I think Lucas attempted to describe in his round about way that Anakin was led to believe that being “strong” in the Dark Side was what would enable him to save Padme; so the more evil committed the stronger he would become. After all it’s “anger” that powers the Dark Side. So killing the kids was just another step to his leveling up his Sith class after he respecced.
I watched through the Plinkett stuff, and I think he hits the nail on all the main points about why the prequels fall flat and fail (and I really dislike the style of those reviews - it’s only because the points are so well made that I manage to get through it). The thing is, none of Anakin’s development really fits with the story that goes with being a “Good friend” to Kenobi or “seduced by the Dark side” (more like a born Sith - which the Emperor even hints at might be the case… which is another piece of script stupidity I had happily forgotten prior to watching the review).
And that really is the nail on the head. Not one character was actually interesting, believable or even that likeable in all the three prequel films, and that is quite an achievement. It certainly wasn’t the fault of the actors (they mostly have all done other good stuff), but probably all the green-screen didn’t help them (and maybe a lack of drugs? They were all high as kites making the first film(s)?).
Compare young Obi-wan to the one from Episode iv-vi. Compare Gin (i just think of a Gin bottle now as his character, it is more memorable) to that Alec Guinness depiction of a wise Jedi. You can go through the lot and find the same pattern repeating, near forgettable characters that you just do not care about or get invested in from the prequels, to an almost instant connection with pretty much all the characters from Star Wars, Empire and Jedi.
I’m sure a good character writer could have made an understandable character transition for Anakin that led to the killing of the Jedi children, but that was sadly beyond George this time. As was the general ability to not only drop the ball on a winning formula, but to be able to split a fan base so that half felt actually insulted by what he had done in the prequels. Way to crap on what was actually awesome and amazing. And this whole making it not possible to buy the original non-updated three films (so that my kids will never get that same experience of Star Wars that i did) is the final kick in the nuts. I guess at some fundamental level George really, really hated the collaborative aspect he had to go through in the original films, and just wants to erase that experience from the history of Star Wars? It’s all very bizarre.
I agree in general, but I do think that Ewan McGregor comes off the best out of all the actors in the prequels. He plays a younger Alec Guiness with great gusto - kind of a swashbuckling mystical toff. It’s like he’s in his own little world throughout the prequels, enjoying himself tremendously, oblivious to the train wreck going on around him.
Best of a bad bunch, yeah. I think his characters main issue is he probably is trying too hard to ‘be’ Alec Guiness, and sometimes that came to the fore? I mean that is a hard act to follow, even if it was his (Alec’s) least favourite role of his acting career. And it is a nebulous ‘disconnect’ i had with the young Ben Kenobi compared to the original, which might be a large part from the general disconnect i felt for the prequels in their entirety?
Still, Ewen has played much better roles, acted better and it is a cold comfort his Ben Kenobi wasn’t the worst part of the prequels, especially for an actor of his quality (oh good…poor Liam Neeson!)… I just don’t have words to express how bad a director you needed to have been to produce those films with those actors! How do you do that??
As a side show to my complete ‘not feeling the force’ issue with the prequels, i’ve been trying to get into the ‘new’ Star Trek movies (the J.J.Abrams ones). And i just can’t, not as Star Trek films at any rate. If they were just ‘other’ generic sci-fi stuff then maybe, like the Transformers films etc. So i’m trying to imagine the transformation J.J.Abrams will need to go through to be able to ‘win’ the Star Wars gig. I think the first step is to understand the differences between the originals and prequels, maybe even watch all the Mr. Plinkett’s reviews to get a handle on it.
I worry that it will most likely go, ‘Hey Star Wars sounds like Star Trek, so i’ll just do that again’. > Fast Action, Big Effects, not much else, done.
I’ll take “Fast Action, Big Effects, not much else” over the plodding mish-mash of bullshit we got for the prequels. At least the new Trek movies are entertaining and don’t make me want to sigh and shake my head.
Actually, the new Trek movies make me sigh and shake my head as well. They’re nowhere near as bad, but lord, they’re not good.
I think some of you are cranky old men! I know thats not very nice to say, but the new Star Trek movies are awesome, loads of fun and its very much because of JJ Abrams the Star Trek franchise has been revitalized.
I realize its very different from the Star Trek movies of old, but times move on, and so does the style of movies. A nice example I always use is Godfather, which is a great movie for its time, but today? Most audiences (Friends, relatives and kids) I’ve shown it to for the first time, are incredibly bored. Its just not the kind of storytelling we are used to today, like it or not.
You are wrong. I watched The Godfather recently for the first time and it is amazing. The way the story and drama unfolds over time is excellent, builds tension gradually and is far from boring. I have watched a few older classics recently and every one of them contains a story that is sooo much better crafted and delivered than today’s modern action/fast cut/fast cut/action/explosion hullabaloo. I get why today’s stuff is the way it is, but it saddens me a little that’s what modern audiences seem to crave.
And the new Star Trek moves are drivel. Roddenberry is rolling in his grave.
Edit - Well, drivel is not fair, they are actually not bad movies in their own right, just terrible, terrible Star Trek movies.
