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sethsez
Jul 14, 2006

He's soooo dreamy...

thrawn527 posted:

When I said I didn't know if they had no talent, I was being overly harsh, I admit that. My main worry is that they might not have anyone there who can have ideas of their own, or that have originality, and can only do exactly what someone (previously Lucas) tells them to do. Do it well, yes, but never step outside of that box. So yes, it will depend on who they bring in to write and direct. The whole thing is, when people say they can't wait to see what Lucasfilm will do without Lucas at the helm, yeah, it could be great, or it could be terrible.

You don't get to that level of talent without managing to have any ideas of your own. It'd be pretty impressive to have an army of extremely talented artists who couldn't manage to come up with a single unique concept between them. Just because they ended up at a place with a domineering boss doesn't mean they were always lemmings.

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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

api call girl posted:

I don't know that Yoda vs. Dooku was ever "widely appreciated" past the first weekend. By then the dissonance between ESB Yoda and AotC Yoda was settling in.

This is the only thing I keep in my memory from that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3B3IG5na0o

sethsez
Jul 14, 2006

He's soooo dreamy...

As for the whole "Lucas made the movies bad on purpose" theory, I have to say, I'm not exactly a proponent of purposefully bad films so it's not a compelling argument to me. If you set out to make trash and you succeed, congratulations, you've made trash. The fact that I disagree with Lucas's motives here is almost inconsequential since we still arrive at the conclusion that the movies are bad.

Beyond that, yeah, we all knew every happy moment in The Phantom Menace was tempered by Anakin's inevitable downfall and the upcoming war... it's called The Phantom Menace for god's sake. The problem is that the movie never gives the audience any reason to care, and no amount of justifications can save the movies from that. Whether Jar-Jar is a mistake or an intentional piece of satire, he's still obnoxious and distancing to anyone over seven years old. Whether the emperor is a parody of over-the-top villains or just a standard over-the-top villain, he's still an irredeemable ham who's impossible to take seriously as a threat.

Plan 9 is as charming as it is because behind all the incompetence, you can tell Ed is trying his hardest and that comes through. He really believes in what he's putting on screen. I just don't get that from the prequels. Lucas could have, and should have, done better. He had the talent and the resources. He just got in his own way.

Hbomberguy
Jul 4, 2009

[culla=big red]TufFEE did nO THINg W̡RA̸NG[/read]


thrawn527 posted:

When I said I didn't know if they had no talent, I was being overly harsh, I admit that. My main worry is that they might not have anyone there who can have ideas of their own, or that have originality, and can only do exactly what someone (previously Lucas) tells them to do. Do it well, yes, but never step outside of that box. So yes, it will depend on who they bring in to write and direct. The whole thing is, when people say they can't wait to see what Lucasfilm will do without Lucas at the helm, yeah, it could be great, or it could be terrible.

I agree. It could still be terrible, but to me it's already been proven that most of the rest of Lucasfilm are good at what they do.

Did the Expanded Universe have much creative control by Lucas? I don't know why I'm asking because the idea of an EU is kind of beside the entire reason why I liked Star Wars and I wouldn't read it even if it was good, but if Lucas let people do whatever they wanted and people thought they were good, then we know there's definitely someone out there in the world who can do good Star Wars.

Someone earlier in the thread was calling for a reboot. Personally, I'm calling for a new series of good sci-fi movies that don't depend on any pre-existing canon or franchise, because I can't remember the last time that happened anymore. I know it would be risky and probably make less money, but loving hell I wasn't even born when the original star wars series was made. I want one of those in my generation, thank you.

Drunk Tomato
Apr 23, 2010

If God wanted us sober,
He'd knock the glass over.

Hbomberguy posted:

Someone earlier in the thread was calling for a reboot. Personally, I'm calling for a new series of good sci-fi movies that don't depend on any pre-existing canon or franchise, because I can't remember the last time that happened anymore. I know it would be risky and probably make less money, but loving hell I wasn't even born when the original star wars series was made. I want one of those in my generation, thank you.

What about The Matrix? Avatar? I think you're just not thinking hard enough.

Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

Avatar isn't a series, and The Matrix didn't remain good.

One important question to ask was the last time an original film series, of any genre, was founded. Cinema has a long tradition of adaptation.

