yotsuya

adywan said:

yotsuya said:

Abrams excels at character vinettes, but tends to fail at the greater story arc a movie or TV series needs. He is horrible with endings, which may be why instead of a real ending, we get a “to be continued” setup for the next film. TFA is rubbish in so many ways.

So you must feel the same way about the prequels then because every single one of their endings whad a “to be continued” set up for the next episode. TPM with the whole sith/ palpatine " was it the master or the apprentice" thing. AOTC with the beginning of the clone wars and seeing the ships taking off and then ROTS basically setting up for the continuation into episode 4.

No, the prequels all ended with solid endings. They were setups for the furthering story, but they didn’t end like TFA with an incomplete scene that continues in the next film. Abrams passed the buck on writing an ending. Probably a good think considering how crappy his endings usually are.

TV’s Frink said:

yotsuya said:

Ah, you had me with your list of rules until you stipulated TFA had to be better than the Prequels. There I beg to differ. I think you have to start with an awesome story and, as the edits and novelizations prove, the stories are good.

Or not.

I found TFA to be weak in that area. Abrams excels at character vinettes, but tends to fail at the greater story arc a movie or TV series needs. He is horrible with endings, which may be why instead of a real ending, we get a “to be continued” setup for the next film.

I know, right? The Empire Strikes Back is a horrible movie.

Did it end with a scene that was picked up and continued in the next film? No, it had a solid ending that led up to the next story without being the start of the next story.

TV’s Frink said:

MalàStrana said:

1. I don’t care as a matter of fact of your “jewishness”: you’re the one who talked about it, so don’t if it’s just a fact dropping that does not add anything important to the discussion.

If someone says I can’t have an opinion on racial stereotypes unless I’m a member of that race (which is bullshit, by the way), then it’s absolutely relevant to the discussion to mention that I’m a member of one of the races that is being stereotyped.

Along those lines, for those of you who think you have to be a member of the race being stereotyped…what gives you the right to insist it’s not a stereotype if you aren’t a member of that race? That’s far worse!

If anyone here (who doesn’t think there are racial stereotypes in TPM) is a Black Asian Jew, I’d like to hear about it for sure.

Ah, I didn’t say you can’t have an opinion. I said you aren’t the best one to determine if something is offensive to a particular group outside your own. One of the points I was making is that a lot of these accusations of racist stereotypes are being leveled at GL by people of the same racial group he belongs to, not the racial groups might claim to be offended. Now, we have an example of one person who is offended by Watto who is of the group that the stereotype applies to. I think he is misreading a lot into it that isn’t there because I see a much closer match to the stereotypical junk dealer as exemplified by Steptoe and Sandford.

And we heard from an Asian (from Hong Kong) who says that the Neimoidians are not offensive to him in any way. And Ahmed Best is in the group that should be offended by Jar Jar and he sees no reason to be offended by the character he created. I also haven’t heard that these two groups were up in arms over the movie. It has been mostly white people who dislike the film to begin with.

One of the problems of being in the white majority is that is the precise group that has created and perpetuated the stereotypes. The stereotypes are a shorthand for us. They were widely used until they become offensive. Pretty much all of them have become offensive as has the white washing of roles in films. And there are all types of stereotypes, not just racial or cultural. But you have to be careful that calling out something as an offensive racial/cultural stereotype doesn’t reveal the stereotypes you have embedded in your head.

Probably the biggest thing that bugs me about labeling the Neimoidians as an Asian Stereotype is that Asia is a big place and a lot of cultures are Asian. More than a third of the world’s population is Asian. Do you mean Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Mongolian, Siberian, Russian, Kazakhstani, Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Burmese, or Thai? Each of these that old Hollywood deigned to acknowledge had their own stereotype, they weren’t lumped together. There was and is no Asian stereotype. There is yellowface for the East Asian racial group, but you can’t say that the Neimoidians meet that criteria. And the movie characters that were portrayed that way were always clearly from a specific national stereotype (usually Chinese or Japanese).

And I’m arguing this because in the scheme of things, we have a lot of serious issues without looking for minor issues where they don’t exist. We have lots of people who make movies who fail to think of diversity when casting. We have lots of writers and creative people who don’t think outside the box. And then there is the whitewashing of roles. Most of our movies are not representative of our population. Let alone representative of the world population. And that doesn’t even touch on the active racism and cultural bigotry that exists still today. We have plenty of real problems in the world to deal with without making up ones that don’t exist.

TV’s Frink said:

Against my better judgement…

MalàStrana said:

TV’s Frink said:
There’s no Israel on Tatooine but Watto is still a racial stereotype.

Oh God… where do I begin ? Let’s give it a try :

• there is no jewish race (nazis believed that, sionists still believe that, but this is bullshit), so Watto can’t be a jewish racial stereotype ;

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Chosen-Genes/131481/

But put that aside for a moment. If I’m Jewish, but I’m not religious, what does that mean?

