At some point in my dream, the two Jedi are traveling aboard a starship or are aboard a space station in the vicinity of Tattooine. They're then personally assailed by a bunch of guys wearing armor similar to Boba Fett's, except that it was a different color (blue?). In their fight against them, some guy helps them out and he turns out to be Anakin Skywalker, whom Obi-Wan senses is strong in the Force, despite his being a lowly navigator from Tattooine, the very planet they're going to. Obi-Wan asks Anakin to act as his guide, since he's never been to Tattooine and having a friendly local in his company would be useful. Vader counsels against this course of action, but Obi-Wan rebuffs him and we see Vader begin to seethe with resentment against Skywalker.
And that's most of what I remember. What's interesting to me is that what I remember of the dream appears to be a composite of events from the actual Episode I and events from issue #24 of the Marvel Star Wars comic. Like most dreams, it's not filled with original ideas so much as reworkings of ideas from other places, although, in this case, if I do say so myself, it's actually pretty clever. What impresses me about it in retrospect is how many little details from the 1977 film -- details the prequel films either ignored or forgot -- were worked into it, like Skywalker's being a "navigator on a spice freighter" and Darth Vader's being a separate character from Luke's father. I also vaguely recall there being a "scene" in my dream in which Anakin's brother, Owen, argues with him about helping Obi-Wan, saying something about how "the Clone Wars don't concern us here on Tattooine."
As I've said before, I've don't hate the Star Wars prequels the way that some fans do. I even think there are a lot of solid ideas in them (and my dream self would seem to agree). What bugs me most about them is how many things established in the original trilogy they either outright ignore or twist into such knots as to be unrecognizable. I mean, Star Wars -- Episode IV in Lucas speak -- establishes very few specific details about Luke's father or about Obi-Wan's younger days. Even assuming that, as Lucas developed it, Obi-Wan was shielding Luke from the truth in his conversations, there are too many discontinuities with what we see in the prequels for it to hang together as well as it should have or indeed could have, had a little more effort been made to do so.
I take it this dream is assuming the pre-Empire belief that Darth Vader killed Anakin? Or is there any chance that your mind was interpreting that there was a /different/ Darth Vader, one whom Anakin killed and then took the place of, much like with Luke's prophetic battle with Vader in Dagoba?
ReplyDeleteIn tomorrow night's dreams, a tubby, bearded Californian will appear to you and serve you with a lawsuit for subconscious copyright violation.
ReplyDeleteThis is continuing to be a very intriguing idea for me: Darth Vader being a title or role rather than an actual person, which would make Obi-wan's "lie" about Darth Vader killing Anakin much more believable. From Obi-wan's perspective the being known as Anakin really was dead, devoured by the entity known as 'Darth Vader'.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure -- well, as sure as I can be in a dream -- that I was assuming Vader and Anakin to always and forever be separate people.
ReplyDeleteThe one line that stands out in Star Wars for me is Vader's line to Obi-wan when they first meet in the Death Star corridor. Vader- "When I left you I was but the learner, Now I am the master." It doesn't work with the events as depicted in episode 3.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a campaign I'd love to run/play in!
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of little lines in the original film that just don't square with what we see in the prequels, unless one is willing to accept that nearly everything Obi-Wan says to Luke about his father is wholly a lie. My growing feeling is that the original trilogy, taken on its own, points to a different prequel trilogy than we got, just as the prequel trilogy, on its own, points to a very different series of follow-up films than the originals.
ReplyDelete(The line for me that bugs me is Ben's suggestion that Owen "didn't hold with your father's ideals" and that he was worried Luke would follow him "on some damned fool idealistic crusade, like your father did." I find those lines very hard to square with the prequels.)
while I tend to agree with you James, I have to admit that Obi-Wan is a "complicated" character. For instance, it's clear that he'd realized that Luke's Aunt and Uncle were in danger much before Luke had. Did he realize it much sooner, back when they were chatting about the force at his house in the hills? And decide to allow the tragedy so that Luke would follow him? If so, I think that he'd be capable of telling some "justified lies" about Luke's parentage.
ReplyDeleteAnd decide to allow the tragedy so that Luke would follow him?
ReplyDeleteI certainly hope not! That makes him a very sinister character in my mind and not at all like I imagined him to be in my youth.