Air Skwirl
May 13, 2007

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

Bongo Bill posted:

Avatar isn't a series, and The Matrix didn't remain good.

One important question to ask was the last time an original film series, of any genre, was founded. Cinema has a long tradition of adaptation.

They're making an Avatar sequel, and I think they're planning a third too. Not positive on release dates, but Im pretty sure there will be a new Avatar movie before there's a new Star Wars movie.

Slate Action
Feb 13, 2012

by exmarx

Skwirl posted:

They're making an Avatar sequel, and I think they're planning a third too. Not positive on release dates, but Im pretty sure there will be a new Avatar movie before there's a new Star Wars movie.

IMDB (a very dubious source, I know) has Avatar 2 coming out in 2015, the same year the next Star Wars movie is supposed to come out.

I want them to come out on the same weekend, just to see the biggest Hollywood marketing dickwaving contest of all time. :allears:

Hbomberguy
Jul 4, 2009

[culla=big red]TufFEE did nO THINg W̡RA̸NG[/read]


Drunk Tomato posted:

What about The Matrix? Avatar? I think you're just not thinking hard enough.

Both good points, there, although it would've been nice if the matrix sequels had been good in any way shape or form, and I personally didn't like Avatar all that much. I wanted to like it a lot, for every reason I wanted to like (and can in some ways appreciate) the star wars prequels.

I suppose I want something that can't exist, namely a 'new' Star Wars-style phenomenon, even though the original trilogy is such a singular historical event in movies. Does anyone else know what I mean by that? Part of me yearns to be addicted to the setting, characters and genre of a good movie or series the way people would have done when the original Star Wars first came out, even though in lots of ways that probably can't ever happen again or won't be similar enough to 'count' in my disgraceful excuse for a brain.

Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

A series that's big enough for me to care what's going to happen, but original enough for me to not know in advance, is exactly what I hope they can produce.

Drunk Tomato
Apr 23, 2010

If God wanted us sober,
He'd knock the glass over.

Hbomberguy posted:

Both good points, there, although it would've been nice if the matrix sequels had been good in any way shape or form, and I personally didn't like Avatar all that much. I wanted to like it a lot, for every reason I wanted to like (and can in some ways appreciate) the star wars prequels.

I suppose I want something that can't exist, namely a 'new' Star Wars-style phenomenon, even though the original trilogy is such a singular historical event in movies. Does anyone else know what I mean by that? Part of me yearns to be addicted to the setting, characters and genre of a good movie or series the way people would have done when the original Star Wars first came out, even though in lots of ways that probably can't ever happen again or won't be similar enough to 'count' in my disgraceful excuse for a brain.

This is a very reasonable desire which I think many people share. However, Hollywood movies just aren't the best way to showcase that kind of thing anymore, which is a bit of a shame, I suppose. You have to turn to other media, like books and television series.

foodfight
Feb 10, 2009
If anything it seems like every movie tries to be something that could be a Star Wars-level franchise.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

thrawn527 posted:

Normally I give your analysis posts the benefit of the doubt, because they tend to have a "death of the author" feel to them, where the original intent of the creator isn't as important as how they can be seen. But here I think you're giving Lucas way too much credit for how much he intended with the movies. You think Jar Jar was "deliberately offensive" and not just a cash grab for kids to like him for stepping in the "poodoo"? You think Lucas actually set out to make movies that were supposed to be bad, because he was trying to satire a genre he helped pioneer? I don't know man, I think they're just boring cash grabs for creating more toys and a cartoon series.

You're conflating 'goodness' with naturalism. Lucas set out to make films that were glaringly artifical. You can tell this from the final product where they are, indeed, glaringly artificial. Whether this artifice is (inherently?) 'bad' is a value judgement that you have to make for yourself. I consider their artifice part-and-parcel with their self-satire.

As for the argument that Jar-Jar is solely there to placate toddlers with poo poo jokes, why include the fairly advanced racial themes? Amidala smirking while she bows before the King Gungan is absolutely in the film. She is absolutely lying to him when she says she respects him. Then, the film absolutely ends with a multiculturalism parade. This is all in the text. Whether this is 'good' (accurate/meaningful) depiction of race relations is, again, a value judgement that is up to you. But the race themes are absolutely there, as they were in the original star wars (where droids are segregated and Chewbacca is implied to be an ex-slave).

