DavidBrennan

Thank you for the support, Walking Carpet and DuracellEnergizer.

In response to the comment that it's best to (basically) just give in to the PC police, I'll just ape Joe Rogan's sentiment: You have to stand up for yourself and what's right.  You can't keep submitting to the media/political establishment's commands and further limit and limit and limit your vocabulary - but, worse than that, your thoughts, too.  Because even if you think that you've properly limited your vocabulary....pretty soon they're just going to change the rules, anyway, and still more words will be forbidden.

Soon, only word you'll be allowed to say is "word".  It's just ridiculous the words that they're saying are forbidden nowadays.  On sports radio here in Detroit some time ago, some athlete had said "Jew" and they were saying THAT was a derogatory word (and, no, it wasn't even in a stereotype context, but even if it was, who cares?)  I was like, so are we forced to burn Bibles and Shakespeare and Dickens and everything else with "Jew" in it now?  Of course, you can't say the "f" word.  And if you praise a black person as "articulate", you're actually just speaking in secret racist code. 

It's wrong.  I'm allowed to see a man with effeminate traits and say, "He is effeminate."  I'm not going to oppress my thoughts to conform to some strangers who like pointing the finger and being offensive to me. 

Here is a great, great, great bit by an English comedian named Steven Hughes.  As he points out, we used to tell kids, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me."  Now, all we care about is names!  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHMoDt3nSHs&t=4m6s

Anyway!  End of rant.  For those looking for some great Star Wars beyond, skip the TCW crap (made by an effeminate show-runner) and instead pick up 'Darth Plagueis' by James Luceno (I think probably the best EU writer).  I'm about 25% of the way through the .EPUB file and it is GREAT.

I don't know if anybody here saw Dave Filoni's TCW movie, but it was as big a piece of shit as you could fear.  In terms of SW continuity (OT or PT), it was a total abmonation, in terms of story, it was a joke, and the animation was bad, too (although that aspect wasn't too bothersome to me).

I think there have been select few good episodes of the weekly TCW cartoon.  Those are when it's more of an isolated, anthology-type episode, usually written and directed by total outsiders.  But when Filoni and his team are doing their regular thing....it's embarrassing.  I always hope that family and friends don't ever stumble across it or else they might come to think that that's what I'm talking about when I say "Star Wars".

I actually just got banned from TFN because I used the word "effeminate" to describe Filoni.  (The dude has a thick lisp, a womanly gait, and, well, let's just leave it at that.)  I'm sorry, but I can state obvious observations, can't I?) The posters there immediately started saying they were "offended" by calling somebody effeminate, one even started saying he was "transgendered" and so I was offensive to him.  Basically, here's what they all did for me calling Filoni effeminate:

The sad part is that I was working with some posters there on my project and so I asked the mods to just tell them that I was banned so they'll know I can't read their PMs anymore, but they have so far not done so.  (I think they don't want people to know what power-tripping sleazeballs they are.)

Erikstormtrooper,

Please don't do it solely on my account, as my potential use for it is very small.  But if you enjoy the craftsmanship and think others could use it also, then I would be thrilled to download it, too. 

Alright.  Thanks for the suggestions, laserschwert. Those aren't on my current roster of fonts, but I'm sure I can find them somewhere.

If EdFarmer can share his results, that'd be great, and should put to rest any worries.

EdFarmer,

Did you generate the new font yet?  If so, I'd love to use it.  I was told that Franklin Gothic or Univers fonts are the best simulations of the "Long Time Ago" text, so I'll use those for my fan doc if you haven't finished yours, yet.

For those who wish it could be in vector graphics, I think that if you just (a) make it as a super-large text (like, say, 100-size font), and then (b) select those letters by color, and then (c) turn that selection into a Curve, and lastly (d) turn those curves into the font, that that might be a satisfactory way of turning them into vector graphics.

I'm not sure if that's applicable here, but I've used techniques like that a time or two (I use Gimp, Inkscape, and Blender rather than the Adobe software because it's free and I find the open source community immensely helpful).

Regarding the general idea that the PT was just too synthetic and smooth looking, I would like to compare the production methodologies of the PT versus what James Cameron used for AVTR.  I'll just paste a post I made at TFN a few months ago.  This was in response to a claim that somebody made that there was all this great subtext and symbolism in the PT movies.  (My argument was that most all of the subtext and symbolism there we, the audience, project onto it and it is not usually intended by Lucas.)

