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Episode II has the best story of the prequels. Discuss. — Page 3

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You guys are kidding, right? Attack of the Clones? Best of the prequels?

“I don’t like sand. It’s coarse, rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere.”

NEVER FORGET

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Best from a storytelling POV. That doesn’t make it good; it’s still an abject failure.

From an aesthetic POV, I’d say TPM is the best of the prequels.

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DuracellEnergizer said:

Best from a storytelling POV. That doesn’t make it good; it’s still an abject failure.

From an aesthetic POV, I’d say TPM is the best of the prequels.

-_- Do you guys even know what storytelling IS? Are you talking about plot? Like cohesiveness? Yoda with a lightsaber, totally not contradicting anything in the original trilogy. There is a very clear difference between story and plot. Story is the emotional value of the movie. Plot is just what happens. I could tell you the first Star Wars is about a farmer boy growing up, but the plot would be that Luke Skywalker needs to blow up the Death Star. Normally Story > Plot but in fantasy, you need a cohesive universe for a truly immersive experience. Let’s how cohesive AOTC is :

OT: Darth Vader is badass
Clones: Anakin is a whiny stalker brat
OT: Yoda is an eccentric pacifist
Clones: Yoda is a humorless idiot who think lightsabers are better than the force
OT: Obi Wan and Anakin used to be friends.
Clones: Obi Wan and Anakin practically hate each other.
OT:Great movies overall.
Clones: Awful even by a non geek’s standards.

Some of these carry over to Revenge of the Sith, but they were introduced mainly in Attack of the Clones. So Attack of the Clones definetly doesn’t have the best PLOT. The entire prequel trilogy has terrible plot, especially the Phantom Menace. You guys seem to be blinded by Harmy’s description of the movie. Try mentioning the love story and the scenes where they do nothing bit talk. Revenge of the Sith is CLEARLY the best prequel. The past two movies have definetly done their damage on the plot, but Revenge of the Sith doesn’t really offend the original trilogy in a new way. Besides that, it’s a pretty good movie. I don’t understand the hate. In my mind there’s
THE MASTERPIECES

  • Star Wars 1977
  • The Empire Strikes Back
    THE GOOD
  • Return of the Jedi
  • Revenge of the Sith
    THE SANDY
  • The Phantom Menace
  • Attack of the Clones

tl:dr Revenge of the Sith is the best prequel since there is actually a compelling STORY. Learn the frickn difference!

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StarChewyWar said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Best from a storytelling POV. That doesn’t make it good; it’s still an abject failure.

From an aesthetic POV, I’d say TPM is the best of the prequels.

-_- Do you guys even know what storytelling IS? Are you talking about plot? Like cohesiveness? Yoda with a lightsaber, totally not contradicting anything in the original trilogy. There is a very clear difference between story and plot. Story is the emotional value of the movie. Plot is just what happens. I could tell you the first Star Wars is about a farmer boy growing up, but the plot would be that Luke Skywalker needs to blow up the Death Star. Normally Story > Plot but in fantasy, you need a cohesive universe for a truly immersive experience. Let’s how cohesive AOTC is :

OT: Darth Vader is badass
Clones: Anakin is a whiny stalker brat
OT: Yoda is an eccentric pacifist
Clones: Yoda is a humorless idiot who think lightsabers are better than the force
OT: Obi Wan and Anakin used to be friends.
Clones: Obi Wan and Anakin practically hate each other.
OT:Great movies overall.
Clones: Awful even by a non geek’s standards.

Pretty sure you’re describing what you called “Story”

Some of these carry over to Revenge of the Sith, but they were introduced mainly in Attack of the Clones. So Attack of the Clones definetly doesn’t have the best PLOT. The entire prequel trilogy has terrible plot, especially the Phantom Menace. You guys seem to be blinded by Harmy’s description of the movie.

If by “blinded” you mean “convinced”?

Try mentioning the love story and the scenes where they do nothing bit talk. Revenge of the Sith is CLEARLY the best prequel. The past two movies have definetly done their damage on the plot, but Revenge of the Sith doesn’t really offend the original trilogy in a new way.