Of course I’m not wrong - You are just the exception ;-) Oh, can I ask how old you are? I’m guessing over 35. Its the “modern audiences” that gave you away ;-)
- Gave myself away! ;)
I think they’re bad, full stop. If I had never, ever seen anything of Star Trek before, the first one would have still annoyed the hell out of me. Can’t speak for the second, I had no interest in seeing it.
I hate New Kirk. Not because he’s new, or unlike Shatner, I hate Abrams’ vision for the character. He’s just a rebellious asshole who got lucky, no real judgement at all.
The power struggle between New Kirk and Spock was ridiculous. And no, freshly-minted cadets right out of the academy do not get to be second in command, even with some minor patronage. Nor do they get promoted from O-1 to O-5, no matter what they just did. If Abrams wanted to skip Kirk’s career while he moved up the ranks, he shouldn’t have started watching him in Starfleet Academy.
Everything about the Romulan supernova is stupid and inconsistent. Supernovae do not “threaten the galaxy.” Radiation from exploding stars does not travel faster than light. Mining vessels are not superdreadnoughts. And Red Matter, ugh.
They’re popcorn movies. They’re not supposed to hold up under analysis. Would it be nice to get Star Trek movies that are more in line with reality? Sure, but that’s never going to happen. The older movies weren’t exactly hard SF. We know that in reality no one is going to hand a ship over to a cadet, but in the universe of the movies nothing has ever been stated that contradicts that happening. Maybe Starfleet has a whack-a-doodle promotion path? Tyler Perry is on the Academics Board, so it can’t be that strict. As long as the movies are internally consistent, it’s good enough.
The Star Wars prequels don’t even pay lip service to the universe’s internal logic. Things just happen to move stuff along with nary a thought to whatever has already been said or done. The Force is a mystical energy field that surrounds and binds all life in the galaxy! It’s a hokey religion. No, wait. It’s a by-product of microscopic life forms that can literally be detected with a blood analysis. For some reason, everyone forgot that in a few decades.
I have trouble calling the new Star Trek movies bad because I found several of the old ST movies to be bad, and I liked the characters. They are just different formulas. One features the slam bang while the other character development and drama. The fact that many of the ST characters were too old for slam bang when the movies finally came out may have something to do with that. The shows certainly liked action when it was called for…
If the ST reboot movies are taken on their own, I’d agree. Great cast, lots of action, lots of good character moments.
BUT – there was way, way too much meta, “see what I did there,” in the Kahn retelling. The reboot series needs to stand on its own rather than rehashing old plotlines.
I’ve always hated that defense of bad movies.
The stuff I led with - Kirk, the interactions between Kirk and Spock - are not about analysis. But fine, if you want to skip straight to that, movies like this don’t need to be hard SF, they just need to seem reasonable enough while you’re watching. Which Abrams’ version of Star Trek fails miserably at doing.
Countering with Midichlorians - yes, Midichlorians are awful, terrible things. That the Star Wars prequels were worse doesn’t make the revised Star Trek good.
Which would have allowed Palpatine to use his authority to test the populations of entire planets to assemble a horde of force-sensitive Sith agents, which didn’t actually happen even though it makes perfect sense and would have been a hell of a lot easier than building a moon-sized space station twice.
See what happens when you don’t think your storytelling through, George?
I don’t think these movies are bad. In fact, I think a movie not being restricted to reality can actually result in a better story. Wrath of Khan for example, doesn’t need to explain how the Genesis Device works in any real sense. It’s a magic plot device! It’s no more realistic than The Force or the transporter. Just handwave it and move on because the audience wants to get to the good bits. How did Khan and his cronies take over a whole starship anyway? What happened to everyone else on the Reliant? Who cares!? Just get going.
That’s a matter of opinion. I think the new Trek movies have about as much character interaction and humor as the old ones.
The discussion is about the awful prequels and whether or not the JJ Abrams versions will be better or worse than George’s movies. I think we can agree that they’ll likely be better than the crap we got in the prequels. We may disagree on the level of like or dislike on those movies when they come out, but I think it’s safe to say that they probably won’t suck as bad as episodes I, II, or III.
That was actually one of the small touches I liked about the movie (and there weren’t many of those). It wasn’t that the mining ship was armed to the teeth, it’s that the minimal defensive weapons carried by a civilian ship in the late 24th century were so far ahead of cutting edge weapons tech in the mid-23rd that the one civilian ship could take on an entire warfleet and win. It shows that technology advances quickly in the Star Trek universe, in contrast to Star Wars where the Old Republic games have exactly the same technology as the movies that take place millennia later.
Yeah, I liked that touch too.
I liken it to a 20th century oil tanker that is transported to the Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson’s HMS Victory was 186 ft. long, while the Exxon Valdez was over five times that. Imagine a drunken Captain Hazelwood weaving through the combined English and French fleets, ranting about unfair community service and plowing through the flower of 18th century naval might, leaving nothing but kindling in his wake.
(To be fair, I don’t know if the steel hull of an oil tanker would stand up to a side-on hit from a 32 pounder cannon, but Nero’s ship took damage from the Starfleet ships too.)