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A human heart posted:Surely Yoda going from using a lightsaber in the prequels to not using one and relying purely on the force fits with that idea that people were discussing earlier about prequel Yoda being much less wise than he thinks he is? He becomes the wise sage of the swamp because he realises that just trying to stab dudes with a laser sword isn't really the way to do things. It's not even a difference between CGI and puppet Yodas. People talking about how the character 'should be' ignore that he has a clear arc across all three prequels films, featured most prominently in Attack of The Clones. He changes dramatically. Yoda starts Clones as a lifer in charge of training all the new jedi kids. He's a sad little dude with flickers of rebelliousness (a trait associated with his connection to children), as when he immediately understands that the archives were tampered with - but he mostly feels old, as though his power is fading. He's fully aware that the jedi order has become ineffectual at fighting Around the time Anakin starts going crazy, Yoda is now certain that something is really wrong. So when they find the clone army, set up by some dead jedi, he jumps at the opportunity to commandeer it for the Space-Democrats against this Libertarian Dracula boogeyman. While the other Jedi are uselessly flailing their lightsabers around, Yoda flies in on a motherfucking gunship, posing like a badass, saying "the cloak of the dark side has fallen. The clone war has begun" (or something). And in the end, even Yoda gets a little green lightsaber boner. He feels young, and strong! With his newfound clarity of purpose, Yoda effortlessly overpowers everyone, and Dooku only escapes through trickery. Note that the cloak of the dark side has obviously not fallen. It's false clarity. While Libertarian Dracula is a bad person, Yoda doesn't realize that he is equally in service of
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Feb 25, 2013 00:13
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McDowell posted:As for people talking about actors being too old: get a CLU. If fans what the move away from the prequels, going the Tron 2 / X-Men 3 route of de-aging the actors with CGI is precisely what the prequel series warns against, with its evil clones and false Yoda. That the very last shot of Episode 3 features a reanimated Peter Cushing is the perfect segue into the false, evil Star Wars of the Special Editions.
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Feb 25, 2013 04:26
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DFu4ever posted:That was actually the actor that plays Scorpius on Farscape doing his best Cushing. They use hyperreal make-up effects instead of hyperreal CGI, but the point still applies.
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Feb 25, 2013 05:18
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The emperor using a lightsaber in the prequels is completely appropriate because he's an incredible bastard who doesn't give a gently caress. There's a reason he lightsaber-fights Yoda at the end of Episode 3. He's the dark mirror of what Yoda became in Episode 2 - getting high on power and unleashing his lightsaber is a crass, populist display. (i.e. "I have the POWER! UNLIMITED... POWER!") Seriously, audiences love Yoda's lightsaber action. That's why it was all over the ads after the film was released. It's a reveal on par with Luke's father, except comedy. Audiences aren't dumb. The fight scene is hilariously crass. Yoda is totally debasing himself for cash - hence why appears on cans of Pepsi, and countless other promotional items. The lightsaber is the most prominent phallic symbol in science fiction until Ridley Scott's Alien. Acknowledging this is key to understanding the humor behind the prequels. Penises everywhere.
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Feb 25, 2013 11:35
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SpaceMost posted:I doubt Lucas wrote prequels with multimillion dollar budgets just to spite the extreme minority of die hard fans whose sum total box office receipts probably don't even cover the production costs of the pod race. George Romero made a feature film that expresses his resentment at being pigeonholed into the genre he invented, while simultaneously dissing the fans who failed to 'get it'. (The final shot is of a bunch of amateur videographers lynching a zombie for kicks on YouTube.) The prequels are, whatever your opinion, way loving better than Diary of the Dead - but not quite as good as Ridley Scott's identically-themed Prometheus. This isn't some rare, unheard-of approach.
