Every shot in the OT moved the story along in some way, I actually seem to remember Lucas interviewed at one point saying that he was brutal with himself - if it didn't move the story forward, it had to go, even if he might have enjoyed spending some time indulging in certain things. In the PT way more is spent wandering around in the environment without neccessarily moving the story along.

The PT suffers from the same flaw in this regard as, for example, the extended entrance to Mos Eisley in the SE. The original sequence of shots told a story succintly; "here they are approaching the city, they drove into the city and to this building" In the SE, becuase Lucas wanted to spend time looking at the cityscape, as in the PT, that sequence is turned into "Here they are approaching the city, here they are flying down this street, now they're turning the corner, now they're going past some stuff we will never hear from or care about again, here they are on another street, here they are arriving at a building".

Or if you like, in RotS this is played out as a long, long, opening sequence with no other addition to the story than "Here they are flying towards a big ship and landing on it". Nothing in that sequence moves the story forward apart from the opening waterfall, our heroes shooting out the shield generator, and then crashing on the ship.

The rest adds NOTHING, and takes the story NOWHERE. For proof of this, check out some of the fan edits which have been done to essentially pare it down to that - they loose NOTHING in the storytelling by that cut. It's screentime wasted on showing off the work generated and acting like a tourist in the universe rather than being ruthless with moving the story forward.

None of that denies that in the PT "the environment is just a fact of life you take for granted". And the added scenes in Mos Eisley or long sequences in RotS are only meant to show the scope of the environment they are in (and the galaxy they live in). That's one reason for why I like Star Wars so much. The scope and the "lived in" galaxy.

I think you'd have a 30 minute movie of ships taking off and landing in the PT. i thought george was an editor who "thinks in shots"? the pace is worse off because of the close ups of landing gear and dust settling

Yes, I get that it's there to show the scope of the galaxy, that's exactly what I'm saying - it's just there to be a travelogue for the galaxy, going "WOW! Look at this cool stuff!" instead of being there to serve the story. It's wasted screentime on pretty shiny things rather than getting to the damn point and moving things forward.

I get that Lucas wanted to feel free to indulge himself and explore the galaxy a bit now that he had the technology to show it in the scope he imagined, but that exactly what he was saying 25 years ago that the problem was with most SF films; they spend so much time generating the world, that they spend screentime on it showing off the work they've done. It brings the narrative to halt, and you start checking your watch (much as I did in the opening of RotS ... jeebus, it just goes on, and on without adding anything to the story doesn't it?).

You don't need to spend the time to establish the scope and depth of the environment, and for a film to really work on a narrative level you can't keep stopping the story just to look at the world. A shot should have a reason for existing other than enbiggening the world, you should be able to do that in service to the story, as the OT did.

Anyhoo, just a friendly disagreement on this point, nothing to get too worked up about.

I don't think Lucas spends as much time on the environments as you think he does. Your example of the ROTS Coruscant battle scene is a horrible example. The battle over Coruscant establishes Anakin's skill as a pilot, something PT haters complained Lucas never showed.

It would be like saying the asteroid chase in ESB doesn't move the story along. Heck going into that space slug served no purpose to the story as they ended up right back amongst the imperial ships.

Anyway I think the environments in the PT are one way in which the PT is better than the OT. I like seeing the landscape and the life. But I have never felt Lucas has wasted time on the environments.

Han + Leia =

Exactly, because, while The Falcon was grounded in the asteroid, characters were developed across the board in interesting ways. They didn't just gawp at Gooba Fish out of the window. I'm certainly no prequel hater, I just don't feel they are up there on the same level, in many respects, as the original trilogy.

And so, the whole "well, if you hate this about the prequels, they did the same thing in the OT so you must hate that too for the same reasons..." argument, because 9 times out of 10 it just doesn't stand up at all. And 10 times out of 10, it doesn't actually deal with justifying a criticism about the prequels, rather it tries to divert away from it.

Plinkett's RedLetterMedia reviews of the prequels make one absolutely watertight point in my humble opinion - way too many scenes involve characters sat on a sofa, or walking down a corridor, regurgitating exposition in a very uninvenitve and unattractive way.

A lot of the exposition scenes are so clearly shot on a few metres of green screen runway it hurts to watch them - there is nothing for the characters to interact with, nothing for them to be doing other than walking along talking, or sitting/standing in front of an empty window which will be filled in with "wonderful" CGI activity in post-production.

It simply doesn't work - there is no variation or passion in the scenes that matter.

Ah... Treadwell got to it before me.

The asteroid sequence is just a way to make the story of "They have escaped the planet, but are being chased relentlessly, which is why we end up desperate for a safe haven at Bespin" visually more interesting, and add another threat than just the pursuing ships to up the tension. The asteroid sequence is completely in service of moving the story forward.

The whole trip into the Slug needs to be there because 1) the story needs a break in the pace so we can catch our breath after the snow battle and asteroid chase and 2)The characters need time to move forward, which they don't have while panicked and on the run. That one really makes my point for me again, actually Not even Jedi, which is probably the most unfairly maligned of the OT, gives into theat "travelogue" mentality.

Shots have purpose other than just showing off the world.

Also, don't get me wrong, while I've got my issues with it, I'm not precisely a PT hater. I've said elsewhere on these boards that anyone who thinks the PT was lacking in story, or was random, or contradictory is simply not paying attention. I think the overall story arc is brilliant, well thought out, and unexpected in the twists it takes.

It's just a shame that so much of that was reduced by lazy direction, actors who, while all certainly talented people (watch Life as a House or Shattered Glass if you think Christensen is a charisma-less hack, nothing needs to be said about Ewan or Ian, and check out....er...well, Natalie Portman is actually pretty much shit in anything she does) clearly didn't really know where they were most of the time, and frantic creation of storylines and scenes in post coupled with some truly uninspired editing where Lucas allowed himself to indulge in stuff he wouldn't or couldn't have 30 years ago.

