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Please rename this thread to 'Home of the Star Wars Prequels Apologists'
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Oct 4, 2016 03:22
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Red posted:Please rename this thread to 'Home of the Star Wars Prequels Apologists' Is this supposed to be an insult?
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Oct 4, 2016 03:23
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Vegg220 posted:Are you dumb. Do you see Serf's post on this very page Yes, he did say that certain things were a "real subversion of fan expectations." He did not say that the prequels were "a work of secret subversive genius." In fact, I got the impression that he felt the subversion was extremely obvious. I apologize for speaking over you, Serf. Definitely correct me if I misunderstood you vis-a-vis the secretness of any subversive genius or lack thereof. I also apologize for entertaining Tezzor, which is perhaps the greater sin.
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Oct 4, 2016 03:27
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Guy Goodbody posted:But bold and subversive isn't automatically good. I certainly didn't expect the Jedis to be sexless monks who don't care about slavery. I wouldn't have expected them to wear clown makeup and speak in falsetto either. And it's not just the Jedi, Padme and Jar Jar aren't super concerned about slavery either. Neither of them even suggest just taking Shmi with them and telling Watto to gently caress off. Shmi doesn't suggest it either. Nobody has any respect for the downtrodden of the galaxy, not even the downtrodden. And Padme isn't allowed to have a boyfriend because she's a senator? What? The whole galaxy is sexless too. None of that is what I expected from a Star Wars movie. I'm not sure why that makes it a good thing tho. I mean the entirety of the Republic being corrupt is kinda a big deal. Droids are seen as slaves in a way that organic beings are not (in that the organic slaves are acknowledged as being slaves), and the whole of society turns a blind eye to the struggle of the downtrodden. But the whole of society are not touted as being guardians of peace and justice. The Jedi ought to have a moral responsibility to free slaves and show respect to other forms of life, but they do not. This is not a bug, it is a feature. And while I agree that subversive doesn't make something good, I loved how it played out here. I never trusted the Jedi in the original movies after Obi-Wan lied to Luke, and it was nice to see that was the intended perception of them. Guy Goodbody posted:But it didn't play out in a realistic, It Can't Happen Here style. Everyone's just kinda dumb. The Trade Federation and the Separatists go along with whatever the hologram says for some reason. The Jedi are dumb, the Senate is gullible. The Emperor rises to power because everyone else is gullible and dumb and just do what has to happen for the Emperor to rise to power. Expand on this. The Seperatists only exist because of Palpatine, so it makes sense that they would follow his orders. With Dooku and Grievous acting as leaders, the rest of the weak-willed capitalists go along with the plans for fear of what might happen if they don't. They are shown clearly questioning the decisions Palpatine is making, and are deceived into consolidating in one place by him so that Vader could kill them all in one fell swoop. Even on Mustafar they are shown to be nervous and unsure of the plan, but are cowed into subservience by Palpatine and they pay the ultimate price for it. Schwarzwald posted:Yes, he did say that certain things were a "real subversion of fan expectations." He did not say that the prequels were "a work of secret subversive genius." In fact, I got the impression that he felt the subversion was extremely obvious. Yeah, the movies aren't exactly what I would call works of subversive genius. They are pretty easily read imo
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Oct 4, 2016 03:31
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Vegg220 posted:The prequels have a lot of skilled artists working on them, which is not the same thing as excellent art direction. When you're back for your break, parse this for me. Individual artists are responsible for the exact look of a given location, prop, costume, creature, effect, ship, etc. Art directors make sure all of that fits together cohesively to further the [feeling/theme/story] of the [character/location/culture/movie/series]. People have already pointed out how the ships in particular and the overall "cleanliness" of the whole galaxy evolves over time, this is conscious and well done art direction. If the art directions isn't excellent, what is it? Bad? I'd love examples of that. Prolonged Panorama fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Feb 18, 2017 |
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Oct 4, 2016 03:37
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Guy Goodbody posted:But bold and subversive isn't automatically good. I certainly didn't expect the Jedis to be sexless monks who don't care about slavery. I wouldn't have expected them to wear clown makeup and speak in falsetto either. And it's not just the Jedi, Padme and Jar Jar aren't super concerned about slavery either. Neither of them even suggest just taking Shmi with them and telling Watto to gently caress off. Shmi doesn't suggest it either. Nobody has any respect for the downtrodden of the galaxy, not even the downtrodden. And Padme isn't allowed to have a boyfriend because she's a senator? What? The whole galaxy is sexless too. None of that is what I expected from a Star Wars movie. I'm not sure why that makes it a good thing tho. See, when people actually elaborate on things, we get a lot of really weird ideas about the world. When Shmii does not beg to be rescued, it does not mean she enjoys being enslaved. You cannot fight slavery by simply snatching a single woman out of a house, and all the characters are smart enough to know this. They even explain outright that they're trying to focus on their planet-rescuing mission and don't have time for trivial stuff that might piss off the local mob bosses. They've only known Shmii for a day. Why would they drop everything for her? Alec Guinness in An New Hope went really heavy on the closeted-gay subtext, and Luke is all but explicitly a virgin. All the Jedis in the OT are sexless hermits. The prequels simply reveal that they have always chosen that lifestyle, were not forced into it.