• Israel is a country with jewish people, muslims people, North African immigrants of jewish religion and of semitic ancestry, and European immigrants of jewish religion but not of semitic ancestry; so I don’t quite see the point of talking about Israel here since this is not a “full” jewish country nor a “full” semitic country, and which does not represent any race or stereotype that could be found in TPM ;

“Israel” was shorthand for “country with a lot of Jewish people.” Your point is irrelevant anyway, as my point was that it is irrelevant to state there aren’t any Asian stereotypes in TPM because only the Asian actors are Asian. Earth does not exist in the Star Wars universe.

• so Watto is, AT MOST, a semitic racial stereotype. Watto is a slaver and a bad guy, and he looks like a bad guy you could find in North Africa/Middle East (or in the Steptoe/Sanford reference provided by yotsuya). It’s not subtle (Jabba is a bad guy who looks like a bad guy) but I fail to see why this would be racist/antisemite.

How is a Semitic racial stereotype better than a Jewish racial stereotype? You’re just splitting hairs.

Also, read this:

yotsuya said:
And Watto… seriously? Jewish? Why, because of the hat in Episode II… the Don Quixote metal hat? No, he is Steptoe/Sanford - a stereotypical junk dealer, not a Jewish knockoff. Just look at the pics of Steptoe - the long nose, the frequent unshaven appearance, the bad teeth, the narrow face. Watto doesn’t have a beard, he has stubble. There is a big difference. No, you reading more into this than there is. And there are plenty of people in this world who love money who aren’t Jewish, so claiming that has anything connection is really ridiculous, especially since it is just one of the many parallels Watto has with Steptoe and Sanford.

I read it. It’s ridiculous, just like everything else this person has posted on the subject. My favorite in that bit is “hey, Jews might love money, but other people do to, so it’s not a racial stereotype.” It fits right in with “the guy who played Jar Jar says it’s not a racial stereotype so it must not be” and “you can’t have an Asian stereotype if he’s too tall.”

Well, Jews and money is one of the oldest stereotypes around. And it is so not true. Look at Ivanho and Shakespeare vs. Fiddler on the Roof. Then look at Watto. Watto in Ep 2 is supposed to look more Jewish because of the hat and the beard… but it isn’t a beard, its whiskers showing how far he has fallen since TPM and the hat has more in common with Don Quixote than any piece of Jewish cultural haberdashery. I thought it looked like metal when I first saw it and I still think that. I actually thought it resembled a hat often worn by medieval catholic clergy (http://www.basilrathbone.net/films/robinhood/rh526.jpg). And I have to admit that when I think of Watto the only non-Star Wars person that comes to mind is Redd Foxx playing Fred Sanford, though he looks more like the original Steptoe.

And you mistake my small points for being final proof. The stereotype of an Asian is short. Just look at who they hired for Breakfast at Tiffany’s (a cringeworthy portion of an otherwise well made film). But then you closely examine the Nemoidian eyes (they really aren’t indicative of any human eye shape) their role in the movies (they are the bad guys but they have a trade franchise of the sort that is closer to OPEC than anything Asian - and if GL is supposed to be pulling from classic Hollywood you do not find Asians running powerful trade empires during that time). Then their is their accent. Totally not based on any Asian or fake Asian accent I’ve ever heard. And in fact, when you hear the actor playing Nute Gunray speak in his other major role in the PT, that actor delivers the lines of both parts similarly, with Nute’s dropped down an octive or so. So piece after piece when examined just destroys the idea that there was any intentional, accidental, or derived racial stereotyping in the Nemoidians.

And seriously, when you have an actor from the Caribbean who gets to make an iconic Star Wars role to make his own (much as Anthony Daniels did in ANH) and he ends up giving it a bit of Caribbean flavor (though it is far removed from any black stereotype found in Hollywood with unique speech patterns and a body replaced by CG) and he claims full responsibility for all the character traits, yet you blame GL for creating a racial stereotype. See, I can’t agree with that accusation. That is what I mean by what saying that what Ahmed Best says is good enough for me. And Anthony Daniels does not speak like C-3PO. He puts on the attitude of a prissy English butler (his own invention which worked so well that they had him redub the lines instead of another actor… and they tried many) and you can tell the difference in how he talks. Yet that character is safe from calls of stereotyping for doing pretty much the same thing Ahmed Best did.

Basically I don’t find the accusations fair. They are based on overly examining (and not doing the research to compare to real stereotypes) small points of a fictitious alien and then labeling the characters as racist caricatures and Lucas an unintentional racist (letting his love of the classic Hollywood era allow the old stereotypes to seep through).

And as someone else posted, you really have to be from the group being stereotyped to really be in a position to tell if it is offensive. Most of the people claiming it is offensive are from the same pool of White Americans as GL. Not really the group that should be leveling such a charge as that is the very group that has perpetuated these stereotypes.

The other topic in the above quote - about Israel - I don’t agree with. Israel is predominantly Jewish and is considered the Jewish state. There are many different slices of Jewish culture that are each very different but have many similarities (and to many outsiders they seem the same). It is also more of a culture than a religion as the religion is traditionally passed down in the family. Converts happen, but not that often.

