Star Wars prequels. Would the have been better if Episode I was replaced?

[Yumblie]

@dracoi

By the way, my biggest idea for salvaging TPM: it needs to be a movie about Kenobi, primarily. It needs to explain the ghost-Kenobi’s confession on Degobah (“I thought I could train Anakin better than Yoda” etc.) That Degobah confession is actually contradicted by most of the prequels - there’s never a Yoda/Kenobi conflict about training Anakin and no real indication that some failing of Kenobi’s lead to Anakin’s fall. (Perhaps Lucas intended to show this and it was just lost in all the ham-handed dialogue and acting, but it was certainly not made clear.) So TPM should have been an in-depth character study of Kenobi’s transition from apprentice to master, and it needs to clearly set up everything that follows.

I rewatched the OT recently, and yeah, there’s an interesting story hinted at regarding Obi-Wan’s past that is weirdly ignored in the prequels. Luke is impulsive and impatient (“Was I any different, when you taught me?”) and too old to begin training (“So was I, if you remember…”).

I get that Lucas wanted to show Anakin face the same temptations as Luke and ultimately fail, so there’s much higher stakes when we see Luke overcome the temptation. But I feel like skipping over all of Obi-Wan’s training was a big missed opportunity, and could have had some parallels with Luke’s story.

[gonzoron]

@dracoi

By the way, my biggest idea for salvaging TPM: it needs to be a movie about Kenobi, primarily. It needs to explain the ghost-Kenobi’s confession on Degobah (“I thought I could train Anakin better than Yoda” etc.) That Degobah confession is actually contradicted by most of the prequels - there’s never a Yoda/Kenobi conflict about training Anakin and no real indication that some failing of Kenobi’s lead to Anakin’s fall. (Perhaps Lucas intended to show this and it was just lost in all the ham-handed dialogue and acting, but it was certainly not made clear.) So TPM should have been an in-depth character study of Kenobi’s transition from apprentice to master, and it needs to clearly set up everything that follows.

This.

I recently watched the original trilogy with my daughters for their first time, and my first time watching them in full in maybe 10 or 15 years (certainly my first time since seeing ROTS). The thing that struck me most is how little the prequels fit with what scant info we’re given of that time in the OT.

There’s nothing in the prequels about Kenobi thinking himself a better teacher than Yoda. No indication that Obiwan was “amazed how strongly the Force was with him”. (It was Qui-gon who measured his midi… oh, I can’t even say it with a straight face.) There’s very little of Anakin being “a good friend” to Obiwan (a few buddy-type scenes, but mostly they just bicker). There’s no way for Leia to have remembered her mother as “kind but sad”. (and if you fanwank that her force-sensitivity let her form memories as a newborn, why couldn’t Luke do the same?) There’s no reason for Obiwan to believe Anakin would want Luke to have his saber. There’s no reason for Beru to think “there’s too much of his father” in Luke, nor for Owen to fear it, nor for him to not “hold with [Anakin’s] ideals” and think that “he should’ve stayed here and not gotten involved.” No reason for Owen to think anything at all about Obiwan’s “damn fool idealistic crusades.” There’s no reason for Obiwan to think Luke is the last hope or for Yoda to tell him “there is another,” as though he didn’t know it already.

I’ve been a prequel apologist for years now, and all it took was one time back through the OT to see how it all falls apart.

[RickJay]

@dracoi

The other two movies are OK. Not good, but OK. I think of them like Saturday morning cartoons. Removing TPM won’t salvage them, but removing TPM from any collection will improve the overall quality.

I must respectfully disagree; “Attack of the Clones” is a positively dreadful movie, and “Revenge of the Sith” is very bad. I’d agree “Phantom Menace” is worse still, but if you (which I wouldn’t, but let’s play) put all movies on a scale from 0 to 100, with that “Room” movie being a zero and “The Godfather” being a 100, Phanotm Menace would be about a 15, Attack of the Clones is a 20, and Revenge of the Sith is maybe a 30.

In terms of what one NEEDS for enjoying Star Wars, really none of the prequels need be watched at all. TPM is totally irrelevant and more or less superseded by Attack of the Clones, but you don’t really need Clones or Sith at all. I can’t think of any reason to watch them again and they’re completely unnecessary to understand or enjoy Star Wars and the subsequent “episodes.” If anything, as gonzoron points out, the prequels disagree, often jarringly, with the backstory alluded to in Star Wars and Empire.

In the thread about why Star Wars rocks one really good point made was that Star Wars puts the viewer into the middle of a remarkably real-seeming universe but really keeps the backstory down to the absolute minimum. Once you’re done with the opening crawl, the backstory is limited to Obi-Wan’s exposition and snippets of dialogue where the character is speaking as if you should know this already. When Tarkin announces that the Emperor has dissolved the Senate, that tells you precisely as much as you need to know; the Empire is now absolute, the Death Star is his means of controlling everything, and Princess Leia, who you know is a member of the Senate, is screwed. All of that is communicated in like ten seconds. Darth Vader’s history is “he killed all the Jedi. including Luke’s father” and boom, you’re done, until the reveal at the end of Empire. You don’t NEED to spell out the entire history of the Republic becoming the Empire; it just happened, and it’s bad. If you’re a kid you understand that’s bad, and if you’re an adult you also sort of get the feeling that these people live in a civilization that is very exhausted and unfriendly and industrial. Your brain can fill in all the blanks.

The prequels come kick all the fill-in you did yourself, and in some cases do so in a way that totally contradicts that’s later said and requires either fanwanking or just pretending stuff didn’t happen, or assuming people are big fat liars in contexts where that makes no sense at all.

