the crimes of george lucas ('90s on)

the problems with the prequels are all about execution--from story to script, as a director of actors, and in creating images that people might actually want to look at. max is also otm the prequels were heavily juvenilized and their tone is pretty much totally divorced from the originals.

yeah basically han solo taking the piss out of everything was essential to the first 3 films and tbh his character's arc was by far the most interesting, but then it dead-ended when he got frozen and apparently lost his ability to do anything other than lead midget furries around a forest

I would like to offer my services for the upcoming trial. I am unsure as to how I can best be of service, but I have legal training.

i think i knew the prequels were gonna be shit when the very first trailer for ep I showed a thrilling shot of boring-looking robots cresting a grassy ridge

i think i knew the prequels were gonna be shit as soon as that crazy galactic senate trade shit started scrolling across the screen and then the racist cgi aliens showed up

I didn't mind them running with the idea that the mystical Force is always the answer in the prequels, given when they happen in the story and who the main characters are; it would have been odd to have a skeptic running up and going "oh come on, that mumbo-jumbo that btw is the main peacekeeping force of the galactic gvt and flexes its muscle regularly on dissidents is just a pile of handewavey crap" given the prevalence of the Jedi in the life of the Republic. I do kind of mind that they cast a total knob as Anakin in all three movies and then didn't minimize his dialogue or have much cooler characters do all of his heavy-lifting for him. There was a real lack of coherence in the prequel trilogy that isn't there in the originals; you have the good guys (Rebels with Han assist) and you have the bad guys (Vader and the Empire) and they are basically constant throughout all three movies; not having those distinct sides probably made the threat too diffuse (Palpatine and his one follower doesn't generate the same level of threat to the viewer and all of the Republic separatists were too disconnected and uncoordinated to come across as a credible threat).

Plus Anakin was a tool.

And yet, I still like these movies.

"the prequels were heavily juvenilized"

Huh? But these have always been movies about lazer swords and pew pew pew!
There's some argument somewhere justifying adult criticism of children's books that I used to accept but now, not so sure. Please help reaffirm my faith that old folk have any business critquing movies like SW, other than normal parental concerns like it'll rot their brains and turn them into space-republicans.

but then it dead-ended when he got frozen and apparently lost his ability to do anything other than lead midget furries around a forest

have u ever been frozen and used as interior decoration? that's some traumatic shit.

simply not making eps 1-3 story and characters good/interesting/fun enough

as max pointed out the humor in 1-3 (or at least 1 and 2 as i never saw 3) is more juvenile and slapsticky, one of the main characters in 1 is a child, another could not possibly be enjoyed by anyone who is not a child.

there is nothing about 4 and 5 that says "this is for kids" to me, laser swords incl.

this is a real lego

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SD4eU30CWiY/SOHKah_LfMI/AAAAAAAAAxA/zb3AG210TE0/s320/Lego+Star+Wars+Mini-Figure+Han+Solo+In+Carbonite+Block.jpg

I think it's funny that 4-6 have simplistic kiddie plotting with adultish performances and 1-3 have overcomplicated adult plotting with kiddie performances.

the idea that obi-wan having a girlfriend could have saved these movies is jedi-master-level wishful thinking

the point being that the original 3 are just as crappy and the thing that saves them is two good actors with good chemistry doing a conflicted love story and how there's no parallel with the one good actor who gets a significant amount of screentime in the prequels

"the originals sucked too" argument does not fly with me.

if i was going to write a list of "things that saved the first three star wars movies," "han and leias romance" (which takes up like what maybe 15 minutes of screen time across the trilogy??) would be a lot lower than say "light sabers" and "golden gay robot"

"the originals sucked too" argument does not fly with me.

― saddam hoosteen (s1ocki), Thursday, July 16, 2009 1:16 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

haa i was about to make this point. or, more to the point, hating the prequels has led me to basically hating the whole star wars industry complex thing outright.

I guess you could throw "more concerted efforts to kill the annoying lead character" in there, too

alec guinness, worlds that seem real and lived-in rather than CGI, mysteries hinted at rather than spelled out (the point upthread about the clone wars just being hinted at and sounding all the more epic for being a tossed-off mention vs the actual depiction of the clone wars is a good one)

the overall tone of the two sets of movies is just totally, completely different imo.

i would say the major difference between the two sets of films is that the originals are awesome fun lighthearted but just serious enough imaginative epics that everyone loves and the new ones are boring pompous racist shitstains that every hates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjIM0-BoH0o

also the originals were creating a mythology and backstory out of necessity as they went while the prequels felt, for whatever reason, totally burdened by that mythology and backstory (which led to retarded shit like young anakin meeting r2d2).

