American Hominid

G&G-Fan said:

American Hominid said:

• Palpatine being definitely a Sith (as opposed to just a Dark Sorcerer)

Palpatine has been a Sith since TESB. Vader calls him his master in both TESB and ROTJ. He can’t be his master if he’s not even from the same Order. Vader has also always been a Sith since ANH’s first drafts.

Eh… the word ‘Sith’ is not mentioned onscreen til TPM (since it was cut from ANH - I think at one point Tagge or Motti said it?) and IIRC only Vader was called ‘Dark Lord of the Sith’ in public-facing materials of the time. GL had a lot of ideas and intentions, some of which are old and some which evolved over time. I’m going with what I feel would be cool.

‘Master’ could mean a lot of things. I think the most obvious interp is ‘master - apprentice,’ but that does not necessitate an institutional allegiance, more an expertise-sharing dynamic. It could also mean ‘master - servant,’ which is kinda suggested by some of Palpatine’s lines (“with each passing moment you make yourself more my servant”) - and Vader’s (“I must obey my master”).

If GL can get away w retconning Obi-Wan’s “master” to be Qui-Gon (as opposed to Yoda), I think I could get away w a similar stretch. I mean, I’m already doing away with the whole notion of a super organized Jedi Order & The Council. This seems small potatoes in comparison. At the same time, if Palp were a Sith I don’t think it’d change much in this outline - it’s just not necessary for him to be so, for this story to work.

The way I see it, Anakin should be a mirror of Luke, one who turns dark where Luke will avoid doing so.

Over time I’ve realized my mental picture is something to the effect of this:

Episode I:

Anakin lives on Tatooine w his brother Owen (& parents?). He’s around the same age Luke will be in ANH. Obi-Wan is a general in the Alderaanian military, about ten years older than Anakin (compare Han & Luke). Alderaan is part of the Republic, which is threatened by invading armies of clone warriors from some other culture. Obi-Wan is also a Jedi Knight, a practitioner of understanding and using the Force to do good works in the galaxy. He is on a mission from one planet to another (ferrying info, or recruiting for war effort, something like that) but his ship comes under attack and he’s forced to crash land on Tatooine. He makes contact w the locals, including Anakin, and asks for help repairing and restocking his ship.

Anakin is a mechanically-minded person, who has vague dreams and ideals like wanting to make a difference in the galaxy, and ‘do good,’ but until now has had no chance to express them. He helps Obi-Wan, and wants to accompany him off planet, to fight in the Clone Wars and even become a Jedi. Owen thinks this is foolish and reckless. He’s a more provincial thinker.

Long story short, Anakin goes with Ben to fight in the wars and to train as a Jedi. Ben hasn’t taught before, but he’s confident he can do just as good a job as his own teacher did. He sees his own idealism and do-gooder nature in Anakin, and wants to nurture that.

Episode II:

Anakin is now a Jedi Knight, and he and Ben and other Knights patrol the spacelanes in the wake of the Wars. Anakin sees the horrors of not only the aftermath of the Clone Wars, but the turmoil and internecine strife (some of it deliberately engineered to cause division, it may later turn out) of the post-war period. Planets burned, children orphaned, species genocided. His confidence in the power of democracy (the Republic), fair play, treating others as ends unto themselves - basic humane ideals - to deal with threats, is shaken. He craves strength, to use his will on behalf of others.

In the central systems, a charismatic politician is rising, one who promises to take a hard line on dissent and anything else which could threaten safety and security in the Republic. Anakin is drawn to this, and becomes an ally. Perhaps he (and Obi-Wan?), acting to protect the social order, foil an assassination plot on this Senator Palpatine?

(This plot might have been engineered by Palpatine as a test?)

At some point Anakin has a romantic interest here, though exactly who Mrs. Skywalker is, I’m not sure.

Episode III:

Anakin is an agent of now-Chancellor Palpatine. Encouraged by the Chancellor, he takes more and more inspiration from old exotic Force traditions like the Sith, who prized power and judgment over all - even styling body armor for himself. In the course of some mission (which Obi-Wan understands to be to investigate a rumor of malfeasance on behalf of some of Palpatine’s political opposition but is really an engineered takedown), Anakin inadvertently discovers the true goals and background of the Chancellor - that is, he’s a dark sorcerer, much older than he appears, and he wants an Empire.

(He’s been building a splinter political group - agency? party? -, whose agents have been taking more and more power and restructuring the systems of power around themselves.)

