Star Wars VII ( & beyond) Discussion Thread

[A Black Falcon]

The PT is just bad. Sloppy writing, flat acting, inconsistent characters, out-of-place and unfunny humor, romance with no chemistry, pointless plot elements that went on way too long [the pod racing in Episode 1, Obi-wan's search for the missing planet in Episode 2], and the revelation that Darth Vader was just a bratty teenager who was mad because the adults in his life wouldn't let him do what he wanted. Both the recent Star Trek movies, while having some weaknesses themselves, are still better than that.

Yeah, I disagree pretty strongly here of course! Yes, I really do think that the prequels are good movies, and any of them are better than Abrams "Trek". As for Star Wars, 6 > 4 > 3=5 > 2 > 1. Yes, I like RotS just as much overall as I do ESB. RotS has some flaws, sure, but not enough to drag it down much.

As for specifics, the podracing segment is one of the best parts of ep. 1! I do agree that the PT has far too much unfunny humor, ep. 1 particularly, but there's enough there otherwise to make them very good movies anyway. Jar-Jar is not funny and the toilet humor was a bad idea, sure, but there's more to the movie than just that. And while I dislike the results I do think they had a solid concept for Jar-Jar's character, someone outcast for being different. As for the romance parts, yeah, they were cheesy, but it was supposed to be that way, and I thought it was fine as-is. And last, Darth Vader being a whiny teenager... sure, it doesn't exactly fit with the image you have of Darth Vader from the OT, but it definitely does fit the character well. Palpatine did a perfect job of preying on Anakin's insecurities and pushing him to the result he ended up in.

He's the guy who wrote and directed Brick, The Brothers Bloom, and Looper, which are all very good movies.

I've never heard of the first two of those. Looper... the name sounds vaguely familiar, maybe, but I don't know if I know anything much about it.