Could the Star Wars prequel movies have been saved?

[angelfromanotherpin]

First, I really do believe that Good beats evil. If both sides have thousands of demigods, the side which is selfless and serene will always win against the side which is selfish and backstabbing.

Um, why?

Traditions of combat exist because they are usually effective. Leaving aside the part where evil assholes have a harder time getting local support or finding anyone to have their back, lets look at a classic: the offering of quarter.

It's a well-established hollywood tradition that having someone shout 'no prisoners' or any of its equivalents is a flag that they're evil and/or hardcore. But in fact, if two people, or two sides, are fighting, and one will accept surrender and the other will not, then the side which will accept surrender has a measurable advantage over the other; because if the fight looks like it could go either way, one of them has incentive to stop fighting and the other one doesn't.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm not questioning the advantages of playing by the rules, I'm questioning the fact that 'being good' gives such a great advantage over 'being evil' that it means that the good guys always win and thus robs the fight of dramatic tension.

Selfless and Serene winning out against Selfish and Backstabbing--all other things being equal--seems like wishful thinking to me, especially when you consider all of the counterexamples. Both in fiction and real life.

[Orion]

Real life doesn't have a Team Good. The Jedi are a hereditary aristocracy raised with as little contact with the outside world as the Masters can manage. Real life elites of that kind invariably deal with the same kind of douchebaggery and nitwittery you're explicitly saying Jedi should be exempt from.

[Orion]

As for the personality cult aspect, two points:

First, do you really not see how sneaky telepaths with powers of suggestion might be good at rabble rousing intrigue, and how this might make for an interesting movie?

Second, real world personality cults tend to form around existing religions or other power structures. You would need a Jedi to start a cult in Star Wars in the same way you need a Christian to start a cult in America: they've been running things for so long everyone's used to listening to them.

That said, making them higher powered badass would totally work too. I'm not saying that's unworkable or wouldn't be awesome. I should clarify the problem I see:

If the Old Republic Jedi are power level N, you presumably have to fill the world up with other things of power level N for your action sequences to be interesting. Enormously large armies, yes, but also Sith of power level N, Mandalorian mercenaries, psychic mutant rancor beasts, and the like.

That's fine, but the original trilogy is predicated on the idea that Luke and Vader are the baddest mofo's around. That means every single jedi, sith, assassin, monster, or army introduced in the prequel trilogy has to be destroyed by the end of it, or suddenly nobody cares about the Luke anymore. I find it hard to believe even good writers could be that tidy, so there'd almost certainly be loose ends leftover that could and should have toppled the Empire while Luke was still in primary school.

If you can find a way around that, though, you're golden.

[Vnonymous]

It seems to me like the solution would be to make Jedi the equivalent of what modern people think Ninjas were like - Sure, an individual can totally flip out and kill like 10 people or something, but nobody is ever going to field an entire army of them in open warfare, because that would just be dumb.

They work through stealth, subterfuge and negotiation, as well as covert strikes(with the exception of assassinations) not through beating people up. The fact that they can win fights with a bunch of mooks is a nice adjunct, but doesn't really have much to do with what they're actually famous for.

As has been said, almost every fight in the original trilogy was solved by small groups of people attacking weak points - assuming that's common in the universe, having people who are explicitly really really good at attacking weakpoints makes sense, and probably helps build up the fear aspect.

[RandomCasualty2]

Now, the ultimate reason why I want the Jedi to be more powerful is because the scope of the fights in the prequel trilogy are supposed to be greater. In the original trilogy, we never really got to see masses of Jedi fight enemies or fleets of spaceships duke it out against the other. All of the conflicts in those movies were seriously resolved by small groups of guys hitting at weak points.

Well one may easily really call that a trope of the Star Wars universe. Effectively most of the Empire's technology is beaten by weak points. Both death stars blown up by firing at weak points. Imperial Walkers beaten by snaring their legs. Star Destroyers are vulnerable to blowing up the big ball shield generator on top of them.

It really feels like that's how battles are won in Star Wars.

[Crissa]

The Clone Wars series on tv now is better than the prequel trilogy.

-Crissa

[Sock Puppet]

When the hell did Anakin have a sibling? Why should Lukes "aunt and uncle" even be related to him at all? Yeah, from the summaries his mother got bought and married but with no mention of any later children before she got killed. And even if she had another child, why would they bother to take in Luke?

Seriously, Luke and Leia could have been adopted by pretty much anyone. So, if Vader has no links any more with Tattooine then its entirely reasonable for Luke to be hidden away somewhere Vader tries to forget about.

