dishwasherlove posted:

War of the Ring is not great. Lord of the Rings is though. Expanding it to a massive army battle game just pushed the skirmish ruleset a little too hard.

Atlas Hugged posted:

I think this is also why LotR is true scale and not heroic since it makes a visual distinction between the two lines.

Of course, I'm just assuming that a clause like that exists at all, but it seems likely.

Atlas Hugged posted:

It's almost like every time they take a system designed with a certain scale in mind and stretch it to a larger scale it ends up being terrible.

TheChirurgeon posted:

This is interesting because I feel like I've heard plenty of people rave about LotR. I liked the models, but never got into it. Is the game garbage or not?

Atlas Hugged posted:

I think this is also why LotR is true scale and not heroic since it makes a visual distinction between the two lines.

Vitamin P posted:

Also searching for pictures of Grima there it's crazy how good those movies still look.

Atlas Hugged posted:

Practical effects and makeup will always be better than CGI.

Atlas Hugged posted:

Lucas too. Turns out when you're fresh in the industry and passionate about making films as art, you go to extra lengths to make things look as best as they can. But as you get old and want to finish projects up quickly, the siren song of CGI pulls you in.

Lightning Lord posted:

The great tragedy of the prequels is that they actually have really good underlying stories

Lightning Lord posted:

Aren't those movies total scrub tier garbage because of the lack of Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire though!?!?

Lightning Lord posted:

When you pare away all the goofy garbage like the gungans, midichlorians, or just how horrible sand is, the underlying, basic plots of the prequels are solid. Well directed and crafted movies with those premises could have been good. It is not the fault of the plots, it is entirely the fault of Lucas' lust for dehumanization that make the prequels so loving bad.

Atlas Hugged posted:

You are conflating outlines with plot. Plot is the series of events that happen on screen and even when you take out the dumb stuff like midichlorians and gungans, the actual series of events as they are depicted in the movies are dumb as hell.

Milky Moor posted:

I know this is the death thread and reading comprehension is minimal because anime has rotted your brains, but there is also a difference between plot and story. Story is the overall essence of the work. Plot is the blow-by-blow causal account.

You'll notice that I was talking about story, and only mentioned the word plot in the sense of the prequels having a poorly considered one.

Your move, creep.

Atlas Hugged posted:

Because you opened with "Lightning Lord is right" who specifically mentioned plot. I'd also argue that that story as you described it, doesn't appear in the prequels. It might appear in some summaries of supplementary materials, but it's really not in the movies.

In any case, Star Wars is bad.

quote:

The great tragedy of the prequels is that they actually have really good underlying stories and if Lucas hadn't become such a bad director reliant on CGI to the degree that his performers were acting at tennis balls hanging in the middle of entirely greenscreened sets, we'd probably still be talking about how cool they are to this day.

Atlas Hugged posted:

Lucas too. Turns out when you're fresh in the industry and passionate about making films as art, you go to extra lengths to make things look as best as they can. But as you get old and want to finish projects up quickly, the siren song of CGI pulls you in.

Milky Moor posted:

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Lightning Lord posted:

When you pare away all the goofy garbage like the gungans, midichlorians, or just how horrible sand is, the underlying, basic plots of the prequels are solid.

Hra Mormo posted:

Unless you're George Miller and show up at the age of 70 to redefine modern action movies. That said Miller uses absolute tons of CGI but actually has an eye for what works in CGI and what doesn't, so you get Theron missing an arm and swarms of cars driving full throttle dangerously close to one another while a giant tanker blows the gently caress up in the middle instead of creepy as gently caress ghost Vincent Price.

drat, even when it doesn't suck Star Wars is the posterchild for terrible CGI.

mcjomar posted:

Atlas Hugged posted:

The other thing to remember that you don't quite get to is that awesome pairings for fight scenes don't really mean much when the stories surrounding them are incoherent and the characters and conflict lack depth. When you think about the original trilogy, while it did have a couple of duels, it was basically just Luke versus Vader over and over again until Luke finally won/gave up violence to become a true Jedi. But even then, those duels are cool not just because of the good choreography, but because of the emotion and character development involved. We fundamentally care about Luke and are terrified of Vader because of the things we've seen them do on screen leading up to these moments. And the characters and their motivations change because of these encounters.