Again, sounds like “story” not “plot”

Besides that, it’s a pretty good movie. I don’t understand the hate.

Generally, around here, most folks think ROTS is the best prequel, in terms of “is this an enjoyable movie?” So, that’s not hate. But…

tl:dr Revenge of the Sith is the best prequel since there is actually a compelling STORY.

Again, that may be so, but we’re saying it lacks something like the “solve a mystery” plot of AOTC.

ROTJ Storyboard Reconstruction Project

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timdiggerm said:

StarChewyWar said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Best from a storytelling POV. That doesn’t make it good; it’s still an abject failure.

From an aesthetic POV, I’d say TPM is the best of the prequels.

-_- Do you guys even know what storytelling IS? Are you talking about plot? Like cohesiveness? Yoda with a lightsaber, totally not contradicting anything in the original trilogy. There is a very clear difference between story and plot. Story is the emotional value of the movie. Plot is just what happens. I could tell you the first Star Wars is about a farmer boy growing up, but the plot would be that Luke Skywalker needs to blow up the Death Star. Normally Story > Plot but in fantasy, you need a cohesive universe for a truly immersive experience. Let’s how cohesive AOTC is :

OT: Darth Vader is badass
Clones: Anakin is a whiny stalker brat
OT: Yoda is an eccentric pacifist
Clones: Yoda is a humorless idiot who think lightsabers are better than the force
OT: Obi Wan and Anakin used to be friends.
Clones: Obi Wan and Anakin practically hate each other.
OT:Great movies overall.
Clones: Awful even by a non geek’s standards.

Pretty sure you’re describing what you called “Story”

Some of these carry over to Revenge of the Sith, but they were introduced mainly in Attack of the Clones. So Attack of the Clones definetly doesn’t have the best PLOT. The entire prequel trilogy has terrible plot, especially the Phantom Menace. You guys seem to be blinded by Harmy’s description of the movie.

If by “blinded” you mean “convinced”?

Try mentioning the love story and the scenes where they do nothing bit talk. Revenge of the Sith is CLEARLY the best prequel. The past two movies have definetly done their damage on the plot, but Revenge of the Sith doesn’t really offend the original trilogy in a new way.

Again, sounds like “story” not “plot”

Besides that, it’s a pretty good movie. I don’t understand the hate.

Generally, around here, most folks think ROTS is the best prequel, in terms of “is this an enjoyable movie?” So, that’s not hate. But…

tl:dr Revenge of the Sith is the best prequel since there is actually a compelling STORY.

Again, that may be so, but we’re saying it lacks something like the “solve a mystery” plot of AOTC.

Did you even read my post or this thread for that matter? Even in the OP, Harmy states that ROTS is painful. Also, story and plot mean different things, and I even said what they mean! Story is the emotion, Plot is what happens. Need me to repeat that? It seemed that people were judgeing AOTC by how much it makes sense or fits in with the rest of Star Wars, so I gave reasons as to why this isn’t true. If ypu want to go even FURTHER indepth as to why the plot sucks, I’ll be happy to oblige. I’ll be relying on my buddy Alfred Hitchcock(one of the greatest directors of all so you don’t get confused again). Similar to Story and Plot, there’s a clear difference between Mystery and Suspense, but basically Suspense > Mystery. Why? Suspense also has to do with emotion while Mystery is just something you don’t know. Oh my god there’s a green cat for some reason. Such mystery. Call Sherlock Holmes. Let’s me give you Alfredo’s favorite example. Say there’s two people sitting and talking. Under them is a bomb that will blow up at 2 o clock. Neither the audience nor the characters know this. Bomb blows up. Two seconds of tension. Let’s redo it. We tell the audience there’s a bomb under the two people. Through the conversation, you begin to care about them. You wanna scream at them “THERE’S A BOMB! GET OUT!”. They keep talking. It’s 2:00. Don’t show the bomb blowing up. Up to 10 minutes of tension. THAT’S suspense. In AOTC, Obi Wan is trying to find out who killed the bounty hunter and the whole mystery of Kamino. But even the mystery doesn’t work cause we know it’s Palpatine! The other main PLOT is the romance, and of course we know that was masterful sarcasm.