Obi-Wan is immediately at Defcon 1. Anakin sees how he should be troubled by this revelation, but he isn’t. He only cares that Palpatine will institute a New Order in the galaxy.

He might know his wife is with child, or speak in terms of making the galaxy safe for future generations… he sees the Republic, and the Jedi way, and Obi-Wan, as too weak to do what must be done. Strength and dominance are the highest virtues, and any means are worth it in pursuit of those ends.

Obi-Wan means to warn the galaxy and other Jedi, and Anakin means to protect Palpatine’s plan, and they clash on the volcano.

At some point, after some battling, and as a result of his domineering approach, Anakin is knocked onto or falls onto a dangling gantry or unstable platform, and needs assistance to escape falling into lava or burning, melted rubble. But he can’t bring himself to take Ben’s outstretched hand - symbol of weakness. Vader chooses to fall to his death rather than admit he was wrong or that he might need help.

Of course, Vader doesn’t die, but is instead rescued by Palpatine’s Imperial forces. He is kept alive by additions to his armor in the form of the walking iron lung, and by a burning hatred and disdain for the weakness of the Jedi mindset and for Obi-Wan in particular.

.

Things I do not include or really care about:

• the Rule of Two
• Palpatine being definitely a Sith (as opposed to just a Dark Sorcerer)
• anything about a Chosen One created by the Force
• the Force being in or out of balance
• the power to cheat death (except in the form of Jedi/light siders becoming ghosts who can take no or vague action on the mortal plane (Obi-Wan’s “I cannot interfere” and Yoda summoning weather-related lightning in Ep 8 are good examples) & dark siders being able to tie their spirits to places or objects & take actions, but not be tied to the cosmos while doing so)

I’m also not sure if Yoda appears or we only hear about him, saving his reveal for ESB.

imperialscum said:

darklordoftech said:

I don't want any Darths. Vader not being the only Darth in the prequels was bad enough. 

Look... in OT it is clearly stated that Anakin was given a Darth name after he was seduced to the dark side. It is also established that he became a Sith. This is a good indication that the name Darth has something to do with Sith.

And he was seduced by who? Who he calls "master"?

In OT there is enough evidence suggesting Darth was a Sith thing and Palpatine was also a Sith.

 The only other character who has a double/fake name in the OT that I can think of is Ben Kenobi, and Ben doesn't seem to be a title for him. So 'Darth' needn't, from the OT alone, be a title (though it works well as one).

Vader was seduced to the dark side, but he could have identified as the Dark Lord of the Sith on his own (how the name came about, and what exactly a Sith is, are never mentioned in the OT films). Maybe there was something about that tradition that appealed to him, whereas the Emperor was more about just using the dark side for himself, no affiliations except himself and his own creations (the Empire).

I'm not saying that's actually how it was going to be, just that that seems like a believable non-Palpatine-Sith explanation to me. Especially given how the term 'Sith' doesn't seem to be even mentioned in the ROTJ story conferences or planning. There isn't any inkling, as far as I can tell, in the OT of a longstanding historical struggle between not just the users of the sides of the Force but two specific traditions that embody each side, of which Palpatine and Darth Vader are the sole current members of one. In The Making of ROTJ, Palpatine is described as kind of a dark side counterpart to Yoda. And Yoda is described as more of a teacher than a Jedi. A high spiritual priest who knows the Force.

Anchorhead said:

American Hominid said:

... the original film has a sense of adventure and "haphazardness," ...

 

I've been meaning to weigh in on this discussion because it is the very reason why I'm a one-film-only fan.  I'll not bore the board - yet again - with the minutia of it all.  I will, however, point out that the essence of your statement is what spoke to me when I sat in the theater in 1977.

 

I think that Empire and Jedi, while they pile on the additional story mythology and relationships, do not fully shift the feel.

They may not fully shift the feel, but they very much get the ball rolling.  Empire starts the shift, Jedi completes it.  Can't speak to the tone of the prequels because I barely remember the only one I've seen. 

With a great deal of input from Marcia, Kurtz, and McQuarrie, Lucas got lucky in 1977.  A stand-alone film that works because it's stand-alone.  As soon as Lucas started trying to write more story, he ruined the story. The "adventure and "haphazardness," disappeared when Lucas shrunk the universe. Particularly the haphazardness of it all.

Where you see a shift in tone as the franchise goes along, I see it just the opposite.  To me, Star Wars is the only film in the series that didn't have that tone.  As I've stated before, I think Star Wars is the odd film out. 

