Star Wars: The Force Awakens

[whizzo]

Yes, Anakins turn to the dark side is rushed and poorly handled. But so much of the film is excellent.

Unfortunatly thats the thing the whole thing hinges on. Its shit so the whole film is shit.

[Kyouma]

I watched Episode 3 a week or so back. I still think its a great film (I may have mentioned this already a few pages back) and if its let down by anything its McDiarmid's terrible acting once he reveals his true nature.

Yes, Anakins turn to the dark side is rushed and poorly handled. But so much of the film is excellent.

FROM MY POINT OF VIEW THE JEDI ARE EVIL!

[Alex W.]

When you watch it with hindsight, it seems like they're avoiding doing the scene because they know it just doesn't work. And then they rush over it as quickly as possible.

"OK, now Obi-Wan is fighting some droids for some reason. Maybe we can leave out the ending altogether."

[makkuwata]

If the prequels had saved Neeson's death until the end of the second one and Maul's death as an Ep3 end of act II "one apprentice replacing another" duel...there was potential.

Unfortunately every line of dialogue could have been better written by any given contributor to this thread.

[And]

"Yeah, so I live in this fucking utopia where there's no scarcity, I had my arm lopped off and they just grafted on a robot one. I've got a great mentor and a rewarding job and a beautiful wife who's pregnant. But I'm so worried about her dying in childbirth, despite the hugely advanced technical and medical wonders that surround me, that I'm going to trust this dodgy old geezer who reckons he can cheat death and do everything he tells me to, including mass murder, until I go mental and eventually kill her. "

[makkuwata]

Fuck man, it would be one thing if he did actually kill her. The reality of the script is so much worse.

[And]

Yep, well he kind of kills her, fuck it I can't be arsed to change it.

Dieing of sadness. Ffs.

It's just the shittest fall from grace. He may as well gone to the dark side because his corner shop was out of pot noodles.

There's some brilliant bits in the prequels, but the overall story arc is such shite.

[Kyouma]

It's over Anakin! I have the higher ground.

[And]

It's over Anakin! I have the higher ground.

Jebus wept, I'd forgottten that bit. I'm actually a bit cross now.

[makkuwata]

It's over Anakin! I have the higher ground.

Which could have worked if Lucas stuck to the OT rules! There's a Hamill quote floating about from about a decade ago where he states his direction from George was that the sabres were incredibly heavy and all movement with them had to be deliberate. Then the prequels taught us Jedi were actually able to do quadruple mid-air flips with ignighted lightsabres and survive drops of thousands of feet.

People need to stop defending the prequels. They're just bad. Every few years I slip and think it's all too harsh, then I try to watch them again and realise I can't.

[Glasgowchivas]

I do like the bit when Anakin is all paranoid as fuck and is accusing Padme of having slept with Obi-Wan and it cuts to mcGregor standing at the top of the ramp like a fucking BOSS and Padme is all like "Shhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttt!"

[Kyouma]

Anakin in the dark, Obi-Wan in the light. This would be the last time they speak as friends.

[Captain Kelsten]

I always thought Padme died due to a stressful childbirth brought on prematurely due to being force choked for about 5 minutes, rather than dying of a broken heart or some shit.

[Kyouma]

[Padme is in the medical center]

GH-7 Medical Droid: Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her.

Obi-Wan: She's dying?

GH-7 Medical Droid: We don't know why. She has lost the will to live. We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies.

Senator Bail Organa: Babies?

GH-7 Medical Droid: She's carrying twins.

[makkuwata]

MEDICAL DROID: Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her.

OBI-WAN: She's dying?

MEDICAL DROID: We don't know why. She has lost the will to live. We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies.

No face palm gif on the web could possibly suffice.

Edit: o/\o

[b00dles]

That was wishful thinking.

She died of all the bad acting.

The love story bit in 2 (iirc) with them rolling about in the fields and that is so fucking painful as well.