The making of the [PT] is VERY well documented, and so I think it's obvious that there's not some Great Hidden Mystery buried in the movies.

The scripts were obviously written in a hurried, haphazard manner, with plenty of late changes. It wasn't like the writing of ANH or ESB where there were multiple drafts, each unique with their own reflections on the story. The process for the PT (most especially AOTC and ROTS) was:

(1) Lucas comes up with very, very crude outline and gives vague instructions for the art design team
(2) Art design team comes up with numerous illustrations of characters, settings, creatures, vehicles, etc.
(3) Lucas approves select designs and set-construction and digital asset creation begin
(4) Lucas utilizes those designs as some combination of inspiration and guide as he writes the one and only draft of the script

This process is well-documented on the DVDs, "Making of" books, testimonials, etc., etc., etc.

And since that's the process, there's obviously no time or inclination of Lucas to include narrative depth and philosophical ideas into the process.

In fact, even the stories themselves were often changed at the very-last second - critical parts of the story. Examples include Sidious revealing that he's Anakin's father and the identity of Sifo-Dyas (who was originally Sidious, then implied to be Dooku, and then the EU created a different story).

So, most of the depth of the PT was created by the large, first-rate design team that LFL hired, because they did the vast majority of the idea- and data-conjuring.

--------

If we then look at the production of the PT movies themselves, we can see that, again, there's no opportunity for depth in the performances, blocking, or improvising. In fact, by every account of the PT I've ever heard, the productions were virtually raced along in Australia (for AOTC and ROTS). You can see this in the documentaries, and there are many quotes to this effect throughout the production. Actors were given minimal "aids" to counteract the all-digital process.

To draw a comparison to a movie that made more money than all the PT movies combined, look at 'Avatar': There, it was also a largely digital production, but James Cameron had a strict edict that the acting was paramount. (He usually talks about this in reference to the motion/performance capture, but it also applies to the production itself.) For the scenes where the Na'vi aliens are pleading with their deity to save a life (of Grace and then Jake), ethereal music was pumped in loudly and everybody was "coached up" to get into a trance-like mood. Another example would be the scene where the Na'vi are fleeing as Hometree is being destroyed by the military. There, stagehands were throwing little Nerf ball-like objects at the actors and other tricks were used to make them LITERALLY dodge and flee shrapnel. The 'Avatar' production also took, I believe, seven or eight months. (It actually occurred in three separate phases, but I think the primary performance capture period was this long, I believe.) The PT movies, on the other hand, were filmed in 60 days, plus about 14 more for pick-ups.

That's all, basically, a fact.

The question is, does any of this show up in the movie? My strong opinion is that, yes, it does. In the PT (especially AOTC, in my opinion) it's almost clinical - there's a tonal bifurcation between the actors and the sets around them. Lots of the lines the actors speak them as though they have no clue about the context - virtually the full Invisible Hand scene is like this, to cite just one example. Conversely, in 'Avatar', there was (light) talk about an Oscar nomination for Zoe Saldana....and she was a cartoon character in the movie! Whatever flaws 'Avatar' might have, I don't think anybody could say that it was flat or clinical.

-----

So, what I'm saying is that I think that SW in general, but ESPECIALLY the PT, are unquestionably light. The movies' VERY tight budgets of time and money also resulted in a tight budget of thought and complexity. Viewers can IMAGINE and PROJECT complexity and depth in the movies, but that's not the same as the moviemakers intending that. The PT is pretty much WYSIWYG. For the most part.

Yeah, the Order 66 scene is set up to 'Anakin's Betrayal'.  (Track #4, one of my most played tracks ever.)

Great stuff.  The ROTS score is great throughout, I agree.  But much of it is either recycling music from the previous movies (it uses virtually every core melody from the entire saga) or is just kind of atonal, atmospheric stuff - like Padme's Ruminations.  Because I think that stuff is probably a lot easier to create (and doesn't move me as much emotionally) I don't lend that as much weight.

American Hominid said:

To me, the prequels had some pretty evocative designs/preproduction work too:

 [....]