Personally, I think the original Star Wars trailer is the best example of how different that film is from the rest of the franchise.  It's truly an adventure in a galaxy far far away, with a darker tone.  Actual darkness - not the cartoon darkness of the other 5 films.

My argument is a little different than that, though. The OT sequels did feel different than the original, no real argument there. However, the PT did something even beyond that, which is introduce the Chosen One plotline and a prophecy relating to the Force being "out of balance." I don't know how familiar you are with those things, not being a prequel viewer - but those are the big differences I see.

In the OT, even after the web of connections started becoming denser, it was still a political story and a personal one. It was not, I think, an overtly metaphysical one. By that I mean - in the OT, there is no reason to think that the Force could generate a person from nothing, let alone that this is actually the backstory to Anakin Skywalker. In the OT there is also no particular reason to think that the Force itself could be knocked "out of balance," whatever that even means. The addition of these elements - some of which have their origins in OT-era notes and thoughts, but are not explicit in any of the pre-PT films - elevates the characters and events to metaphysical significance, a stature that I don't think they had before.

These additions also put the Force-users in the absolute center of the setting, demoting smugglers, pilots, moisture farmers, bureaucrats, and the like to fiefdoms along the periphery of a universe that hinges on the actions of and relationships between demigods.

BTW, just to clarify, this person had two total comments. Luke is whiny, and everyone is really tan. Apparently it's that noticeable.

Saw someone make this comment, they are watching the trilogy for the first time. Almost guaranteed to be the "deliberate artistic decision" versions, eh?

Just thought you guys would "appreciate" it.

Someone recently mentioned to me that they remember some source saying the Clone Wars went from 50 (ish) BBY to 35 BBY. I know the EU used the 35 BBY date as the end of the Clone Wars until the prequels changed everything around - but I (we) weren't sure where the 50 BBY date could have come from. Anyone have any ideas? (Or any other mentions of the length of the Wars, from before the PT-release-era? Did George, or any other official source say anything about this?)

American Hominid said:

I wrote this stream-of-consciousness awhile ago on a different forum:

I: Anakin starts on his homeworld of Tatooine with Owen and Beru. Ben the Jedi (a general in the Alderaanian military) suddenly arrives (perhaps crash-landing?) and meets them (maybe for the first time, or perhaps he has returned, or makes "rounds" to recruit). During a short stay on Tatooine, he recruits Anakin into the (already-ongoing) Clone Wars by appealing to Anakin's idealism and sense of justice. The end of the movie might be the last battle of the Clone Wars, perhaps taking place over, on, or in some other way involved with Alderaan.

II: Perhaps there are 'security' operations going on post-CW (as the galaxy had been pretty well demolished by the wars). Anakin, as a Jedi Knight, works with Ben (and perhaps other Jedi) and sees the widespread devastation, perhaps through experiencing individuals' stories. Anakin begins to draw the conclusion that what the galaxy really needs is order. Maybe friends of his are or were killed, populations destroyed, worlds burned, and he - and the rest of the Jedi - aren't or weren't strong enough to protect everyone. In the distant core of the galaxy, Palpatine begins to rally supporters to set up a new political system (contrasting it with the 'weak' Republic). Anakin might leave Ben (and their group of Jedi?) at the end of the movie, going to the Core systems to investigate this new rising Empire.

Perhaps Anakin's leaving in search of "strength" might also have to do with an event regarding his wife's apparent death (after he leaves she's discovered to be alive), or maybe he just drives her away with his increasing militancy?

III: Anakin has become an enforcer (perhaps the enforcer) for the New Order. Ben, having drawn the opposite conclusion from the events of the Clone Wars (Ben - "wars not make one great" to Anakin's "bring order to the galaxy" by any means necessary) would search Anakin out. They might find each other relatively early in the movie, clash intellectually throughout, Anakin losing respect for Ben and the Jedi even more (for their 'weakness') and then the movie would end with the volcano duel. At some point Anakin would end up in a position where he would need Ben's help to avoid falling into lava or onto hot rubble. He chooses not to accept Ben's offers of assistance (he can't think of himself as vulnerable). If there's a "fall" scene in this version, it's this one. A physical fall as well as a metaphorical one.

I was just reminded today that circa 1979-1981, Luke was supposed to be a young child by the time of Episode III. About three years old.  So he and Leia would be born after Anakin takes off at the end of my Episode II, or perhaps their mother is still pregnant at the end of that episode and they are born between episodes. Perhaps part of what Obi-Wan has to wrestle with as he tries to get Anakin back is whether to inform him about his children. He might start off wanting to use that as a tool - like, come back, for the sake of your kids (that you don't yet know about) - but when he sees how militant and close to the Empire/Emperor Anakin has become, this line of argument may become impossible for him.