Ah, you had me with your list of rules until you stipulated TFA had to be better than the Prequels. There I beg to differ. I think you have to start with an awesome story and, as the edits and novelizations prove, the stories are good. I found TFA to be weak in that area. Abrams excels at character vinettes, but tends to fail at the greater story arc a movie or TV series needs. He is horrible with endings, which may be why instead of a real ending, we get a “to be continued” setup for the next film. TFA is rubbish in so many ways. It has great dialog, set design, and character development, but no substance and so many breaks in logical story telling that it is only the homages to the OT and the great characters that make it watchable.

And please tell me that Cameron isn’t actually going to do more Avatar movies. I couldn’t stomach sitting through another CG crapfest like that again. Worst SF movie I have ever seen.

Okay… I must have this. I have a stack of about 200 photos my mother-in-law brought that my wife wants me to scan. most aren’t too bad, but some are almost pink.

So, it seems I might not be completely crazy for putting my trust in the GOUT as my guide for my color correction. I would very much like to see the full movie done with your color correction algorithm.

Yes, although few, the women in Star Wars have not been weak characters. Starting with Leia in ANH picking up blasters. She is a Senator and a leader. Padme was Queen then Senator. She did not take a backseat except when in disguise. She decided to return to Naboo and seek the aid of the Gungans to take back their planet. She came up with the plan that they carried out successfully. TFA carries on that nicely with a female lead who I do not for a moment consider a Mary Sue. Plus it includes many other women, something the OT generally lacked. Only Leia and Beru had major screen time and speaking roles (Mon Mothma had one major scene). The newer movies have done better getting close to a balance of gender roles but there is a way to go.

IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRquPxdHNGE&nohtml5=False

Then we had all better shut up and never talk again. Sorry, but you can’t take every single thing as racist, sexist, or homophobic. That is totally ridiculous. Yes, we have problems with those issues in the world, but we are shrinking the portion of the population who thinks that way all the time. Insisting that the Gungans, Nemoidians, and Watto are racist stereotypes based on the scant evidence and ignoring the evidence to the contrary doesn’t help the situation any. And yes, I do believe that if you are so insistent that the Nemoidians sound Asian that you have an issue because as far as I’m concerned, it is a new and unique accent created just for them and does not bear a strong enough resemblance to any real or fake Asian accent I have ever heard. And the inspiration for Watto is clear and it has nothing to do with Jews and everything to do with Junk (not a business I have ever seen the Jewish stereotype linked with - they are always linked to money, not a lack of it like poor Watto/Steptoe/Sanford).

We have enough issues in this world without finding them where they don’t exist. Rather than focus on these characters, we should be asking why our movies aren’t as racially diverse as our country. Where are all the Latinos and East Asians in American movies. Where are all the Desis in UK movies. White people should barely be getting 50% of the roles, but it is way more than that (and slanted 2/3 men and only 1/3 women). I am way more concerned about those problems than worrying whether Nute Gunray is a vague racial stereotype - not even a deliberate one at that. That is why I think this is worth arguing about. The real issues are far more important and worthy of our time. Accidental vague stereotypes cropping up in completely inhuman aliens in science fiction movies should not be an issue. We should be having a conversation about how many roles written for other races get cast as white. Khan is the latest one that pissed me off.

adywan said:

yotsuya said:

Lord Haseo said:

Dek Rollins said:
Now you’re just avoiding making a real argument, which shows me that you have no way of arguing your opinion on the matter.

Me posting evidence of their heavy Asian accent is making a real argument unlike you who has been trying to worm your way around it and hiding in the shade of Lucas’ nutsack.

Me posting that is like me debating with a fundamentalist Christian who doesn’t believe in evolution and posting Homo Habilis or something to only meet a response of “you’re not making an argument”

Please find a video of Asians talking that way. You have 89 years of film and television to choose from. And Asian is so specific. Are they speaking with a Chinese, Mongolian, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Indonesian accent? The answer is none of those and also not like any white person in yellow face faking an accent. Their accent is unique and unspecific. The closest I have heard was Reggie Nalder (and Austrian who played the Andorian Ambassador in Journey to Babel). But it is not Asian.

Having grown up with the TV of the 60’s & 70’s here in the uk with the likes of It Aint 'arf hot mum, mind your language, Benny Hill, Spike Milligan, Alf Garnet and a host of other comedies and comedians, the accents in TPM are racial stereotypes and very typical of the type of “white person doing an accent” that we use to get. The nemoidians are very much like the way the comedies portrayed an Asian accent (the Chinese being the traders). Watto is completely the old style Jew (The shop keeper and money man. Remember the hat? Well you know what that was originally based upon…) etc etc. It’s the same type of thing george did with making the bad guys (Empire) British. Was it blatant racism? probably not. More like an old guy stuck in an era past. You have to remember that these characters were based on georges notes during the design stage. he would have given the designers a full description of the character which most likely included what they sounded like. Then , when it came time to record the characters voices, george was there in the studio directing them as to what he wanted them to sound like, including any accents. the accents were deliberate.

peter Sellers Fu Man Chu is very similar to the accent of the nemoidians and the way Nute speaks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgMWhJUS50

Let’s examine that Fu Man Chu clip, shall we. What is his accent? Well, he really doesn’t have one. He is speaking in a scratchy voice, but his words are pronounced pretty much normal. So, nothing really Asian about it at all. An accent requires a shift in pronunciation, pacing, phrasing, not just a change in vocal tone. I will agree that the Nemoidians have the same scratchy voice, but that does not make it an accent. Some who did yellow face adopted a more nasal way of talking, but that is entirely differnt as is their pace of talking. Those quintessential aspects of white people trying to portray Asians are absent form the Nemoidians.

