So that’s a ‘no’ on the source for your claim that:
I feel like JJ saying he was told it wasn’t possible is kinda a slam dunk. Combined with Kennedy saying she hasn’t touched those and that, “Those will always be his”.
I see this claim quite a lot on reddit and YouTube video comment sections too, but never with a source for it, or any relevant quotes on it from the high ups at Lucasfilm on the subject. Hate to be “that guy”, but do you have a source for that?
First, they wouldn’ve have done it by now. Pre-TLJ, Lucasfilm’s agenda under Disney was to appeal to the fandom that believes Lucas fucked up Star Wars. No Prequel content, TFA being OT fan-service palooza, cancelling The Clone Wars in favor of Rebels, the hyper focus on the OT era in comics and novels, etc. Even now in the age of Prequel apologetics, they still reference the OOT (the OG Krait Dragon call being used in The Mandalorian Season 2).
I highly doubt that with JJ Abrams and Jon Favreau clearly favoring the original versions, they wouldn’t have released them by now if there wasn’t something stopping them.
Second, we know JJ Abrams asked and was told it wasn’t possible.
Make that right now. I need to see it.
I really quite like the new ROTJ color grade, though if I had one critique, it’s that I think the blacks are too crushed. Nowhere near as bad as the 2011 Blu-Rays, but it’s something I noticed.
C-3PO isn’t annoying, he’s lovable and funny.
I think I might change my PT answer to Padme… Natalie Portman’s acting in RotS specifically was a whole new level of cringe…
I don’t agree with her being the most annoying, but Natalie absolutely phoned in ROTS. It makes me feel like she saw all the bad reviews for the previous two and just gave up.
Hayden was doing a better job then her in literally every scene (I actually think Hayden did a good job, any lapses in his performance are directing/writing issues). He should’ve gotten top billing since he was literally the main character.
His opinion that MCU isn’t cinema (an opinion shared by some of the greatest filmmakers out there) automatically makes him an idiot and invalidates any insights he’s had on Star Wars?
Nah, that’s not my main problem. Most of his points are nonsense. The MCU thing is just one of them.
His Prequels video is just, “Look at this visual storytelling and poetry, that automatically makes every point about the Prequels flaws null and void”. Yes, I’m aware that, “It’s a language” and that the parallels have meaning and all that. But the OT did the same thing without sacrificing plotting, character development, pacing, good dialogue, etc.
His “debunks” of Prequel criticism are just addressing nitpicks rather then actual story or character critiques. Instead of acting like you destroyed Chris Stuckmann because he said they have candlelight dinners in AOTC but there aren’t actually any candles (as if that was the point), how about address the actual problems with the romance plotline or Anakin’s character?
He defends Chewbacca being in ROTS by saying that it makes ANH better, as Obi-Wan approaches Chewie “on his first try” and that’s because he knew him because “He helped the Jedi 20 years ago”. First of all, Chewie met Yoda, not Obi-Wan. Second, Chewie is not the first pilot he approaches. It’s a normal guy who then refers him to Chewie. This and the dialogue indicates he had no idea who Chewie was. For all the talk he does of people “Not watching the movies”, it doesn’t seem like he rewatched ANH for his video.
His special edition defenses are bad too.
He states that Greedo shooting first was done because Greedo’s intentions to shoot Han weren’t clear visually, despite the fact that his blaster pointing at Han is clearly visible.
He says that both of Vader’s Big No’s aren’t any different from Luke’s Big No in TESB, without accounting for the performance or that it’s out-of-character for Vader, who’s supposed to be stoic. There being a Big No in every other movie doesn’t excuse giving Vader a cheesy stupid line that undercuts the scene. Would it be an excuse if they gave Han a cheesy Big No when the door to the shield generator closes?
Also he actually had the balls to say Jedi Rocks isn’t any more cheesy then Lapti Nek. pukes
“An opinion shared by some of the greatest filmmakers out there”, Argument from authority. I don’t care. You don’t get to just call something not what it is just because you don’t think it’s good example of it. Every movie is “a real movie” and “cinema”.
Yes, I wish they would improve the CGI. 100%
Unfortunately they are contractually not allowed to touch George’s films.
LUKE: Master Yoda, you can’t die.
YODA: Strong am I with the Force… but not that strong! Twilight is upon me and soon night must fall. That is the way of things… the way of the Force.
VADER: Luke, help me take this mask off.
LUKE: But you’ll die.
VADER: Nothing can stop that now.
I love this movie so much.
It doesn’t “ruin the story” at all.
