[Just your average movie goer]

In TESB, Luke walks into a dark room on Cloud City; the next moment, he's being propelled upwards out of a grate! What the hell happened?

Um... I think you'll find that was Vader's trap. You know, a gimmicked door that locks Luke in an elevator that will take him up the carbon freezing chamber.

And Ponda Baba? That guy actually had a name, hey. The Kenner action figure boxes had him tentatively identified as 'Walrus Man'. Although, it's funny you mention that scene. I have a little problem with it too - but it's not the same one you identified. My problem is the fact that the other guy announces to Luke that he's a wanted man with the death sentence on twelve systems. Usually, wanted people try to keep a low profile. What if Luke had been a bounty hunter with his look of innocent naivety just an act?

"Twelve systems, eh? Which one's offering the best reward?"

And Civilian, I completely agree with you on the point about gratuitous CGI. I couldn't help thinking that when I watched those films - that half the time, Lucas was showing off the new technology. Some demonstration it turned out to be though.

I just thought of another strange thing with the whole concept of the prequels being for kids. In the first one, we have Anakin as a kid and Padme as a teenager - in the second and third movies, both of them still seem like teenagers. Jar Jar is so immature, I guess he qualifies as a literal moron - a child in an adult's body. And I find the whole thing rather strange because when I was a kid, I didn't require the characters in my favourite movies to be kids - quite the opposite. I liked the fact that the characters were adults and I think that would be true for all kids. When the characters are adults, you can believe that you can grow up to be like them in the future. When they're kids though, they'd be more likely to annoy you because they're having fun adventures while you're stuck in school.

Also, one of the things I remember most clearly about being a kid was that when I was a kid, I really wanted to be an adult - and I'm pretty sure I wasn't alone. I think there are millions of kids all around the world who look at the first two decades of their life and think "Let's get this over with."

Jar-Jar's ridiculous dive into the ocean in TPM is the best example I can think of, but there's that "bigger fish" sequence as well.

Oh, I'd forgotten all about that! How anyone could sit through that again is beyond me.

I'm quite sure I wouldn't have liked that as a kid.

I also remembered another thing - I don't know if it's been raised already or not. But in the prequels, the ships are dull. They are completely indistinctive in their external appearance. The interiors look like hospital wings, they are so sparse. They don't make cool sounds when they move - I thought they regularly sounded like vintage airplanes, which is not the right sound for things that are propelled through space by powerful thrusters.

The ships in the original films however are brilliant. Everything has its own style and it all looks amazing. I also like the fact that everything looks worn in - as if people actually use it. Prequel ships look like they've never been taken out of their display boxes. I don't think as a kid, I would get excited about Amidala's featureless silver ship. But I remember all the rebel fighters and the Millenium Falcon. I could even work out how the different rebel fighters would be used, based solely on their appearance. I could see how X-Wings combined speed and maneouvrability with firepower, while A-Wings were a lighter fighter but with much more speed. I could see how TIE-Fighters were relatively minimalist and designed so they could be easily mass-produced. No character ever said "You know, TIE-Fighters are really simple in their design so the Empire can churn millions of them off the assembly line without any trouble." It was just obvious from the ships.

What's the point of all this? I wish I knew. Just one more reason why the original movies captured my imagination so well when I was young and held on as I grew up - and another area where the prequels would fail to get my attention if I was a kid now.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 21 August 2007 - 07:31 PM

[Bond]

Well, I thought some of ROTS's fighters looked pretty scuffed up; just look at Obi-Wan and Anakin's!

[jariten]

JYAMG-

I was reading through some of my old threads too and I'm surprised how much I was willing to defend these films against, essentially, an entire forum. Theres a couple of things I wrote that I don't agree with now, but that's to be expected I suppose.

I still support the prequels, and it looks like I always will, but I guess I just don't have the energy or even the inclination to voice my opinions like I used to anymore. Some of those endless posts where we copied each others points into our own posts and addressed them one by one are kind of funny in hindsight though.

This retrospective criticism is interesting though, and I was always disappointed that a magazine or two didn't devote some pages to doing the same sort of thing, either just the PT or the SW as a whole.

[Just your average movie goer]

Yeah, I was actually staggered by how seriously we got into it all as well. That's part of the reason I titled this thread "After the dust has settled..."

I guess I could also have called it "Now that we've all calmed down..."

And you were pretty amazing going the distance too. I wouldn't have the guts to go into a prequel fan club and voice my disdain. I'm glad you stuck around, especially considering how infuriating I could be sometimes back then. These days though, I like to think I'm a calmer person.

Also, a retrospective would make quite a good feature for a magazine right about now.

