Why the prequels are awesome (and important)

[DarylMusashi]

^^ true enough on that.

 

I suppose Han could have picked it up somewhere in his life, and didn't even know what it's true purpose was. He could have thought it was a pest control droid perhaps with mini lasers for shooting bugs and rodents loose on the ship.

 

I still maintain that it wasn't brought by either Luke or Obi-Wan. After selling the speeder all they had with them were the clothes on their backs, a couple of light sabers, and two droids.

[Sandmanmr]

Granted, not many. A friend of mine practices some type of historical longsword fighting deal (dont remember if it was italian, or german) and it looks nothing like it does in most movies.

 

Obviously you would have to take into account the fact that armor is involved, and that longswords were, a lot of the time used in two hands, with one mailed gauntlet actually holding the sword blade to penetrate armor, yet it doesn't change the fact that the lightsaber fighting seen in the prequels is inneffective at best.

 

There are several times where obi could have struck down Maul for instance, but instead chose to twirl his lightsaber around. I realise most of this is just to make it look good and flashy, but there are plenty of good swordfights out there that are far more realistic.

 

The one in die another day for instance, as someone mentioned here. The one with (ironically) Liam Neeson in Rob Roy is also a favorite of mine, and when it comes to Star Wars, nothing beats Vader vs Luke in their last fight, in sheer intensity.

 

Again, this is just my opinion. I enjoyed seeing some more, and varied ligthsaber fighting, but it could have been executed without feeling like a choreographed dance routine.

 

the new sherlock Holmes films use weapons as one would Kali sticks which are a great pair of sticks to learn form because they can be translated into sword combat

[jarjarloves]

Why Does Han Solo have a Jedi Training droid on his ship?

 

 

 

You say it explained the lore I say it ruined the lore and the mystique of it all.

 

 

It's Obi Wan's not Hans. Nowhere in the movie does it say it was on his ship..it came with the toy as that's where you see it..but it is a training remote that belonged to Obi Wan.

 

where did you get that from?

[Sandmanmr]

people have to realize bad writing is everywhere my linguistic major cousin goes through dan brown novels and finds a ****ton of grammar and spelling mistakes.

 

truth is, if the grammar police got there way everything would be **** look at Shakespeare, compare his stuff to the storys bioware has created and Shakespeare is garbage.

 

So what im saying is star wars is not perfect but 400 years from know English profs will be quoting star wars like they quote Shakespeare and that idiot who made fart jokes named Chaucer.

 

Im Watching revenge of the sith right now!

Edited January 5, 2012 by Sandmanmr

[OddballEasyEight]

This point makes me curious; How many sword fights have you witnessed outside the medium of film or sport fencing?

 

Dont know about him, but i know a few people that actually train with weapons (one trains a japanese martial arts form, two train viking swordfighting tecniques and one trains medieval swordfighting) and it looks nothing like that glowstick waving they do in the prequals.

The original trilogy does look alot better when it comes to that area.

 

of course, it still has that "movie swordfighting" look to it, but overall its way better in the originals.

[Genitor]

Red letter media, nuff said.

 

 

 

 

Lightsaber fights look like choreographed dance moves. Sure, it looks good, but at times it's just painfully obvious that they are just waving around sticks and not intending to kill each other. You can literally see that pretty much every single slash, hit and lunge isn't meant to kill, only strike the other lightsaber to make it look better. Luke vs Vader was far more intense than any other ligthsaber battle.

 

 

You do realize that the swings in sword fights are not meant to hurt the opponent... not yet at least. The point in a sword (or lightsaber) fight is to disarm the other persons sword (or lightsaber) so they can then achieve a finishing blow. It's much more effective to disarm the person so it's easier to kill them unless you see a gaping hole in a persons defense and there is no need. There is nothing wrong with the fights in the star wars prequels.

[Wolfninjajedi]

There is nothing wrong with the fights in the star wars prequels.

 

This right here is correct, I mean they are in a world where things are impossible for us to do IRL...so why does sword fighting have to be like real life sword fighting? They are people with powers, so obviously they created their own style of fighting to help them in using it. I mean if they used sword fighting styles that everyone knows if, they wouldn't really have any advantage over any regular person other then they can know when the next strike is.

[RagnarokJC]

Many people hate on the prequels and say that they are an abomination that should have never happened.

 

 

But almost everything we know about the jedi are from the prequels (aside from the books)

 

If all you go by is the original, then all you know about the jedi is obi-wan who is an old man, and yoda who has a very minimal (but important) presence in the trilogy.

 

The prequels showed us the jedi council, all the different types of jedi and they're roles and how they live. It expanded the lore greatly.

