Could the Star Wars prequel movies have been saved?

Mundane & Pointless Stuff I Must Share: The Off Topic Forum

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Crissa
King
Posts: 6720
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Santa Cruz

Post by Crissa »

I might note, the 60s Adam West Batman movie did terribly. The TV series, on the other hand...

-Crissa
Surgo
Duke
Posts: 1924
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Surgo »

Wesley Street wrote:And if nobody bites, it's relegated to the bowels of YouTube (see: Neil Blomkamp/Peter Jackson/Halo).
I wouldn't use this as your example, because while that project didn't happen it did start a partnership that turned out something awesome (District 9).
RandomCasualty2
Prince
Posts: 3295
Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 4:22 pm

Post by RandomCasualty2 »

Wyzzard wrote: Heck, George Clooney managed to salvage his career after Batman and Robin, and that piece of crap makes the Mortal Kombat movies look good.
I'd much rather watch the original Mortal Kombat movie than Batman and Robin.

The original MK movie was actually pretty decent. The fight scenes were good, Christopher Lambert as Raiden was cool and it was overall pretty watchable.

Batman and Robin just had a terrible script, a poor plot and bad acting. It didn't keep me entertained at all and basically exists as like one of the few Schwartzennager movies that aren't watchable. Even as an action movie, it sucked.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

So, I have a couple of friends who are huge Star Wars geeks and despite my misgivings about the EU in general, they swear up and down that if the franchise went ahead and used Mandalorians as antagonists and made the movies about their conflicts with the Republic, then the prequels would have been awesome.

Mind, I don't have anything against the EU, it's just that the most frequent excuse for stupidity in the prequels like 'there can only be two Sith' gets excused by 'it's explained in the EU' so I end up hating it by proxy. But if it's a genuinely cool element I don't see why not.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Also, rewatching the first movie of the prequel trilogy I'm convinced that it's the best one of the lot. It needs a LOT of editing, but if you wanted to pare it down to a 45-minute movie you could make it decent IMO with a moderate amount of rewriting.

The other two movies are unsalvageable pieces of crap though. I still don't understand why people say the third one was good. It's not as bad as the second one, but definitely the fifth-worst.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

The only thing vaguely OK about the prequel trilogy is the lightsaber fights. Therefore Revenge of the Sith is the best, Attack of the Stupid Name is the second best, and Phantom Menace is the least best. It's very cut and dried. Less lightsaber fighting is more bad.

Also, JarJar is the worst thing in the movies, but the fucking kid they got to play Anikin in the Phantom Menace is the second worst. Him not being there in Attack of the Clones is worth like 20 points. And even though Lucas can't write or direct a love scene to save his fucking life (Han Solo's famous "I know" in Empire was improv), at least Padme isn't macking on an 8 year old.

-Username17
User avatar
Orion
Prince
Posts: 3756
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Orion »

The big Darth Maul fight scene is the best fight scene in that trilogy though, so I think that makes Phantom Menace the winner. Every single fight in Revenge is boring, due to being so fast and at such weird angles that you can't tell what's going on.

Ep 2 has decent fights, but I still think Maul's 2v1 is the best.
cthulhu
Duke
Posts: 2162
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Could the Star Wars prequel movies have been saved?

Post by cthulhu »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Here's my opinion.
All they needed was a script writer and a director that wasn't George lucas.
User avatar
fbmf
The Great Fence Builder
Posts: 2590
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by fbmf »

Orion wrote:The big Darth Maul fight scene is the best fight scene in that trilogy though, so I think that makes Phantom Menace the winner. Every single fight in Revenge is boring, due to being so fast and at such weird angles that you can't tell what's going on.

Ep 2 has decent fights, but I still think Maul's 2v1 is the best.
For my money, Yoda going carnival-freak crazy on Count Chocula was the best saber fight in the prequels.

Game On,
fbmf
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

Yoda the "wise master" bouncing about like a Gummi Bear? Whilst I thought it was pretty cool the first time I saw it, after I thought about it for a bit it kind of destroyed everything that was cool about Yoda. He was this wise master, preaching how "Wars not make one great", and here he was flipping about and swordfighting.

It also begs the question, can all jedi move that quickly and bounce around? And the answer is no, of course not, that was only put in so Yoda wouldn't look stupid and handicapped fighting someone twice his size. Because, for all Yoda's talk about size not mattering, in a swordfight size matters a whole fucking lot. So they had to give Yoda special benefits and handwave things, rather than realising that Yoda shouldn't be swordfighting people.

I think thats the fight that most exemplifies what's wrong the with the prequels.
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
User avatar
fbmf
The Great Fence Builder
Posts: 2590
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by fbmf »

I agree with almost every point you just made, but taken on its own it was the coolest looking saber fight in the prequels.

