Episode III too focused on Anakin's story

I'd bet my plastic lightsaber that at the end of ROTJ's filming, GL was kicking himself for not putting a demented, upright, bipedal amphibian into the movies.

Thank God the PT introduced gungans.

Originally posted by Alliance
I think he had a rough rough idea. He'd have to. I don't think he randomly decided in ESB to make Luke Vader's son. He obviosuly intended the clone wars and the end of the Republic to be in the PT, but probly not much more.

I agree.. Try to watch Episode IV again, but this time imagine you have not watched the PT, the way it was during the time it was released. You definitely have this feeling that you're brought into the story 'mid-way' and you get the 'in-the-middle-of-something' feel.

I mean GL actually did admit he only had a rough idea of Padme when he included the scene in RoTJ. Given that, it was natural it became rather inconsistent, bcos Leia could not have known her.

Lucas may have referenced the Republic and the Clone Wars in the OT, but they are quite frankly, very generalised terms, and there content would have changed drastically over the years.

I mean, personally, when I first felt intrigued by the mention of the Clone Wars, I expected it to be fought by two sides of clones against each other.

Could have been anything those Clone Wars. It's probably inspired by the Dune series where an epic war has taken place in the past taht influenced the presence of the novels: the Butlerian Jihad. That was a war where people fought an uprising of machines, which had a lesser depence on machinery as a result. The clone Wars as a concept has a similar feel to it.
But one could have used it for anything. It could have been used as the beginning of the Rebellion after Palpy takes over the Republic, the Jedi and the rebelling senators rise up to fight the Clones... That war could then haven taken on forever and in that background OB1 meet Anakin, he becomes a JEdi and during eth war het gets persuaded by the Dark Side. I believe that would have been more interesting, because we wouldn't have all this explanatory political crap which is not, with all due respect, done as well as films along the lines of JFK and Nixon.

I always looked at it as the archetypal "battle of the gods" device, such as the battle of the titans in Greek mythology, the war of the valor in middle earth, or any other number of examples which make the present seem like a dystopian aftermath of that battle.

Jedi of course, "could" fill that god role, but the rest of it seems alot more contrived, like the droids and the array of dark jedi that mysteriously pop up along the way.

Seems Lucas wanted the whole "ancient battle" scenario, he would with his interest in mythology and traditional storytelling, but has drastically altered it over the years.

YEah, and now it's something in the middle... which is not superb.

Originally posted by Cybervader
I watched Star Wars all over again and realise that Episode III's focus on Anakin's story (as admitted by George Lucas himself) is actually not doing justice to the other elements of the saga, and on the contrary does not contribute to its holistic continuity.

[B]The Invisible Seeds of Rebellion
The original trilogy has an essential backdrop of the Rebel Alliance fighting against the Empire, with the story of Luke finding his destiny in redeeming his father and becoming a Jedi. The decision to remove Padme and the Rebel Alliance series from Episode III gives a loophole in the continuity of the saga, as it would be important to actually at least established that there were significant opposition to Palpatine's rule, they who would later rebel against the Empire. Episode IV would then makes more sense with its beginning reflecting this situation.

Yoda's Exile
Even the last shot of Yoda landing on Dagobah was removed for it would disrupt the focus on the thread of the children, as said by Lucas.

Backdrop Established even with Anakin's Story in EP I, II
Even if the prequel trilogy was to be the story of Anakin and the original trilogy that of Luke's, there is no reason to compromise other essentials of the saga in favour of Anakin's turn.

For one, Episode I does elaborate on the backdrop of the trade federation's aggression but still essentially include the re-emergence of the Sith and the founding of the alleged Chosen One. Episode II too details the inner workings of the Sith on the Republic's fate thru the separatist movement and still include Anakin's love and lost of his mother.

Padme and the Droids Compromised for Vader
Episode III while it explains the fall of the Republic and including Anakin's turn, becomes too exclusive in the latter, not only compromises the continuity of the saga as a whole by excluding the seeds of rebellion, it also does not do justice to Padme's character by cutting off her continuity. In the previous Episodes we see her as a respectable diplomat of influence in the Republic, but Episode III only focuses her as a wife and childbearer of the children. The supposed dark theme also virtually removed C3PO and R2D2 from the film, they who were so significantly portrayed in the OT.

Thus even if Episode III is supposed to focus on Anakin's turn to become the infamous Vader, the virtue of the original trilogy itself proves that the character of Vader was but one of the many essentials of the entire saga. [/B]

Well, he IS the saga's main character.

Anakin/Darth Vader is the main character in the entire six-film saga. Between Ep. 111 & IV is a twenty-year gap. That gap will answer story threads left dangling in the upcoming TV series.
Even if no series was forthcoming, the story presented was enough for me.

Originally posted by Darth Callous
Well, he IS the saga's main character.

Which we said several times before.

Did we? I can't remember.

Yeah, threads like these go in circles...we answer the question, drift off in a direction and then a new guy comes, answers the original question and we're off again...

Fun thread though, page 20 and no ones started arguing :]

We did at the beginning. It's a pretty stupid thread name though, it's almost like starting a thread named: "Star Wars is situated too much in space."

Nope. Its precisely stating the obvious that makes it all the more debatable. Challenging an accepted notion is one of the many forms of fruitful discussion..

To me Star Wars is not ALL about Anakin and Vader. Someone who watches the OT before the PT came out would certainly feel that the story is not all about him. Vader got the attention bcos he's the villain, as all villain does. Look at Maul for instance. Tt's why i feel the PT becoming the story of Anakin Skywalker sets it apart from the OT.

I diagree... the PT makes the whole Saga Vader's story. The OT was Luke's, but now it's more about Anakin.

i know this has probably been said before, but george himself said that the whole series is about the 'tragedy of darth vader/anakin'..
nuff said..

Well fair enough. The OT is more to the story of Luke Skywalker. And the PT the story of Anakin Skywalker. The existance of the PT transform the entire Saga to be Anakin's story...bcos suddenly the Vader in the OT now has a new dimension, given we now know of his back story..he's the chosen one. PT about anakin.. OT about anakin's redemption by Luke.

But take note i mentioned it was episode III too focused on Anakin's story..not the entire PT. Ep I and II had anakin's story but that did not compromise other elements as well, such as the separatist movement..etc.

The thing that i found problematic was when in Ep III, in order to focus on the thread of the children, and of Anakin's turn, other elements like the seeds of rebellion were removed. The story became skewed to solely his story, abandoning the essentials of the backdrop story.

So?

I'd say ROTS was nto focused ENOUGH on Anakin. There needed to be antoher half hour of scenes so we could actually see an effective transistion.

THey should have used AOTC for that.