The prequels were horrible, horrible films on almost every level. Not just for the continuity crap, but everything from much of the casting (Hayden as young Darth is still baffling me), the lack of decent new music, lazy writing, the direction of many of the actions scenes, the paths taken with certain characters (Grevious was meant to be frightening, but was reduced to a wheezing cyborg clown with a bad Dracula accent)the continuation of the Muppetification of the universe, and on and on and on. From early on Lucas was worried about what authors and comic book writers of the expanded universe were doing with his works. But in the end, it was Lucas himself who was the real danger. The kind of pathos and irony usually only found in movies.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day we thought "well, at least it'll never get worse than Ewoks."
Then along came Jar Jar.
I think Obi-Wan remains my *favorite* character. But I don't think I have anything to refute my own "revisionist" view. Sinister is the right word, too! In his defense, however, he also sacraficed himself, and for the same reason-- to protect Luke and Luke's destiny to restore order to the force.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we need to expand the alignment chart some more?
I agree with Brunomac 100%.
ReplyDeleteMy co-worker and I have conversations about how much lack of continutuy is between I-III and IV-VI.
It makes one wonder if Lucas watched his own films BEFORE he started makeing Ep I-III.
BTW, HAN SHOT FIRST!
I like the idea that Luke is indeed Vader's son and is a Skywalker by adoption.
ReplyDeleteJames Maliszewski said...
ReplyDelete"There are a lot of little lines in the original film that just don't square with what we see in the prequels"
Yeah, my favorite one is when Obi-Wan says, "I don't remember ever owning a droid." Considering how much time they spent together in the prequels, you wonder how he could have forgot him.
I had a Starwars dream way back before Episode 1 came out. For some reason the Jedi Citadel is infact a capital ship that has launched to orbit because the emperor has siezed control. Anakin (a better looking Anakin) is arguing with yoda over leaving the woman he loves behind.
ReplyDeleteHe hijacks a cable inspection pod (it looks like an upturned bucket on three long legs - the design being the pilot's seat is above the droid so when it is retracted into the pod the pilot is up against the window of the pod and the droid behind him) and races through the superstructure of the ship out into the docks (a huge cubic mile space reminiscent of the hole in the bottom of star destroyers where small ships can enter) and makes for the orbital traffic lanes over coruscant.
So Anakin jumps from the pod while it is in the high altitude traffic lanes using the force to land on the garden balcony of the Chancellor's citadel next to a moisture vaporator.
Within he encounters Vader who is leading some royal hostage to her new ambassadorial quarters. Anakin is joined by a young Kenobi temporarily. They split up and Anakin climbs to a residential Quarters window ledge where he is let in by some Princess of Alderan with a personal guard in red armour reminiscent of the crew on the blockade runner from Starwars: A new Hope - he spends the night - having an affair (Thus Luke and Leia have different Mothers) and is forced to retreat to the balcony once again when levitating security droids (big black metal crabs with hooked claws like a cross between the recon droid encountered on Hoth and the one from a little known scifi called Spaced Invaders begin an inspection of appartments and halls.
Anakin and Kenobi meeting again on a plaza/skywalk linking the habitation spire to the communication spire where blue energy cloud rises in a continuous cycle up the antenna - the plaza is crowded with functionaries - and Vader and the Emperor cross the plaza from the 'elevator'.
Anakin kills Vader in a private battle taking Vaders Place at the side of the Emperor...
It was rather disembodied.
The Prequels are a blight upon moviedom. I prefer your dream version!
ReplyDeleteI don't mind the prequels, I just like the originals better.
ReplyDeleteThe only part I really couldn't stand in Revenge of the Sith is when Obiwan just walks away from Anakin as he lay there burning to death. I just can't see that happening. He had just told him earlier they were like brothers.
Does anyone else have a problem with this?
Yeah, I always thought they should have shown Obi-Wan unable to get to Anakin, trying hard to do it -- and then the Emperor shows up with superior tech and grabs him.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally okay with Anakin and Vader being the same person; but there was no reason not to make Anakin a pilot and a spice freighter guy who went off on an idealistic crusade. (No reason other than the extremely stupid version of the Jedi Knight organization found in the prequels.) Yes, there would obviously have been Han echoes; but freighter-Vader would have had to have been a very different sort of guy than Han. Ambitious and driven, a little mystical like Luke... stuff like that. (And the kind of guy who wouldn't have a hidden compartment, obviously.)
Also, you wouldn't need all this crap with the hero's dad and a chick who's way too old for him. (Not to mention the obvious explanation for the affair being Jedi mind control by stalker-Anakin. Creep.)