Make the story visually more interesting is an excuse that can be used for every shot you are "complaining" about. Well, not an excuse, since it's probably the real reason behind those shots.

You’re being way too simplistic about this. The opening flying sequence helps establish the now-equal relationship between Anakin and Obi-wan and gives glimpse of what fighting has been like during Clone Wars. Plus, it’s supposed to be a bit of fun before the story takes a much direr direction.

(There are also a shit-ton of parallels. See my post here for a breakdown and an explanation of the larger significance of parallels.)


You've almost got it all. The sequence does give a breather from the action so that Han and Leia’s relationship can be furthered. But, it also allows the story to slow down so Luke can have time to train on Dagobah. If the Falcon goes straight on to Bespin, he doesn’t get much of a chance to meet Yoda and ghost Vader.

Moreover, the asteroid provides the Saga with another “belly of the whale” moment.


The giant fish and sea killer aren’t there to be gawped at. Like every other monster in the PT and OT, they try to eat the heroes. This concept ties back to the selfish, cannibalistic, and (apparently) animalistic nature of the Sith. Qui-gon unconsciously makes a verbal connection to Sidious – the “bigger fish” in the Saga.


The transition shots are necessitated by the story. Given that the PT involves a number of different locales and planets, there is no other option but to show ships taking off and/or landing. Characters shouldn’t magically appear from one planet to the next through editing. It's true that some of these sequences (like the Destroyer leaving from Coruscant for Utapau and Yoda’s departure on Kashyyyk) could have been shorted for time.

No, that's actually part of my point - We all get all of the metaphors, and "bigger picture" stuff that is often going on. That is the stuff that the PT actually does well. I think I am on the same page as Inv8r here, in that I like the overall story arc.

What frustrates me about these films is that I rarely feel anything for any of the characters. While they are in the bongo, sure, we learn a few things about Jar Jar, but in a very unexciting way - in terms of the way the characters interact with one another.

The fact that the bigger fish metaphor is in there is a box ticked, sure, but it doesn't explain away the tedious approach to the character development most (not all) of the time in the PT. I can see the defense for a lot of these scenes, because, yes, on paper there is "a reason for them" and, yes, we do often learn something about the plot, or a theme, or the story arc in a more general sense within them.

What I am saying is that, outside of any of these other justifications, there just aren't enough scenes with characters interacting and developing the way they do in, for example, the asteroid scene in TESB. Take Leia and Han in the corridor on Hoth as another example; how animated they are, how their movements are used, how one of the Rebel extras walking down the same corridor is integrated into the emotions being expressed.

And then compare it to any number of scenes with characters walking and talking down corridors, providing exposition, in the prequels - they are all just so boring by comparison.

Except that you've rather dishonestly snipped and cherry-picked that paragraph, haven't you. That one sentance you've chosen to focus on is just an addendum to my argument which is in effect saying 'ìn regards to the preceeding points about the sequence being driven by the story, instead of playing out THAT stuff against open space, they threw it into an asteroid field to up the visual interest.

My point still firmly stands - the whole sequence is in service to moving the story forward, and then to allowing time to breath and get the character development you otherwise would not. Because they chose to play that out against an interesting environment does not suddenly validate the digressions in the PT, which are NOT story driven. Which leads me to....

E_Chu_Ta, you're wrong, it's not being simplistic (also, I disagree about the asteroid sequence needing to be there to cross-cut the story with Luke's training; no reason you HAVE to slow the other story down as well, in fact in RotS they do this - intercutting the fight with Grevious with the quieter stuff of Anakin talking to Palpatine, works fine).

I'm not sure what development in the relationship you are referring to. We meet our heroes again, Anakin is having a blast being a Jedi and going on adventures (here's where the fun begins!). He sees things which he considers to be more important than his assigned mission (saving the clones), and behaves recklessly. Obi-Wan is more responsible and slaps him down. Then they split off on separate SUB detours within the main pointless detour, and when they meet up again Obi Wan slaps Anakin down for being reckless... again.

What exactly is new here?. We've just spent 2 hours in AotC watching this exact dynamic established. The only real new wrinkle in their relationship we see is once they are almost at the Hand, Obi-Wan panics (aside - wasn't he supposed to be the serene master who had been reckless in his youth, so was I, if you remember.) and we see that he frequently relies on Anakin, when he needs Anakin to bring the shield down.

That one point is totally irrelevant at all to your argument though, as it takes place AFTER the pointless detour. Everything from the waterfall to them almost at the Hand takes the story and relationships NOWHERE, leaving them exactly where we started the sequence, nothing learned, nothing accomplished, nothing changed. That a massive narrative no-no, particularly in a sequence which was absolutely savaged in editing because it was already running too long.

After this, and we're actually on The Hand, we go through pretty much the same stuff again in the trip to rescue the Chancellor, only there is a bit of showing them as brothers.. A lot of it is clumsy but at least it's in the service of moving the story forward. Another aside, I went through the deleted scenes from this sequence today, and have to say it's a shame that they went with what they did, rather than the stuff left in animatic and at the workprint stage; this stuff is cooler, has some jokes that actually land reasonably well (especially compared to the weak 'loose wire' nonsensical quip), and allows that 'brothers-in-arms' comraderie to develop a bit more.

Now, after all that, I do want to say that RotS plays better than I remember it. Watched it again last night after probably a couple of years, and except for the painful 'I'm so in love with you! No I'M so in love with YOU!' dialogues, it fits together pretty well. I had been a little reluctant to show it to the kids, as I remembered it being pretty talky and tedious, and left a great deal of weakness in regards to Anakin's motivation.

On re-watching though, the seeds of mistrust are planted nicely in his head (would have been very nice to see the beginning of the conversation with Palpatine where they discuss the Chancellor assuming control over the Jedi Council and the necessity of suspending freedoms in the name of the greater good though - would have really solidified Anakin's justification for slaughtering the Jedi, and the Seppie leaders in cold blood), and frequently enough that when combined with his need to save Padme, you can see Anakin convincing himself that Mace was really trying to unjustly overthrow Palpatine.

