Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

[JOE SOAP]

It doesn't really make much sense to break a six part story in the middle with a conclusion of sorts.

Why on earth not. The original trilogy did not lack a 'beginning of sorts' or it wouldn't have stood along. Luke's story is very much a 'new beginning'. The episode's title 'A New Hope' even says it explicitly. It makes total sense for a new beginning to follow a previous conclusion.

because the very act of deciding to make the prequels and finally going with the eps 1-6 thing suggests the need for continuity of story, which continued with the twins who are the bridge for both trilogies.

A New Hope also suggests that things ended badly in the previous trilogy, so nothing wrong with a dark ending there, keeping with continuity.

[JOE SOAP]

Nonetheless, I think most people prefer upbeat endings, and in general they sell better.

Yet Empire is almost universally preferred to Star Wars.

Are you saying the ending of Empire isn't upbeat? They escaped Darth Vader's trap! Okay so Han is taken prisoner by Jabba, and Luke has to deal with the fact that Vader's his father. Big deal... they still got almost clean away from a trap which should have destroyed them utterly. They survived their darkest hour almost completely intact. Pretty upbeat ending if you ask me.

just like the twins escaped in ROTS balancing Anakin's turn, pretty upbeat too.

[Mark Taylor]

It doesn't really make much sense to break a six part story in the middle with a conclusion of sorts.

Why on earth not. The original trilogy did not lack a 'beginning of sorts' or it wouldn't have stood along. Luke's story is very much a 'new beginning'. The episode's title 'A New Hope' even says it explicitly. It makes total sense for a new beginning to follow a previous conclusion.

because the very act of deciding to make the prequels and finally going with the eps 1-6 thing suggests the need for continuity of story, which continued with the twins who are the bridge for both trilogies.

A New Hope also suggests that things ended badly in the previous trilogy, so nothing wrong with a dark ending there, keeping with continuity.

You can't have a satisfactory conclusion in a prequel and still have continuity of story to what follows? News to me. It has been done plenty of times before.

[Mark Taylor]

Nonetheless, I think most people prefer upbeat endings, and in general they sell better.

Yet Empire is almost universally preferred to Star Wars.

Are you saying the ending of Empire isn't upbeat? They escaped Darth Vader's trap! Okay so Han is taken prisoner by Jabba, and Luke has to deal with the fact that Vader's his father. Big deal... they still got almost clean away from a trap which should have destroyed them utterly. They survived their darkest hour almost completely intact. Pretty upbeat ending if you ask me.

just like the twins escaped in ROTS balancing Anakin's turn, pretty upbeat too.

The twins are not even born yet, the audience has no emotional investment in them whatsoever (not without leaning once again on the OT, anyway). This is completely different to the ending of Empire, in which the main protagonists largely succeed, albeit with a few more scars than previously.

[TordelBack]

Empire Strikes Back is resolutely downbeat:

- The rebels are driven from Hoth in a virtual rout.  Do we see any signs that Veer's walker is slowed one whit in its journey towards the shield generator?  Only the planetary ion cannon gives any account of itself.

- Luke fails most of the tasks he is set while on Dagobah, and then fails to complete his training, supposedly ending the hopes of the Jedi (retrospectively we learn that this is the decision on which the fate of the galaxy turns, and how Luke transcends his flawed mentors, but that's by no means clear at the time).

- Luke finds out his father is a galactic mass-murdering Lord of the Sith, not a "cunning warrior, and a good friend", that Ben has lied to him from day one, gets soundly beaten loses his hand.

- Han is shipped off to Jabba the Hutt and who-knows what awful fate.

A chance escape courtesy of R2, and getting a robotic hand fitted hardly counts as an upbeat ending!


EDIT:  Ewoks were a much better choice than Wookiees.  

EDITY EDIT:

The twins are not even born yet, the audience has no emotional investment in them whatsoever (not without leaning once again on the OT, anyway).

The fate of Anakin and Padme's unborn child(ren) is the whole driving force behind  the last two-thirds of the film.  They didn't have to appear on screen for the audience to be invested in them.

[Roger Godpleton]

It fucking sucks.

[JOE SOAP]

You can't have a satisfactory conclusion in a prequel and still have continuity of story to what follows? News to me. It has been done plenty of times before.

It's not an absolute conclusion -they rarely exist- and was never meant to be but you can conclude that the Jedi are finished and the emperor has installed himself. Making value judgments about what should be happy, upbeat story points etc. is rather beside the point and is demographics rather than drama. The New Hope is born in Ep 3, I see no problem.

The twins are not even born yet, the audience has no emotional investment in them whatsoever (not without leaning once again on the OT, anyway).

They are the progeny of the queen and Anakin, both central characters. I think it's fair to say that any reasonable person will have sympathy for the survival of children in a precarious situtation especially helpless infants of the main characters, it's human nature.

It's not leaning on the OT either, it's setting it up the next eps of a six film story after all. The problem is still execution rather than basic content. I think if the execution of these stories had been satisfying dramatically we wouldn't be arguing these points.

[Mark Taylor]

Empire Strikes Back is resolutely downbeat:

- The rebels are driven from Hoth in a virtual rout.  Do we see any signs that Veer's walker is slowed one whit in its journey towards the shield generator?  Only the planetary ion cannon gives any account of itself.

- Luke fails most of the tasks he is set while on Dagobah, and then fails to complete his training, supposedly ending the hopes of the Jedi (retrospectively we learn that this is the decision on which the fate of the galaxy turns, and how Luke transcends his flawed mentors, but that's by no means clear at the time).

