You know, we talk a lot about how much we hate the prequels and how cheesy they are, but can we take a moment to really acknowledge what a colossal missed opportunity they were? The Totally Rad Show was talking about the X-men Prequel and how it informed the original trilogy of movies and how star wars failed to do this. Imagine the film we could have gotten, were Lucas just the producer and had someone with talent write his ideas and direct the films.

Would we change the story? What would we add and subtract? I think Red Letter Media gives a perfect synopsis of how terrible the films were and sometimes makes reference to what could have been, but I'm just interested to see what you were expecting out of the film, and how it did or didn't deliver.

I'll probably post more, but one of the biggest gimmicks I hated about the films was their reflective duality with the OT. "Get it, they cut someone's arm off in a bar." "Get it, that was kind of like the trench run but with a little kid." It made the films predictable and seemingly lazy, failing to create any of its own memorable moments. I get that the father goes through the same trials as Luke and "fails" where his son succeeds, but they could have made those references without literally redoing all of the iconic scenes. The only thing I'm thankful for is a lack of Han Solo throwback. Apparently the Galaxy is tiny though because everyone else knows eachother.

I still don't know what happened to Naboo. Does the planet just cease to exist? It would have made so much more sense if it had been Alderaan instead.

Naboo most likely was one of the first planets to go under martial law by the Empire. You have to consider that a lot of people were for the Empire and so it really wouldn't have been that difficult to control most of the planets (at least at first).

I think the first episode is more or less entirely wasted on character introductions. It's like Lucas had this idea of how Anakin became Obi-Wan's apprentice and built the entire movie around the scene with Qui-Gon dying.

Personally I would have liked to see the start of the Clone Wars in the first episode. So, AotC as the first episode, only without all that business about Jango Fett, and an older Anakin becoming Obi-Wan's Padawan.

The second episode should have focused entirely on the Clone Wars, showing how Anakin and Obi-Wan became like brothers... have Anakin falling in love with Padme at an age that makes sense instead of being in love for ten years ever since he was a kiddo.

RotS is mostly fine the way it is, as far as I'm concerned.

The whole "space politics" of the prequels, starting with the relationship of Trade Federation and Naboo to the Senate and whatever, was one of the most boring nonsense in the movies. I honestly couldn't care less about the political struggles in some government system/body that I hardly know anything about and suppose to be fictional anyway. I think Lucas had some sort of grand climax in mind for all this political intrigue, but in the end, everything just falls flat. Palpatine wins, it seems, not because he out-maneuvered the system and was a cunning political mastermind, but because everyone around him was ...so stupid.

It's a waste of film time. All these things about no-confident votes, emergency powers, DEMOCRACY, trade agreements, Senate hearings, etc... were so uninteresting. Not to mention it made the concept of the Jedis so bland. In OT, I always imagined the Jedi being a race of enlightened people shrouded in mystery, maybe a cult that refuses to use advanced technology. I don't know.

But then comes the prequels which illustrate the Jedi Council as a department under the government. They have their little government district building in the city where they sit around and discuss policies and referendums. They also run a day-school for kids with an accepted level of midichlorians. Boring.

I appreciate the semblance of a political scene, but I agree it was awfully handled and if the Senate Chambers weren't so over-designed, those scenes would have been glorified CSPAN programming. But this is from the person who skipped over fight scenes in the Gundam series in order to get to the boring political conflicts.



Wouldn't you think Naboo would have fought back pretty hard? Being on the Outer Rim, I would think they'd fall to disarray and anarchy before the proud Naboo or Gungans would be dominated. Not to mention, there isn't much political value in Naboo after Senator Padmé died, and they don't export anything that the Empire couldn't find more locally in higher abundance. I think that was the premise on which the trade federation, through Palpatine's actions, even took interest in the planet was their independence and threat to the Empire. You know, now that I think about it, I inferred 90% of that and I don't even know if the movies ever validated why the trade federation had any interest with Naboo.

The character tie-in's didn't help for me, C3PO/R2 all of a sudden gained family history with Vader. Boba Fett was little more than a non-speaking bad guy who got eaten in the sequels, but required a father, background etc in the prequels. Did Lando make a cameo? Been so long since I watched them.