Yes, Lucas didn’t appear to be overly concerned with audience identification for the PT characters. And maybe, the type of actor blocking you described in the Hoth corridor didn’t happened as often in the PT. But, to me, the depth of the story and characters, along with the richness of the production design compensate for the technical shortcomings of the PT films. As such, I still find the PT films as interesting and as significant as the OT films.




You’re arguing that a sci-fi serial shouldn’t devote a few additional minutes of screen time to a space battle. That seems like a simple pov to me. By your own reasoning, the ANH climax probably be halved as a good part of it has little to do with making Luke and Han heroes. Sorry, Red Leader and every other rebel pilot, we need to get Luke and Han to the medal ceremony as quickly as possible.

Regarding the relationship change, you sort of answered your own question. In AOTC, Obi-wan is the teacher and Anakin is the novice who spends most of the film failing. From a professional competency standpoint, Anakin is portrayed to be as to good if not a little better than Obi-wan. Also, for the first time since TPM and for the last time in the film, Anakin gets to be the hero.


RE: Waterfall - Did you mean that nothing important happens to characters from the Waterfall sequence in AOTC to the opening of ROTS?

Well, it's interesting that you think that, and good that you do. For me, the design aspect is where the PT simply can't ever hope to match the OT. And as I said before, I'm a million miles away from disliking the PT, I just can't ever really think of any of it as being on the same level as any of the OT.

I certainly enjoyed the fact the PT turned expectation on its head, something a lot of people clearly hated. You know - the whole Palpatine going the political route to galactic conquest thing (I know this was always there in the original backstory to some degree, but by the time Palpy turned up in TESB and ROTJ, it was easy to presume those concepts were not so relevant to his character anymore, and that he was just a bastard who took over by force or something)... Yoda leading Stormtroopers into battle. That kind of sense of irony I didn't mind.

And the way the overall tone of the movies slowly shifts as you watch them back to back - they definitely work better as whole if you watch them that way. In fact they "fit together" better than episodes IV-VI in that respect.

But the design. Nah - not for me. There was a lot of ugly, uninteresting shit in there. The bottom line, as I see it, would be: show me one nice design from the prequels, and I will show you 10 designs from the original trilogy that have become iconic the world over...

So, it's not about how good the design is, but how iconic they became? I don't think becoming iconic has anything to do with design merits, but how the movies as a whole (specially ANH) were recieved.

I think the design is one of the things the PT is better than the OT.

No, not at all. It's rather convenient to presume something cannot become iconic because it is good, or at the very least be both good and become iconic - surely the opposite has to be more likely?

I'd say it has to play a part. An iconic design is an iconic design... is an iconic design. The Millennium Falcon could have been replaced by a running shoe painted silver and still become just as iconic, because (in your words) becoming iconic doesn't have anything to do with design? I doubt it somehow...


I am guessing the implication here is that the designs merely "became" iconic because they happened to be contained within a movie that became phenominally successful. I'd suggest that the movie could not have become so phenomenally successful without its incredible design aesthetic, so, like I said, I don't see how those things can ever be mutually exclusive.


To each his own I guess. I don't think the original designs created for the PT come anywhere near the look of the OT. I mean - literally talking species, creatures, characters, vessels, environments, buildings, technology and shit here... but I think you are too, yes?

I dislike the designs of many things in the PT. Most things seemed wrong. The aliens are the WORST. In the old ones, we got guys like Chewie, Sandpeople, cantina denizens, Bossk, Jabba and his court, Admiral Ackbar, YODA. Just awesome.

A lot of the designs for these guys were deceptively simple, like Chewie (a big furry guy) or the wolfman (a monster we'd seemingly seen before in another universe), Jawas (little guys in robes with no features except eyes), etc. The technology also wasn't as advanced as it is these days, where you can create just about anything with ease.

Why then are these aliens SO much cooler than the podracers, Nute Gunray, the bugs, guys with elongated necks and foreheads and gungans? Seriously, to say nothing of his character otherwise, Jar Jar is one of the ugliest mother fuckers I've ever seen.

Found this VERY LOUD (TURN DOWN THE VOLUME) video from the 80s:

[flash width=640 height=385]http://www.youtube.com/v/dJPashk8nbE?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1[/flash]

I like this discussion.

The problem with the PT design is that it's overdesigned. On one side of his mouth, Lucas used to always talk about how he wanted the OT to feel "real" and "grounded in a believable reality" by giving the galaxy a gritty, lived-in look. Then, on the other side he talks about the complexity and sophistication of the PT era design, necessitating it because the prequels take place during "more civilized age."

The two shouldn't be mutually exclusive but George made them that way.

The PT designs look so fantastical, so "this needs to be CG to be accomplished" that it takes away the realism Lucas admitted was required for Star Wars to work. That, to me, is the starting point for the PT design "flaws." You don't believe any of it is real so the designs don't resonate as much. For example, it's clear Lucas intended the Naboo starships to be to the PT as the MF was to the OT. The problem is it looks like a fucking plastic toy and the interiors are sterile. That's also true of most PT locales because of the simple fact that they're all filmed on blue screen sets so of course they look sterile.

Even the practical sets, like the Coruscant offices or Padme's apartment, look so neat and plastic and perfect that it makes it hard for the audience to believe what they're seeing. I look at these sets and I see lifeless and empty spaces and can't believe humans actually inhabit them. The best argument against this reasoning is that Cloud City worked in the OT looking mostly like a sterile set. Ah ha - but this was an exception in the SW universe to that point. It made the place feel suspicious. Not to mention we also explore the grittier parts of Cloud City. When Coruscant tries to be gritty (the AOTC street chase and club alley), it looks like a poorly lit blue screen set.

Do I think the PT design is ambitious? Yes.

