The Zone

by **TonyWilson** on Thu May 21, 2009 7:29 pm

I might actually prefer Gollum to be played by Serkis in makeup over TPM existing.

by **Lord Voldemoo** on Thu May 21, 2009 7:31 pm

TonyWilson wrote:I might actually prefer Gollum to be played by Serkis in makeup over TPM existing.

I feel you, but the key here is to DIVORCE IN YOUR MIND the OT and the PT. I've successfully accomplished that at this point and it makes TPM and the rest of the PT far less painful.

Besides, the lightsaber duel at the end is still pretty badass.

by **TonyWilson** on Thu May 21, 2009 7:35 pm

I'll try, Lucas did fucking insist on trying to tie them together though, bearded bastard that he is.

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Thu May 21, 2009 7:43 pm

I actually MET Jar Jar when I was filming The Phantom Menace on July 4th 1997. The actual actor was there totally in his suit and face and voice and 100% in character. Who else can say that they met Jar Jar Binx?! And BOTH of them lived!!!???

by **doglips** on Thu May 21, 2009 7:50 pm

Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:I actually MET Jar Jar when I was filming The Phantom Menace on July 4th 1997. The actual actor was there totally in his suit and face and voice and 100% in character. Who else can say that they met Jar Jar Binx?! And BOTH of them lived!!!???

I'm guessing there may be a little bit of 2pay in Best's performance then?

by **Fievel** on Thu May 21, 2009 8:03 pm

doglips wrote:
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:I actually MET Jar Jar when I was filming The Phantom Menace on July 4th 1997. The actual actor was there totally in his suit and face and voice and 100% in character. Who else can say that they met Jar Jar Binx?! And BOTH of them lived!!!???

I'm guessing there may be a little bit of 2pay in Best's performance then?

or is there a little bit of Best's performance in 2pay?

by **King Psyz** on Thu May 21, 2009 10:09 pm

is that what you kids are calling semen these days?

learn something new everyday...

by **TheBaxter** on Fri May 22, 2009 10:07 am

Lord Voldemoo wrote:As for Drew's points....well taken I think. In a way Jar Jar did pave the way for Gollum. If nothing else as a case study in what not to do.

And Drew's also right in that the real problems with the films went waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay deeper than Jar Jar.

i don't think anyone has an issue with the TECHNICAL aspects of jar jar. it's the writing and the voice and the way the character is used. technically, yes, jar jar was a step in the evolution that led to gollum etc., one step in a process that went back to the dinosaurs in jurassic park, and even all the way back to that knight in young sherlock holmes.

but i agree that the real travesty of the PT, and of TPM in particular, is anakin. jar jar ultimately is a minor character, but anakin is the central character, the entire raison d'etre for the PT in the first place. getting jar jar wrong is an annoyance; getting anakin so wrong though, that's what really ruins the films.

by **TheBaxter** on Fri May 22, 2009 10:11 am

oh, and it's amazing to think it's been TEN YEARS since TPM. boy does time fly.

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Fri May 22, 2009 10:38 am

Time goes by TOO fast, Bax. Too fast. I remember when I was on TPM and Clones, and stuff like that that makes me happy in my life is what stops it going by at hyperdrive speed, which is good. But still - 10 years on from The Phantom Menace. Where were we then, where are we now? Are we happy with our journeys and destinations in that time?

And yeah, Anakin was where the films underachieved. Though as I said before, these films with such great ambition and complexity and being less clear cut than the originals, were always gonna be rather difficult to hit the bullseye with. But if they DID....!!

by **max314** on Fri May 22, 2009 2:05 pm

Peven wrote:yousa needa toua getsa outy somsa morsi anda watcha soma mora moveees thana justa theesa starsi wasrsi flicksies.........

There was a ten year retrospective thread that I made my opinion known on and I remembered this thread and thought it would be relevant.

I know I've got caught up in this discussion, but I'm not even a hardcore fan of the franchise. In fact, I think it's 70% bullshit.

