Could the Star Wars prequel movies have been saved?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Here's my opinion.

The Phantom Menace: Yes, this one could have. Detailing the story about how the Republic has become corrupt enough so that outside forces begin to chip away at it is a fine enough story for a movie. I would have made the stakes larger (there should have been more to the movie than just Naboo's fate), explained Palpatine's plan better (it makes sense but the movie makes it needlessly complex), redone Anakin's appearance, and made the 'return of the Sith' plot more than it was. The Jedi shouldn't have just faced one Sith, they should have faced several. Also Anakin shouldn't have been a young boy, he should have been a highly-skilled boy with dreams of heroism and altruism but still deeply troubled.

Attack of the Clones: It could not have been saved. The underlying conspiracy of the movie was so stupid and unworkable that redoing this element to make it less insulting and more epic would've required a whole rewrite of the movie. The Separatists shouldn't have been part of the Republic to begin with; they should have been an invading force who senses weakness in the Republic. Which leads us to the third movie.

Revenge of the Sith: This movie could have been saved, too. The decaying Republic descends into a dictatorship and the Jedi order is crushed. The Jedi and Sith should have gone out in a blaze of glory fighting off the invaders; Anakin succumbs to the Dark Side in a desperate attempt to save the Republic and Padme, but bad juju happens and he ends up as Darth Vader. Then as the Republic contemplates their Pyrrhic victory Darth Vader and Padme crush the remaining Jedi and form the Empire.


While we're on the subject, there should have been more of an effort in the movies to make the Separatists evil with a capital E. George Lucas missed a great chance to up the threat level of the first movie by making the Naboo invasion seem neat and tidy. What we should have seen is the destruction of a peaceful Gungan city with depth charges and droids shooting unarmed Naboos in the back and committing carnage. Noot (who should have been a foreign invader, eliminating a lot of the plot holes) should have had his goons beating up and making more serious threats to the Queen. If a stop to Tattooine was inevitable--and I don't think that it should have been because it's a visually uninteresting planet, but whatever--we should have gotten a glimpse of how bad things were outside of the Republic. Whipped slaves, people getting attacked in the streets and screaming for help but no one to stop them, so on. That would have given us a great contrast of what the people in this movie stood to lose; if the Republic falls and these invaders will, all of the planets will resort to this kind of barbarism.

My other big general complaint about the movie... the Jedi just seemed too weak. Now the low-key powers of Luke/Ben/Yoda/Vader worked fine in the original trilogy, because the stuff that really made them kick ass wasn't their combat prowess but how the Force could be used to get them out of sticky situations.

Now that's all well and good, but the prequels apparently decided to downplay that part and focus more on the 'asskicking with laser swords' part. Which is also fine, but you really need to make the asskicking with laser swords part more pronounced. I can't tell you how disappointing it was to watch Kenobi and Jinn become outmatched by the Droidka. I mean, honestly, if two well-trained Jedi can be trumped by a few of these robots in combat and you mostly use the Jedi for combat, what's the damn point of having a Jedi armed force if there's only like a few thousand of them? The climax in Attack of the Clones was fucked up--the Jedi shouldn't have been outmatched by a few hundred droids, they should have been outmatched by like tens of thousands of them. This kind of thing makes the Jedi look useless.

[Kaelik]

So in other words, you think they should have completely torn up continuity even more than they did by making Anakin not come from Tattooine, destroyed the entire fucking Sith master/apprentice dynamic, and then had the movies end with Luke Skywalker's mother alive and fine, raising the little tykes to be asshole emperors, under the loving care of Darth Vader with Emperor Palpatine not even existing?

Yeah, that's... Really odd. And has nothing to do with the Star Wars movies that people actually like.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So in other words, you think they should have completely torn up continuity even more than they did by making Anakin not come from Tattooine,

In the original movies, when was it stated that Anakin came from Tattooine?

destroyed the entire fucking Sith master/apprentice dynamic,

In the original movies, when was it stated that there could only be two Sith?

and then had the movies end with Luke Skywalker's mother alive and fine, raising the little tykes to be asshole emperors, under the loving care of Darth Vader with Emperor Palpatine not even existing?

I never said any of that.

Yeah, that's... Really odd. And has nothing to do with the Star Wars movies that people actually like.

I thought people liked the Star Wars movies because it had whupass space battles, people fighting in futuristic environments with laser swords, and an easy-to-follow but still epic plot about good versus evil.