Actually come to think of it, that would be a nice "rhyme" with ROTJ - Anakin's children ARE what would make him turn back, but Ben doesn't know that, and weighs their vulnerability as more important.

I think there is some RPG story/setting/adventure involving the aftermath of a Clone Wars battle, but I can't remember the title or any names of characters or planets involved.  I'll try to find it. (Might or might not fit into your "actual story" criteria.)

I don't think there are, or if there are, they are very few. There are mentions in Zahn's novels - cloning technology actually plays a pretty large role, one of the new characters is a founding member of the Rebel Alliance, etc, but it is all based on pretty much just what we were told in the OT (and is also limited based on what Lucas nixed from story proposals). The date of the end of the Clone Wars is 35 years before the battle of Yavin, though. (This came from LFL between the first and second books in Zahn's trilogy.) Children of the Jedi has a different date, if I recall. There are some other bits sprinkled throughout the rest of the pre-PT EU, but nothing super cohesive.  Or rather, it's cohesive in the same straightforward way as the clues in the OT. The Republic fought a war involving clones, Palpatine came to power, Anakin Skywalker was seduced by the dark side, the Jedi were extinguished. The mention in the ESB novel of Boba Fett's armor being originally worn by warriors defeated by the Jedi in the Clone Wars fed the idea that the Republic fought Mandalorian Supercommando clones in the Wars.  Important to note, there is no inkling of a grandiose metaphysical Sith plot to destabilize the Force. Vader is the Dark Lord of the Sith, Palpatine doesn't officially become one until TPM. And the balance/Chosen One thing comes completely out of left field in 1999. And there are dark siders active throughout the timeline, almost none of which are Sith. These dark siders may also have had something to do with the Clone Wars, as they pop up in that historical era in books like HTTE and I, Jedi.

Also, regarding Anakin's age: my mental image of him is heavily based on what I get from watching ANH, in which he is (/was originally) a separate character from Vader. Vader is clearly intended to be a younger character than Ben, a "boy." But Annikin (different spelling) is, I think, meant to be intermediate between this and Ben's age.

There was a big discussion of this on TFN one time, I'll have to try to dig it up. Basically it seems that Lucas had created two characters in ANH - Vader, who's definitely young, and Luke's father, for whom no age is given. But his attributes seem to be somewhat similar to Obi-Wan's, and in the script Blue/Red Leader says he met Luke's father, who was a great pilot, when he (Blue Leader) was just a boy - and that character is probably 45ish in the film. (This is in the scene that was partially restored in the SEs - here's bts footage of it being filmed, with part of the original bit audible.) If he's 45ish, and met Annikin when he was, let's say, 5-10 years old... Annikin was probably Luke's age (20ish, barring podrace-type shenanigans - I think Annikin and his journey were meant to mirror Luke and his in a lot of ways in the OT) 35-40 years before. So Annikin would have been 55-60 or so at the time of ANH (if he were alive). And he'd have been 30-35 when Luke was born. In ROTJ's script, Anakin is described as "elderly," and Shaw definitely looks close in age to Ben.

(There is some variability with those ages. Interesting that Obi-Wan did start out 30-35ish in TPM, and was de-aged when Qui-Gon's role was expanded - if I recall.)

I think that Anakin and Vader's ages differed from the beginning, and Lucas chose the older of the two possibilities when he first combined the characters. Later, he changed his mind and gave Anakin the younger age when he went to make the prequels.

EDIT: Just remembered, there's something in Marvel about Princess Leia having something to do with the clones or the Republic? I think this is in the issues with the Mandalorians? I've only seen oblique mentions, I don't know the details of this.

I imagine something like this. Just a quick sketch. (I now remember how out of practice I am.)

I gave him most of the Vader armor but with a cloth collar like Ben's in ANH.  Or maybe a pilot scarf thing. Originally I was going to have him in an ROTJ Luke-type outfit - that would work well too.  Or something like this:

Maybe he only wears what I drew after he starts to support the Emperor's New Order.