The films are not 'just for toddlers' because that displaces the burden of reading the film onto a two-years-old child. You watched it.

SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Nov 28, 2012

Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.
The fundamental conceit of that argument involves Lucas being sentient, and I've seen no compelling proof of that.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN
I don't like bringing out 'Occam's Razor' in discussions of art, but when you assume that every single aspect of a film is a mistake explained by idiocy, that is actually relying on way too many assumptions. That's not a simple explanation at all, if you stop to think about it for even a second.

Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

Perhaps the mistake explained by idiocy was the decision to create a film that is superficially heroic while being set in a morally compromised universe dominated by the deception of a malevolent mastermind.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN
Even so, my belief that the films' pop artifice is 'deliberate' is a minor point in my conclusion, not a major premise.

Your point does demonstrate, though, that 'idiocy' is being employed as an explanatory 'god of the gaps'. The specter of Lucas' ostensibly inhuman stupidity is, to fairweather fans, ineradicable.

SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Nov 28, 2012

Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I don't like bringing out 'Occam's Razor' in discussions of art, but when you assume that every single aspect of a film is a mistake explained by idiocy, that is actually relying on way too many assumptions. That's not a simple explanation at all, if you stop to think about it for even a second.

I don't think that George Lucas is an idiot, I sincerely think he might fail the mirror test, to the degree where he may try to make a sequel to American Graffiti with it.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

Bongo Bill posted:

A series that's big enough for me to care what's going to happen, but original enough for me to not know in advance, is exactly what I hope they can produce.

The OT outside of *maybe* two scenes in ESB would fail those qualifications, though (and the big twist in ESB was already sort of foreshadowed with Yoda's reveal).

Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Even so, my belief that the films' pop artifice is 'deliberate' is a minor point in my conclusion, not a major premise.

Your point does demonstrate, though, that 'idiocy' is being employed as an explanatory 'god of the gaps'. The specter of Lucas' ostensibly inhuman stupidity is, to fairweather fans, ineradicable.

Well, either he failed to make the film he hoped to, or he succeeded in making it but failed to anticipate that audiences would hate it. (A wealth of evidence renders the third possibility, that he did not intend for audiences to like it, extremely far-fetched.)

Bongo Bill fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Nov 29, 2012

unlimited shrimp
Aug 30, 2008

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

You're conflating 'goodness' with naturalism. Lucas set out to make films that were glaringly artifical. You can tell this from the final product where they are, indeed, glaringly artificial.

...

The films are not 'just for toddlers' because that displaces the burden of reading the film onto a two-years-old child. You watched it.
You can claim the death of the author &c., but if you're going to do such a wildly divergent reading, then it's flying in the face of everything we actually know about Lucas, his influences and his desires (as opposed to Dead Author analysis surrounding his works).

e:
To clarify, I don't see anything wrong with your analysis except that you're insisting this is what Lucas intended to do.

unlimited shrimp fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Nov 29, 2012

dialhforhero
Apr 3, 2008
Am I 🧑‍🏫 out of touch🤔? No🧐, it's the children👶 who are wrong🤷🏼‍♂️

JohnSherman posted:

Why have suggestions of a reboot been so taboo? Apart from the whole "you raped my childhood" letters that Disney will inevitably get, a reboot would give them a clean slate and a great universe in which to tell stories. There are probably dozens of decent plots contained between the rise and (first) death of the Emperor. Throw out the EU, find good writers, and you'd have no problem banging these films out for the next 15 years.

Exactly.

The taboo comes from the fact that there is an OVER abundance (industry reliance?) on movies that are reboots of originals that have been churned out season after season, year after year in the past ten years - so gratuitously - that they've started remaking films not even ten years old (think comic book movies, a handful of horror films, a few others).

It's like if it isn't a sequel it's a reboot/remake. Forget homage, it's just straight up getting to be lazy.

TOOT BOOT
May 25, 2010

Honestly the *only* scene I liked in Episode 2 was the Yoda fight.

dialhforhero
Apr 3, 2008
Am I 🧑‍🏫 out of touch🤔? No🧐, it's the children👶 who are wrong🤷🏼‍♂️
The end credits were the best part of that film.

Punting
Sep 9, 2007
I am very witty: nit-witty, dim-witty, and half-witty.

ten dollar bitcoin posted:

Honestly the *only* scene I liked in Episode 2 was the Yoda fight.