Game On,
fbmf
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

Yeah, the thing to remember is that the prequels are incredibly shitty movies. Taken as their own thing, they are really bad. When you consider the degree to which they take a giant dump on the original trilogy, they are even worse. I mean for fuck's sake, the Phantom Menace had a big rant about how there was a fucking blood test for force powers! That right there makes everything Yoda said in Empire a bald faced lie and everything Vader did in New Hope be functionally retarded. He had Leia hooked to a chair, so if there was a damn blood test for force sensitivity potential, she would have lit up like a Christmas Tree. The basic nonsense of Vader having grown up on or even having been passably familiar with Tatooine has been gone into in detail on this very thread. The entire plot revolves around Anakin being too old and a great pilot when Obi Wan meets him, but he's an autistic 8 year old who has never left the fucking ground.

The only thing that even comes close to saving the prequel movies is special effects and spectacle. And the best parts of them aren't the massive but uninspired fleet battles or the glorious Dinotopia-esque painted backgrounds - it's the fucking lightsaber fights. In Episode 1 there is one Lightsaber Duel. It's pretty good, but seriously: one. In episode 2, there are three. That is more. In episode 3, you have 2 or 3 (depending on whether you count Emperor vs. Windu), but they are much longer.

Basically, you're being asked to judge whether you'd rather have a shit salad and some soda to wash it down with or the shit salad on its own.

-Username17
User avatar
fbmf
The Great Fence Builder
Posts: 2590
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by fbmf »

Bring on the soda.

Game On,
fbmf
User avatar
angelfromanotherpin
Overlord
Posts: 9745
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

The lightsaber fights aren't even that good, because the emotional content is so lacking and people mostly don't do things that are interesting in them. Maul's moves are kind of amazing, so that's at least watchable, but since it's really hard to care about any of the people involved or the consequences it's just empty spectacle.

On the other hand, I was genuinely interested in Jango and Obi-wan's fight on Kamino, partly because the two characters had established actual tension and partly because it was great to see a normal go all Batman against the psychic ubermensch. I really did not know how that fight was going to end.
Neeeek
Knight-Baron
Posts: 900
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 10:45 am

Post by Neeeek »

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The lightsaber fights aren't even that good, because the emotional content is so lacking and people mostly don't do things that are interesting in them. Maul's moves are kind of amazing, so that's at least watchable, but since it's really hard to care about any of the people involved or the consequences it's just empty spectacle.
Yeah, one of the many, many things the prequels did poorly was they made the fights nearly entirely about the fights instead of the reasons for the fights.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

FrankTrollman wrote: Also, JarJar is the worst thing in the movies,
I disagree with that. It seems that the worst thing about JarJar is his cutesy voice and his CGI design. If they got an actor in a rubber/furry suit and made his voice less interesting Jar Jar would be a lot better. The character isn't all that bad, as far as odious comic relief goes. I mean he's odious comic relief, there's going to be some trauma associated with the role no matter way, but is he really that much worse than Space Jew Watto or General Asthma in terms of mood killing?

Anakin is easily the worst character in the entire prequel trilogy, though Count Dooku and Noot/Not-Noot come pretty close. Even if you got Anakin a different actor, that still doesn't change the fact that he's a fucking whiny-ass Mary Sue with repulsive morals. I mean, I know that he was supposed to take a trip down towards the Dark Side, but I could not believe nor stomach the fact that Padme was basically okay with him killing children and that the prequel trilogy treated this as just a 'thing' rather a 'holy shit, you're an irredeemable monster' moment. Or the fact that he was all: feh, I hate the Jedi Order and the Republic, I would rather have a dictatorship. And everyone thinks he's great anyway.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
K
King
Posts: 6487
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by K »

Personally, I vote for the Darth Maul fight.

The problem with the movies is that none of the characters are likeable. They are smug, whiny, and even the evil ones fail at being evil.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

But seriously, Mandalorians. I like what I am hearing about them so far, enough that I might pick up a book. What's the board's overall opinion on using them as baddies instead of... whatever we got?
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
CatharzGodfoot
King
Posts: 5668
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: North Carolina

Post by CatharzGodfoot »

IIRC there was a bootleg re-cut version of the first movie that was supposed to be significantly better.
The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread, begging and sleeping under bridges.
-Anatole France

Mount Flamethrower on rear
Drive in reverse
Win Game.

-Josh Kablack

Blicero
Duke
Posts: 1131
Joined: Thu May 07, 2009 12:07 am

Post by Blicero »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:But seriously, Mandalorians. I like what I am hearing about them so far, enough that I might pick up a book. What's the board's overall opinion on using them as baddies instead of... whatever we got?
They're fairly decent in the minor part they play in KotORII. But that's really all I got.
Out beyond the hull, mucoid strings of non-baryonic matter streamed past like Christ's blood in the firmament.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Blicero wrote: They're fairly decent in the minor part they play in KotORII. But that's really all I got.
I remember that. That soldier vs. warrior conversation was awesome and leads me to believe that they're game. Now let's see if they GOT game.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
Kaelik
ArchDemon of Rage
Posts: 14958
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Kaelik »

For EU reasons it already stands contradicted in the material, and probably was so back when episodes 1-3 came out.