Lastly - sorry, Bond but I can't even remember what those fighters looked like.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 21 August 2007 - 11:56 PM

[Casual Fan]

There is a parellel with Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. The original three books (actually six half-books) is considered to be one of the greatest science fiction series ever, in many ways good and bad it set the tone for what people think of as science fiction. Asimov grew to hate the trilogy halfway through, and never properly finished it. We never get to find out which, if any, of the two Foundations reestablishes the Galactic Empire, and how, and whether that is a good thing.

In his old age, Asimov was coaxed into writing sequels to the trilogy. But he still plainly had problems with the series. The first two thirds of the first sequel are a great read, in the style of the original trilogy, then the whole thing veers off into an enormous tangent, then is wrapped up in the second sequel in a literal deus ex machina. The second sequel is more of a sequel to the later Robot series than the Foundation series, it really has next to nothing that relates to the original trilogy. Then he wrote two prequels, both of which are quite good in parts, but both of which blantantly contradict much of the backstory as explained in the original trilogy.

In other words, somewhat like the Star Wars prequels, except not as bad. The first prequel is a good book, but its probably more enjoyable if you've never been exposed to the original Foundation trilogy. The best way to compare the later four books with the Star Wars prequels is that the quality of the storytelling is better, but the contradictions with the plot of the original books is more blatant. And it seems that when people refer to the "Foundation" series, they mostly refer to the original three books, and only to the original three books.

Are the non-tampered with, non-Special editions first three Star Wars movies still available? If so, they will be rediscovered some day and reappreciated. If not, then Lucas really did ruin the franchise.

[Storm]

When I first watched "STAR WARS", I thought it was a fairly decent movie. After the dust settled, I then realized the absurdity of Luke, a farm boy, being able to get into an X-Wing with absolutely no space OR combat training and then blowing up the Death Star 30 minutes later. If people back in 1977 hadn't destroyed most of their brain cells from smoking so much pot in the 60's, I'm sure they would have also been more critical of the movie.

After the dust settled, I realized there is only one good movie of the six, and that being Empire Strikes Back. I'm not clear on why "STAR WARS" is so popular even today. It's a sloppy, sloppy movie.

This post has been edited by Storm: 22 August 2007 - 12:15 AM

[civilian_number_two]

Casual Fan: The other parallel with FOUNDATION is that in that series, there is a city that takes up an entire planet. (This is one of the many things Lucas borrowed from Classical Mythology of course, and not from sci-fi. Apparently Asimov also borrowed it).

Storm: You really trying to resurrect that argument? The fighter was DROID-controlled; all the pilot did was supply the decisions and to some extent the reflexes. Essentially in Lucas's universe, if you could drive a car, you could fly a fighter plane; the reason was the DROID they put in there with you. I find that way easier to accept than the FORCE, so I don't know why it's such a sticky point with you.

And we had it on record that Luke flew a small plane back home, and even fired from it at moving targets. So we had enough of a backstory to accept the farmboy flying the plane. Of course the analogy was to adventure fiction of WWII: he was able to fly a fighter plane precisely BECAUSE he had worked on a farm, and had already learned piloting from dusting crops. (again, this apparently has some precedent not in advventure fiction of WWII, but in ... I don't know ... The Iliad or something). As for blowing up the Death Star, he didn't accomplish that with his piloting skills. He turned off the targeting computer and let the FORCE guide him. As much as I hate silly mysticism, I liked it in that film (and disliked it in THE MATRIX), and went along with that as directed. --- If you're going to say however that Anikin should never have been able to fly a podracer and shouldn't have therefore flown a fighter in TPM, even with Droid assistance, well I agree. That was going too far.

[jariten]

I do love ANH, including the ending- but come on, it's stupid. There's nothing in the script to suggest that the R2 units flew the X Wings, everything on screen suggests they did nothing except repair damage.

Lucas obviously didn't want to include scenes of Luke training in the X Wing and slow down the pacing at the end, he just hoped you'd swallow it along with the rest of the dodgy stuff. I'll give him that, it's a great ending. Like a lot of SW, it's best not to think about it too much.

[Just your average movie goer]

I never had a problem with that. Obi Wan mentioned that Luke had become quite a good pilot earlier in the movie. Luke mentions flying something called a T-16 and shooting wamprats while doing it (although what the wamprats did to him, I don't know). And I'm guessing that the T-16 is that tri-winged ship we see parked between his garage and the rest of the house when he's cleaning the droids - and it looks like the model he's playing with is actually a model of that same ship.

I suppose it's not the same as an X-Wing but it does look like a proper ship so I guess Luke could probably work out how to fly the X-Wing without too much difficulty. And it's not outside the realms of possibility really. Many of the pilots in the battle of Britain had practically no prior experience at all.

Are the non-tampered with, non-Special editions first three Star Wars movies still available? If so, they will be rediscovered some day and reappreciated. If not, then Lucas really did ruin the franchise.