And Watto… seriously? Jewish? Why, because of the hat in Episode II… the Don Quixote metal hat? No, he is Steptoe/Sanford - a stereotypical junk dealer, not a Jewish knockoff. Just look at the pics of Steptoe - the long nose, the frequent unshaven appearance, the bad teeth, the narrow face. Watto doesn’t have a beard, he has stubble. There is a big difference. No, you reading more into this than there is. And there are plenty of people in this world who love money who aren’t Jewish, so claiming that has anything connection is really ridiculous, especially since it is just one of the many parallels Watto has with Steptoe and Sanford.

As for Jar Jar… I’ll take Ahmed Best’s word for it.

Yeah, Episode VII is part of the title. It was not included in the orignal trilogy until the Prequels came out. A New Hope was there, but never used. The marketed the PT as Episode I, Episode II, and Episode III to emphasize their place in the timeline and the official title of IV, V, and VI were updated at that time. Technically that has been their title from the release of V and the rerelease of IV in 1981 with the new crawl. But it was silly to refer to 4, 5, and 6, when there were no 1, 2, or 3. Now there is 7 and 8 and 9 are coming soon.

Lord Haseo said:

Dek Rollins said:
Now you’re just avoiding making a real argument, which shows me that you have no way of arguing your opinion on the matter.

Me posting evidence of their heavy Asian accent is making a real argument unlike you who has been trying to worm your way around it and hiding in the shade of Lucas’ nutsack.

Me posting that is like me debating with a fundamentalist Christian who doesn’t believe in evolution and posting Homo Habilis or something to only meet a response of “you’re not making an argument”

Please find a video of Asians talking that way. You have 89 years of film and television to choose from. And Asian is so specific. Are they speaking with a Chinese, Mongolian, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Indonesian accent? The answer is none of those and also not like any white person in yellow face faking an accent. Their accent is unique and unspecific. The closest I have heard was Reggie Nalder (and Austrian who played the Andorian Ambassador in Journey to Babel). But it is not Asian.

DominicCobb said:

I have no doubt that Lucas and co. didn’t intend for the characters to be racist (hard to believe they would), but the simple fact of the matter is they very much appear that way. Whether it was subconscious or simply ignorant, I don’t know. I think Lucas was simply trying to draw from the real world and was unknowingly creating racial caricatures.

Still, just because the actor or someone else says it wasn’t meant as racist doesn’t mean it isn’t. Jar Jar’s basically Stepin Fetchit (I would really be surprised if Lucas was unaware of his work and not influenced in some way). Maybe it’s a coincidence the Nemoidians seem like asian stereotypes but still a decision was made at some point to give them slit eyes and a heavy asian accent. No one’s being evil here it’s just a matter of some unfortunate creative decisions.

Slit eyes? Open yours, they have large round, red eyes with horizontal pupils. Reminds me of sideways goat eyes (except goats have hourglass pupils). Their eyes have more in common with Marty Feldman than with any Asian I have ever seen.

And I think you are misinformed on how much like that old black character actor’s parts Jar Jar is.

TheHutt said:

According to the R1 trailer, the Empire seems to have gone in the reverse order when building the first Death Star (as compared to the second one in ROTJ):

• DS1: the entire battle station is actually built first, and then the Superlaser focusing dish is placed at the completion stage.
• DS2: the Superlaser dish and the surrounding area are built first, the rest remains +/- unfinished.

Interestingly, the finale of ROTS (though I personally prefer not regard the PT as canon) shows a DS1 superstructure with the superlaser dish skeleton already in place.

In the old EU, that was a test platform, not the first Death Star. Even down to the same skeletal design. I’d say it is more likely to be that and they spent quite a few years perfecting its systems before they started building Death Star I. It is also possible that Death Star II was being designed already (this has happened many many times in real military development).

Dek Rollins said:

All I have to say is this:

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Racism.html

I don’t agree with everything he states, but I definitely agree with most of his points on TPM.

I agree as well. Most science fiction properties of any weight have to deal with this at some point or another these days. The ones that skip accents usually miss out on most. As someone well versed in several Asian languages (not fluent, just familiar with how they sound and being able to tell them apart) as well as having paid attention to the large number of Asian actors in Hollywood (especially those from overseas who have acceents), I have never been able to hear any real Accent in the Neimoidians. I’m also familiar with several notable Hollywood movies with white actors portraying Asian characters with accents and the Neimoidian accent is like nothing I’ve heard before. I find it funny they mention Charlie Chan. I wonder how many people who think the Neimoidian accent sounds like him have ever seen a Charlie Chan movie. He speaks nothing like that. I have never seen or heard one credible claim that Neimoidians are based on Asian in any way.

