I don't know... the two trilogies don't at all mix. The OT feels gritty and more lifelike because it uses real sets and in my opinion the ship models look far, far, far better than the colorful CGI ships (at least in the Special Editions.) The Prequels are too colorful and whimsical... it doesn't fit flush with the OT.
A New Hope's entire story focused on this poetic and beautiful epic story of a poor farm boy, a princess, and a scoundrel waging a huge war against an evil Empire. It stands by itself... if there had never been another Star Wars, it would have been a masterpiece.
TESB has been critically acclaimed as one of the greatest movies of all time. I enjoy it's heavy atmosphere. To date, the TESB soundtrack is the most-listened to album in my collection.
ROTJ lost much of the good, quality elements of the previous two films.
TPM was a colorful film... I enjoyed it when I saw it, being a naif young 14 year-old at the time, (contemporaneously with my arrival at the Nintendo Sucks Page)... but the entire style is different... they original and the prequels couldn't be much different if one were in B&W and the other in Color. Everything is radically different. Nothing is as real or gritty as TOT. I literally recall cringing in the theater during RotS when they showed some of those horribly cheesy colorful planets...the one that comes to mind is when the female twi'lek jedi is gunned down by stormtroopers, and the planet is pathetically unrealistic... for you maybe this 'realism' isn't important (I know that OB1 and I had huge wars about this on TC at the time) but for me I do take some stock in it. I mean, doesn't the original Death Star feel so much more realistic than when Padme and Anakin are, say, fighting the stupid, fake insect aliens on that desert planet in AotC? Maybe its just me, but my brain can recognize a well-built set from a crazy drug-trip of a CGI background. And it doesn't help immerse me in the story, because I'm painfully aware that I'm watching actors in front of a green screen. But the Death Star, or Hoth--those are good sets. More conductive for suspension of disbelief.
And the dignity of Star Wars was trashed to pieces with such cringingly terrible things as Jar Jar, the comic book-esque diner alien whi supplies Obi Wan with info on Coruscant... the stupid waitress robot "you want some jawa juice?" does every single thing in real-life need a mirror version in Star Wars? The insect aliens were like
watching an expensive cartoon, not fitting for Star Wars.
And the stupidity of the battle droids? They're bumbling morons, they say "uh oh" when there's a speeding elevator coming at them; they suck... really dumb.
Also, what Lucas tried to do was unrealistic is telling SO MUCH story in three films:
ANH: Three people meet, blow up Death Star.
TESB: Rebels chased; plot development of major characters; meet Lando, Han captured.
ROTJ: Han freed, Empire defeated.
But in addition to advancing the main characters of the Prequels (Padme, Anakin, Obi Wan) Lucas really over-reached in trying to cram in this bulky, unwieldy huge political plot that may have been necessary, but wasn't handled well. AOTC goes from sappy and poorly scripted romance, to a huge battle, to senatorial procedures without much in the way of ease. ANH was focused and concentrated ON THE CHARACTERS; the Empire was almost a background. The Prequels tried to cram too much.
I love John Williams, but the Prequel music wasn't on-the-whole as memorable as his earlier work.
Also, I hate how they worked the Palpatine transition. One day he's portrayed as a kind, sweet old gentleman-senator... he slowly and visibly changes to something tacitly more sinister... AND THEN HE'S OVERNIGHT EVIL EMPEROR YELLOW-EYES-PALE-SKIN-BLACK-ROBES-EVIL--SAME-AS-WE-SEE-HIM-IN ROTJ---EVIL VOICE-EVIL EVIL-EMPEROR-EVIL. I think they should've left some of that progression to have taken place between the trilogies... that the senate would see him as such, in such an evil get-up, and cheer his dictatorship is stupid. Before the prequels, I remember hearing or reading from somewhere in the expanded canon universe that his transition was slow, and it was so much more believable and enjoyable than the over-night-evil-emperor-with-all-the-extras.
Also, if the Jedi have been the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy for thousands of years, why isn't there any public outcry or support when they're persecuted? They tried to explain it with a poorly conceived conspiracy by Palpatine about a rebellion in the jedi trying to take over the Republic, but if these are noble, dignified people who do good deeds for 10,000 years, don't you think they'd have a little public relations capital? It'd be like if Barack Obama killed all the state police in the country tomorrow, and said "yea they tried to overthrow the congress," and nobody in the country thinking anything about it.
Furthermore: Oh, yea, by the way, Yoda and Chewie? Yea, they're buds, they go way back. Didn't we mention that? Yea, it's a huge galaxy with billions of worlds and trillions and trillions of humanoid aliens, but somehow by coincidence, all of our 20 main characters know each other from before. And R2 and Darth Vader, yea they were old buddies too... and C3PO. And yes, R2D2 has ALWAYS had the ability to fly. It didn't come out much in the original trilogy, but... but... uh... yea. They go way back, they do. And why Vader has no reaction to seeing these two robots on Bespin? Well, we can just gloss over that with some "oh he had so much trauma, he's evil now, yadda yadda..."
Another point: Yoda tries ONCE to overthrow Palpatine, and very nearly pulls it off... but then, he says "eh fuck it. I'm retiring." Way to go, Yoda.
Having said all that, I didn't mind the acting, really... Ian McDiarmid remains one of my favorite lesser-known actors... Obi Wan was very well acted in my opinion... I love Natalie Portman... Liam Neeson was good, Samuel Jackson was good... though Christianson, as I'm sure we all agree, couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. I'm a huge fan of Christopher Lee, but I don't think he was really very convincing at any point in his portrayal.