I wrote this stream-of-consciousness awhile ago on a different forum:

I: Anakin starts on his homeworld of Tatooine with Owen and Beru. Ben the Jedi (a general in the Alderaanian military) suddenly arrives (perhaps crash-landing?) and meets them (maybe for the first time, or perhaps he has returned, or makes "rounds" to recruit). During a short stay on Tatooine, he recruits Anakin into the (already-ongoing) Clone Wars by appealing to Anakin's idealism and sense of justice. The end of the movie might be the last battle of the Clone Wars, perhaps taking place over, on, or in some other way involved with Alderaan.

II: Perhaps there are 'security' operations going on post-CW (as the galaxy had been pretty well demolished by the wars). Anakin, as a Jedi Knight, works with Ben (and perhaps other Jedi) and sees the widespread devastation, perhaps through experiencing individuals' stories. Anakin begins to draw the conclusion that what the galaxy really needs is order. Maybe friends of his are or were killed, populations destroyed, worlds burned, and he - and the rest of the Jedi - aren't or weren't strong enough to protect everyone. In the distant core of the galaxy, Palpatine begins to rally supporters to set up a new political system (contrasting it with the 'weak' Republic). Anakin might leave Ben (and their group of Jedi?) at the end of the movie, going to the Core systems to investigate this new rising Empire.

Perhaps Anakin's leaving in search of "strength" might also have to do with an event regarding his wife's apparent death (after he leaves she's discovered to be alive), or maybe he just drives her away with his increasing militancy?

III: Anakin has become an enforcer (perhaps the enforcer) for the New Order. Ben, having drawn the opposite conclusion from the events of the Clone Wars (Ben - "wars not make one great" to Anakin's "bring order to the galaxy" by any means necessary) would search Anakin out. They might find each other relatively early in the movie, clash intellectually throughout, Anakin losing respect for Ben and the Jedi even more (for their 'weakness') and then the movie would end with the volcano duel. At some point Anakin would end up in a position where he would need Ben's help to avoid falling into lava or onto hot rubble. He chooses not to accept Ben's offers of assistance (he can't think of himself as vulnerable). If there's a "fall" scene in this version, it's this one. A physical fall as well as a metaphorical one.

Isn't there a bit in the SW novelization (or is it only in the script) about the "later, corrupt emperors"?

I started a thread on the old JC boards about where the 35 BSW4 date for the Clone Wars came from in the old EU... the thread alone had some interesting information, and someone linked to an older thread from around the time of AOTC where people were trying fit it with the CW as depicted in the EU of the time. Once they get the new boards up (assuming I remember and can find the thread), I'll link you.

CWBorne said:

That particular description points to how the Force in the OT acted as a mythic phenomenon, but in some ways, like something akin to a science of sorts in that it was neither inherently good or inherently evil, only the actual users determined that. While it did have a power one had to respect (as it would have a physical effect eventually as Palpatine's form demonstrated) it seemed very much like a tool. A natural part of life that one chose to utilize for good (the Jedi using it to protect the Republic) or ill (Palpatine using it take over the Republic) but still in many ways a tool.

I also came out of the OT with a very nondualist interpretation of the Force (similar to yours, and I still prefer it).

However, it does seem like Lucas intended the Force to be split into actual dark and light parts, even during the OT. I can't remember the exact quotes right now, but I'll have to go through the Making Ofs and Annotated Screenplays, etc., because I'm fairly sure I remember them being there.  This seems to be a place where a lot of viewers made reasonable inferences about what they were being shown when the intention behind it might have been different. I think this comes from a combination of vagueness and assumptions based on Yoda's very eastern teachings.

Of course, the metaphysics of SW do seem to have really changed between the OT and PT, just not in that way (dual vs. nondual). In the OT (and related background materials) there isn't any suggestion of balance or imbalance in the Force, or any Chosen One(s), or anything like that.

DuracellEnergizer said:

This whole discussion just serves to remind me of Lucas' ineptitude at crafting a cohesive "cosmic" story that makes any sense.

George's party line is that when the two Sith personified in the beings of the Emperor and Vader were killed/redeemed, evil itself was pretty much destroyed, a horrible imbalance created by the Sith's use of the Force was corrected, and a possibly-eternal period of peace and prosperity was ushered into existence throughout the universe. So, how the hell does this exactly work? The Sith can't misuse the Force, since the dark side is an inherent aspect of the Force that exists independently of any user who may choose to weild it. Even if two darksiders could profane the Force, so to speak, how come the thousands of Jedi who used to exist - who supposedly used the Force in the right way - couldn't use their powers to offset this disturbance somehow? And anyway, assuming all this claptrap could be made to make sense, how does the eradication of two Sith prevent other non-Sith darksiders - either from within or without the galaxy - from coming into existence? Logically, unless the Star Wars universe doesn't extend far beyond the main galaxy, there will always be darksiders elsewhere in the universe to misuse and unbalance the Force.