I don’t seriously think any of the characters in the PT are intended to be racist in any way. I think it is the result of certain shortcuts Hollywood has always taken in creating accents. They can’t hardly do anything without making it sound like something that already exists. Everyone seems to keep focusing on Jar Jar’s idiocy as some indication, ignoring that the rest of the Gungans aren’t idiots but talk exactly the same way. Watto is only racist if you want him to be. His accent is indistinct, he has wiskers like many lazy men do, and he is a business man. There is more of Fred Sanford (and even more of Steptoe, the original character) in him than anything Jewish. He seems like the kind of shady junk dealer you might find on the East Coast and his accent bears this out. And Nute Gunray is too tall fit the typical image of a stereotyped Asian. They have strange pupil, not strange eyes. I don’t see any deliberate attempt to craft characters based on extant races. I see a huge attempt to craft unique creatures who speak uniquely (like Yoda). It’s supposed to be a big galaxy, but this planet isn’t big enough to escape comparisons that I do not think were intended.

None of this comes close to the faux pas of Hollywood when it was being racist.

I think there are plenty of faults with the PT without making them up.

Shall we mention Kylo Ren’s temper tantrums? Makes Anakin’s whining and complaining seem absolutely normal.

As I’ve said before, I think GL deliberately used 30’s style story telling in the PT. For many this didn’t work. Many people don’t like older movies and their stilted style. It work for me so I tend to take the vehement hatred of the PT as a dislike of style choices. GL could have achieved his goal with a better set of films if he had consulted others on the stories - not yes men, but serious critiques from his peers like he did with SW/ANH. ATOC fails worse than the other two because it is the middle chapter. And yes, while I understand GL’s style choice, his execution is flawed.

And I completely forgot to mention that in my experience with online forums (going back more than 20 years) is that you always have people who disagree. You always have people who feel very strongly about things. But you can also have things happen that change the nature of the forum. Usually it involves an apparent gulf between new and old members and how the moderators handle it often dictates if the forum lives or dies (not literally, but in the sense of the forum being what it once was). So far I haven’t see that form of descent here and we have some top notch moderators. I think I would categorize fans by when the found Star Wars. Was it the originals in the theater? On home video? The Special Editions? The Prequels? Or now the Sequels? That is going to color a lot of their opinions and you really can’t change them. That is why I think acknowledging that everyone’s opinion (especially about Star Wars around here) is valid. Yes, this is originaltrilogy.com which should give anyone who comes here a clear indication of what this site is about, but someone can love the PT, even consider one or more of them their favorite of the Saga, and still want to see the original unaltered trilogy.

Every opinion should be valid. We don’t have to agree with it. A great many find the PT to be unwatchable trash. I don’t agree, but I’m not going to force them to sit through it. I see the point in wishing those three films had never been made as it changed Star Wars fandom. The old guard sees them as inferior and so does most everyone else.

When I look at a movie, book, or any story, I rate it first and foremost by the quality of the overall story. Quite a few badly made movies have a great story to them. The PT suffer from GL not getting any outside input. For the OT, he was a struggling entrepreneur. For the PT he was at the height of his success. For the OT, he didn’t have the time or energy to do the screenplay or direct TESB or ROTJ so he hired others to take his ideas and flesh them out. For SW/ANH, he had a lot of input from friends, many of whom are highly successful in the movie business. I haven’t heard of any help he had with any of the PT scripts. Nothing. No outside input. That tends to make bad stories. All writers need some outside help. For the PT, GL wrote, cast, directed, produced, and funded the movies all on his own. The results are the mess we see. A great underlying story and great art direction, with iffy dialog and character development (as some have noted, in one scene you can have moments that are great and moments that aren’t). To many this combination ruins the story. Instead of hating them, I decided to figure out what GL was trying to do and see through the less than perfect parts (such as all the gaffs and continuity errors in the OT) to see how the two trilogies fit together to form a larger story.

As I have said, there are many films out there that are worse than the PT. Avatar for one. That movie sucked. I feel about it like many here feel about the PT. But the PT are Star Wars and I had a vested interest in finding the good in them. They are no where near as good as any of the great SF movies, but they don’t completely suck, if only by virtue that they are part of the Star Wars Saga and fill in some important details that I’d been dying to learn for a quarter of a century.

My dislike and ranking of TFA is based on the overall plot and my general dislike of J.J. Abrams and his work (such as the atrocity that is Star Trek Into Darkness). He is a master of writing characters, but he sucks at telling a coherent and complete story. I am so glad someone more competant is doing VIII and IX. Someone who knows story and characters and dialog.

Lord Haseo said:

The only thing TFA lacks that the PT has is George’s wild imagination and world building skills. But as far as telling a competent story with likable/layered characters Lucas didn’t showcase any of the talent he once had when making the OT.

I think you have nailed why the PT is not as good as the OT. But I think that GL’s imagination is more important to the overall story than his ability to write characters which is why even though TFA has better character stories, I think it is a weaker film because the overall plot is unimaginative.