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Mar 2, 2013 08:32
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Maxwell Lord posted:I wouldn't go quite as far as SMG- I do think Lucas primarily still wanted to make some fun space operas. He handicapped himself a bit by the subject matter; he even said that he did the story he did first because it was the most obvious and accessible heroic saga of rebels fighting bad guys, whereas going into the background would require politics and other less visceral stuff. And he set it in a "more civilized" age, which means everyone speaks a lot more formally which is where he has the most trouble re: dialogue. There's no Han Solo who can be snarky and funny and undercut all the pomposity. (Though I think he tried in Eps. II and III to make Obi Wan a bit more sardonic and Errol Flynn like, possibly following Ewan MacGregor's lead as the guy who was clearly having the most fun.) In the prequels, the films themselves represent that cynical viewpoint. The prequels are arguably 'told' from the prespective of the omniscient, amoral emperor, in much the same way Prometheus is 'told' from the viewpoint of omniscient, amoral David. That's why you have the huge gulf between the characters (who are, to a man, rubes set up to fail) and the real content that is the ridiculous genre stuff. The colliseum scene in Episode 2, for example, is some real bullshit when you look at it in terms of the characterizations. The heroes aren't even trying, and the villains are inept. The whole scene is weirdly casual, in keeping with Obiwan's instruction to "relax, concentrate". There's no score during most of it, the editing is very slowly paced. But it works as a collection of Barsoom and Harryhausen references. The detached quality of it turns it into more of an aesthetic thing that you contemplate (again, in keeping with the characterizations: there are multiple cutaways to people in audience just kind of staring down, half-bored). Many of the shots are from their god's-eye POV - and what's expressed is that everything is just a game set up by 'god' (AKA the Emperor). Anakin, Obiwan and Padme are equated to the CG-puppeteered animals, and the imagery of them breaking out of their shackles is that of false freedom.
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Mar 3, 2013 02:29
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SpaceMost posted:The trouble with this is the presumption that there is a 'correct' way to appreciate Star Wars. That's not a presumption; it's the conclusion. I always ask fans "what is the force?" That's not a rhetorical question, and not one with an easy answer. Failure to understand the force led to the decline of the Jedi order, and the eventual revenge of the Sith.
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Apr 5, 2013 23:15
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The entire point of the prequels is that you can't let just any rear end in a top hat pick up a laser sword and call himself a Jedi.
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Apr 6, 2013 01:02
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Lobok posted:Yeah, you have to train them to be just the right kind of assholes first. The Jedi in the prequels are Jedi in name only. Note that these kids are all just standing around a generic classroom, learning 'the force' by rote. The imagery of them swinging blindfolded is also totally disconnected from the original Star Wars' themes. This is what midichlorians do, not what the force is.
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Apr 6, 2013 11:12
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Attack of the Clones is actually the best of the prequels, and the second or third best Star Wars film overall (it's been a while since I've watched Empire Strikes Back, so it's not too fresh in my memory).
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Jun 1, 2013 02:16
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Rageaholic Monkey posted:You've never watched the other 2 original films besides Empire, have you? I've watched all six of the main Star Wars movies, along with all three special editions (which I consider to be distinctly different films) - but I haven't seen the unaltered Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi since the days of VHS. With that in mind, the original, unaltered Star Wars is my current favorite, followed by Attack of the Clones and The Phantom Menace.
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Jun 1, 2013 04:27
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Bongo Bill posted:More than the obvious business disincentives, I think the biggest argument for skepticism towards the claim that any sequel was made specifically against people who liked the original too much - is that it is still basically the same old grandiose delusion that obsessive fans matter more than ordinary people because of their devotion. Lucas already has more money than God, and 'ordinary people' are exactly the audiences that consider CGI Yoda and princess Amidala to be genuine heroes.
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Jun 1, 2013 13:20
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jivjov posted:And they are genuine heroes [...] in concept.
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Jun 1, 2013 19:54
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jivjov posted:Padme is a strong capable woman who gets action scenes just like the male characters do(at least in the first two of the prequels. I can give Ep.3 a bit of a pass since she was pregnant, but they made he a bit too vapid in that one) She also is a strong political leader, especially in the formation of the Rebellion scenes that sadly got cut from the final cut of Ep.3 No, I mean: what is the concept?
