George Lucas really is determined to CGI over his own accidental brilliance

Mee-saa, no-saa undahstand! You-saa no want to see Jaa-Jaa's ears flip-flapping in 3-Dsaa?

 

I maintain that the prequels would have been exponentially better had Lucas not included C-3PO and R2-D2 in them. Then again, "exponentially better" in this case probably would rise to the level of mediocre.

Almost more than anything, what bothered me the most about TPM was how Lucas was able to simultaneously waste the talents of Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor.

Oh, yeah, and the midichlorians. Don't get me started on the midichlorians.

 

Of all the problems with the prequels, why did you think the use of C-3PO and R2-D2 was that bad? Not that it was good, but it was pretty low on the list of things that bothered me.

 

I dunno. It was so contrived. It was like, story ... story ... story ... "oh, yeah, remember these guys from the original trilogy?" ... story ... story ... story.

Granted, the telling of that story was poorly executed, as well. But at no point did the inclusion of the droids do anything to further that clumsy story-telling. They were there without purpose, and it seemed like Lucas went out of his way to put them in as many scenes as possible.

 

There are so many logic and/or construction problems with Episode I that an observant viewer would have to go almost literally minute by minute of the film's running time to highlight them all, having to pause intermittently as to not miss the next. While it being dressed up in the Star Wars motif should save Ep. 1 from complete dismissal, I find it's retardation of the brand only works to enrage me even more.

 

That's what RedLetterMedia is for.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/

 

Episode I was not a great movie. As the high school hipsters would say, "Cool story bro." I'll be going to see it because I saw all the re-releases with my dad (much like some of the last generations saw it with their still-best friends or even their parents) and I enjoy the whole series. To me, Star Wars is more than just the movies, it's all the things I've enjoyed about the universe. The Hand of Thrawn book series by Timothy Zahn, or Knights of the Old Rebpulic.

At first I thought comparing Tiger Woods to the two sagas was good, but imagine if a basketball player like Jordan only played six seasons. Say he won two NBA Championships (V/VI), made it to the Finals and won MVP (V), hit the conference finals a time or two and was a sure-fire All-Star (II, III). Maybe there was one year where he was battling an injury, bickered with the coach and the surrounding cast was lacking and the team finished high lottery. It's like Brandon Roy++.

The Greedo/Han Solo thing, though, I don't know. Whatever.

 

I still think that's the greatest critical beat down of my life time. Sure, it takes six hours to watch, and you have to sit through Pinkett's weird serial killer subplot, but it's a brilliant deconstruction of why the prequels are complete shit. No one can sit through the entire thing and then say "Well, the prequels weren't that bad. With a few tweaks..."

Nope. They're terrible. In plot structure, execution, everything.

 

I understand thinking the prequels were poorly written. I don't understand thinking this makes them different from the originals.

They were entertaining, sure, and I get why they are classics. But the writing wasn't part of it.

 

Don't have time to deeply explain this right now, but the plotting structure of the prequels is embarrassing compared to the originals. One of the first questions Plinkett asks in the RedLetterMedia thing is: Who is the main character in the prequels? Who is the goddamn protagonist? There isn't one.

They devolve from there. It's stuff that would get you laughed out of a college screenwriting class.

 

Han's a cold blooded killer.

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/02/han-shot-first/

 

Why would anyone, including Lucas, want to believe that Han shot second or out of self defense? I doesn't fit the character or the movie styling.

First of all, it's cool that Han snuck a shot at Greedo. Bounty hunters have been chasing him all over. It can't be the first one he's killed. That was one of the audience's first looks at Han. Him killing Greedo gives us a glimpse of what kind of dude Obi-wan made deal with. "All right, this is a bad ass and his giant dog. Wait till you see his spaceship!"

Second, the original Star Wars is basically a western set in space. The bar is like one in the old west; a fight is bound to happen. When Obi-wan kills the guys harassing Luke, the music stops for a second and then it was like, "Another dude whacked. Yawn, must be Tuesday." So who cares if Han shot first? If Lucas wanted a character with morals, he wouldn't have sent Obi-wan and Luke to Mos Eisley to look for help in the first place.