Life's funny like that.

by **TheButcher** on Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:47 pm

From io9: How To Reboot Star Wars

by **Zombie Wolfman** on Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:25 am

The PT could have been great, with a few small fixes to TPM:

1. Make Jar-Jar a badass reptilian warrior, the scaley version of Chewie.
2. Make Anakin more Luke's age from ANH. The "Too old to train" situation would be more believable.
3. Make the Battle Droids badass killing machines.
4. Keep Darth Maul alive until film 3 to have some buildup of drama to a huge epic fight.

And finally....give the characters some damn dignity! Argh!

by **Fievel** on Tue Jun 09, 2009 12:33 pm

Zombie Wolfman wrote:The PT could have been great, with a few small fixes to TPM:

1. Make Jar-Jar a badass reptilian warrior, the scaley version of Chewie.
2. Make Anakin more Luke's age from ANH. The "Too old to train" situation would be more believable.
3. Make the Battle Droids badass killing machines.
4. Keep Darth Maul alive until film 3 to have some buildup of drama to a huge epic fight.

And finally....give the characters some damn dignity! Argh!

Oh sure... make complete sense on your first post in the Zone!
Way to go!

....and welcome!

Really, it could have been simple as those four points couldn't it?

by **TheBaxter** on Tue Jun 09, 2009 1:22 pm

Zombie Wolfman wrote:1. Make Jar-Jar a badass reptilian warrior, the scaley version of Chewie.

TPM would have been infinitely better if they had replaced Jar-Jar with Bossk

by **King Psyz** on Tue Jun 09, 2009 1:26 pm

Fievel wrote:
Zombie Wolfman wrote:The PT could have been great, with a few small fixes to TPM:

1. Make Jar-Jar a badass reptilian warrior, the scaley version of Chewie.
2. Make Anakin more Luke's age from ANH. The "Too old to train" situation would be more believable.
3. Make the Battle Droids badass killing machines.
4. Keep Darth Maul alive until film 3 to have some buildup of drama to a huge epic fight.

And finally....give the characters some damn dignity! Argh!

Oh sure... make complete sense on your first post in the Zone!
Way to go!

....and welcome!

Really, it could have been simple as those four points couldn't it?

I know right? Has to be an Alt... ZZS is that you? Oh right, the post made sense... :wink:

ZZS, where ever you are

by **TheButcher** on Wed Jun 10, 2009 6:31 am

Twitch ask the question: The prequels: what if Lucas hadn’t directed them himself?

From Mystery Man on Film: A Long Time Ago..

Hey guys,

32 years ago today a little film called Star Wars was released in only 32 theaters. To celebrate, I thought I’d repost a favorite article from a couple of years ago for Ed Copeland’s Star Wars Blog-A-Thon.

Two great lessons about SW that I hold dear to this day:

* The early drafts were so stunningly awful and so unlike the finished film, it’s such a great reminder that any bad script has the potential to reach great heights like Star Wars.

* Lucas had the amazing ability to scrap a script he just wrote and approach the story again from a completely different perspective, which he did repeatedly before settling on Luke and the hero’s arc. We all need this quality. Too many of us get too stuck on what we write and we lack the discipline to start from scratch or even approach our stories from a different perspective just to see how it plays.

Hope you enjoy it.

-MM

by **Fried Gold** on Wed Jun 10, 2009 8:34 am

TheButcher wrote:* Lucas had the amazing ability to scrap a script he just wrote and approach the story again from a completely different perspective, which he did repeatedly before settling on Luke and the hero’s arc. We all need this quality. Too many of us get too stuck on what we write and we lack the discipline to start from scratch or even approach our stories from a different perspective just to see how it plays.

Lucas does still have that ability.

It's just the final things he settles on now aren't so great.

by **Fievel** on Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:14 pm

Jake Lloyd: Ten Years After Episode One

Gotta feel for the guy. I remember being on another message board where there was a classmate of Lloyd's that posted a picture of him eating by himself in his school's hallway. Everyone thought it was so funny. Here's "Little Anakin Skywalker".... high school loner. The poster called Lloyd an asshole because he never wanted to talk about Star Wars. I'm sure Jake Lloyd knew/knows how to use a computer and read a comment or two from people just ripping him a new asshole for "ruining Star Wars". The kid must have been miserable.