Ah, someone dared to add the Star Trek films to this conversation. Well, I’ll address that first. As individual stories, I think the consensus is that the order of the Star Trek films greatness is II, IV, VI, III and then the rest in any order. However, when you truly examine each one for how closely it matches the original series, V comes out on top. It has the same feeling as many of the original episodes. I is probably the next closest and, prior to the airing of TNG premier and the uncut version of The Cage, is the closest we get to seeing Gene’s real, and very cerebral, vision of Star Trek. II, III, IV, and VI take the best of what NBC infused into Star Trek (the action and military side of things) and made some excellent films, but they aren’t as quintessentially Star Trek as I and V. So, the question in how you rate them is based on whether you rank their overall quality higher or their Trekness higher. Those who ignore the Trekness tend to find I and V to be horrible films not worth watching. Those who think Trekness is the most important would rank them the best. I, and most people I know, like to balance the two and so we find I and V acceptable while acknowledging the superiority of the other 4. The TNG movies are Okay, but they aren’t as good. Generations was the of the Star Trek movies until 2009. The 2009 movie took that title away and then Into Darkness set a bar so high for awful that I don’t think it will ever be beat as the worst Star Trek movie. Abrams writing for Star Trek is a new low that those of us who endure watching the third season of the original series in its entirety thought Star Trek could never reach.

As you can rate the different Star Trek movies based on what you use to judge them, so too you can rate the Star Wars movies similarly depending on what you want to judge them on. SW/ANH comes out bad if you judge things too harshly by modern standards. Those of us who have been watching it for nearly 40 years tend not to see those things. TESB got a bad rap when it first came out, but now many Star Wars fans rank it the best. ROTJ had the Ewoks and for many that was a turn off. For many of us it wasn’t. The SE’s were an attempt to modernize a 20 years old franchise. For most of us the changes were detrimental, though I’ve always found that overall the changes to TESB made it better.

Then the Prequels. I think the people judged fairly making them the best selling of the six films. They are not bad films or they wouldn’t have broken records worldwide. They did not fit with many fans expectation and that tends to color judgement. For anyone who was roughly 10 when any of the PT came out, they are likely to truly appreciate them. Those of us who are older, especially those of us who are original fans who saw Star Wars in the theaters in 1977 (between the various rereleases, I saw it 10 times, including a double feature with Logan’s Run at a drive-in), the Prequels can’t live up to the originals. Not ever.

Then there is the article that started this conversation. For one the man is a demented idiot off the bat. Hating John Williams music is blasphamy. Not only from a Star Wars perspective, but a general movie perspective. If you don’t like Williams, you cannot like the majority of composers or the films they worked no and you have no business being a critic. Williams comes from the tradition of Roza, Korngold, Steiner, etc. It is classic movie music at its highest. So his opinion about which films he liked best are rubbish… at least until you hear why he liked the two he did like. Think about it for a minute. He liked the visuals and editing. He watched some scenes over again with the sound off - think about it. No dialog. No dialog means that the majority of complaints I see on OT.com were completely thrown out, leaving only the visual of Eps 2 and 3. These are the culmination of GL’s years of filmmaking. Ep 1 was him getting back into the driver’s seat after years away. Eps 2 and 3 show him in full form at the height of his skill at assembling a movie. If you are basicly ignoring the sound and concentrating on the visuals, and likely are adverse to CG, but just looking at the visual story telling, Eps 2 and 3 are pretty damn good. I found the opening of Ep 3 to be excellent, but I also appreciated the music, the Anakin/Obi-wan friendly banter, and the story telling as a whole, not just the visuals.

I think there is room for many interpretations. Ranking any of the PT higher than any of the OT is not going to be popular around here because, let’s face it, this is an OT centered website. But I don’t think it is just or fair to insist that someone who loves Star Wars and finds us must be trolling or insane or whatever else you want to call it, because they think one or more of the PT are actually good. I think they are substantially inferior to the OT, but I think they are good movies. Lucas really missed the ball by not getting help on the writing end. He crafts a good story, but he is best when others help shape it and refine it.

And we have seen what Kasdan can do on his own and he certainly isn’t responsible for the magic that was TESB and ROTJ. TESB had Leigh Brackett and Irving Kershner, but ROTJ can’t claim that and yet most of us think it is nearly as good as the other two. I think that is because of GL’s ability to craft a story. I think he manged to recapture that in the PT, but he crammed too much in and tried to write it all himself without any other eyes on the scripts. That is his downfall and why the PT just aren’t as good. I find them to be more true to the OT than TFA. TFA nails the characters and the world, but fails to have any spark to the story. It is a good film because the characters are good. As a story is is flat and unimaginative. Between the two you have the two aspects that made the OT great. GL’s story telling and someone else’s script revisions and dialog.

Well, I think ATOC is the weakest of the PT. But that said, I think all of the PT are pretty awesome movies. They are nowhere near as good at the OT, but they stand far above a lot of the crap out there. There are quite a number of great SF movies that I would place on the scale between the OT and PT. Blade Runner, Stargate, Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstellar, and others. There are ones I like that I would put below the PT.