We see when Tarkin brings up Alderaan that the aim is adjusted so the planet’s in view, meaning the view is pointing towards the void of space by the time Leia walks in the room. The initial shot showing the planet is before she walks in.
Even if it were in view the whole time, “they’re gonna destroy it” is an odd conclusion to immediately come to.
Not to mention that’s such an odd thing to say about something so minor.
Also it wouldn’t be a reveal as the first shot of the scene is the Death Star headed towards the planet.
Didn’t Vader already kill both those pilots in the original? I could be mistaken
In the reel it shows the stormtrooper killing the second one in the 2011 blu-ray.
I flipped it because I replaced the earlier shot of the destroyer with the one from ESB;
Y tho
Awesome reel. I like how you have Vader kill both of the backup pilots in the first trench run. I’ve always liked how ANH showed that Vader is an excellent pilot and marksman and this just enhances it even more.
Other then some scenes on Hoth being slightly green, the color grading is excellent. I’m especially glad the overwhelming aqua hue is gone. Dagobah and Cloud City look stellar.
I find it weird that the SE introduces a praxis shockwave ring around all three major explosions of the trilogy. If there’s only one, that feels better to me.
And since I’m using the SE version of the battle of Yavin, I feel it’d be weird to switch into the OOT right at the moment of the climax. Plus, that shockwave (first Death Star) actually feels like it adds something to me.
I find it weird for the first Death Star to have a shockwave ring and not the second since the second one is way bigger.
It’s your edit tho, you do you.
Why was the ring in the second Death Star explosion in Return of the Jedi removed?
That’s like, one of the few SE Mos Eisley shots that I actually like. And I bet it’s not coincidental that it’s also one of the few that uses practical effects (as well as just having the CG creatures in the background where they belong).
Where can I find DrDre’s color matching tool?
Have you considered simply using the OOT version of the Mos Eisley entrance? I personally prefer it.
Maybe you should rewrite the Prequels instead of doing fanedits, then. Have you ever thought that?
Imma be honest, I haven’t worked on my fan-edits in a long while, and I’ve been thinking about doing rewrites for a long time. I’ve got a lot of ideas for the plot for each movie.
I’ll probably still make fan-edits of the Prequels tho, just so that when I do watch them they’ll be more enjoyable experiences. And for what it’s worth, I still enjoy ROTS a lot.
That wasn’t the point of my replies. The point of my replies is: for the story they have to tell, the Prequels are intrinsically not good for a movie format, because there are a lot of things to explore, and there’s not enough screan-time to do it. So, it would have been better if they had been part of the EU. However, even with their limited amount of screan-time, I’m still capable of getting everything necessary to appreciate them.
That’s cool. I personally would’ve preferred if the 3 movies could stand on their own, but I’m glad you appreciate them for what they are.
Will never be a fan of pining the blame of Anakin’s turn on the Jedi. Darth Vader should be a villain with agency responsible for his own actions. Makes him a more powerful and badass villain.
This may be driven by the fact that I’m a Vader fanboy, but it’s just my opinion.
So, the summary of your criticism is this: in the first two Prequel films there is not much story to tell, so you lose a lot of time behind secondary things. Am i right? If so, then great, it’s a very acceptable critique. But my reply is this: not every movie in a Saga has to be fundamental to understand the Saga itself. In my opinion, sometimes it’s nice to have movies where the plot is a little calmer, without necessarily having action and important things happening all the time.
At the expense of giving Anakin a more gradual fall to the dark side, showing him and Obi-Wan being friends, Anakin being heroic, more manipulation of Anakin from Palpatine, or maybe even more time with Darth Vader in the suit?
There’s a reason people love The Clone Wars. There’s a galaxy of potential in this era.
It was enough for me. That scene was really enough to make me feel that they are good friends. Especially because being friends doesn’t necessarily mean not arguing or having a good chemistry all the time.
Good for you. But for a lot of people, the arguing felt too antagonistic to the point where it felt like Obi-Wan couldn’t stand Anakin. Which is where the popular interpretation of “Obi-Wan wasn’t a good master/father figure to Anakin” came from, even though it wasn’t Lucas’ intentions.
It’d be a lot better if it was spread out between healthy banter, but in AOTC there’s none of that except for the elevator scene.
Do you realize that without the assassination attempts there’s no investigative plot, that without the investigative plot there’s no Clone Army, and that without the Clone Army there’s no Clone Wars, right? How do you think they should have used the screan time instead? The movie shows exactly what it’s supposed to show: the beginning of the Clone Wars, and Anakin and Padmé falling in love. The investigative plot leads to the beginning of the Clone Wars and the romance leads to…the romance.
