G&G-Fan

I have a lot of nostalgia for this film and still find it really entertaining for how spectacular it is, but it’s not held up. I used to be one of those “ROTS is ESB tier” people, but I’ve come to accept more of the flaws of the film.

The biggest problem is Anakin’s rushed turn. It’s a good starting point, but Anakin just blindly believes Palpatine’s word about cheating death and betrays everybody he loves. Not to mention, he’s still not enough like OT Darth Vader for most of it.

The movie is better in separated portions. The last half, from Anakin being Knighted Vader (such a chilling scene, even if not earned) to the ending is actually quite stellar. It’s easy for me to got lost in the apocalyptic imagery and operatic music. I like the first half too, especially the opening. But the problem is, they shouldn’t be the same movie.

The first half should be the beginning of the second movie, the second half should be the last half of the third movie. There should be a whole movie in-between exploring Anakin’s turn, having him gradually be seduced by the dark side via the usage of Sith holocrons or something. Have him lose himself more and more in the war. Then have him turn.

But this is what happens when you spend a movie with Anakin as a child and then another with him on a romantic vacation I guess.

I do think this movie is genuinely better then the other two though in some ways. The characterization and pacing is far better. It feels a lot more alive. Obi-Wan is a great character. Then you have Ian McDiarmid too, who’s amazing.

So overall this movie is flawed but enjoyable for me. Not OT level, but fun.

Superweapon VII said:

Don’t forget the trademark belt grip.

I wanna see that so bad now.

Michael Corleone from The Godfather is a better young Darth Vader then the actual young Darth Vader.

The Prequels miss so much of the nuance that made Vader so great in the OT. His sadistic humor, his boldness, his cold, domineering presence, how calculating he was. In the Prequels, he’s a hot-head that flies off the handle. OT Vader got mad, but he wielded it like a blunt weapon. OT Vader is like Michael Corleone, but PT Anakin is like Sonny Corleone (at least in terms of temper; Sonny was never intolerably whiny). And that doesn’t mix. They’re two different characters.

Jedi122 said:

If you really are that invested in Star Wars to begin with, then what’s stopping you from WANTING to learn more about it?

But I do read and watch supplemental material. But that doesn’t mean the original movie shouldn’t stand on it’s own.

Jedi122 said:

You might as well say the same about “The Clone Wars.” How else would we have known about the ultimate fate of Sifo-Dias, and why the clones did a complete 180 on their loyal Jedi generals so suddenly?

The Prequels relying on The Clone Wars for important plot details (and important character development) is also bad.

The Prequels are just as guilty of overreliance on supplementary material as the Sequels are.

Considering “Shadow of the Sith” is basically just “plug in the plot holes for The Rise of Skywalker” I feel like hardly anyone was excited for it anyway.

You could also remove a lot of Anakin’s whiny behavior and as a result make him act more like Darth Vader, that sounds like it’d kill two birds with one stone 😃

Worley is a very spiteful and egotistical person, and a lot of things he says don’t make sense.

Saying that it doesn’t matter that Greedo shoots first because in both versions Han is shooting in self-defense doesn’t work, the change makes Han less sleazy and sly of a character.

Vader saying Noooo in ROTJ being a parallel to ROTS does not excuse it. First, the entire problem with how Anakin/Vader was depicted in the Prequels is that he’s too whiny when Vader was a very stoic character in the OT. Second, creating a parallel should not be an excuse for making the scene itself worse.

He says both Noooos are brilliant because they call attention to the similarities between the scenes, but the issue (and also how he excuses the prequel dialogue) is that it’s too on-the-nose. Good filmmakers know the audience will get this parallel without it. The scene was way more powerful when Vader was quiet.

He says that Jedi Rocks isn’t any more cheesy then Lapti Nek, which is a riot.

Even though both Drew and Worley seem to agree that Obi-Wan’s new call from 2011 sounds like a Boga from ROTS, I still, for the life of me, cannot hear the similarity. The Boga sounds like a bird, while Obi-Wan’s call sounds like a monkey.

Worley seems to miss when Drew points out that there are some shots in Cloud City where the new CG backdrop isn’t in continuity, which is correct. This is especially noticeable in the scene when Vader captures Han, Leia, and Chewie.