Does it all fail? No, of course not.

I just think it looks better in an "art of" book than it does on the screen.

Well, yes. Maybe "anything" is a bit too much. What I meant is that it's not the main reason in this case. Of course it's just my opinion.

They don't need to be mutually exclusive. I just think it was not mainly the design that made it sucessful. Taking the Millenium Falcon as an example: it's the ship where the heroes pass most of the time, and they treat it as a character. In my opinion, it became iconic because of that, not due to it's burger shape.

I was mainly talking ships, but I suppose I can include those too. And yes, to each their own. Specially when design is more about each one's tastes than anything else.



I never saw the Naboo starfighters as plastic toys, nor as the MF of the PT. And since Naboo is an example of a real set/location, that point doesn't apply here.

I'm pretty sure he meant the bigger Naboo starships, and there were many interior shots from those that appear as set-sized interior spaces.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure the design differences between the OT and PT boil down to one simple thing.

Some mean Northern-Cali green

Seriously. The OT was designed in an era, and area, and time much different than the PT. Different designers, different design influences, different objectives in relaying the world to the audience. The 'more civilized age' Obi Wan speaks of in ANH is intended to appear more regal, and a world which had yet to see the brutality of the Empire. Which means, to some degree, shinier and less cluttered.

But the OT was designed in the 70's and early 80's. I point out this obvious fact because it's not only Star Wars, but every other aspect of design and architecture, and engineering, has also changed in the last 30+ years. And those changes are reflected in the visual representation of 'things', be they people, planets, creatures, parking lots, whatever, in our world and in the Star Wars universe. The blockier more angular designs of the OT are a direct reflection of designs of the era.

From cars, to spacecraft, to random household shit, things in the 70's and 80's had more edges on them. There was less gloss. Over the decades, everything has had the edges taken off. Everything is shiny. And that shift is subconciously, but glaringly reflected in the designs of the PT.


I also think the move to Northern California a'la Skywalker Ranch etc, and the hippy-fication/communal living/rich tree-hugger/'we know we can do it all in CG' mentality of the late 90's-00's, and the dynamics of a now billionaire overlord, red marker in hand, circling shit he approves of is obvious in the design of the PT. That's not to say I like it less, it's just much different, almost too different, to reconcile with the world shown in the OT.

The world of the OT doesn't just appear more cluttered. It appears richer and has an almost mysterious depth to it. It has infinitely more 'nooks and crannies' for my mind to imagine "maybe something interesting is happening out there" and wonder about.

And the OT designs have a more realistic appearance because the crew never considered that they would never have to actually 'make one of these things'. They knew in fact that be it a model, a prop, a matte painting, they had to produce one of everything, in hand. And designing things with that in mind, and the in hand critique of actual objects, sometimes unfavorably because it 'just doesn't feel right', and making it better, gave an overall more believable presentation to the audience.

Better design? I dunno', there are a lot of things I like in the PT too. I gawk at the fantastic universe when watching it more than I pay attention to the story. But I'm a bigger fan of the more agressive designs of the earlier decades in general, so looking at the OT is somehow more fun, yet less grandiose to me. Trying to distinguish whether one is better, OT or PT (design-wise), to me is absurd.

They are just so different. Is it possible to 'like' one more than the other, without considering one 'better' than the other? Sure, that's what I do. More Iconic? Icons require time that the PT has not had. That's kind of irrelevant at this point. Things, places and spaces as characters in the story? Other than the Falcon, I don't see one being superior in that regard. But at the same time I'd love to see a gigantic practical model of an early 80's design for Coruscant, being invaded by stormtroopers on hover-bike-like speeders, filmed as actual or miniature go-motion models.

My Star Wars wet-dream would have been to see the PT filmed a year or two after ROTJ. A young Clancy Brown playing Anakin as psychotic Jedi turncoat, in a script written by a George Lucas who hadn't lost faith in humanity, directed by a Spielberg who hadn't yet begun to believe his own press. Ahh. In some universe or dimension out there, it happened that way.

Lucky bastards.

I'd agree with that - it just doesn't have that spark that sets it apart for me. A lot of the stuff is very traditional science-fiction looking - trying too hard to be fantastic, as opposed to trying to look like something ordinary and "usable".

At this point, it occurs to me to point out how much credit I think is due to the actual model-making team involved in working on the original films. Quite often the designs put down on paper by McQuarrie, Johnston and co were, IMO, sometimes lacking that final piece of the puzzle - and in making the final models, subtle, sometimes very subtle, revisions were made that somehow gave them that extra edge that set them apart from more obvious sci-fi fare.

I can see the intention, and I think most of the time that side of it "worked". But some of it jarred a bit, like - yeah, we can see the aesthetic changes, but would the descent into dark times, into dictatorship, necessarily mean the universe regresses technologically? I mean shit like this, which is the kind of thing I consider simply has no place in the Star Wars universe at all...



... seems to saunter around on one wheel in a manner which defies all physics, whereas in the OT droids had to plod around on limbs, with real weight. It just doesn't jive with me, and I know which I prefer, regardless of the reasoning behind that "more civilized age". If anything, I'd have imagined Obi's line implied a time of less technology.

What I'd add is that a lot of the designs also suffer from being either very intentionally derivative of something we have already seen, or intentionally trying to be something very different to what we have seen before. There was no real middle ground, very little uninhibited, genuine original design, and a lot of the stuff looked too contrived to be taken for what it was really - at the end of the day, just another vehicle in a familiar universe.

On top of all this, the simple truth for me is that I genuinely feel - on paper and in their finished format - the designs submitted by the PT staff were, even on the most basic aesthetic level, just not as inspired as those created by their OT counterparts.

This. To me, a lot of comics, video games and EU stuff did a better job making things and locales feel like they belong in the SW universe than the PT did.