Dooku is the closest one to having a character, but even then it's just monologuing at Obi-wan for a few minutes. There's no buildup or stakes with any of the villains. I think Grievious is mentioned in the opening scrawl but I can't be bothered to check and all we see of him is him shouting at the leaders of the bad guy faction before he gets ambushed. It's not like Obi-wan grows or changes in any of the three movies. He's still vaguely stoic Jedi guy who is trying to follow the will of the council and is unsure of Anakin. In all three movies.

Atlas Hugged posted:

The other thing to remember that you don't quite get to is that awesome pairings for fight scenes don't really mean much when the stories surrounding them are incoherent and the characters and conflict lack depth. When you think about the original trilogy, while it did have a couple of duels, it was basically just Luke versus Vader over and over again until Luke finally won/gave up violence to become a true Jedi. But even then, those duels are cool not just because of the good choreography, but because of the emotion and character development involved. We fundamentally care about Luke and are terrified of Vader because of the things we've seen them do on screen leading up to these moments. And the characters and their motivations change because of these encounters.

Dooku is the closest one to having a character, but even then it's just monologuing at Obi-wan for a few minutes. There's no buildup or stakes with any of the villains. I think Grievous is mentioned in the opening scrawl but I can't be bothered to check and all we see of him is him shouting at the leaders of the bad guy faction before he gets ambushed. It's not like Obi-wan grows or changes in any of the three movies. He's still vaguely stoic Jedi guy who is trying to follow the will of the council and is unsure of Anakin. In all three movies.

Milky Moor posted:

You'd think Maul would escape in TPM, get bisected in AOTC, and then be a freaky cyborg guy in ROTS to get some kind of build-up but Lucas seemed set on a rotating door of villains.

It's even weirder when Maul apparently shows up in the new cartoon with robot legs.

neonbregna posted:

Lots of man children arguing over the plot of literal children's movies itt.

mcjomar posted:

Thanks for saying something I've been trying to figure out for a while.
I knew I thought the choreography for the maul fight was fantastic, but there's always been something slightly missing, and you've put it into words right there. The lack of depth in the villains throughout the prequels is one of the biggest failing, as - as was written in PCGamer recently, of all places - a good work of fiction often lives or dies more on the quality of the villains, rather than the heroes. The heroes often tend to be vehicles of the viewer, reader, or gamer to explore their world, and their place in it and their views on that (whatever they happen to be) but without a good, believable villain with actual depth, none of it matters worth a drat in the slightest, and instead of a good experience, with actual plot, depth, and even dare I say it, philosophy, you instead get a bad or worse, dull experience that you come away from feeling short-changed over at the very least. Philosophy comes from the villains as often as the heroes or side characters. Sometimes it comes not from them, but because of them and their existence. If the villain is poorly written, even to such a degree that they might as well not exist, then any lessons or philosophies or mere stories provided by the work become worthless as they are no longer hard won tales and lesson, but merely speeches and lectures delivered at length, moralising to no real purpose, as nothing of value has been lost or won in the experiencing thereof, thus removing the depth, weight, or value of such.

TheChirurgeon posted:

Death Thread poster: "Star Wars"

Rest of Thread: *Autistic Screeching*

Atlas Hugged posted:

The way I see it, awesome action scenes for the sake of awesome action scenes stopped being possible after The Matrix. That was a watershed moment in film where choreography, technology, and technique were married with perfect execution. It's going to be really interesting to show that to someone who didn't see it when it was new and has been watching post-Matrix movies and action sequences their whole life. I wonder if they'll think it's special at all.

mcjomar posted:

well okay, I'll bite, "Random trade nutters blockade world because of sith shenanigans, Jedi sent to investigate" is sort of an idea with potential.
Throw in "this is how Vader was discovered and trained by Obi-wan" to 'resolve' a plot point, and maybe it's sellable. Apparently we're also explaining how he met Luke's mum, but whatever.

Pod Racing, Neeson, and McGregor are also kind of workable (I would legitimately watch a star wars movie about Qui-Gon and Obi-wan and their space detective investigations, like a buddy cop PI movie, but with glowsticks - and now that I say that, I still have no clue how nobody ever considered the idea). Oh yeah, that one big lightsaber duel at the end was kinda cool I guess.