I never liked the fight in Episode 2, but the yoda fight in Episode 3 with Palpatine was great, I thought. It just seemed way more appropriate for Yoda to throw down with the Emperor rather than his apprentice/lackey.

Hbomberguy
Jul 4, 2009

[culla=big red]TufFEE did nO THINg W̡RA̸NG[/read]


I think seeing the force used as a weapon contradicts the whole 'spirituality and enlightenment' vibe the force had going for it in the originals. While the way it is executed just smacks of 'force powers are cool, let's have them do it to fight hundreds of dudes and to make the climactic fights super-awesome' there could have been an interesting contrast there.

We could be seeing a less-enlightened form of the Jedi than the future would lead us to believe they had been in their heyday, willing to use the intangible power of the spiritual world to fight their political or ideological enemies. In this context, the 'dark' side of the force is really part of the same twilit side as everyone else, floating in an amoral void of subjective individuals inflicting their flawed wills on one another under the pretense of being 'right' (this would be way more interesting if the villain wasn't so cartoonishly evil and literally called his side the dark side and the jedi weren't presented completely straightforwardly as the good guys) - where in the original series, the 'dark' side was explicitly more physically powerful, the consequence where it was less spiritual. That's why he had contempt for lightsabers. He saw them as something the jedi used to make up for their lack of physical power. But if everyone had equivalent force powers and also used lightsabers in the prequels, why is Yoda suddenly enlightened enough to teach Luke a better path than he himself traversed for most of his own life AND the events of the rest of the films, like when he saved Luke's ship...

...Ugh. Some of the things I brought up in the above paragraph are legitimately interesting to me, but I feel like I'm having that discussion in spite of the prequels rather than informed from them. The films themselves seem to take the Force, Jedi and Sith to mean the same thing as the originals did, just on a more dumbed-down easy-clear-cut level. None of the stuff I just brought up feels represented in the films at all, and I wish it had been, because then the film would have been entertaining. A single moment of portraying the Jedi as anything less than the safeguards of peace, justice and democracy in the universe would have made such a huge difference, but the closest we get to that level of flaw in the entire trilogy is when Mace Windu refuses to simply arrest the beaten Palpatine, but in the cookie cutter Jedi-always-good, Sith-always-evil context of the story shown constantly to be entirely literally true otherwise, his choices still make complete moral sense.

sethsez
Jul 14, 2006

He's soooo dreamy...

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Even so, my belief that the films' pop artifice is 'deliberate' is a minor point in my conclusion, not a major premise.

Your point does demonstrate, though, that 'idiocy' is being employed as an explanatory 'god of the gaps'. The specter of Lucas' ostensibly inhuman stupidity is, to fairweather fans, ineradicable.

The assumption isn't that Lucas is stupid, not really. The assumption is that he got so wrapped up in Star Wars over the years that he lost perspective on it. He thought mythology for its own sake was entertaining, and that showing where things from the original trilogy came from would be just as captivating as seeing them for the first time. He's unconditionally in love with Star Wars, it's his baby, and nobody likes being told that their baby isn't inherently special or that maybe not everybody loves it as much as he does. And because he had the money and power to get rid of anyone who told him his baby might have to work a little harder, he did.

It's not like he's unique in that respect. Every medium is filled with artists who struggle for years, have a big hit, and then suddenly find themselves surrounded by yes-men and capable of turning in work without passing it by an editor. There are very few people who don't benefit from being kept in check now and then. That George Lucas could use an editor or two doesn't mean he's stupid, though his dogged refusal to acknowledge it isn't the best idea. Someone needed to be around when he went too far down the Star Wars rabbit hole, but by that point there was nobody left willing or able to do it.

Friendly Factory
Apr 19, 2007

I can't stand the wailing of women

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I don't like bringing out 'Occam's Razor' in discussions of art, but when you assume that every single aspect of a film is a mistake explained by idiocy, that is actually relying on way too many assumptions. That's not a simple explanation at all, if you stop to think about it for even a second.

You... you just invoked Occam's Razor to further your theory that these films were made awful intentionally instead of coming to the much easier (and more truthful) conclusion that's he's just no good on his own

sean10mm
Jun 29, 2005

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD-2R World

Friendly Factory posted:

You... you just invoked Occam's Razor to further your theory that these films were made awful intentionally instead of coming to the much easier (and more truthful) conclusion that's he's just no good on his own

Plus don't we have lots of video evidence of Lucas appearing to act like an awful director while making the prequel movies? What's simpler, that he did a bad job, or that he was playing 12 dimensional film making chess with everyone around him all the time?