I think that the PT are fundamentally different from the OT and I think that should have been more expected and accepted by fans. Sometimes I feel like the fans were expecting the Clone Wars and forgot that the PT wan’t going to be about the best of Anakin, but about the fall of the Republic, the fall of Anakin, Obi-wan, and end with the birth of Anakin’s children. The fall of the Republic is about politics. GL based it on the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. In the PT we have stepped back to an older era and I feel that GL let older movies inspire him. Watch TCM for a week and you’ll see what I mean.

I seriously wonder why people would complain about Anakin’s sand line. Sand is insidious stuff, especially in a desert. GL had personal experience with this in the SW, ROTJ, and TPM shoots. According to several sources, including Mike Verta, there is some serious dirt in the scenes shot in Tunesia. Sand gets everywhere and it is hard to get rid of it. Padme mentions the beach and Anakin instantly thinks of sand. To me that line is very organic and natural.

And let’s be clear. GL had a horrible task in the PT. Take the most iconic film villain of the 20th century and make him a somewhat likable character but with enough flaws so you can see why he fell to the Dark Side. I think he accomplished that. Does it make for a great screen character? No, absolutely not. Anakin is written to fail. That is a hard task. You have to walk the line between writing a likable character and the honest backstory of a great villain. How to you make the audience sympathize with him as you reveal how he became Darth Vader. Did GL do the greatest job? No, but he made 3 very successful movies that took the title of highest grossing movie away from Star Wars and those that had taken the title from it over the years. Bet of all, Eps 5, 6, 1, 2, and 3 are technically independent movies. They were all funded by the merchandising and side businesses that were born of Star Wars. Quite a brilliant move.

I think Lucas’s biggest mistake was directing AOTC and ROTS. Directing is not his greatest strength. He could also use some help with writing. And admittedly he had some unofficial help with Star Wars. I’ve read all the early drafts of the script and somewhere in the editing process is where the genius of the original movie was born. I think that is missing in the PT. In the OT, he had some genius help. Leigh Bracket and Irving Kershner is what made TESB so brilliant. He had no such help with the PT. For Star Wars he had Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola and his other early film friends checking his work. I think he relied too much on himself for the others and tried to stick to the pattern that worked, but it didn’t work as well. It worked financially, but it was not what many fans were expecting. At least not until Ep 3. But then we get the complaints that Anakin’s fall is not believable. I disagree with that. Watch it again. Palpatine catches him at a vulnerable moment after Mace Windu dies and does something to him to seal his final fall. He goes from saving Palpatine from Mace to killing younglings in a short span of time, but he was open to the change or it never could have happened. But if you watch that scene carefully, Anakin has no choice, he is turned by Palpatine using the force.

I think most complaints about the PT are justified. It could be made better with just a bit of editing. I personally hate the droid factory sequence (especially the part with C-3PO) and consider it the worst scene in any Star Wars movie. But I think too many fans ask too much of the Prequels. What we got was something good and what we wanted was the old magic back. I don’t think we will ever get that old magic back. If we could mine the archives and pull out other takes and go in and do some serious tweaking, I think the films could be what they were intended to be, but some of the complaints are about the inherent part of the story that can’t be edited out. The PT is really about Palpatine’s secret climb to power and how he dealt with those who stood in his way and manipulated others to his side. The characters we know from the OT were really just along for the ride.

The state of the Jedi order is also very deliberate. GL is showing us how their inability to bend or see the obvious is what lead to their downfall. Anakin’s fate could have been different had the Jedi not been so bound by tradition. (Anakin being too old for training - not contemplating that a Jedi could fall in love - etc) Yoda is the best of a bad lot. I think Mace Windu is indicative of just what the Jedi had become. Tradition over justice. The Jedi we see are flawed. In the OT, Obi-wan blames himself for Anakin’s fall, but we learn that it was inevitiable because the Jedi could not see that Palpatine was the Sith Lord and Palpatine had been Anakin’s friend and adviser since he arrived on Coruscant. The Jedi only tell Anakin what not to do. They never advise him on how to deal with his feelings, they just keep telling him to not have any. That works when you raise someone from early childhood in the order, but it didn’t work for Anakin.

While I find some of he dialog old fashioned (which I think was deliberate to give us the feel of an older time - which I think was derived from watching movies made in the 30’s and 40’s rather than just those set in the 30’s and 40’s), I find the story to be fascinating and brilliant. If you expected the PT to be just like the OT, you were going to be disappointed. If you went in expecting to see a past revealed you stood a better chance of liking the movies. I have tried from the beginning to see what GL was trying to do and judged him on that. I think he created a brilliant trilogy that could have used some outside input for dialog writing and directing, but I think he nailed the rest of it. Of course the one flaw I do see with what he did was he was too eager to let his imagination run wild, which was not always a good thing. I think the OT benefited from the technology hindrance he claimed to be operating under.