The explanation that I've gotten for this seems to be that the Sith at some time pre-TPM took some deliberate actions to throw the Force out of balance. It's not just their existence, but something they did to affect it. If I recall, it's probably in the Darth Plagueis book.

How Anakin killing Palpatine and then dying himself would fix this, isn't immediately clear. Neither is what exactly was done to destabilize the Force in the first place, or why it couldn't just be done again. And the idea that it's something they did instead of that they exist at all is not clear from the films alone, I think.

Even though explanations for these issues can be made, I think the whole topic is unnecessary. From the OT, there's no particular reason to think that the Force can even be out of balance, and what "out of balance" means in this instance is pretty vague. And if Lucas included it to intentionally reference some aspect of Buddhist theology or make some other metaphysical point, it's a little bit lost on me. I used a World War II metaphor to describe this elsewhere - no matter if the Allies or the Axis won, the sun would still rise and set. This business of knocking the Force around changes the stakes. I suppose the point could be simply to make it more 'epic,' but again, it just seems unnecessary and a little too grandiose to me.

CWBorne said: Stuff

Agreed, excellently put. I wasn't even thinking of this in terms of the "bad" motivator as plot motivator, etc, but that's a great point.

I became a fan of SW before the prequels, and while I enjoyed those films when they came out, over time I've come to prefer the pre-PT SW films and expanded fiction more. There's something to their sensibility that just feels right to me.

In the years since the PT films came out (not to mention the books and other fiction), I've seen them accused of bad scripting, confusing plotting, poor acting, overuse of unrealistically dynamic special effects, etc. Those things notwithstanding, I think there is a shift in tone. I always found it hard to define, but I happened to read Adam Roberts' review of The Hobbit today and I think it gets at the notion very well:

Punkadiddle said:

My beef, if I may slip into a nonvegetarian idiom for a moment, is not with Tolkien's religious beliefs, which (although I do not share them) are clearly essential to the dynamic of his art. My beef is with the notion that all our bents and faculties have a purpose. In Tolkien's second version of The Hobbit, it is precisely the haphazardness, the intimations of glorious, human, comic incompetence, that must be sanded, smoothed and filed away. It is no longer enough for Gandalf to turn up on the doorstop of the world's least likely adventurer merely because that is the sort of thing batty old wizards do. Now he must do so because he has a larger plan.  In the first version of the story it doesn't really matter why Gandalf chooses a hobbit, of all people; or more precisely, his whylessness of choice is actually the point of the story. ('I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging,' Gandalf says, with what sounds to me rather like desperation, 'and it's very difficult to find anyone.') This is because the novel is not about Gandalf's whys, it is about Bilbo's adventure: why he is chosen matters less than the way he acquits himself on his journey, and the extent to which he sheds his unheroism and becomes a better fellow. That's what matters because we are he. That's how the reading experience goes.

But in Tolkien's second version of the hobbit everything has to happen for a reason. Gandalf was not idly arranging an adventure; he was setting in motion one crucial play in a larger strategy of a grand war against Evil.

Obviously, there is some element of "crucial play[s] in a larger strategy" in the OT, specifically the two sequel films. However, the original film has a sense of adventure and "haphazardness," and I think that Empire and Jedi, while they pile on the additional story mythology and relationships, do not fully shift the feel.

In the OT, the Empire and the Emperor are politically powerful, but the universe itself doesn't have  to care; it's a fight between political factions and ideologies. Vader is a man who made choices and happens to be in the right place at the right time to end the Emperor's rule. In the PT, a "larger plan" of the universe is added. The Force itself wobbles, out of balance, and Anakin springs forth from it (in this, I'm going by a reading of the films; I've not read Plagueis and anyway even if Anakin's creation is explained there, the notion of his being born by the will of the Force seems widespread regardless). This drastically expands the scope of the narrative in much the same way LotR and the revised Hobbit change the original Hobbit.  

The comparison is inexact: The OT already had a strong freedom vs authoritarianism ("good" vs "evil") theme, true, and the PT was always going to focus on characters who also appeared in the OT, giving them (like Ben) more total screentime than the OT leads, perhaps making them feel more like the "main characters" of the films in general. That might account for part of the redefinition of the films into "Darth Vader's story." However, the shifting of the narrative focus to make it a truly cosmic-stakes battle, and to make Anakin (and by extension, Luke and Leia) unique characters in the universe, does change the whole feel. It's the retconning of the ring Bilbo wins from Gollum into The Ring of Power, forged in Mount Doom, the key to defeating Evil once and for all.

