Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[bboisvert]

Originally Posted by Darth Anakin

Of course she didn't return, she was captured by sand people, I wish the movies had made more of an effort to tell viewers how many people went after her, as it is, it seems like Cliegg was the only one.

Or why a decade past with Anakin still thinking she was in slavery and doing nothing about it.

The prequels are just a bloody mess, if you think too hard.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by bboisvert

Or why a decade past with Anakin still thinking she was in slavery and doing nothing about it.

The prequels are just a bloody mess, if you think too hard.

He was training to be a Jedi and probably thought Watto would keep her safe, I would imagine one of the conditions of his entry into the Jedi Order was to try to forget his mother. Seemed that way when they were talking to him before Obi-Wan started training him anyway.

[IndefinentBlu]

Originally Posted by Jay444

I am not in anyway picking on you, just a head's up before you read further, okay?

But this is sort of silly. I mean, those lightsabers are only on screen for a few seconds. This is the type of microscopic subjection the OT never had to go through because the technology back in the day didn't exit to 'freeze frame' at such a high resolution. There are gaffs in EVERY movie and this stuff is hardly noticable when watching the film in action. So, I would ask the original writer of that article: "Who cares?" Dude needs to go outside..lol.

There is a gaff in Return of the Jedi too. Well, not sure if its a gaff or Harrison Ford was just lucky, but.... Han grabs Leia's boob after she is shot in Return of the Jedi. Yup, even Harrison Ford could not resist after seeing the Bikini in the first half of the film...LOL

I agree with you buddy.

[bboisvert]

Originally Posted by Darth Anakin

He was training to be a Jedi and probably thought Watto would keep her safe, I would imagine one of the conditions of his entry into the Jedi Order was to try to forget his mother. Seemed that way when they were talking to him before Obi-Wan started training him anyway.

Watto -- her owner -- would "keep her safe"? That's pretty weak.

The government of Naboo couldn't afford a couple of spacebucks to free her?


It's just poor writing.

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by IndefinentBlu

Thewishes to speak:

Why is everyone so interested in yesteryear's UOT versions. i mean how much better do you think the UOT's would be on blu-ray? It still would be the same as the special editions. Besides Lucas would do better to include the non blu-ray versions with the upconvert that you get when you put a dvd into a blu ray player i mean it is not much but at least it is something.

Thehas finished speaking and, will now go back to his room till he can think of something else smart to say.

Why? Do you even have to ask? Because those are the original movies? All of this started with a movie called "Star Wars", and we won't even be able to see it on Blu-ray.
Again, Lucas should look at his peers. Scorsese, Coppola and Spielberg all have movies released from that time frame, and all of them are the original versions, in great quality, I might add.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by chip75

I think a lot of fans criticisms arise because they/we treat the original trilogy as source material. It's easy for an Ian Flemming fan to say they dislike how the Bond movies are made because they detract or deviate from the source material i.e. the novels. It's harder for Star Wars fans because the source material changes daily i.e. George Lucas's brain. We regard the Yoda Ep. IV puppet as source material while infact it's just a prop made to the best of the abilities of the modellers and puppeteers of the day....

Well, the thing (to me) is that the OT is more or less the source material.

Now, I agree with you to an extent on the Yoda puppet issue. And I actually didn't mind seeing Yoda finally wield a light saber in the PT. That was actually amongst the things that I liked a lot (even though my main criticism of the lightsaber battles in the PT in general is that they look way too over-rehearsed and not like a battle in which each person fighting looks like they are reacting to unpredictable spontaneous movements from their opponent).



Without rehashing a lot of the issues that I've had with the PT (which I've already expressed quite a bit here, and I'm sure the regular visitors to this thread are already familar with), I think it's easier to explain it from this perspective:


Probably my all time favorite movies (yes, even more so than the SW movies) is the Back to the Future Trilogy. Now, I'm not saying that these movies are perfect, however one thing that they did brilliantly throughout all of the movies was setting things up and paying them off.

Marty plays the guitar at the dance at the end of the first movie, so earlier in the film they set up that he can play the guitar. He 'invents' the skateboard in 1955, so they establish that he can ride a skateboard well early on. We hear the story of 'old man' Peabody and his Pine Trees, at the "Twin Pines Mall"... and after Marty goes back in time and runs over one of the trees, when he returns to his time, the mall has changed to "Lone Pine Mall".


Now, what does this have to do with Star Wars? Well, on a much grander level (meaning not confined to a single movie), the PT is meant to set up what happens in the OT. So, what happens at the end of the story (the OT) is what should more or less dictate how and why things get set up (in the PT).