So I find myself agreeing with many of the complaints, but thinking that you are blowing the issue out of proportion. One of the things I found about Anakin is that if you use your imagination and subsitute James Earl Jones’s voice you find that Hayden was speaking like Jones and the lines just come off terrible because of the voice, not the acting. Anakin comes off sounding whiny and imature whereas Vader would sound menacing. Doesn’t work for every line, but works for most, especially when Anakin is falling.

AOTC is the worst of the weaker trilogy. But the Saga as a whole is fantastic and tells a brilliant story of how things crumbled from the top and are restored from the bottom. While TFA may have great characters and dialog, I find the story to be weak and lacking any of the Brilliance of GL’s storytelling. The scenes are far superior to the PT, but the overall movie fails to create a story that can compare even to AOTC. It is still a great movie, but TFA isn’t as great.

Smoking Lizard said:

yotsuya said:
As for Mon Mothma, they don’t really need to explain anything.

For the story to make sense and not be sloppy writing like the prequels and TFA, they do.

She appears to be on the 4th moon of Yavin in RO and she was not there by the time the Millenium Falcon landed. There is quite a bit of time in between that includes the Emperor disolving the Senate and the destruction of Alderaan, not to mention the success of the the plot to steal the Death Star plans.

Where is she during the attack on the Death Star? It’s the Rebellion’s most crucial hour and she’s leading some futile protest of the dissolution of the Senate?

Never mind the fact that according to the original ROTJ script, Mon Mothma was never mentioned as being a member of the Imperial Senate.

Where was she during the medal ceremony? Luke, Han, Chewie, and, I suppose Wedge, just saved the entire galaxy and the entire Rebellion and she’s not present?

Where was she on Hoth?

She likely couldn’t just hide out at the rebel base and needed to get back to work.

Get back to work doing what?

In ROTJ there is no Senate for her to be a part of. In TESB she can easily be out trying to recruit others to the cause such as the Mon Calamari. And a reminder, if you know the story of ANH well at all, the Alliance had no idea there was going to be an attack in the Yavin system until the Millennium Falcon landed so it is silly to expect that all the important figures would be at the base at such a crucial time when no one had any idea it was crucial until the attack was imminent. And it seems they conducted the award ceremony immediately and she likely was unable to get back. As others have pointed out, when Palpatine dissolved the Senate, he may have taken the Senators hostage and if she was not in hiding (which she really had no reason to be just has Leia had no reason to be) they would have picked her up where ever she happened to be. She was a Senator so she was likely on Coruscant or her howeworld or in transit to one or the other (depending on travel times) and would be easy to find.

You are creating a problem where there is none and requiring an explanation for events that don’t need to be explained. It is not sloppy writing to fail to explain events that are outside of any need for explanation. ROTS established that Mon Mothma was a founding member of the Rebel Alliance so where she was during any particular event between there and ROTJ need not be explained. She is a politician and her best work for the Alliance would be to work within the Imperial Senate and work to gain more members of the Alliance. Those necessitate NOT being at a rebel base very often. Her role means her absence makes sense so explaining it is needless. I would say that the importance of the mission being carried out in Rogue One likely drove her to a Rebel base for the first time in a long time. I think the only explanation they need to give is why she is at the base at all, not whey she isn’t there later or at the Hoth base. As a serving Senator, she would not want to be caught at a rebel base or risk giving away its location except under extreme circumstances.

Mithrandir said:

They already did… https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/12747577_1664945460421434_1798709718_n.jpg

The helmet in RO even looks as unpolished as in ANH next to ESB.

Well, if that is from RO, they really screwed up. In both Rebels and ANH, Vader’s shoulder armor is covered by the robe he wears. It appears under the shoulder armor in ROTS, TESB, and ROTJ, but if you are presenting this as immediately prior to ANH, it has to be under the shoulder armor or it is a mistake.

As for Mon Mothma, they don’t really need to explain anything. She appears to be on the 4th moon of Yavin in RO and she was not there by the time the Millenium Falcon landed. There is quite a bit of time in between that includes the Emperor disolving the Senate and the destruction of Alderaan, not to mention the success of the the plot to steal the Death Star plans. We don’t need to be handed every piece of information on a platter in order for the story to make sense. Her reason for leaving the rebel base is irrelevant. We know she did because she is not there later. Likely she returned to Coruscant to protest disolving the Senate or she was just there to set the mission in motion. She likely couldn’t just hide out at the rebel base and needed to get back to work. And it is obvious from the larger Alliance in ROTJ that someone was working on gaining new allies and it makes sense that it would be her. All this talk of her being in RO being a continuity error is nonsense. If you want real continuity errors, the OT has them in abundance but most of us just ignore them (or make fan edits that fix them).

I think Vader should make a cameo at the end. He should come in to take control of the situation and discover where the plans were transmitted. If they do show him, I hope they get his costume right.

adywan said:

yotsuya said:

Plus I noticed a big gaff withe the Starkiller weapon as the rebels approach… there is no beam being sucked in. Oops.

The weapon charges in a different area. we only see the actual weapon section when they arrive

There isn’t much in the film to tell them apart, but you are right. The feed port must be on the opposite side. Just one more thing about the film that is unclear. I know Abrams like mysteries, but he left too many things unexplained that the film needed.