[traverse]

While we're on the subject, there should have been more of an effort in the movies to make the Separatists evil with a capital E.

(Used to like Star Wars, back when I used to like many things. But I'll still wax nerd over it.)

If there was one thing I liked about the prequels, it was the playing of good guys against each other. The Trade Ballyhooers may have joined up because they were greedy bastards, but the separatists still felt were they were doing was a good thing, a la any revolution. And the Trade guys wouldn't have shot up the city in any case. They were merchants underneath the 'Roger, Roger' radio calls. You don't blow up anything worth anything, or anyone who will be buying from you once this shindig is over. Thus the long blockade, and not a separatist death star.

But man, were they stupid merchants. And those accents. (Just got done watching the RiffTrax on all the Star Wars movies this weekend. Not their best, but still awesome.) Such weak, weak films.

Many fans of the movies have released fan edits of the prequels. Check out http://fanedit.org/. Though, it seems many fans' main want is to figure what they think the titles should have been.

[RandomCasualty2]

I agree that the invasion of Naboo should definitely have been made more evil looking.

Though I really do disagree on the whole Jedi awesome thing. The Jedi were portrayed about as good as they should have been. The whole point isn't that they can smash entire armies, but that they're a special forces unit with amazing abilities.

The plot in fact requires that they get killed by armies, whether clone armies or droid armies or whatever. The Jedi weren't really trained as a military unit, they were generally expected to act in pairs. So while master and apprentice probably worked together pretty well, having a bunch of jedi together isn't necessarily going to be a well oiled machine.

Also, you have to figure that the Jedi we see on the council and as the main characters are either Jedi masters or apprentices with great amount of potential. Not all the jedi confronting the droid army were nearly that good. So yeah you do get that shitty Jedi who failed to block a blaster shot and died.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If there was one thing I liked about the prequels, it was the playing of good guys against each other. The Trade Ballyhooers may have joined up because they were greedy bastards, but the separatists still felt were they were doing was a good thing, a la any revolution. And the Trade guys wouldn't have shot up the city in any case. They were merchants underneath the 'Roger, Roger' radio calls. You don't blow up anything worth anything, or anyone who will be buying from you once this shindig is over. Thus the long blockade, and not a separatist death star.

... weren't the separatists going to build a death star anyway?

But anyway, putting shades of grey into a conflict is all well and good. I think it would even work for this movie, to retroactively deconstruct the Jedi's nobility and whatnot.

The problem is that I don't think that George Lucas was trying to introduce shades of grey into the conflict. You were still clearly supposed to root 100% for the Jedi Order and not feel a twinge of anything other than satisfaction for when the Trade Federation/Separatists got their just desserts. If the movie really wanted to go that route they should've spent more time detailing what the Separatists wanted, their grievances, and how things would be different if they had won. For example, the Separatists could have been angry that the Jedi didn't do anything about slavery in planets such as Tattooine and could also be upset at the human-bias in their government.

But if you want a clear Black vs. White conflict, like the movies clearly wanted with Star Wars ep. I-III, the differences between the two sides should have been played up. Because the plot of the movie is also that the Republic is decaying/corrupt but still ultimately the best option the only way you could do this is by playing up the evil of the Separatist movement.

Though I really do disagree on the whole Jedi awesome thing. The Jedi were portrayed about as good as they should have been. The whole point isn't that they can smash entire armies, but that they're a special forces unit with amazing abilities.

I agree that the special forces angle could have worked as well. We don't see Kenobi take on more than a few people at a time and the movie still convinced us of his awesomeness

There are just two problems with that idea with the original trilogy:

1) We don't actually get to see the Jedi accomplish great things with their more subtle abilities in the original prequel trilogy. All we get to see them do is kick ass with swords--we don't even, sadly, get to see Jedi kick ass in their spaceships.

2) There's also the sense of scale. If the Jedi are valued in the original movies mostly for their asskicking, how is an order of a thousand Jedi with elite but not superhero-level asskicking supposed to influence things? Remember, the Jedi have enough clout to get a clone army commissioned. Furthermore, the original trilogy would have us believe that the collapse of the Jedi pretty much made the collapse of the old government inevitable. If they're just special forces then a serious military body in their own right, then why would the first lead to the second? The United States for example would not collapse if all of the Green Berets/Navy SEALs, etc. all up and died from a heart-attack. Yes, the US's asskicking ability would be curtailed but we would still be in business.