The prequels are stupid crap and I wish I could burn them from my memory.
ReplyDelete(No reason other than the extremely stupid version of the Jedi Knight organization found in the prequels.)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've come to favor the notion that there was no organization of Jedi whatsoever. Maybe there once was a long, long time ago, but, by the time of the Clone Wars, it had ceased to exist. Jedi were mostly solitary warriors who'd occasionally take an apprentice and were regarded with equal parts awe and mockery, since most people thought belief in the Force was a bunch of nonsense. That's how I try to square the fact that so few people accepted the Force in the original film.
The portrayal of the jedi is what I hate most about the prequels. I too imagined a tradition of solitary righters-of-wrongs, operating on the fringes of society, sustaining nearly-forgotten ideals in the shadows of increasingly evil and power-hungry empire. Instead, you get that they been pretty much running things behind the scenes since forever in the form of a bloated committee, and that the beautifully doomed resistance against the empire was just a 30-year set-back.
ReplyDeleteI always saw the Jedi as being more in line with the Yamabushi or Shugendo. Wandering warrior monks, with a few temple-monasteries scattered around the galaxy (usually where a famous Jedi teacher set up shop). Most people thought them rather strange and ignored them. It was a less of a religion and more of a spiritual belief that most people never got because they were too distracted by worldly concerns to listen.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I never realised this comparison until a few years later.
[At least that was my take in my first Star Wars game (a reskinned D&D in mid-1977). It was actually based entirely on the Alan Dean Foster novelization (ghost-written as George Lucas), as the film had yet to be released in Oz until later that year.]
Speaking of novelizations I do like what Terry Brooks did with the Phantom Menace novelization. He didn't have a lot to work with, but he did a good job providing "the other half of the movie" and linking it together into a whole, especially with regard to the ultimate nature of the difference between the Sith and the Jedi. Well worth reading for that alone.
Just today, for the first time, I ran into the fan theory that Obi-Wan himself was the last surviving Clone Warrior... his name being a transliteration from serial number OB-1. That might seep into my dreams, too.
ReplyDeleteI only saw the 1st prequel; one of the most catastrophically disappointing experiences of my life. My emotions in that particular theater seat are permanently burned in my memory.
I'm not as disappointed with the prequels as most because I'm not that emotionally invested in the originals. Sure New Hope was exciting but for me the bs shows up almost right away. In Empire how does the Falcon get to Bespin without a working hyperdrive? Is another DeathStar really all Lucas could come up with for Jedi? Muppets?
ReplyDeleteFor me the bar was set pretty low for the prequels. Better continuity would have made them more enjoyable. A better actor for Anakin would have helped but not much. Those 18 years on Tatooine were mighty rough on Obi Wan - aged him more like 30-40 years (more support for the Clone Theory).
It has been scientifically proven that The Phantom Menace causes cancer in puppies.
ReplyDeleteI probably shouldn't write this but:
ReplyDeleteDamn, but I'm tired of seeing grown men whine about the Star Wars prequels. Did you really expect them to have the same effect on you as the originals did when you were a kid? Seriously?
The quality of the movies didn't change, they were always B-Movie in everything but the special effects. But compared to just about the entire output of the licensed materials Lucas is apparently a genius and thoroughly original storyteller. If I never hear about another character, no matter how little screen time they had, from the movies, never see more Jedi/lightsaber fetishization, or hear about another battle between 'good' and 'evil' with the universe at stake it'll be too soon.
I like Starwars and the universe the prequels gave us (because let's face it, the original movies were crap for universe building), but I think it's better if people just moved the hell on. Make an alternate timeline, let the IP inspire you, or whatever. Just please find something ELSE to complain about. Your precious "childhoods" shouldn't be your defense for holding onto bile like this.
Especially since I've seen what some of you apparently think is brilliant, and you've got no room to complain about the nonsense of Star Wars. :)
I often have dreams involving mass media characters. Just the other day I dreamed the six kids from the old D&D Cartoon where wandering around a big, empty hotel at the base of Stephen King's Dark tower.
ReplyDelete> You mean other than the fact that he wasn't a "spice freighter guy"?
ReplyDeletePretty sure that gets fixed in a throwaway line in the Clone Wars series somewhere, possibly Anakin flying a spice freighter as a ruse through Droid lines?
I probably shouldn't write this
ReplyDeleteProbably not.
