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What do you think of the Prequel Trilogy? a general discussion thread — Page 3

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Not watching them might have been preferable to you, but you can't have prequels that don't somehow tie into what happens in the classic trilogy.

Without seeing how the Republic becomes the Empire is really just showing one side of the coin, that dictatorship is bad. If you don't show how democracy can rot from within and become a dictatorship "with thunderous applause" it makes things more black and white that life really is.

It's nice, but it's very 2 dimensional. I prefer the depth and insight to be found by showing both the yin and the yang to the situation.
Your focus determines your reality.
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I guess you can, but it wouldn't make much sense at all.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Luca$h seems to think it does!
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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Nice sarcasm, but I don't see the point to it.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
Not watching them might have been preferable to you, but you can't have prequels that don't somehow tie into what happens in the classic trilogy.

Without seeing how the Republic becomes the Empire is really just showing one side of the coin, that dictatorship is bad. If you don't show how democracy can rot from within and become a dictatorship "with thunderous applause" it makes things more black and white that life really is.

It's nice, but it's very 2 dimensional. I prefer the depth and insight to be found by showing both the yin and the yang to the situation.



See, I find this idea really stupid for a few reasons.

A) The history of the star wars universe and the Republic itself have been around for 1000s of years. The empire was now around for 20-some odd years. Rather just a tiny blip on the radar.

B) Far too much time was wasted on the republic turning into the empire. Yes, it adds a new element into the mix, but it eats up valuable time that could have been used for far more crucial situations. Yeah, Anakin and Padme fall in love in little over an hour, and then lets spend 30 seconds on Anakin turning into Vader, which is (or should have been) the whole point of the fuckin PT, but instead we need to waste countless minutes on Palpatine fooling various cgi senators.

C) Some things are better being left a mystery. That's one of the my major complaints. Not every single thing needs to be explained. In the OT, something was just there - take it or leave it. Instead everytime someone speaks in the PT, they are explaining what is going on.

"Artoo - what is it? You have a message from Obi-Wan?"

"Buzzdroids"!

"Anakin - you have to take out such and such"

"Those are the forward stabalizers!"
40,000 million notches away
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What do u think of the PT?


Gee I wonder what kind of responses this thread will get?
"Among many things I have to be thankful for are you, the fans. I know that some of you haven't liked every single thing that I've done with the saga, and that you have a strong sense of ownership over all things Star Wars. But take that passion and devotion and channel it into a creative project of your own."
-George Lucas
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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
You know, I actually liked the "nerfherder" exchange. It makes me chuckle every time, especially the payoff in, "Who's scruffy looking?"

I like that scene too.....including "laugh it up, fuzzball!"

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Originally posted by: Windexed
C) Some things are better being left a mystery. That's one of the my major complaints. Not every single thing needs to be explained. In the OT, something was just there - take it or leave it. Instead everytime someone speaks in the PT, they are explaining what is going on.

I agree, I think that's a sign of bad script-writing, bad plotting. Not everything should have to be verbally explained- things should just 'happen' and we should be able to understand what's going on. The opening crawls of each film fill us in on what's been happening, and then that should be enough to get us caught up.

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Originally posted by: Windexed
A) The history of the star wars universe and the Republic itself have been around for 1000s of years. The empire was now around for 20-some odd years. Rather just a tiny blip on the radar. What?
Originally posted by: Windexed
B) Far too much time was wasted on the republic turning into the empire. Yes, it adds a new element into the mix, but it eats up valuable time that could have been used for far more crucial situations. Yeah, Anakin and Padme fall in love in little over an hour, and then lets spend 30 seconds on Anakin turning into Vader, which is (or should have been) the whole point of the fuckin PT, but instead we need to waste countless minutes on Palpatine fooling various cgi senators. Yes, we did. The story of Star Wars is a story of a good man who became evil and then found redemption set against the backdrop of a democracy that turns into a dictatorship until democracy was restored. The whole story -is- important.
Originally posted by: Windexed
C) Some things are better being left a mystery. That's one of the my major complaints. Not every single thing needs to be explained. In the OT, something was just there - take it or leave it. Instead everytime someone speaks in the PT, they are explaining what is going on.