The bottom line: I do enjoy watching them, and they are fun movies, but they're guilty pleasure ones, and not well made, and they could have been so much infinitely better. It's the lost potential for better prequels that angers me. They didn't have to be perfect, but there's so much eye-rolling stupidity in them that it sickens me.
A New Hope's entire story focused on this poetic and beautiful epic story of a poor farm boy, a princess, and a scoundrel waging a huge war against an evil Empire. It stands by itself... if there had never been another Star Wars, it would have been a masterpiece.
TESB has been critically acclaimed as one of the greatest movies of all time. I enjoy it's heavy atmosphere. To date, the TESB soundtrack is the most-listened to album in my collection.
ROTJ lost much of the good, quality elements of the previous two films.
TPM was a colorful film... I enjoyed it when I saw it, being a naif young 14 year-old at the time, (contemporaneously with my arrival at the Nintendo Sucks Page)... but the entire style is different... they original and the prequels couldn't be much different if one were in B&W and the other in Color. Everything is radically different. Nothing is as real or gritty as TOT. I literally recall cringing in the theater during RotS when they showed some of those horribly cheesy colorful planets...the one that comes to mind is when the female twi'lek jedi is gunned down by stormtroopers, and the planet is pathetically unrealistic... for you maybe this 'realism' isn't important (I know that OB1 and I had huge wars about this on TC at the time) but for me I do take some stock in it. I mean, doesn't the original Death Star feel so much more realistic than when Padme and Anakin are, say, fighting the stupid, fake insect aliens on that desert planet in AotC? Maybe its just me, but my brain can recognize a well-built set from a crazy drug-trip of a CGI background. And it doesn't help immerse me in the story, because I'm painfully aware that I'm watching actors in front of a green screen. But the Death Star, or Hoth--those are good sets. More conductive for suspension of disbelief.
And the dignity of Star Wars was trashed to pieces with such cringingly terrible things as Jar Jar, the comic book-esque diner alien whi supplies Obi Wan with info on Coruscant... the stupid waitress robot "you want some jawa juice?" does every single thing in real-life need a mirror version in Star Wars? The insect aliens were like
watching an expensive cartoon, not fitting for Star Wars.
And the stupidity of the battle droids? They're bumbling morons, they say "uh oh" when there's a speeding elevator coming at them; they suck... really dumb.
Also, what Lucas tried to do was unrealistic is telling SO MUCH story in three films:
ANH: Three people meet, blow up Death Star.
TESB: Rebels chased; plot development of major characters; meet Lando, Han captured.
ROTJ: Han freed, Empire defeated.
But in addition to advancing the main characters of the Prequels (Padme, Anakin, Obi Wan) Lucas really over-reached in trying to cram in this bulky, unwieldy huge political plot that may have been necessary, but wasn't handled well. AOTC goes from sappy and poorly scripted romance, to a huge battle, to senatorial procedures without much in the way of ease. ANH was focused and concentrated ON THE CHARACTERS; the Empire was almost a background. The Prequels tried to cram too much.
I love John Williams, but the Prequel music wasn't on-the-whole as memorable as his earlier work.
Also, I hate how they worked the Palpatine transition. One day he's portrayed as a kind, sweet old gentleman-senator... he slowly and visibly changes to something tacitly more sinister... AND THEN HE'S OVERNIGHT EVIL EMPEROR YELLOW-EYES-PALE-SKIN-BLACK-ROBES-EVIL--SAME-AS-WE-SEE-HIM-IN ROTJ---EVIL VOICE-EVIL EVIL-EMPEROR-EVIL. I think they should've left some of that progression to have taken place between the trilogies... that the senate would see him as such, in such an evil get-up, and cheer his dictatorship is stupid. Before the prequels, I remember hearing or reading from somewhere in the expanded canon universe that his transition was slow, and it was so much more believable and enjoyable than the over-night-evil-emperor-with-all-the-extras.
Also, if the Jedi have been the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy for thousands of years, why isn't there any public outcry or support when they're persecuted? They tried to explain it with a poorly conceived conspiracy by Palpatine about a rebellion in the jedi trying to take over the Republic, but if these are noble, dignified people who do good deeds for 10,000 years, don't you think they'd have a little public relations capital? It'd be like if Barack Obama killed all the state police in the country tomorrow, and said "yea they tried to overthrow the congress," and nobody in the country thinking anything about it.
Furthermore: Oh, yea, by the way, Yoda and Chewie? Yea, they're buds, they go way back. Didn't we mention that? Yea, it's a huge galaxy with billions of worlds and trillions and trillions of humanoid aliens, but somehow by coincidence, all of our 20 main characters know each other from before. And R2 and Darth Vader, yea they were old buddies too... and C3PO. And yes, R2D2 has ALWAYS had the ability to fly. It didn't come out much in the original trilogy, but... but... uh... yea. They go way back, they do. And why Vader has no reaction to seeing these two robots on Bespin? Well, we can just gloss over that with some "oh he had so much trauma, he's evil now, yadda yadda..."
Another point: Yoda tries ONCE to overthrow Palpatine, and very nearly pulls it off... but then, he says "eh fuck it. I'm retiring." Way to go, Yoda.
Having said all that, I didn't mind the acting, really... Ian McDiarmid remains one of my favorite lesser-known actors... Obi Wan was very well acted in my opinion... I love Natalie Portman... Liam Neeson was good, Samuel Jackson was good... though Christianson, as I'm sure we all agree, couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. I'm a huge fan of Christopher Lee, but I don't think he was really very convincing at any point in his portrayal.
The bottom line: I do enjoy watching them, and they are fun movies, but they're guilty pleasure ones, and not well made, and they could have been so much infinitely better. It's the lost potential for better prequels that angers me. They didn't have to be perfect, but there's so much eye-rolling stupidity in them that it sickens me.
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