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I’m honestly kind of surprised by how many people have come into this thread with guns blazing. I wasn’t aware that passions ran this hot when comparing the prequels with each other. I agree with Harmy; the bones of something more compelling than the other two are there, but the pacing is so abysmal that they’re easy to miss. The upswing of that, though, is that whenever I give it another chance and try to watch it I usually get so bored I turn it off before I can get angry at the droid factory and the Yoda fight. So that’s . . . good?

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“Similar to Story and Plot, there’s a clear difference between Mystery and Suspense, but basically Suspense > Mystery. Why? Suspense also has to do with emotion while Mystery is just something you don’t know. Oh my god there’s a green cat for some reason. Such mystery. Call Sherlock Holmes.”

-Is it really necessary to point out the flaw in this logic? Suspense and mystery are not comparable concepts, and you negated your own definition of Mystery as ‘something you don’t know’ with a reference to Sherlock Holmes – titular character of some of the the most famous mysteries in literature that were astronomically more sophisticated than ‘something you don’t know’. A large part of that was suspense, as in consequences for not solving the mystery or a ticking clock. Just to show that suspense is a means of driving mystery.

“Let’s me give you Alfredo’s favorite example. Say there’s two people sitting and talking. Under them is a bomb that will blow up at 2 o clock. Neither the audience nor the characters know this. Bomb blows up. Two seconds of tension. Let’s redo it. We tell the audience there’s a bomb under the two people. Through the conversation, you begin to care about them. You wanna scream at them “THERE’S A BOMB! GET OUT!”. They keep talking. It’s 2:00. Don’t show the bomb blowing up. Up to 10 minutes of tension. THAT’S suspense.”

-Hitchcock was describing the difference between SURPRISE and SUSPENSE in this example. Mystery is not present here except for if the audience is meant to wonder who placed the bomb under the table and why. Or if the mystery a detective was solving elsewhere could prevent the bomb from detonating.

"The other main PLOT is the romance, and of course we know that was masterful sarcasm. "

-This is not plot. This is STORY. The plot is Anakin and Padmé hide on Naboo from Padmé’s attackers.

—I agree with a lot of what you’re saying in general terms but someone needed to take you down a peg, you’ve been wrong about almost everything you’ve said so arrogantly.

My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnq2soRMB-8vqvL-6NHIOg

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The bottom line is that AOTC is the worst of the PT because of how Anakin was written and portrayed. Just about anything concerning his character is either bad or extremely annoying.

I think if Anakin was the opposite of what it is now, AOTC with the same basic background story/plot could have been a good/enjoyable film.

真実

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imperialscum said:

The bottom line is that AOTC is the worst of the PT because of how Anakin was written and portrayed. Just about anything concerning his character is either bad or extremely annoying.

I think if Anakin was the opposite of what it is now, AOTC with the same basic background story/plot could have been a good/enjoyable film.

And maybe a big re-working of all action sequences on Geonosis or something?

ROTJ Storyboard Reconstruction Project

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13las said:

“Similar to Story and Plot, there’s a clear difference between Mystery and Suspense, but basically Suspense > Mystery. Why? Suspense also has to do with emotion while Mystery is just something you don’t know. Oh my god there’s a green cat for some reason. Such mystery. Call Sherlock Holmes.”

-Is it really necessary to point out the flaw in this logic? Suspense and mystery are not comparable concepts, and you negated your own definition of Mystery as ‘something you don’t know’ with a reference to Sherlock Holmes – titular character of some of the the most famous mysteries in literature that were astronomically more sophisticated than ‘something you don’t know’. A large part of that was suspense, as in consequences for not solving the mystery or a ticking clock. Just to show that suspense is a means of driving mystery.