Now, even though the first BTTF movie was written as one movie at one time, the process that I feel Lucas should have used is not all that different from how they wrote that movie. In the new documentaries on the BTTF Blu-Rays, Bob Gale explains how a lot of what caused them to write the beginning of the movie the way that they did was specifically dictated by events that they wanted to have happen later in the movie. If Marty is going to "invent" Rock & Roll, they establish that he can play it early on. So, it's them working backwards from the end of the story so that the beginning established everything as it should.



And this is where the PT faulters. A lot of things, as they happen (or in some cases how past events are described) in the OT just don't quite mesh up with what we see. Obi Wan (in ANH) describes Anakin as having been a great pilot when he "first knew him". But what we get in TPM is him being good at Pod Racing (which for the most part is a land vehicle that happens to hover above the ground... that's kind of a stretch for that to be the basis for him being a great pilot)... and then later in the movie he accidentally starts up that ship that he is in and the auto pilot does a good chunk of the work for him.

Everyone is going to have a somewhat different opinion on this, but I would logically argue that if you show someone (who hasn't seen the PT) that seen from ANH where Obi Wan makes this comment, and ask them what they think he meant by that... they'd probably come up somewhere roughly in the ballpark of Anakin having been at least a young man at that point (roughly equal to Luke's age) and having had some formal training as a pilot, even if he was a fast learner.

And I could go on with more examples, but you get the drift. Now comes that part where someone makes the 'certain point of view' arguement to defend these things. Okay, that line worked once to side-step the "Vader is your father" issue. But if it's going to be the basis to explain everything that either doesn't make sense or doesn't match up as well as it could/should have between the PT and OT, then apparently, in addition to the Empire taking over, in the time that past between Ep III and Ep IV, the memories of everyone in the galaxy got really fuzzy and/or they became REALLY BAD at communicating.


Not to mention that this set-up and pay-off concept should have been applied to things that were limited to the PT (i.e. the introductions of Dooku and Grevious).


It's attention to the details that really brings that extral level to everything. It's that extra charm that is missing from the prequels. Sure, there will be those who don't notice or don't care... I suppose at least some of the current die-hard PT fans fall into this category now... but if it had been done that way, it's not like it would have made the experience any less enjoyable for those who don't notice or don't care. It would have just made it better for everybody else.


I just don't think Lucas really had these movies all that well planned out. And the last minute adding of Obi Wan picking up Anakins lightsaber in Episode III speaks volumes on that.


This is above, beyond, and separate from the issue of the limitations of the technology when the OT was made.

[greg_achen]

Originally Posted by bboisvert

Watto -- her owner -- would "keep her safe"? That's pretty weak.

The government of Naboo couldn't afford a couple of spacebucks to free her?

It's just poor writing.

This is an aspect of Episode II and III that doesn't sit well with me either. I always wished there had been a scene where Anakin learns that the Jedi and/or Padme tried to go back and free his mother only they discovered she had already been freed and swore them to secrecy so that Anakin could forget his old life and move forward.

[bboisvert]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

I just don't think Lucas really had these movies all that well planned out.

He didn't. And, in fact, your interpretation of Anakin's age is correct -- he was originally supposed to be a young teen.

Lucas decided, late in the game, to make him a small boy to make the separation from his mother more of a traumatic plot point. This, however, created more problems than it solved, IMO.

1. It creates the 10-year gap between the separation and the death of his mom... Lucas never went back to logically explain why everyone (Galactic Senate, Jedi Council, Naboo government, Gungans, everyone...) would be peachy-keen leaving this kid's mom in slavery, when it would be trivial to send someone down to just buy her out of it.

2. More importantly, it's the age factor that makes Ep. I such a small part of the overall saga. It does very little in terms of moving the story forward. He essentially spent TWO movies (I and II) setting things up, so Anakin's "downfall" is very rushed in III. And there's no time in III to do much else... such as provide Padme with *anything* of importance to do.


Meh. I'm not a prequel hater... really. I like them fine enough. But it's just frustrating to me that he couldn't have spent more time on structure and story. Getting the whole trilogy sketched out a bit in advance and then doing one more pass on the scripts would have done wonders. Instead, he seemed more interested in getting yet another shot of a ship landing in the prequels. (Seriously -- count the number of times you see ships landing or taking off... possibly the most pedestrian of things, but the PT is *full* of these shots. It makes a fun drinking game.)

[octagon]

Originally Posted by bboisvert

He didn't. And, in fact, your interpretation of Anakin's age is correct -- he was originally supposed to be a young teen.

Lucas decided, late in the game, to make him a small boy to make the separation from his mother more of a traumatic plot point. This, however, created more problems than it solved, IMO.

Not only did it introduce other issues, it flat out didn't work anyway.