[traverse]

But if you want a clear Black vs. White conflict, like the movies clearly wanted with Star Wars ep. I-III, the differences between the two sides should have been played up.

I completely agree. I've always thought the viewpoint of the separatists should have been played up earlier, and more often. It's like he got down the initial ideas for all the separatists characters, and then just figured out how they'd die. And I am not going to watch that Clone Wars show. I watched one episode, in full. Horrible stuff.

Maybe if Lucas hadn't have been so fixated on Skywalker, the prequels could have made more sense.

And on the Jedi and looking cool: If I could give the guys over at Bioware the rights to remake every film, making sure to include scenes like in the trailer for the new MMO, I could die pleased.

... weren't the separatists going to build a death star anyway?

Yeah, but the fact of the matter is that they were being led by a sith apprentice. One can assume that a large majority of the separatists had no idea how far the balance on power would shift, depending on who won. They just wanted an end to the injustices of the senate.

There's also the sense of scale. If the Jedi are valued in the original movies mostly for their asskicking, how is an order of a thousand Jedi with elite but not superhero-level asskicking supposed to influence things?

For that, you have to recall just how long the order has been around in the expanded universe, post 1970s. The idea of the order was expounded upon after the original movies to the crazy awesome, long running thing it is in the prequels. And all of their most awesome events occur long before the time of the prequels, so now they're just riding on the threat of 'We're still powerful, stay in line'.

[RandomCasualty2]

1) We don't actually get to see the Jedi accomplish great things with their more subtle abilities in the original prequel trilogy. All we get to see them do is kick ass with swords--we don't even, sadly, get to see Jedi kick ass in their spaceships.

Well I mean understandable in the first movie, where you're dealing with a droid army that can't be jedi mind tricked. Later on though, they really should have showcased their other abilities and done more of a commando stealth style mission rather than just going in there and kicking ass.

2) There's also the sense of scale. If the Jedi are valued in the original movies mostly for their asskicking, how is an order of a thousand Jedi with elite but not superhero-level asskicking supposed to influence things?

Well the Jedi are more a support role. Remember they have abilities to sense stuff, so they have some basic divination abilities (the Sith can fuck this up, but otherwise we figure they're great at giving advice). As far as actual combat abilities, we figure that mostly like any special Ops team, the Jedi try to take out the leader of an army or at least some major special hardware. When you need the death star or the droid command ship blown up or some other amazing feat, you call in a Jedi.

Lets also remember that the republic didn't really have much of a military up until the clone army, so the Jedi basically formed the back bone of their operations. It's almost like having a very small army and relying mostly on Green Berets and SEALs to handle your operations. I got the feeling the Republic was stupidly idealistic, given that they didn't have any kind of real military presence to deal with the Separatists. So they relied on the Jedi to keep the peace and prevent any major battles from breaking out that would require a huge fleet.

I saw it more as a Splinter Cell concept, where they sent in highly trained agents to deal with small problems before they became a bigger threat. Mainly to prevent war, rather than to win wars.

[Kaelik]

In the original movies, when was it stated that Anakin came from Tattooine?

1) Uncle Owen didn't fly in from Coruscant to start a moisture farm.

2) It's not just the movies. There is a great deal of background content that is explicitly stated in novelizations and expanded universe material from years before the prequels.

3) Almost certainly more stuff that I'm not remembering.

In the original movies, when was it stated that there could only be two Sith?

2) See 2 above.

1) You mean how their were two of them? And how Vaders plan was to kill the Emperor and set up a rule of two, and the Emperor's plan was to kill Vader or Luke and maintain a rule of two?

I never said any of that.

Then as the Republic contemplates their Pyrrhic victory Darth Vader and Padme crush the remaining Jedi and form the Empire.

Umm... Yeah you did. If Padme lives just fine and she and Darth Vader rule the galaxy, the whole "Moms dead, I hid you from father" thing goes out the window.

I thought people liked the Star Wars movies because it had whupass space battles, people fighting in futuristic environments with laser swords, and an easy-to-follow but still epic plot about good versus evil.

Yeah, Star Wars fans, you know, the driving force behind your profit margins, have never been sticklers for continuity or expanded universe stuff. No, just make it for the everyman, you don't need repeat business or the movies to even end in such a situation that the original's logically follow.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well I mean understandable in the first movie, where you're dealing with a droid army that can't be jedi mind tricked. Later on though, they really should have showcased their other abilities and done more of a commando stealth style mission rather than just going in there and kicking ass.

