Sorry... all this was ten years ago, and I've lost track.
But the point of the midichlorian argument was that some felt he was giving the Force a biological origin. Looking at the gumf, it was clear that this was not true- the Force was just as much a mysterious energy field as ever; the MCs were just the symbiotic link that enabled people to use it. So Anakin's high count was not the cause of his power, but the main symptom.
However, he never went into any useful detail that Palpatine's words in ROTS might demand. I suspect he's left a lot unsaid there, to no good purpose.
Originally posted by queeqThe same goes with this whole Sith thing: why are they so made about things that happened a 1000 years ago?? Honestly, we fail to connect with their point. In the OT it was simple and clear: the Empire wanted to dominate the universe and rejected any opposition. Everything they do is based on that.
Ummm? Both pt and ot are good vs evil. in the PT the Sith are evil and want to take over from the Jedi and rule the galaxy.
In the OT we had no idea at all where the empire and the rebels came from we just had to accept it.
I disagree. We know the Empire is bad, the rebels are good. The clear statement is there in ANH: the Emperor wants to rule using fear and not democracy. Nuff said.
We don't know what the Sith want except for Revenge on the Jedi... uuhh.... okay... Palpy wants to rule the universe, but is that a typical Sith thing. What does Dooku want out of all this? (another potentially great character but again we don't know why he turned and what he thought he had coming).
Like the Living Force, like the midi's, like the Sith... in the movies Lucas fails to connect the audience to what's going on. He did that excellently in the OT, mostly because it was all a lot simpler.
But now the emotional scenes are also crap, there's a lot of talking-and-walking going on (oftyen with very little emotion involved there), so the connection with the audience fails on many counts. Except for the action and the visuals: they are usually great. But without character, emotion and understandable storyline they are also kinda spineless. It makes them average films and I think Sw should not be average... It never was before the dark times... before the PT. 😉
Nope...
That is one of those issues though. Sometimes the argument is used that we already know about the PT Star Wars universe because of the OT and on other counts we have to understand the OT hasn't happened yet and should watch the PT without the OT in mind... err... yeah. I just try to judge them on their own merits, as movies, without background stories, without EU without a lot of explanatory interviews.
You know boys, here's my deal. When I go to a movie the main thing I want is to be entertained. Honestly, that's all it is. I don;t need every thought process, plot detail and every other thing to "fit". If the freaking movie takes me away from my life for a couple fo hours and I come out feeling pretty good then I'm a happy camper and all is well. And for me, that what Star Wars did. It was fun, great fun. Granted the OT was more fun but the PT was no slouch either for me. I had a ball and I'm good with all 6 films. Some people just have to tear movies apart because thats how their minds work. They analyze everything and that's cool but that's just not who I am.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Indeed. I mean, ANH tells us relatively clearly what the Empire is. But imagine you knew nothing about Star Wars at all and you only had the prequel films available. Watch them and consider- did they actually tell you who or what the Sith are? At any point?
The empire is evil and that is all it states. it doesn't say why they are evil, just that they want to crush the rebellion.
Lucas did start with IV first because it was a more exciting story and put you right into the thick of things right away.
If you only new the PT first you can put 2 and 2 together. since the jedi are defenders of peace and justice in the galaxy they are good and when they do talk about the sith then obviously they are evil.
That's not true about the Empire- we constantly see them and how they operate. The opening crawl for ANH sets out at least something about them (and immediately gives the perspective of a civil war). We see how they have shut down the Senate and plan to have all regions directly ruled by governors. We hear Obi-Wan talk about the Old Republic and the Jedi, and how now we are in the dark times and the Empire. There are significant amounts of info on the Empire given! Ok, it doesn't give a fully annotated history lesson of how the Empire came to be, but that's because that would be silly- it gives more than enough. If you had never seen Star Wars before, it is very quickly clear what the Empire is.
This is manifestly not true of the Sith in the prequel films. It explains literally nothing about what they are. It's not enough just to know they are evil (or at least only knowing that massively diminishes their dramatic impact, the ingredients for which existed in GL's head but were not put into the film)
Originally posted by ~JP~
You know boys, here's my deal. When I go to a movie the main thing I want is to be entertained. Honestly, that's all it is. I don;t need every thought process, plot detail and every other thing to "fit". If the freaking movie takes me away from my life for a couple fo hours and I come out feeling pretty good then I'm a happy camper and all is well. And for me, that what Star Wars did. It was fun, great fun. Granted the OT was more fun but the PT was no slouch either for me. I had a ball and I'm good with all 6 films. Some people just have to tear movies apart because thats how their minds work. They analyze everything and that's cool but that's just not who I am.
Actually I agree, and as I say I generally defend the PT. But I appreciate some of the reasons why people have issues with it, and I've always been a bit of a stickler for plot coherency.
Harry S. Plinkett has been good for one thing and for one thing only, he has saved all the stupid people of the world, who can't put together simple coherent sentences, the ability not to have to defend the prequels by using their own thoughts, and instead, just simply say "Well, yeah, the prequels sucked because Red Letter Media said so." That's great. According to Red Letter Media, Avatar sucked as well, and it sucked just because he pointed out the obvious, just as he did with the prequels. Points out the obvious.
Now, none of you here fall into this "stupid" category because you've all been able to make points of your own long before we got into this Red Letter Media thing, but if the new fad in debating the prequels is going to come down to "everything Red Letter Media" says, then heh, I'm out.
We all know the PT fell short of the OT. Why it's such a necessity to second guess everything to the point of absurdity just doesn't make sense to me....and Red Letter Media has done just that on so many things.
