Official Star Wars Thread

I've noticed an attempt at rehabilitating the reputation of the prequels in recent years, really before The Force Awakens has come out, but it has heightened especially with the new movies. There's a lot of rose-colored glasses and hand waving in these defenses. The new movies, as flawed as they are, do not come nearly as close to being as bad as the prequels even in their worst moments. They are still entertaining and competently made films, which is not the case for the prequels.
 
TFA is an adequate film because it's just a remake of the 1977 original, but without a decent villain
TLJ is a massive, steaming, logic-free dump taken on the entirety of the established Star Wars universe
TROS is JJ doing his best to make a passable film out of the frayed and entirely unsatisfactory plot threads at his disposal. It's entirely unremarkable.
 
I really like the clone wars series. I had to get over the animation style and it's a tad upsetting they saved a akin and Obi fun adventures for this series rather than the movies, but it won me over.
 
My opinion on the prequels solidified roughly ~1 year after Revenge of the Sith came out, and hasn't changed since. The sequel trilogy has very little, if any, impact on my feelings therein.
 
I wish Lucas had had the balls to follow through on the whole Jar Jar being the phantom menace Sith Lord idea, rather than stuffing in Dooku as a throwaway at the last minute. It would have redeemed the Jar Jar character for him to finally cast off the minstrel show and pop his fangs. Oh well.
 
Just to avoid confusion, I rephrased my earlier post a little bit:

Randalf said:
I think all of these new movies are beautifully crafted, enjoyable and in many ways, done in a way the prequels should have been done back in the day.
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I agree with some of the more critical views above to some extent, especially about the Phantom Menace, but I really like the story concept and structure. While the writing was terrible, I think the attempted ideas behind the fall of the Jedi, Republic and Anakin himself were good. The Last Jedi - kind of - touched the same themes about a decade later, by addressing the problematic nature of the "Jedi code." Anakin's character was very... forced from time to time, but the conceptual idea behind his fall was, in my opinion, good enough. There was a lot of surface to discover in how the Jedi, who probably didn't have the perspective on how a 9-year-old kid would react to being separated from his mother etc., were more or less proud, restricted by their old ways in an changing world and unable to accept and trust Anakin - not that he really helped in that either - and therefore fed his temptations to the dark side of the force.

I definitely agree that the production, writing and pretty much everything didn't turn out too well. I find many redeeming qualities from Revenge of the Sith and even the previous two have their moments, but overall, they're not very good movies the forgiving Star Wars context - and even within, it's a mixed bag, as you can tell by this discussion alone.

One of the things that really bug me is how they basically threw so many great actors and characters to the trash bin. Mace Windu and Count Dooku as some of the most prominent examples. There were very few nuances and they were just... hanging around and seemingly lost in digital sets. George Lucas isn't at his strongest when it comes to character development and directing actual acting. It's a bit sad, especially since Mace's character concept shares so many qualities with Anakin, but he ended up being just a doubtful Jedi master who got one or two times to show off his above average combat skills. Eh.

My point being, the prequels have a lot of good elements in them - in my opinion at least - but the very problem is that they're all in George's head... and his ability and willingness to properly discover and open those things up in a movie is questionable, to say the least. Yeah, many of the things movies lacked got discovered in the animated series, but from a movie storytelling point of view, it's a gigantic issue.

So, I admit being slightly in the pro-prequel side of things, but merely from a story perspective. In the hands of another director Anakin's character arc and a lot of the background elements would have been much more fleshed out and while I don't deny the problems when it comes to the "EVERYTHING EXPLAINED!" nature of the prequels, I think there is a lot of good elements in them.
 
Jer said:
I wish Lucas had had the balls to follow through on the whole Jar Jar being the phantom menace Sith Lord idea, rather than stuffing in Dooku as a throwaway at the last minute. It would have redeemed the Jar Jar character for him to finally cast off the minstrel show and pop his fangs. Oh well.
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Is this something that was supposed to happen or a meme
 
Mosh said:
Is this something that was supposed to happen or a meme
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Both. Lucas talked a lot about Jar Jar being the “key to everything” around the time of Ep. 1, and there are many many clues that he’s force-capable. He is also likely the titular menace of Ep. 1. But everyone hated him so much in the first movie that Lucas changed course.
 
Jer said:
Both. Lucas talked a lot about Jar Jar being the “key to everything” around the time of Ep. 1, and there are many many clues that he’s force-capable. He is also likely the titular menace of Ep. 1. But everyone hated him so much in the first movie that Lucas changed course.
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A force-capable Jar Jar makes me think of a Mickey Mouse story inspired by Star Wars in which the chosen one is none other than Goofy.
 
Jer said:
Both. Lucas talked a lot about Jar Jar being the “key to everything” around the time of Ep. 1, and there are many many clues that he’s force-capable. He is also likely the titular menace of Ep. 1. But everyone hated him so much in the first movie that Lucas changed course.
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I really don't think this is true. Lucas famously said "Jar Jar is the key to everything" in the backstage footage of the assembly of episode 1. What people don't generally say is that it is said when looking at a cutting screen of the Naboo slapstick battle scene, and followed with "If we get Jar Jar working, it all comes together". It's very specifically about that one scene.