Judging by the way he's rocking back and forth in that whole interview, I'd guess he's either extremely nervous or has other issues.*

*I am in no way qualified to make a professional assessment of this person's mental condition, but I did pay attention to a lot of the psychologist scenes in The Sopranos.

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:23 pm

What kind of link is that? That's not grown up Jake Lloyd, it's some pretender! I mean, he looks NOTHING LIKE Hayden Christensen!!!!!!!!

by **RogueScribner** on Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:38 am

I met Jake Lloyd at Star Wars Weekends a few years ago. He spoke a little about fan reaction to TPM and him in particular and I felt bad for him. He says he still catches some shit for it even now, but at least Disney pays to have him and his family to fly to Florida and get a free vacation once a year.

by **RogueScribner** on Sun Sep 06, 2009 12:12 am

So it seems like a good number of movies are being released in 3-D these days. So whatever happened to the idea of rereleasing the Star Wars movies in 3-D? I first heard about it back in 2005 and thought for sure by 2007 it would have happened (to capitalize on the 30th anniversary). I even heard in 2007 that it was still in the works, and that snippets were seen and it looked spectacular. So WTF? It's 2009! And there's only a third of it left! Was Lucas full of shit*? Was he saying he was doing it when it was just an idea he was really toying around with? Why tease people like that? If you're doing it, say you're doing it. If you're not doing it, then SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT!

* I don't know if there's an actual Lucas quote about it, but I know for sure that Rick McCallum and possibly Steve Sansweet have mentioned it before.

by **RogueScribner** on Sun Sep 13, 2009 1:51 am

Anybody catch this?

by **marineboy** on Sun Sep 13, 2009 6:19 am

TheBaxter wrote:oh, and it's amazing to think it's been TEN YEARS since TPM. boy does time fly.

Yes, and it's still crapola after all these years...

"YIPPEE!" (Dies a little inside)

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:12 am

Being on the set of it and Ep 2 is just about as happy as you'd imagine it to be though.

by **Peven** on Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:14 am

Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:Being on the set of it and Ep 2 is just about as happy as you'd imagine it to be though.

even happier than when you were on the set of "Love Actually"???

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:16 am

Peven wrote:
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:Being on the set of it and Ep 2 is just about as happy as you'd imagine it to be though.

even happier then when you were on the set of "Love Actually"???

Dude I made sure I was half way round the farking world in NZ when they made that filmic plague in London. No wonder when I came home the movie industry was dead. Richard farking Curtis premiering that romanticist abomination - all you did was weaken a Cuntry today!!! :evil:

by **Peven** on Sun Sep 13, 2009 11:22 am

Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:
Peven wrote:
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:Being on the set of it and Ep 2 is just about as happy as you'd imagine it to be though.

even happier than when you were on the set of "Love Actually"???

Dude I made sure I was half way round the farking world in NZ when they made that filmic plague in London. No wonder when I came home the movie industry was dead. Richard farking Curtis premiering that romanticist abomination - all you did was weaken a Cuntry today!!!

oh, come on, Kirk, admit it, you were one of the extras in the restaurant scene at the end where Colin Firth proposes...

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Sun Sep 13, 2009 3:03 pm

Peven wrote:
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:
Peven wrote:
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:Being on the set of it and Ep 2 is just about as happy as you'd imagine it to be though.

even happier than when you were on the set of "Love Actually"???

Dude I made sure I was half way round the farking world in NZ when they made that filmic plague in London. No wonder when I came home the movie industry was dead. Richard farking Curtis premiering that romanticist abomination - all you did was weaken a Cuntry today!!!

oh, come on, Kirk, admit it, you were one of the extras in the restaurant scene at the end where Colin Firth proposes...

Yeah choking to death on a piece of Ken Roach dinner or puking up if I was. You know that Colonel Lugz is getting more into producing and trying to get Colin Firth onto a movie script he's got? If he does I'm banning him from my entire LIFE! Or if he casts the half of the British acting population too, seeing as those gentlemen were in that farking Love Wanktually.

by **Fried Gold** on Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:44 pm

David Lynch talks about why he turned down the directing of Return of the Jedi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDB8Q15iUIE

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:01 pm

"I staretd getting a headache. Haha you know what I mean!"