Worley trying to excuse Luke’s scream as “It’s just editing the sound mix guys!” is also hilarious. Something like that changes the meaning of a scene.

Yes, the added Vader shots in Cloud City do ruin the pacing of the sequence. It literally cuts from the Millennium Falcon being pursued to a boring shot of Vader boarding a Star Destroyer.

The thing about Anakin’s force ghost is that Vader turned back into Anakin when he redeemed himself by killing the Emperor, so him in ROTS was not when Anakin died. He died as Anakin in ROTJ.

Worley sometimes make good points. Like when he points out that it doesn’t make sense for them to have built the ship models for the Prequels. And also when he talks about how George was way more involved in ESB and ROTJ then most people think. But the base argument and most of his points don’t make sense.

For a movie edit (or at least anything trying to fit with the traditional style of Star Wars) it wouldn’t work 'cause Lucas Star Wars don’t do flashbacks or time skips, but with something like the mini-series idea where it puts a different spin on the format it could work. If you want it to be more like the BCS flashbacks I’d recommend crushing the blacks a bit more.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

George I had faith in you!!!

I understood that reference

I can’t tell if you’re actively trying to make Adywan go insane or not but either way this is funny.

but technically the answer to that is no because Qui-Gon completing his training on how to become full force ghost meant he was able to teach Obi-Wan how to do it right away

Most of the reason people appreciate the new transfers is because of the color grading. Sure it’s dull, but when I turn up the color on my TV it looks great. It doesn’t have as many unfixable issues when it comes to grading as the 2011, like the crushed blacks. There’s more detail and the original colors are still there and can be restored, where as with the 2011 ones, if you desaturate it it just looks duller. The colors are just completely off. You basically have to redo the entire color map.

Adywan’s color grades are better then any of the official releases, but that’s because he’s an expert colorist. He actually did redo the entire color map. But if I’m just picking a version of the movie that I can easily pull up, and I’m choosing between the ugly ass over-saturated 2011 Blu-Rays and pulling up Disney+ and turning the color on my TV up, I’m choosing the latter.

The 2020 ones may have more issues, but you aren’t gonna notice them as much as a blatant ugly color grade.

But there are shots that look godawful from the 2020 Blu-Rays, like that one in the Millennium Falcon. I noticed it in my last rewatch and wondered what the fuck happened.

Therefore basing your ideas on George’s vision is impossible as well, because (apart from certain very core elements) he never had a solid and stable vision in the first place. So, the better thing you can do to enjoy Star Wars without going crazy is ignoring George’s opinions (unless some of them make sense to you) and judging everything based on a purely Death of the Author point of view.

I don’t enjoy things in Star Wars based on whether it was Lucas’ vision or not. I just like the interpretation that Anakin’s fall was not the Jedi’s fault because I think it makes Vader a stronger villain.

But I also much prefer the Disney Canon version of Vader in which he’s even more powerful then Sidious and didn’t lose potential. That completely goes against Lucas’ view of Vader. The 2017 Marvel Vader comics are my favorite Star Wars media besides the original trilogy. I don’t even really like the Prequels as much as I used to, anymore, besides ROTS and some parts of TPM.

Judging what you enjoy and don’t enjoy based on who created it is dumb. Enjoy whatever you want.

Spartacus01 said:

And that’s why the Prequels are actually good. They’re so bad at conveying what Lucas was really trying to convey that they turn out being good, because what Lucas was really trying to convey is… bad.

Nah, I kinda like Darth Vader to be mostly completely responsible for his own actions and the Jedi not vilified because of a misunderstanding of Buddhism.

I’m glad you actually acknowledged the weaker parts of his videos. It’s very obvious to me that many times Worley just finds patterns where none exist. For example, he seems to think the council scenes in AOTC are a parallel to the ones in TPM, but literally the only reason they’re the same camera angles is because they straight up just used the footage from TPM.

That thing about Burtt putting it in himself without Lucas’ input would’ve actually been really nice to know. I’m glad you discovered that tidbit.

The critiques of the Greedo scene are still valid. The change made it way less subtle and interesting. Han is less sly and sleazy; rather then being sneaky and getting a shot from under the table, he waits until he’s shot. Also, the scene begins with Greedo holding Han at gunpoint. There’s a certain point where it’s the audiences fault for not getting a scene and I’d say the original scene crossed that threshold just from that shot.