 

 

It seems that so many people embrace all the nuances and foundations that the prequels gave us about star wars yet those people claim to hate the prequels. It doesn't make sense. Yes, there was an annoying little anakin, and a kind of annoying older anakin, and yes there were gungans, but even though the prequels held some embarassing moments, it left us with an general understanding of star wars that we cherish.

 

 

Much of the swtor is more based off swtor than the original trilogy to be honest. Politics of the jedi council, and the sith uprising, these are all concepts stemmed from the prequels. And there is a lot more.

 

I think people just think gungans and pod racers when they think of the prequels and forget about all the great moments those movies gave despite the not so great.

For most people who dislike the PT films, Jar Jar and podracing are likely far down the list of issues.

 

Since you claim that the PT films expanded the lore greatly, I am going to list some questions. I'd like you to tell me where in the films those questions were answered and how:

 

- How does one become a Jedi Master?

- How does one become a member of the Jedi Council outside of the Supreme Chancellor appointing them?

- Why was Anakin not granted the rank of Master when he was made a member of the Council?

- Why did Count Dooku leave the Jedi Order?

- Why did Count Dooku decide to become a Sith Lord?

- Who are the Sith?

- Where did the Sith come from?

- Why did Palpatine become a Sith Lord?

- Who was Palpatine's master when he was training as a Sith?

- How did exactly did Anakin's mother conceive him if there was no father?

- What did the Separatists want exactly?

- How did General Grievous become a cyborg?

- Why does Grievous hate the Jedi so much?

- How and why did Grievous join the Separatist army?

- What are the character traits of the members of the Jedi Council other than Windu and Yoda?

- What are the *names* of those members of the Council as well as other Jedi?

- How many times during the films were any of the Jedi aside from Yoda, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gonn, Anakin, and Mace actually addressed by their names?

 

I could go on, but I hope you see the point I'm bringing up.

Edited January 5, 2012 by RagnarokJC

[newwb]

everything about jedi that the prequels established sucks and makes no sense, even contradicts the stuff in the original trilogy. a few examples:

 

yoda "judge me by my size do you?" well yes, because in the prequels his size defines his character. he has to compensate for it by jumping around and spinning constantly while fighting. yoda shouldnt even have a lightsaber, his character is above that. he never even trains luke with a lightsaber, because there are more important things.

 

emotion. the prequels and all the later eu stuff established that jedi seek to purge emotion. this makes no sense to me. in the ot, obi-wan never mentions this to luke. how does luke defeat vader? by getting angry. the ultimate take away of that fight is that luke masters his emotions. so to me it seemed like jedi were about discipline and mastering emotion, not pretending it doesnt exist.

 

family. speaking of the luke vader fight, why does luke get angry? because vader threatens his sister, who we cares deeply for. so really, luke wouldnt have been able to defeat vader without his love for his sister. luke and leia arent separated because jedi cant have families, obi-wan tells luke that they were separated because to keep them safe from vader. when luke figures out that leia is his sister, obi-wan commends him.

 

of course, add to that the long list of incredibly stupid things that yoda and mace windu do in the prequels.

[javorizer]

Also I would like to point out that the whole series portrayed the life of Anakin Skywalker. And is adding lore to that with clone wars etc.

 

This. Was not what the OT was about. The only reason you might say that the OT is the story of Vader, is because of the new trilogy.

 

The OT is basically an adventure trilogy, set in a mysterious galaxy that somehow manages to mix up medieval aspects (a brave knight saving the princess) with futuristic aspects.

The main character is Luke, without a doubt. Throughout all of it Vader is not even the main villain, the Empire is.

[javorizer]

You do realize that the swings in sword fights are not meant to hurt the opponent... not yet at least. The point in a sword (or lightsaber) fight is to disarm the other persons sword (or lightsaber) so they can then achieve a finishing blow. It's much more effective to disarm the person so it's easier to kill them unless you see a gaping hole in a persons defense and there is no need. There is nothing wrong with the fights in the star wars prequels.

 

 

The fights look flashy, but if you seriously think this is a viable way to fight with a sword, then you need to rewatch some of those fights. There are a riduclous amount of times where either opponent could have stabbed the other, leading to death or mutilation since lightsabers don't even require much strength to cut through anything.

 

There is literally a scene where Obi Wan is behind maul, and instead of striking him, he twirls his saber around. Same goes for the fight between Anakin and Obi (although this is better).

 

Also, swinging a sword in a fight IS meant to hurt the opponent. If not, the fight would take forever. This of course depends on what type of swords we are talking about, since longswords and the like would require massive force to do any damage to plate armor, and were mostly used for stabbing in that case.