I'm not sure, Casual Fan. Lucas released them recently as part of a limited edition package which included the altered versions on one disc and the original cuts on a bonus disc - with each movie sold individually. Now, I'm not sure if they really were limited editions or whether that was just a marketing ploy to make fans think that they would miss out if they hesitated. I haven't gone to any stores that sell DVDs to check it out.

I would be curious to know what type of message the whole thing sent to George Lucas though because there was a bit of a dilemma for fans when they came out. You see, the original movies on the bonus disc were not restored in any way and everyone felt cheated - and rightly so.

Now, some fans thought if they bought this edition, then they would be sending the message to Lucas that it was okay that the movies weren't restored and then they'd never have a hope of having the original cuts restored in the future. However, other fans rationalised that if they didn't buy these editions, Lucas would say "Ha! You said you wanted the original cuts yet when I gave them to you, you didn't buy them! Therefore, I'm never releasing them again!"

Speaking for myself, I bought them because I really wanted to have the originals on DVD and this looked like as good an offer as I was ever going to get. Was I disappointed by the fact that these movies weren't restored? Of course I was. However, like I said at the start of this thread, they still look and sound great despite this - and at last, I've got hard copies of these movies that I can watch again and again without having to worry about the tape wearing out.

Are the original cuts going to be available for people to buy in the future however? I don't know.

This post has been edited by Just your average movie goer: 22 August 2007 - 07:17 AM

[Madam Corvax]

Some six months ago I ran into Star Wars DVDs in a media store that boasted the sing "Orignal not mastered custs" or something to this effect suggesting this was the non-special edition. I have to confess, I didn't even stop and investigate.
I already have Special Editions, and not all of us want to end up with collection similar in size to JYAMG's collection of LOTR films;) So perhaps I lost my chance to buy original-originals, and I haven't seen them since, so I cannot tell if they were a hoax or not.

I also wish I had something clever to say to add to this thread, but I have recently discovered youtube and out of curiosity I looked up Holiday Special. Someone uploaded the whole ninety minutes of so of this torture to save it for posterity- I watched some of it, and it is as revolting as Chefelf described it. It left horrible aftertaste in my mind and put me off Star Wars for a while.

[Despondent]

The Holiday Special is Still better than the prequels. Come on Madam Corvax? How about a little smile?

Lucas sold out with new technology, all the way to the crapper. For instance, he held the world at bay with the original trilogy. Keeping it off the air, not bringing it all to VHS originally, keeping it in the cinema.

20 years after the trilogy dust settled, folks returned to the theaters to see the old movies (albeit altered versions).

He knows better than to re-release the PT (and save embarrassment).
And he couldn't transfer it to DVD fast enough. Hey PT lovers: Would YOU pony up to see your beloved films a dozen more times on the big-screen?

This post has been edited by Despondent: 22 August 2007 - 11:13 AM

[Bond]

The Holiday Special is Still better than the prequels.

No! That's not true... that's IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Des Vader: Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

NOOOO!!!! No...

[Chefelf]

The Holiday Special is Still better than the prequels.

I don't know that I'd agree with that. The prequels are an abomination but I can still watch them all the way though without huge amounts of boredom (though sections of AOTC certainly test my patience).

I'm glad you finally got to see it, MC. It's an important thing to see, even though it's the worst thing ever.

[Madam Corvax]

I am afraid I second Chefelf on that. Holiday Special is not better than PT. True, it had no dialogue and no story just like PT, but lacked the eye candy factor as well, which was the only thing nice about PT. There is some nice photography in PT, even if it is all CGI. No such luck with HS.

Also, it IS important to watch HS, because it gave me a "reverse forewaring" if you catch my meaning - it was a warning that even in the seventies spelled prequels for us - meaning you can do crapy things with supposedly brilliant material. I hope I make sense here - what I am trying to say is that audience would buy anything that had Star Wars in it, but by no means would that meant it is good. Even with original actors to work with and "rescuing Wookies homeland from evil Empire" theme which is not intrinsically bad the result is a disaster.

If I recall correctly HS was done between SW and ESB -which is still more more surprising that directly after that we got ESB - and what a stroke of good luck Lucas had when Kershner directed ESB! I think without ESB Star Wars would not mean half as much as it does now. ANH was great fun, but it still had some scenes that make me wince (ending!). I didn't know why at that time, but I saw ANH on big screen like two times, compared to half a dozen times I went to see ESB. Now I know - it was the maturing characters, great story, intimacy, lovely photography.

And if we still get tortured by crappy games, novels, films, comics by way of spin-offs, it is just marketing. Sometimes I wonder if there are masterpieces out there which I simply do not get to watch because I do not know about them. And I do not know them, because people who make them lack resources to market them. And when they finally get resources, their masterpiece product turns into prequels and Holiday Specials. Kinda sad.

[Bond]

Well, for every On Her Majesty's Secret Service, there's a Diamonds Are Forever to ruin the whole thing.