I'll go with RLM's view that they did not have a sympathetic protagonist. If we could have liked and identified with Anakin, maybe the prequels would have been mediocre instead of putrid.
Oct. 12th, 2011 EDIT: The movies also lacked a strong antagonist. Darth Maul is killed off at the end of TPM. Dooku is only introduced at the end of Clones - then killed off at the beginning of Sith! Grevious is introduced in the last film...and just sucked.
“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord
That they're completely unnecessary until you get to ROTS. That movie is like an anthology of bullet points that should have been hit in all 3 movies, and it suffers for it.
But that's why many people liked it better than the others - it gave them what they were expecting out of the first 2 movies.
I still maintain that TPM is the best of the prequels, since, while it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of Star Wars, it has the most cohesive story of all the prequels.
Tone.
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
xhonzi said:
Tone.
Can you elaborate?
“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord
I don't have a problem with a story that isn't necessary in an OT context.
If anything the PT would have been stronger if it had avoided ticking too many OT boxes (like having Anakin the main focus).
The problem was the dearth of story altogether and the frequent absence of logic in the little story that is there.
Even the most insubstantial cipher of a character can function well in a well defined story which makes narrative sense.
The PT is as abstract as cinema can get, it's all shapes and colours without people or a flow of events but unlike something like a Lynch film it's all by accident not by design.
theprequelsrule said:
xhonzi said:
Tone.
Can you elaborate?
Gosh, I thought I wouldn't have to.
Um... the tone sucks?
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
Bingowings said:
I don't have a problem with a story that isn't necessary in an OT context.
If anything the PT would have been stronger if it had avoided ticking too many OT boxes (like having Anakin the main focus).
The problem was the dearth of story altogether and the frequent absence of logic in the little story that is there.
Even the most insubstantial cipher of a character can function well in a well defined story which makes narrative sense.
The PT is as abstract as cinema can get, it's all shapes and colours without people or a flow of events but unlike something like a Lynch film it's all by accident not by design.
I know what you mean. I was just struck recently about how well each scene in Star Wars 77 leads to the next one. The script is very logical and, really, really, tight. Each scene is just as long as it needs to be. Compare the long, drawn out space battle of ROTS to see what not to do.
“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord
Jar-Jar was one of my biggest. Same goes for the Battle droid voices. And then there's TPM altogether. 'nuff said.
I don't say this lightly - the fatal flaw is that they were written and directed by George Lucas.
Lucas is a fraud. The OT is great in spite of him. Marcia, Kurtz, Kasdan, Kazanjian, etc. are the real minds behind the OT's charm. George had the rough idea but those people made it happen. His ego has grown to the size of a planet over getting all the credit for SW.
Without any creative input or synergy, Lucas wrote a shitty first draft for each movie then filmed it. In the TPM documentary on the dvd you can see him looking at puppet models and telling the designers, "Oooh, I should write a character for this!"
The PT is inherently flawed because it had no reason to exist. In the end nothing happens. There's no tension. It's a shameless toy advertisement plugged with as many stupid looking aliens and weird robots as possible. There's no soul. There's no charm. Worse yet Lucas plagiarizes the OT incessantly because he is a shitty writer and has no original ideas. All the "poetry" and "rhyming" is him copying the work of better minds.
“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”
Despite the weird, annoying, pointless serial murderer subplot, Red Letter Media pretty much hit the hammer on the nail with his reviews. Couldn't say it any better than he does.
Does anyone remember the clonewars cartoon? Not the new cgi one but the hand drawn one that came out before revenge of the sith? THAT is how the PT should have been. It actually showed a likeable anakin, a believable relationship between him and padme, and a story that was engaging and exciting.
It was basically an obvious tie-in, but that says something when the tie in is more emotionally believable than the actual product.
What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.
Mavimao said:
Does anyone remember the clonewars cartoon? Not the new cgi one but the hand drawn one that came out before revenge of the sith? THAT is how the PT should have been. It actually showed a likeable anakin, a believable relationship between him and padme, and a story that was engaging and exciting.
It was basically an obvious tie-in, but that says something when the tie in is more emotionally believable than the actual product.