“Let’s me give you Alfredo’s favorite example. Say there’s two people sitting and talking. Under them is a bomb that will blow up at 2 o clock. Neither the audience nor the characters know this. Bomb blows up. Two seconds of tension. Let’s redo it. We tell the audience there’s a bomb under the two people. Through the conversation, you begin to care about them. You wanna scream at them “THERE’S A BOMB! GET OUT!”. They keep talking. It’s 2:00. Don’t show the bomb blowing up. Up to 10 minutes of tension. THAT’S suspense.”

-Hitchcock was describing the difference between SURPRISE and SUSPENSE in this example. Mystery is not present here except for if the audience is meant to wonder who placed the bomb under the table and why. Or if the mystery a detective was solving elsewhere could prevent the bomb from detonating.

"The other main PLOT is the romance, and of course we know that was masterful sarcasm. "

-This is not plot. This is STORY. The plot is Anakin and Padmé hide on Naboo from Padmé’s attackers.

—I agree with a lot of what you’re saying in general terms but someone needed to take you down a peg, you’ve been wrong about almost everything you’ve said so arrogantly.

The Sherlock Holmes thing is just a joke, and yes I’ll admit it’s WAY better at creating suspense than the average mystery conspiracy thing you see in every TV show now. In fact, the whole ticking clock thing where if someone dies if they don’t solve the case counts more as suspense than mystery. When I was giving Hitchcock’s example, I was JUST describing only Suspense and showing how much more entertaining it can be. As for the romance plot/story thing, if it can be said in literal terms, it’s plot. Anakin and Padme fall in love. At least that’s the way I think of it. And if it IS story, then the only emotion I got from that was pain and a lot of cringing lol

I’d like to bring up another point. People here seem to think that when Lucas created the prequels, he was actually trying to create a good story. He was actually just making a mirror image of the original trilogy and calling it poetry. It’s called the Star Wars Ring Theory, and it’ll pretty much explain why the prequels suck. So if you wanted Lucas’s way of thinking of the prequels, make a mirror of the Empire Strikes Back.

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joefavs said:

I’m honestly kind of surprised by how many people have come into this thread with guns blazing. I wasn’t aware that passions ran this hot when comparing the prequels with each other. I agree with Harmy; the bones of something more compelling than the other two are there, but the pacing is so abysmal that they’re easy to miss. The upswing of that, though, is that whenever I give it another chance and try to watch it I usually get so bored I turn it off before I can get angry at the droid factory and the Yoda fight. So that’s . . . good?

Yeah I should probably calm down lol. I just can’t see how this movie can be more compelling than ROTS. It’s the one where Anakin becomes Darth Vader! It’s what we’ve always wanted to see! The way Palpatine entices Anakin is very cleverly done and not a lot of people give Lucas credit for that. Even if the opening scene is poorly executed, at least it feels like Star Wars. I don’t understand how the Phantom Menace’s boring monotoneness can be seen as Star Wars-y. Unless you find Jar Jar funny. The best thing in the prequels is Palpatine not Darth Maul. At least it requires some acting, and Ian McDiarmid is a great actor. You can see it in Return of the Jedi and in Revenge of the Sith. He’s the one character besides Jar Jar who acts like a human being with personality and emotion. He loves being evil, and you gotta respect that.

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Man, the nerd rage here is Palpatine-able.

(I’ll show myself to the door)

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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StarChewyWar said:

Yeah I should probably calm down lol. I just can’t see how this movie can be more compelling than ROTS. It’s the one where Anakin becomes Darth Vader! It’s what we’ve always wanted to see!

Exactly. So if you think Lucas failed to properly portray this, then ROTS is an even bigger disappointment than the other two prequels.

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All of the actual meat of Palpatine’s scheming is in Clones though. That’s where he starts a war by playing both sides, that’s where he starts getting inside Anakin’s head, that’s where he begins consolidating political power. Yes, the events of Sith are more dramatic and depending on your opinion more effectively realized, but it’s all just payoff for stuff that was set up in the previous movie.

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joefavs said:

All of the actual meat of Palpatine’s scheming is in Clones though. That’s where he starts a war by playing both sides, that’s where he starts getting inside Anakin’s head, that’s where he begins consolidating political power. Yes, the events of Sith are more dramatic and depending on your opinion more effectively realized, but it’s all just payoff for stuff that was set up in the previous movie.