Not quite actually, I'd like some specifics just out of interest, but I get it, he hated what he saw of what was in store.

I'm also very interested in finding out more about this Richard Marquand bloke who no one ever seems to talk about. I heard that the actors didn't get on with him and that George and the 1st AD ended up directing a lot of the scenes.

If so, who did what? Who directed the crappy scenes? Who made the good ones? Why didn't they get on with Richard? Why is it that everyone goes quiet when his name is mentioned? Not because he is dead, there has to be more than this.

by **Fried Gold** on Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:18 pm

Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:"I staretd getting a headache. Haha you know what I mean!"

Not quite actually, I'd like some specifics just out of interest, but I get it, he hated what he saw of what was in store.

Plus he seems to be making fun of some of the things in Star Wars ("Wookies LOL"), and the audience seems to forget some of the odd stuff in Lynch's films.

I'm also very interested in finding out more about this Richard Marquand bloke who no one ever seems to talk about. I heard that the actors didn't get on with him and that George and the 1st AD ended up directing a lot of the scenes.

If so, who did what? Who directed the crappy scenes? Who made the good ones? Why didn't they get on with Richard? Why is it that everyone goes quiet when his name is mentioned? Not because he is dead, there has to be more than this.

He made that film with Donald Sutherland as a German spy with a dodgy Irish accent, which wasn't half bad. I don't think there's any mention of him on the Jedi DVD other than "yeah he was director".

by **Al Shut** on Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:51 pm

Fried Gold wrote:Plus he seems to be making fun of some of the things in Star Wars ("Wookies LOL"), and the audience seems to forget some of the odd stuff in Lynch's films.

Wasn't there a Wookie in Mulholland Drive, living behind a diner or something like that?

by **inanegeek** on Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:51 pm

i actually like this film now......anyone else?

http://www.inanegeek.com/2010/03/inane- ... enace.html

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:55 pm

inanegeek wrote:i actually like this film now......anyone else?

Well if you get out more, maybe you might.

by **TheBaxter** on Mon Mar 29, 2010 5:15 pm

before this gets merged into whatever thread it belongs in, i'll just add this one thought. we should have known that TPM, and the prequels in general, would be dumbed down children's movies from the first scene with the neimoidians. in the OT, aliens usually spoke in alien languages, and either their dialogue was subtitled or we were made to infer what they were saying from other characters dialogue or reactions... but the second those neimoidians come on the screen, talking in their lame fu manchu dialect, star wars abandoned even that token attempt at realism in order to make things easier for the kiddies to follow.

by **minstrel** on Mon Mar 29, 2010 5:32 pm

I know that everybody loves Star Wars, because it blew their minds when they were kids. But seriously, have you looked at it recently? It doesn't hold up. Neither does Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi. Lucas had run out of steam early in the OT. The prequel trilogy is utterly lame. Phantom Menace? The only decent sequence is a blatant ripoff of the chariot race in Ben Hur. Do not like this movie, I command thee! It sucks, and the parts that don't suck are stolen from earlier, better movies!

by **darkjedijaina** on Mon Mar 29, 2010 5:34 pm

the lightsaber battles are cool....

by **TheBaxter** on Mon Mar 29, 2010 5:43 pm

minstrel wrote:I know that everybody loves Star Wars, because it blew their minds when they were kids. But seriously, have you looked at it recently?

yes i have.

minstrel wrote:It doesn't hold up.

does for me.

minstrel wrote:Neither does Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi.

actually, TESB holds up better now. when i was a kid, i didn't like it as much because it didn't have a "real" ending. i can appreciate it more now.
ROTJ hasn't held up as well since i first found out that the ewoks were originally supposed to be wookies though.

by **Fievel** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 12:43 am

ESB is far from my favorite.
Thanks to Family Guy for verbalizing what I had thought many-a-time while watching it...
Why the fuck is Lando wearing Han's clothes at the end!?!? No, really.... WHY!?!?