  

Granted, some of that was not used as-is, but I don't think there was a lack of interesting design. Though I do see a difference in how McQuarrie's work, along with  the rest of the artists on the OT, creates a sense of "world" in me that some of the prequel art does not.  This might be due to the use of traditional media and generally sketchier aesthetics (there are some nice prequel pieces like that too).  I'm not sure. McQuarrie's world definitely feels more lived-in, but I also like the nouveau/deco/early 20th century feel that shows up in the prequel designs, especially in TPM.

I do think that the OT, though it was created and viewed as a spectacle when it was made, struck a nice balance between good filmmaking and showing off the designs. I think the PT got progressively more showy, and it can just seem garish.

Not only did they seem to construct shots specifically to show off the design work (in very in-your-face ways, I mean), there were so many designs that it was hard to keep track of things. I never felt the OT was impoverished in its numbers of new ship/character designs per movie.  It became a bit overwhelming in the prequels.

I think one major distinction between the PT and OT art can be viewed by contrasting the Alderaan design - and bear in mind that the above Alderaan design is among the more detailed and grand designs used for AOTC or ROTS (by far, in my opinion).  It's clearly more of an impressionist design, whereas Ralph McQuarrie's were much more tactile and definitive - and yet every bit as grand (in my opinion).

I highly recommend the book, The Illustrated Star Wars Universe. which features I think almost all of McQuarrie's great paintings (woven together in a faux travelogue of the galaxy by Kevin J. Anderson).

I think that the OT had way more memorable, signature melodies than the PT (without a doubt), but I still think the PT had awesome music.

As far as memorable melodies, the OT has:

1. Main Title

2. Binary Sunset

3. Throne Room

4. Imperial March

5. Asteroid Chase

6. Yoda's Theme

7. Lando's Palace

8. Luke and Leia

9. Parade of the Ewoks

The PT has:

1. Duel of the Fates

2. Across the Stars

3. Battle of the Heroes

4. Anakin's Betrayal

I still love the PT soundtrack - there are lots of small bits here and there (like the great music in the second half of Anakin's Dark Deeds on the ROTS track) - but as far as really powerful, memorable melodies, I don't think it even remotely compares to the OT.

It's interesting that Peter Jackson noted that the conceptual designs of movies no longer seem as cool as they used to (probably most especially in the case of Ralph McQuarrie).  Why is this, did Jackson say?  Is it because people are less imaginative than they used to be or because it's all been done before?  Not really - although those might play a role in it.

The main reason is because nowadays, anything you can imagine can be on screen.  When you look at McQuarrie's designs for the OT, there are tons of little details which you know couldn't be achieved because of time and budget concerns - such as the saddled pterodactyls on Bespin or the giant Ewok eater beasts on Endor. 

But for the PT, Lucas could go, "I want a giant underwater monster for Naboo."  And they could go, "Sure.  How about three?"  "Great!"

I think that this somehow played into the sometimes lame nature of the PT visuals.  (Although I agree that Kamino was pretty cool, and I also thought Mustafar was good, although McQuarrie originally contributed to that aesthetic, too.)  I think that the focus on prioritizing and the agonizing over details probably aided the OT.

Also, I think that the digital artwork nowadays - with its algorithm-generated color transitions and synthetic flares and sheens - simply doesn't resonate as deeply with viewers' subconsciousness as a hand-painted matte.

(I'll just cut-and-paste my post from TFN which, in turn, was mostly just cut-and-pasted from a comment I left at McQuarrie's Facebook page.)

Here's the post I left at his Facebook page:

I always get the great science fiction "sense of wonder" from Ralph McQuarrie's beautiful paintings. This is especially true with Star Wars, but I see now that he did so much else beside that. Most notably, it was clearly McQuarrie who was chiefly responsible for Darth Vader's appearance. I think he was a wonderful creator and I hope he's in Heaven! I'll never forget the feelings of awe I had reading making of Star Wars books in high school when I saw his paintings.

I dormed at a high school, and I remember having to sit in this study hall for two hours every night while this creepy dean of discipline hovered over us. In that time, I remember just staring at McQuarrie's beautiful paintings in these two books:

http://www.amazon.com/From-Star-Wars-Indiana-Jones/dp/0811809978/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1330838922&sr=8-3
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Concept-Screen-Collectible/dp/0811800962/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_5

Just getting lost in them. As detailed in, 'The Secret History of Star Wars', Ralph McQuarrie is almost entirely to credit with the design of Darth Vader.