The poor battle-droids were sold out for a PG rating, because it's ok to dismember robots if it's funny..

On the other hand, I don't think the prequels should be changed since that's what George Lucas wanted to make and it's what he got.

On the other hand, I don't give a s*** about that since they should have been done much more properly. However, unlike many people, I really liked the whole Clone Wars setting and especially the non-movie Clone Wars related products (primarily the 2003 cartoon and Republic Commando)... and yes, I also liked Revenge of the Sith (again, it could have been better but pff).

As for actually improving the films, well, uh "listen guys I think they should have X and Y and btw more boobs and gore and titties". Hell, I dunno.

THIS MAN HAS THE RIGHT IDEA.

there were certain things about the prequels that i loved and certain things i hated. i loved that we finally got to see jedi doing bad ass jedi ****! i also actually really enjoyed the whole convoluted political plot lines. i am a huge fan of the Darth Bane stories and the whole "rule of two" slow political maneuvering over the course of a millennium to put all the pieces perfectly into place for the sith to retake the galaxy.
however, i hated jar-jar, anakin young and older, c3po, little boba, and even padme most of the time.

Honestly X-men: First class didnt impress me that much, but I'm trying hard to think of ANY prequel that has impressed me when compared to the originals. Most prequels just seem like a blatant money grab. I thought the Caprica TV series was decent but I don't know if I would have like it so much if I had never seen BSG.

Cool to see another TRS fan on Massassi.

I think the thing about the OT that made it better was that Lucas wasn't the sole creative mind behind it, there were several writers working along with Lucas, and in some cases the OT's most memorable lines were ad-libbed (e.g. "I love you/I know"). I don't think any any point of writing the PT did Lucas have assistance, input, just a bunch of "yes" men.

Lucas also isn't that great of a director - I think in terms of directing American Graffiti is Lucas' best - but I think that's only because Lucas and all the actors in the movie could approach it very naturalistically as it was a time they lived.

So I guess in short the only thing I think that would have helped the prequels would have been collaboration. You look at the behind the scenes of the PT and the behind the scenes of another movie like LOTR and you definitely get a different vibe.

In the RotS review RedLetterMedia says he doesn't like to normally give ideas on how the prequels could've been better, but then lists a few just to ease our curiosity. A lot of them are good, I don't remember all of them but he talked about how on Coruscant there were no signs of war, business was booming, people were always going some place. Over the course of the prequels we should have saw that place go to hell, with food lines etc and the sky empty of cars, to make it believeable that there was struggle in the galaxy and that these were hard times to make it believeable that they could've been seduced by a dictator (he compares this to Nazi Germany)

He also suggests that there shouldve been more training scenes, like how we got with Luke on Dagobah. We never really learned with Anakin, we were just always told things. Especially about their adventures. We never saw that friendship grow so it had no meaning, nor did we ever seen Anakin training/learning about being a Jedi.

Both of these are excellent points he brings up and should've been done.

Summary: Anyone, even someone who hasn't seen Star Wars could've made a better prequel trilogy than George Lucas

That's a ridiculous statement.

We have the benefit of hindsight to compare whatever with Lucas's cringe-inducing Prequels. It's a perfect encapsulation of what-not-to-do. If you got someone who writes terrible Star Wars fan-fiction on the internet a directing role and creative control of the movies, I'm willing to bet it would have been the same outcome. It's not easy to create a good movie no matter how many movies these armchair directors have seen and claim they could have made.

I do hate how the prequels felt the need to shoe-horn in so many characters from the original films. This critique isn't just applicable to Star Wars though, you can say the same about X-Men as well (especially Origins: Wolverine). It creates three big problems:

1) It just feels forced and awkward with characters parts jammed in for the sake of it.
2) It doesn't allow as much development for the principal characters who are there to drive the plot.
3) When you revisit the original films, everything is over-explained and it's lost some of its mythical quality.

To clarify the interest in Naboo stated earlier: Palpatine's home planet was Naboo. He manipulated the Trade Federation into choosing that planet for their blockade to generate the sympathy in the senate he needed to stage his back door coup against the Supreme Chancellor. If it had been any other planet that sympathy would not have been there. I always assumed that after he named himself Emperor and established the Galactic Empire, Naboo would have been one of the strongest supporters of his regime. They already harbor the anti-alien bias as evidenced by the relationship between the Naboo and the Gungans.