The original Star Wars is still my favorite. Although, since the prequel trilogy I do find myself wanting to hear or see a little more depth when Tarkin tells the Imperial crew that the Emperor just disbanded the Senate. Obviously Lucas didn't have a single thought about a prequel trilogy in mind when he wrote/filmed this movie. But after getting beaten over the head with THE SENATE in the prequel films they're just POOF!... gone in a flash in A New Hope. It's like "Man..... now what are those E.T. guys from Episode 1 doing now that the Senate is gone?"

The only one of the OT films that doesn't hold up for me is ROTJ, especially with all of the tinkering Lucas did in the past 13 years. Empire took such a dark/down nosedive and ROTJ is just goofy bullshit for 90% of the film. I still do like Ian McDiarmid's performance in ROTJ a lot- possibly one of the few things in the OT that paid off in the prequel films.

And The Phantom Menace? The Dath Maul lightsaber battles are awesome. Every other lightsaber battle in the series, including the Obi-Anakin battle, suck in comparison.
Killing Darth Maul in Episode 1 was one of the bigger mistakes of the Prequel Trilogy.
OR... Darth Tyrannus (Dooku) should have been someone younger who could have actually lived up to what is actually a pretty kick-ass name.

by **Spandau Belly** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:10 am

minstrel wrote:I know that everybody loves Star Wars, because it blew their minds when they were kids. But seriously, have you looked at it recently? It doesn't hold up. Neither does Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi.

I give my word that I did not see Star Wars for the first time until 1996 when I was 15 years old and therefore not a kid who played with toys being influenced by the mania and buzz surrounding a recently released movie.

It held up perfectly fine. My first viewing of this film in 1996 was in no way tinted by nostalgia for a time I never lived through or childhood memories of a film I had not seen during my childhood.

I rented it because I had played a SuperNintendo based on it and thought some of the characters were cool looking. It turned out to be a very good movie. So did the second one. the third one isn't bad either.

Please do not tell try to tell me my life experience. I was there. I don't think you were. If you don't like Star Wars, that's fine, I guess. But don't try to tell me why I like it because you are wrong about all this stuff about me being some kid back in 1977 who played with toy lightsabers in his basement his whole childhood.

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:21 am

You perve over me in SW 1 and 2. Don't deny it.

by **TheBaxter** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:58 am

Fievel wrote:ESB is far from my favorite.
Thanks to Family Guy for verbalizing what I had thought many-a-time while watching it...
Why the fuck is Lando wearing Han's clothes at the end!?!? No, really.... WHY!?!?

it's obviously a tribute to his carbonite-encased friend.

Fievel wrote:The original Star Wars is still my favorite. Although, since the prequel trilogy I do find myself wanting to hear or see a little more depth when Tarkin tells the Imperial crew that the Emperor just disbanded the Senate. Obviously Lucas didn't have a single thought about a prequel trilogy in mind when he wrote/filmed this movie. But after getting beaten over the head with THE SENATE in the prequel films they're just POOF!... gone in a flash in A New Hope. It's like "Man..... now what are those E.T. guys from Episode 1 doing now that the Senate is gone?"

just one more example of how the prequels actually make the original movies worse. if you'd never seen the prequels, you wouldn't give a shit about wanting to see the senate in the OT.

Fievel wrote:The only one of the OT films that doesn't hold up for me is ROTJ, especially with all of the tinkering Lucas did in the past 13 years. Empire took such a dark/down nosedive and ROTJ is just goofy bullshit for 90% of the film. I still do like Ian McDiarmid's performance in ROTJ a lot- possibly one of the few things in the OT that paid off in the prequel films.

i still like ROTJ, despite the ewoks. the three-way battle sequence at the end (huh huh, he said "three-way") is spectacular, one of the best action sequences of the 80s, and an example of masterful editing... one of those times when the editing itself really adds to and helps tell the story. vader's redemption is still the best way to end the story. i still prefer it to TESB, mainly because it's just more fun, but this is probably the one place where my childhood nostalgia does come into play and influence my actual taste in film.

by **DaleTremont** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:06 pm

I had a Star Wars marathon a month or so back and I was going to write a whole big thing about it, but then I was like, Nah too much writing. So I'll just try to brief here.