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Jun 1, 2013 23:51
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post about the shortsightedness of the Jedi Order, but I'll keep it brief: his "no attachment" dogma makes a certain amount of sense, but not for an organization the size of the Jedi Order, especially when they are as directly involved in galactic politics and war as they are.
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Why are so many people watching Star Wars for the plot?
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Jun 3, 2013 15:46
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thrawn527 posted:Why does it bother you so much when people watch movies for the plot? True, it's not the only thing about a movie that can be enjoyed, but it is A thing. Why are so many people watching Star Wars for the plot?
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Jun 3, 2013 16:13
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Strange Matter posted:Because the OT at least succeeds beautifully in being a paradigm example of both the Heroes' Journey archetype and of the three act film structure. Why do people watch Star Wars for paradigmatic examples of both the 'Heroes' Journey' archetype and the three-act film structure?
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Jun 3, 2013 16:23
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thrawn527 posted:In the most simple way I can describe it, because the original Star Wars trilogy had an exciting, fast moving (occasionally intense) plot that continues to entertain me when I watch it to this day. Pacing is mostly a product of editing, and plot has little or nothing to do with it. You could make an identically-plotted film with a five hour runtime, or a ten minute runtime.
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Jun 3, 2013 16:43
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Wank posted:I like Star Wars because wooo look at the huge ship and the planet! Lazers!! pow pow pow... and... THE DOOR EXPLODED look at the robots awesome pow pow oh my god check out this bad guy, wow. Woah a whole desert planet, what a concept, WOW IS THAT A SWORD MADE OUT OF LASERBEAMS!? haha the alien bar is great, oh wow that sword is amazing Jedi are pretty hardcore, no wait, this Han Solo guy is hardcore he knows what is up, how cool he has a big hairy offsider and how COOL IS HIS SHIP!? ITS AWESOME!? HAHA RUN FLY AWAY, TAKE THAT STORMTROOPERS! Look out for big ships argh they are going faster than the speed of light, thats so cool... the big Death Star! Man, so amazing! Don't go into it!! Nooo! Han Solo is really cool, he has better tricks than the old man. LAZER BEAMS POW POW POW!! ARGH LAZER SWORD FIGHT! Those TIE FIGHTERS are AWESOME! So easy and fun to draw as well... pow pow, haha Han Solo is so cool. Wait, Han, don't go!!! X-Wing fighters, their wings open, thats awesome. They are really fun to draw as well... take that tie fighters! HAN IS BACK YEEEAAAHHHH! haha BANG! Woohoo amazing. Same, but with Starship Troopers.
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Jun 5, 2013 09:07
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LesterGroans posted:Episode III left the worst taste in my mouth. Like, exactly one scene and one line delivery worked for me and the rest was a total miss. Nothing stuck, nothing was enjoyable, nothing had any weight to it or fun to it. It's my least favourite of the prequels. Attack of the Clones is fantastic, but Revenge of the Sith is a mixed bag because Lucas does actually get sincere with it a bit, intermittently. It's the episode where he says "ok, seriously folks: the 'good guys' really aren't good. Everything is hosed, people are going to die, and you should stop cheering." It's the same hyperreal and fan-antagonizing Star Wars-branded nightmare as the previous films, but the tone is much more downbeat.
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Jul 29, 2013 06:57
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The star wars prequels are about the trivialization of such things as lightsabers and the force, seeing the 'revolutionary' imagery from the original films become mass-produced and ubiquitous. It's not an error that the Jedi all dress in immaculate peasants' robes while chilling in their massive skyscraper temple facility.
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Jul 30, 2013 18:58
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Strange Matter posted:I understand that this is probably the most textually accurate way of interpreting the prequels; it just saddens me that it has to be the case. 
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Jul 30, 2013 19:44
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Strange Matter posted:Point taken. So are you saying that if the prequels weren't conscious of the ubiquitous phenomenon that Star Wars became since the OT then they would be cinematic failures? Do you mean that if the films were identical, save for their 'intentionality'? Or, do you mean if the prequels were remade in an entirely different way, outside the context of post-Star Wars cinema? Both scenarios are impossible, really.