Setup horribly you mean. Romance is the reason Anakin turns to the dark side, and I don’t think I need to tell you it was setup horribly in Clones. I think Palpatine bringing Anakin to the dark side and creating the frickn Empire is more important than orchestrating some war where we never really get to see any casualties. I mean Clones might work on paper, but it’s so horribly realized that I can’t even consider it better than ROTS even hypothetically. You know which prequel had the most wasted potential? The Phantom Menace. Why? Because it’s a Star Wars movie before A New Hope. Isn’t that exciting? Maybe we could see Anakin falling to the Dark Side or the Jedi in their prime! Instead we got… trade negotations. Wanna see someone who’s actually doing a good job of rewriting the prequels? Look up Dresden Codak’s Star Wars 1999, where everything after the Phantom Menace never happened. As of now, we’ve only gotten descriptions and concept art, but it looks great.

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DominicCobb said:

StarChewyWar said:

Yeah I should probably calm down lol. I just can’t see how this movie can be more compelling than ROTS. It’s the one where Anakin becomes Darth Vader! It’s what we’ve always wanted to see!

Exactly. So if you think Lucas failed to properly portray this, then ROTS is an even bigger disappointment than the other two prequels.

Yes I do, but all that is in the previous prequels where Anakin goes from being a happy little kid to spoiled stalker. He’s less whiny in Revenge of the Sith.

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Hilariously unhinged backread.

Fundamental, unredeemable problem with the “story” of AotC (such as it is) is that the “detective” arc of Obi Wan shows an absolute lack of the ability of the writer to see things in the world he is creating from the inside out, rather than the outside in. Obi-Wan bafflingly finds “no motive” of the Clonozoids (or whatever the “cloner” aliens are) to make an attempt on Padme’s life–even though they have a multi-googol dollar contract to provide the very army that she is expected to vote against.
Instead, because Georgie-poo thinks he has left his character in a completely ambiguous fog of lies, Obi-Wan chooses to pretty much just say fuck it I guess the “changeling” and Kiwi Fett were just a “lone nutter duo”???
And then he has no lingering uneasiness about assuming command of a clone army, knowing that the purchase order was fraudulent and that the source of genetic material for the clone had been evil and tried to kill him and been complicit in feeding the heroes to the lions?
WWWWWWW!!!
TTTTTTT!!!
FFFFFFF!!!

This movie doesn’t have the “best” story of anything. It has no story.

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I don’t think Jango is evil. He just allies himself with those who are paying his fee. (He functions more like a mercenary in the plot than a Bounty Hunter though.) And the clones don’t have his life experiences anyway.

It was a missed opportunity for our heroes to say: “Whatever they’re paying you, the Republic will triple it.” Jango could switch sides, still end up dead, and Boba hates Jedi.

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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 (Edited)

Just wanted to add a couple of my own thoughts on this, in the run-up to the next instalment -

I’m aware that there are a few who believe that ignoring the ‘TPM’ movie altogether improves the ‘prequels’ substantially, since you start with an ‘older Anakin’ storyline with ‘AOTC’ at least.

But I don’t think it makes any difference in the scheme of things, due to the fact that each prequel is as dreadfully bad as the other two, in my opinion…thanks to their overall poorly-conceived plotlines, dire dialogue, crass childishness, and awful acting in places. Oh, and don’t forget the numerous examples of disappointingly-poor, over-the-top effects work in certain areas too! It’s just one awkward moment from start to finish throughout the trilogy, and you don’t have to wait long for one to come along.

Whereas I can still feel a strong attachment to nearly every single moment of the original (theatrical) trilogy over the years…any re-watch of the prequels just makes me cringe, dammit! And the years haven’t improved them in any way for me, unfortunately.

However…despite all that, there remains some highly-memorable imagery and music throughout the prequels…so I was inspired by certain fan edits to see if it was at all possible to come up with any kind of potential ‘cut list’ which could improve the many moments that bothered me personally.

