Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

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movielocke
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#526 Post by movielocke » Wed Nov 13, 2019 2:20 pm

Phantom menaces problems stem from a too young Anakin (with no dark streak), a peacetime plot necessitating a minimization of action in favor of speechifying, an amazing villain that is brutally undercut by having no agency nor personality with zero impact on the cast other than popping up here or there as a boogeyman.

Contra this with Vader or Ren with a lot of agency in their respective plots, they interact frequently with other cast and have a lot of personality.

Phantom menace has a lot of ideas that don’t cohere very well and the editing of the whole thing is frequently torpid with periodic amazing highlights (the Spielberg ghost directed lightsaber finale fight, or Lucas’ hyper passionate homage to Ben Hur) it also lacks the crackling dialogue and strong character interactions of the Leigh Bracket scripted Empire.

As a result you have a film that has combined some of the worst parts of the first Star Wars and return of the Jedi, with no room for the strengths from Empire and crucially also has no charismatic central villain that the first three films relied so heavily on to shore up other weaknesses.

But design wise phantom menace is stunning, everyone went to the nth degree, like the new Disneyland park, and it’s one of the film’s strongest elements. Crucially, this is an aspect where many passionate people could contribute to make something better with little intervention, because it is below the line and thus relatively off the radar.

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bunuelian
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#527 Post by bunuelian » Thu Nov 14, 2019 1:40 am

If Phantom Menace was the first Star Wars film to be released, Star Wars fandom would be something truly rare and strange, a mark of a true sci-fantasy nerd. It's a boring, hammy clunkfest with pretty visuals, like so many other genre films.

In a world without the original trilogy, climate change might even have been delayed a few years as all the Star Wars branded garbage didn't get made.

I blame Star Wars for everything, basically.

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soundchaser
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#528 Post by soundchaser » Thu Nov 14, 2019 1:51 am

Speaking of strange and “clunk,” it seems Lucas added one more tweak to the original trilogy before it was sold to Disney.

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The Pachyderminator
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#529 Post by The Pachyderminator » Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:42 am

soundchaser wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 1:51 am
Speaking of strange and “clunk,” it seems Lucas added one more tweak to the original trilogy before it was sold to Disney.
This is definitely master trolling on Lucas's part, and I actually have to admire it. It almost makes me wonder if I've been underestimating his self-awareness and sense of humor all this time.

Orlac
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#530 Post by Orlac » Thu Nov 14, 2019 3:20 am

I really like the original Star Wars as a unique 70s film - a weird combination of sci-fi, fantasy and Western/Eastern cultural tropes,with ground breaking effects. Seeing it turned into a video game flick that props up its prequels is rather frustrating.

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John Cope
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#531 Post by John Cope » Thu Nov 14, 2019 4:42 am

Roger Ryan wrote:
Wed Nov 13, 2019 2:06 pm
mfunk9786 wrote:
Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:43 pm
Roger Ryan wrote:
Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:38 pm
Speaking of age, the biggest problem with The Phantom Menace is that Anakin is played by a ten-year-old when the part appears to be written for a character who is around sixteen. The whole "what does this button do? Wheee!" child-like aspect of the performance works against the more serious dramatic stakes Lucas envisioned for the prequels. It's been suggested that Lucas was persuaded (or decided for himself) that a younger Anakin would appeal more to children and, thus, sell more tie-in products/toys. I don't know how true that is, but the lackluster portrayal of Anakin throughout the prequels undercuts their effectiveness significantly.
I'll buy this, but Hamill wasn't exactly Olivier in A New Hope either, age aside
Certainly, but Hamill fit the bill for the lighter, swashbuckling style of Episodes 4 - 6, whereas the prequels aspired to more political intrigue and darker psychological conflicts that showed Hayden Christensen to be way out of his depth. If you could go back and recast Anakin with someone like Adam Driver, leaving everything else the same, I suspect the prequels would play a lot better.
I've always liked and admired the prequels very much and like them more with every passing year and every screening. There's a lot to admire even if you don't find the accomplishment entirely successful. What I like best is the very flatness that many criticize. I regard it as a hugely ambitious and remarkable means of casting the back story as a kind of broad, panoramic iconography, almost like a frieze on a temple wall; it casts everything else into high relief. Obviously though this approach has its positives and negatives as well as its limits. I have long contended that the films would have been improved dramatically if Jonathan Brandis (who did audition for the part) had been cast as Anakin. He had Christensen's glower but far more skill and weight of presence. It's hard to know for sure how this would have turned out though, given how even Portman comes across under Lucas's direction. If the flat affect was indeed part of the point and as conscious a decision as it seems to be then maybe it wouldn't have mattered much. Still, I think it would have been a significant improvement (nobody ever complains about McGregor's performance, for example).