The waitress droid is a good example of shit that doesn't belong. The worst offender is the idiotic two-headed pod race commentators (maybe the most un-Star Wars thing in all of Star Wars). Ditto for all of Gungan technology and Felucia.

That waitress robot is also a prime example of where the prequels stop resembling Star Wars movies and enter Pixar territory.

There's a lot of un-Star Wars droids too. Remember the deleted saber dart droid analysis scene from AOTC? Or the polis masa droids from ROTS?

Aside: why the twins were born on Polis Masa will always be a mystery to me. Another useless 5 minute locale.

Maybe it was the closest and safest E.R. Or maybe it was the only hospital that had Universal Health Care.

Palpycare. Btw, the droids you are refering to (analysis droids and polis massa anyways) bear somewhat of a resemblance to Sony's defunct Q-Rio(2006) robot and Honda's Asimo. In the 70's, real robots looked a lot like power-droids. The concept changed in reality, and then in the movies.

The waitress droid looked like she was on her way to "Robots" starring the voice of Ewan McGreggor. Which isn't all bad, thats an under-rated visual masterpiece in itself. Not very Star Warsy, though, I get that. Plus, I always felt Polis Massa was the PT's 'Cloud City', except we don't stay too long and there's no disco theme. It's diversionary inclusion never really bothered me. It was good material for 'Battlefront II'.

My problem is that the PT designs lack the sense of functional reality that the OT designs had. While recognizing that Star Wars paid even less attention to the actual physics of space travel than Trek, the ship designs of the OT benefited greatly from the aerospace background of McQuarrie. He gave his designs a certain visual plausibility.

I understand the desire to make the PT era look different - to show the Republic at its height - to make the artistry as important as the functionality. However, when someone designs a spaceship that has no room for the astromech droid whose head is sticking out of it, then I scratch my head a bit.

Bleh been away a few days okay, to respond in order:

1. I'm saying that if you are going to spend screentime, the shot/sequence needs to do something other than look pretty.

Rule of movie-making no. 1; everything needs to serve a purpose, and being pretty simply isn't a purpose. A few minutes showing off scenery is fine, AS LONG AS IT MOVES THE STORY FORWARD. I hate to keep beating this one over the head, but the asteroid sequence in ESb is a perfect example of how this looks. Yes you get scenery, but it's all moving things along first and foremost.

The diversions in the PT don't meet this requirement, therefore they fail this litmus test. If you can just plain cut something out altogether without it affecting the flow of the film, that's a great big flashing warning sign that it shouldn't be included.

You can cut the bulk of the opening of RotS out with NO narrative consequences, and what that means is that we spent time on ultimately irrelevant stuff in favor of showing things like the seeds of rebellion, Palpy's full persuasion of Anakin as to the necessity of seizing control by any means, and giving Padme an reason to exist in this movie other than being an incubator (no saving her from death doesn't count, because that's all internal to Anakin, not anything Padme does).

No, the ANH end does what it does to show how Luke ends up the hero, when he was the newest recruit, the rawest pilot, and logically that's not who you would have on your critical bombing run. Each little mini-story (the Y-wing attack, then Red leader's attack run) serves to up the ante and show how desperate the situation is, how difficult what they are attepting is, how time and hope is running out, and then in a dramatic and logically satisfying way, leaving it all on Luke's shoulders. See? Each part of the battle moves things forward narratively and emotionally toward the climax.


2. Can't agree on this one either.

Sure, Anakin has that first step down the dark path in AotC, but he also gets plenty of chances to be the hero as well. And as far as ability, he is clearly already more talented than Obi-Wan, which is the whole center of his frustration. He is just also reckless and impulsive.

Exactly what we get shown again in RotS; this is the same dynamic. And are you saying that Anakin isn't playing the hero once they're aboard the Hand? Despite what Palpatine goads him into, Anakin is the hero of the whole adventure from landing to the crash on Coruscant. He succeeds where Obi-Wan fails in battling Dooku; he resuces Palpatine, and Obi-Wan, AND saves the lot of them when the ship starts disintegrating around them. He gets all the hero time he needs without the pointless space detour.

3. Sorry, should have been clearer on my terminology.

By "waterfall", I mean the waterfall shot which opens RotS, not the - shudder - romp by the waterfall in AotC. The waterfall shot introduces the battle, shows the scope, and that our heroes ( flying side-by-side as brothers in arms) are headed to the Hand. Bang. That does everything the sequence needed to do, and everything you're saying there shoud be time spent on.

We see that the Republic is looking more and more militaristic and Imperial-like, we see there's a MASSIVE battle going on, in an interesting space environment (see? fine here as it's moving things along), and we see that our heroes are flying into the maelstrom to rescue the chancellor. All done in one great shot.

Then the story momentum screetches to a halt as they pointless detour for 10 minutes putzing around with missles and buzz droids, until finally we're back to approaching The Hand and resume the story.


Regarding the design of the PT, I get what the idea was actually. If you are coming from a long-established society and moving towards a war-torn galaxy in the OT, then you have to start somewhere more elegant and form-over-function. Yes, it would have been cool in a fan-wank kind of way to have things look like the OT more, but if you start from purely functional, then you've got nowhere to go in visually telling the story "this society is in transition".

It's plain in the art development that this is intentionally what is being done, as there were tons of designs which said 'OT' which were passed over. And this is clearly what is happening in the design of the PT - you start very streamlined and organic feeling, and by RotS everything is looking more militerized, angular, and functional; pressed into service rather than being designed for optimum aesthetic appeal.

The waitress droid (and that whole goddamn diner sequence - how hard was it for Lucas to wedge his fat ass under the counter to get that 'Graffiti' publicity shot I wonder?) still sucks though, and 'Robots' makes me die a little inside everytime I've had to endure it. It's a design shit sandwich with some of the worst stunt casting ever spewed up on screen, a nauseatingly saccarine message, and retarded, instantly dated pop-culture references.


In any event....sooooo....about that 2006 DVD vs BD.....