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Oct 4, 2016 03:51
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Jewmanji posted:Nothing more zeitgeist-y than The Simpsons in 2003. What's gonna happen when fans start to rethink post S9 Simpsons?
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Oct 4, 2016 03:52
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:See, when people actually elaborate on things, we get a lot of really weird ideas about the world. I'm almost afraid to ask, but how is Luke "all but explicitly a virgin"? Doesn't he have a bunch of sexy 70s friends in a cut scene?
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Oct 4, 2016 03:54
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I like TPM because it's at heart a charming adventure movie featuring an old man and a young woman trying to out-sass each other while they each struggle with the duties of leadership and run into an amazing range of crazy characters and situations. And I think it's really neat because on the surface it's a sugary-sweet tale, but in reality the heroes have made some terrible mistakes and the bad guy wins. Some of the physical comedy doesn't work for me anymore, but a surprising amount of Jar Jar's antics still do. AOTC is the part of the story where it slowly dawns on everyone that they didn't achieve what they thought they had. The Jedi believed they had foiled the Sith. Padmé thought she had defeated the people agitating for war. Obi-Wan believed that by becoming a Knight, he had truly advanced into manhood. Anakin thought his dreams of achieving the power to free all the slaves were coming true, and now he's already feeling disillusioned. It's all set against the backdrop of a neat space noir story. And the romance isn't entirely my cup of tea, but I enjoy the comedic moments where Anakin preens and Padmé shoots him down. (My sister eats the whole thing up. She thinks Anakin's brokenness is fascinating and considers this subplot to be the best part of Star Wars.) The final battle is exhilarating and has a great sense of scale while maintaining clarity and pace—a rare thing in big action films. To me, ROTS is peak Star Wars. Act I is ridiculous and awesome and corny and I love it. Padmé and Anakin's first scene is really tender. Then Anakin begins his descent into despair, and I feel for him because his Jedi mentors are indifferent at best (or betraying his trust, at worst). Ewan's Obi-Wan is at his most charming, even while he senses that his friendship with Anakin is deteriorating. You get a shitload of great battle scenes right before the heartbreaking Order 66 sequence. We finally get a deliciously hammy performance out of Ian McDiarmid. Hayden comes into his own as a downright terrifying Vader, but he's not scary in the way that people expected—instead, he's utterly delusional because he can't face his own capacity for doing evil. Obi-Wan tries to reason with him but can't get through because he's also in denial—and it's only once he thinks he's killed his best friend that he can bring himself to break the Code and declare that he loves him. That's what I've got, without reference to visuals or parallelism or whatever. In anticipation of the post that says, "Those movies sound great! I wish we had gotten them!": I think a lot of what I like in these movies hinges on how much you can empathize with Anakin at the start of AOTC. If you feel that he's just being an ungrateful punk lashing out against some reasonable rules, then he's not a sympathetic character. But I strongly disagree.
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Oct 4, 2016 03:55
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korusan posted:What's gonna happen when fans start to rethink post S9 Simpsons? For that to work, people would have to actually watch the Simpsons. The fun with the prequels is that people watch them over and over, reading endlessly about them, never getting happier. Only Christ provides an answer.
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Oct 4, 2016 03:55
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Cliegg Lars never freed Shmi. Watto made that up in an attempt to get Anakin to help him beat up people that owed him money. The Lars family realized instantly they should also lie about this to avoid being killed by Anakin because life on Tatooine is rough. That's the real reason nobody was actively searching for Shmi.
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Oct 4, 2016 03:57
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Schwarzwald posted:I'm normally willing to go to bat for Lucas's films, but this is not altogether true. Quite a few contemporary reviews were actually quite harsh. That NYT one in particular is rather amusing to apply to TFA and current opinion towards it.