I think this shift has also been quite evident in the expanded material, by the way, with the focus - to near exclusion of all else - on the Jedi and Sith, the Force, and related concepts. I was looking at used books recently and found the old Brian Daley Han Solo novels, the ones that came out between SW and ESB. Their lack of Jedi and the Force is probably partially due to such things being reserved by Lucas, but I like to think it's also because the feel of the SW universe was such that Solo and Chewie were just as interesting and relevant to the galaxy as the stories of the old Jedi.

The Hobbit review goes on to say:

Punkadiddle said:

The story of The Lord of the Rings is that even 'the little people' (that's us, of course) have their part to play in the great historical and martial dramas of the age -- and it is a potent and truthful story, well told. But The Hobbit is that story only in its second iteration. In its first, the one we are chiefly considering here, The Hobbit is not about the great dramas of the age; it is about us-sized dramas of people being taken out of their comfort zone -- whisked away by Story.

I'm happy that there are two versions of The Hobbit, and feel no desire to try and force them into some notional procrustean 'coherence'. Only narrative fundamentalists, the textual Taliban, believe that all stories must be brought into that sort of rigid alignment. But of the two stories, really I prefer the one (homely, funny, a little bit slapstick and a little bit wondrous) over the other (grand-verging-on-grandiose, theological, epic and strenuously, to coin a phrase, eutragic).

I think this might be how I feel about Star Wars.

cthulhu1138 said:

I know I always wondered what it would look like if Yoda fought Palpatine and all they used were force powers.

That question was answered when I watched HP and the Order of the Phoenix.

Dumbledore vs Voldemort was what I wanted to see happen in ROTS.

but alas no

"And did you tell her about my kidnapping by the Bpfasshi Dark Jedi? That's where it all really began.

It was a terrible experience, possibly the first time in my life I'd felt truly and genuinely terrified. He was half mad with rage - maybe more than half mad - with all of Darth Vader's power and none of his self-control. One of my crewmen he physically ripped to shreds, literally tearing his body apart. The other three he took over mentally, twisting and searing their minds and turning them into little more than living extensions of himself. Me - me, he left mostly alone. I'm still not sure why, unless he thought he might need my knowledge of ports and spacelanes to make his escape. Or perhaps he simply wanted an intact mind left aboard who could recognize his power and greatness and be properly frightened by it.

We headed across the spacelanes, dodging or avoiding the forces gathering against him. [...] Finally, for reasons I still don't entirely understand, we made for a little backwater system not even important enough to make it onto most of the charts. A planet with nothing but swamps and dank forests and frozen slush. A planet named Dagobah.

I don't know if the Dark Jedi expected to be alone down there, but if he did, he was quickly disappointed. We'd barely stepped outside the ship when we spotted a funny-looking little creature with big, pointed ears standing at the edge of the clearing where we'd put down. He was a Jedi Master named Yoda. I don't know if that was his home, or if he had just flown in specially for the occasion. What I do know is that he was waiting for us.

I won't try to describe their battle. Even after forty-five years of thinking about it, I'm not sure I can. For nearly a day and a half the swamp blazed with fire and lightning and things I still don't understand. At the end of it the Dark Jedi was dead, disintegrating in a final, massive blaze of blue fire."

- from Zahn's Vision of the Future

That's approximately what I would have expected. Sort of like if two motherships from Close Encounters were fighting each other.

I definitely thought the Masters were above using physical weaponry.

The Emperor's pure energy even works well within my personal model of Force use, with users like Yoda directly the flow subtly, using mostly normal physical possibilities to influence things, while dark siders like the Emperor just go straight for brute power.

Also note that the Dark Jedi in the story explodes in blue fire the same way the Emperor does in ROTJ.

I miss the pre-prequel inference-based models of SW.

By the way, this is a poster that was sold in the 90s sometime:

Though, while searching for that I also came across this more recent one:

... which actually makes Yoda with a saber look comparatively classy. So I guess it has to do with how it is handled as well. I still prefer the first, in terms of vibe, though.

Mrebo said:

TheBoost said:

This is less about how the visuals were achieved, but about the lack of passion put into them.

Think of how awesome the following should have looked

• A guy fighting with two lightsabers at once.
• A lightsaber duel in the dark.
• A guy fighting a four-armed monster each arm wielding a lightsaber.