I don't know about anybody else but for me Anakin's mom was the guy in the WWII movies passing pictures of his new kid around the foxhole. You know from the start not to get too attached to that guy.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by bboisvert

Meh. I'm not a prequel hater... really. I like them fine enough. But it's just frustrating to me that he couldn't have spent more time on structure and story. Getting the whole trilogy sketched out a bit in advance and then doing one more pass on the scripts would have done wonders. Instead, he seemed more interested in getting yet another shot of a ship landing in the prequels. (Seriously -- count the number of times you see ships landing or taking off... possibly the most pedestrian of things, but the PT is *full* of these shots. It makes a fun drinking game.)

All very well said. I very much agree.

Anakin should have started out being older in Episode I. Having him older from the get-go with the same actor playing him in all 3 PT movies would have made the parallel between him and Luke all the much better.

[JamesKurtovich]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

All very well said. I very much agree.

Anakin should have started out being older in Episode I. Having him older from the get-go with the same actor playing him in all 3 PT movies would have made the parallel between him and Luke all the much better.

And more build-up leading to his betrayal ultimately making a better character and a better trilogy.

[OG Pooh]

Originally Posted by JamesKurtovich

And more build-up leading to his betrayal ultimately making a better character and a better trilogy.

I think they (I mean GL) would have been better off had he maybe only touched on Anakin as a boy, just so we knew his background. Possibly the opening act of Episode I, with the rest of the 1st film being what ended up AotC. Then Epsiode II should have concentrated on the Clone Wars. Outside of the TV series, we never really seen much of Anakin as a Jedi or as Obi-Wan's so called Brother. It was, here's a kid, now he's a Jedi, now he's a Sith.

[JamesKurtovich]

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

I think they (I mean GL) would have been better off had he maybe only touched on Anakin as a boy, just so we knew his background. Possibly the opening act of Episode I, with the rest of the 1st film being what ended up AotC. Then Epsiode II should have concentrated on the Clone Wars.

Another good idea.

That really would have made Anakin the main character of the series and would have allowed more time for him to show his good side as well as his tendency towards control and anger. Give me more of that Anakin from the TV series any day.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by IndefinentBlu

http://theforce.net/latestnews/story...ime_137301.asp

Looks like Lucas can direct huh

I would question the use of present tense there.

Lucas has definitely had his moments as both a writer and a director but the best of those moments (Star Wars, American Graffiti) were 35+ years ago.

*shrug*

[chip75]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

her and Anakin were already slaves, they were lost by Gondola the Hutt (or whatever the name was can't look it up now) to Watto in a podrace bet. She did not place the bet. From what I can see she was a slave long before and Anakin was born as a slave.

From Ep. I.

ANAKIN
Since I was very little, three, I
think. My Mom and I were sold to
Gardulla the Hutt, but she lost us,
betting on the Podraces, to Watto,
who's a lot better master than
Gardulla, I think.

See what happens when I don't pay attention....

[IndefinentBlu]

You know i wonder why the tusken raiders took Shmi? I mean what is it that she had to offer them? i mean did they force her to cook and, clean for them did they force her to help potty train their young?

I think she did all of this and, maybe she revolted and, that's why they tied her backwards on that post till she gave in.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

Probably my all time favorite movies (yes, even more so than the SW movies) is the Back to the Future Trilogy. Now, I'm not saying that these movies are perfect, however one thing that they did brilliantly throughout all of the movies was setting things up and paying them off.

Back to the Future also has (I've mentioned it before) one of the best opening sequences in film history where half a dozen things are shown to you without beating the audience over the head with the. We learn the Doc's been away for a while, he took the Plutonium of the terrorists, he maybe a mad scientist etc etc.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by IndefinentBlu

You know i wonder why the tusken raiders took Shmi? I mean what is it that she had to offer them? i mean did they force her to cook and, clean for them did they force her to help potty train their young?

I think she did all of this and, maybe she revolted and, that's why they tied her backwards on that post till she gave in.

I think they steal their women, rape and torture them and if they survive that they become intergrated. Plus the Emperor made them do it....

[Jay444]

Originally Posted by IndefinentBlu

You know i wonder why the tusken raiders took Shmi? I mean what is it that she had to offer them? i mean did they force her to cook and, clean for them did they force her to help potty train their young?

I think she did all of this and, maybe she revolted and, that's why they tied her backwards on that post till she gave in.

I thought it to be more like the recent kidnappings in the middle east. Like the sandpeople were oppressed outsiders of society (tribal if you will) and were holding her ransom or had eventual plans to kill her. Their brutality was probably so well known that when Anakin admits he took out the whole darn tribe that it really didn't scare Padmae at all. Like she identified with how one would feel if dealing with the same kind of thing ("They are savages! Animals!"). That is how I took it.

Could there have been something else done to display how brutal the sandpeople are? Of course, but it probably would have slowed the pacing of the film down and we sort of get the idea that they were def beating her (tied to a post and she was clearly battered).