SecretHistoryOfStarWars posted:

---

From the above quote it sounds as if McQuarrie's masked drawing inspired Lucas' descriptions, and not the other way around—given that Lucas liked to work this way on the sequels and prequels, this is unsurprising. In tact, McQuarrie began sketching in November 1974210—when Lucas was still writing. He elaborates:

"George came along in about a week with a little bundle ot suit! he'd gotten out ot old science-Fiction magazines ot the 1930s and material like that. George also supplied some books on Japanese medieval stuff... George had mentioned him having to wear a helmet like a Japanese medieval warrior, one ot those big flared-out helmets, and I made it somewhere between that and a German World War II helmet. In probably one day, I made all the drawings that pretty much defined Darth Vader. I was moving veiy tast and didn't have all week to tool around with Darth Vader—I had lots ot other things to work on... [George] was veiy happy it you came up with some ideas that was completely different. George didn't envision Darth Vader with a mask—he said he might have his face covered with black silk. But I got worried for Vader's health, because he has to transfer to another spacecraft through outer space with stormtroopers who had armored space suits...George said, 'Well, all right, give him some kind ot breath mask,"—which he wore through all three films."

(This thread is essentially cut-and-pasted from a similar thread I just made at TheForce.net.)

I'm redoing my fan documentary, 'Star Wars & False Flag Terror' with all-new graphics and animations and in true HD. There are two purposes for this post.

First, I was wondering whether anybody with the book 'The Star Wars Vault' could possibly do me a favor and photograph the picture of all the Star Wars books on page 65. (I have the book, but no camera.) The higher quality the picture, the better, of course, but it doesn't have to be agonizingly perfect at all.

Secondly, I'm going to make a faux theatrical poster for the documentary (even though it's obviously just a little 10-minute fan doc, so it might be going overboard, but it will still be fun, I think). I was wondering whether anybody here would be interesting in volunteering for the job. If not, I can do it myself - it's always good for me to find new excuses to learn more about Gimp and Inkscape! - but if anybody thinks they'd enjoy it and are okay with taking directions and maybe some criticism from me, I'd be thrilled if they could do it, instead.

I recently created this assembly of Drew Struzan posters for all six movies - the SE posters for the OT, and then the normal posters for the PT.

The full graphic (all six posters) is 3000 x 3000 and about 14 MB.  I got all the graphics from random sources on the internet, so I went in and did some minor color correction and removed borders so they were seemless:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/i7n2mu

bkev,

Thanks for the suggestion.  What I'll do instead of adding more real world examples is refer people to other documentaries (such as Terrorstorm).  But....I don't think that I want to go in and add all sorts of historical footage, myself (and re-write and re-narrate, on top of it!)

Still, I definitely think it's a good suggestion and I appreciate the thought.

I was pretty proud of getting that much out of MovieMaker.  I think one of the big tricks was using Audacity to take care of the audio so that I didn't have to keep re-rendering it (since MovieMaker only allows for one audio track) and losing image quality with each new render.  But I just worked very hard.  Now it's so great to become more proficient with Blender!

A few years ago, I made a 10-minute documentary called 'Star Wars & False Flag Terrorism'.  It was mostly about the political intrigue dynamics of the PT, but it touched on the OT just in my reference to a '75 draft of SW where Starkiller is describing the history of the Republic.

Anyway, I'm now redoing it almost entirely (though the script is basically the same) in true 1080p HD.  Before, I just used Windows MovieMaker (that's all my computer could handle) but now I use the great, open source program Blender. 

I'm almost all finished in terms of the hours because I created and mostly rendered all the 3D graphics, though I haven't yet touched the editing of the movie footage.

My pain purpose of starting this thread is to (1) just have a place here to share links and get feedback but, more urgently, (2) to request any ideas or input now, before I finalize it and it's too late to do it over.  If you can assist with any data you believe should be added, please do so!  (I'm hoping to find some good EU stories which I could refer fans to on the subject.) 

Here's a still from a 3D animation I have showing George Lucas's (imaginary) desk as he was writing SW in 1975:

Thanks for the suggestion, bkev. I'll post a new thread there presently.

The documentary is an HD upgrade of this documentary, 'Star Wars & False Flag Terror', that I made a few years ago.  (It's basically all about the PT, and the Starkiller script is only mentioned regarding the backstory that was described by Luke Starkiller in one of the '75 drafts.)

