Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by 22soultaker

Prequels brought us bad ass saber fights for the first time, brought us Darth maul, Jango Fett, some of the best music of all-time. Yoda actually fighting! Like what??? haha.

I mean there not great but those things make up for it for me.

[Falaskan]

Yeah, I've always loved the Genosis battle

[Falaskan]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Yeah, and you don't get fireballs in space, or sounds, or ships that maneuver like jet fighters. What's your point again?


This selective outrage is beyond ridiculous.

Not really the same thing, but whatever.

[Maggot]

The prequels were made for the OCD, Asperger, texting, game console generation. Not a single warm blooded human feeling in the lot of the prequels. They were flat with acting on par with that of a robot. Overuse of flat, inorganic looking CGI, overly long and overcooked saber battles that again smell of video games. The originals had an innocence and earnest quality to them, which sadly is gone from newer generations of people.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Falaskan

Not really the same thing, but whatever.

It IS.


They are all stylistic choices by the filmmakers to make things look and sound more exciting. "Reality" is often boring. That's why we go to the movies in the first place.

[Bluyoda]

[BillieCassin]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

Especially the ending. She lost the will to live, THAT is how they decided she'd die? Losing the will to live? What kind of crap is that?

That was the most egregious thing to me - and Lucas fully admits he wrote himself into a corner with it. "If I'd had time..." he would have done more. Yet another victim of the fly-by-your-pants way the prequels were scripted.

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

C-3PO slapstick and obvious clone CGI uniforms ruin that section for me.

The biggest issue for me there is that the CGI 3PO is horrible looking. It's one step above Droids.

Originally Posted by Scarface32

Having the movies in the cloud allows you to stream them on your phone without taking up valuable storage space.

And sucks up your even more valuable data. I know that companies, primarily Apple, have talked people into this mentality to excuse the lack of an SD card slot, but when you think about it, it's crazy. You couldn't come up with a less efficient system than perpetually redownloading the same file.

Originally Posted by Gold Ranger

If you read the novel (perish the thought!) it fully explains what was going on in that scene...

Please...tell me you did not just get high and mighty about folks not reading enough over a cheap film novelization.

In any case, it's pee poor filmmaking to have to pick up ancillary merchandising to understand it. The filmmaker didn't do their job in that case.

[Geoff D]

Agreed. Lucas only had TWENTY ****ING YEARS to figure out at least the bare bones of each film, but every time he wrote one of them he basically winged it (and even then changed it up some more in the edit).

[imsounoriginal]

Originally Posted by Maggot

The prequels were made for the OCD, Asperger, texting, game console generation. Not a single warm blooded human feeling in the lot of the prequels. They were flat with acting on par with that of a robot. Overuse of flat, inorganic looking CGI, overly long and overcooked saber battles that again smell of video games. The originals had an innocence and earnest quality to them, which sadly is gone from newer generations of people.

Yeah new people are the worst

[Petey Parker]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

Especially the ending. She lost the will to live, THAT is how they decided she'd die? Losing the will to live? What kind of crap is that?

Clearly she hated children. There really was nothing left for her at that point. Better to burn out than to fade away.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Agreed. Lucas only had TWENTY ****ING YEARS to figure out at least the bare bones of each film, but every time he wrote one of them he basically winged it (and even then changed it up some more in the edit).

That's the thing with the prequels, it took 16 years to get The Phantom Menace out and it still feels like Lucas wrote it the night before ... I think people would have thought it would have been over-written, but it feels underdone and it's sequels seem more reactionary than actually been something that were planned ahead of time, fine change things that don't work on screen, but make sure your blueprints are spot-on before you start filming. I know George doesn't particularly like writing, but at times they feel like notes jotted down on a napkin and not something he poured over for torturous months (or years).

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by chip75

That's the thing with the prequels, it took 16 years to get The Phantom Menace out and it still feels like Lucas wrote it the night before ... I think people would have thought it would have been over-written, but it feels underdone and it's sequels seem more reactionary than actually been something that were planned ahead of time, fine change things that don't work on screen, but make sure your blueprints are spot-on before you start filming. I know George doesn't particularly like writing, but at times they feel like notes jotted down on a napkin and not something he poured over for torturous months (or years).

Reactionary is the right way to put it. With every movie he arbitrarily drops in these characters and situations that were supposed to have been there all along but which we never heard about. It's would've been great to have had a line about Dooku leaving the order and the mysterious death of Sifo-Dyas back in Phantom Menace, or a hint about an unstoppable "droid general" in Clones, but that would've meant Lucas thinking ahead of time. Hell, we only got the Sifo-Dyas story strand because the original as-shot device of Sidious pretending to be a Jedi (called Sido-Dyas, geddit?) placing the order for the clone army was junked and reshot.

Therein lies the problem: he's making it up as he goes along so he literally can't imbue the previous film with portents to the next because those characters and situations don't exist yet! This did also affect the OT to a certain degree, like Luke/Leia turning out to be brother and sister, Obi-Wan's "certain point of view" etc, but because that wasn't some labyrinthine plot it didn't undermine the storytelling so much.

In a lot of ways, that documentary filmmaker thought process which governed his early student works never left him. Even when it came time to creating a sprawling, multi-generational epic he STILL winged it on the day and crafted the story more in the editing suite than on the page. Would a few mentions of upcoming characters have rescued the scripts? No, of course not. But they'd provide a sense of cohesion which is what I think most hurts the prequels.

For all the complaints about the CG, the dialogue, the acting etc, it's the disjointed relationship between all three films which truly bugs me the most. We've had Clone Wars come along to fill the gap between Ep II and III (and S6 answered a TON of dangling plot threads) but as Billie said, it shouldn't be left to ancillary media to fill such huge gaps in the story in the first place. And Ep I almost feels like a standalone film because it's so far removed from the rest, it's no wonder it plays like a mashup between Eps IV and VI.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Therein lies the problem: he's making it up as he goes along so he literally can't imbue the previous film with portents to the next because those characters and situations don't exist yet!