This is a pretty minor point in the grand scheme, but Luke's "Uncle Owen" was Anakin's step-brother, and not another child of Shmi. Owen was the son of the one-legged dude (Cliegg?) who freed and married Shmi. How anyone would know that, however, is beyond me, seeing as the only two people who met them in the prequels were Anakin and Padme. So, apparently, Obi-Wan goes to The Big Book of Shit That Doesn't Even Exist, pulls out the marriage license between Shmi Skywalker and Cliegg Lars, and decides that the best place to hide Luke is with his actual family. Instead of some random family, as they did with Leia. I thought the whole point of Tatooine was that it was some random backwater at the ass end of the galaxy, not the most central location of All Converging Plot Points. Even the new Clone Wars cartoons have been trying to inflate Jabba's importance as a player in the galactic economy.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm wondering if anyone out there could summarize RedLetterMedia's points about the Star Wars series?

I'd watch the video myself but the random references to killing women are really sickening and distracting so I can't bring myself to do so.

[Maxus]

Even the new Clone Wars cartoons have been trying to inflate Jabba's importance as a player in the galactic economy.

To be fair, the Star Wars media have always portrayed Jabba as one of the big-time players in the underworld, and had been for a couple of hundred years or so.

But the Star Wars media does a lot of that. Evidently the Millenium Falcon's ship class is considered the holy grail of ships for smugglers and traders, desireable above all other because it was easily customized and modified.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well one may easily really call that a trope of the Star Wars universe. Effectively most of the Empire's technology is beaten by weak points. Both death stars blown up by firing at weak points. Imperial Walkers beaten by snaring their legs. Star Destroyers are vulnerable to blowing up the big ball shield generator on top of them.

It really feels like that's how battles are won in Star Wars.

This setup makes sense for the original trilogy since the rebels are so badly outgunned, but why keep it for the prequel trilogy?

It's exciting to see a plucky young rebel poke a massive weakness spot for massive damage the first couple of times, but if it keeps repeatedly happening it just draws attention to the fact and destroys your suspension of disbelief.

We sort of had a weaksauce attempt at big space battles in the first part of episode three and the clones at the 'climax' of episode two. But even excusing the fact that they're using the clones is stupid beyond all measurement it just feels perfunctory and asinine. It doesn't feel like a huge space battle between opposing forces in either case. It feels just like random skirmishes that involve hundreds of ships or hundreds of thousands of clone troopers. That's not very impressive for a movie that advertises itself of being a wide-scoping space opera.

[Username17]

I'm wondering if anyone out there could summarize RedLetterMedia's points about the Star Wars series?

I'd watch the video myself but the random references to killing women are really sickening and distracting so I can't bring myself to do so.

That's totally fair. It's a bad joke in poor taste that is completely unrelated to the subject matter and really detracts from the overall experience on several levels. It's actually the reason I don't link to it, even though he makes a bunch of solid points that are important for storytelling in any medium, although especially in the visual medium.

His big points are:

• Shallow Characters are Bad. His example is fucking brilliant: tell someone to describe a character from Star Wars without saying their name (or title), describing their appearance, or referencing their equipment. First do some easy ones like Han Solo or Darth Vader, and then really stump them by asking the same people to do characters who seem to have no strong or consistent motivations like Amidala or Quaigon.
• Cluttered Storytelling is Incomprehensible. He shows Lucas going on bout how he is going to have a bunch of different crescendos fuguing together at the end. And he shows how this is a continuation of Lucas' work from New Hope through Return of the Jedi, and how it culminates in the end of Phantom Menace being a disorderly mess where no one can follow anything or care about any of the action.
• Cluttered Frames Detract from Action. He busts out Lucas and company bragging about how they are going to do things bigger than anyone has ever done them before and fill every frame with a whole bunch of special effects and visuals. Then he shows a series of shots against ostensibly identical shots from other movies (whether Ridley Scott or even old school Star Wars movies), and demonstrates how the "bigger and betterer" shots are actually worse because they don't get the point across as much.

There are a number of great points very specific to the Prequel movies where he calls out plot inconsistencies, shitty dialog, and incredibly awful romance. But the big points are those above.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Sometimes I wonder if Deep Space Nine was the way that the prequel trilogy was supposed to go, that of a utopia being slowly corrupted by conflict and an unseen foe slowly but inexorably squeezing the idealism out.

If so, Lucas failed on multiple levels, the biggest one being that unlike Star Trek we don't actually have a reason to care about the world of Star Wars. In Star Trek we see tolerance and self-actualizing and people finally being freed from scarcity to the point where the most famous people in the setting are altruists and explorers. We actually CARE that the Dominion seems to be running the Federation ragged because the war seems to be making the lives of people we care about (and also that of extras and the secondary cast) worse in a real and tangible way.

In Star Wars we have planets that practice slavery a stone's throw away from where the conflict is taking place. And the hero faction of the story does not give a shit at all.