Some background: This was just me and a couple of my nerdier friends because no one else could be convinced to sit through all six films in one go. We're all Star Wars fans but I don't think any of us have dressed up as stormtroopers or anything like that...although my one friend did meet Peter Mayhew once and said he was an asshole. I saw the originals when I was a kid- maybe 9 or 10- and then I watched all the new ones in theaters but hadn't seen them since. Also, we had some serious ground rules to try to make it through. Actually we just had one- no drinking until the originals. Yes that's right. We sat through the prequels STONE COLD SOBER.

1. I liked Phantom Menace when it came out. I had a huge crush on Ewan McGregor as Obiwan and I think I genuinely wanted to been Queen Amidala for a while. So I was kind of viewing that movie through the googly-eyed glasses of my pre-teen years. After watching it again as a serious-minded fully mature straight-eyed no nonsense adult I think it is actually a pretty damn good movie. Except for JarJar (who I wasn't bothered by so much before but I loathe now) the movie was actually really funny, which I forgot about. There were so many little moments during the pod race that seemed classic Star Wars to me: sandpeople makin trouble, crazy ass sound effects, aliens clearly based in racial stereotypes. I know that all sounds kind of trite, maybe even like I'm being somewhat sarcastic, but I really think it's the little things like that that make Star Wars what it is. And as people have already said the light saber fight at the end was quite spectacular...maybe even the best fight of all the films.

2. Whats his face as Anakin Skywalker in the 2nd film is still as terrible as I remember, but again that's sort of cushioned by some badass action sequences and maybe even moreso by Ewan McGregor...who seemed to be the only real actor in the bunch. The shit with Anakin and Padme becomes the humorous moments when there aren't as many goofy aliens around.

3. 3rd film also way better than I remembered. (After Phantom Menace, I really wasn't a fan at all of the last 2 movies.) And General Grievous is one of my favorite prequel characters.

I was going to do bullet points for the originals as well but I was supposed to make this brief. Also, by that point I had started drinking and all I remember is a haze of R2D2 beeps chased by vodka shots. I don't about you guys but when I see a movie enough times it starts to become like a song you listen to a bunch of times in a row- in a weird way it doesn't even register anymore it just passes by in a flash but at the end you're still sure you enjoyed it and have a burning desire to listen again. Yeah.

So in conclusion, the prequels were generally much better than I thought, mostly because of fantastically amazing scenes pulling the weight of a muddled, convoluted story, which was itself dragging the deadweight of JarJar Binks and the guy who played Anakin/Vader. Also, I like vodka.

by **TheBaxter** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:15 pm

are you SURE you weren't drinking during the prequels?

by **DaleTremont** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 5:34 pm

TheBaxter wrote:are you SURE you weren't drinking during the prequels?

Well maybe a beer. I don't know. It could be the marathon-effect (much like BNAT- impairs all your faculties and judgment) but I dug the prequels a lot more the 2nd time I saw them.

by **Spandau Belly** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:04 pm

I actually watched that analysis of The Phantom Menace on Red Letter Media. You know, the one that is almost as long as the movie? And I think it is actually the best piece of cinematic analysis ever. I always had trouble expressing exactly what I thought was wrong with TPM other than to say "everything", and it turns out that's because I was right and listing everything that is wrong with it takes so long that I start to doubt whether my inability to distill my complaints to a couple phrases means I really don't have case against the film. But I do. It is one of the worst screenplays ever written.

It's just all this boring and illogical political conspiracy shit with no real point other than to have a bunch of characters meet.

The second two prequels are a huge step up. They at least make attempts at having a main character and things like a begining, a middle, and an end. I actually like Attack Of The Clones and think it is a reasonably good movie on a Star Wars standard. Revenge of the Sith is your typical third part in every trilogy where it's mostly just one big bloated climax to the second movie and like always with third trilogy movies, I find that kinda numbing to watch.