So does the new CGI one. The cartoons are really what the prequels should have been. Which is sad, considering the time and money Lucas used to make the prequels as opposed the the budget for these animated shows.
Keep Circulating the Tapes.
END OF LINE
(It hasn’t happened yet)
Mavimao said:
Does anyone remember the clonewars cartoon? Not the new cgi one but the hand drawn one that came out before revenge of the sith? THAT is how the PT should have been. It actually showed a likeable anakin, a believable relationship between him and padme, and a story that was engaging and exciting.
Bingo! I remember when I was a kid, fantasizing about what "the old days" were like in the story, this was what I wanted to see - what Kenobi and Skywalker were like as legendary heroes of the Republic. And we got precious little of that in the PT. Plus, Genndy's Clone Wars covers some killer story material. In particular, the scene where Obi-Wan gives a speech to the council about how they should skip Anakin's trials and straight-up promote him to Jedi Knight...isn't that the heart of the whole prequel story? It also nicely sets up Anakin's anger over his rank in ROTS - the Council is more than willing to bend the rules to take advantage of his physical talents, but they keep trying to minimize his voice.
The PT really lacked a good dramatic backbone - ROTS had a bit of it by giving the story a Faust-like framework, which is why the film still retains some power for me despite the flawed screenplay. The arduous scripting and editing process for SW distilled the story down to its essence, and covered a lot of universal themes with ancient roots. But when modern-day GL hammers out the script for AOTC right before filming (much like a college student hammering out a term paper on a coffee-bender the night before it's due) there's no way a good dramatic through-line can emerge. The dialogue seems to get the most flak (which is deserved), but if the scripts had better dramatic tension and sharper themes, the dialogue wouldn't matter as much.
That’s impossible, even for a computer.
Tone, Characters, Dialogue.
When it comes down to determining the "fundamental flaws", no one will really care about plot holes, or sufficient villain motivation - those three are what makes a movie enjoyable and memorable, and that's where the prequels fell short.
I've recently watched GoldenEye - silly and campy as heck, but AWESOME lines, slick characters, and just tons of fun.
Also shows what really matters in portraying villains - not so much their goals and motivations, but the personality. I still don't get whether Sean Bean wanted to blow up London while getting rich, or getting rich while removing the traces, I don't really care what the hell Famke Janssen really wanted aside from killing random people, I don't care about that General's political motivations... but they all had VERY memorable and entertaining personalities, and each did something that made the audience hate them and wish for revenge.
Did we have that with the Neimoidians? Or Grievous? I think they cut out that scene where he kills a hot Jedi with too much make-up.
^She was hot?
theprequelsrule said:
I'll go with RLM's view that they did not have a sympathetic protagonist. If we could have liked and identified with Anakin, maybe the prequels would have been mediocre instead of putrid.
George Lucas himself changed.
After he left star wars in 1983 he should have never revisited it, no special edition, no prequels and we would have a perfectly restored oot on blu ray.
Instead we have the Vader Saga of NOOOOOOOOOOO!
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
DuracellEnergizer said:
^She was hot?
I think it was a chick...
To me, the fatal flaw was trying to make a modern copy of the OT, and failing tremendously.
It's like poetry my ass, it turned out to be a childish half-assed copy. There's a major difference between a movie or show for children and a childish movie and G.F.Lucas just doesn't understand that. he truly believes people hate the PT because it was aimed at young kids...no, we hate it because it's irrelevant, stupid and plain bad. Just look at Doctor Who, now THAT is respecting an audience, young and adult.
Same case with CARS2, and I absolutely love and respect PIXAR with every cell in my body... A shinier, faster more intense copy of the original aimed at selling toys... and it bombed. Remind you of anyone?
Brave looks really good tho, so they are entitled of making a flawed one I think, it was going to happen sooner or later. Just hope it's the exception to an otherwise perfect record of STORIES.
With the PT, as it should be with every move, TVshow or book it's all about the story and its characters. The PT deeply lacks in both, G.F.Lucas has gone so far from reality that his own quote from many interviews from the past that technology should serve the story and not the other way around just goes to show what a hypocrite little creep he has become.
xhonzi said:
theprequelsrule said:
xhonzi said:
Tone.