Seriously, they're crap. Even some of the sort-of-cool action bits are shit in the main as well. The bit in the arena is George trying to do a 'Gladiator' bit and it falls totally on it's arse. Grievous is a not bad enemy until he gets the 4 lightsabres out and then they have a chase with Obi Wan on the stupid dragon thing. The 'kill all the jedis' order' (can't remember it's name) is totally, totally rushed when that could have almost been a very cool film all on it's own with them all being hunted down.

There's very little in them apart from some of the CG battles that are actually any good.

Also 'Get 'im Dad' from the young Boba Fett is absolutely dreadful.

[Harsin]

That shot above just highlights how horrible, plasticy and fake everything in that prequels was. That's just a shot of two people talking and it looks like a screenshot from Myst.

[Smitty]

But so much of the film is excellent.

lol

The prequels get way too much flack.

No, they get a totally appropriate level of flack.

[redbloodcell]

Anakin in the dark, Obi-Wan in the light. This would be the last time they speak as friends.

They look like they were filmed separately and composited together too. Probably because they were, along with the entire bloody scene.

[b00dles]

I think one of my favourite things from the Plinkett reviews is the whole 'Jedi costume' thing which is laughably stupid if you give it any thought.

For the odd person that may not have watched them, his argument is this; Obi Wan in the original trilogy, is in hiding on Tatooine and known as 'Old Ben' - no one really knows that he is Obi Wan and he's assumed to be some crazy hermit so dresses up in those hooded robes as part of his undercover disguise. In the prequels, Lucas dresses ALL OF THE JEDIS in that outfit as though it's some sort of 'monk's habit' to show that you're all Jedi and stuff.

He is therefore suggesting that the eternally wise Obi-Wan went into hiding into this tiny backwater called Tatooine* and hid by dressing up as a Jedi.

*Which in itself, isn't that tiny a backwater in regards to everything seems to happen there, so hiding himself and Luke there would probably be completely idiotic anyway

[Smitty]

I remember leaving the cinema having just seen EP3. Me and my mate trudged out in stony silence. Very tense. I knew, I just knew, he'd hated as much as I had.

Eventually I asked 'what did you think then?'

''Fucking shit''

He was actually quite angry about it. Angry about the wasted time, about the expense. These are films which are almost mean to the viewer.

Dreadful, dreadful film. Walking out I realised that the whole thing had been a huge waste of time. It was particularly galling because I'd actually allowed myself to become slightly (20%) optimistic that Lucas would pull his finger out, third time lucky. I actually got sucked in just a teensy tiny bit by some early hype and buzz (some dicksplash at Time said it was 'the best one yet!11!!' etc) and boy was I punished for that.

The trilogy is a big, long, hideously expensive sigh.

[makkuwata]

I think one of my favourite things from the Plinkett reviews is the whole 'Jedi costume' thing which is laughably stupid if you give it any thought.

For the odd person that may not have watched them, his argument is this; Obi Wan in the original trilogy, is in hiding on Tatooine and known as 'Old Ben' - no one really knows that he is Obi Wan and he's assumed to be some crazy hermit so dresses up in those hooded robes as part of his undercover disguise. In the prequels, Lucas dresses ALL OF THE JEDIS in that outfit as though it's some sort of 'monk's habit' to show that you're all Jedi and stuff.

He is therefore suggesting that the eternally wise Obi-Wan went into hiding into this tiny backwater called Tatooine* and hid by dressing up as a Jedi.

*Which in itself, isn't that tiny a backwater in regards to everything seems to happen there, so hiding himself and Luke there would probably be completely idiotic anyway

Costume stuff I have less of a problem with. I might have a Jedi Robe dressing gown, but I was onboard for some aesthetic consistency. Especially considering there had been 2 decades of EU stuff* reinforcing that imagery and to dismiss it would be disrespectful to the fans in a way that might have had some artistic merit as opposed to the incompetence route he chose. But hey, I'm just glad it wasn't both.