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Jul 30, 2013 21:51
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Strange Matter posted:The latter, but not quite to that extent. As you adroitly illustrated, the saturation and banality of what in the OT was portrayed as rare and esoteric is primarily through every type of media except film, because as far as Star Wars is concerned, film is the one true canon, with all other media effectively existing as apocrypha to that canon. Lucas even invented a pseudo-ecclesiastical hierarchy to unify this apocrypha together without infringing on the sovereignty of the films. I get what you're saying, but drawing a line saying 'this division of Lucasarts is pure and represents the rebellion' was never an option. That's why the prequels and special editions establish that no aspect of Star Wars is pure. The new canonicity is not narrative but concerns the format and distribution. 'Authentic' Star Wars is now only available in bootlegs and torrents, as it probably should be.
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Jul 31, 2013 01:48
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:I think his inclusion was well intentioned. Lucas and his writers probably thought audiences would have loved to see Boba Fett get his comeuppance for his deeds in Empire, but they didn't take his popularity as a character into account. More than that, Fett is taken out because he's a 'badass' masked rear end in a top hat whose sole character trait is that he's quiet and needlessly violent. That he randomly trips and falls into a massive vagina is a deliberate joke against his popularity. It's the same joke as Yoda posing like a badass because he's teamed up with a billion CG Fetts (which is the essentially the same joke as his Yoda-sized lightsaber). "Jango Fett, a cool dude is." Nope; you've hosed up, Yoda - and now everybody's dead! Fett is almost directly opposed to the decidedly not-badass ewoks, who are more vital than you'd think. There's a reason the closing music is Yub Nub. But now, here's the real joke: in Attack Of The Clones, we're told that Boba Fett is an unaltered clone - meaning obviously that Jango wants a son he can nurture into someone different from himself. Now, depending on which films you watch, Boba will be voiced by either Temurea Morrison or Jason Wingreen. It's a choose your own adventure - where choosing the special editions means that Jango fails, and Boba is never freed of his genetic fate. Boba in Attack is also a mirror of Anakin, born without a mother as Anakin is born without a father. So this isn't random fan service but something that cuts to the heart of what this Clone film is really about.
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Jul 31, 2013 22:49
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The Sifo-Dias plot point rules because it's transparently obvious that he's Palpatine, and yet it's never 'officially' resolved because the Jedi are dumb and clouded by the dark side. Instead of figuring things out, Yoda is just happy to feel relevant. The 'failure' of the plot is a failure of the characters. Then, since wookiepedia demands an official, canonical explanation, the EU bullshits a lump of fake plotting right into a waiting shopping cart.
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Oct 13, 2013 22:08
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There are heroes on both sides!
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Oct 20, 2013 14:20
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The ongoing project of Specializing the Special Editions is an unappreciated postmodern experiment along the lines of Van Sant's Psycho. People might appreciate it more in thirty years when the 90s CGI dinosaur coexists on the screen with an AI Greedo performance-borg that interacts with a digitization of the 70s plaster sets via real-time physics sim, and the crude matte painting optically composited into the background is overlaid with scrolling text from Googleglass 3, informing you that it's always been like this, has never not been like this.
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Dec 2, 2013 16:38
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Good and evil aren't clearly delineated because "there are heroes on both sides" - 'heroes' belonging in scare quotes. Obiwan casually mind-fucks a total stranger because he's anti-smoking. It's pervasive.
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Dec 4, 2013 23:02
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Jerk McJerkface posted:I still don't understand the "heroes on both sides" comment in the opening scroll. Who is the hero on the Separatist side? Dooku? Grevious? The entire separatist movement is an attempt at defeating the nascent Empire know as as the Republic. They are basically space-libertarians fighting the space-democrats. Forget the EU: Dooku is entirely sincere when he warns Obi about a Sith Lord taking over the Senate, and brags about how good of a Jedi he is. It's not explicitly stated, but he's totally a rogue double-agent trying to take down Palpatine 'from the inside.'