Looking back at the originals, most of the characters are in place in A New Hope, we only get a few additions. We needed the worlds of Attack of the Clones and [I]Revenge of the Sith to already exist, not for them to feel like they were created for their respective episodes. It would have been great to see General Grievous before he was made a cyborg and a Jedi leaving the Order, but we're always thrown in after the fact. George has such great ideas, but he doesn't always know where to put them!

I think if he made the films today, they'd have the huge Marvel style meeting where they plan everything out and work out where to introduce everyone to the nth degree, with military precision (like they did making the movies themselves), nothing would be left to chance.

[imsounoriginal]

I don't get it. Lucas was supposed to have introduced the vast majority of the characters and planets/locations for the entire trilogy in Episode I itself? So basically there'd be nothing fresh to discover in Episodes II and III? I really don't see the problem with meeting Grievous in Episode III (technically the Clone Wars mini-series first) or seeing Geonosis or Kamino for the first time in Episode II. Lucas was developing worlds and characters as he went along, and the way they're introduced in each movie was a constant reminder of how vast and complex the SW universe is. That's why I've always found the world of the prequels more fascinating than the OT's, which always seemed a little narrower in scope (focused more on characters, I know, before people jump down my throat for why the OT is so much better).

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by chip75

Looking back at the originals, most of the characters are in place in A New Hope, we only get a few additions. We needed the worlds of Attack of the Clones and [I]Revenge of the Sith to already exist, not for them to feel like they were created for their respective episodes. It would have been great to see General Grievous before he was made a cyborg and a Jedi leaving the Order, but we're always thrown in after the fact. George has such great ideas, but he doesn't always know where to put them!

I think if he made the films today, they'd have the huge Marvel style meeting where they plan everything out and work out where to introduce everyone to the nth degree, with military precision (like they did making the movies themselves), nothing would be left to chance.

Yeah, I've always said that Lucas' prequels had too many ideas for their own good, it was too large a canvas for one man to keep track of. It's so strange how George surrounded himself with so many people in so many departments on the prequels EXCEPT for the thing that matters most: story.

[Angel Eyes]

The one thing the PT lacked was warmth for the characters. None of them were likable at all really. Not even Qui Gon or Obi Wan. I feel there was a large disconnect with the audience and we we didnt really care what happended to them.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

I don't get it. Lucas was supposed to have introduced the vast majority of the characters and planets/locations for the entire trilogy in Episode I itself? So basically there'd be nothing fresh to discover in Episodes II and III? I really don't see the problem with meeting Grievous in Episode III (technically the Clone Wars mini-series first) or seeing Geonosis or Kamino for the first time in Episode II. Lucas was developing worlds and characters as he went along, and the way they're introduced in each movie was a constant reminder of how vast and complex the SW universe is. That's why I've always found the world of the prequels more fascinating than the OT's, which always seemed a little narrower in scope (focused more on characters, I know, before people jump down my throat for why the OT is so much better).

No-one said you can't have new worlds and characters every time, but it's the arbitrary creation of key characters and events after the fact which is what really grates. I can appreciate one aspect of what you're saying, as each prequel is almost like it's own little movie universe because it's so wide-ranging and expansive and just plain different from the last, but I love the "it's a small galaxy after all" feel of the OT, as well as the more propulsive narrative. By the time the prequels really get going it's too late, as I really do like Sith a lot in spite of certain shortcomings, it's just a shame the rest of the PT wasn't on the same level.

Hopefully the new movies will give us the best of both: tight, faster-paced films like those of yore BUT governed by a coherent over-arching story that isn't eating itself by the time the third movie rolls around.

[StingingVelvet]

Pretty sure even Lucas himself has said that scripting and writing aren't his strong suits. He has images of what he wants to see in the movie... moments, characters, set-pieces... and then he crafts a script around that as best he can.

If he had just hired a script writer with some authority to challenge him those movies would be ten times better, overabundance of CGI included.

[imsounoriginal]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

No-one said you can't have new worlds and characters every time, but it's the arbitrary creation of key characters and events after the fact which is what really grates. I can appreciate one aspect of what you're saying, as each prequel is almost like it's own little movie universe because it's so wide-ranging and expansive and just plain different from the last, but I love the "it's a small galaxy after all" feel of the OT, as well as the more propulsive narrative. By the time the prequels really get going it's too late, as I really do like Sith a lot in spite of certain shortcomings, it's just a shame the rest of the PT wasn't on the same level.

Hopefully the new movies will give us the best of both: tight, faster-paced films like those of yore BUT governed by a coherent over-arching story that isn't eating itself by the time the third movie rolls around.

I'm sure Disney will do a good job of keeping everything tied together across episodes, they'll probably just apply the Marvel template to the new Eps and spinoffs. As for the other stuff: I guess we just agree to disagree Frankly I loved the new worlds and character brought on by each movie, it never really occurred to me that things could've been tied together more neatly from the outset. It's an interesting point, but I don't really see how doing so would have benefited the trilogy in any huge way.

Also, just cuz I never bothered seeing the show after how bad the Clone Wars movie was, but is the CG Clone Wars show any good/worth watching? It's on Netflix so not like I have to spend a bunch or go out of my way to see them, just curious to know if they're even worth the time. I love the old mini-series and kinda think it covered enough of the Clone Wars as is, but if the new one is good then I'll check it out.

[Geoff D]

The Clone Wars show doesn't get off to the best of starts but once it hits its stride it's a fantastic companion to the movies IMO.