I’m aware that the Vader “Nooooo” in ROTJ is paralleling the No from ROTS, but he tried to make it seem like it’s as cheesy as Luke’s No in ESB, when it’s not. Also, again, your justification does not answer the true crux of the criticism. The criticism of Anakin/Vader’s character in the Prequels (and thus, what Vader is retconned into acting like in this change to ROTJ) is that he does not act like Darth Vader from the OT. Vader in the OT is stoic. The fact that the original version of the scene had him silent proves that this was the original intention for his characterization.

Whenever Vader is angry in the OT, he lashes out in a cold, collected manner. His statements are short and blunt, his voice commanding, his body language stiff and powerful. This is how Anakin should also act when he’s angry. But instead, he whines, yells, and goes on long rants about how everything is unfair. Anakin and Vader are supposed to be the same person. Vader is the dark side of Anakin. But besides some scenes in which he does resemble Vader (Watto scene in AOTC, being knighted Vader in ROTS and most of the movie afterwards), Anakin in the PT isn’t like him. The only similarity is “They’re angry”, but the way they express that anger is completely different. Connecting the two requires too much suspension of disbelief. It’s also why both times Vader screams No, it’s unbelievable. It’s not something Vader would do.

Anakin’s retconned characterization feels like if there was a prequel spin-off about a young Gus Fring, but his younger self is characterized like the popular meme caricature of Jesse Pinkman.

This is what I meant when I said the parallels don’t fix the issues. It doesn’t matter if there’s a parallel between Anakin and Frankenstein, it doesn’t change that Lucas missed a fundamental aspect of Vader’s character. It doesn’t change that Anakin is a moron for just blindly believing the story of Darth Plagueis with no evidence, or that he’s slaughtering children a few days after being a Jedi in his prime. It’s unnatural. We should’ve seen him gradually be seduced by the dark side and do worse and worse things over the course of the trilogy, because that’s how people work. A good person becoming bad is a very gradual process. Think like Walter White from Breaking Bad. It’s natural because Walt doesn’t just become a psychotic murderer the second he starts cooking meth.

Ironic you bring up “the flawed nature of the dynamic between Anakin and Obi-Wan”, because there’s proof that Lucas’ intent was for Obi-Wan to be the right master for Anakin. Dave Filoni’s belief that Qui-Gon should’ve been Anakin’s master and was doomed as soon as Qui-Gon died is his own interpretation.
https://www.tumblr.com/david-talks-sw/678157778408374273/hi-this-came-about-because-ive-seen-a-few-of?source=share

This is what I mean when I say that Worley sometimes finds things that don’t exist. This is not to say that there isn’t any parallel between Qui-Gon and Vader’s death, there definitely is, but I wanted to bring that up.

Reading from this blog is partially what made me realize how badly made the Prequels are. The Prequels are so bad at conveying what Lucas was really trying to convey that people keep making head canons and being so off the mark they’re basically turning them into entirely different movies. No, Anakin is not Obi-Wan (or the Jedi’s) failure. The reason people believe this is because Lucas was so poor at conveying his intent to the audience, and EU authors and people like Filoni interpreted it wrong and spread it.

And that’s what makes me so sad. The concepts behind the Prequels are quite brilliant, but their execution is so poor.

Nah it should’ve just gone in order in the first place. This is a perfect time to course correct.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Anyway, what about non-SW focus threads? Would those be viable?

Not in the Star Wars fan-edits section, no

I thought it was gonna go in order until I saw that the second one was ROTJ. Not complaining but I was surprised.

EddieDean said:

If there’s interest! Happy to take suggestions for topics.

either of the next two prequels

Are we gonna do another community focus thread at some point?

And people say Death Star II doesn’t make sense…

I’m pretty sure them using Shaw when for unmasked Vader is because he was a seasoned actor who turned in an amazing performance. Prowse was a body actor. Look at his filmography on Wikipedia. I’m not really sure why he was so upset or what he was expecting. Playing tall imposing monsters was basically his thing.

Not saying that in a derogatory way at all. The body acting for Vader by Prowse is masterful. But that’s what Prowse was.

If I may weigh in, I think they look cooler red. Generally the Empire uses red schematics and I think it’s cool that the villain schematics are color coded red.

Emre1601 said:

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”.