 

The lightsabers in the dark I fantasized about in the 80s. When I was in middle-school I made an art project called "Jedi Fighting In a Cave" with a piece of black construction paper, whiteout, and highlighter pens.

Yet all three ammount to nothing. Nothing memorable or exciting. They all last for less than ten seconds.

I think the commentary on the ROTS DVD said that they couldn't figure out how to do a four-armed sword fight, resulting in Grievous losing two arms in 9 seconds.

Ray Harryhausen did in with STOP MOTION in 1973!!!

What should have been these extremely fun and visual fights almost result in just a throwaway joke.

Very much this. As a film maker, one would think, "how can I present this idea in the most exciting and impactful way?" The framing, the backdrop, all of it. I don't feel that in the PT. It is a series of places filled with things. Places and things that took great creativity and effort but were not meant to showcase any particular visual element nor move the story forward.

That's a great point.

walking_carpet said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

American Hominid said:

I don't know, I'd give the prequels a tad more credit than that, if only because their (very) general plot already existed in the 1970s.

Really?

 whatever plot lucas had in the 1970s for the PT you could fit on a napkin - maybe the reverse side of the same napkin spielberg used to write up his pre-nup with amy irving

Check out the interviews from the summer of 1977 in the back of The Making of Star Wars. Lucas talks about the involvement of the corporations, how Palpatine convinced the people to vote him more power (the bit in the novelization about him being a puppet might have been added by Daley or changed in the intervening time), etc. I can't remember all the details off the top of my head. There are some interesting bits about Vader sneaking around, killing Jedi without them knowing, senators being assassinated, the Jedi defending them but being routed at their last stand...

Is it a full outline or script? Not even close. But then, it's about the same level of detail that actually appears in the prequels themselves (that is to say, it's not super developed in its 'final' form either). Even some of the things that were changed from the 1977 conception were still there in a slightly mutated form, like the assassination of senators.

Hell, the midichlorians are in there too, though they're very slightly different from the version that was ultimately included in TPM.

I don't know, I'd give the prequels a tad more credit than that, if only because their (very) general plot already existed in the 1970s. (It's not that those ideas are automatically good because they're older; rather, they were developed in concert with the other films, and have also had more time to age in Lucas's mind.) Where there were changes made to this, I think they mostly ended up being less effective. And of course, a ton of stuff was added, some good, some not.

And there are some things that aren't really followed up on thematically. Anakin's motivation - political, personal, what? It varies. This is where there was clearly some basic idea, but more development of a throughline in all three films would have been VERY beneficial.

But I don't think the PT is all in the viewer's head (though I have seen quite a few people go way overboard with their analysis of symbolism).

Walking carpet, timdiggerm, good points.

I just stepped through AOTC looking at effects shots; here's what I noticed.

-Actors are often composited directly into model or CGI environments. In the OT, mattes were used to extend sets (docking bay 327 on Cloud City, the Executor bridge, etc), but the actors were on a mostly real set with real lighting. Not only does this automatically look more natural, I think it allows for better shot compositions, because you can take advantage of the geometry of the set, the lighting effects, etc... instead of everything being a two-shot against some to-be-determined background that may or may not really work against the actors' placement in the shot.

-Things move strangely. Aliens are sometimes very animated, and missiles, energy trails, explosion debris, etc, all follow twisty paths through space, which might be cool a few times, but it happens a lot.

-On a related note, the lighting from said explosions/projectiles seems off, probably because it doesn't bleach out the shot the way a real huge explosion would. Rich orange tongues of flame sometimes seem out of place (the destruction of the flying wing at the beginning of AOTC sticks out in my mind).

Relatedly, the lighting on CG objects often seems flatter (or less stark?) than normal, which exacerbates the amount of visible detail (sometimes so much that it makes things look unrealistic, with tons of circuits and things all over) as well as making the objects in question not look like real objects.

Compare (apologies for the image heaviness, but I think it's illustrative):

I really don't know. I suspect it has to do with the complex camera movements within shots (not possible in the OT), and perhaps even more to do with the heavy use of CGI characters and vehicles, and their flashy movements (really not possible in the OT).

I think I'll watch through the PT a little and see if that makes sense.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Blame the CGI. The visuals of the PT - flawed though they are in places - would have looked a lot better done in the old school "models-and-mattes" method of production.

Case in point: the prequels themselves. To me, there is a noticeable difference between this:

and this:

A ton of the landscapes in the later prequels were models; I'm not sure if any of the post-TPM vehicle shots were.