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by kurtlingle

Man,

This thread is tough - I love SW - my favorite series and I love BOTH Trilogies. I guess this is just the way it is - with the back and forth.

I think there should be a SW argument thread - and all this stuff goes there. But then this thread would only have 200-300 posts?

I am glad to see the "pro" PT posts - as I love those movies and hate when they get bashed by SW fans. All the movies make one awesome story with cool stuff like Lightsabers, jedi vs sith, DV, etc, etc. GL did an amazing thing with these movies and I can't wait to see them ALL in HD!

In the end, I just don't care anymore. You often find out that they really haven't even paid attention to the things going on in the PT, and then they come on trashing them. We have had these things happen numerous times on here.
Sure, they are not perfect, but they sure are a gazillion times better than nostalgic UOT fans make them out to be.
Nothing could ever have met their expectations. NOTHING!

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

Episode 3 is the best of the prequel for me. It had everything in it that make's Star Wars great, including the silly moments that seem to make some go nuts The originals had their fair share of silly moments as well so I think the balance is there in the end.

Episode 3 could have done better but after 6 years of complaint by some fans it really just had a hard time recovering. It's too bad since it's a good movie.

It should have broken records!

Originally Posted by Jay444

I agree with you 100%. It was a very very good film and easily (imo) the best of the 3 PT films. I didn't much care for the "NOOOO!!" at the end, but whatever, everything else was well done. I think that might be the biggest issue a lot of the OT fan have, is they wanted more of a connection between the PT and OT. What I think a lot of people wanted was to see Darth Vader kickin' Jedi @$$ for 3 films and what they got wasn't what they had imagined over the 16 year wait between films (ya know, Vader appearing only at the end of Episode 3). Thus lots were disappointed. But I am def agree with you, ROTS was a good time!

Absolutely, they wanted to see SW just like the old ones, but George put everything upside down. I, for one, am happy that George didn't show a bada$$ Anakin/Vader...

Originally Posted by chip75

I think a lot of fans criticisms arise because they/we treat the original trilogy as source material. It's easy for an Ian Flemming fan to say they dislike how the Bond movies are made because they detract or deviate from the source material i.e. the novels. It's harder for Star Wars fans because the source material changes daily i.e. George Lucas's brain. We regard the Yoda Ep. IV puppet as source material while infact it's just a prop made to the best of the abilities of the modellers and puppeteers of the day....

Yes, absolutely. Lucas had to work within the limitations of the time, besides the fact that he was pushing it to the limits...
The OT would have looked very different then what they ended up looking, due to the limitations. I am sure many UOT fanatics say that's a good thin, but I would have liked to see his full visions brought to life.

Originally Posted by Blu Tide

I may be mistaken, but I remember hearing that Speilberg actually directed some of the scenes in ROTS.

Nah, Lucas was just saying so that he could make Steven responsible that George wanted to have changed etc. It was basically a joke. It's on the ROTS DVD, I believe in the "Within One Minute" documentary.

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

her and Anakin were already slaves, they were lost by Gondola the Hutt (or whatever the name was can't look it up now) to Watto in a podrace bet. She did not place the bet. From what I can see she was a slave long before and Anakin was born as a slave.

And you call yourself a SW fan!?!?!??

I am not amused!

Originally Posted by IndefinentBlu

I think the name is Gardulla The Hutt.

Besides she won freedom when Cliegg Lars freed her and married her sadly though one day she went to pick mushrooms that grow on the moisture vaporators and never returned.

Yes. You are a true SW fan.

Originally Posted by Jay444

I am not in anyway picking on you, just a head's up before you read further, okay?

But this is sort of silly. I mean, those lightsabers are only on screen for a few seconds. This is the type of microscopic subjection the OT never had to go through because the technology back in the day didn't exit to 'freeze frame' at such a high resolution. There are gaffs in EVERY movie and this stuff is hardly noticable when watching the film in action. So, I would ask the original writer of that article: "Who cares?" Dude needs to go outside..lol.

There is a gaff in Return of the Jedi too. Well, not sure if its a gaff or Harrison Ford was just lucky, but.... Han grabs Leia's boob after she is shot in Return of the Jedi. Yup, even Harrison Ford could not resist after seeing the Bikini in the first half of the film...LOL

Originally Posted by OG Pooh

I think they (I mean GL) would have been better off had he maybe only touched on Anakin as a boy, just so we knew his background. Possibly the opening act of Episode I, with the rest of the 1st film being what ended up AotC. Then Epsiode II should have concentrated on the Clone Wars. Outside of the TV series, we never really seen much of Anakin as a Jedi or as Obi-Wan's so called Brother. It was, here's a kid, now he's a Jedi, now he's a Sith.

100% agreed.
Even in the pics I couldn't see the flaws.
This is just ridiculous nit-picking.

Some people have way too much free time on their hands.