I agree with your conclusion, not with the direction. I think that if you don't want to show Jedi being able to take on hundreds of droids in personal combat then the average droid should be able to Jedi mind trick and have a bunch of their other little stuff work.

That way, you could have stuff like, say, infiltration of a droid control base by a handful of Jedi and actually make it plausible. The Jedi would have been able to just waltz in and do whatever they wanted to and you'd need people like Sith/Stormtroopers/whatever to defend it. It would then be like Metal Gear--Solid Snake as one man can still do what he needs to do but he can't do it however he would have liked. Solid Snake used mostly luck and bad AI of the game to do this. The Jedi, being Jedi, will have to use their Force stuff so that means things like Jedi mind tricks need to word. Which means that how they win the plot can't be replicated by one really skilled guy.

Otherwise you have audiences going 'wow, that's nice and all, but why did they need a Jedi for that' rather than them going 'wow, good things the Jedi are on the good guy side'.

Well the Jedi are more a support role. Remember they have abilities to sense stuff, so they have some basic divination abilities (the Sith can fuck this up, but otherwise we figure they're great at giving advice). As far as actual combat abilities, we figure that mostly like any special Ops team, the Jedi try to take out the leader of an army or at least some major special hardware. When you need the death star or the droid command ship blown up or some other amazing feat, you call in a Jedi.

Sure, that works, but if you do that you have the situation that I described earlier.

I mean, imagine if someone pitched a movie idea like this: The United States collapses into anarchy after all of the Special OPs up and dies. They'd get laughed out of the meeting room.

Lets also remember that the republic didn't really have much of a military up until the clone army, so the Jedi basically formed the back bone of their operations.

And that bit of plot-contrived stupidity is exactly why the plot of the second movie is IMHO completely unworkable and needs to be scrapped altogether. A thousand-order Jedi where its members are unable to take upon hundreds of droids per Jedi actually forming the backbone of an interplanetary army has way too many problems to work with.

[Lago PARANOIA]

1) Uncle Owen didn't fly in from Coruscant to start a moisture farm.

2) It's not just the movies. There is a great deal of background content that is explicitly stated in novelizations and expanded universe material from years before the prequels.

1R) You don't need a particularly grand reason for this. Darth Vader was hunting down his family members so Owen retired to a small moisture farm in the asshole of the galaxy to hide from him.

2R) That's great, but if it's not in the movies I don't care.

1) You mean how their were two of them? And how Vaders plan was to kill the Emperor and set up a rule of two, and the Emperor's plan was to kill Vader or Luke and maintain a rule of two?

I didn't think it was any particular rule. I think it's just an inevitable side effect of 'your former-Jedi master tells you to use your Jedi abilities to hunt and kill all of the other Jedi'. If you actually succeed in this then I would only expect there to be two former-Jedi.

Umm... Yeah you did. If Padme lives just fine and she and Darth Vader rule the galaxy, the whole "Moms dead, I hid you from father" thing goes out the window.

Oh, whoops. I meant to say Darth Vader and Palpatine. Slip of the tongue, there.

Yeah, Star Wars fans, you know, the driving force behind your profit margins, have never been sticklers for continuity or expanded universe stuff. No, just make it for the everyman, you don't need repeat business or the movies to even end in such a situation that the original's logically follow.

Okay, here's a simple experiment for you.

Gather a hundred Americans. Not nerds, just a hundred Americans at random.

Ask how many of them watched the original trilogy and liked it. Many, if not most hands should go up.

Now ask thow many of them are familiar with the expanded universe-exclusive continuity beyond 'I watched Gennedy Tartoskvy's Clone Wars cartoon'. I'd be surprised if you got 5 hands.

Now I'm not saying that a new prequel trilogy just has to piss all over the EU stuff, just that if there's a conflict between something that will appeal to the other 70 or so people but will alienate the 5 and something that will appeal to the 5 but might leave the 70 or so out in the cold... yeah.

[Username17]

Actually, since they had specifically taken Luke to Tatooine to hide him from Vader, Tatooine is literally the only planet in the entire fucking universe that Vader could not have come from. He could even have come from Dagoba. Or Naboo. Or Coruscant. Fucking anywhere in the entire galaxy. Except Tatooine. Him coming from Tatooine makes a whole lot of scenes in New Hope be completely incomprehensible.