This is the thing I'll never understand: if a blog or a forum or a website is discussing something you don't like, understand, or think is worth bothering with, then why post at all? I have no liking for many games, books, movies, and TV shows. Indeed, I hold very much strong and intemperate opinions about many of them and cannot fathom why people I otherwise feel are intelligent and insightful "waste" so much time blathering on about them.
But, despite that, I make it a point to refrain from expressing my distaste and/or disbelief at what they're discussing, because nothing is gained by it whatsoever, except perhaps that people might start to think me a self-satisfied boor who hasn't learned that other people have tastes and interests that differ from my own. So, I say again, there's no good reason to pop onto a thread and tell people they're "whining" and that something for which they have a lifelong affection is "crap." The only reason to do it is to belittle others and there's already too much of that on the Net.
My own pet peeve with Revenge of the Sith (and likely not an original one):
ReplyDeleteYoda and Obi-Wan are on the same planet as the Emperor. He is still trying to consolidate his power and they have allies in the Senate. Darth Vader is far away on a secret mission and has no official standing in the Republic (if the Emperor dies then Vader is just a rogue Sith Lord without formal training).
So, of course, they team up to take out the Emperor just like Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon did for Darth Maul. After all, the consequences of failure are high . . .
Right?
Could they not have found a better way to set these scenes up?
I'm not as disappointed with the prequels as most because I'm not that emotionally invested in the originals..."
ReplyDeleteSorry Cap Jack, but I was never a fanatic for Star Wars. Don't ass-u-me. I was an original Trek guy. Outside of fanboy outrage out there, I just think they are shitty movies that took way too many shortcuts with music, writing, characterization...well, my previous post kind of tells it.
@James: Actually I wrote "I shouldn't" because I knew the inevitable response would be a dismissive pedantic response about the need to respect others opinions. Ignoring, of course, the fact that particular ship has already sailed. Where is that high minded defense of other's opinions from comments like Chainsaws? "Crap" indeed.
ReplyDeleteSo if you hate negativity and wasted energy in public forums practice what you preach. People here and elsewhere could stand to not stew on things they hate, and spend that energy on doing something more productive with their time. Wouldn't you agree?
If you notice I don't really care what you think about the movies. I'm just saying I'm tired of the blatant hypocrisy that is complaining about films that have not changed in style or substance from the originals. Especially when the same pulpy slipshodness of storytelling is praised to the high heavens on a daily bases all around nerd-dom (for lack of a better term).
It's apparently very easy to join this particular dog pile, and I'm sick of it. So sick that it's left a sour taste in my mouth about the entirety of the franchise. And I know that's not fair of me. I'm sick of the whining and that's exactly what it is.
So if you hate negativity and wasted energy in public forums practice what you preach. People here and elsewhere could stand to not stew on things they hate, and spend that energy on doing something more productive with their time. Wouldn't you agree?
ReplyDeleteI don't mind negativity; sometimes it's useful to engage in a good rant or even to wallow in bile for a while. What annoys me is when someone comes along and decides to play the scold. In my mind, there's a vast difference between saying, for example, "I think the prequels are horrible" and "I think the prequels are horrible and anyone who says otherwise is a fool without taste." One is simply a statement of personal opinion and the other is making a judgment about the opinions of others. I (rarely) have a beef with someone who disagrees with the opinions of others, but when disagreement becomes judgment or turns to amateur psychologizing, I think a line has been crossed.
Especially in the case of movies the fact that so many people are OK with subpar examples of the medium is one main reason we get such poor product more often than not. Guys like Roger Ebert are there to tell us not to go see The Brown Bunny. Thank you, Roger.
ReplyDeleteSome of us want to call them on their poor workmanship, so you, the viewer, might get a more quality and fulfilling product in the future. So your children and your children's children might not every have to sit through an Attack of the Clones or Transformers 2 or Spider-Man 3 (I walked out of Spidey 3, and while watching Transformers 2 I felt like Alex in the torture chair in Clockwork Orange).
It's not negativity man, it's raging against the dying of the light. You're welcome.
James: "What annoys me is when someone comes along and decides to play the scold."
ReplyDeleteSometimes someone needs to be just that to break up the echo chamber.
Someone doesn't like the prequels? Fine. Just don't complain about how Lucas is suddenly a hack, he's always been that way (and at least he doesn't pretend as much as most hollywood types do). Show me a campaign overview or story arc, gimme an elevator pitch, anything, just don't waste my time or yours nitpicking something that was always based on pulpy myth and loose mysticism.
