Enough Lucas Bashing Already!

[Lord_Karsk]

Characters and locations are not story. Do you even know what story means? To be honest I thing Star wars would far better if Lucas would have started with Attack of the Clones and ignored The Phantom Manace entirely. That Movie has no good stotry and it is not even told well. I am not just talking about how disappointing it was to wait many years to get a new Star wars movie and then just get that, no that movie was just bad. The only thing that was good about it was the soundtrack, but John Williams knows what he is doing while Lucas is not.

 

Okay let us face the story. Who is the protagonist of that story, is it Qui Gun Jinn who is mostly just there but does not much, is it Obi-Wan who is not always around or is it Anakin who we meet quite late into the movie? To which of them are we supposed to relate? And that problem that the movie feels like patchwork is continued in many other aspects as well. We get a pod race scene because Lucas thought having something like that would be great like it was in Ben Hur, but he got it wrong.

 

I would say the original A New Hope has one of the best pacings a movie can have, even after all those years it feels strong. The Phantom Manace on the other hand has one of the worst I have seen.

 

The end with four conflicts at the same time was just too much, many people I know thought that 3 in Return of the Jedi was already to much, but 4 killed it... that's why Attack of the clones didn't continued that with adding another conflict like all the Star Wars movies had to that point.

 

There are interviews out there in which you can see that Lucas was not really happy with The Phantom Manace, but it was too late to start over again.

 

Really how can you think that The Phantom Manace had anything near a decent story, almost every idea in that movie is stolen from other stories (just like A New Hope was, but there it worked what Lucas did with it). Man The first Trailer for Phantom Manace had a better pacing that the finished movie.

 

So, in conclusion I think The Phantom Manace is one of the worst stories ever told, and everyone can surely tell better storeis. The only thing is that the soundtrack is awesome and the lightsaber duel at the end looks not to bad (sadly it misses what the duels in the original trilogy had: the psychological struggle that the character had there).

 

I think Revenge of the Sith was okay, maybe even equally good as Return of the Jedi, but nobody can tell me that the Phantom Manace was good in whatever way or form, especially the story was crap there!

 

 

I can tell your not into the lore even thou you have a very few points

This sums it up pretty good i think

[Drudenfusz]

I can tell your not into the lore even thou you have a very few points

This sums it up pretty good i think

Big Lebowski is right, it is my opinion... that doesn't say anything about if I am wrong or not. I don't see what lore has to do with how well a story is told? Sure, there are plenty of stuff in the expanded Univers of Star wars which I don't like, but I guess I am quite knowledgable about the lore anyway. For example I don't complain about the mediclorians, since it was for me always obvious that the force is something that not everyone can master. But, I don't see how that would make The Phantom Manace a good story, if you really think it is a good story then you just have no clue about how stories work. I don't mind if you like the movie, I have myself quite a few guilty pleasure movies, but I don't claim that they have a good story when they have not.

[Captain_Zone]

I have to be honest I love the Star Wars universe, I think we can all agree on this point given where this forum exists. However after watching A New Hope just now I am shocked this movie did not bomb like a burning bag on the doorstep... HONESTLY! ....The story was a hot mess, there is so little that keeps things together, the accepted lore about Jedi and Sith is nowhere to be found and the characters were so shallow and one dimensional that every meaningful choice they make just seemed like the thing to do so the movie can continue. I cannot say for certain, but I would guess that if this wasn’t at the time the next level of Sci Fi movie making and if George did not put together not only a great team of behind the camera talent as well as a very talented troupe of actors we would all be stuck playing Warcraft right now. I am so thankful that I was very young when Empire and Jedi came out so I could actually enjoy those movies and put on a fanboy hat when I finally saw A New Hope. I love each movie for something different, and I am all in with the SW universe but of all the writing done in this universe Lucas is probably one of my least favorite. Compare if you will Admiral Thrawn to Grand Moff Tarkin or even Jacen Solo to Anakin Skywalker. The difference in how well these characters are handled is incredible, by the end of Zahn’s original trilogy I honestly felt for Thrawn and Pelleon and Rukah.( I hope I spelled those names right). All in all, I am glad There exists a Star Wars universe despite George Lucas efforts to ruin it entirely. Now back to watching Empire.

 

Taken on its own, without anything else Star Wars, A New Hope was what it was supposed to be. The first chapter of a space opera. In the first chapter of a Space Opera, NOTHING is set in stone. It leaves room for improvisation to the story. ESB expanded on what ANH set down as a foundation. Then RotJ finished building the Movie mythology. When George opened the Star Wars universe to other authors to work in, and write their own original stories, it was great! Finally, we had some great writing talent who COULD write romance and dialogue! Awesome!