There’s a very different way to plot it that could lead to a much more streamlined story. You could have a cool James Bond-esque Obi-Wan investigation, but it doesn’t have to be so dragged out. It takes 3 whole scenes just to find the planet. And maybe even have Anakin be with him (this would ideally take place in the first movie) to show their friendship. Or you could have Palpatine just introduce the clones without any mystery plot and show Anakin-Obi-Wan friendship in a different way.
Furthermore, you could have Anakin and Padme fall in love in the midst of the clone war. The Separatists are attacking Naboo, Anakin and his troops are sent to intercept on his first solo mission. Allows us to have the love story, gives the opportunity to showcase Anakin being heroic while also allowing us to show Anakin giving into the dark side more in battle. Maybe even throw Tarkin in there as a military commander. Now that I think about it, the love story would be better for the second film.
It is not “a part”, it is the whole movie! Again, without the Trade Federation blockade there is no Naboo crisis, and without the Naboo crisis there is no Palpatine’s election. How do you think they should have used the screen time instead? The movie shows what it’s supposed to show.
I can think of another way to streamline it. The Separatists are introduced in the first movie as a secessionist group. The surface level reason to blockade a planet is blackmail for independence (of course they’re actually doing it because Palpatine told them to). Palpatine’s able to make the Chancellor look weak because he doesn’t want to go to war, and because of that he’s able to get elected. By the end of the movie the clone war begins.
Starts the clone war earlier, more consistent villainous organization through the trilogy, and less of a need to explain space taxes.
You can do this alongside some other subplot. Maybe you do think we need to see Anakin found on Tatooine and his background and keep Qui-Gon. Maybe we just start with Obi-Wan and Anakin already master and apprentice and they’re the ones that try to negotiate instead of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Include a subplot of Obi-Wan and Anakin uncovering the clone army, or maybe they’re too busy with something else and some other Jedi like Mace Windu, Plo-Koon, or even Yoda does that, allowing us to flesh out one of the other Jedi characters a bit. There’s a lot of ways you can retool the plot to be better structured.
If you prefer the Prequels just as they are, that’s excellent for you. I’m glad you find them fulfilling where I don’t. These are just my ideas and my opinions.
Anyway, I apologize to you G&G Fan. I was wrong about what I said, and it’s embarrassing to look at the original thread and see myself defending a viewpoint which I really think should have been obvious how wrong it was. I’m feeling that way more and more about the shit I’ve said on the internet years past. Although Nerdonymous’s major chip on his shoulder really does make the video fucking suck.
You’re good man. I’ll think about messages I’ve sent here before that just make me cringe (me bending over backwards to defend the Prequels, like my old Yoda thread). I’ve funnily gone from one of the biggest Prequel defenders on the forum to agreeing with a lot of people’s issues, even if I still enjoy ROTS a lot (tho I’ve changed my mind about it being better then ANH; ANH is awesome). My last rewatch of the saga had me saying a lot of the stuff OT fans say. I used to use Rick fucking Worley videos to support my points before coming to the inevitable realization that he’s an egotistical idiot (probably should’ve been tipped off by him slandering Marvel; the MCU is awesome, I will take no sass). Sometimes I’ve exploded in ways that are just embarrassing to look back at, too.
But in the end we all grow and change and evolve.
Sure, but that’s your opinion. There’s people who would have complained about what you say as well. In fact, I’m sure that if they had really done this, then the Prequels would have been criticized anyway, by using statements like: “They told us about how Anakin lived in slavery and how it was horrible, but it’s impossible to directly relate to it, because we weren’t shown. Please George, show, don’t tell.” I mean, if you really want to find problems, then it’s virtually possible to criticize the Prequels by using every possible argument and counter-argument.
Yeah, some people would complain about it. I don’t really care. Some people complain about stuff in other movies I like and I just disagree.
I disagree with a lot of people’s problems with Return of the Jedi’s narrative choices. Hell I’m an MCU Spider-Man fan, I have to defend controversial creative choices from whiny fanboys who can’t accept change people all the time.
Besides, they didn’t show it in the movie we got, anyway. There’s never any sign he was abused and he’s never scared of his master. Like I’m not saying to show a 10 year old getting whipped (which would just be fucked up), but like at the very least show that Anakin is really scared of his master. I still think it’s ideal to just start him at 19 at the least. Because it’s the backstory, not the story. Breaking Bad didn’t dedicate whole episodes to Walt working at Grey Matter.