"I wonder where my brother is. Maybe he is in his house? Perhaps I should fucking try that sometime in the next eighteen years?"

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Regarding the multiple-Sith thing...

One of the (sadly understated) theme of the Phantom Menace was that with Darth Maul's appearance it signals a return to the Dark Days and foreshadows Great Conflict.

That's great and all, but how can you have these things with just one guy? There are thousands of Jedi, there is just one of Darth Maul. Two Jedis were able to take on Darth Maul. So why is the return of the Sith supposed to be scary? You guys took out one of them just fine and all that means is that there is going to be another one.

Not only does this not make any sense from just a logistics standpoint, how in the world is one evil Jedi facing thousands of good Jedi supposed to be scary? Darth Vader pretty much defined badass, but part of his badassery was that he's supposed to be one-of-a-kind and that no one can really challenge him. If in the original trilogy there was a team of a hundred other Jedi with the skills of even Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader's threat value as a fallen jedi goes down.

The prequel trilogy needed to completely scrap the dumbass 'only two Sith' idea. Count Dooku and Palpatine weren't scary because they were the face of a force that could evenly match the Jedi at what they were best at--they were scary because they were able to exert huge amounts of political and military manipulation. Which means that we did not need for these roles to be filled by Sith. Any Tom, Dick, and Harry could have served this purpose for the plot.

There was absolutely no reason why the prequel trilogy should have abandoned the idea of a large and powerful Sith force threatening to wipe out the Jedi because there could only be two of said Sith. This would have provided drama and action. Why George Lucas decided to forgo this opportunity begs explanation.

[Orion]

Do the original movies really portray a direct link between the extermination to the Jedi and the collapse of the Old Republic? That would be a good trick considering that the Republic never fell. There's still senate meetings going on up until episode four itself. The separatists lose and the state never fails. Power just changes hands.

If you look at the prequel trilogy, I don't think the implication, such that it's coherent at all, is that the military might of the Jedi is needed to keep the Republic going. The Clone army not only wins the field for the Republic, but it apparently powerful enough to police the Empire, which is substnatially more invasive. Oh yeah, and the Clone army totally KILLS OFF THE JEDI ORDER.

So no, the Jedi order was not the military or political strength of the Republic's regime, at least after the Clone Army is obtained. What they were supposed to be is it's moral center. The Jedi are the only ones with the perception to identify the Emperor's true nature or the ability to assassinate him. THAT'S why the fall of the Jedi makes Empire inevitable.

Fuck, I'd argue the Jedi can't EVER have had much to do with the functioning of the state, or the Empire wouldn't have been able to suppress information about them so effectively.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Do the original movies really portray a direct link between the extermination to the Jedi and the collapse of the Old Republic? That would be a good trick considering that the Republic never fell. There's still senate meetings going on up until episode four itself. The separatists lose and the state never fails. Power just changes hands.

Fuck, I'd argue the Jedi can't EVER have had much to do with the functioning of the state, or the Empire wouldn't have been able to suppress information about them so effectively.

Yeah, Palpatine becomes dictator-for-life or some shit.

I do think that the franchise implied that the Jedi could have been able to stop the Empire from forming if it was happening while they were around. Which necessitated the Jedi being stabbed in the back and hunted down.

Which is just another plothole that the prequel trilogy has to answer for; if the Jedi weren't wiped out, what the fuck were they going to do about Emperor Palpatine being democratically elected dictator-for-life? This isn't like the subversion of the Weimar Republic where Palpatine abused weaknesses in the democracy to force a dictatorship, the Senate actually wanted him in place. So what then?

Whatever. The point is, the original trilogy implied that Things Would Be Better if the Jedi were at full strength again. Which means that the Jedi actually needed to be a significant military force of some kind in the past. And since the conflict of Star Wars is (as you would expect) interplanetary, the Jedi either need to be able to open up a can of whupass to the tune of One Jedi > 200 droids and/or the Jedi Order needed to be much larger than it was.

I mean, if they weren't that big of a deal, then what the fuck difference would it have made if the Jedi were still around? There's still a thousand impotent Jedi--great, we have a billion Star Troopers. Whooptee shit.

So no, the Jedi order was not the military or political strength of the Republic's regime, at least after the Clone Army is obtained. What they were supposed to be is it's moral center. The Jedi are the only ones with the perception to identify the Emperor's true nature or the ability to assassinate him. THAT'S why the fall of the Jedi makes Empire inevitable.