 

Then came the Dark Time... The Time of the Prequels... Those Prequels which destroyed the efforts of quite a few Expanded Universe authors, and even retconned many parts in the OT. It was then that we saw how much George disliked his only real moneymaker. His writing and directing had suffered from years of inactivity. His once grand story became mired in (admittedly awesome) special effects. His story lost all substance with the horrible dialogue and insanely bad romance story between Anakin and Padme. He ripped off Lethal Weapon for the first part of Episode II, even. Especially with Obi-Wan taking on the role of Murtaugh with his "I'm getting to old for this..." line, and Anakin acting like a really bad version of Riggs. I could go on, but you get the idea, folks. My point is that I love the Star Wars Universe, in spite of all the times George interferes in it. He created it, but it outgrew him. It took on a life of its own.

 

In closing, *BASHES GEORGE WITH A BASEBALL BAT*

 

Ahhhh, much better!

[revansowns]

I laugh so hard at the Lucas haters. I actually liked the Prequels more than the originals. Yes, the acting could have been better, but it had a great STORY, which is why people see movies in the first place. I find the Lucas haters are a lot like Republicans - too stuck in the past to realize that things can be DIFFERENT and can CHANGE, and that their vision is not always the correct one.

[Captain_Zone]

I laugh so hard at the Lucas haters. I actually liked the Prequels more than the originals. Yes, the acting could have been better, but it had a great STORY, which is why people see movies in the first place. I find the Lucas haters are a lot like Republicans - too stuck in the past to realize that things can be DIFFERENT and can CHANGE, and that their vision is not always the correct one.

 

And you actually think it's ok to change what has already been written without giving the people the option as to which version to watch? You think it's ok for George to give only the latest version of his remade OT to the Library of Congress instead of the Original OT that they requested? Especially after arguing AGAINST this in 1983 in front of Congress. Seriously, if Congress had passed that law back then, George wouldn't have been able to screw up the original story so much. His excuses were thin, to say the least. George saying "The Originals weren't as I had envisioned them." is BS. If he had wanted Greedo to shoot first, he could have done that when he first made the movie. Or if it somehow slipped through the cracks, he could have redone it in 97 when he made Greedo get a reaction shot off. But he waited until 2004. Hmmm. 26 YEARS to correct a "mistake"???? Give me a freakin' break!

 

*BASHES GEORGE WITH A TRUCK*

[Sir-Coffee]

 

Watch all 3 of the reviews(Third one is on his website)

[FearlessXIII]

Personaly, I consider the prequels far inferior to the original trilogy for the same reason most newer hollywood blockbusters suck:

The original movies did it right. They used a moderate amount of special effects and action sequences to tell the story.

The prequels did what allmost all newer hollywood movies do: They used an at best mediocre story to loosley string together a series of unnecessaryly overdonne action sequences and CGI.

 

In the makeing off at one point one guy from the team said something along the line of: "There isn't a single shot in the movies, that doesn't have blue box in it."

And he said it like it was a point in the movies favor.

I waitet about 5 minutes for the punchline, but aparenty he was serious.

 

Part of the problem is, since computers have made special effects so dam cheap, movie makers can't restrain themsevles from using them to the death.

That duel between obi-one and vader is just one of the most glaring examples of this.

[Eillack]

I laugh so hard at the Lucas haters. I actually liked the Prequels more than the originals. Yes, the acting could have been better, but it had a great STORY, which is why people see movies in the first place. I find the Lucas haters are a lot like Republicans - too stuck in the past to realize that things can be DIFFERENT and can CHANGE, and that their vision is not always the correct one.

 

Umm

 

A) Take politics out of discussions please, it will lead to flame wars.

B) I'd have to 100% disagree with this because I know a ton of Republicans who are mixed with being more OT or PT fans.

 

BUT I will agree that the PT had a better story due to its Greek Tragedy feel.

[epicfear]

Ok... I believe that a little something called nostalgia is causing the hate for the prequels.

 

people grew up with the original trilogy, and so were willing to overlook flaws in it (*Coughincestand ewokscough*) because the rest was good, and the original trilogy was put on a pedastal and most viewed better than it actually was. but then the prequel trilogy arrives, and they do not overlook the flaws in it. instead they compare episodes 1 2 and 3 to their ideal version of the episodes 4 5 and 6. I am probably gonna draw alot of hate and say that I grew up with the prequel trilogy and I viewed it as superior to the dated original trilogy. (Species immune to the jedi mind trick notwhitstanding. seriously, that was my biggest beef with episode 1.)

[FearlessXIII]

Nostalgia may be a factor. But only one among many.

Yea, the evocs were pretty anoying and overblown, but so were the gungans, so I call this one even.

 

One of my problems with the PT is, that compared with the OT, it's well, sterile.

You don't see characters grow, you don't see their relationships with each other develope. All that happens off screen between the movies.

The only character development we see in the entire PT is that of Anakin turning from a whiny, arrogant bratt into an emo ****. And that's not much of an evolution.

Instead, the movies celebrate flashy lights, spectacular but sterile CGI backgrounds and overlong, overorchestrated lightsabre duels ad nauseum.

 

The pivotal duel in Return of the Jedi took place on a gloomy starship bridge, was all but a few seconds long and had Luke bash at Vader with all his might. The scene was emotional and tightly focused.

The duel between Obi One and Anakin in EPIII took place in a colapsing vulcano-doomfortress filled with garish special effects and seemed to take forever.