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

You're conflating 'goodness' with naturalism. Lucas set out to make films that were glaringly artifical. You can tell this from the final product where they are, indeed, glaringly artificial. Whether this artifice is (inherently?) 'bad' is a value judgement that you have to make for yourself. I consider their artifice part-and-parcel with their self-satire.

As for the argument that Jar-Jar is solely there to placate toddlers with poo poo jokes, why include the fairly advanced racial themes? Amidala smirking while she bows before the King Gungan is absolutely in the film. She is absolutely lying to him when she says she respects him. Then, the film absolutely ends with a multiculturalism parade. This is all in the text. Whether this is 'good' (accurate/meaningful) depiction of race relations is, again, a value judgement that is up to you. But the race themes are absolutely there, as they were in the original star wars (where droids are segregated and Chewbacca is implied to be an ex-slave).

The films are not 'just for toddlers' because that displaces the burden of reading the film onto a two-years-old child. You watched it.

I'm seriously amazed that people will take a series/subseries of films where the villain is a composite of Nixon, Reagan, Julius Caesar, and Abe Lincoln, and conclude that there is nothing to say and these are just brain-dead films. Like, we have two saints, a guy who's remembered as a founder of civilization, and one bad guy as the basis for Palpatine.

And of course, if the PT is the condemnation of the failing liberalism that necessitates the revolutionary activity of the OT, then it makes sense that the racial relations of that era are condescending where those of the OT are more equal (but still not perfectly equal!). And the PT is myth-busting for the internal mythology of the Republic as this absolutely swell and awesome place where everything was good.

Instead, we learn in the PT that the Republic and Empire essentially blur together, just as it's difficult to pin down when the Roman Republic collapsed or when the US turned from the idealistic "American experiment" to the conquering and subjugating American empire- while there are definite moments in all of these cases where we can say, "after this point, the original notion was effectively dead", there is a time before that where it was terminally sick and degenerating that is harder to pin down.

So even if more deliberate myth-busting like going with an opposite belief about the Clone Wars from what the OT led us to believe wasn't present in the PT, they would still have been offensive films to Star Wars fans. I'm not sure the extent to which the prequels are failures and to which they are deliberately offensive, but I can say that there is too much going on for them to be purely failures, unless we are to believe that George Lucas smashed conceptions of the Republic accidentally and through idiocy.

Of course, this means that Episodes 7-9 will probably be better, as they have no reason to offend and, looking at the films as they were made, will probably be much closer to the OT in spirit, as they will probably cover a renascence of revolutionary spirit.

Hbomberguy
Jul 4, 2009

[culla=big red]TufFEE did nO THINg W̡RA̸NG[/read]


Effectronica posted:

And of course, if the PT is the condemnation of the failing liberalism that necessitates the revolutionary activity of the OT, then it makes sense that the racial relations of that era are condescending where those of the OT are more equal (but still not perfectly equal!). And the PT is myth-busting for the internal mythology of the Republic as this absolutely swell and awesome place where everything was good.

Instead, we learn in the PT that the Republic and Empire essentially blur together, just as it's difficult to pin down when the Roman Republic collapsed or when the US turned from the idealistic "American experiment" to the conquering and subjugating American empire- while there are definite moments in all of these cases where we can say, "after this point, the original notion was effectively dead", there is a time before that where it was terminally sick and degenerating that is harder to pin down.

While the stuff you've brought up is interesting and could make for a good film, it isn't represented in the film itself all that much - yes, the film gives people interesting tools to come up with their own story, but the story up on the screen is so very lacking. You could make a fantastic stopmotion animation with the PT's merchandise, but that wouldn't make the PT any better itself.

The Republic is seen as A Very Good Thing For Everyone All The Time Amongst Literally Everyone, with the only dissenters being robots controlled by a rich dude in coalition with the literal Lord of Evil. If you really want to see the events that affect that Republic as an accurate portrayal of the developing politics of America, be my guest. I think that interpretation would be more valid if there was, say, anyone left to conquer or subjugate, or the only people they were warring with weren't faceless factory-built robots with no meaningful identity or sentience of their own.