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#532 Post by furbicide » Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:04 pm

The Pachyderminator wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:42 am
soundchaser wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 1:51 am
Speaking of strange and “clunk,” it seems Lucas added one more tweak to the original trilogy before it was sold to Disney.
This is definitely master trolling on Lucas's part, and I actually have to admire it. It almost makes me wonder if I've been underestimating his self-awareness and sense of humor all this time.
Wait, this is real and not just some Twitter joke!?

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The Pachyderminator
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#533 Post by The Pachyderminator » Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:32 pm

furbicide wrote:
Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:04 pm
Wait, this is real and not just some Twitter joke!?
It seems to be real. It's been reported by too many people to be a joke. It's been pointed out that a line in Phantom Menace, "Neek me chawa, wermo, mo killee ma klounkee," is subtitled as "Next time we race, boy, it will be the end of you." So that's probably a clue about its intended meaning. But I suspect it will always be "Maclunkey" in the hearts of fans.

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ando
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Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, 2017)

#534 Post by ando » Mon Jul 13, 2020 1:34 pm

Empire was the top grossing movie in the U.S. over the weekend. I love it.

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#535 Post by ford » Sat Oct 31, 2020 10:29 pm

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the wretched Rise of Skywalker was the sudden, mass re-evaluation of the prequel trilogy. The total antithesis of Lucas's I-III, Abrams gave us impeccable casting, a dynamic camera, and every scene juiced to move-move-move at all costs...and its totally awful and totally forgettable. I can barely remember anything but a few flickerings of images.

Frankly, I'm with Kanye now.

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#536 Post by What A Disgrace » Sun Nov 01, 2020 10:52 am

I'm in the complete opposite camp. I find the sudden re-evaluation of the prequel trilogy to be almost nonsensical, and Rise of Skywalker to be, though an absolute mess of a movie, very enjoyable overall, if sometimes not intentionally so, and much of the final bits of the film to be quite rousing.

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#537 Post by RIP Film » Sun Nov 01, 2020 11:47 am

With the sequels done and some distance between, I find them to be a brash kaleidoscope of familiar images and noise. I also find the arguments defending Abrams' movies even more strange, like how The Force Awakens rehashed A New Hope to update kids on the universe/lore, as if the newer generation needs to be updated like software. The ironic part is I don't think there is an intelligible through-line in the whole trilogy without previous exposure to the OT.

I do feel the prequels are better movies, with some iconic imagery/scenes for better or worse. But holy cow have they aged terribly in visuals. Lucas' stubborness really bore out on that, to film with 2K cameras and rely on the CGI of the day in virtually every scene. It looks like a CW show.

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movielocke
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#538 Post by movielocke » Sun Nov 01, 2020 1:49 pm

Lucas wasn’t filming 2k on attack of the clones he was filming iirc 1920x864

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#539 Post by ford » Sun Nov 01, 2020 10:23 pm

RIP Film wrote:
Sun Nov 01, 2020 11:47 am
I do feel the prequels are better movies, with some iconic imagery/scenes for better or worse. But holy cow have they aged terribly in visuals. Lucas' stubborness really bore out on that, to film with 2K cameras and rely on the CGI of the day in virtually every scene. It looks like a CW show.
I think ROTS looks good but agree on AOTC. Both were 2K cameras but clearly the camera used for III was far more advanced. Much more of AOTC is real sets or models than you’d think but it just looks fake cause of the awful camera.

I still like it more than RISE. And prefer it’s shot composition too.

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tenia
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#540 Post by tenia » Mon Nov 02, 2020 4:07 am

movielocke wrote:Lucas wasn’t filming 2k on attack of the clones he was filming iirc 1920x864
"2K" can be a tad abused in order to give the general idea (especially in opposition to other higher rez) than the exact amount of pixels. 2K is 2048 x 1080, which still is in a similar ballpark.

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movielocke
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#541 Post by movielocke » Mon Nov 02, 2020 11:50 am

True, and I think AOTC was so early they were using spherical lenses, while also exposing a sensor much smaller than a full frame 35mm sensor, and then They were extracting a scope shape from the smaller sensor—versus the later practice using full frame 35mm and scope lenses that expose the entire area (or larger further down the line with the advent of various red cams and the Alexa 65 et al).

I remember Lucas complaining at the time of AOTC that none of the lenses manufacturors were willing to make anamorphic lenses for his small sensor size.

By revenge of the sith all this had rapidly changed.