Website · by **Bayouwolf** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:24 pm

For me, the prequels were the biggest let down of my young adult life. I watched ESB the night it came out...Practically nagged my parents every day for months to take me and when I finally did see it, I'm pretty sure I experianced my first geekgasm. After that I had to see RotJ. And while I'm still a huge fan of that film (the chase scene on Endor with the speeder bikes is still my favorite scene in the entire franchise, and Leia in slave gear will always have a special place in my...er...heart), ESB will always be my favorite.

Star Wars rooted itself so deeply into my young brain that I probably had more hope for the prequels than most people would. I really wanted to like them. I willed myself to go see AotC, and then FORCED myself to go see RotS...
Jar Jar Binks ruined the first movie for me. Well, that, and the midichlorians...Well, that and the lack of consistancy within the Jedi's code. Well, that and....etc etc...

Everything ruined Clones for me. Nothing made sense, nothing worked, and it was there just as filler...That whole film could have been easily summed up in a 1 minute crawl before the real movie started. I LOATHED that piece of crap. Still do...

Now, RotS is a different story. You knew what was going to happen, it was just a matter of waiting for that moment to arrive. And dammit, Lucas knew we all wanted the helmet. Does he give us ANY Darth Vader, at all??? (to paraphrase Anakin at the end) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! All we get is the imperial ships (and where the fuck did they come from, anyway) and a small glimpse of that hole Luke shoots his load in later on. I was so disappointed in the whole movie, and yet so happy that it was so much better than the last 2, that I almost convinced myself that liked it.

Fast forward 4 years, and I revisit those films again...All of the original trilogy still holds up just like I remember. Sure it looks a bit dated, but it was supposed to, even when they were new. They're a "western, set in space". I think the grittiness lends to it's charm. When the OT was re-released with "all-new scenes and effects" neither I, nor my best friends really cared about that. We just wanted to see Star Wars again. That is the magic of those films. They have just enough story, character development, and special effects to keep you interested, but not so much that your senses and intelligence are constantly barraged with information.

IMO, had Lucas stuck with that formula and not been hellbent on re-inventing the wheel, the PT would have been better than the OT. The world was hanging on a thread for these movies to come out (Remember that Jake Lloyd poster where his shadow is Vader? That was fucking mass marketing GENIUS!). Instead, we got severely lackluster (but in your face, nonetheless) storytelling, more CGI than you could shake a stick at, and characters that not only did no one care about, but actually hated to the point that it's part was almost completely written out in the last 2 movies...

But, just like the lemming I am, I'm looking forward to the next installment. And just like the PT, I'll line up to throw my money away in the hopes that it'll bring back some of those childhood memories I cherish so much.

And if Lucas lets me down again, I'm going to personally burn Skywalker Ranch down to the ground.

by **Brit Pop** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:53 pm

I'm presently re-watching the Red Letter Media review - its dead solid perfect as a critical sodomizing of TPM.

The prequels are helped a little out of the mire by the animated Clone Wars... but not enough unfortunately.

I love the Red Letter bit when he goes into the bassment to see what toys his grandkids have left lying around - classic!

by **Cpt Kirks 2pay** on Tue Mar 30, 2010 7:02 pm

With the prequels, even before they came out, I always thought that the more complex and political story, the lack of clear cut characters of good guys and bad guys and that we were dealing with Jedis that are by premise, emotionally sedated and possibly less exciting than the OT gang, plus the fact that it all ends badly on a bum dark note - that these movies were gonna be hard stories to tell in such a charming way as the first movies were.

However, if done right, they could be even better. the movies missed this path to follow and pretty much put every single step right. But - to see how this heavier more difficult task in telling the PT stories should be done - I always refer back to the Clone Wars cartoons. Not just that the action is exhilerating and we get CLONE WARS!!! But we get Obi Wan and Anakin done so cool, funny, and loveable. Like the OT heroes, these are guys you wanna be, hang out with, look up to, and can clearly define.

The whole mood and energy, entertainment and magic that we thought was trademark of Star Wars, well I find it all there, and it does give me a feeling or nostalgia or that I'm back in the original movies again.

So, cliched as it sounds, the blame for the PT failures aren't in their blueprint, it's their execution. That of George Lucas, who should get one.