And no, I'm not talking about you specifically just so we're clear.
"but when disagreement becomes judgment or turns to amateur psychologizing, I think a line has been crossed."
Neither of which I did. I'm tired of overblown complaints about this particular thing, and "ouch, my childhood's been buggered" is the frankly bizarre excuse for most of it.
Nostalgia is the mind killer, Nostalgia is the small death that so on and so forth. :)
I think one of the main reasons why so many people (including me) still keep continuing to go on and on about all the ways that all the Star Wars films after the original could've been better is that, despite really being merely a very good pulp sci-fi space fantasy adventure movie, the original Star Wars seemed like it could be much more than that. And all the sequels & prequels seemed like they were trying to be much more than that. So the whole Star Wars franchise has turned into a prime example of apparent promise not only left unfulfilled, but actually misused. And that's compelling to talk about.
ReplyDeleteDamn, but I'm tired of seeing grown men whine about the Star Wars prequels. Did you really expect them to have the same effect on you as the originals did when you were a kid? Seriously?
ReplyDeleteThis isn't about them not living up to expectations that they be as good as the originals. It is about them not living up to expectations that they be watchable. Honestly, you think just because we're 35 years older we can't appreciate pulpy B-movie science fantasy for what it is? Please.
The original films were tightly paced, had plots that were simple but coherent, and were character-driven. The prequels are incoherent, none of the characters' motivations or actions make any sense, and the direction and cinematography are right out of Film 101. They aren't B movies; they're Ed Wood with a $250,000,000 budget.
There are a lot of little lines in the original film that just don't square with what we see in the prequels, unless one is willing to accept that nearly everything Obi-Wan says to Luke about his father is wholly a lie. My growing feeling is that the original trilogy, taken on its own, points to a different prequel trilogy than we got, just as the prequel trilogy, on its own, points to a very different series of follow-up films than the originals.
ReplyDeleteMaliszewski comments about 'Star Wars' are pure gold. But then, prequels are just part of the problem. 'Star Wars: A New Hope' was an excellent stand-alone movie with a B-series plot ("talented farmboy and his outcast companions save the day"). 'The Empire Strikes Back' aimed somewhat higher (i.e. showing that heroes and villians are made of the same stuff - no one is born a villian, but anybody can become it). And hit its target. At the cost of derailing the entire trilogy.
Anakin is no longer dead but alive and well? He's not the betrayed but the traitor? Can live with it.
But what about OB-1? He's no more the wise old man who everybody loves and trusts, but the biggest liar in the galaxy, or something worse: a manipulative bastard who has been playing with Luke's feelings since their first meeting, for the sake of his own agenda, whatever it be.
Even worse: since most of the established backstory comes from the mouth of OB-1 and Yoda (who is another big liar), TESB practically resets the trilogy to the starting point. We the audience are left without a clue of what actually happened between Vader and OB-1, or why the Jedi order fell.
Worst of all: since every straight Jedi's we've met until date happens to be a little Goebbles, all the preaching about the dark side and the milky side and stuff starts sounding really really hollow.
'The Return of the Jedi' fixed the problem by the way of ignoring the uneasier implications (i.e. didn't fix the problem at all: once you've lost innocence, you can't retrieve it). My feeling is "that TESB points to a different TRotJ than we got". One in which Luke is entrusted the mission of murdering the Emperor, who happens to be Marlon Brandon, utters something about a snail crawling on a lightsaber edge and begs Luke to bring him peace by the way of beheading.
Damn, but I'm tired of seeing grown men whine about the Star Wars prequels. Did you really expect them to have the same effect on you as the originals did when you were a kid? Seriously?
TESB shown me that authority figures can't be trusted. On the long run I deserted the Catholic Church because of it. (What an irony that the prequels portrait Yoda like a Jedi Pope, and the Council like his cardinals.) 'The Phantom Menace' shown me that George Lucas can't be trusted. On the short run I deserted the Church of Lucas because of it. Not quite the same effect, but close enough... :P :P :P
anonimous, the problem you cite with Empire is actually a problem with Return of the Jedi, instead. It isn't actually confirmed that Vader is Luke's dad until then.
ReplyDeleteI like the theory, mentioned above, that Luke was Vader's biological son but secretly adopted by Anakin. It would explain what the heck he was doing living with Anakin's relatives and why Vader hadn't immediately gone looking there.
