Star Wars Prequels good, or bad?
POSTED BY: OPPYH
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 2, 2009 16:01
VIEWED: 5784
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Quote:Going by the novelization, IIRC Luke was 20, Leia was 19 (Tatooine years and Alderaanian years are clearly different). ESB was about four years after Yavin, RotJ was about one year after that. 25-ish years between Anakin's fall and redemption.
Originally posted by Bytemite:
(Is it 25? I thought Luke and Leia were 18 in A New Hope).
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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Originally posted by Bytemite:
This also bothered me. That and the whole strange "immaculate conception by The Force" and "the chosen one" subplot for Anakin.
"Chosen One"...yeah that was just silly. And then the handy catchphrase "he will bring balance to the Force"...WTF?? It was out of balance? Ooops, how'd that happen? If anything, I'd say the Sith Lord, just the one little ole Sith Lord, was sure able to "balance out" the entire Jedi force. Every Star Wars fan knew the basic story of events before New Hope. Lucas had 16+ years to figure out how he was going to tell it, and tell it in a way that would be interesting and a bit un-expected. He failed miserably. And don't even get me started on how he cheapened and whored-out The Force in the prequels.
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Originally posted by OPPYH:
?
Seriously?
Vader watching his son get electrocuted...
The son he had already pulverized and partially dismembered himself in the prior film.
I'm not saying there's NO reason for it. But to say his turning to save his wife - the one person who accepts him for who he is, is unmotivated; yet his turning to save the son he's promised to kill if he wont turn evil makes perfect sense, doesn't exactly follow.
There are lots of things to dislike in the prequels, but it irritates me when people complain about things that more or less make sense in the greater context.
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Anakin thinks his wife might be in trouble...OK time to kill hundreds of innocents, and become an agent of evil. Weak man, seriously.
A - He didn't think she MIGHT be in trouble - he was convinced she WAS going to die - an assumption that is backed by his accurate precognitive dreams in II. this is a rather significant difference.
B - You're skipping a step. He agreed to take the fall to save his wife. The killing spree was a result, but not the intended action. And again - it's been said at least since Empire that embracing the dark side does bring about such a change. You may not like it - but it's right there in the original trilogy - so complaining about them doing what they always said seems silly.
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Storymark,
I see your points with the prequels but if you're suggesting that Vader's switch to the Dark side is more thematically powerful than his redemption, then I can't argue with you. It's your opinion, but seriously?
I didn't say it was more powerful, just that it was set up earlier, and foreshadowed more (within the constraints of the individual trilogies).
I'm happy to discuss the many flaws in the prequels, and as I have said, I didn't think the turn was handled very well. But I try to debate on what's actually there, and for someone to say there was no build up at all to the turn in III, that it was a light-switch moment, requires one to ignore a great deal in order to maintain such a position.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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Originally posted by Cybersnark:
I'm not saying Anakin/Vader's rationalizations were remotely correct (that's what "rationalizations" are, in fact; lies that we tell ourselves). I'm saying that Anakin could lie to himself that the Tuskens were sub-human things (especially given that he'd grown up on Tattooine, under constant threat of the Tuskens' well-established Reaver-like behaviour). He would not have been able to so easily lie to himself about the younglings (who could well have been turned to the Dark Side, as dozens of Jedi already had been, including Anakin himself). He never even made that suggestion.
They wouldn't have turned them to the dark side because of the rule of two. I know this is broken all over the place in the EU stuff - but again, I'm sticking to what's on the screen.
And yes, the "animals" thing is what he gives as his rationelle to Padme. This does not mean he could not have had an equally twisted internal rationelle in II, which he didn't happen to share with anyone.
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Hell, even a shot of Anakin crying as he killed them would've been something --a show of remorse or self-loathing in the face of his helplessness. Perhaps quick, almost-subliminal glimpses of Padme, as he reflects on his own child-to-be (and how he will never be able to look that child in the eye, even if this all works out).
That would have been cool. I certainly agree it could have been played better, for more emotional impact. I just don't agree it would be completely out of character.
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Also, you're seeing Good/Evil as static, unchanging extremes. Vader on "Day One" of his Dark Side career is not the same as Vader 25 years later.
No, I'm not. I'm guaging him based on a range of behaviors, many of which were very close chronologically to the events in discussion.
Sure, the character evolves over those years, but he does not become a nice guy.
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Put it this way:
-A high school student can drive a car.
-On my first day of grade nine, I could not drive a car. (How can this be? Am I not a high school student?)
That's quite a reach - I am making no such connections.
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My problem is that Anakin of RotS suddenly became Darth Vader from RotJ (blindly following the Emperor's commands with no remorse, hesitation, question, or free will of his own) within the span of one dramatic music sting. Dark-Anakin should have showed some remorse, even if Vader (from years later) would not have.