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Dec 5, 2013 00:37
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Maxwell Lord posted:I still don't get the complaints over that scene. Obvious and cheesy names are a thing in Star Wars, and it's a funny little exchange. One of the good observations in those Plinkett reviews is that Obi Wan and Anakin have their characterizations reversed. In a typical narrative, Anakin would be the young hothead 'bad cop' who'd eventually go too far. However, in Attack Of The Clones, Obi Wan is the dude jumping out windows and mind-wiping petty criminals on a whim. RLM's mistake is in considering this a mistake - a failure to create a generic story. The real point that there is no contradiction in Obi being both a paragon of virtue and an rear end in a top hat, because he's a bonafide liberal elitist. Anakin is really far more level-headed and conservative, though prone to bouts of rage. He's not anti-smoking or promoting green energy or whatever; he just wants to start a family with his girlfriend. Mind-tricks have very specific connotations in the prequels - recall how the Jedi casually mind-trick the Gungans at the start of Phantom Menace. Mind-trickery stands for Jedi racism. It's important that 'Sleazebaggano' is an alien, and Obi Wan is paternalistic as heck to him.
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Dec 5, 2013 05:29
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Hbomberguy posted:There's a difference between looking for black and white attitudes and wanting effective storytelling, just like there's a difference between effective storytelling and the Star Wars prequels. The Star Wars movies and the story they tell says more about George Lucas' ideas of good and evil than they do of the Jedi's. In order to determine whether the prequels are effective at being, you have to first determine what they are. Approaching them from the standpoint that they are 'supposed to be' a certain way that is not at all reflected in the film - in any way - is to doom yourself to pointless frustration. It's like 'why the gently caress does my dog keep meowing? Dogs aren't supposed to meow. The dog I owned 50 years ago didn't meow!' We could point out that it may actually be a cat, but then folks would say that they found it in a box marked 'dog' and therefore it is supposed to be. The collar says 'Fido' - it was intended to be. Even if you persist in this futility, you're left with a 'dog' that won't fetch anything. Deal with what you've got.
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Dec 5, 2013 18:33
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Zizek's analysis is right on, but I don't think it hurts the prequels. Each film centres around a failure - Jar Jar supports the republic, Yoda starts power-tripping, and Anakin becomes a fascist-type loser instead of a proper revolutionary. That's what is meant by 'falling to the dark side', and why many fans are wrong to think 'balance to the force' means harmony. Even the happy-happy multiculturalism ending of 'Episode 1' - where the keyword is symbiosis - has a filthy underside of degradation and exploitation. It's the title. redshirt posted:Is there any fan explanation for why the Emperor went out like such a wuss? He couldn't jump away from Vader? Couldn't catch on to something as he was falling down the hole? Vader has more force.
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Dec 5, 2013 23:22
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Rita Repulsa posted:Seriously, I cannot believe there's a prequel defense squad. Criticism of the prequels is primarily based on the bizarre myth that everything in the films was accidental - that George Lucas pratfell his way through multiple decades of production in a blind daze that would make Mr. Magoo shiver with terror - pulling a complete 180 on his prior stances on revolutionary politics, antiracism, and film preservation (and so on) in the process. The sheer number of assumptions this requires is ridiculous - something like RLM's speculation that absolutely everyone on the production was bullied into silence while Lucas bumbled his way to success. Meanwhile, when there's footage of Lucas voicing a creative decision - like his open satisfaction with how pathetically nonthreatening the battle droids are - he's suddenly quite competent. The droids are indeed stupid and nonthreatening, exactly as intended. Weird. This doesn't pass the smell test, and the inconsistency is totally explainable. This 'criticism' is based on an imaginary ghoul named Lucas, who can take any shape. Absolutely everything can be explained by George Lucas being inept and/or stupid, and so it will be. Even if George Lucas is objectively the stupidest living person, it comes down to this: Instead of writing something smart, your time and effort is spent conjuring an enemy to be stupider than you. You have accomplished nothing.