But here's where it breaks down - Padmé is pretty much cradlerobbing, because Anakin is played as being creepy as poo poo in the second movie. Also, whiny, which is the bigger sin, for me, but let's keep going with the first movie. Anything to do with gungans and midichlorians is automatically bad by sheer definition, and should be removed wholesale from the movie. Bad racial stereotyping also (one member of the race is like this so all are like this ) because holy gently caress why would you even do this.
Cue die hard-ism "Sand? Who gives a poo poo about sand?"

Honestly the whole "leader escapes, goes to beg for help, gets turned down and promptly goes back and gathers allies to stage an uprising and/or guerilla warfare to reclaim planet" is a pretty reasonable trope, but ends up being played in the shittiest way because CGI, Gungans, and the inevitable cyclical plot points trying (badly) to imitate ANH (such as, big fight against big object, inexperienced kid blows it up with one well placed shot. Mentor dies in front of student, imparts some sort of message, student gets angry and starts attacking. There's plenty more, just look) which is I guess an attempt to say "all this has happened before, all this will happen again", but ends up being hamfisted.

There's good set of ideas in there, buried under a CGI mountain of bullshit and bad calls.

But that's just the first movie.
Number two?

If you strip out absolutely anything to do with Anakin, you end up with a semi-decent movie about Obi-wan Kenobi, space detective, and it's better for it.
Whiny teen drama is boring, news at 11.

Kenobi vs Fett is a pretty cool face off, and a fairly reasonable plot line. It gets screwed up because Lucas, but the basic idea is sound when you boil it back to the start. But if this had been a TV show, maybe it would have worked.
Clones? Also potentially workable, especially given the "manipulation" involved on the part of Sidious (okay, here's an aside, lovely Darth naming conventions endemic to star wars - Vader = Father, Sidious = insidious, Maul = violent attacky bastard, Dooku = wtf I don't even know. Dracula? Point is Lucas has a history of giving his Darths some lovely and obvious names. Devil's advocate maybe that's the point, as the Sith are possibly not always supposed to be subtle, even when that's what they're trying to do).
Problem? The whole thing ends up being a bit shallow as a vehicle to set up Palpatine's rise to power, but devil's advocate again, this is a movie, rather than a several month long TV show, so we only have so much time.

Then we have student following mentor into danger to rescue mentor but loving up because of inexperience (oh hello, plot point from ESB, where Luke went to rescue a bunch of people he looked up to and failed, and also lost part of a limb, force is cyclical, blah blah blah ) which as tropes go is fairly standard. Honestly this section makes Padme come across as a slightly stronger character, i.e. not a damsel in distress, much like Leia who is the best shot in the original trilogy (no poo poo, go look).

But then the inevitable repeat during the Dooku duel, oh hey, look, Anakin lost a limb, wonder who else did that.
Obi-wan covers things up, and Padmé gives in to Anakin (). This could have been a good plot point if it wasn't for supposed age differences and how Anakin is portrayed as being a ridiculous man-child (also, holy poo poo, my browser gives me naming corrections for "good" aligned star wars characters. But apparently gently caress the villains, like Dooku or Fett, they don't deserve a spell check ). I mean, guilty mentor covers for beloved student is a legitimate trope. But here, again, it's played like poo poo.
Y'see, a good villain has pathos, and is respectable, and likeable (in as much as one can like a villain). A bad villain is none of these things, is unrelatable, unlikeable for any reason, and earns no respect.

When you watch a good villain "fall" it is a tragedy, but still enjoyable, as you actually like the character or at least respect them and their reasons for turning to evil.
A bad villain, on the other hand, is just bad, with no redeeming features (good or bad), and hasn't got any reason worth discussing for their actions. Or to put it succinctly, good villains have internal logic for their actions that we can understand, even if we do not agree with it, while bad villains lack this internal logic, not because they are insane but because their writing is just that poo poo. A bad villain falls simply because the author decrees it is so, rather than because of the logic inherent and internal to the character.
The fall of Anakin has questionable logic (at best).