*and by that it's important to remember it's not just novels you may not have had an interest in, the imagery of the OT was ubiquitous within pop culture. Jedi Robes were a shade away from Mickey Mouse ears.

[Smitty]

at the very end when he's standing over what's left of Anakin and giving his big speech; it's genuinely great.

This bit hints, just hints, at the dramatic energy you could wring from such a story. It teases you with a flash of something from a not terrible film. For a moment you're all 'oh my GOD, acting, I like acting', you wake up from the coma the rest of the movie has put you in and you're engaged. Emotions! Drama! Caring! It's over in seconds. Fuck me.

How you squander such dramatic opportunities, consistently, is beyond me. Terrible scripts, terrible direction, flat acting. Occasionally a good moment slips through, seemingly by accident.

[Jumble Jumble]

The stupid thing is, Luke turns into a proper not-in-hiding active Jedi Knight, and he wears the pretty sweet black outfit, which in the prequels would mean he was definitely evil, and then just... whatever clothes are appropriate to the situation. And then the cool black outfit again at the end. No brown robes at all.

He wears robes at the beginning of RotJ to pretend to not be a Jedi!

Ah shit. Just remembered - Anakin's ghost at the end of RotJ is dressed in exactly the same outfit as Obi-Wan.

So actually this "those Robes are Jedi robes" thing predates the prequels by years and years.

[makkuwata]

In fairness Luke was in black during ROTJ to make us think "oh crumbs, like father like son."

[Jumble Jumble]

As a kid I totally took it as "ah, that's what the Jedi wear".

[TehStu]

Where would he suddenly get Jedi apparel? Also interesting that the style of swordplay in the originals is seen as more authentic, when all we see are two old farts and a young man who's literally never had any training. Not that all the fighting in the prequels was good, a lot of it suffered from looking painfully scripted, like the fighting in the Matrix sequels. But there are bits which look electric, like you're finally getting to see two properly qualified people go at it.

As a complete aside, I was watching the first Star Trek on a channel that interweaves adverts with cheesy hosts talking about the making of the films. Anyway, it had no bearing at all on the film, but JJ Abrams invited a whole bunch of trekkies to play the extras in scenes like the briefing/Kirk getting a bollocking, and when they're all running to their assigned ships. You wouldn't know if you hadn't been told, but it shows his thought process towards fans. That should also provide some hope for this.

[Smitty]

I think one of my favourite things from the Plinkett reviews is the whole 'Jedi costume' thing which is laughably stupid if you give it any thought.

For the odd person that may not have watched them, his argument is this; Obi Wan in the original trilogy, is in hiding on Tatooine and known as 'Old Ben' - no one really knows that he is Obi Wan and he's assumed to be some crazy hermit so dresses up in those hooded robes as part of his undercover disguise. In the prequels, Lucas dresses ALL OF THE JEDIS in that outfit as though it's some sort of 'monk's habit' to show that you're all Jedi and stuff.

He is therefore suggesting that the eternally wise Obi-Wan went into hiding into this tiny backwater called Tatooine* and hid by dressing up as a Jedi.

*Which in itself, isn't that tiny a backwater in regards to everything seems to happen there, so hiding himself and Luke there would probably be completely idiotic anyway

Yeah, it's a small point but it actually goes a long way to explaining one of the core problems with the insanity surrounding the original films and how that informed the crude Pavlovian nature of the prequels; there's no real creative thought going into them, it's just a matter of imitating what came before plus a deficit of attention, care and creative passion. Why put any real effort in when people go nuts at just the sound of a sabre, or a laser bolt in space? This happens because the films have become this huge cultural monster, overexposed to the point of madness, and every aspect of them has been scrutinised. So you need to get all the old stuff in there.