Can you elaborate?
Gosh, I thought I wouldn't have to.
Um... the tone sucks?
PWNAGE!
Since they're like poetry, what with the rhyming and all, I find that I only need to watch three out of the six films.
theprequelsrule said:
xhonzi said:
Tone.
Can you elaborate?
SHIT
CRAP
PISS
FUCK
POOP
FART
GARBAGE
Pixar's biggest inspiration is a true artist and his studio, Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, not George "i once was a good director now i am a hack" Lucas.
The only Lucas connection i can see is they developed the cgi tools ILM uses.
But at the time Lucas did not want to make animation so he sold the group to steve jobs who sold the group to disney.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
Did we really need to know Anakin's story? perhaps, but in hindsight, I'd rather keep Vader as an enigmatic character that in the end..and freaking SILENTLY lol returned to the light to save his son and himself. Than what we got in the end, a whiny little bitch that becomes a whiny little bitch in armor...Perfect.
A better, or at least to me, a more interesting prequel in my opinion should have been something like the cinematic trailers of The Old Republic game. from a time were a helluva lot of badass Sith were fighting Jedi in their prime, perhaps a very young Yoda to tie things up but that would be about it on that matter. Far in the past so you don't HAVE to tie things up, but above all a good story about it. Want Wookiees in it? sure why not, most species from the OT would be already running around back then, so have your fun with that, but remove yourself from the OT, it's best if you do that...oh wait a bit late for that.
I'm sure everyone here has seen those epic trailers. either on their own or seen back to back in chronological order are BY FAR better in story, action sequences and that old Star wars feel to it than the entire PT.
I haven't played the game so I have no idea if it's good or bad, just talking about the trailers in their own merit.
The one thing I truly love from the PT is Darth Maul, but sire enough, G.F.Lucas gave him 2 lines of dialogue, 5 minutes of screen time and an illogical, stupid death. Way. To.Go.
skyjedi2005 said:
Pixar's biggest inspiration is a true artist and his studio, Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, not George "i once was a good director now i am a hack" Lucas.
The only Lucas connection i can see is they developed the cgi tools ILM uses.
But at the time Lucas did not want to make animation so he sold the group to steve jobs who sold the group to disney.
I'm not connecting G.F.Lucas to Pixar, but the making a movie for the wrong reasons aka selling toys. I think you lost my point a bit there.
The fatal flaw of the prequels is that Lucas directed and wrote them.
That's all it comes down to, really.
Here's a good thought experiment. Take all the plots to the three prequel films and keep them, keep all the sequences and major scenes, keep the exact same characters, played by the exact same actors, with the same crew, same DP, same designers, heck even the same major designs. Then, have the script written by Lawrence Kasdan and the film directed by Steven Spielberg.
That's it: that one change. Different director and writer.
That, my friends, is the prequels going from mediocre blockbusters to minor classics. The scenes have drama and purpose, the dialogue is interesting, characters become complex and likeable, and the acting becomes realistic, with real emotion behind the film, powerful emotion. You laugh, you cry, you hold your breath. All from subbing in two human beings behind the scenes.
George Lucas should have thought up all the major elements of the films and been involved in the story and the production, but he should have let people who could write write the films and people who could direct direct the films. He knows he's a bad writer and bad director; he admits it openly. The problem is that Lucas is a narcissistic control-freak, and that major character flaw was so strong that he decided it was better to make three bad films himself than share three good ones with other artists.
The "fatal flaw" for me was the bullshit Lucas was spewing about how the films should rhyme. Namely the fact that Luke and Anakin both grew up on the same planet. Just like poetry.
The very fact that Darth Vader (AKA Little Orphan Ani) does not wonder about the significance of the Tantive IV coming to Tatooine. Or that even with his high midi-chlorian count (higher than our little green friend), he can't sense that his former mentor, son or brother in law (and his girlfriend, Beru) live on the planet that he was miraculously conceived? Bull-to-the-shit!
And let's not forget that he can't sense that Leia is his daughter when she is within strangling distance.
Since they're like poetry, what with the rhyming and all, I find that I only need to watch three out of the six films.