The prophecy IS one of the them. I'm pretty sure after three movies I understood what it meant: it meant that a chosen one would restore balance to the force by destroying the dark side. The dark side creates a disturbance and therefore causes "unbalance." At the end of Jedi, Vader returns to the light side by destroying the root of all evil, as well as himself. Sith are destroyed by the chosen one, the prophecy is fulfilled, the end. Some people really need things like that spelled out to them. I could argue the same thing about the OT and the force, saying "it's an energy field created by all living things, but how did those living things create it, if it's created by all living things how come only a Jedi and Sith know how to use it?" Can anybody use it? If anyone can, how come not everyone can be a Jedi? Is every person that is force sensative trained to be a Jedi?" See what happens when you start nitpicking things to death and second guessing everything? You can make anything look flawed.
The point is, it doesn't matter, and the Prophecy was a statement that didn't require a backstory or futher "second guessing." We know the prophecy exist, just like we know the force exist. We don't need a scene that shows the creation of the force, none more than we needed a scene showing "the creation of the prophecy or explaining what it meant, because we already knew what it meant." It's a simple statement, a theory, one that was likely passed down from generation to generation. If the council said "the prophecy was enscribed on a floating rock by Jedi Master Harry S. Plinkett who theorized that a chosen Jedi would bring balance to the force by destroying the Sith" I really fail to see what the tells anyone other than what we already know to begin with. In my opinion, that, along with nitpicking about little Jedi kids in AOTC training with lightsabers using the same helmet Luke used on the Falcon, along with several other things like that, is completely ridiculous to use that much thought.
Right, but he certainly doesn't think very highly of it either.
He says he only went to see the movie for that blue chick's you know what...and that if he wanted to get some sort of message out of something he would have listened to his answering machine...
Guess he didn't have to listen to his answering machine when watching the prequels. So he directly contradicts himself there.
Then he futher complains about watching scenes that shift between humans, then some wierd world with colorful plants and dinosouars. Oh I forgot that a sci-fi movie was supposed to be like that too. Silly James Cameron...what was he thinking having an imagination? Pointless nitpicking.
Oh one more thing, he says Cameron made this movie to futher take how movies are made in the "wrong direction." So his opinion of 3D is now another instance of him accusing someone with an ulterior motive of destroying hollywood.
Originally posted by Sith Master X
Right, but he certainly doesn't think very highly of it either.He says he only went to see the movie for that blue chick's you know what...and that if he wanted to get some sort of message out of something he would have listened to his answering machine...
Guess he didn't have to listen to his answering machine when watching the prequels. So he directly contradicts himself there.
Then he futher complains about watching scenes that shift between humans, then some wierd world with colorful plants and dinosouars. Oh I forgot that a sci-fi movie was supposed to be like that too. Silly James Cameron...what was he thinking having an imagination? Pointless nitpicking.
Oh one more thing, he says Cameron made this movie to futher take how movies are made in the "wrong direction." So his opinion of 3D is now another instance of him accusing someone with an ulterior motive of destroying hollywood.
You have to remember that Plinkett is a character...
About Plinkett:
1. He IS a character himself and polarises
2. Seeing his Star Trek and Avatar reviews: he clearly not a one issue guy. He disagreed with a lot of things, thought a lot was stupid and yet he liked them. He's not into dissing alone. He criticises Avatar correctly for it's fairly standard storyline and shallow villains (in which he is correct) but also praises the film for it's EFFECTIVE filmmaking: it works! By fairly down trodden paths but it works. So he's not into completely annihilating films
3. Red Letter Media is certainly not the only one with these criticisms (just the longest 😉 ). I am in the film making business myself and I feel the PT falls short on these same counts. But a lot of other online film reviewers feel the same. Someone like Confused Matthew for instance.
And also, I think the criticisms contain very valid points on narrative and how one action leads to consequences (or the lack of it). Most PT defenses are about: the OT had shortcomings too, the PT visual effects were better and I enjoyed it. Well, fair enough... but that's just small talk in a bar: did we like it or not?
If you like analysing films (which I do), you look into it closer. If we just look at the entertainment value, fine... let's put Star War in the category of Notting Hill, The Devil wears Prada and the Steven Seagal movies: entertaining while they last but not something that changes movie history... Why would SW need to do that?
Originally posted by Sith Master X
The point is, it doesn't matter, and the Prophecy was a statement that didn't require a backstory or futher "second guessing." We know the prophecy exist, just like we know the force exist.
The prophecy DOES matter. Not by my standards. The movies make them important. They keep repeating this prophecy, over and over again. So the PT tells us clearly, by these repetitions alone: THE PROPHECY MATTERS!!! (we don't know how or why but it MATTERS!!!!!!!!!)
Your beloved PT contradicts you here.
My favourite Episode II and III reviews:
(will literally take you less than a minute)
Originally posted by queeq
We don't know what the Sith want except for Revenge on the Jedi... uuhh.... okay... Palpy wants to rule the universe, but is that a typical Sith thing. What does Dooku want out of all this? (another potentially great character but again we don't know why he turned and what he thought he had coming).
Watch the scene, again, in Episode II, where Dooku has Obi Wan "chained" up and Dooku is doing his diatribe thing. His motives are explained. For me, it's the best single piece of political "soliloquy"* in any of the 6 films.
*Not really soliloquy, but some of the things he says I had a hard time disagreeing with and I actually thought Obi Wan would agree with. I thought, as I was watching the movie, that that was how Obi Wan and Vader turned against each other.