As others have pointed out, this isn't really accurate. Vader is more questioning in the originals. His blind loyalty in III makes sense, because A) Palps is the only guy (other than Padme) to show faith in Anakin B) After the fight with Obi-Wan, Palps is Anakin's sole mentor/father figure, and C) with the death of Padme, he literally has no one else.
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(I had a similar problem with the Force Lightning suddenly causing Palpatine to "age" [an effect it has been shown to have on no one else ever] --meaning that he doesn't age for 25 years [meanwhile, the ten year gap between TPM and AotC had been shown to do a number on him --there was also a noticeable difference between AotC Palpatine and RotS Palpatine, but it was more subtle]).
Lucas tried to show everything, which is a mistake in film (despite everything novice writers are told about "show, don't tell" --"telling" is often more effective). Imagine how much impact the Reavers would have had if the first scene of "Serenity" (the pilot, not the movie) had involved a full-fledged Reaver being brought out under a spotlight and carefully analyzed for our viewing pleasure. Lucas basically set up circumstances in RotS that must now stand almost completely unchanged for 20 years.
This, I totally agree with.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and ki
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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
This also bothered me. That and the whole strange "immaculate conception by The Force" and "the chosen one" subplot for Anakin.
"Chosen One"...yeah that was just silly. And then the handy catchphrase "he will bring balance to the Force"...WTF?? It was out of balance? Ooops, how'd that happen? If anything, I'd say the Sith Lord, just the one little ole Sith Lord, was sure able to "balance out" the entire Jedi force. Every Star Wars fan knew the basic story of events before New Hope. Lucas had 16+ years to figure out how he was going to tell it, and tell it in a way that would be interesting and a bit un-expected. He failed miserably. And don't even get me started on how he cheapened and whored-out The Force in the prequels.
I thought the "balance" part worked pretty well. It was out of balance - 2 Sith, thousands of Jedi. That is, be definition, unbalanced.
It also plays into the philosophical context of the force - the strictly Dogmatic fashion in which the Jedi approached it was weakening them, because they were wholly ignoring a large aspect - that which is tied to emotion. the Sith on the other hand embrace the emotion too fully, letting it consume them at the loss of the serenity that comes from the Jedi path.
He could be viewed as settling the balance in many ways. First, at the end of the prequels, as there are then only two Sith and two Jedi left. Then, at the end of Jedi, there is only one force-adept left, Luke, who though he mostly follows the Jedi dogma, did tap into emotion to bring about his final victory, yet does not succumb to it in the way the Sith do.
he brings balance in both literal and metaphoric ways.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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Originally posted by Cybersnark:Quote:Going by the novelization, IIRC Luke was 20, Leia was 19 (Tatooine years and Alderaanian years are clearly different). ESB was about four years after Yavin, RotJ was about one year after that. 25-ish years between Anakin's fall and redemption.
Originally posted by Bytemite:
(Is it 25? I thought Luke and Leia were 18 in A New Hope).
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
That's how it was, but the timelne has been massaged a bit since. The original novelization isn't considered "canon" anymore, due to a few inconsistencies. Leia wasn't Luke's sister at the time it was written (thus the age difference), and Owen Lars was Obi-Wan's brother, for two examples.
Now, the timeline has ANH taking place 19 years after ROTS.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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Yeah, it's just the "chosen one" plot point is so overdone. But I do at least give props here for the fact that the prophecy was misinterpretted and the whole chosen one thing was actually kind of not so good instead of the saviour they were expecting.
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I guess the motto of ROTS could be "don't lead a double life".
Another thing I have never understood. Anakin wanted to have a happily married life...fine. Give up being a Jedi and get a job as the best starpilot in the galaxy. No big deal. Why does he try to hold on to the Jedi order when he knows he's in violation of their code?
What up with the live action tv series Lucas promised us back in 2004? An hour long drama that chronicles the handful of surviving Jedi after ROTS? considering it was said to be out in 2009 at the latest, seems it is now just an empty promise.
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Originally posted by Bytemite:
But I do at least give props here for the fact that the prophecy was misinterpretted and the whole chosen one thing was actually kind of not so good instead of the saviour they were expecting.
Yeah. Literal prophesies are dull.
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
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Another thing I have never understood. Ankain wanted to have a happily married life...fine. Give up being a Jedi and get a job as the best starpilot in the galaxy. No big deal. Why does he try to hold on to the Jedi order when he knows he's in viloation of their code?
'Cause back in those days if you were found to be in violation of the Jedi Order, you had to either go into hiding, or they mind-wiped your memories.
They were VERY concerned about Jedi being influenced, or Rogue Jedi or Sith using the powers of The Force in abusive or unacceptable ways. In that way, the Jedi ended up being somewhat draconian and running off a lot of potential allies.
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