E_CHU_TA! wrote:
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.
Did you mean that nothing important happens to characters from the Waterfall sequence in AOTC to the opening of ROTS?
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.....