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Oct 4, 2016 03:58
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Bongo Bill posted:Is this supposed to be an insult? I feel like there should be a warning.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:01
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:For that to work, people would have to actually watch the Simpsons. I like to think I 'actually watch' the Simpsons. I can't find common ground with the new Simpsons other than similar characters, more or less.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:01
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:See, when people actually elaborate on things, we get a lot of really weird ideas about the world. Who said anything about fighting slavery overall? I get that the Jedi were on a very important mission to settle a tax dispute and didn't have the manpower to free the slaves. But why not save that one slave? Why not take Shmii and run? They'd already gotten what they needed from tattooine, they were about to leave, they didn't care about some lovely planet they'd never go back to. But none of them thought about it or suggested it.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:02
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porfiria posted:I'm almost afraid to ask, but how is Luke "all but explicitly a virgin"? Doesn't he have a bunch of sexy 70s friends in a cut scene? I don't watch deleted scenes. Luke plays with toys and gets hyped up to buy power converters. The only woman he's ever kissed is his sister. In fact the entire point of the love triangle is that Luke should only see women as his sisters, because he is 'beyond such things'. Sex is for Han. Guy Goodbody posted:Who said anything about fighting slavery overall? I get that the Jedi were on a very important mission to settle a tax dispute and didn't have the manpower to free the slaves. But why not save that one slave? Why not take Shmii and run? They'd already gotten what they needed from tattooine, they were about to leave, they didn't care about some lovely planet they'd never go back to. But none of them thought about it or suggested it. You're asking 'why don't they' as if rescuing slaves is something people do by default, automatically. The characters have no reason to buy Shmii, give her a home, or whatever. That's not what happens in reality. Like, you see a homeless dude - do you suggest pooling money to buy him a car? Of course not. Nobody does that. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 04:02
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Guy Goodbody posted:You mean that Ring Theory thing? No, that's the rumor that Yoda's force ghost crawls out of Kylo Ren's TV for a lightsaber duel at the end of VIII.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:02
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I don't watch deleted scenes. Luke plays with toys and gets hyped up to buy power converters. The only woman he's ever kissed is his sister. The power converters were very obviously an excuse to get off the farm
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Oct 4, 2016 04:03
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Luke is clearly chaste.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:04
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Guy Goodbody posted:Who said anything about fighting slavery overall? I get that the Jedi were on a very important mission to settle a tax dispute and didn't have the manpower to free the slaves. But why not save that one slave? Why not take Shmii and run? They'd already gotten what they needed from tattooine, they were about to leave, they didn't care about some lovely planet they'd never go back to. But none of them thought about it or suggested it. Uh, Padmé suggests that very thing at the dinner table. Anakin explains that if you just try to run away, you'll get blown up. Bongo Bill posted:Luke is clearly chaste. Agreed, but I think you might reasonably expect that Luke cares too deeply about the notion of family (and particularly fatherhood) to stay that way. Zoran fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 04:05
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porfiria posted:I'm almost afraid to ask, but how is Luke "all but explicitly a virgin"? Doesn't he have a bunch of sexy 70s friends in a cut scene? Luke's a simple farm boy whose idea of fun is picking up power converters at the local co-op. You think he's getting laid any time soon?
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Oct 4, 2016 04:06
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ungulateman posted:Luke's a simple farm boy whose idea of fun is picking up power converters at the local co-op. You think he's getting laid any time soon? I thought it was clear that Luke was lying, and his Uncle wasn't fooled?
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Oct 4, 2016 04:09
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Zoran posted:Uh, Padmé suggests that very thing at the dinner table. Anakin explains that if you just try to run away, you'll get blown up. Can't they turn the bomb off with the force? How did they deal with the bomb in Anakin? Very clearly there is a way to deal with the bomb
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Oct 4, 2016 04:11
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I don't think the prequels are very good. In fact, I think that they're the least good of the Star Wars franchise.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:11
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ungulateman posted:Luke's a simple farm boy whose idea of fun is picking up power converters at the local co-op. You think he's getting laid any time soon? The power converter's were very obviously an excuse to get off the farm. Were you never a teenager?