Thanks again!

I used the program Inkscape to trace the picture you gave me, BaronLando, with the Calligraphy Brush (I did this with my mouse since I don't have a Wacom tablet or anything). 

It was just for the background of a shot that's supposed to represent George Lucas's desk when writing SW in the mid-70's.  Here's a screencap of the final render, and I'll post a link to the fan documentary it's a part of when I complete that (within a few days, hopefully):

Thanks a lot, BaronLando.

I'm working on it right now and will make sure to share the results when I'm done.

Baronlando said:

It's on page 10 of the big Making Of book, picture is not very big though. I can try to snap a pic of it.

Well, if you CAN, that would be good.  Really, if the handwriting is decently legible, that will be good enough.  What I'll do is turn that into a vector graphic and then use that as part of the Texture.  Currently, I just used a handwriting font that I thought sorta looked like Lucas's handwriting. 

So if it's not too much trouble, yeah, a photo would be great (especially of the lettering.)

This is a little bit off the main thread subject, but I’m just looking for a .PNG or .JPG or whatever of the handwritten SW script.

Lucas’s handwriting in pencil is written on it, and the paper is simply, I believe, a standard yellow legal pad.

I’m almost certain that a good copy is included in the ‘Star Wars Vault’ book, and I swear I thought I’d seen it many other places, but a current search came up empty.

The reason that I could use this is because I’m making a little fan documentary (actually, RE-making one I already made) and I would like to use that image as part of a little computer animation I’m doing.

I ran a James Cameron fan blog and podcast for a while (and wrote a book that aspired to be of Secret History of Star Wars quality, but failed) and I wanted to share some of Cameron's ideas about SEs in general and also about the SW SEs in particular:

Would you redo the effects in The Abyss the way George Lucas did with Star Wars?

I went back and did a special edition of The Abyss, using all the building blocks that weren't used because of time constraints, and we made it clear that this was an alternate version for people who don't mind watching a three-hour movie. But we didn't go back and change the actual imagery; we just edited it together—so it's more of a historical document. It's a little weird to go back and do all the things you wanted to do back then. It's a little like thinking through your own navel. It's revisionist history. On the other hand, when it earns you another $150 million . . .

-Premiere Magazine, 'The Territory Ahead', 1999, by Anne Thompson

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Omni: The Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind seemed to contain nothing more than a few pieces of footage cut from the original.

Cameron: Close Encounters was the model for subsequent Special Editions: let's go back and cut the film differently, add some stuff that wasn't finished and release it again theatrically. It was an interesting idea. I personally thought that it wasn't a better film. There was a certain kind of religious awe at the end of the original version of the film that was demystified in the Special Edition by going inside the saucer and seeing all the aliens. I thought that was a mistake, and with The Abyss, I didn't want to set myself up for the same criticism.

What I'm still not clear on -- and I'm sure fans of Close Encounters know -- was how much of the Special Edition was footage Steven [Spielberg] had actually shot [and left out] and how much of it was stuff he'd intended to shoot, hadn't and went back to shoot later. To me, that gets into a strange zone of revisionism I think is unhealthy. When we restored The Abyss, we had some of those ethical considerations, but they were very minor. Basically, we only put back scenes that I'd done, that were in the script, on the call list, that we had shot to be in the film and had taken out only to release it at what we thought was a commercially viable length.

-Omni Magazine. '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: The Movie Director as Captain Nemo'. 1997. by Bill Moseley.

----------

Cameron on the 'Abyss' SE in the laserdisc intro in 1993:

"We didn't slavishly put back every single scrap of film that was shot, because issues of pace and style are still important. It still has to be a good movie.

I created my own ground rules for the restoration.

I would not touch the scenes that were in the 1989 release version, even though there are a few things that make me cringe that I would do differently now. That seemed a violation of the rules to me.

Since the scenes were cut out originally before the score was done, some new music was created, and some of the old score was reused in places. Where a number of shots or short scenes were added to an existing sequence (such as the search of the submarine) we rescored the whole sequence rather than create a patchwork of music “bridges”.

We didn't do any new photography.

Effects shots in the wave scene had to be completed using existing photographic elements. They were completed by ILM, with many of the same people involved who started the shots in 1988."