"Artoo - what is it? You have a message from Obi-Wan?" Oh my god, they explained that a message came from Obi-Wan? It would have been so much better if they never said who the message was from. We could have assumed it was whoever we wanted if they hadn't explained that plot point, now we have to accept who Lucas says sent the message.Originally posted by: Windexed
"Buzzdroids"!
Oh my god, they told us what they were called? That leaves nothing to the imagination!Originally posted by: Windexed
"Anakin - you have to take out such and such"
It seems they didn't do too good a job explaining this, I don't even know what you are reffering to.Originally posted by: Windexed
"Those are the forward stabalizers!"
The mystery of space flight is now reduced to something no more exotic than a plane here on Earth!

Seriously I would love to hear how any one of these thing you bring up are "explaining" everything.

If you thought that was going overboard, how do you feel about:

"It's from a person of some importance I believe" (Damn, now we can't assume on our own that it was someone of little importance.)

"It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port" (Did we really have to know where one thing was in relation to another?)

"Set your s-foils in attack position" (Noooo, Lucas is conveying information again!)

It's like Lucas won't be happy until he tells the story he's trying to tell! [end sarcasm]
Your focus determines your reality.
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Sure there's some of it in the OT, but a tiny fraction compared to the PT. There's a difference between conveying useful information and just doing it for the sake of doing it. The OT had the right balance, and rarely did it seem forced. Have you even seen TPM? HALF the dialogue is someone explaining what is happening onscreen. I don't think it's a deliberate plot device. It's called Lucas trying desperately to fill in holes in his otherwise completely droll and inept script.
40,000 million notches away
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Stop it already. Some double standards sound better with less explaination.

I think the ratio is fairly comparable across the saga. Maybe the prequel's exposition only seemed forced because you put so much effort into resisting it.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Honestly, I like the story they chose to tell with the PT. I'm not getting into do I like the way it came out. But I don't mind that it gives away all of the OT's secrets and whatnot. Because, honestly, that's what they were supposed to do. They're prequels. They explain the past. To me there's no problem because if I do watch all the movies, I watch them in the right order: the OT followed by the PT. The only time there is a problem is if you try to watch them in Lucas's order. Like I said before, it's like watching the Making of... documentaries on Disc 2 before you watch the actual movie. Because that's pretty much what the PT is to the OT: a making of documentary.

There is no lingerie in space…

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

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Speaking of "watching them in order," Has anyone ever tried watching the films in reverse order (IE ROTJ first, TPM last)?
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I actually think the prequels are pretty good. They may not be up to the level of the original films but few are. The new films are better than a lot of the remakes and other crap that comes from Hollywood these days. At the very least, they showed great ideas and imagination which has been sorely lacking in a lot of other movies. The prequels are very different from the original movies, pretty much in every aspect. But that itself is not a bad thing. I think it's good they wern't rehashes of the old films. Ep II was dissapointing because I couldn't understand what Lucas was trying to do. It's very confusing and a lot of the questions essential to understanding the plot are never answered.

The prequels needed another person to oversee them because in some areas they resembled a great first draft that was never peer critiqued. I think Rick McCallum is a lot to blame for this. Lucas has always and still does have great ideas but he needed someone to push him to excel. McCallum as evidenced by his ep III commentary was nothing but a yes-man who fell in love with whatever Lucas did. There's a big danger because that creates complacency and takes away a burning desire to get it right, replacing it with good enough.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

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Gomer, I was seeing your view until you said all six movies have the same amount of expository dialogue, then you lost me.
About Lucas needing fewer yes-men, I dunno if that would matter, or that he would listen. It seems to me that he already second-guessed himself too much. I like a lot of his first impulses better. Obi-wan discovering Anakin, Wookies instead of Ewoks. That annotated screenplay book even says his initial idea for Boba Fett's death was in a big brawl with Lando Calrissian, similar to the Jango rain fight. That said, my only real beef with the prequels is the total lack of urgency (and a genuine, relatable love story) in Episode 2.
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Return of the Jedi has too much expository dialogue. There's that whole section where there's a talkie scene between Luke and Vader, then another one between Leia and Han. It was captivating on opening night because unknown information was being conveyed, but the scenes are ever-after unbearable ... precisely because all they are is exposition explained in a dull manner.

I'm not saying the ratio of poorly-executed exposition is equal between the O.T. and P.T., but I think Jedi is the worst offender of all six movies. *




* admitting that maybe I need to watch Episode One again to make sure, but ... ugh, I don't want to. What an awful film!
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I didn't say it was the same across all 6 movies, I said it was fairly comparable.

I think Lucas is the master of making exposition as sweet and to the point as possible.

