars just started at the END of AOTC, there is so much to cover. But we all know gl will drop the film at the same length as all the others, he is OCD in the editing room.

As for Vaders comment i have always thought that it refered to Obi thinking vader could be turned back. Doesnt vader say that part of him is dead or something? Then at the end of ROTJ Vader requests that luke tell his sister that he was right, and how luke has already saved him... I have never understood it to mean that obi misunderstood the nature of the force... could be wrong though i suppose...

the Godfather. With the Godfather II the stories are enterlaced with one another, and you see the progression of Vito Corleone. The reason this works is because the story is told in flashbacks while the story countinues in current time as well. I would be all for showing so sort of flashbacks telling the back story of anikien through out Ep. 1. If done right it would be very compelling and add much to Anakin as a character. But as it stands now i view it as wasted screen time.

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"I'll try spinning! That's a neat trick!" (I hope I never watch that scene while going through a deep depression, or it might send me over the edge.)


dont forget the also painful "IT'S WORKING!!!, IT'S WORKING" "Are you an angel?" or any random ani(which by the way is a horrible name makes me think he was at one time a red head running around with daddy warbucks.)

but that nonsence is nothing compared to Ani's elloquence when it comes to the women in AOTC... Yikes what a stocker...
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Originally posted by: rennervision
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Originally posted by: adlai
you know, I think that the series would have been much better off if it had started with AOTC. Because we all know that there's simply too much ground to be covered in ROTS for there to be good storytelling...

This is my biggest fear - unless it's suddenly announced ROTS has a running time equal to Return of the King! Not only do we have to see Anakin turn to the dark side (in a believable way, I might add), but we also have to see some history of Obi-Wan trying to turn him back before their climatic battle. (As referenced by Vader in ROTJ when he says to Luke, "Obi-Wan once thought as you do.")

Not to mention Lucas has to fill in all those plot holes and inconsistencies, which would probably take a movie just for that (and we have to see the Jedi being exterminated, the Empire rising, and so on and so on).

As someone else put it, it'll be like watching a magician do as many tricks as he can in two hours.
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Where's Moff Tarkin, someone answer me that???
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You want to talk about doom, I'll show you doom:

Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.

There's your doom. Who wants to watch a movie about a trade dispute? C-SPAN anyone?
DarthSheba.com - just your average unassuming Sith chick.
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Originally posted by: adlai
you know, I think that the series would have been much better off if it had started with AOTC.


I agree, and the biggest problem Lucas has in these prequels is an inability to "get to the story". In Star Wars, we didn't spend a movie with Luke as a young child, we were whisked right into the action. We also didn't have to wonder who the main character was, as Luke was fully grown, and the movies took place over a small amount of "movie time".

The Prequels are less real movies than they are an "A&E Biography: The Life and Times of Anakin Skywalker" where Lucas takes us through a 6-hour, mostly boring, biopic of the entire life of Aanakin, from his early years, right up until he became Darth Vader. It's really creepy how much movie-making ability Lucas has lost over the years, falling back on a tired "autobiography" TV format.
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I dont think he lost anything... I think he never had it...

Look at all the other successfull projects, they all had an enourmass amounts of input from a myriad of other people. GL is a wonderful idea guy with a spectacular imagination. But he has never been a great script righter or polisher of ideas. In the o-ot he was greatly distracted by battles with the studio, the sag, and various other hollywood entities, leaving room for other to polish his ideas.
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"Mosty boring" is very subjective...

Anyway, I would like to point out that taxation disputes have caused many wars in earth's history, such as the American War for Indpendence. It was also part of the list of causes for the American Civil War.

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That means that it would make a interesting historical documentary film, not an entertaining one...
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Sure, but would you want to watch them? Politics may be interesting on the written page, but on a movie screen?
DarthSheba.com - just your average unassuming Sith chick.
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I don't understand how you could consider a movie that opens with the slaughter of two innocent Republic pilots and two Jedi cutting down fifty battle droids "too political."

The scenes in the senate, I enjoyed because it shows how Palpatine cruelly manipulated the circumstances, and lied through his teeth in the presence of Jedi, using the very non-humans that he hated, to gain power and become ruler of the galaxy. He starts multiple Civil Wars in a period of thirteen years, in which millions are killed, all for his own ambition.

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i think what people are trying to say is that the original trilogy never needed any sort of political crap to make the movie interesting....
they worked well with the story we were given...

and these movies didnt need any political aspects in it at all...
sure they could have something to do with it... but not base the plot and story around it...

damn we live in a world where government and politics is gaining more and more control over what we watch, what we listen to, and how we live our lives...
the last thing i want to do is watch a movie about that kinda crap...

just my personal opinion
"Never. I'll never turn to the darkside. You've failed your highness. I am a jedi, like my father before me."
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But the OT did have it, at least in ANH. In a few lines here and there, and especially in the Death Star conference room scene. But it was so economically done that you didn't have time to be bored by the talk. Plus, it was broken up by Vader's little demonstration of the Force.
DarthSheba.com - just your average unassuming Sith chick.
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I was about to cite the Death Star conference myself, but Sheba beat me to it.

Great Darths think alike.

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