| Final Thoughts on the Complete Saga [message #172014] |
Di, 22 November 2005 00:40 |
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Post removed (X-No-Archive: yes)
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| Re: Final Thoughts on the Complete Saga [message #172017 ] |
Di, 22 November 2005 01:37 |
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> 2) I dislike how Phantom Menace was set waaaay too far back from the
> rest of the prequels. The 10-year old Anakin is so far removed from
> his subsequent reincarnations that he contributes very little to Darth
> Vader's character development except to say he used to be a nice little
> boy. Same goes for Obi-wan and Padme --- they were so far removed
> between TPM and AotC (age-wise and character-wise) that it's almost
> like seeing the same actors playing different roles.
I didn't mind TPM being set in Vader's childhood nearly so much as that HC
*starts* AotC by being not only far less likeable than the 9-year old Anakin
but far less likeable than the suited Vader we see in the OT. Not only do I
feel no sense of continuity of character, I feel no sense of tragedy when
he's fried and entombed behind that mask. On the contrary, I feel a sense of
relief: finally, that whiny imposter is gone and the *real* Vader is back.
I didn't have too much a problem with Obi-Wan and Padme crossing the 10-year
gap. Padme actually felt like the same character to me. Obi-Wan changed a
lot more but since he didn't have anything to *do* in TPM, it didn't affect
me as much.
I agree with most of your other points.
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| Re: Final Thoughts on the Complete Saga [message #172021 ] |
Di, 22 November 2005 04:21 |
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In article <1132616413.696569.68910 [at] g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
mexican_equivalent [at] yahoo.com wrote:
> X-no-archive: yes
>
> 1) I dislike how the prequel Obi-wan was almost completely absolved of
> any wrongdoing in Anakin's descent to the dark side. Watching the
> original trilogy, I got the sense that Obi-wan was like a disgraced
> Samurai. His greatest failure was that of friendship and arrogance.
> His friendship with Anakin blinded him to the man's dark side, and
> arrogance convinced him that he could turn Anakin away from the dark
> arts.
>
> Instead, the prequel rewrote Obi-wan's backstory, and lay all the blame
> on everyone else. The desire to train a boy dangerously close to the
> dark side became Qui-Gon's, not Obi-wan. The Jedi Council itself
> sanctioned the training of a boy they *KNEW* was trouble from the
> get-go. In fact, TPM shows that Obi-wan did NOT wish the boy to become
> a Jedi, and only undertook the job to fulfill a deathbed promise to his
> old master. This made Obi-wan seem morally infallible. I liked him
> better when he was the original trilogy's "Old Wise Man who made
> arrogant mistakes in his Youth". There's much more depth to him that
> way.
In the Original Trilogy Obi-Wan THOUHGHT it was all his fault /
failure. He blamed himself and there was nobody except Yoda around to
say otherwise. In the Prequel Trilogy we see it wasn't really his fault
(or at least not only his fault).
> 2) I dislike how Phantom Menace was set waaaay too far back from the
> rest of the prequels. The 10-year old Anakin is so far removed from
> his subsequent reincarnations that he contributes very little to Darth
> Vader's character development except to say he used to be a nice little
> boy. Same goes for Obi-wan and Padme --- they were so far removed
> between TPM and AotC (age-wise and character-wise) that it's almost
> like seeing the same actors playing different roles. Obiwan, Anakin,
> and Padme may have kept the same names between TPM and AotC, but to me
> they almost seem like completely different characters. And the major
> character of Qui-Gon Jin, as likeable as he was, was completely
> superflous. He was THE main character in the first movie, but
> contributes absolutely nothing to the five subsequent films. Wasted
> time that could've been used for Anakin or Obiwan or Padme.
>
> I think a big problem with the prequels was that it essentially became
> a 2-part movie series (AotC and RotS) instead of a complete trilogy.
> Unlike the original trilogy, the prequel people really only had 2
> movies for character development instead of 3 movies. I would've liked
> it a lot better if TPM started with an older version of Anakin and
> Padme --- late teens, like Luke and Leia in ANH. They'll be in their
> mid '20s for AotC, and pushing 30 by RotS. The character development
> would be more gradual, instead of the huge staggering jump we now see
> between Ep I and Ep II.
Episode I was to introduce the charaters of the Prequel Trilogy. It was
also to show that Anakin was a "nice kid" in the beginning and then
circumstances and treachery by Palpatine pushed him over the edge to
the Dark Side.
> 3) As we all know, George Lucas seem to have stretched the bounds of
> continouity when he wrote the prequels. The whole bit with Anakin
> being a great pilot when Obi-wan meets him, and Leia being "very young"
> and remembering her a sad mother, and Darth Vader being just a "PUPIL"
> when he "LEFT OBIWAN"... all of that seem vaguely inconsistent with
> George Lucas's script for the prequels. Sure, GL made some effort to
> make the prequel storyline *logically* flow into the original trilogy,
> albeit barely. But he reaaaallly could've spent more effort to make
> the transition more graceful than the way it turned out.
Oh God. Here we go with the "plot hole" nonsense again. :-\
Anakin WAS a great pilot - he was the only human able to pilot a Pod
Racer for a start. Anakin was a Padawan (pupil) of Obi-Wan. Leia only
remember "images and feelings", exactly what Luke sees through the
Force.
Plus you're paraphrasing what was said. If you read / listen to that
scenes properly and use a little brain power you'll find there is no
"plot hole" or "inconsistency".
> 4) I wish the real "meat" of the Anakin-Padme romance was kept mostly
> offscreen, leaving it to the viewers to imagine their courtship. It's
> practically impossible to fit a believable "falling in love" plotline
> within the confines of a 2-hour special effects intergalactic action
> movie. You end up having only 10-15 minutes to make to characters fall
> in love, and you're forced to do a disjointed series of awkward scenes
> and soundbites and bad dialogue slapped in between big action scenes,
> which is how AotC turned out. If the real "meat" of the courtship was
> kept mostly offscreen, like Han and Leia's romance between ANH and ESB,
> it would've been more belieavable. The movie could just offer us
> glimpses of what the couple is like, instead of doing exposition after
> exposition after exposition.
Anakin fell "in love" with Padmé way back in Episode I. It wasn't until
they met again in Episode II that it became a real romance. If their
courtship had been left off-screen you'd have a pile of morons
complaining about not knowing why they're suddenly" in love.
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