I do admit it's kind of funny how R2D2 and C-3P0 spend all of that time with Luke and never once mention that they knew his father.

didnt threeps have his memory wiped?

i actually thought the idea of them being continuing characters throughout the whole jammy was kind of a cool idea, like the series was ultimately about THEM... too bad that stuff sucked

wouldn't it be awesome to have prequel prequels, where we find out how 3PO and R2D2 met

it's like everything that should not have been linked up between the two series was, and everything that needed to be was not

― Kashyyyk Goood Frriieends (goole), Wednesday, July 15, 2009 2:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I just want to reiterate that I agree with almost every criticism in this thread except for the racism accusations but I still like the prequels.

we are not going to stop until we have ilx-approved treatments for a different set of prequels aren't we

maybe we can get dan lacey to storyboard for us

didnt threeps have his memory wiped?

I once asked something along these lines in a thread about the prequels, basically wondering how if like everyone from the original 3 was somehow passing through the new ones, not even any of the robots were like "hey, you know what's funny is, umm, so I met your dad once?" -- There was a long strand-weaving explanation about memory-wiping and coincidence that was easier to just accept than actually think about

to wikipedia!

However, C-3PO becomes a witness to his maker's turn to the dark side of the Force when he accompanies Padmé to Mustafar and Anakin, now the Sith Lord Darth Vader, uses the Force to choke her into unconsciousness. When Obi-Wan's duel with Vader moves to the interior of the facility on Mustafar, C-3PO and R2-D2 take it upon themselves to get the injured Senator aboard her cruiser. When Obi-Wan returns to the ship, C-3PO pilots it to the asteroid facility of Polis Massa and witnesses Padmé give birth to the Skywalker twins, Luke and Leia, and die shortly afterward. C-3PO and R2-D2 fall into the custody of Bail Organa, who orders that C-3PO's memories be wiped on the Tantive IV in order to protect the twins from Palpatine and Vader, and the Empire that has taken over the galaxy.[6]

I've met a fair number of people who have worked with George Lucas at LucasFilm or ILM, and let's just say that they never have anything positive to say about him.

oh yeah i forgot that anakin MADE c-3p0 which is just the height of what a less cultured man than myself might call gaywaddery

Especially if they study the kinds of shoes Lucas tends to wear.

xpost

i would like a cut of the prequels with all the sound effects retained but pretty much all of the dialogue muted. that is the kind of technology Lucas should've concentrated on after THX (esp. as he said himself he wanted kids to understand what was going on in the films without having to rely on the dialogue, not that that explains it's general poorness).

(keep the music too yes)

i would like a cut of the prequels with all the sound effects retained but pretty much all of the dialogue muted

Half the complaints about Jar Jar and other aliens in the movie would have been taken care of if they'd gone the route with Greedo, Jabba, etc. in the originals and had them speak in Ben Burtt-invented languages with appropriate subtitles, I figure.

I liked the conceit of two lowliest characters being the true heroes of the series, and I wish Lucas had made them more self-serving and avaricious like in Hidden Fortress. It would have been neat for the prequels to see them in the employ of Palpatine, then defecting to rebels after some bumbling infraction makes them fear for their lives. Along the way R2 can spot the plans for the Death Star and swipe them hoping for riches on the black market. C3P0 catches him and demands a 60/40 cut and amusing bot slapping ensues.

Hey let's play game -- 70s trilogy or 90s trilogy?

'The loudness, the smash-and-grab editing, the relentless pacing drive every idea from your head; for young audiences “Star Wars” is like getting a box of Cracker Jack which is all prizes.'

'Lucas has got the tone of bad movies down pat: you never catch the actors deliberately acting badly, they just seem to be bad actors'

Ben Burtt invented Swahili?

Ben Burtt invented Swahili?

I was thinking more Huttese.

Burtt also invented Urdu.

that is the kind of technology Lucas should've concentrated on after THX (esp. as he said himself he wanted kids to understand what was going on in the films without having to rely on the dialogue, not that that explains it's general poorness).

― Hard House SugBanton (blueski), Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:47 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

am i crazy or do i not remember lucas talking about how he wanted the prequels to effectively be silent movies, which is why the dialogue is so artless and perfunctory i guess

'The loudness, the smash-and-grab editing, the relentless pacing drive every idea from your head; for young audiences “Star Wars” is like getting a box of Cracker Jack which is all prizes.'

kael quote, so that's the original trilogy imo

Kael actually loved The Empire Strikes Back, disliked SW, and despised the one with the Ewoks.

I've met a fair number of people who have worked with George Lucas at LucasFilm or ILM

I think most everyone here works on ILM! Or at least contributes.

xp 'loved' Empire seems like a stretch, but she rightfully pointed out that it was the most imaginative and artfully made of the movies

there's no star wars poll? like which one of the three is the best? it's #2, right?

of course it's V