Are the droid armies supposed to be some sort of message about how America sees its enemies? Because I always thought they represented that George Lucas was a hack who didn't want anyone to think the good guys were killers, even in self-defense (AKA the continuation of the entire 'Han Shot First' debacle).

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

ten dollar bitcoin posted:

Honestly the *only* scene I liked in Episode 2 was the Yoda fight.

I don't remember a single thing about Episode 2.

Saltpowered
Apr 12, 2010

Chief Executive Officer
Awful Industries, LLC

Effectronica posted:

And of course, if the PT is the condemnation of the failing liberalism that necessitates the revolutionary activity of the OT, then it makes sense that the racial relations of that era are condescending where those of the OT are more equal (but still not perfectly equal!). And the PT is myth-busting for the internal mythology of the Republic as this absolutely swell and awesome place where everything was good.

Instead, we learn in the PT that the Republic and Empire essentially blur together, just as it's difficult to pin down when the Roman Republic collapsed or when the US turned from the idealistic "American experiment" to the conquering and subjugating American empire- while there are definite moments in all of these cases where we can say, "after this point, the original notion was effectively dead", there is a time before that where it was terminally sick and degenerating that is harder to pin down.

So even if more deliberate myth-busting like going with an opposite belief about the Clone Wars from what the OT led us to believe wasn't present in the PT, they would still have been offensive films to Star Wars fans. I'm not sure the extent to which the prequels are failures and to which they are deliberately offensive, but I can say that there is too much going on for them to be purely failures, unless we are to believe that George Lucas smashed conceptions of the Republic accidentally and through idiocy.

You are reading much into the story that wasn't actually there. The story itself is a really jumbled mess that makes very little sense. While there are certainly vague themes and hints about the things you mention, none of them are actually highlighted in the movie. The Emperor's true plan doesn't even make sense when you break it down piece by piece. If the movie actually showed what you had mentioned and commented on it in a coherent way, it would have been a much better movie.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

SuperMechagodzilla posted:


As for the argument that Jar-Jar is solely there to placate toddlers with poo poo jokes, why include the fairly advanced racial themes? Amidala smirking while she bows before the King Gungan is absolutely in the film. She is absolutely lying to him when she says she respects him. Then, the film absolutely ends with a multiculturalism parade. This is all in the text. Whether this is 'good' (accurate/meaningful) depiction of race relations is, again, a value judgement that is up to you. But the race themes are absolutely there, as they were in the original star wars (where droids are segregated and Chewbacca is implied to be an ex-slave).


Are those racial themes actually fairly advanced? It is been years since I've watched the prequels, but if I recall correctly, they weren't much different, in terms of racial treatment, than old Donald Duck comics or how colonization was portrayed in most media aimed at children.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
The movies will take place in a 'new' galaxy calming down after a couple centuries of what is called the Galactic Civil War (Which started with the Rebels fighting the Empire). That lets you do some fresher locations and break with canon.

Danger
Jan 4, 2004

all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'

Hbomberguy posted:


Are the droid armies supposed to be some sort of message about how America sees its enemies? Because I always thought they represented that George Lucas was a hack who didn't want anyone to think the good guys were killers, even in self-defense (AKA the continuation of the entire 'Han Shot First' debacle).

Star Wars has always been pretty critical of Western military hegemony and (at least originally) sides with jihadist guerrillas.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

Hbomberguy posted:

While the stuff you've brought up is interesting and could make for a good film, it isn't represented in the film itself all that much - yes, the film gives people interesting tools to come up with their own story, but the story up on the screen is so very lacking. You could make a fantastic stopmotion animation with the PT's merchandise, but that wouldn't make the PT any better itself.

The Republic is seen as A Very Good Thing For Everyone All The Time Amongst Literally Everyone, with the only dissenters being robots controlled by a rich dude in coalition with the literal Lord of Evil. If you really want to see the events that affect that Republic as an accurate portrayal of the developing politics of America, be my guest. I think that interpretation would be more valid if there was, say, anyone left to conquer or subjugate, or the only people they were warring with weren't faceless factory-built robots with no meaningful identity or sentience of their own.

Are the droid armies supposed to be some sort of message about how America sees its enemies? Because I always thought they represented that George Lucas was a hack who didn't want anyone to think the good guys were killers, even in self-defense (AKA the continuation of the entire 'Han Shot First' debacle).