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Dec 9, 2013 05:04
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Cantide posted:The misadventures of Jar Jar Binks and how he created the Empire. Jar Jar is the protagonist of Episode 1, while Yoda is the protagonist of Episode 2. Anakin is not the protagonist of a film until Episode 3. The white people are focal characters up until then, but that's not the same thing.
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Dec 9, 2013 14:41
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INH5 posted:the real reason that midichlorians were introduced was simply so that Anakin could be objectively demonstrated to be really strong in the force. Lucas thought he needed this because with the way he had written up the Jedi Order, he couldn't think of any other way they could be convinced to allow Anakin to be trained. He didn't intend to demystify the force, it was just a quick story patch. Think about this a second. He didn't intend to demystify the force, he only intended to write the old Jedi as a group that relies primarily on objective scientific measurements, and would not be able recognize their religion's equivalent of the resurrected Christ without the help of a portable blood-scanning device. This is as bad with inference as when Obi Wan looked at a map and wondered how a whole planet could disappear. "What is this? A solar system for ants?!"
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Dec 9, 2013 21:58
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Action Serious posted:I've been lurking this thread for a while and am genuinely shocked that people are arguing that the prequels had any good elements, let alone that they could be called good films. Ok.
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Dec 10, 2013 00:35
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Frackie Robinson posted:While I think most people would agree that the prequels were failures on some level, I think they're failures of execution and not of vision. We could easily have ended up with something really safe and crowd-pleasing like we're likely to have with the upcoming sequel trilogy, but Lucas instead aimed for something a lot more downbeat at its root and full of kind of bizarre moments. It's not a ton fun to watch, but I'm still kind of glad the PT exists. The prequels are like 50% audience-antagonizing, and 50% just kind of cheerfully goofy. Obi-Wan poking the crab-monster in Episode 2 with a long spear - and the monster grabbing it - is a direct reference to a common theme in Ray Harryhausen's effects work. The spear consistently serves as a kind of bridge between the world of special effects and the world of reality.    People complain about the 'bad' CGI, but the effect is designed to be read as an effect. It's in no way a reference to reality; it's a reference to Harryhausen. And I believe I've mentioned this before, but the setting here is extremely important. Obi-Wan is fighting the monster in a theatre, with an audience of insects around him, cheering - and people say that there's no satire there. Lucas then frequently cuts to other people in the audience, like Dooku, looking down utterly bored. A character even calls attention to the gratuitousness of the scene: why not just shoot them? Because it's spectacle, for the insects. And it fools Yoda into unleashing the stormtroopers.
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Dec 10, 2013 05:06
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Carnaticum posted:All you people trying to retroactively put reason into the actions of prequel characters: I defy you to make reason out of Padme. Her character makes perfect sense when you understand that she's not a very good person.
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Dec 10, 2013 18:22
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Jerk McJerkface posted:My favorite part of TPM is where Padme reveals she's using a body double and the queen is not really the queen. It's such a stupid scene even the actors have the a "wtf really?" look on their faces. You've never heard of the Prince and the Pauper? Padme is slumming it for fun, to 'get in touch with the people' and so-on. The body double thing is like the shape-shifter reveal in Episode 2. It has almost no bearing on the plot, so it's entirely symbolic. The answer to 'which is the real Padme?' is that they both are. The aristrocrat and the servant are two sides of the same character - which is related to the recurring theme of symbiosis. "You and the Naboo form a symbiont circle. What happens to one of you will affect the other." Padme endears herself to Boss Nass by revealing that she is the queen, presenting herself in her servant's clothes as a symbolic gesture. "Our highest official is your servant." But people always miss that Padme smirks. She is deliberately employing the imagery of servitude to mask her exploitation. No matter what clothes she wears, she is still hyper-rich, having her pilot fly her all-chrome spaceships. It's poverty tourism. It's false. This is obviously done to skewer Padme's liberal elitism. And it reflects badly on Obi Wan's 'symbiosis' thing as well. There's a system in place, but it's not a good one. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 18:55
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