I also don't think he "explained" everything in the prequels. A lot of people think for example that Midichlorians was this huge peice of exposition, but it was far shorter than Yoda or Ben rambling on and on about the Force in the classic trilogy. I'm not putting the classic trilogy down, I happen to love that exposition. I just think it all comes down to wether or not you are being open minded about the prequels. If you are open minded then you can roll along with all the things the prequels introduce without rolling your eyes, but if you go in with the mindset that Lucas shouldn't be adding anything to what we had in the classic trilogy, then anything new that Lucas introduces suddenly becomes "uneccesary, pointless exposition".

I really think there is a bit of prequel discrimination at work behind a lot of the "Prequels Explain Too Much" argument.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
I just think it all comes down to wether or not you are being open minded about the prequels. If you are open minded then you can roll along with all the things the prequels introduce without rolling your eyes, but if you go in with the mindset that Lucas shouldn't be adding anything to what we had in the classic trilogy, then anything new that Lucas introduces suddenly becomes "uneccesary, pointless exposition".

That's not fair at all. I would say that it is possible for someone to watch all six films with an open mind and still come to the conclusion that the exposition in the PT is much more obvious and clumsy than the exposition in the OOT. It's not just OOT fans that regard the PT as poorly made films, you know...
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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It's also possible for someone to go into the prequels with a double standard that favors the classic trilogy.

I think a lot of us saw the classic trilogy when we were much younger, and a lot of us just accepted it unconditionally. Some of us actually go so far as to call them perfect. Now we are older, we know more about how movies are made, and we pick up on the seams in the tapestry Lucas is weaving with these films.

I really think a lot of the things people say are bad in the prequels, were also issues in the classic trilogy. Maybe if we were 20 some years older than we were when we first saw them, we would be picking apart the classic trilogy in the same way a lot of us pick apart the prequles, but we already accepted them into our hearts when our minds were much more open and now they enjoy a grandfather clause that keeps them from being subject to the same critical reasoning a lot of us use to condemn the prequels.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
It's also possible for someone to go into the prequels with a double standard that favors the classic trilogy.

I think a lot of us saw the classic trilogy when we were much younger, and a lot of us just accepted it unconditionally. Some of us actually go so far as to call them perfect. Now we are older, we know more about how movies are made, and we pick up on the seams in the tapestry Lucas is weaving with these films.

I really think a lot of the things people say are bad in the prequels, were also issues in the classic trilogy. Maybe if we were 20 some years older than we were when we first saw them, we would be picking apart the classic trilogy in the same way a lot of us pick apart the prequles, but we already accepted them into our hearts when our minds were much more open and now they enjoy a granfather clause that keeps them from being subject to the same critical reasoning a lot of us use to condemn the prequels.



I disagree with that Gomer, actually I think the reason many fans like myself still give the PT a try every once in a while is because of the OT and the hope that 1-6 works the same way 4-6 did for 20 years.

Whatever you want to say nobody ever says that the OT is perfect. For me, and I have said this many times, ROTJ is an average film that ranks to the level of the PT movies in terms of pacing, acting, plot points, etc. The only reason ROTJ gets a pass from me is because it ties up the OT good enought that it is satisfying. So I look at the OT as two classics and one OK movie, and that is fine with me. If you are asking me now to watch the saga with 2 classics and 4 OK movies, that is a bit much.

Being young and loving SW has nothing to do with my love of SW now. Great movies are great movies, and if ESB were of quality of ROTJ, then I wouldn't even be an OT fan. Sure as a kid you watch movies for a different reason then you do when you are older, but that doesn't mean that we are watching movies for nostalgia purposes now, cause if that were the case, I would be watching The Karate Kid just as much as SW, but I can't cause that movie did not pass the test of time for me.

The PT movies have the luxury and burden of being tied to the OT movies. They have the luxury that fans saw each one in the movies from 99-05 even though they may not have like any one of them! They have the luxury of having OT fans give them a second chance cause that many average movies would never get after a person sees it the first time.

Now the burden they carry is that they will always be compared to the OT movies, so in that respect, they were never going to live up to that quality, but as I said, either did ROTJ.

As for new fans seeing the saga 1-6, I do believe that there won't be this huge divide among trilogies, cause either the new fan will accept the story or not in its entirety. The problem now is the saga is a tougher sell to the average fan who fell in love with ANH as their first love, and that is because the story of Anakin just won't appeal to the mainstream moviegoer. The saga now 1-6 is more tragic because it is really about Anakin now, so you have to love that story to love all 6 movies since they won't be seeing it as 2 trilogies, and that type of story just doesn't resonate the same way the OT 4-6 movies did to the mainstream fan because that was a basic good vs evil story that has a upbeat message and were fun to follow to the good guys for two hours.