Regretfully, they did not get Jar Jar working.

I have no doubt that Lucas loved the character and intended for him to take a deeper role in the rest of the prequels and scaled him back based on the fact that...well, he was despised for being annoying and slapstick.
 
Jar Jar is the one that gave Palpatine emergency powers, setting his takeover in motion. Planned all along, or a fuck you to the audience from Lucas?
 
Mosh said:
Jar Jar is the one that gave Palpatine emergency powers, setting his takeover in motion. Planned all along, or a fuck you to the audience from Lucas?
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There are also plenty of scenes of Jar Jar doing strange hand motions while mouthing words that come out of others’ mouths, and doing impossible force jumps that are edited such that you might not immediately notice. And the emergency powers thing, and more.

I doubt it’s coincidence — I think Lucas thought people would love Jar Jar, and then his big Empire-style surprise was going to be Jar Jar actually being a cunning Sith Lord. When people reacted so badly to Jar Jar, he got cold feet about making him one of the big bads, so he changed course and radically reduced Jar Jar’s role.
 
I think you're right that Jar Jar was meant to be a larger story element, he is a main character in Phantom Menace. But I also think LC is right that that clip is often taken out of context. I imagine Jar Jar was meant to be that trilogy's comic relief, similar to C-3PO (a character who had very little function in the prequels but started to appear more as Jar Jar appeared less).
 
Yeah, no. Jar Jar as a Sith lord is one of those things the sarcastic Internet churned out that some people decided to adopt.

Christopher Lee was cast as Dooku like....in early-to-mid 2000. There's no way that he was an "emergency character". It just doesn't make any sense.

Edit: I am not saying that the Jar Jar character wasn't scaled back and that there wasn't other plans for him. I am saying that the specific concept of him being a Sith lord is utterly ludicrous.
 
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LooseCannon said:
Yeah, no. Jar Jar as a Sith lord is one of those things the sarcastic Internet churned out that some people decided to adopt.
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I’m not normally swayed by random crap on YouTube, but consider the following:



Everything literally makes much more sense this way. And Lucas no longer looks demented. And Jar Jar isn’t worthless as a character anymore.
LooseCannon said:
Christopher Lee was cast as Dooku like....in early-to-mid 2000. There's no way that he was an "emergency character". It just doesn't make any sense.
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Ep. 1 came out in May of 1999. That’s plenty of time to change course if everyone winds up loathing the character whose intended cuteness and likeability was the cornerstone of your big reveal.
 
Jer said:
Ep. 1 came out in May of 1999. That’s plenty of time to change course if everyone winds up loathing the character whose intended cuteness and likeability was the cornerstone of your big reveal.
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No, he was confirmed in June 2000. You don't get a decent name actor (he was just back from Lord of the Rings filming then, though it hadn't come out) right away, there is negotiations and such. There's no way he wasn't in the mix since at least late 1999.

I legitimately have seen both videos before, and they are just people shittalking and pushing a silly theory for funsies. And, here's the rub - even if they were right (which they are not) - they don't make The Phantom Menace any better. They don't make the movie or character good or interesting. He doesn't work in context of the film. The idea that maybe Jar Jar was once considered for a deeper role doesn't make his bumbling idiocy any more fun or enjoyable, nor does it make it any less jarring within the context of the Star Wars universe.
 
LooseCannon said:
There's no way he wasn't in the mix since at least late 1999.
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...and how long would it take to realize everyone hated Jar Jar upon release, and then do some rewrites on the Ep. 2 script? You’re still talking 4-6 months from the Ep. 1 release to the timeframe you’re proposing for Christopher Lee to enter the picture in negotiations. Totally plausible.

LooseCannon said:
I legitimately have seen both videos before, and they are just people shittalking and pushing a silly theory for funsies.
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I’m sorry, but just about every point in that first video is completely salient, and in fact makes more sense than what was presented at face value in the film. If it’s pure shittalk and joking, then it’s the best possible kind of joke, because it makes more sense than the superficial truth. The things they point to are totally in line with Lucas’s influences and they connect all the dots. It’s just that Jar Jar’s portrayal was too over the top for people to stomach.

LooseCannon said:
And, here's the rub - even if they were right (which they are not) - they don't make The Phantom Menace any better. They don't make the movie or character good or interesting. He doesn't work in context of the film. The idea that maybe Jar Jar was once considered for a deeper role doesn't make his bumbling idiocy any more fun or enjoyable, nor does it make it any less jarring within the context of the Star Wars universe.
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It’s true that it would not make the movie good, or make the antics any less annoying. But if Jar Jar had dropped the mask later and it was revealed to us what he had been doing all along, I think it would have been a genuine shock that would have recontextualized Ep. 1 completely, in a much more satisfying way. And Yoda fighting Jar Jar after the reveal in Ep. 2 would have made more thematic and aesthetic sense, IMO.
 
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