----------

Cameron on the TITANIC re-release:

When asked about making changes in the movie, Cameron joked that he'll let George Lucas be the filmmaker who goes back to his earlier work and changes things. "That's an example of what I don't want to do," he quipped, then added. "That's not a slam. I think he considers his movies a perpetual work in progress. For me, the problem is when you pull that thread, it all unravels because where do you stop? For example, I've done three expeditions to the Titanic, I've done literally hundreds of hours of exploration of the interior of the wreck, always photographing all the stairwells, so I know the places where the film is wrong." In other words, Cameron has been able to learn a lot more information about the interiors of the Titanic than he had when he made the movie, but he knows that going back to fix those things would be very time-consuming.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=83123#ixzz1bmzkOoQA

WhatsMyName said:

DavidBrennan said:

Another favorite bit of EU are the first two books in the 'Coruscant Nights' trilogy.  The series gets noticeably worse with each book, but the first one is GREAT, the second is solid, but the third is horrible.

 I agree. i thought it was somewhat of a cool tie in with the characters' father from the Darth Maul Novel. Shadow Hunter i believe it was.

You're right: it was 'Shadow Hunter'. 

RE: The sound effects and impersonation of voices rather than just straight-reading of books.  I try to not use audio books too much because I feel like they're lazy or something.  But, when I do listen to them, I have to say that I think the Star Wars books do a REALLY good job integrating a modest theater-like atmosphere with effects and music, etc.  For instance, the abridged 'Shadow of the Empire' is enhanced and made to feel like a movie with this, even though it SEEMS like it'd just make it silly and childish.

Judge said:

I like Shadows of the Empire, even if it would pave the way for the rampant commercialism that would characterise the prequels.

Even though SotE exhibits all the worst traits of the E.U. - the pointless one-upsmanship in the power of the characters over the movie characters (Dash Rendar is a BETTER pilot than Han!, Xizor is an even BIGGER badass than Vader!, etc., etc., etc.), I still enjoyed this, too.  For me, it felt "Star Wars-y", whereas 95% of the EU that I've sampled doesn't.

I've always had a fantasy of making an all CGI fanfilm of this, high-quality, but I don't believe I have the time or necessarily the organizational skills.  But all the assets are obviously there: the story (in spades), soundtrack, character design, and more.

Another favorite bit of EU are the first two books in the 'Coruscant Nights' trilogy.  The series gets noticeably worse with each book, but the first one is GREAT, the second is solid, but the third is horrible.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Like Anakin turning to the dark side on a dime, Padmé dying of a broken heart, Padmé dying period, mention of midi-chlorians, younglings, Grevious' cough, the stilted love scenes, the stilted dialogue, bad acting, overused CGI, etc, etc.

Definitely agree with most of those, although I wouldn't say that Anakin turned to the Dark Side "on a dime", it just felt like that because it was poorly executed. 

For instance, I think that his distrust in the Jedi was supposed to be very acute, but it only came across in a couple of ineffectual story beats.  There's a possibly meaningful exchange in one of the "Making Of" featurettes on the DVD (not the Blu-Ray).  Lucas tells Hayden Christiansen that he's re-written Anakin's exchange with Palpatine.  And Hayden immediately perks up and is like, "Oh?!?" with an optimistic gleam in his eye.  I think he was thinking, "So now my character's actions are gonna make sense?"  Only kinda-sorta.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

CPY = "creepy puppet yoda" (I just invented that acronym).  The reason I like him/it, and jar jar, and midichlorians, is that the only way I can stand to watch the prequels is as train wrecks.  Removing the poorly-done elements just leaves boringness.  At least with all the hilarity, they're good in a "Plan 9 from Outer Space" sort of way.

I like the prequels, but I can see what you're saying.  I read the 'Transformers 2' review from this hilarious critic, OutlawVern.com, and he said that he prefers that to the first one in the same way he prefers 'Batman & Robin' to 'Batman Forever' ("both are terrible so you go for the more spectacularly terrible one").  Although I actually like the first Transformers, also.

I'm able to accept the prequels as both inferior to the OT and contaminated by all the lies in the retcons....but still enjoy them.  Actually, I flat-out loved ROTS.  I believe that if that had been the only prequel released, there would be no stigma of any sort attached to the prequels.