I am actually thankful I see them as two trilogies cause even though I dont hate the PT movies like many do here, I am just not interested in the story of Anakin, the same way I love the upbeat story of Luke, Leia, and Han. SW '77 was what sold me as a fan, and that is why that movie has grossed more than all other 5 SW movies, cause that is the most appealing to the mainstream fan. The saga now will appeal to people who really love anything with SW, cause it is much different than just watching the OT 4-6. I know so many friends who love the OT 4-6 story, that just never got into EU & the PT movies, cause they weren't diehard SciFi fans. But the ones that liked the PT and were jazzed about it for years, were the ones that liked the EU stuff and wanted more. The problem GoMer is the reason SW became so popular during the OT was the MASS of fans who loved the movies, not the niche diehards that seem to love the PT.
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Originally posted by: CO
Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

Sure it's not perfect. But I say it's still closer to perfect than they ever were before.


But it was perfect before, and didn't need all that B.S. additions to it. If Lucas cleaned up the picture and spruced up some effects, 99% of the fans wouldn't have a problem with the SE. Gomer it is the scenes that just stick out of these classic movies and DIDNT need to be changed. We didn't need Hayden in ROTJ, we didn't need Greedo shooting first, we didn't need Vaders arrival in ESB after leaving Bespin, we didn't need Jedi Rocks, etc. The movies were already great and defined movies even in todays standards, and you only fix something if it is broke, the O-OT was such a success, why **** with it?

I constantly hear SE & PT fans say, "Sure, it isn't perfect....." Well, for me the O-OT is perfect, and of course that is my opinion, but that is why I love it so much, there is nothing that bothers me where I have to make excuses for. I just feel if you have to trot out the line, 'nothing is perfect' then that tells me you see the same flaws I do.

If Lucas would have just released every DVD version with the O-OT/SE together in the same quality, nobody would have a problem, but the more Lucas tightens his grip on the O-OT and tries to kill it, the more fans will walk away and put their hands up.
So when you say nobody says the OT is perfect, you aren't including yourself in that estimation?

If you ask me it's the people who unfairly criticize the prequels for the same issues that people complained about in the classic trilogy who are burdened with with a double standard.
Your focus determines your reality.
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CO,

"But the ones that liked the PT and were jazzed about it for years, were the ones that liked the EU stuff and wanted more. The problem GoMer is the reason SW became so popular during the OT was the MASS of fans who loved the movies, not the niche diehards that seem to love the PT."

That's a pretty big generalization of fans of the Prequels. You can't really make that statement. Everyone has their reason for watching and enjoying the Prequels as they do with the Originals. The difference is time in which the Original Trilogy was released to the masses. A New Hope was something nobody every experienced before...period. And you can say the same for the film industry. It was a film that changed EVERYTHING on numerous levels.

As you stated, the Prequels were going to be unfairly compared to the Originals. It's impossible to live up to the standards set 16 years prior. Everything about our culture, when it comes to films and the film industry, is totally different.

Also remember, the Original Trilogy was not widely praised upon their releases as some would like to think they were. It is only when critics took a step back and saw them for what they were that the praise came. Some critics were ahead of their time. Others were not. Star Wars isn't the first film to have that happen to it. De Palma's Scarface is a great example.

Will this happen to the Prequels? It just depends. They won't get the almighty praise the Originals get but I think, when time passes on, they'll be looked on more favorably.
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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And as far as the Special Editions vs. the Theatrical Editions, it all comes down to the vision of the director and the vision of the fanbase.

This argument will continue for ages. People just need to come to grips with the fact that Lucas is a perfectionist, when it comes to his films...whether he's right or wrong in the eyes of the fanbase. He wants them how he wants them and that's his right to do so.

And I say again, he didn't alter the story where the characters, plot, and themes are unrecognizable. When he does that, then I can see the fanbase argument about the Special Editions.

It's not like anyone of us wouldn't do the same thing, if we were in his position and we felt that we could improve on our art...
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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"And I say again, he didn't alter the story where the characters, plot, and themes are unrecognizable."

Nor does MAD Magazine.
"It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for." -- Tom Shales on Star Wars
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.