Hermit's Journey Part III

[Deledrius]

As I hope the Shadow's Journey already established, the goal of this series is not to praise him. But it's also not to damn him. It's to explain, not excuse.

And it does so magnificently, imo.

Quite so. As someone who enjoys Star Wars but was never a deep fan of the franchise as some are, this series has been fascinating, entertaining, and enlightening. The amount of work on display is incredible.

[cambiata]

Despite Lucas' love of bathroom humor, he still didn't get why naming a character "Dooku" was terrible.

[Independent George]

Edit: OK, I see that George's help on the original trilogy was addressed. I stand by my comment about George changing his philosophy about spending too much screen time on special effects, though. Unless that old interview was George bullshitting about a ideas he didn't really believe.

Or it could be changing technology led him to change the context of the quote.

Convincing practical effects are difficult and expensive to work with, so maybe in the 70s/80s (when that's all that was available), he thought that spending too much time on it was detrimental to other, more important things. But once the CGI became so cheap and easy (thanks in large part to Lucasfilm/ILM) , maybe he thought that gave him more room to experiment?

[G-Man]

Episode One in general was a way to "fix" the introductions by going way back farther than you need to so you can explain the things from the beginning (instead of from the point when they're actually relevant) which any writer of any experience will tell you that is a formula for creating so, so much padding. Which Episode 1 largely is.

Which I think is my main problem with Episode I. It's a lot like the telepath arc from Season 5 of <i>Babylon 5</i> (which came out the previous year). It takes something that happens before the main meat of the story and expands a lot on it, but little of it really matters. In the case of the telepaths, it is something that is supposed to foreshadow the Telepath War, but it really has little to do with it other than developing Lyta, who presumably is a major player. I mean, we never see the Telepath War, but basically the B5 rogue telepaths are all dead, so they can't play any role.

I actually liked Episode II. Aside from some really silly lines ("Anakin, what's wrong?" "Padme, my mother was just killed you moron, what do you think is wrong?" and Yoda talking about how amazing it is that a child figured out that if a planet was not on the records, someone had changed the record (unless he was sarcastically jabbing at Obi Wan for not putting 2 and 2 together)) the movie had a plot that was relevant to the larger story and some clear bad guys to fight who were relevant to the plot.

[TheNewTeddy]

When I actually watch objectively, the prequels are not as bad as people make them out to be, and many of the original movies are not as good as many make them out to be, however, I do notice a clear difference. Empire and Hope are certainly better than any of the prequels, and Phantom Menace is the weakest of the bunch, but I've often thought Jedi falls short of Sith.

[Independent George]

When I actually watch objectively, the prequels are not as bad as people make them out to be, and many of the original movies are not as good as many make them out to be, however, I do notice a clear difference. Empire and Hope are certainly better than any of the prequels, and Phantom Menace is the weakest of the bunch, but I've often thought Jedi falls short of Sith.

That's pretty close to my opinions. Phantom Menace is genuinely awful, and I think that clouds peoples' view of Clones and Sith, which were significant improvements. They had their rough spots (as did A New Hope, though the nostalgia filter is strong on that one), but people tend to fixate on the flaws because of their reaction to Phantom Menace.

Empire was a legitimately great movie on its own merits. A New Hope quite good; I grade it on a curve because it was first and filmed with limited resources. I think Sith, Revenge, and Clones were all acceptable but flawed for varying reasons, and I still maintain that Phantom Menace was just plain awful.

[rickgriffin]

Although I have issues with the plots in the prequel trilogy, on the whole that issue kinda boils down to nitpickery. Things like how Count Dooku was basically completely wasted, Yoda doing stupid backflips, it's like whatever, there's dumb things all over the place but those aren't what end up hurting the movies the most to me.

The two things that hurt the movie the most are (1) the beigeness of the art design, and (2) walking down corridors and talking beigely. Dumb stuff can be fun to watch but those things aren't fun to watch. I haven't watched Episode 1 in YEARS because the graphic design of the picture feels so ugly with plain pastel browns on what seems to be practically everything. And all the "intrigue" is for the most part delivered in the worst way possible; there's perfectly good stuff in the prequels but I honestly don't know if there's enough to salvage a full movie out of it.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

On a conceptual level, I think the prequels are up there with the OT. The basic story ideas are classic drama. The problems are execution, and the plot not matching the overall story that Lucas had envisioned.

That's sort of the crux of the problem with Lucas, at least based off what Chuck's saying in these videos. He operates as if he were an auteur, but he he has real limitations that call for more delegation. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, most of the great directors aren't writing their own scripts and they didn't/don't necessarily have a great deal of involvement on the technical side like Lucas did. The issue is Lucas didn't delegate those tasks to other talented people. Which is unfortunate but understandable, since what Lucas was good at was creating an overall vision for the direction the characters would go. Two movies into the post-Lucas era, the execution is much better and creative people have been given more room to play, but the overall world-building and thematic structure seems more haphazard and less sophisticated.

I'd agree with those who say that Episode III is, for the most part, actually really good. Episode II is down there with I as far as I'm concerned, but III would have a better reputation today if it wasn't connected with its two predecessors.

I was kind of surprised that reaction to Return of the Jedi was apparently so negative. Lately I've seen people (including "Honest Trailers") calling it an outright bad movie. As a kid it was my favorite. Today I can see why some might blame it for introducing some of the more kiddish and ridiculous aspects to the franchise, but to me it also has some of the best emotional beats in the franchise, as well as the best space battle in Star Wars.

[Asvarduil]

I'd agree with those who say that Episode III is, for the most part, actually really good. Episode II is down there with I as far as I'm concerned, but III would have a better reputation today if it wasn't connected with its two predecessors.

For the most part I agree. Episode III was the most relevant of the prequel trilogy, because it was really what we wanted to see: The Tragedy of Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker. The man had it all, but fear and a sense of isolation drove him to increasingly desperate actions, which culminated in Palpatine manipulating him into reneging on all his promise, all his oaths, and eventually, even the love of his life, who he (indirectly) killed - and, no, that's not a 'from a certain point of view', either. Had we just been given Episode III, and no goddamn Jar-Jar, Star Wars would be better off.

On that note, something interesting - while Obi-Wan manipulated Luke with his "From a certain point of view" thing (really just Lucas retconning himself...but whatever), which was more or less an overt lie, Palpatine was much better in his execution - his lie was in fact the truth, but worded more effectively. Generally speaking - and, by necessity - Palpatine carefully avoided lying, if for no other reason than he spent a great deal of time around Jedi as Chancellor. Whereas Obi-Wan used a terribly constructed lie to motivate Luke - which wound up backfiring in his face, genius that he is - Palpatine used well-arranged truths to motivate Anakin to tear down literally everything he ever worked for. How's that for an interesting symmetry?

That being said, the whole, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes!" (facepalm) makes me always facepalm, EVERY time it is said, because it's such a terrible fallacy, that I award Obi-Wan Kenobi the 'Neelix' prize for the franchise. Obi-Wan is a Jedi Guardian, because the Force knows smarts aren't his strong suit.

[GandALF]

That being said, the whole, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes!" (facepalm) makes me always facepalm, EVERY time it is said, because it's such a terrible fallacy.

He's specifically talking about "with me or against me" absolutism, obviously the Jedi believe in definitive good and evil but are aware most people are in the middle. Yes the line should've been reworked but its not so fallacious in context.