But that's dumb. That requires everyone else in the Republic to be utter retards (which is why the crowning of Palpatine was so idiotic) and all of the assassins to be incompetent. And since this is a universe that gave birth to badasses like Boba Fett, I just ain't buying it.

[Maxus]

I've read a good bit of the EU; I'll admit to a low-level irk that so much stuff got ignored and required the authors to add some stuff to their latest works. I mean, I read of Salvatore's response to the fan criticism of Vector Prime, and how he said that, yes, all the Star Wars stuff is heavily edited and detailed how an editor called to chew him out because he had Han, Chewie, and Anakin upgrading some of the guns on the Millennium Falcon, and he said the woman kept telling him, "Don't. Mess. With. Perfection."

So if the stuff is that heavily scrutinized, why didn't they have some kind of guide to go by? I mean, I can understand that Lucas didn't have the fine details down back in the early 1990's, but you'd think he'd have SOME idea of what happened and would be able to let people know in general terms when stuff happened or why the Clone Wars were called the Clone Wars.

Now, part of my problem with the prequels is how some people just got...Well...wussied up.

I've said it before; the General Grievous vs. Obi-Wan fight was complete shit and I am not exaggerating in the least when I say I had to clench my mouth shut to keep from berating Grievous on the idiocy of having multiple sabers but only using one at a time or using them in patterns.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So if the stuff is that heavily scrutinized, why didn't they have some kind of guide to go by? I mean, I can understand that Lucas didn't have the fine details down back in the early 1990's, but you'd think he'd have SOME idea of what happened and would be able to let people know in general terms when stuff happened or why the Clone Wars were called the Clone Wars.

I understand people getting upset at the prequel trilogy's half-assing it towards the EU. Example: the prequels kept referring to the Sith and a great conflict in the past yet never told us what a Sith was or what the conflict was about. It's not really hard to get the gist of it and since the Sith are so poorly integrated into the plot it doesn't really matter, but even so...

Lucas should have either been resigned to lower profits/reach/awesomeness and made an EU-compatible prequel trilogy while telling the general audience to 'get over it' (something the TNG movies did) or he should have just given the EU the finger and made the best movie he can compatible with the original trilogy.

[Kaelik]

2R) That's great, but if it's not in the movies I don't care.

...

Okay, here's a simple experiment for you.

Gather a hundred Americans. Not nerds, just a hundred Americans at random.

Ask how many of them watched the original trilogy and liked it. Many, if not most hands should go up.

Now ask thow many of them are familiar with the expanded universe-exclusive continuity beyond 'I watched Gennedy Tartoskvy's Clone Wars cartoon'. I'd be surprised if you got 5 hands.

Now I'm not saying that a new prequel trilogy just has to piss all over the EU stuff, just that if there's a conflict between something that will appeal to the other 70 or so people but will alienate the 5 and something that will appeal to the 5 but might leave the 70 or so out in the cold... yeah.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that average people determine the success of Star Wars. The reason Star Wars released eight different versions of the original movies, is because of people who read the Expanded Universe.

The reason the new movies were made at all is because Star Wars fans kept it busy making money.

The reason half the new movies are widely viewed as terrible is because a bunch of people who walked into the theater and enjoyed the movies in a general sense are just plain less important than the people who make up 99% of DVD sales, and who actually write reviews of the movie and tell their friends.

Half of those 70 people take their opinion from the five.

Advocating a movie that explicitly ignores continuity of the Star Wars universe is a bad idea, and is one of the main reasons the prequels are regarded as bad.

[Username17]

You grossly overestimate the value and impact of the Expanded Universe and its fans. The Phantom Menace is viewed as terrible because it is a shitty movie that wanders all over the place, has no coherent plot, and gives no motivations for any of the characters.

No one gives a shit if it was a bad fit for some paperback novel's description. People are pissed because:

• It sucked.
• It didn't fit well with the original trilogy.

Set against awesome backdrops, the characters in "The Phantom Menace" inhabit a plot that is little more complex than the stories I grew up on in science-fiction magazines. The whole series sometimes feel like a cover from Thrilling Wonder Stories, come to life. The dialogue is pretty flat and straightforward, although seasoned with a little quasi-classical formality, as if the characters had read but not retained "Julius Caesar." I wish the "Star Wars" characters spoke with more elegance and wit (as Gore Vidal's Greeks and Romans do), but dialogue isn't the point, anyway: These movies are about new things to look at.