It’s not complicated if you pay attention to the movies and notice the details, like the facial expressions, etc. For example, last year I showed all 6 original Star Wars movies to a friend of mine, and when he saw Attack of the Clones for the first time he knew right away that Sidious and Dooku were behind the creation of the Clone Army. When I told him there were people who had trouble understanding it, he literally said: “Really? But how? It’s so obvious…” So, not everyone finds the story complicated. Sure, I think that some parts could have been explained better, but the story is not so complicated to understand if you pay attention.
I’m not referring to “it’s too complicated to understand”. Like yeah, the Prequels are kinda obvious, narratively. We’re talking about the movie with, “If only… Senator Amidala, were here”.
I’m referring to the fact that the movies are overstuffed. Attack of the Clones is a prime example of too much plot, too little character development. Lucas even realized he fucked up not showing any Anakin and Obi-Wan friendship in the movie and put in the elevator scene in pick-ups. But a 1 minute scene in which they recount old adventures didn’t do enough to make people feel they’re such good friends. More legwork that had to be done by Revenge of the Sith.
The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones suffer so much from bloating their plots that so much got pushed back to Revenge of the Sith. Lucas himself even admitted this.
George Lucas said:
But I did run into the reality of the first film. Basically, he is a slave kid. He gets found by the Jedi and he becomes part of the Jedi order and that he loves his mother. You know, that’s maybe a half hour movie. And so I did a kind of jazz riff on the rest of it and I said, “Well, I’m just going to enjoy myself. I have this giant world to play in and I’m going to just move around and have fun with this because, you know, I have to get to the second part.” So, then I got to the second part, and it was kind of the same thing. They fall in love, they can’t and they’re not supposed to, and, you know, little bits of trivia in terms of, you know, setting up the empire and how all that stuff works.That’s about another twenty percent of this story treatment. The first film is twenty percent, the second film is twenty percent and I then ended up with a third film. The problem was the third film was actually more like eighty percent of the story. So, I was sitting there with a lot more story to tell than I actually had time to tell it. It was the reverse of what I had in the first two films.
Most of the story is in Revenge of the Sith. So much screentime in the other two films is wasted because of that.
That’s the whole point of The Phantom Menace. Unless you wanted a single line where they say something like: “Palpatine became Chancellor because he was elected.”
That’s… what I was referring to. I was saying that a better Prequel trilogy would be the content of Revenge of the Sith, some elements of Attack of the Clones (mostly just the beginning of the clone war and Anakin and Padme falling in love, which should’ve been in the first movie), and showing how Palpatine became the Chancellor (AKA a part of The Phantom Menace).
I brought that up in particular as a lot of people suggest already have Palpatine as the Chancellor at the beginning of the trilogy which IMO isn’t a good idea.
Showing an innocent child who turns into an inhuman monster who kills children is very impactful as well, and showing Anakin’s childhood and his life in slavery is important to understand his character.
(Almost) Every child is innocent. Showing that Anakin was a good kid means nothing. I’m sure Jeffrey Dahmer was a “good kid”. What actually matters is seeing that Anakin was a good man.
Also no, his life in slavery doesn’t end up meaning anything, in the end. It’s never brought up again after The Phantom Menace. It’s never delved into how it affected him. He just misses his mom, which is normal. His trauma isn’t explored until the Zygerrian arc in The Clone Wars.
Besides, being told he was a slave and seeing how it effects Anakin would’ve been much more effective. It’d allow the audience to fill in the blanks, rather then just seeing Anakin go “Yipee!” and having no apparant fear or hatred of his master. Allowing the audience to fill the blanks is way better because what the imagination can think of is far more horrifying then anything they could get away with showing on screen in a kids movie. That’s why Han Solo’s torture in The Empire Strikes Back works so well.
If you wanted to tho, you could show him in slavery in nightmares he has or something. Either way, it’s not a good enough reason to have him be a kid a whole movie.
Spartacus01 said:
As I said, everything in the Prequels is important, the problem is just that there’s a limited amount of on-screan time, which prevents you from showing everything in detail. That’s why I said that the Prequels would have worked better as EU. I mean, imagine if the Prequels were an EU multimedia project, consisting of books, comics and video games. It would have been great, because in a EU multimedia project everything can be shown in detail and you don’t have to worry about on-screan time at all.
Well that’s the issue, isn’t it? They’re too convoluted. They don’t work as films on their own. George should’ve cut down the story to make it less complicated.
The content of Revenge of the Sith and some of Attack of the Clones (plus showing how Palpatine became the Chancellor) are enough for a whole trilogy.
Showing Anakin and Obi-Wan’s friendship makes it way more devastating when Anakin turns and they have to fight. I think that’s more important then showing him as a young kid.