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#542 Post by RIP Film » Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:37 pm

I guess my question is, at that resolution how did it not look like shit in theaters? This was even shown in IMAX. I saw it as a kid but don't recall it looking bad.

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movielocke
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Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#543 Post by movielocke » Mon Nov 02, 2020 1:36 pm

In general people and critics who loved technology (including me) thought it looked absolutely incredible, but I remember a lot of filmmaking experts DPs and Directors who were extremely dismissive of it because they did think it looked pretty low quality.

Remember projection and film prints weren’t that great either. Most film prints were fifth and sixth generation. Multiplex Projectors notoriously and system wide had their bulb brightness set at forty to fifty percent of smpte standard (to prolong the life of the bulb)

The print generation issue is a big one. Many folks were excited to no longer being captive to being at the low quality tail of a distribution chain, a digital projection experience promised first generation quality. Ironically the low resolution meant it was more closely replicating a fourth generation image resolution of a typical multi plex theatrical print.

For example the raw image resolution of a 35mm negative is about 5K

Drop down to a first generation positive print and you go down to an image resolution of about 4k

Strike four second generation inter negative from this and you don’t lose much quality because negative stocks are higher quality at replicating resolution

Strike a dozen third generation inter positives prints from each the inter negatives and you go down in quality again to about 3k

Strike a dozen fourth generation inter negative from the previous inter negatives and you have finally reached the “printing negative” stage of a film chain,

Strike thousands of fifth generation release prints (from your hundreds of fourth generation inter negatives) and you go down in quality to about 2k, possibly lower since the stocks used for mass distribution are going to be the fastest and lowest quality of the entire film chain.

That’s what resolution early digital projection was replicating, and as I recall it didn’t seem low quality by comparison even though today we would assume that resolution must necessarily be very low quality.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#544 Post by Roger Ryan » Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:06 pm

RIP Film wrote:
Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:37 pm
I guess my question is, at that resolution how did it not look like shit in theaters? This was even shown in IMAX. I saw it as a kid but don't recall it looking bad.
I saw a digital projection of Clones when it was first released and the image looked terrible. This may have been related to the projector, but there were black vertical lines visible about every eight to twelve inches across the screen where no visual information was being projected. The images would visibly shift up or down when crossing one of these black lines as characters walked across the frame or the camera panned. Yes, the digital image was sharper and without any film-based flaws like specks or scratches (or those godawful red dots that were superimposed over the middle of a shot at least once every reel to trace bootleg copies - every major release suffered from this practice during the last decade of film projection), but the black vertical lines made it seem like you were sitting too close to a standard definition tube television.

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#545 Post by Nasir007 » Mon Nov 02, 2020 3:40 pm

The failure of the sequel trilogy is that it completely fails to advance the story or mythos in any meaningful way. It is essentially an absolutely pointless coda to the original trilogy at best, wattapad fanfiction at worst. Like seriously, what was even the point of the sequel trilogy, what was the story they were trying to tell?

The prequel trilogy, despite its numerous failings actually had something to say. It showed us new worlds, new characters, new parts of the mythology and the galaxy, new creatures, new conflicts, new powers. The execution left a lot to be desired by the ambition was there, the vision was there.

With the sequel trilogy, we have essentially the same characters going through the same conflict, a similar concept of a totalitarian regime and guerilla fighters, literally, the exact same villain as the original trilogy with the same goal, like seriously what's the point. The only point was to have a female jedi, and black, latino and asian co-leads and even there Disney shit the bed because of the way it treated those characters as it morphed into Kylp fan fiction.

Rise of the Skywalker sunk the earlier two films and made the entire sequel trilogy nonsensical. Sure, you could enjoy 2 out of the 3 on their own terms as well made action movies, but in the context of a larger story, they are disposable.

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#546 Post by ford » Tue Nov 03, 2020 5:04 pm

Roger Ryan wrote:
Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:06 pm
RIP Film wrote:
Mon Nov 02, 2020 12:37 pm
I guess my question is, at that resolution how did it not look like shit in theaters? This was even shown in IMAX. I saw it as a kid but don't recall it looking bad.
I saw a digital projection of Clones when it was first released and the image looked terrible. This may have been related to the projector, but there were black vertical lines visible about every eight to twelve inches across the screen where no visual information was being projected. The images would visibly shift up or down when crossing one of these black lines as characters walked across the frame or the camera panned. Yes, the digital image was sharper and without any film-based flaws like specks or scratches (or those godawful red dots that were superimposed over the middle of a shot at least once every reel to trace bootleg copies - every major release suffered from this practice during the last decade of film projection), but the black vertical lines made it seem like you were sitting too close to a standard definition tube television.
I saw AOTC when it came out, non-digital projection, and it looked so bad I didn't even bother to see ROTS in theaters.