Although I highly doubted there would be, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there are indeed ways to re-edit them into something which I would be happy to re-watch with my family someday. In fact, nearly every dodgy scene and moment which annoyed me, had a possible alteration/or removal I preferred, it turned out! (and TMBTM’s radical style of editing was a big encouragement for me not to be precious about any particular footage, and to consider trying to re-structure/or remove it in a major way in certain instances, if I preferred it that way)

It’s been a very time-consuming challenge, but I’ve now got a lengthy ‘cut-list’ for each prequel which gives me a version of the saga which conveys George’s intended ‘tragic downfall of Anakin’ storyline in way that’s a lot less ridiculous than his (or Frinks!) version…where Anakin and Padme both come across a lot more appealing to me now, with a far more slow-burning ‘relationship’ than what the existing versions portray - thanks to drastically removing a lot of their woeful dialogue throughout each movie, as well as completely removing a couple of their more odious scenes altogether! In the case of their interactions together, less is a whole lot more, I reckon.

But on top of finding a way to rejig their ‘romance’ into something that doesn’t make me throw up, there were a few other crucial sequences that I wasn’t sure if I could re-structure in a way that would absolutely satisfy me - namely ‘Palpatine’s fight with Windu’/his ‘transformation’ into the Emperor’ during it/and ‘Anakin becoming his apprentice’ just afterwards…as well as the whole ‘ROTS’ ending concerning ‘Anakin’s fate’ & ‘Padme’s childbirth/death’ and sequence of events afterwards which round off the prequel trilogy. Well, I’m especially pleased with what I’ve come up with for all of those, and it’s made the whole time I spent on looking at these damned prequels worthwhile.

Palpatine’s ‘transformation’ and his subsequent dialogue with Anakin was one of the most problematic things I played around with throughout the whole trilogy, as it’s as ludicrous as Vader’s ‘yelling’ scene I reckon…and it took me ages to come up with a way to make some of the existing footage work in a way that restores the Emperor’s gravitas somewhat, despite the dodgy make-up. The way that the Emperor and Vader were portrayed during those moments in ‘ROTS’ were amongst the worst disappointments in the prequels for me…so these ended up being some of the alterations which I’m most happy with. (and I hope to be able to show clips of what I’ve come up with at some point in the coming months, one way or another, when time allows)

While I’m not expecting any mentions of ‘midiclorians’(!) to be featured in the upcoming movie…I’m curious to see if it will end up mentioning ‘the chosen one’ notion or not, as well as whether there’s going to be any reference to the Jedi not being allowed to have ‘personal relationships’, or whether the ‘rule of two/master and apprentice’ concept is referred to either…as there’s ways to remove them all seamlessly from the prequels, if I choose to go down that route.

Anyway, future discussions on the prequels are bound to run and run for a long time to come, seeing as the franchise is being thrust into the limelight again over the coming years. So I’ll leave you all with these recent links on the subject to contemplate on, as some of the accompanying comments underneath are always interesting to read -

TPM - io9.com/star-wars-the-phantom-menace-doesnt-really-get-what-it-1742188503

AOTC - io9.com/attack-of-the-clones-is-a-star-wars-wish-fulfillment-ch-1743553858

ROTS - io9.com/sure-revenge-of-the-sith-is-the-best-star-wars-prequel-1744646183

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ImperialFighter said:

Just wanted to add a couple of my own thoughts on this, in the run-up to the next instalment -

I’m aware that there are a few who believe that ignoring the ‘TPM’ movie altogether improves the ‘prequels’ substantially, since you start with an ‘older Anakin’ storyline with ‘AOTC’ at least.

But I don’t think it makes any difference in the scheme of things, due to the fact that each prequel is as dreadfully bad as the other two, in my opinion…thanks to their overall poorly-conceived plotlines, dire dialogue, crass childishness, and awful acting in places. Oh, and don’t forget the numerous examples of disappointingly-poor, over-the-top effects work in certain areas too! It’s just one awkward moment from start to finish throughout the trilogy, and you don’t have to wait long for one to come along.