That is why people think the new trilogy sucks. It's pretty to look at, but the plot and characters are flat and dumb. In the world of modern special effects, being pretty to look at is no longer enough. So the movie blows.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

I agree with your conclusion, not with the direction. I think that if you don't want to show Jedi being able to take on hundreds of droids in personal combat then the average droid should be able to Jedi mind trick and have a bunch of their other little stuff work.

Even if you can't mind trick them, there's plenty of other stuff they can do. Like use force telekinesis to pull out droid connectors or something similar to deactivate them stealthily.

Not to mention by default Jedi are pretty good for stealth just because of their precognition and sensing abilities. I mean if you can sense people that are in the next room, it makes it much easier to avoid being detected.

Lightsabers are also a relatively quiet weapon, and can also be used to cut holes through walls to easily make new points of entry. There's plenty of reasons why the Jedi would make excellent stealth operatives.

I mean, imagine if someone pitched a movie idea like this: The United States collapses into anarchy after all of the Special OPs up and dies. They'd get laughed out of the meeting room.

Well only because the US doesn't really rely on its special Ops team for everything. We have a large military. The republic was apparently in crisis when they learned about the Separatists. So much so they had to create this new clone army.

Now assuming they trust the jedi's sensing power, this might work, where they figure that the Jedi will sense any kind of enemy fleet being put together and give them equal time to build a counter fleet, or just sabotage the construction of the enemy ships. But in any case, they've basically put all their eggs in one basket. I mean literally when the whole Separatist thing hit them, they had no base contingency plan at all.

Now I mean that's a horrible system of government if you ask me, having no kind of effective military and needing drastic measures if war breaks out, but apparently that was the system they were living under. It wasn't so much that the jedi were needed, so much as that they were overly relied upon. But that's more a flaw of the Republic's set up rather than any inherent feature of the Jedi themselves. They could have just as easily relied on a fleet of Star Destroyers like the Empire did. It's just that for whatever reason they didn't.

From a logistics standpoint, the jedi are very cost effective. It in fact costs very little to maintain them, compared to a full military, so all I can really think of is that there were times of peace and some penny pinchers in the Republic decided to cut military spending by using the Jedi.

[Maxus]

I got the impression that the Republic and the Jedi were sort of complacent because there had been an extended period of peace. The Jedi kept up the lightsaber training out of habit and tradition, not because they were expected to actually use it often or in a life-or-death situation (that's one thing the prequels and EU agree on; Jedi seem to have been prime negotiators).

So compare the wimpy, latest generation of Jedi who get killed by mass blaster fire, and the old-school Jedi like Yoda who can damn well fuck your ass up using a combination of athletics and the Force and a handheld energy chainsaw because at some point he probably had to learn how to do that, or die. The fact of his continued existence is proof he learned it well.

Also, I know Palpatine engineered the Clone Wars to take power--spending years of effort to get public support on his side and get everyone trusting him. And I saw something, somewhere, saying he could have thrown soldiers at the infant Rebellion until its leaders were killed, but he let it grow up and gain momentum so it'd be that much more of a demoralizing example to the galaxy when he used the Death Star on them.

[Orion]

LAGO,

I know the EU never portrayed them this way at all, but there's a much more reasonable way for Jedi to be relevant than being an actual military power. They can have been priests and spiritual leaders who would have been capable of turning public opinion against Palpatine and mobilizing the revolutionary forces. Considering that the actual rebels of the original are organized around the remnants of Jedi religion and lead by the remaining Jedi, that seems like a not-unreasonable stance to take.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Now I mean that's a horrible system of government if you ask me, having no kind of effective military and needing drastic measures if war breaks out, but apparently that was the system they were living under. It wasn't so much that the jedi were needed, so much as that they were overly relied upon.

I got the impression that the Republic and the Jedi were sort of complacent because there had been an extended period of peace. The Jedi kept up the lightsaber training out of habit and tradition, not because they were expected to actually use it often or in a life-or-death situation (that's one thing the prequels and EU agree on; Jedi seem to have been prime negotiators).

And this is why the underlying plot of episode II is completely unworkable.

It relies on several monumentally stupid plot devices.

1) That the Republic is incapable of manufacturing droids for itself, too, even though the Republic is larger than the Separatists (look at Count Dooku's meeting, then compare the Senate's meeting).