- Luke finds out his father is a galactic mass-murdering Lord of the Sith, not a "cunning warrior, and a good friend", that Ben has lied to him from day one, gets soundly beaten loses his hand.

- Han is shipped off to Jabba the Hutt and who-knows what awful fate.

A chance escape courtesy of R2, and getting a robotic hand fitted hardly counts as an upbeat ending!


EDIT:  Ewoks were a much better choice than Wookiees.  

EDITY EDIT:

The twins are not even born yet, the audience has no emotional investment in them whatsoever (not without leaning once again on the OT, anyway).

The fate of Anakin and Padme's unborn child(ren) is the whole driving force behind  the last two-thirds of the film.  They didn't have to appear on screen for the audience to be invested in them.

Not much to say on Empire other than I totally disagree. The characters are in a hopeless situation earlier in the movie - they escape it. A definite upswing as far as they are concerned. Luke's failure on Dagobah is more than balanced by his successful resistance to Vader's attempts to turn him. The final note of the film is a hopeful one as Lando and Chewbacca depart to look for Han Solo, reasonably confident they can rescue him. And with good reason - they've just gone up against the Empire, a local crime lord on a backwater planet is small potatoes in comparison. As for Hoth, the rebels escape with their fleet mostly intact. Yay them. The empire's attempt to 'strike back' has brought about some tough times from the rebels, but on the whole has largely been a failure.

As for the twins - sorry, didn't work for me. The film still centered on Anakin and his unconvincing transition to the dark side.

[JOE SOAP]

Not much to say on Empire other than I totally disagree. The characters are in a hopeless situation earlier in the movie - they escape it. A definite upswing as far as they are concerned. Luke's failure on Dagobah is more than balanced by his successful resistance to Vader's attempts to turn him. The final note of the film is a hopeful one as Lando and Chewbacca depart to look for Han Solo, reasonably confident they can rescue him.

Luke, the central character, finding out Vader is his father is definitely emotionally downbeat for his character. He has just been told his whole life up till then is a lie.

As for the twins - sorry, didn't work for me. The film still centered on Anakin and his unconvincing transition to the dark side.

That's all unfortunately a problem of writing, directing and acting rather than story points.

[Mark Taylor]

As for the twins - sorry, didn't work for me. The film still centered on Anakin and his unconvincing transition to the dark side.

That's all unfortunately a problem of writing, directing and acting rather than story points.

A matter of opinion. Clearly we aren't going to convince each other so I say lets agree to disagree on this point.

[JOE SOAP]

I think we can agree they are badly crafted stories.

[dweezil2]

I'm no fan of the prequels, but fuck me if I'm not having that Blu-ray set when it's out in September.

I just have to admit it-George Lucas owns my soul!

[vzzbux]

I'm no fan of the prequels, but fuck me if I'm not having that Blu-ray set when it's out in September.

I just have to admit it-George Lucas owns my soul!

Out in September?
I'm there. But only if it is the all singing, all dancing, 20,000,000 disc, six film set with extras.



V

[locustsofdeath!]

I'm no fan of the prequels, but fuck me if I'm not having that Blu-ray set when it's out in September.

Then just buy the OT on blu ray...ah, but that won't be so simple anymore. Lucas has deftly ensured that the next generation of Star Wars fans CANNOT watch the OT as a stand-alone trilogy; by adding Hayden Christiansen to the end of Jedi and Jimmy Smits to ANH and other, similar, tinkerings a new viewer would have to have seen the PT to even know these people are. A few years ago my friend showed his girlfriend - who had recently come to the States from Laos and had never seen Star Wars - the OT (he's not a fan of the PT) and when Hayden showed up at the end of Jedi she had to ask who the hell he was!

I would never tell someone not to like the PT. I hate it, I think it's terrible filmmaking - I also dislike the new versions of the OT because the new stuff just doesn't mesh with the old to my eyes. I'm not sure why Lucas won't give us cleaned up remastered versions of the unaltered original films - I have a feeling that no one would care one way or the other about how much he tinkers with the movies if Lucas gave us the choice of the version we'd like to buy.

He's a weirdo.

[Mardroid]

I would never tell someone not to like the PT. I hate it, I think it's terrible filmmaking - I also dislike the new versions of the OT because the new stuff just doesn't mesh with the old to my eyes.

I think the extra stuff fits pretty well with The Empire Strikes Back. It certainly adds to the Bespin sequence without distracting. The Hoth stuff was mainly cleaning up, which worked well. (I'll admit I didn't notice the problems speeder cockpit frame transparency issue until pointed out to me by the documentary, but it looked good.)

I can understand people being miffed by the extra dinosaurs in Star Wars and the dance number in Jedi... although they didn't bother me much.

As for Anakin turning to the dark Side in Revenge of the Sith, I didn't mind the way it happened.[spoiler] I quite liked the fact it's his own prophetic dreams concerning the death of Padme and his wish to save her that turn him to the dark side. (And the ironic twist that his turn to the dark side actually caused the event he was trying to prevent.*)[/spoiler] There are major pacing issues though. [spoiler]His intentions were good, after all, so seeing him wipe out a bunch of kids just because the Emperor told him too was a stretch too far too fast.[/spoiler]

*[spoiler]Dying of a broken heart while giving birth though? They could have come up with something better than that. I can believe that emotional depression can affect ones physical well-being but not that quickly. Something more drawn out would explain Leia's memories of her mother too. I know they're going with 'it's her adoptive mother' now, and that does fit, but, I think the other works better.[/spoiler]