Hah, yeah, I was thinking how much this had veered off on a tangent myself. Going back to what was being discussed on the previous page, I think you can distill it down to this simple, but fundamental, question:

Does George Lucas, today, know what actually made Star Wars so good/successful/popular in the first place? I mean, that's the bottom line isn't it, at least for anyone who feels that the regime of alterations to the original trilogy is pulling the saga away from what it once was, as opposed to "improving" it.

And I know that's a bit of an unfair question -

A) I doubt many artists ever do know what it is about their work that other people like,

B) Even if they do, it is probably frustrating to know that they might not necessarily like it for the reasons you created it, and C) I'm not implying that it could ever be the scenario that he either does or he doesn't, I'm sure it can be shades of grey...

It's just, y'know, it seems like some of the things that have been changed in the past 15 years or so work against what I consider to be some of the appeal of those movies - I find it hard to understand his motivations, even after he, or one of his staff, has explained them these days...

That varies from person to person. Again, that's all subjective. I, for example, think that most of the changes and additions improve the movies.

So, then you are not one of the ones I was refering to.

As with all things in life. Doesn't make it any less of a question, just makes it impossible to answer easily or confidently... but possible to debate and discuss.

Polis Massa is there so the Saga can have another reference to 2001. Just like the mechanics of 3PO’s memory wipe, where the twins were born wasn’t a major plot point concern for Lucas. The final product is little vanilla, but it still works.

I had forgotten about PM being in Battlefront.






First off, there are no hard rules for screenwriting. There are established conventions, archetypes, and traditions, but not black-and-white rules. Secondly, you’re circumventing your own logic. The tangent battles in the ANH climax aren’t needed “to move things forward narratively and emotionally toward the climax.”

Luke has to blow-up a big Space Station with his Dad trying to shoot him down. That’s all you need. The entire fleet could be wiped out in a minute and the trench run could happen immediately. (Just as Anakin and Obi-wan could just fly into the Invisible hand immediately.)

Thirdly, there are innumerable intelligent directors who have taken time to include visual set pieces in their significant thoughtful films. (I’ve already referenced one in this post.) Again, there are no rules and you’re being too simplistic in your thinking.


Anakin may have his chances to be heroic in Clones, but he doesn’t capitalize. Anakin may claim to be more proficient than Obi-wan, but his actions prove otherwise. Regarding Sith: I meant Anakin is a hero from the opening space melee through the ship rescue. The purpose of the opening is to have Anakin ironically save the day before he fucks-up and ruins everyone’s life.


The opening space battle segment from the waterfall drop to the crash landing on the Invisible Hand is five and half minutes in length.




Obviously, what’s good and what’s successful/popular can be two very different things. Regarding the latter, the films are already popular. So, Lucas isn’t as concerned about altering his vision to please general audiences. They’re probably going to watch it anyway.

I doubt it’s an impossible question. I think the main problem comes when people confuse emotional responses with objective criticism.


Regarding the OUT releases versus the Blu Rays DVDs, I would say that the overall value of the films is pretty much the same. Since the changes are cosmetic alterations, they don’t really have an impact on the story or themes. Personally, I prefer the altered films as they do a better job of tying the six chapters together.

(You feel like we're going round and round in circles over the same stuff, E_Chu_Ta? ) Okay, if you want to be pedantic and talk about no hard rules (let's just throw out what has worked for over a hundred years because technically it's not written in stone, and I guess you could try to tell a kids adventure movie in the style of Koyaanisqatsi... I guess) let's then play by the rules Lucas established for what made SW work.

The guy has been quoted as saying if it doesn't move the story forward, it has to go. His words, and his rules. Now, he's obviously changed his mind, but in all honesty, which trilogy works better from an editorial standpoint? Despite whatever good there is in the PT (and note I've said some nice things about it, I'm not exactly a hater, there is good stuff to be found there), those films do not flow as well as the OT, do they?

And wiping out the fleet in a few seconds isn't narratively satisfying, is it? Yes you can achieve the same story result in multiple ways, but having those moments play out does it in a narratively satisfying way. What strikes me more is that the other possibilities you are suggesting are all serving the story. You might say that they could have done it in a more condensed way, but you've just argued yourself into my postion - regardless of how it all happens those sequences, or an alternate sequence, is necessary to move the story forward.

You can't go from the arrival at Yavin to Luke alone in the trench, removing the intervening stuff over the death star, and have it make much sense. And don't try to reduce it to Dad trying to shoot his son down. That's a bullshit revision, as has been clearly shown despite what Lucas has since said. He had no idea what the relationship was when he made the first film.

What happens in the PT often is guilty of this though. You can literally chop out sections of the films and have it make no difference whatsoever. None! Back to RotS in particular, the fact that it feels like 10 minutes (I confess, I am generally writing from work when I'm on here, and didn't go back to time the thing) says something right there, doesn't it? It just drags on and on because it accomplishes absolutely nothing.

It doesn't show Anakin the hero, because he doesn't save the clones, his plan to get the buzz droids off Obi-Wan is feeble and nearly kills both of them. R2 actually saves his ass after he critically damages Obi-Wans' ship without any effect. The only one he successfully saves is himself when we see once again that spining is "a good trick!" (hooray, it's a callback to a totally inane moment in TPM, but it RHYMES so it must be art). Finally, we've already seen the scope of the battle, we've seen the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and we've seen some cool stuff. Then it just keeps going, piling uselss diversion on uselss diversion.

And NAME a director and film who SUCCESSFULLY (there's the key - yes directors have done it, but it ends up being a boring diversion) let something play out with the sole purpose of a set piece being its own existence, particularly in the genre we're examining here.

That's mighty important to consider as well; we aren't talking about experimental impressionistic filmaking here, we're talking about mass entertainment and spectacle. Masters in this genre who have successfully had a set piece for it's own sake? Speilberg? Nope. Lucas? Nope. Curtiz? Nope. I'm honestly at a loss to think of one example.

