In the OT's case you could say the overall success scared the actors into potentially being typecast, which still happened for some of course; and it gave no opportunities to go forward without them. In the PT's case, with the new characters you've highlighted, they either do not fit with the OT or didn't survive long enough for any meaningful expansion on them.
Star Trek did this too though, they had throwaway villains but they had the ability to keep it fresh by having storylines with all sorts of races that kept re-appearing. The advantages of several series also allowed for specific villains or surprise past or present Starfleet characters to appear and contribute.
ST also embraced whatever technology was at hand and went along with whatever there was to use so it seemed like the transition between Kirk's movies to TNG/Generations wasn't that much apart. Lucas, I believe, wanted to wait for better technology before doing the prequels which was a mistake in the sense it left SW fans with nothing for 16 years and when he did make them with all the CGI it made the history of the OT look like the future.
To completely move on from the OT you would have to jump SW drastically into the future in order to account for the modern looking look but even then you'd have this problem:
PT: Modern CGI look.
OT: Old school 70/80s effects look (with improvements no doubt but some things you can't CGI).
Star Wars - The Future (or whatever, I'm reaching here ):Even more modern CGI look .
Last edited by Lord Shadow Z on Mar 15th, 2012 at 10:22 PM
I am dissapointed with the way Star Wars is going.
With the new CW series, Lucas is turning the Jedi, which were supposed to be peaceful monks, to warriors and war 'heroes'.
Anakin and Obi-Wan the "Greatest" Jedi are continously called war heroes of the galaxy. It's unfortunate because this series (for kids!) seems to be glorifying war.
But in reality its unfortunately trivializing war, making it into some sort of series of fun adventures with your jedi buddies and lightsaber at hand. There are even padawan's fighting the war (read: child soldiers). With the slapstick humor and the inconsequential destruction of droids its making light and fun of of the realities of what war is. Very unfortunate for a kids/teen show.
All of this goes goes against everything Star Wars in the OT; summed up perfectly by Yoda... "Wars not make one Great".
What this meant (to me at least) was that the best of us weren't necessarily soldiers on the battlefield but rather upstanding principled people who did what was right when faced opposition.
Kids should consider Atticus Finch a hero not Anakin Skywalker. Ultimately Luke became a hero not because he was powerful and took down a Sith, but instead because he choose compassion over anger and gave his father a chance.
But Obi-Wan had to be shown to be fighting because his involvement in the Clone Wars was referenced by Leia in ANH. Now you don't get much details of what he and the other Jedi did. From ANH's perspective maybe they were passive fighters who were only called to the defense of others, or they could have been fighters who were so at one with the Force that they could fight without anger or agression.
Even Luke in ROTJ at Jabba's Palace is issuing threats and throwing himself into combat quite exuberantly. The OT is sort of inadvertently shielded from criticism of Jedi portrayal because it only contains 3 (two of which are not really 'active') so in fairness with more of them the idea of the Jedi could have been different.
I haven't seen CW myself because I don't like filler stuff like that but if it does trivialise the Jedi as 'enjoying war' then I agree that it is wrong.
If they'd be doing their non-war activity, I think it would be quite boring. Compare it to the Dalai Llama, considered by many all over the world to be a great man of great wisdom, yet I think a movie about his daily life would be extremely boring. So there is the Jedi dilemma...
Without the fighting it probably would be a load of senate meetings and Jedi councils and levitating stuff for kicks. I guess the fighting stops the weight from piling on too, although the robes would disguise that well.
I'm not saying that it is not possible the Jedi were indeed were like that. However, it's what Lucas is focusing in that is interesting. He could focus on other things besides the War.But instead he provided us with a Mary Sue main character who is a child wiping out all these bad guys. He is trivializing war by making a kid the main action hero to entertain kids, and grossly distorting what the Jedi were supposed to be.
By making this entire show about Jedi fighting a war. He is making the Jedi into warriors. Mace clearly says that the Jedi are not soldiers. And Yoda makes it seem that being a great Jedi Master and being a war hero are NOT the same thing. Yoda was great because of his wisdom not because he was powerful and killed lots of bad guys.
A great Jedi Master is a being who is completely at peace with other living things and lives in harmony with the force.
Great Jedi Master =/= War Hero
This is something Lucas has forgotten.
Luke was trying to save Han. The scene was supposed to show how much more powerful Luke was. Plus it was a one time deal he needed to save him friend, it wasn't action for actions sake. Luke even asked to do it peacefully but of course Jabba refused and you wouldn't a crime boss to go down easily. However, it wasn't all roses. The scene was also supposed to show that he was already showing signs of the dark side. His use of force choke and other actions were indicators that he was threading dangerously. His force choke is a dark side move and he learned perhaps in the quest of more power, thus it served to set up his later confrontation with the Emperor. Not to mention, Yoda criticized Luke for being reckless and it almost cost him by getting shot in the hand.
What's important though is that later Luke chooses the correct path by not fighting.
I don't watch it either, but its hard to ignore with Lucas declaring it canon. But nonetheless to me only the films are canon. My main concern is what "publicity", Lucas giving to Star Wars.
What Star Wars, in popular culture, is becoming (or already become).
Well, like I said, he (Lucas) referred to the CW in ANH through Leia's message and because the PT was largely about Anakin he probably felt justified to 'give us a Clone War' because it's mentioned in the OT. I can't comment on the execution of that however.
I do take your point about the PT depiction of Jedi and the scene in AOTC highlights this where Obi-Wan hands Anakin his lightsaber back and says 'this is your LIFE', as if all a Jedi does is fight. It's difficult, in a sense to blame the PT for that entirely because even though Luke was fighting to save his friend one could argue a more subtle approach could have worked. Luke was clearly the aggressor from the moment he entered Jabba's Palace and Han's plight was because of his own making after all (not paying off his debt to a crime lord).
If we take Luke's attack on the Palace/barge as an example of OT Jedi depiction and compare to the PT, it's the same sort of gung-ho fighting. You could argue he's protecting his friends or removing a threat to his friends but is that not so in the PT battles? I think it's the same.
He does realise that not fighting is the right thing but only after an extended battle with Vader and the realisation he's becoming the Emperor's next servant. Look at the moment in ROTJ where Luke calmly deals with the situation with the Ewoks, I feel that any PT Jedi would have done the same thing - I can't say any would have gone ballistic and started lopping heads off, even Anakin (his beef is with Sand People ). The PT shows many moments of peaceful Jedi it's just that the various battles/events that were taking place around them drew them in and they had to fight to protect people.
Good points but I feel if that was a large part of the series and you still had the war going on and Jedi's fighting in said war then it would turn out to be highly hypocritical. After all the Jedi value life and abhor killing and not do not seek confrontation - and yet in the same instance choose to go out as soldiers. If they were truly guardians of peace they wouldn't do this and the show would end up being confused.
You can't really have the CW story not to be about war and there's no getting around the fact that the Jedi were involved as fighters and are quite ambivalent about taking life, as we've seen in both trilogies.
):Even more modern CGI look .
Mar 15th, 2012 10:19 PM