2) The addition of clones from one planet is enough to turn the tide in a conflict in a war between sides that have hundreds of planets. This is actually important, because if the clones didn't comprise the backbone of the Republic army to begin with Order 66 would have been a complete wash.

3) That the Republic had no standing army in the first place. Even though in the real world right now we have countries like Mexico and Switzerland who have armies. And they got people backing them up. The Republic, even before the Separatists attacked, had planets that lied outside the Republic. If you take Clone Wars as canon then they have assholes like Jabba the Hutt running around who have enough mojo to block trade routes.

4) That the Republic was unable to raise their own fucking army in the span of a few months. What the fuck? The United States was able to raise and equip an army in World War I and World War II. Not a militia, a professional army.

5) Palpatine's plan involved manufacturing a crisis so that the Senate would vote him emergency powers in order to approve a clone army. But that's retarded. If the reason why the Senate gave Palpatine emergency powers was to approve the clone army... WHY DIDN'T THEY APPROVE THE CLONE ARMY THEMSELVES?!

6) The entire plot of the second movie required Jedi to stumble upon the Clone Army conspiracy, otherwise Palpatine couldn't have set his plan into motion. Ignoring the fact that the Jedi wouldn't have found the planet in the first place except by a degree of luck/incompetence on Jango's plot, this plot needs the Jedi to investigate and uncover a conspiracy and then completely forget the fact that there ever was a conspiracy.

The best explanation I've heard for number 6 is that the Republic was forced to use the army even though it was an obvious conspiracy because it's all that had. Again ignoring the fact that this plot point was never brought up in the movie--because the betrayal of the clone army had to come about as a total surprise in the third--it only magnifies the stupidity of the earlier plot points. The only choices of the Republic were to surrender or keep fighting for a year and then get stabbed in the back? Really?

8) From a spectacle standpoint, this is extremely unsatisfying. This movie is called STAR WARS. I don't give a shit about a bunch of Stormtroopers fighting. I got my fill of this in the original trilogy. I want to see alien races duking it out in all kinds of weird and crazy ships. These are only a few years before the Republic collapses and the Empire takes over, so why are we forgoing the opportunity to see the last hurrah of the free races so we can see a proxy army fight in their place?



So yeah. The second movie needs to be completely scrapped. It relies on idiocy stacked upon contrivances. There is no way to make this film work and Star Wars Episode II should create a screenplay that's less insulting.

Considering that the second movie also contained a very insipid romance story and a very disappointing intro to Anakin's character and a racist and insulting fall to the dark side, there's nothing salvageable about this movie. It taints the next movie in line with its stupidity and is nothing but intelligence-insulting tripe and missed opportunities.

Attack of the Clones is the Chrono Cross of the Star Wars continuity.

[Lago PARANOIA]

LAGO,

I know the EU never portrayed them this way at all, but there's a much more reasonable way for Jedi to be relevant than being an actual military power. They can have been priests and spiritual leaders who would have been capable of turning public opinion against Palpatine and mobilizing the revolutionary forces. Considering that the actual rebels of the original are organized around the remnants of Jedi religion and lead by the remaining Jedi, that seems like a not-unreasonable stance to take.

That's actually a pretty good idea. I like it!

It'd make Darth Vader and Palpatine's quest to stamp out the Jedi more meaningful. They weren't just taking out a military arm, they were also stamping out a philosophy that was anathema to their Empire. So after 18 years or so the religion is almost dead but there's still embers of it around.

The prequel movies would have had to get rid of the idea of Jedis being this racially-exclusive rank and have been the default religion of the Republic; being a Jedi was just a step up in the organization but the entire idea was that anyone could be enlightened. It'd add an element of spirituality to the prequel trilogies, too, that they were lacking--which is inexcusable given the huge role it plays in the original.

It would require getting rid of midichlorians, probably the best thought-out and audience-pleasing plot point in the prequel trilogy, but that's a risk I am willing to take.

[Username17]

There are clearly armies in the Republic even if the Republic doesn't have an army itself. Fuck, Naboo has an army of its own even if it sucks. It doesn't strike me as unbelievable that the interplanetary republic leaves defense concerns to each planet individually, especially if it has been around long enough that flying from one planet to another was a matter of months or years rather than days.

But yeah, he whole thing with the clones was incomprehensible. The numbers just weren't there and the entire secret approval thing turned out to be totally pointless.

-Username17