Fighting with a Katana isn't meant for disarming the opponent either, but striking, or cutting him with the tip of the sword, something that lightsabers would be good at, seeing as they are sharp all over and don't need more than the tip anyways.

 

Fencing is another style that would apply well to lightsabers, considering their light weight. Here your point would make sense, since you would be holding the lightsaber in one hand, and would be more prone to being disarmed, but again this would prove invalid since you wouldn't actually need to get that close to harm your opponent significantly, due to the lethality of the weapon.

[georgemattson]

3) Our expectations got in the way. Why is little boy Anakin such an affront to many? Well, because that's not really what we expected. Personally, from the description in Ep. 4 I expected Anakin to be about 17-22 when Obi-Wan trained him. Having him at ten was jarring.

 

I'm sorry, but I cannot disagree with you strongly enough. "Little boy Anakin" wasn't an affront to me. I knew that was coming and expected it. You can't show how Darth Vader became how we was without going back to his childhood. What I hated was the worst acting performance by nearly human being alive that I've seen in 44 years.

 

"Now this is pod racing!"

 

Can you actually listen to that and not cringe?

 

The kid leaves his mother behind in slavery to go join a bunch of strangers and shows less emotion than I do when I'm trying to decide what shirt to wear in the morning.

 

Not that the first two movies were great pieces of cinematic art (I'm not a fan of RoTJ either, but it's still far ahead of the Ep 1-3), but at least you could tune out the bad acting and watch the action. Ep 1, especially, was so godawful bad that when I made the mistake of renting it (once), I fast forwarded through pretty much the entire movie, other than ten minutes of fight scenes. Literally. From the time we popped the DVD in to the time we took it out was something like 20 minutes.

[BrandonSM]

if I wasn't at work I would link the youtube video. But i Can't so you have to look it up yourself.

 

 

Type in Die another Day Fencing scene That is what a GOOD chorographed sword fight should be.

 

It has great action and it FEELS like it is real. they even have a version where they edited in lightsabers so you could see just how amazing it is.

 

If you ever pay attention, in the OT and the PT, they didn't style the sword fighting to be like fencing, they based it off of old Japanese and Chinese Fighting Styles.

 

 

You can tell they didn't aim to be like fencing. Pirates of the Caribbean is similar to fencing.

[BrandonSM]

 

- How does one become a Jedi Master? You are appointed by the council, as Obi-Wan was appointed at the end of Ep. 1

- How does one become a member of the Jedi Council outside of the Supreme Chancellor appointing them? Ep. 1, they give you a test like they gave Anakin

- Why was Anakin not granted the rank of Master when he was made a member of the Council? He was too young and unstable, Mace Windu even stated he doesn't trust the boy.

- Why did Count Dooku leave the Jedi Order? For Power as stated in Ep. 2

- Why did Count Dooku decide to become a Sith Lord? For Power

- Who are the Sith? ...Are you serious? There is something wrong with you if you can't tell by watching the movies.

- Where did the Sith come from? Hmm, this was unasnwered.

- Why did Palpatine become a Sith Lord? Unanswered, but its pretty clear why.

- Who was Palpatine's master when he was training as a Sith? Darth Plageuis... ?

- How did exactly did Anakin's mother conceive him if there was no father? Even the EU hasn't answered this.

- What did the Separatists want exactly? Power... I am beginning to think you only read a summar of the movies.

- How did General Grievous become a cyborg? Grevious has nothing to do with the OT

- Why does Grievous hate the Jedi so much? ^

- How and why did Grievous join the Separatist army? ^

- What are the character traits of the members of the Jedi Council other than Windu and Yoda? Why does that matter?

- What are the *names* of those members of the Council as well as other Jedi? ^

- How many times during the films were any of the Jedi aside from Yoda, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gonn, Anakin, and Mace actually addressed by their names? I'll have to watch, but I know Mundi was addressed.

 

I could go on, but I hope you see the point I'm bringing up.

 

The OP stated lore for the OT, Grevious doesn't affect the OT.

[SeanC]

For most people who dislike the PT films, Jar Jar and podracing are likely far down the list of issues.

 

Since you claim that the PT films expanded the lore greatly, I am going to list some questions. I'd like you to tell me where in the films those questions were answered and how:

 

- How does one become a Jedi Master?

- How does one become a member of the Jedi Council outside of the Supreme Chancellor appointing them?

- Why was Anakin not granted the rank of Master when he was made a member of the Council?

- Why did Count Dooku leave the Jedi Order?

- Why did Count Dooku decide to become a Sith Lord?

