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"The Circle Is Now [In]Compete...." What Really Went Wrong WIth the PT/ROTS

#1 User is offline   Darth Player Icon

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Posted 10 June 2005 - 11:39 PM

While I look forward to the other 81 reasons to hate ROTS, the competion of the saga (for now) allows us the opportunity to state what an opportunity was really lost by GL and all involved in making the PT. I've read a number of posts on various boards and thought I'd add a few ideas that I didn't see or maybe someone else thought of but didn't jot down. These are in no particular order:

1) Dropping the mythology thing. There's no prequel equivalent to the cave scene in Empire Strikes Back, which warned Luke of what he could become/highlight graphically what his origins are. Anakin should have faced something similar regarding his "trials" in becoming a Jedi, and maybe showing he slipped up. The Jedi "trials" are always referred to but never seen.

2) Ok, so what's the appeal of the dark side? This was handled very poorly by GL. Whats' the draw? So Anakin has panic attacks at losing Padme and has guilt over losing Mom, but surely even he realizes that wiping out all the Jedi, many of whom he knew and must have liked was too high a price to pay for something ambiguous at best. In Return of the Jedi, the Emperor and Vader sound like used car salesmen in their "dark side" pitch to Luke, but this was all supposed to be answered in the PT. Even letting Padme live in stasis or a coma like Mr. Freeze's wife was in in one of the awful Batman sequels would have made more sense and guaranteed Vader's loyalty in a logical manner.

3) No origins for Yoda or Obi Wan, one of the biggest disappointments in my opinon. There was the Yoda look-alike on the Jedi Council in Phantom Menace who seems to have disappeared, but we get no idea of who Yoda was, where he was from, or the like. Same with Obi Wan. He seems to have come out of the cookie cutter dispenser of characters. Any of the cantana aliens or backround folk like Lucas's daughter could have stepped in and taken his place, and the story would have been "advanced" at the same rate.

4) Not killing Jar Jar. I sure hope that under the Patriot Act there's tapes of GL talking to his therapist that will one day be made available by being released by the National Archives many decades from now. What was the preoccupation GL had with this character? Why cave in to supposed fan pressure and do the origins of Boba Fett story arch but not kill off Jar Jar? And how was a character that ugly supposed to appeal to little kids in the same manner as the Droids and Ewoks did?

5) The PT look like a video game that you cannot play, indeed, as annoying as an infomercial for a game. I know the LFL video games division is a big money maker for GL, and the technology developed there advanced the digital effects for the movie division, but without a decent story, the movies are as subtle as the Burger King and Pepsi commercials the SW characters did in the push to move more product.
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#2 User is offline   Xombie Icon

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Posted 12 June 2005 - 03:41 AM

Many excellent points. One of them is easily answerable.

George Lucas is smart enough to know that any death scene for Jar Jar would bring thunderous applause and cheers in every theater the movie was shown in and that such a reaction would be a continuing repudiation by the public of his vision. And Lucas with his titanic ego could never have that.

Jar Jar's very unpopularity assured his survival
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#3 User is offline   Magee Icon

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Posted 12 June 2005 - 11:02 AM

I also think you made some good points. I have done alot of thinking about this. There are countless numbers of flaws in the new trilogy. However alot of them are minor absurdities like the ones that ChefElf picks out. And although they are hilarious and irritating they are not what is actually wrong with the PT.

There are three tremendous problems with the Prequel Trilogy. And each would have made the trilogy seriously flawed and empty, but all three together renders them not worthy of bearing their title.

The three problems are:

1. Anakin being a Ten Year Old

Lucas had 6 hours to train Anakin as a Jedi, make him appear powerful, make him a good pilot, make him forge realistic and emotional attatchments to OB1, the Jedi and his wife/gf, and for him to be tempted by the Dark Side and fall, then slaughtering the Jedi. Lucas was unable to accomplish almost any of these things for the first 2 hours because he chose Jake Lloyd to be the Dark Lord of the Sith. The stupid and irrelevant story told in the Phantom Menace replaced two hours vital to the effective execution of Lucas' complicated task. In my opinion the PT was doomed when that movie finished. Lucas was going to have to rush everything for the next two films just to get everything in, and that is exactly what happened.

