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

[Independent George]

Of course the issue with Leia is a problem with the decision to retcon her into being Luke’s sister in RotJ; even without it being Palpatine’s planet she’s still being hidden with the rulers of a prominent planet, and that’s before she becomes a senator. The only way I can think of to explain how Vader and the Emperor never noticed would be the Light Side of the Force getting revenge on the Dark Side for having blocked the Jedi from noticing Palpatine by doing the same to Palpatine and Vader and blocking her from them, which is rather unsatisfying and a copout to me.

Well, that and the high likelihood that Luke & Leia made the beast with two backs at the end of E4...

[J!!]

youtu.be/lQDvsf5lAp0

[Dînadan]

at least with leia, they thought to change her name

Yeah, Lucas should probably have tried to establish at some point in one of the films that Skywalker and Kenobi are the Star Wars equivalent to Smith and Jones so Vader hunting for ‘Luke Skywalker’ between ANH and ESB was like the Terminator hunting for Sarah Conner by going through the phone book checking each one.

[Draco Dracul]

Looking back on Episode 1, and the prequels in general, some of the issues Chuck points out that caused headaches for the story could have been fixed if someone had just suggested something ridiculously simple. Naboo, should have been Alderan!

This would mean that: A) Obi-Wan and Yoda would then be hiding Leia from the Emperor by sending her to live on the Emperor's homeworld and alongside its prominent leaders.
B) Tarkin blowing up Alderaan is brazen enough as it is, but by blowing up the Emperor's homeworld he's disrupting the Emperor's narrative that he's using harsh methods to prevent tragedies similar to what happened to his homeworld which won him the sympathy votes to become Chancellor in the first place.

A) In canon they'd already left Luke on Vader's homeworld, with Vader's step-brother, with Vader's last name.
B) Using it on the Emperor's homeworld would be a powerful sign that none are beyond the Emperor's judgement.

[GandALF]

Luke has Obi-Wan looking out for him. Its mentioned in both ROTS and ROTJ that its the Emperor that they were concerned about, so they can't put Leia on his homeworld. Vader on the other hand, has to have his suspicions confirmed by the Emperor in ESB.

This is original trilogy stuff,how can you commit such sacrilege this close to Christmas!?

[goodperson25]

Looking back on Episode 1, and the prequels in general, some of the issues Chuck points out that caused headaches for the story could have been fixed if someone had just suggested something ridiculously simple. Naboo, should have been Alderan!

This would mean that: A) Obi-Wan and Yoda would then be hiding Leia from the Emperor by sending her to live on the Emperor's homeworld and alongside its prominent leaders.
B) Tarkin blowing up Alderaan is brazen enough as it is, but by blowing up the Emperor's homeworld he's disrupting the Emperor's narrative that he's using harsh methods to prevent tragedies similar to what happened to his homeworld which won him the sympathy votes to become Chancellor in the first place.

A) In canon they'd already left Luke on Vader's homeworld, with Vader's step-brother, with Vader's last name.
B) Using it on the Emperor's homeworld would be a powerful sign that none are beyond the Emperor's judgement.

A) Well they left Anakin's son on Anakin's homeworld, with Anakin's step-brother, with Anakin's last name on a planet at dosen't seem to get much imperial attention and at least has a Jedi. Now the issues with it being the Emperor's home planet (increased scrutiny, ect) might not be in play but I believe at least part of what they did with Luke was already touched on in the originals.
B) Yeah it's spin-able, but that dosen't necessarily remove that as an issue.
More generally this is kinda funny/interesting to me because Darths and Droids pretty much did this the otherway around by doing the movies in chronological order and having Naboo being blown up. (It was also Mustafar)

[Yukaphile]

Huh, went into this expecting massive prequel bashing and complaining about the imagined racial undertones in Jar Jar's character, but SF Debris was surprisingly restrained, and brought up many good points. I guess I'll see how long that lasts in Part II.

[Independent George]

Listening to the issues related to production, I am reminded of the old dictum (often attributed to Eisenhower, in the same way that every pithy WW2 quote is attributed to Churchill) that "Amateurs talk tactics; professionals talk logistics.". It's what sank the auteur era in the 70s - filmmaking is a collaborative enterprise that requries technical enterprise as well as creative expertise; furthermore, it is (and always will be) a business. However much the creative side might loathe commerce, it is still unrealistic to expect to complete an undertaking as huge as a feature film without considering paltry details like how to make payroll for the people whose names never appear in the Hollywood Reporter. The flip side to total creative control is total operational responsibility - from the scripts, to the scheduling, to casting, set design, etc. Not everyone who has a creative vision also has the know-how to oversee a production on a project like this.

Perhaps it's unfair to compare an adapted work to an original one, but I can't help but compare the Star Wars prequels to Lord of the Rings, which was an equally huge undertaking with an even bigger risk profile (filming all three at once, with a mostly unknown director, and far less of a built-in audience). While, as a nerd, I have problems with some of the adaptation choices, I think most would agree that LOTR were legitimately good films on their own merits.

[Yukaphile]

I love the prequels, every bit as much as the originals and maybe more, I just prefer them as the novelizations given how bad Lucas's directing was. Especially Matt Stover's take on Revenge of the Sith. Seriously, if you have not read that, go do so now. It's AMAZING.

[Karha of Honor]

I love the prequels, every bit as much as the originals and maybe more, I just prefer them as the novelizations given how bad Lucas's directing was. Especially Matt Stover's take on Revenge of the Sith. Seriously, if you have not read that, go do so now. It's AMAZING.

I say ROTS was okay, but the rest was bad.