- Who are the Sith?

- Where did the Sith come from?

- Why did Palpatine become a Sith Lord?

- Who was Palpatine's master when he was training as a Sith?

- How did exactly did Anakin's mother conceive him if there was no father?

- What did the Separatists want exactly?

- How did General Grievous become a cyborg?

- Why does Grievous hate the Jedi so much?

- How and why did Grievous join the Separatist army?

- What are the character traits of the members of the Jedi Council other than Windu and Yoda?

- What are the *names* of those members of the Council as well as other Jedi?

- How many times during the films were any of the Jedi aside from Yoda, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gonn, Anakin, and Mace actually addressed by their names?

 

I could go on, but I hope you see the point I'm bringing up.

 

Most of these issuses/questions really don't need to be focus on since it barely impacts the story what so ever. Some of them are actually irrevleant. Based on some of those questions though, episode 2 needs to be completely re-done, or another movie should have been added to the series. The clone war should have been a bigger focus instead of about 10 mins in episode 2 and 3. More background info on grievous would have been nice, and much more focus on war itself. I think the questions dealing with dooku could be answered by the deleted scenes that episode 2 provided.

Edited January 6, 2012 by SeanC

[JRRNeiklot]

 

truth is, if the grammar police got there way everything would be **** look at Shakespeare, compare his stuff to the storys bioware has created and Shakespeare is garbage.

 

So what im saying is star wars is not perfect but 400 years from know English profs will be quoting star wars like they quote Shakespeare and that idiot who made fart jokes named Chaucer.

 

Im Watching revenge of the sith right now!

 

This is quite possibly the funniest thing I have ever read.

[Captain_Mark]

Where did he have it stashed then? He was pretty much empty handed when they went to hire Han Solo as a pilot. It's not like he could have stashed the training droid in a pocket or under his robes. It was too big for that. It was certainly on Han's ship beforehand. It had to be. Nothing else makes any logical sense. Han also clearly did not believe in the force, calling it a "hokey religion", so why on earth would he keep a jedi training droid in his stash?

 

When did anything in a movie had to make sense? Espically considering movies like this one.

 

Actually, I have the Millenium Falcon Engineering Manual and it states inside that the remote training droid belongs to Han. Just to settle that one

[Captain_Mark]

If you ever pay attention, in the OT and the PT, they didn't style the sword fighting to be like fencing, they based it off of old Japanese and Chinese Fighting Styles.

 

 

You can tell they didn't aim to be like fencing. Pirates of the Caribbean is similar to fencing.

 

Actually, Dooku's style, Makashi, is basically a defensive fencing style, adopted for the fact that Christopher Lee was considerably older than his opponents and needed a style where he could realistically carry off a fight scene on camera. Accept that as a fact from somebody who is an actual RL fencer

[DarthWalt]

IMO the first 3 movies IE 4.5.6 were so good that now that the first 3 IE 1.2.3 were made they are infact way better looking. I think people got upset cause they didnt want it to be as good as it was.

 

 

Aside from Jarjar and leason was clearly learned as he had little or no part of 2 and 3 was about all that was truely lame in those movies.

 

 

 

Its kinda the same thing going on with ToR and WoW. WoW was so good for so long now something comes along better and here comes the hate.

[Philbe]

Okay why I loved the first trilogy (the ones I saw first) because it was a mind blowing experience that made space and fantasy gel together and it was fun. It was funny. It was like Princess Bride before Princess Bride came out. And it didn't get all caught up in trying to explain everything and we didn't sit there and tear it apart because we loved it.

 

It wasn't that the actors were so talented, it was that they just felt like real people. And then in Empire when they dropped the bomb on us that Darth was actually Luke's father!!! M. Night Shamalayn has been trying to recapture that moment with every movie he makes. And we loved that too! Nevermind that you could drive a Imperial Battle Cruiser through the plot holes.

 

Finally in Return, we get Han back. We get Leia dressed as scantily clad eye-candy. We get to see Luke grow a pair. And there's this big moment where Father realizes he loves his son and it's that love that conquers all. And a few thousand Ewoks. We may not have liked somethings but the lines are still great "I'm out of the picture for a little while and everyone gets delusions of Granduer."

 

Why I don't love the second trilogy (The Prequels). You can't capture magic in a bottle. We're not kids anymore and our kids aren't willing to suspend their sense of logic for the sake of being entertained. And now, with all the success of making the first Trilogy under his belt, I think that Lucas wanted to really set some things in stone about the world he created. And it just made it seems....less. About the only thing I did like about the prequels was Ewan MacGregor's portrayal of Obi Wan.