Excellent clarification. Now that you mention it I recall this being explicitly stated when we first hear about the Queen's strife, as well as several times in the second film. That's actually kind of interesting to me. That said, his plan and what happened might not have lined up. Naboo's races ended up being united again from what I know of the EU.

It is sad when a hardcore group of Star Wars fans need basic plot details to be clarified to them.

This is in no way ANY offense to any of you, what I mean before I am taken out of context is that these movies are just so confusing and are so hard to follow because the information is just so hidden in all the lousy **** on the screen that nobody can figure out what is going on.

We've all seen the prequels a bunch of times and just now we are beginning to piece together the plot? Who knows what the OT was about? I bet people could write a 50 page essay on that ****, probably only after 2-3 viewings, but the prequels...nobody can follow that logically. It just isn't delivered in a good manner.

Sigh

I know nothing of the EU, but it would seem to me that the empire would allow wealthy supportive planets a great deal of lee-way in terms of self governance, as long as they towed the line where it mattered. So I would guess that Naboo would essentially keep it's system of governance, and any imperial viceroy would only exercise subtle, behind the scenes power. The empire would never survive if they treated their power base poorly, and a politician like sidious would know that.

That's the thing, I don't even remember how the conflict manifested in TPM. Something about a queen and trade routes. And Gungans.

I mean, in the OT, the Good Vs. Evil was clear. The Empire was defined well, there were no confusion on their evilness. This sort of dynamic played great in the Indiana Jones films too. Sometimes simplicity works best.

Don't get me wrong, I don't despise complexity. But in the case of the Prequels, the politics/history/drama just don't lend itself to becoming interesting or memorable. And I think this is due to the characters significantly because they weren't written to be ones that could be related to and familiarized with. Watching the movie, I spend more time trying to figure what the **** is going on rather than looking forward to where the plot will take me.

This seems relevant:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18813_5-reasons-hollywood-needs-to-stop-making-prequels.html
The only one I don't agree is #1, and that's because I think Temple of Doom is terrible (yes, moreso than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).

As for my own thoughts on the prequels and this thread, I honestly wasn't expecting much, and maybe that's why I don't hate the prequels as much as everyone else. The only expectations I had was what was mentioned in the OT: that Anakin was a good pilot (at least according to Obi-Wan) and that Obi-Wan taught Anakin and was betrayed by him (and while admittedly not mentioned in the OT, that they would fight in some lava-filled place), and the prequels pretty much delivered on that. In fact, in RotS, I still get hooked when Anakin sees Mace Windu die and he just falls apart. Yes, there are plenty of things wrong with the prequels (which have already been said), but as also already said, I believe most of that is hindsight and the general principles pointed out in the article I linked.

None of them really even bother me anymore. The damned movies are what they are, and *****ing about it has just gotten old. I'd rather just enjoy the good things about it and not let the bad ones ruin my day. This has become my method of watching most films, and as such I find watching films to be a much more enjoyable experience. At this point I can watch virtually anything and enjoy it on some level.

The whole Palpy's rise to power was a very good idea but it wasn't very well realised on screen.

The bit that annoys me is the Syfodias thing in Episode II that's never explained. All we know is he's a Jedi who was killed around the same time as The Phantom Menace and apparently ordered the creation of the Clone Army (why?). It bothers me that this plot strand is not given any real emphasis but unnecessary stuff like Yoda and Chewie's bromance is given plenty of screentime.

Actually, I have to strongly disagree with you there, Piggot. First, the EU fleshes that out already, so there isn't a lot of guess work. Ignoring that though, I liked that at least one single thing was left a little ambiguous. As Geb's Cracked article pointed out, history is more interesting when it is history.

I think there's going to be a surge in stylized interpretations of the prequels, because I can already think of one that doesn't exactly fit the SW universe, but sounds kind of cool to me: I would've liked it if the Jedi were really really mysterious. Steal batman's disappearing while backs are turned move, make them do things that seem counter-productive to the outside, destroys the name of the Jedi but then is actually a giant ploy that helps them overcome some major enemy without ever raising a fist, give them the mystery Ben and Yoda evoke in the original trilogy. Make them sound juuuuust a little crazy too, like homeless monks. Take more hints from samurai films and have a drunken monkey moment-maybe even with Yoda. Limit their numbers way more, make them vagabonds even to eachother, with the "Jedi Order" being a collective ideal or guiding principle for various bands of Jedi instead of a high political organization.