Whereas I can still feel a strong attachment to nearly every single moment of the original (theatrical) trilogy over the years…any re-watch of the prequels just makes me cringe, dammit! And the years haven’t improved them in any way for me, unfortunately.

However…despite all that, there remains some highly-memorable imagery and music throughout the prequels…so I was inspired by certain fan edits to see if it was at all possible to come up with any kind of potential ‘cut list’ which could improve the many moments that bothered me personally.

Although I highly doubted there would be, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there are indeed ways to re-edit them into something which I would be happy to re-watch with my family someday. In fact, nearly every dodgy scene and moment which annoyed me, had a possible alteration/or removal I preferred, it turned out! (and TMBTM’s radical style of editing was a big encouragement for me not to be precious about any particular footage, and to consider trying to re-structure/or remove it in a major way in certain instances, if I preferred it that way)

It’s been a very time-consuming challenge, but I’ve now got a lengthy ‘cut-list’ for each prequel which gives me a version of the saga which conveys George’s intended ‘tragic downfall of Anakin’ storyline in way that’s a lot less ridiculous than his (or Frinks!) version…where Anakin and Padme both come across as far more appealing to me now, with a far more slow-burning ‘relationship’ than what the existing versions portray - thanks to drastically removing a lot of their woeful dialogue throughout each movie, as well as completely removing a couple of their more odious scenes altogether! In the case of their interactions together, less is a whole lot more, I reckon.

But on top of finding a way to rejig their ‘romance’ into something that doesn’t make me throw up, there were a few other crucial sequences that I wasn’t sure if I could re-structure in a way that would absolutely satisfy me - namely ‘Palpatine’s fight with Windu’/his ‘transformation’ into the Emperor’ during it/and ‘Anakin becoming his apprentice’ just afterwards…as well as the whole ‘ROTS’ ending concerning ‘Anakin’s fate’ & ‘Padme’s childbirth/death’ and sequence of events afterwards which round off the prequel trilogy. Well, I’m especially pleased with what I’ve come up with for all of those, and it’s made the whole time I spent on looking at these damned prequels worthwhile.

Palpatine’s ‘transformation’ the subsequent dialogue with Anakin was one of the most problematic things I played around with throughout the whole trilogy, as it’s as ludicrous as Vader’s final scene, I reckon - and it took me ages to come up with a way to make some of the existing footage work in a way that restores the Emperor’s gravitas somewhat, despite the dodgy make-up. It’s one of the alterations that I’m most happy with. The way that the Emperor and Vader were portrayed during those moments in ‘ROTS’ were amongst the worst disappointments in the prequels for me…but these ended up to be some of the alterations that I’m most happy with. (and I hope to be able to show clips of what I’ve come up with at some point in the coming months, one way or another)

While I’m not expecting any mentions of ‘midiclorians’(!) to be feature in the upcoming movie…I’m curious to see if it will end up mentioning ‘the chosen one’ notion or not, as well as whether there’s going to be any reference to the Jedi not being allowed to have ‘personal relationships’…as there’s ways to remove them altogether from the prequel movies.

Anyway, future discussions on the prequels are bound to run and run for a long time to come, seeing as the franchise is being thrust into the limelight again over the coming years. So I’ll leave you all with these recent links on the subject to contemplate on, as some of the accompanying comments underneath are always interesting to read -

TPM - io9.com/star-wars-the-phantom-menace-doesnt-really-get-what-it-1742188503

AOTC - io9.com/attack-of-the-clones-is-a-star-wars-wish-fulfillment-ch-1743553858

ROTS - io9.com/sure-revenge-of-the-sith-is-the-best-star-wars-prequel-1744646183

Well, at least skipping The Phantom Menace gives you 2 hours less of prequels. As for fan edits, I think the only prequel that’s unsalvageable is The Phantom Menace. Doesn’t matter how much you edit it, there’s still not a relatable main character in sight unless you dub Jar Jar or something. In my opinion, the best way to do it is to combine all of the prequels into one movie Topher Grace style. Most edits like these just keep the Darth Maul lightsaber battle from Phantom Menace and jump straight into Attack of the Clones. It just gives you more meat to work with, and you don’t have to worry about cutting too much. You can show Obi Wan and Anakin are actually friends because there’s more footage of them.