 

Also, it's a story that we know the ending to. Padme and Anakin's love is doomed and just knowing that makes it difficult to tell the story. Was it bad writing or bad acting that made it impossible for me to believe Anakin's turning to the Dark Side? On what planet or in what universe is a girl 5 years older than a guy, going to think he's relationship material. Maybe Lucas loved a girl 5 years older than him, so it's his fantasy.

 

And the worst thing...Midichlorians??? I'm sure I spelled that wrong. But suddenly we went from spiritual existenialism of the Force to.....some kind of microscopic doohickey that gives powers? It was so disappointing. I watched every movie and kept hoping that I would find that magic again, but all it felt like was Star Wars "The Need to Make More Money"

 

And excuse me but how does someone decide it's okay to just kill children? Or turn on the woman you supposedly loved? Or forget that you didn't have one child but two? Though I don't recall if Anakin knew that Padme had twins or not. But dammit as a master of the Force couldn't he 'feel' two life energies? And how friggin' brutal was it to leave him to burn on the shores of that volcano? Nice move there Obi Wan! And he forgets in "Empire" that Luke had a sister????

 

So I'll always love the first trilogy and I'll always be disappointed in the second. Eventually because it's how people cope, I'll just remember the parts that make me happy and forget the stuff that sucked. Though Hayden Christian (spelling) should be hit with a large mallet and never allowed to act...EVER!!!

[TheOnlyKyrenS]

I have to disagree with the awesomeness and importance of the prequels. As cool as they were at the time, Hayden Christensen's acting was what ruined it for me, that and Yoda was a puppet in The Phantom Menace.

[BoardGamer]

Before reading this thread, i could say that i enjoyed watching the prequels, especially III. Even though i knew the storyline prior to seeing the movie in the theatre, it did not make it less enjoyable to me. yes, the surprise factor was not there as in most movies, but knowing what was going to happen but not knowing exactly how it was going to happen was fairly thrilling for me.

 

after reading all of the threads and posts regarding the inconsistencies and the straight up bull**** that GL put into these movies, i still can say that i like watching them as movies.

 

I never thought that the gungans and ewoks were a problem to the story. they brought a touch of humor to the movies that i enjoyed alongside the suspense.

 

I do not think the prequels should be ignored because on a larger scale does tell the story of how the Jedi were flawed, and that without emotion, they could never become an opposing force to other beings who mastered them. They emphasized how Obi-Wan and Luke revolutionized the ways and teachings of the Jedi later in the LEGACY novels to tame the Sith Uprisings.

 

I have always been a "light side" person but until Vader's rise, I favored the Sith because they were in tune with their emotions and we able to harness them in their own way to accomplish their goals; which the Jedi clearly were not able to do.

 

The "Jedi robe" tradition that GL made in the prequel's to me was the worst offense all. Because in every convention you see thousands and THOUSANDS of water vapor farmers pretending to be a Jedi. IMHO on thing that is great about TOR , OT, and the EU is that every Jedi were unique in fashion due to the various heritages and culture. What makes a Jedi has nothing to do with what they wear and it really is a pity that most people assume that Jedi's have a dress code.

[Wolfninjajedi]

Just because theres a scientific explanation for the force doesn't mean it isn't still spiritual...theres a scientific explanation for everything these days in the real world(or most) yet some still think theres a higher power doing it. Don't see why people haven't put thought into it, rather then just saying "NO! ITS BAD!" Edited January 7, 2012 by Wolfninjajedi

[JonnnyB]

Just because theres a scientific explanation for the force doesn't mean it isn't still spiritual...theres a scientific explanation for everything these days in the real world(or most) yet some still think theres a higher power doing it. Don't see why people haven't put thought into it, rather then just saying "NO! ITS BAD!"

 

Actually a scientific explanation does, in fact, mean that it isn't spiritual.

 

Ex. my TV is not a magic box .. doesn't matter if God exists or not, it's not magic.

 

Regardless, the force was set up very nicely in the original series as a mystical power. The prequels destroyed that in exchange for a line of dialogue. Perhaps if this aspect was developed further it could have worked / evolved into something greater but that is not the case..

[Wolfninjajedi]

Actually a scientific explanation does, in fact, mean that it isn't spiritual.

 

Ex. my TV is not a magic box .. doesn't matter if God exists or not, it's not magic.

 

Regardless, the force was set up very nicely in the original series as a mystical power. The prequels destroyed that in exchange for a line of dialogue. Perhaps if this aspect was developed further it could have worked / evolved into something greater but that is not the case..

 

Yes but we have scientific explanations for how the universe was created and all that other stuff, but some look at it as a higher power created it.