What would be even better, of course, is if Vader was just playing with Luke's mind the way dark Jedi do -- targeting Luke's psychological weakness in order to sway him.
Instead when get Obi-wan's "from a certain point of view" speech, which didn't even make sense to 12-year-old me. And then we got the prequels, which made whatever the exact opposite of sense is. :)
anonimous, the problem you cite with Empire is actually a problem with Return of the Jedi, instead. It isn't actually confirmed that Vader is Luke's dad until then.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure -unless my memory is playing tricks with me- that I had an issue with this before I ever watched RotJ
D.V.: "Luke, I'm your father"
anonimous: "Oh, my. Has Obi-Wan been cheating Luke from the beginning!?!?"
When Empire came out, I was excited by Vader's "revelation" because I thought it was an excellent depiction of evil. I thought "Of course Vader's lying. He's evil. He's saying what he can to unnerve Luke and preying upon his weaknesses."
ReplyDeleteI was shocked after watching the movie to find I was virtually alone in this interpretation. Everyone else just took Vader at his word. I thought they were all being taken in by Vader just as Luke was. I expected the third movie to reveal the truth that OB1 had told Luke the truth. Instead, we got Jedi, which was all kinds of mess, not least because Lucas could not afford to show us a planet of wookies and decided to give us ewoks instead, but most of all because Lucas decided to sacrifice the integrity of the story structure to an excessively on-the-nose adherence to Joseph Campbell's theories. The son must replace the father, perhaps even kill him, to take his place, goes the theory, so Lucas violated the characters he'd created for OB1 and Yoda to bend them into the plot he wanted to impose upon the original trilogy. It was a storytelling mistake.
When the prequel trilogy was announced, we felt that we were being given the chance to see which of the two Lucases was the real one: the one who set up the solid B-movie premises of the first two films or the one who screwed up the third one. Sadly, we got the latter.
IMO 'The Empire Strikes Back' feels disjointed compared to the original SW movie. There's a wonderful (if entirely gratuitous) battle at the beginning, followed by padding, padding and more padding --- every scene within the Millenium Falcon should never have left the editing room, since they do nothing but stall the plot. Though the final showdown is awesome enough to redeem the whole of the movie, specially (or maybe entirey) because of the audacious plot twist.
ReplyDeleteAfterwards, Lucas had two options:
- deny Darth Vader's claim, and restore the original backstory. This would have preserved the consistence of the trilogy at the expense of the one (and IMO only) thing that made TESB great.
- accept Darth Vader's claim, bite the bullet and go ahead with the OB-1 character raping. Let's make up a new backstory, introduce it at the third movie and built the climax upon it.
(Personally, I never doubted that Vader was telling the truth, since all of a sudden the Dagobah scenes -Yoda's distrust of Luke, ranging on personal antipathy- falled into place and started making too much sense.)
As is was, RotJ falled in a middle ground. The "from a certain point of view Obi was telling the truth" (what a lame excuse BTW!) was an unhappy compromise, granted to piss off a bit every member of the audience. This lead the trilogy to a mediocre resolution, with a climax which is neither disgusting nor satisfactory, but left too many open questions behind.
When the prequel trilogy was announced, we felt that we were being given the chance to see which of the two Lucases was the real one: the one who set up the solid B-movie premises of the first two films or the one who screwed up the third one.
Actually there has been no less than three Lucases, every one of which was rather real:
I) the one who "set up the solid B-movie premises" of the first film
II) the one who audiaciously subverted these same premises at the second film
III) the one whose clumsiness "screwed up the third one" (great visuals, lousy plot).
Sadly, we got the latter.
In spades. Hey, one can not be a genius all the time! :P
Damn, but I'm tired of seeing grown men whine about the Star Wars prequels.
Indeed. Why whining about prequels when there's so much to whine about the originals?
My objections to the prequels (and I almost walked out of Phantom Plot and refuse to give Lucas any more money so have eventually and painfully watched pirated copies of the rest which I will NEVER watch again) were basically Lucas' hypocrisy: he had said a few times that what made R2 and C3PO special was that they had NEVER had a memory wipe, problems?: the other thing that infuriated me was that he had spent the previous few years making substantial royalties from the new line of novels and comics from Bantam and Dark Horse and others with his 'canonical' approval and then promptly turned around and rendered the creative effort of hundreds if not thousands of artists and writers irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteThat's the betrayal by puke-ass that in my mind turned him from a great sfx guy and good (not exceptional) writer into a venal money-grubbing hack.