One jedi wore robes in the original films? Well, now all jedis wear robes. Because you recognize the robes. Not because it's the product of a creative consideration, but because it presses buttons in people's heads. The prequels appropriate stuff from the original films without thinking about that stuff. The creative drive is not 'i've had this vision for an epic fantasy in space' it's 'we need to make more Star Wars now'. It's such a huge change. You go from wild creativity to 'give Star Wars fans what they remember from Star Wars'. I know i'm not explaining this well but hopefully some of you can see what I mean. It's something that i've thought about a lot over the years when I came across evidence of the huge legacy of the original films, much of which I find irritating, and Plinkett's reviews reminded me of those thoughts and it crystallised many of them for me.

The context of the fandom, the cultural weight, means that your thinking becomes very lazy. Just give them the thing we had before, that's officially what this is now. As well as laziness the huge weight of expectation and the huge financial cost makes you very, very cautious and again you go for stuff you think of as being 'safe'. This makes you creatively timid and your output is very restricted in its nature. Just give people what they want, what we think they want. Our heart isn't really in it anymore, there's no-one hear to say no to us, and this is just a money-spinner.

The Star Wars films just became too popular for their own good. The prequels are products of the total madness that surrounds the original films. It's a franchised product - overprocessed, spiritless, bland, flashy - but it kinda looks and sounds like the old thing you've been pulling your hair out over for 30 years! It's like, got all the Star Wars stuff!

The checklist is full, but there's no heart in any of it. To be honest I think you see some of this in the Star Trek films. Again Hollywood thinks that Star Trek is just lots of signifiers slapped together - all you need is Kirk, Spock, Scotty, the Enterprise and SPACE STUFF and you've got a great movie! It's Star Trek, guys! Uh, no. That isn't Star Trek. Sorry. It's your new Star Trek flavoured product. It looks and sounds like Star Trek, maybe. At a push. Anyway....

[Smitty]

Where would he suddenly get Jedi apparel? Also interesting that the style of swordplay in the originals is seen as more authentic, when all we see are two old farts and a young man who's literally never had any training. Not that all the fighting in the prequels was good, a lot of it suffered from looking painfully scripted, like the fighting in the Matrix sequels. But there are bits which look electric, like you're finally getting to see two properly qualified people go at it.

As a complete aside, I was watching the first Star Trek on a channel that interweaves adverts with cheesy hosts talking about the making of the films. Anyway, it had no bearing at all on the film, but JJ Abrams invited a whole bunch of trekkies to play the extras in scenes like the briefing/Kirk getting a bollocking, and when they're all running to their assigned ships. You wouldn't know if you hadn't been told, but it shows his thought process towards fans. That should also provide some hope for this.

It's really odd that even an obsessive Star Wars fan doesn't really understand the creative thoughts behind the stuff he venerates. My understanding is that what you see in the original films is very much deliberate - they were told the lightsabres were heavy and that they needed to fight in a broadsword style. That's why the fights are so slow, weighty and deliberate.

Come the sequels Lucas apparently decided the sabres were now as light as air, force users were ninjas or whatever and those were the instructions that went to the choreographers. I imagine the whole reason Lucas made this change is because he was thinking of what fans had been fantasising about, publically, for 20 years - crazy mad acrobatic eXXXXtreme saber battles, yo! That's what the fans want. Not necessairly because it was part of his creative vision, like it was a spontanteous idea, but because he and the prequels are responding to the feverish cult around the original films. They have to deliver a product.

The prequels are weighed down by the sheer weight of the OT and being in the hands of someone who is not prepared to put in a lot of effort, to get other creatives on board (who might say no), who is not passionate about film anymore and so on they were just doomed.

But going back to the fights themselves and the big differences between them i've rarely seen anyone say that the think anything in the prequels, for all their complex choreography and visual razzle-dazzle, contain even a fraction of the drama and impact of the fights in the originals. Again, Plinkett makes this point very well. More isn't necessarily better. You can imitate something without thinking about it, and it will show.

[makkuwata]

I find myself wanting to disagree with a few of those points, but I go back and forth on most every time I dedicate them any thought.

The prequels can't even figure out how to be terrible to me.