So now I assume you've been won over by my arguments, just about as much as I've been won over by yours, and we can drop it

On the subject of trying something new when the popularity is practically built-in, I don't begrudge Lucas the attempt to do something different, in fact it's laudable and I'm not one who thinks of the guy as a plain sell-out. He could have given us some anemic carbon-copy of the OT, it would have sold just as well, but instead wanted to tell a different kind of story, which is commendable. But that doesn't mean I have to pretend that it is successful when it's a bit of a misfire.


Lastly, back to the 2006 vs BD topic, well, it's really a question of a shitty-ass transfer in an obsolete video standard (let's not pretend that this is an acceptable video presentation for something put out in the 21st century - it isn't, and I think that was by design) and glaring video defects vs shitty-ass transfer with not quite as glaring defects AND shitty-ass changes in a current standard.

Yeah the BDs are visually better than the 2006 discs, and I will say the uncompressed audio for the most part sounds GREAT except that there's a serious underutilization of the LFE channel it seems, but they are a long, long way from reference quality, and they should have been so much more. But that's going to take a new 4k or better scan of something like the IB prints to correct at this point.

Personally right now I'll take Harmy's 720p SW, Ady's corrected ESB HDTV broadcast, and (sadly as Ady didn't complete the OT corrections) Wookiegroomer's RotJ HDTV. I actually sat down to flip between Ady's ESB and the BD ESB the other night, and while the HDTV may, may have been slightly softer, honestly the colour was so much better, the image so much brighter without becoming milked, that I was tempted to switch over to the HDTV rip to finish watching the movie.

Talking about the opening of Revenge of the Sith, I'm astounded Lucas wanted that thing to go on so long. It's a contained movie in itself, albeit not a very good one.

Not like Hoth or Tatooine sections in the original movies, either. This is different. There's so much more shit going on after this it just feels like a waste of time.

I think part of the problem is it isn't any fun. That gave Jabba's palace scenes a pass.

That Lucas originally wanted all that additional cut material in there as well, I'm wondering where exactly he was coming from.

Well here is a spin off thread so if you are up to it you can repost this in the BR vs OUT thread

A lot of TL;DR here (for me) and given this subject has been talked about a LOT since the PT movies were done with and will continue to be debated about for the duration I shall keep this as short as I can.

OT had a formula that worked,PT has it's merits but were not produced or directed with the same methodology or approach. Lucas had the CGI abilities that were non-existent even with all that Industrial Light and Magic could bring to the design/imagery table between ANH to ROTJ.

KISS - Keep it simple stupid is a widely accepted idea in many many fields of endeavour and here in the GFFA it applies just as well,not in terms of the machinery,droids and other trappings of a imaginatory galaxy rather the storytelling and character development.

I do not "hate" the PT movies however I see it as Lucas (to borrow from the novelisation of ROTJ re: Vader on Endor with Luke) "Lusting too blindly" and no-one to temper his creative works where he was making missteps. Either way,the films are made now and bar Lucas' making his alterations each time a new release of the films is done,they are static as is.

A re-boot when Lucas is dead and his children want to top up the trust fund is all there is to see any alternative vision of the saga. Of which will have it's new gen of lovers and haters no doubt.

That's sort of it in a nutshell for me.

I was a certain age when ROTJ came out, so I am always going to love that film for those reasons. But this doesn't make me blind to the film's weaknesses, and - yes - that whole opening sequence... I mean, what the fuck was the plan?

It really is mind-boggling - sneak Lando into the palace posing as a guard... hand over your two droids, one of them concealing a lightsaber... have Leia, Chewbacca, and then finally yourself, captured as well so now there are six people need rescuing, and only Lando with any kind of advantage.

How did Luke know they would be fed to the Sarlacc? How did Luke know Artoo would be needed on the barge, he could have been stationed downstairs in the dungeon, leaving him saber-less as a prisoner on the skiff?

Why have Leia release Han when she did, why not go back and get him after you have destroyed the barge and slaughtered Jabba and his minions? Why not, if that is what you were clearly prepared to do, just go in there and slaughter everyone and get it over with anyway?

So it is a good scene to compare with the opening of ROTS, because that is another completely illogical rescue. As you say, the opening of ROTJ worked because it was fun. It also worked because, by this point, we cared about the characters so much, it was a cool way to reassemble the cast one by one - and there was genuine camaraderie between them, because of everything we had seen them go through together in the previous episodes.

The ROTS opening is, three films in, still trying to establish that same camaraderie between Obi and Ani. It's too little, too late. Ani has been an absolute tit throughout. You aren't pure and likeable simply by virtue of being a ten-year-old boy, he's still not a particularly likeable ten-year-old boy, and he is even less likeable the older he gets.

An anecdote about a nest of gundarks and having Ani suddenly break character to save the lives of a bunch of clone pilots and put an "important mission" in jeapordy just to show off his good heart and ace piolting skills doesn't cut it. Not by a long chalk.

Getting back to the insanity of the rescue plan - here it is not so much the nature of the rescue that is insane, but the need for it at all. I should point out that some of the ambiguous stuff in the PT I actually liked. I kind of enjoyed the idea that we didn't know exactly why some things were happening and how far Palpatine's plans were extending - how much control over events he genuinely had. So long as it felt like Lucas had a handle on what was going on himself as the person writing this stuff.

Even the whole AOTC "Obi as detective" thing, that was still fun to try to wrap your head around. If you work backwards from "Palpatine must have wanted the clones to be discovered" through all of the events of the movie, very little actually makes much sense, but, like I said, it is still fun to kind of imagine it did make sense, and Palpatine was somehow manipulating all of these situations as part of a larger scheme.


By the start of ROTS, things have been stretched too far - for my liking anyway.

How did the chancellor get captured from Coruscant? Why was he chained to a chair on a craft hovering in the middle of a warzone? What was Grevious going to do with him - had he made any demands to the Republic? Did he try to contact Sidious straight away to inform him of his success and was he pissed off when he got no reply?