And yet, after my massive disappointment over RISE (cards on the table: I loved TLJ), I went back and watched the prequels via Dolby Vision 4k on Disney+. Not only did II look better (with III looking way, way better), I found myself...strangely appreciating these very flawed films? I certainly didn't see that coming.

In a way, RISE was the Star Wars movie that I thought I wanted for all these years. And it absolutely sucked. What better way to kick off a re-evaluation of the prequels?

ford
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#547 Post by ford » Tue Nov 03, 2020 5:10 pm

The only point was to have a female jedi, and black, latino and asian co-leads and even there Disney shit the bed because of the way it treated those characters as it morphed into Kylp fan fiction.

Rise of the Skywalker sunk the earlier two films and made the entire sequel trilogy nonsensical. Sure, you could enjoy 2 out of the 3 on their own terms as well made action movies, but in the context of a larger story, they are disposable.
To be fair, here was Lucas's heroes for his pre-Disney Episode VII. Young female Jedi was always the plan, nor do I think that choice -- or any other identity politics type consideration -- is what made the sequels such a mess:

Image

We still got some well-executed stuff in TFA plus a great Star Wars movie in TLJ. Too bad they decided to make a nightmare of it all instead of just shooting Trevorrow's quite good script -- an actual sequel to the movie that came before (oh no!) instead of some awkward attempt to simultaneously negate the middle chapter while somehow wrapping it all up. For all the supposed "Last Jedi" backlash, it made a shit-ton of money and got great reviews. I saw it in theaters three times. Each and every time, massive cheering, gasps, applause in all the big moments.

In the future, Disney should probably pay less attention to youtube and twitter controversies, on either side of such things, and just make...good movies.

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#548 Post by Nasir007 » Tue Nov 03, 2020 5:39 pm

ford wrote:
Tue Nov 03, 2020 5:10 pm
The only point was to have a female jedi, and black, latino and asian co-leads and even there Disney shit the bed because of the way it treated those characters as it morphed into Kylp fan fiction.

Rise of the Skywalker sunk the earlier two films and made the entire sequel trilogy nonsensical. Sure, you could enjoy 2 out of the 3 on their own terms as well made action movies, but in the context of a larger story, they are disposable.
To be fair, here was Lucas's heroes for his pre-Disney Episode VII. Young female Jedi was always the plan, nor do I think that choice -- or any other identity politics type consideration -- is what made the sequels such a mess:
I am not at all saying that having a female jedi and having black/latino/asian characters is what the sequels a mess - if you think that is what I am saying. The diverse casting is one of the few positive things about the sequel trilogy. What I am saying is that - that might have been the reason Disney might have greenlit the sequel or that might have been the initial pitch. Which is either sufficient or insufficient depending upon where you stand. And if that was the original intention, their lead black star has already called them out on the shitty non-existent character arc they handed him. And i agree with that. In a supposedly woke trilogy, the two white characters got all of the action and the POC were side-lined. Rose had like 8 words in Ep9.

As I said above, my quarrel is with the story. What a horrid pointless story that does not advance the mythology in any way.
ford wrote:
Tue Nov 03, 2020 5:10 pm
Too bad they decided to make a nightmare of it all instead of just shooting Trevorrow's quite good script -- an actual sequel to the movie that came before
This i completely agree with! I am absolutely at a loss why it was rejected! I can't think of a single reason, nothing to do with the script itself. I can think of 2 reasons that have nothing to do with the script - Ep8 made only about 2/3rds of Ep 7 at the BO. And Book of Henry was savaged by critics.

But what has that got to do with Treverrow's perfectly good, even fantastic script and story. It best of all would have given Boyega a proper story arc to develop into a wonderful character and it would have chucked out all the Emperor nonsense. It is kinda ming boggling to me who would think Rise of Skywalker would make a better film than Duel of the Fates. I actually think Duel of the Fates would have elevated the trilogy because it fits in very nicely with Ep7 and Ep8.

No exaggeration but Duel of the Fates is one of the great could-have-beens of the modern blockbuster era. What were Disney thinking.

nitin
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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#549 Post by nitin » Wed Nov 04, 2020 2:16 am

I think you will find that Disney's reasons, as they always have been in recent history, were purely and simply about money.

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Re: Star Wars: Original/Prequel Trilogies & General Thread

#550 Post by domino harvey » Wed Nov 04, 2020 2:20 am

I’m so excited that we’re fucking talking about this shit again

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