Agreed. At some point people complaining about the prequels became more annoying than the prequels themselves (for me). I really don't want to be the Official Prequel Defender but above everything I agree with Lucas's explanation that the Star Wars movies form the story of Anakin Skywalker so what happens before or after his existence is sort of secondary. Of course in that regard he could have done a much better job... or Irvin Kershner could have.

I kind of think the reason why some people liked TODOA was that I went through the story with Elmo who corrected me on a lot of things and gave a lot of ideas et cetera... so in other words, I'm George Lucas! OH NO

There's ambiguity and then there's lazy writing, I feel that this falls into the latter because it's quickly dismissed and forgotten about. The film doesn't spend any time gestating a sense of mystery out of it.

I suppose a good thing about the EU is that it can clear up and clarify on some of George's mistakes, the sad thing is it shouldn't have to.

at least we got a pretty good webcomic out of them...

Then again I'm watching X Men 3 at this point, so I might have spoken too soon.

Make all the Jedi into wizards.

Wizard vampires. With gunblades.

It's a lot bloody better than Wolverine!

Yeah in ways it really is. There are only a few things in Wolverine that are good.

[inside a gift shop]
Female Cashier: You must like playing with cards.
Gambit: I like Solitaire ok... that is, unless I got someone to play with.

From first episode of the cartoon, Night of the Sentinels

Awesome.

The prequels all make perfect sense once you realize that Palpatine wasn't just making a grab for power; he was trying to prepare the galaxy to repel the vong. The empire, if it had not been toppled, would have been so powerful by time the vong invasion came that Palpatine would have crushed them.

He was taking cues from Revan, who did basically the same thing.

Wolverine was decent, X Men 3 was "OMG GOUGE OUT MY EYES AND DRIVE A NAIL FILE INTO MAH BRAIN"

Well ok, it wasn't THAT bad, but it was pretty damn awful.

I thought X-Men Origins: Wolverine was terrible. Just rewatched X3 for the first time since it was in theatres; had a great setup but once Cyclops died the entire movie went downhill (not saying his death was what made it go downhill, just where it started).

Origins took the story and ****ed it in the ******* with a ****-caked trident.

Other than that, I found it enjoyable.

I only said it had a few good things. Liev Schrieber being one of them. Scott Adkins doing martial arts was the other.

This is good logic, no sarcasm

However, I gaurantee you George Lucas doesn't know squat about the EU or Kotor, except for the fact that it earns him money, and would never have thought of this as you do.

I wish the kotor stories were condensed into movies, at least the first one and then added onto that

As someone who doesn't know the actual story, nor care about it, that wasn't a problem for me
I didn't like that Deadpool thing at the end, but that's because I know of the actual Deadpool, and when they first uttered the words "Deadpool" they had me excited for a moment

That wasn't Deadpool at the end, though. Anyone who says different is wrong. It's just another iteration into the weapon plus line of supersoldiers. They refer to him as The Deadpool supposedly because of the fact that the powers to dead mutants have been pooled together to make him.

It was lame as hell, if you ask me. The character deserves better, and Ryan Reynolds had said that he wanted to do a standalone flick, which I would have supported. But now he's doing Green Lantern, which will likely make a great deal of money considering it looks ****ing awesome. So I can't really agree with the same actor playing two titular characters in major superhero movies.

I know some people have the same problem with Chris Evans playing Captain America as well as Johnny Storm, and to that I say **** those Fantastic Four movies. He looks badass as Cap.

EDIT: Apparently the Deadpool movie is moving forward with Reynolds still attached to play the role. So we'll all just have to deal with Ryan Reynolds being Hal Jordan and Wade Wilson. No real big deal to me considering Deadpool is such a dramatically different character.

EDIT #2: And if you really take issue with it, name someone more suited to play either character. On one hand you have a cocky test pilot and on the other hand you have the "merc with a mouth."