First of all, I'm not suggesting some tiresome allegorical interpretation in which everything corresponds to a particular event or person or thing, filed in a particular order. This is something that, to quote Tolkien, is "applicable", by which he and I mean that it is general enough in tone to be read and understood by people in wildly different situations in similar ways. Even The Wizard of Oz isn't a pure allegory, even if the book is essentially about bimetallism.

It's seen that way by the characters in the film, but when we look at the actual events in a neutral light, we see that by the start of Episode 1, the legitimate means of government have failed completely. A near-war has started over minutiae and the only means available to resolve it is for the Chancellor to send in Jedi to intimidate the belligerents into compliance. The only thing the Senate can come together on is getting rid of Valorum, a direct reference to the last days of the Weimar Republic.

By Episode 2, people are so desperate for something different that secessionist movements are gaining strength, and yet the notion of putting together an army for self-defense is beyond the ability of the Senate to enact- they can only come together to hand over all their powers to Palpatine.

In Episode 3, the Empire is proclaimed, but Amidala is fooling herself when she says that "democracy dies with thunderous applause". Democracy has died, died years before, because the actual elites of the Republic have failed to govern, and the metaphorical political elite- the Jedi- have by the time of Episode 1 become monastic and reclusive, only managing to realize the dangers well after they had already lost. Democracy died because of the failure of the elites to commit themselves to it, necessitating a revolutionary approach, that starts out with a remnant from the old government, but diversifies into a truly popular revolt by ROTJ.

The enemy are doll-like robots to emphasize to the viewers that these are not serious enemies of the Republic- this war is only happening because the Sith, the forces of the political right and of capitalism, have ordained it. The "Clone Wars" are a laughable enterprise in which dolls fight golems, all orchestrated by one master.

Also, the notion that Lucas somehow is endorsing "good guys don't kill" is idiotic, since, you know, Leia kills Jabba, Vader kills Palpatine, etc. and so on. These are all characters with names and faces, let alone all the faceless extras slaughtered by our heroes, and their deaths have not been edited out in such a way. Really, SMG's "Lucas is consciously taking on the role of tyrant" theory of the edits in the Special Editions makes a disturbing amount of sense, because he doesn't fiddle with important scenes, only with incidental scenes and bits of dialogue.

Lawlicaust posted:

You are reading much into the story that wasn't actually there. The story itself is a really jumbled mess that makes very little sense. While there are certainly vague themes and hints about the things you mention, none of them are actually highlighted in the movie. The Emperor's true plan doesn't even make sense when you break it down piece by piece. If the movie actually showed what you had mentioned and commented on it in a coherent way, it would have been a much better movie.

"While there are certainly vague themes and hints" and "The Emperor's true plan doesn't even make sense when you break it down piece by piece." are not phrases that can go in the same paragraph when talking about a film and still end up, ironically enough, making sense. The whole point about this reading is that it isn't about the particulars of whether you can take Palpatine's plan and convert it to a slideshow, but rather about how the prequels relate to the OT. This doesn't even say anything about whether they are good films, pleasant films to watch, competently directed, fun for the whole family, or anything of the sort. I mean, gently caress, Plan 9 is definitely saying something, and it's a very poorly-made film. Something can be poo poo on celluloid and still be saying things, and something can be pretty and well-directed and be emotionally and intellectually empty. Most movies are somewhere between the two, thankfully. The PT are, in my estimation, not good movies, but they aren't voiceless either.

Fish Of Doom
Aug 18, 2004
I'm too awake for this to be a nightmare


HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

I don't remember a single thing about Episode 2.

The only stuff I remember about Episode 2 is the scene where Dooku is doing the villainous circle around Obi-wan, but Obi-wan is attached to some weird gyroscope prison thing, so that he has to keep contorting his head in awkward ways to keep eye contact with Dooku. Also the "sand" line.

CPFortest
Jun 2, 2009

Did you not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese?

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

I don't remember a single thing about Episode 2.

You're a better man than I if you can't remember any of the romance scenes.

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Superstring
Jul 22, 2007

I thought I was going insane for a second.

CPFortest posted:

You're a better man than I if you can't remember any of the romance scenes.

Anakin: I don't like sand.

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