Oh hey, this terrible terrible effortpost has reached movie 3

So, first Palpatine tempts him by encouraging his rage (after the loss of his mother where he indulged his rage the first time - a scene which is actually one of the more understandable ones as it gives him human emotions, and a real reason to turn to evil (vengeance being portrayed as an evil motivation here). It's a pity that the following scene where he confesses to Padmé is such utter crap, and completely undermines the importance of this act and turns it into another whine-fest). The death of Dooku is... anticlimactic at best.

Then we have a lot of inane ridiculousness (thankfully some of which was removed on the editing room floor, or else we would now have moustache tweaking as a secret jedi language or something), ships in space adhering to the logic of ships on water/in the air (zepplins), and a very strange but actually potentially interesting "bad guy" in the form of Grievous (oh ha ha Lucas, very funny pun ).

Now, the battle between Kenobi and Grievous is one with potential (man/force vs machine with biological bits (at what point is a biological creature no longer biological but mechanical?)), but we end up with something a little lacking in depth. We could be kind and play devil's advocate in regards time constraints though. But honestly, I'm sure this could have been better and more stretched out.

Finally we reach Order 66, and everything that follows. So much internal logic in regards Jedi just goes horribly wrong here. Apparently the presence of one Sith, and the (possible) fall of Anakin was enough to cloud the future for all light siders? Did they not have any ability to deflect lightning bolts from their allies, and only from their enemies because of this? Etc.

So Anakin sides with Palpatine because he needs the "knowledge" he has about life and death to save Padmé, so he betrays the Jedi order, not just a little bit, but completely (the fall, to Luke's resistance in RotJ, plot point repeat and this time inversion). So there's a little internal logic here, vision of Padmé, must save Padmé, okay this sort of works, apparently the Skywalker family are great at misunderstanding the visions they see in the force. But then he's killing kids, and other Jedi, and murdering the "hostile" federation leaders. That... doesn't quite sound right. Shouldn't he go through more internal moralising or dilemmas before murdering kids? Or is it just flip switch, is now evil, here goes the death spiral ? And then the fight between him and Kenobi where he misunderstands things (this could have worked) but also does so wilfully, and doesn't think things through (this is dumb), kills the very woman he turned evil trying to save () and then blames Kenobi for something Anakin literally just did with his own hands.

And then we get the dumb as hell lava fight, ending with Kenobi taking Anakin's lightsaber ("Your father wanted you to have this, when you were old enough." *Death scream from lava floor* (that always cracks me up)). New internal logic gently caress up, Padmé basically dies literally of a "broken heart". What did she have an embolism of some sort because Anakin half-strangled her, but the robot was trying to be kind? No, it's just lovely writing again. I mean, what, she's got kids, but no her ~love for Anakin is too much to handle the loss~ or whatever. Poetic, but dumb as gently caress, and a seriously lovely trope to pull in the dumbest possible way, especially given that Leia can supposedly remember her. This is supposed to be an inverted remembrance of Han and Leia at the end of RotJ when DStar2 goes boom, but with Padmé giving birth to Leia and Luke as the galaxy becomes not free (as opposed to Han and Leia falling in love as the galaxy becomes free). Very crappily written.

RotS should have been a true inversion of RotJ, but it got repeatedly hosed up and became an inelegant bungled mess lacking in suitable depth. While the overall outline, and a number of plot chunks are good in theory, the practical execution is completely and utterly poo poo, and would have been better directed by almost anyone else (except Uwe Boll - although now I want that to happen, simply because it would be a comedy).

Throughout all of this, most things relating to Kenobi have been worthwhile, and anything relating to Anakin has been utter poo poo.
It's a series of movies that could have been good, and actually did have some degree of potential, but ended up being hamstrung with lovely writing, lovely directing, over-reliance on CGI, and an extremely whiny portrayal and script for Anakin. Almost every good opportunity was missed, and every good idea was repeatedly hosed up into an unrecognisable mess.

Or to cut an effort post short, Lucas repeatedly hosed up, missed every opportunity to do something good, and delivered a mismanaged, poorly directed, utterly bungled mess of a trilogy. In short, where the gently caress were the editors armed with shears to keep him in check?