2. The Complete Uselessness of the Force

By the time A New Hope starts the Force is already considered by many a bygone and ancient religion. However, it is still very useful. Luke, Vader, Leia, OB1 all use it at crucial times in the movies and in very different ways: Knowledge, Violence, Mind Trickery. In these movies, which were supposed to have taken place when the Force was the prevalent power in the galaxy is almost entirely absent. It is talked about but rarely used. And its use seems to be limited to 1. Knocking down insignificant droids or guards, and 2. Grabbing your lightsaber without having to pick it up. Palpatine seems to be the only person who can sense anything. All of the spirituality and mysticism of the Force is replaced by skills one can use in a LucasArts video game.

3. The Complete Lack of Realistic Human Relationships

The Characters in this movie relate to each other in completely unrealistic ways. The idea that Padme would fall in love with the character that Anakin is in Attack of the Clones is ridiculous. The fact that Anakin would admire Palpatine is completely unexplained. Anakin's mindless animosity for OB1 in Attack of the Clones is laughable. The OT was excellent at watching the development of relationships. You could relate with and understand the decisions made by each of the characters despite the vast differences between each of their dispositions. In these movies things seem to happen totally irrespective of whether or not a real human being would behave in a similiar way.

Each of these problems makes me ill. He totally wasted the potential greatness of these movies, which I honestly believed I would have enjoyed more than the OT. There is much more of a human story to be told in the PT then the hero saga of GOOD V. BAD in the OT. The powers of the Force which I thought would be unleashed in these films would dwarf its limited use in the OT. I feel that Lucas really didnt try, some of the smaller mistakes he made shows that he didnt really care with the consistencies and I believe denotes that he has different priorities in film now then he did in the 70s. It is really very sad.
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#4 User is offline   Revan-47 Icon

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Posted 12 June 2005 - 03:09 PM

QUOTE (Darth Player @ Jun 10 2005, 11:39 PM)
While I look forward to the other 81 reasons to hate ROTS, the competion of the saga (for now) allows us the opportunity to state what an opportunity was really lost by GL and all involved in making the PT. I've read a number of posts on various boards and thought I'd add a few ideas that I didn't see or maybe someone else thought of but didn't jot down. These are in no particular order:

1) Dropping the mythology thing. There's no prequel equivalent to the cave scene in Empire Strikes Back, which warned Luke of what he could become/highlight graphically what his origins are. Anakin should have faced something similar regarding his "trials" in becoming a Jedi, and maybe showing he slipped up. The Jedi "trials" are always referred to but never seen.

2) Ok, so what's the appeal of the dark side? This was handled very poorly by GL. Whats' the draw? So Anakin has panic attacks at losing Padme and has guilt over losing Mom, but surely even he realizes that wiping out all the Jedi, many of whom he knew and must have liked was too high a price to pay for something ambiguous at best. In Return of the Jedi, the Emperor and Vader sound like used car salesmen in their "dark side" pitch to Luke, but this was all supposed to be answered in the PT. Even letting Padme live in stasis or a coma like Mr. Freeze's wife was in in one of the awful Batman sequels would have made more sense and guaranteed Vader's loyalty in a logical manner.

3) No origins for Yoda or Obi Wan, one of the biggest disappointments in my opinon. There was the Yoda look-alike on the Jedi Council in Phantom Menace who seems to have disappeared, but we get no idea of who Yoda was, where he was from, or the like. Same with Obi Wan. He seems to have come out of the cookie cutter dispenser of characters. Any of the cantana aliens or backround folk like Lucas's daughter could have stepped in and taken his place, and the story would have been "advanced" at the same rate.

4) Not killing Jar Jar. I sure hope that under the Patriot Act there's tapes of GL talking to his therapist that will one day be made available by being released by the National Archives many decades from now. What was the preoccupation GL had with this character? Why cave in to supposed fan pressure and do the origins of Boba Fett story arch but not kill off Jar Jar? And how was a character that ugly supposed to appeal to little kids in the same manner as the Droids and Ewoks did?

5) The PT look like a video game that you cannot play, indeed, as annoying as an infomercial for a game. I know the LFL video games division is a big money maker for GL, and the technology developed there advanced the digital effects for the movie division, but without a decent story, the movies are as subtle as the Burger King and Pepsi commercials the SW characters did in the push to move more product.
even though the trials should have been in the movie it wasnt. the clone wars really put an end to anakins trials. in fact they were his trials. one of the episodes showed him going in this cave and on the cave drawings it showed the origins of the force. and the drawing resembled vaders helmet

This post has been edited by Revan-47: 12 June 2005 - 03:13 PM

"Life is too important to be taken seriously."
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