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StarChewyWar, just to let you know that I’m extremely pleased with the various alterations I’ve got in mind for my future ‘TPM’ edit now. However, a ‘3-In-One’ cut might also be interesting for me to attempt sometime using some of my intended prequel changes. But on the other hand, I happen to like too much of the imagery/music in ‘TPM’ to discard the majority of it for a single edit. And I’ll be able to go along with the likes of ‘li’l Ani’s’ and 'Jar Jar’s involvement a lot better in future, seeing as scrapping a heap of their dialogue greatly improves their performances!

(by the way, no-one needs to quote the whole of my lengthy previous post again)

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StarChewyWar said:

As for fan edits, I think the only prequel that’s unsalvageable is The Phantom Menace. Doesn’t matter how much you edit it, there’s still not a relatable main character in sight unless you dub Jar Jar or something.

TPM is quite okay as it is to be honest. Obviously not good but still watchable. I can easily relate to either Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan. If you somehow cut out Jar Jar, there are very few annoying things left. On the other hand, AOTC is in fact unfixable. There is a clear main character and he is super annoying (much more than Jar Jar in TPM). I cannot see how anyone could even remotely relate to Anakin in AOTC.

真実

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imperialscum said:

If you somehow cut out Jar Jar, there are very few annoying things left. On the other hand, AOTC is in fact unfixable. There is a clear main character and he is super annoying (much more than Jar Jar in TPM). I cannot see how anyone could even remotely relate to Anakin in AOTC.

There’s quite a lot of annoying things left in ‘TPM’ I’d say, even if an edit were to remove ‘Jar Jar’ completely. An extremely young ‘Darth Vader’-to-be in the shape of ‘Li’l Ani’ as just one example, and it’s a major one I reckon. But while I’ll always think George ended up casting far too young for that role…I’ve found that by cutting a lot of superfluous dialogue/shots that he’s in, it really helps to minimise the problem for me, and it helps to bring the maturer voices around him to the fore instead.

By making ‘Li’l Ani’ say much less throughout various scenes, his character improves quite a bit for me now. And this applies to ‘Jar Jar’s’ childish-sounding voice/unnecessay dialogue too, as well as to the majority of ‘older’ Anakin’s creepy/shouty dialogue throughout the other two prequels. Far less poorly-delivered, eye-rolling dialogue by Hayden makes a huge difference to how he comes across in ‘AOTC’ and ‘ROTS’, compared with the existing versions. And this has helped to make his performance/character a lot more effective for me now, also…even though he’s not the ideal casting I’d have preferred for the backstory of ‘Darth Vader’.

(by the way, keeping the references to the ‘Jedi rule’ forbidding ‘personal relationships’ kinda makes Padme at fault too, seeing as she lets herself get fully involved with Anakin. But a heap of cutting still makes them a more appealing couple, regardless. On the other hand, if that ‘rule’ isn’t specifically referenced in the upcoming sequels, then it’s also possible to recut things slightly so that no mention of this ‘rule’ pops up in ‘AOTC’, to eliminate their deception in this matter)

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imperialscum said:

StarChewyWar said:

As for fan edits, I think the only prequel that’s unsalvageable is The Phantom Menace. Doesn’t matter how much you edit it, there’s still not a relatable main character in sight unless you dub Jar Jar or something.

TPM is quite okay as it is to be honest. Obviously not good but still watchable. I can easily relate to either Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan. If you somehow cut out Jar Jar, there are very few annoying things left. On the other hand, AOTC is in fact unfixable. There is a clear main character and he is super annoying (much more than Jar Jar in TPM). I cannot see how anyone could even remotely relate to Anakin in AOTC.

Qui Gon is a generic good guy who wants to train Anakin for the sake of the plot. Change Obi Wan’s name and he’s as boring as green potatoes. As for Anakin later on, if you cut out all his excessive whining, he really becomes like this autistic yes man who craves order. It’s clear he has something mentally wrong with him.