The Mandolorians were once a planet like any other, but harsh and so the people on it went all Viking, and eventually created more and more of an empire, until people got together and shut it down. Hard.

And since then the Mandolorians have always been kinda Germanied, where they were never allowed to get too uppity.

Current Mandolorian escapades rely on the idea that they are still awesome commando's, and are being employed by the government to deal with just the jedi and some slave revolts, and nothing else. Even then, they can only deal with the Jedi at all because the Jedi want to keep obeying the law. They could no more plausibly be the driving force behind separation from the Old republic, or a credible threat to the jedi than any other random tribe of mercenaries with a ruthless reputation.

Honestly, the only things we know for sure about the prequels, prior to them being prequels are:

Old republic lasted for ever, Jedi kept peace.
Something called the Clone Wars happened.
At the end Palpatine seized power and declared himself emperor.

Now, it can't actually be an army of Sith, because then why the fuck do none of them exist, and Palpatine is in control at the end? So the Rule of Two makes a certain amount of sense for limiting that sort of thing.

But as for what caused the Clone Wars and lead to the emperor, that could more plausibly be a spinoff of the shit they did for Legacy of the Force + Bakura Virus + Clones.

It goes like this: Tensions mounts between alien races and humans, who are seen as too populous, to in charge, and usually end up in bureaucratic middle management positions in life, which leads to them being in all the upper management ones later. Eventually, due to perceived human bias, alien races start to secede from the Republic and or revolt against human masters. The Jedi can't possibly deal with/placate all this, and the tension even bleeds over into the Jedi order, who a) don't want to kill people who are mostly blameless/just feel trapped b) have their own tensions about how they can protect all the seceding alien races, and if they should stay part of the Old Republic, or be a generic body.

In the end, this tensions breaks out into open war, and the alien species start forming coalitions or whatever, while some of them don't want to go to war, but all the humans are being dicks to them, and the Clone wars is where it turns out that because no one had an army, they can use this cloning tech that is relatively new to make armies and throw them at each other all over the place, cause much destruction, eventually resulting in clones being banned and either:

humans win under Palpatine, who then institutes all his anti alien shit and is in general a dick.

Everyone gets back into the republic on the Palpatine compromise or whatever, and by being the guy who set up the new rules, he gets in a position of power, and then does his whole "I am emperor" grab.

The compromise itself might be something about segregation, which he can then exploit later to fuck over the aliens.

That's just my random idea in 10 minutes.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
User avatar
Ganbare Gincun
Duke
Posts: 1022
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:42 am

Post by Ganbare Gincun »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Anakin is easily the worst character in the entire prequel trilogy, though Count Dooku and Noot/Not-Noot come pretty close. Even if you got Anakin a different actor, that still doesn't change the fact that he's a fucking whiny-ass Mary Sue with repulsive morals. I mean, I know that he was supposed to take a trip down towards the Dark Side, but I could not believe nor stomach the fact that Padme was basically okay with him killing children and that the prequel trilogy treated this as just a 'thing' rather a 'holy shit, you're an irredeemable monster' moment.
Are you talking about when he slaughtered the Sand People, or the attack on the Jedi Temple? Because if we're talking Sand People, hell, those guys are no better then orcs anyway, right? Why get all worked up about it? :lol:
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:But seriously, Mandalorians. I like what I am hearing about them so far, enough that I might pick up a book. What's the board's overall opinion on using them as baddies instead of... whatever we got?
Depends on the time period. Back in the day, they were asskickers, but more or less fair to the people they beat. They even offered a chance to join up.

Just remember that a lot of stuff was made by Karen Traviss, who jumped at the chance to make the Mandalorians her MarySueTopia. She also flips out when her characters are used by other authors, but will take other author creations and basically not even bother to try to match the character as portrayed in other books. She also has a hate-on for Jedi. I remember seeing some article about it, then ran into the thing again on TVTropes.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Kaelik wrote: That's just my random idea in 10 minutes.
That's a damn good start. Just one question: where does Anakin fit into all of this?

Now mind, I don't think it's required nor desired for a Star Wars prequel movie to be about him, but it is an expectation of the audience. Personally, if I had my druthers the Star Wars movie would be set waaaay back when. Like 100-150 years before the original trilogy. That way you'd have more freedom in storytelling and you'd be able to surprise more people with plot twists.

The basic problem about doing a prequel so close to the original series is that it sucks out a lot of the surprise unless you do a Greatest Story Never Told thing and focus on sidecharacters whose antics were ancillary to the main plot.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Post Reply