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Oct 4, 2016 04:11
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Spacebump posted:Cliegg Lars never freed Shmi. Well, no, he bought her to make her his Wife and she became "free" as the wife of a free man. That's right up there with Anakin not having a father with uncomfortable truths characters prefer to keep unspoken.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:16
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Guy Goodbody posted:Can't they turn the bomb off with the force? How did they deal with the bomb in Anakin? Very clearly there is a way to deal with the bomb Watto shut off the bomb in Anakin, in order to give him to Quigon. They take Anakin because he's a valuable mutant. They leave Shmii because she is not a priority at all, and she still has the bomb in her head. Guy Goodbody posted:The power converter's were very obviously an excuse to get off the farm. Were you never a teenager? Luke was not going to toschi station to have sex. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 04:17
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Luke's a dork but he's thirsty af. He might not be having sex in today's climate but it was the 70s so it's hard to say.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:23
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Guy Goodbody posted:Can't they turn the bomb off with the force? How did they deal with the bomb in Anakin? Very clearly there is a way to deal with the bomb I don't like the Prequels at all, but I remember very clearly that the reason Anakin was allowed to leave was because Qui-Gon won him from the bet he had with Watto.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:27
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Luke was not going to toschi station to have sex. We don't know what he was going to do with those power converters.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:27
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He was going to use them to convert power.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:28
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Roth posted:I don't like the Prequels at all, but I remember very clearly that the reason Anakin was allowed to leave was because Qui-Gon won him from the bet he had with Watto. so steal Watto's bomb turning off wand or do the surgery themselves or whatever
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Oct 4, 2016 04:31
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Guy Goodbody posted:so steal Watto's bomb turning off wand or do the surgery themselves or whatever Certainly, the Jedi could imdeed have done more on Tatooine than free one (1) slave, and that only because he was of interest to them. I wonder what this means.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:33
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Bongo Bill posted:He was going to use them to convert power. Yeah, but convert power to what 
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Oct 4, 2016 04:35
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Perhaps if Luke had been more interested in girls and less interested in his airspeeder, he wouldn't have gotten in that awful piloting accident between ANH and ESB.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:38
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Guy Goodbody posted:so steal Watto's bomb turning off wand or do the surgery themselves or whatever If you're going to do this, then skip to the conclusion: the Jedi could have fought for equal rights for droids and other oppressed peoples in the Republic, and then branched out from there. They could have done many things, but did not.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:41
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Bongo Bill posted:Certainly, the Jedi could imdeed have done more on Tatooine than free one (1) slave, and that only because he was of interest to them. It means the Jedi are uncaring cunts,which utterly undercuts the emotional pull of Order 66 going down. Instead of seeing Our Heros dying you see some assholes slaughtering other assholes. Everyone sucks in the prequels so who the gently caress cares about anything that happens to them? Cardboard cutouts, the lot of them!
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Oct 4, 2016 04:48
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Yaws posted:It means the Jedi are uncaring cunts. Which utterly undercuts the emotional pull of Order 66 going down. Instead of seeing Our Heros dying you see some assholes slaughtering other assholes. Everyone sucks in the prequels so who the gently caress cares about anything that happens to them? We are not misanthropes. We are not nihilists. There are heroes on both sides.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:49
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Just wanted to say I agree with everything here. TPM is my favorite of the prequels for a number of reasons. One big one is the way it takes all those elements that are fundamentally "Star Wars" and makes something that's both familiar and original. Every part of the movie feeds into this. The characters are in many ways the archetypes that have been around since the OT: the proud royal, the wizened mentor, the spunky kid from the desert wilderness. But they're not the same as the OT characters. It would be easy, for example, to make a "prequel Han Solo", and I know many people think it would make a better movie. But instead we get Jar Jar, who's still a self-interested everyman convinced to join the fight for good, but of a very different sort. And Qui-Gon isn't Obi-Wan, and Padme isn't Leia, and Anakin sure as hell isn't Luke. Obi-Wan is one of the few familiar faces, and even he's almost entirely different from his OT incarnation. And these aren't just superficial differences, but fundamental to where their character arcs go. The plot is the same way. On the surface, it's a very basic fight of a bunch of underdogs teaming up to save the good guy planet from the bad men. But just below the surface - and I mean just, like you really only have to watch the other movies to get this, it's not even subtle - you have the fact that at the end the biggest winner is Palpatine, and those Senate scenes that "everyone" hates where they call for a vote of no confidence is probably the single most important one in the movie. The causes of Anakin's fall are all right there, waiting to be triggered. There are big, big gently caress-ups on the part of the characters that need to wait a few movies before they go off, so everything is left with the appearance of a victory even though things are about to collapse. It's in the setting - the worlds are a mix of wildly different from anything we've seen in Star Wars (Coruscant) to the most used planet in the saga (Tatooine), but even the latter is set in a new location with new sides of life on the planet visible (slavery, podracing). It's in the art design. It's in the music. Basically, TPM is Star Wars as gently caress, and I love it for the same reasons I love the other movies and the franchise as a whole - it's exciting, it's fun, it captures a spirit of adventure, and it's a big, big story that manages to be about little people. And TPM, and the prequels as a whole, are a fresh new take on it. The thing that I really want to get across is, this isn't just an intellectual appreciation. I can pick apart certain elements like I did, but those are all just elaborations on my gut emotional reaction. I just enjoy TPM, and the prequels, on a fundamental level as movies. There's only so many ways you can say that by itself without getting boring and repetitive, though, which is why people go into deeper analyses. It's interesting to talk and read about, which is more than you can say for Tezzor's millionth rant about why everyone else needs to hate what he does.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:51
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:If you're going to do this, then skip to the conclusion: the Jedi could have fought for equal rights for droids and other oppressed peoples in the Republic, and then branched out from there. Equal rights for droids? Most of the droids in The Phantom Menace are just nodes of a super computer in space.
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Oct 4, 2016 04:53
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