I'm not against black and white conflicts at all, it's just that people have been conditioned to think that setting them up in an interesting way is easy. It's a whole hell of a lot easier to write black/black, grey/grey, grey/black, and white/grey than it is to write black/white. There's already been noise on the boards, mostly from me, about how the prequel trilogy didn't make the villains in the prequel trilogy black enough. I think an equally big problem is not making the heroes white enough.

The original trilogy is light on the 'white' part, too, but they didn't go so far as to sketch the protagonists are morally sketchy--just not pure 'good'. Which is fine, because in the first two movies we got very clear hints about how evil the Empire is. From big ones like the Stormtroopers slaughtering Luke's family or blowing up Alderaan to smaller ones like Vader sneering at the destruction of Star Destroyers in an asteroid field, the villain cast is entertainingly and convincingly evil.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Cluttered Frames Detract from Action. He busts out Lucas and company bragging about how they are going to do things bigger than anyone has ever done them before and fill every frame with a whole bunch of special effects and visuals. Then he shows a series of shots against ostensibly identical shots from other movies (whether Ridley Scott or even old school Star Wars movies), and demonstrates how the "bigger and betterer" shots are actually worse because they don't get the point across as much.

Hear, hear! The opening to A New Hope has exactly two ships in it, but it is an immortal classic of cinema that resonates far more strongly than any of the fleet-on-fleet action that shows up later.

[Lago PARANOIA]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oma9uPz9YYk

FUCK I wish I could've been there when A New Hope first hit the theatres. I mean, damn, that scene still looks awesome even today.

Oh, well, there's always IMax. Assuming they use the originals and not that remastered crap.

[Maxus]

Yeah, I caught myself wondering "When the hell is that Star Destroyer going to be in the entire shot."

And it struck me what that much have been like on the big screen, if you were seeing it for the first time in 1977.

[Neeeek]

There's already been noise on the boards, mostly from me, about how the prequel trilogy didn't make the villains in the prequel trilogy black enough. I think an equally big problem is not making the heroes white enough.

The original trilogy is light on the 'white' part, too, but they didn't go so far as to sketch the protagonists are morally sketchy--just not pure 'good'. Which is fine, because in the first two movies we got very clear hints about how evil the Empire is. From big ones like the Stormtroopers slaughtering Luke's family or blowing up Alderaan to smaller ones like Vader sneering at the destruction of Star Destroyers in an asteroid field, the villain cast is entertainingly and convincingly evil.

Not to mention Vader's first scene, where he chokes a guy to death. That's the thing I always point to when comparing the originals and the prequels: Vader walks in and chokes a guy to death. To this day I've yet to figure out if Darth Maul ever did anything evil.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I was SOOO pissed with Darth Maul.

They really pushed him in the previews and promotional materials.

In the early parts of the movie, he was a silent hunter. A little cliche perhaps, but if done right he could be really terrifying.

Then he gets cut in half in the first movie.

They could have done something, but they didn't.

On a side note, a former roommate of mine tried to find the actor that played Darth Maul at a con and beat his ass but he had already left. He did win 2nd prize in a Lara Croft Look-Alike contest though. The idea was to beat his ass dressed like Lara Croft.

[Parthenon]

Wait, a guy dressed up as Lara Croft won 2nd prize? In a specifically Lara Croft competition? Were there only two people competing?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

The judging was by audience applause. He should have been #1 but the MC decided that a 350 pound man didn't deserve to win the contest if he didn't look like Lara Croft.

[Zinegata]

I'm of the opinion that the prequels would have been a lot better if they had started with Anakin already a Jedi and we're instead dropped at the start of the Clone Wars.

Gives a lot more room to do cool big war scenes and less opportunity for Lucas to make us watch the Godawful Padme-Anakin romance.

[Ganbare Gincun]

On a side note, a former roommate of mine tried to find the actor that played Darth Maul at a con and beat his ass but he had already left.

...why? And is your former roommate Sailor Bubba?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

On a side note, a former roommate of mine tried to find the actor that played Darth Maul at a con and beat his ass but he had already left.

...why? And is your former roommate Sailor Bubba?

Why is because the actor kept bitching about how episode 1 ruined his acting career. And he's not Sailor Bubba, but he's built like him.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Sounds like a major pill.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Sounds like a major pill.

He's actually an alright guy. He just likes to get kicked out of cons doing the most bizarre things he can think of.

I can't talk though. My friends had to physically restrain me at several points GenCon 2007 (I think?) because some dude was in the hotel lobby playing WoW and I wanted to grab a handful of melted chocolate from the chocolate fountain they had in the Omni lobby and throw it on his keyboard while screaming "FOR THE HORDE!" and running off. I was convinced not to do that because then they'd take away the chocolate fountain and everyone would be mad at me. Also I was staying at the omni.