The Hermit's Journey. To arms, prequel defenders, to arms!

[SuccubusYuri]

Side tracking the whole thread, as I have thoughts sparked from the video xD

Just, sitting in bed listening to the video, I have to wonder if Lucas felt bound to structure the Jedi order as the EU had established it. He has always been rather deferential to the novels and other material when there wasn't a reason for him to fix what wasn't broken. Because when it comes to the "How do I rationalize Obi-Wan being a hotheaded egotist?", I would have used a more...apprenticeship model for them. That Jedi are these roaming nomads, like Judges even, only not cartoonishly overblown. They just wander doing what good they can, and like the Lone Ranger or Ronin move on. Or even a much more chaotic network, like two dozen Jedi schools scattered throughout the universe. Some bigger, some niche. Maybe they compete or are totally isolated.

But the goal, ultimately, would be to establish the Jedi as a sort of mentorship by choice. That Yoda's students all went to HIM. They had arrived at a place where they feel they need the training, or can better serve with it. Kind of like how Sokka in Avatar gets his master. What makes Obi-Wan unique, is that he FINDS Anakin, and takes it on himself to train him. It's highly irregular because being a Jedi isn't something you usually need to sell people on; if they want it, they want it. But Obi-Wan brushes it aside "Oh it'll turn out fine, you'll see."

Then the Clone Wars occurs and a subplot is how the Jedi are forced to be more centralized to deal with the as-yet-nebulous threat, making them a ripe target for the Sith, etc.

I dunno, I feel like this idea must have come by in the Lucas merry-go-round of ideas. I suspect he was just very married to the way they had been depicted in other media.

[RobbyB1982]

stuff

Oh yeah, casting a 9 year old is absolutely still the wrong move to make for a bunch of reasons. But at least there's *a* good and reasonable reason buried in there somewhere, some thought behind it.

"I want to make this one key scene resonate" is something. It doesn't overtake "but it will make the entire rest of the movie suffer" but at least its some sort of method to the madness.

[G-Man]

My problems with Episode I were:

(1) I never got invested in the issue under dispute. I think it would have been more effective to have had the bad guys be pirates or something like that who were holding entire planets ransom. That would have reduced the "what's the motive? Why do we care?" aspect of the story. Imagine if the raiders from Season 1 Babylon 5 had succeeded with the Eye and had gotten three or four capital ships. Simpler, more easy to see good and bad; Senate shown to be useless in most basic law enforcement.

(2) The final battle had two Inspector Clouseau solutions - Jar Jar accidentally destroying a lot of the enemy droids, and Anakin blowing up the control base.

(3) Jar Jar should have had some redeeming features - courage under fire, something like that. A klutz, but a noble one.

[Draco Dracul]

stuff

Oh yeah, casting a 9 year old is absolutely still the wrong move to make for a bunch of reasons. But at least there's *a* good and reasonable reason buried in there somewhere, some thought behind it.

"I want to make this one key scene resonate" is something. It doesn't overtake "but it will make the entire rest of the movie suffer" but at least its some sort of method to the madness.

That's kind of The Phantom Menace in a nutshell. Some germ of a good idea that snowballed into a mess.

[Beastro]

and Anakin blowing up the control base.

That was the worst one of the two, IMO.

Seeing that little shit yelling triumphantly leaving the ship as it explodes was cringe inducing. Kids playing video games get more worked up over what is happening than that.

[Independent George]

And it's just such a refreshing alternate take after nearly two decades of Plinkett style nitpicking deconstruction and hate. (And I have enjoyed those, don't get me wrong. But it's also been the ONLY prevailing attitude for my entire adult life.)

The Hermit's Journey has actually gotten me to re-watch Plinkett's TPM review, and it's actually better than I remember it being. His later reviews could be described as nitpicking and hate, but not that original TPM review; that was an outstanding bit of film criticism.

I think it's important to separate Plinkett's reviews from the wider phenomenon of entitled, whiny fan rage that surrounded Phantom Menace (and, to an extent, the differences between his Episode 1 review versus his episodes 2-3 reviews, which descended into fan whining at times). Beneath the jokes and hyperbole, that original review on Phantom Menace was an incredibly focused and detailed bit of film criticism. The very first part of the review is about the lack of a protagonist impacts the narrative, especially in an SF work. It actually reminds me a bit of the ME3 fiasco - the overwrought fan outrage ended up obscuring the very real and very good points behind it.

Anyway, to bring it back on point, The Hermit's Journey and Plinkett's review are actually very good complements to each other. Plinkett details what he thinks is wrong in the film, and why; Chuck describes how and why it came about the way it did. Agree or disagree, Plinkett's review was a very clear, very cogent film criticism.

For any who haven't seen it, Plinkett's review starts here.

[Admiral X]

Actually the biggest complaint I have against the Plinkett reviews (at least his SW ones) are that they're basically movies themselves due to their lengths. For comparison, his Avatar review is only 18 minutes long.

[Morgaine]

and Anakin blowing up the control base.

That was the worst one of the two, IMO.

Seeing that little shit yelling triumphantly leaving the ship as it explodes was cringe inducing. Kids playing video games get more worked up over what is happening than that.

Nevermind the fact that the entire setup was cringy and fakey as hell.
We clearly see a blockade of dozens of those ships at the beginning, but by the end somehow miraculously all the other ships have buggered off for no good reason conventiently leaving only a single ship, because when facing an enemy with no single point of failure we have to blatantly manufacture one! And not even give a good justification for it!

[Karha of Honor]

and Anakin blowing up the control base.

That was the worst one of the two, IMO.

Seeing that little shit yelling triumphantly leaving the ship as it explodes was cringe inducing. Kids playing video games get more worked up over what is happening than that.

Nevermind the fact that the entire setup was cringy and fakey as hell.
We clearly see a blockade of dozens of those ships at the beginning, but by the end somehow miraculously all the other ships have buggered off for no good reason conventiently leaving only a single ship, because when facing an enemy with no single point of failure we have to blatantly manufacture one! And not even give a good justification for it!

A blockade should be encircle the entire planet anyways.

[1701EarlGrey]

Sorry, if you are defending prequels, then you are part of the problem - you are one of the reasons why bad movies are being made!

You see there is one, very telling line in sf debris's analysis - to paraphrase: "Lucas had hoped that no one will notice, that his story make no sense". Sorry, George, people are not stupid! That is so infuriating - Lucas knowingly and willfully, written bad script, because he thought that people are to stupid to notice! That's why George deserve every bit of criticism, that's why no one should defend his work, because if you do, you encourage creators to write bad stories! Why should they care, if you are willing to accept bad writing? And sorry, but I won't accept this excuse; " Lucas, had no choice!" - he had all time in the world, he had all money in the world, he could tell whatever story he wanted to tell, there was no restrictions put on him by big bad studio! He's movies, his responsibility!