What the hell did Dooku think he was doing, seeing as how he knew Palpatine's true identity? Did Palpatine just say Dooku is a Sith Lord? Did Obi just say Sith Lords are the Jedi's speciality? Why the rush to get out and leave Obi behind all of a sudden? Why do you not think this is weird, Ani? What was Palpatine's goal - he staged all this, just to drive a wedge between Ani and Obi and to get Ani to take out Dooku? Why the hell is the Republic suddenly opening fire on the ship that contains two Jedi and their chancellor?


None of it makes any sense. I mean the whole plot is starting to fall apart by this point. What the hell are the Neimoidians still doing hanging around with Sidious? What does anybody think they are actually getting out of this? Why does the shroud of the Dark Side also make people idiots - do the Jedi rely on the Force for general comprehension and logic... are they not pretty wise individuals, in spite of the Force, anyway?

It's kind of got beyond that point of having fun imagining how intricate Palpatine's plan must be, or how lucky he was events played out a certain way, because now you feel Luacs himself doesn't even know what is going on - it's just a long chain of events that work on the surface, but if you go back and think about anything that has been presented, it is basically a three-movie long plot as barmy as that Han Solo rescue in Return of the Jedi.

I mean, that's my main problem with that opening - the whole rescue up to "another happy landing" - I come away from it feeling like... was all of that actually necessary?

Excellent points all around. However, I do think the opening of ROTS is tons of fun. It's one of my favorite sequences in the entire saga, illogical moments included.

This bickering is pointless.

It's amazing...the logical somersaults that some people will do to insist something from the OT is okay while that same thing in the PT is not.

http://bios.weddingbee.com/pics/44117/h ... _eagle.jpg

Thank Christ they didn't put those deleted scenes in there. They were terrible. That is why I bought this set just in case ib the future he decided to add all the craptacular deleted scenes. IMO the only ones that should be added would be the probe droid in tpm and the slightly extended lightsaber battle in tpm and anakin and padme interacting with her family in atoc and one formation of the rebellion from rots

WATCHOOTAKINGBOUTWILLIS?

Are you talking to me? Are you talking to ME? Really, I think "Roger...Roger" is funnier than "no loose wire jokes!", which doesn't even make any fucking sense. When did we mention loose wires?

And crossing the hangar is more interesting than falling down the elevator shaft. However I'm with you on the probe droid scene. Holy fuck, what was the point of cutting that out?! The existing cut of the film has Qui-Gon miss the only opportunity he had to see that something was hunting them, then we just cut to Ani and Qui running across the desert for no reason. I remember seeing the deleted scene on the TPM DVD and going 'Well SHIT! THAT make sense then!".

It's so short, yet is necessary to set up the next scene and the fight. The boarding ramp? Eh, I could leave that out. The PT suffers so badly from overextended and saturation of lightsaber fights already, and I think anything added before the final three way fight at the end can only diminish the impact of that fight. Formation of the rebellion - yes, but doesn't directly tie into Anakin, so I can see why it went. And Jimmy Smitts is doing some bizzarre-ass limp-wristed drag queen camp routine in that scene, while Fang Zhar just looks ridiculous.

However the stuff with Palps in his office is a nice way to force Anakin to justify to himself what he will do in this film. His great mentor is giving him some very blunt, ugly, but arguably viable opinion on how power has to work, how the sacrifice of freedom is necessary for everyone to be safe. Historically this justification is pretty typcial for how societies tend to fall into facism and empire. And he's not doing it in the pussy-ass, wishy-washy, touchy-feely way the Jedi would. He's laying down the fucking law here in no uncertain terms.

It sets up Anakin's ability to convince himself that Mace and the council are in fact trying to depose the legitimate head of the Republic by confirming Palpatine's assessment of the need to control them, and anything that plays into "From my point of view the jedi are evil!" (yes, this is critical to understanding Anakin but jeesus what a shitty line...) would be appreciated in this film. Possibly the problem is that he and Obi-Wan don't have much opportunity to develop that father/son relationship they tell us they have, and the extra Palpatine stuff skews the balance between his two father figures to far to early.

I thought of a bit of editing I WOULD have like to see in the opening of RotS incidentally. The crash of the Hand on Coruscant looks like poo. There's no indication that they're really being jostled around as the ship hits the ground, and the fact that it's just a static set is really obvious. Would have been neat to see some added camera shake (I mean, like MASSIVE shake) to that moment of impact to try to sell it a little better.

Admittedly, I’ve abandoned this thread out of laziness. However, I will take time to point out a couple of recent articles relevant to this topic.

In the first, Gary Kurtz (aka “fired guy”) discusses the prequels: Star Wars Producer on the Prequels: ‘I’m Not a Fan’.

In the second, Moriarty shows how ROTS is over two hours of “I am your father” for 1st time fans oblivious to the OT: “’Revenge Of The Sith’ devastates the kids as Anakin falls from grace.

Kinda says everything right there about why prequels are never a brilliant idea, doesn't it? We know where everything ends up, we know what happens to all of these characters, so there's never any kind of dramatic tension if you know the original story. Yeah, some interesting things may happen along the way, but you'll never really have much in the way of discovery in a prequel.

And Kurtz? Really, Kurtz is hating on Lucas again? What a giant shock. Lucas is more interested in machines than man now? They were best of friends until one fell to the dark....waaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiit a miiiiiinnnute..........

Not necessarily.



You don't? I'd say the whole journey of the PT is full of discovery. Only the ending is predictable.

If it wasn't for the prequels, I wouldn't be a fan. I grew up watching the original trilogy but never really gave a shit until I saw The Phantom Menace. Then the original trilogy took on a whole new level of importance for me. The fandom prompted by the prequels and Clone Wars shoots your entire theory to hell as far as creating a gateway into the saga for newer audiences.