[QUOTE=Buck Godot]
Aside from Jar Jar, who was annoyance personified, it was basically a middle of the road three out of five star sci fi flick, but for those who waited in line for days to get it must have appeared as a crime against humanity.
[/QUOTE]

I’d have to strongly disagree. It isn’t a good movie at all - there is, basically, nothing good about it - and had it not been a Star Wars film would have been laughed out of the theatres in two weeks and lost a fortune. “Cowboys and Aliens” was a much better picture.

[Richard_John_Marcej]

My biggest problem with the there prequels isn’t the story or even Jar Jar Binks.
It’s the HORRIBLE Casting.
If there was ever proof needed to present how poor/bad casting will do for a film, it’s right there in the prequels.

Let’s face it, the first three films have one basic function. Show how a seemingly good boy/young man was turned over into the dark side of the force. Right? To REALLY show the impact of Vadar turning on the emperor in “Return of the Jedi” we have to witness his progression from a good man to the most evil (well, I guess second most to the Emperor) man in the galaxy.

To evoke that Lucas, despite some cheesy, awkward dialogue, needed two actors to portray that painful transformation. So who did he hire?
Jake Lloyd, a child actor who was a poster child for bad child actors. Every one of his line readings were stiff. I’d heard better from local kids at high school plays.
But, perhaps a worst hiring of Lloyd, was that of
Hayden Christensen. Wow… was he awful. This actor needed to show this transition. He needed to allow the audience to like him, to be on his side (even though we all knew how it would turn out). Instead, Christensen’s Anakin is whiney, annoying and petulant. I couldn’t wait to see him get chopped up!

Would the films had been any netter had Lucas made better cast choices?
We’ll never know. Though I wish we had the opportunity to find out.

[Richard_John_Marcej]

@RickJay

I must respectfully disagree; “Attack of the Clones” is a positively dreadful movie, and “Revenge of the Sith” is very bad. I’d agree “Phantom Menace” is worse still, but if you (which I wouldn’t, but let’s play) put all movies on a scale from 0 to 100, with that “Room” movie being a zero and “The Godfather” being a 100, Phanotm Menace would be about a 15, Attack of the Clones is a 20, and Revenge of the Sith is maybe a 30.

Wait a minute. I agree with just about everything you wrote in your post, but… you can’t possibly be saying that Abrahamson’s adaptation of the amazing book, “Room” is a ZERO. would you??? That… that just makes no sense. Good lord, that film is filled with amazing performances with a story that kicks you right in the gut! One of 2015’s best!

[TroutMan]

@Richard_John_Marcej

My biggest problem with the there prequels isn’t the story or even Jar Jar Binks.
It’s the HORRIBLE Casting.

I don’t want to defend Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christensen as actors, but it’s more than just casting choices. Natalie Portman is generally regarded as an excellent actress (with a well-deserved Oscar, in fact), yet she was terrible in those movies too. She gave a wooden performance and was completely unbelievable as someone who would fall in love with Anakin. Ewan McGregor is a good actor, and while he did better than Natalie, he didn’t blow people away with his acting chops in TPM or AotC.

I have every reason to believe that those movies would have sucked, if not equally then at least within the margin of error, just as much with better actors in those roles.

[Richard_John_Marcej]

@TroutMan

I don’t want to defend Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christensen as actors, but it’s more than just casting choices. Natalie Portman is generally regarded as an excellent actress (with a well-deserved Oscar, in fact), yet she was terrible in those movies too. She gave a wooden performance and was completely unbelievable as someone who would fall in love with Anakin. Ewan McGregor is a good actor, and while he did better than Natalie, he didn’t blow people away with his acting chops in TPM or AotC.

I have every reason to believe that those movies would have sucked, if not equally then at least within the margin of error, just as much with better actors in those roles.

While that’s true, it’s the character of Anakin that’s so central to the film. All three revolve around him. As you said McGregor and Portman both had to deal with Lucas’s dialogue, and while they weren’t great, they were passable. But they were supporting characters. The lynchpin is Anakin and unless someone can pull it off, no amount of cgi and special effects will save it.

[ISiddiqui]

@RickJay

I must respectfully disagree; “Attack of the Clones” is a positively dreadful movie, and “Revenge of the Sith” is very bad. I’d agree “Phantom Menace” is worse still, but if you (which I wouldn’t, but let’s play) put all movies on a scale from 0 to 100, with that “Room” movie being a zero and “The Godfather” being a 100, Phanotm Menace would be about a 15, Attack of the Clones is a 20, and Revenge of the Sith is maybe a 30.

That “Room” movie which is likely going to be nominated for numerous Oscars (and possibly even Best Picture)? The one with 97% on RottenTomatoes? I think your scale is a bit skewed ;).

Let’s go 0 being “Ishtar” level and 100 being “Godfather, Part 2” level (I preferred 2 to 1). I’d give TPM a 30, AotC a 45, and RotS a 60. I generally think of the prequels as being better than most folks, but people seemingly lose all manner of perspective when it comes to them.

[ISiddiqui]

@TroutMan

I don’t want to defend Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christensen as actors, but it’s more than just casting choices. Natalie Portman is generally regarded as an excellent actress (with a well-deserved Oscar, in fact), yet she was terrible in those movies too. She gave a wooden performance and was completely unbelievable as someone who would fall in love with Anakin. Ewan McGregor is a good actor, and while he did better than Natalie, he didn’t blow people away with his acting chops in TPM or AotC.

I have every reason to believe that those movies would have sucked, if not equally then at least within the margin of error, just as much with better actors in those roles.

I disagree with you on McGregor - I thought he was fantastic in all three of the films. He and McDiarmid were the only ones who were really acting it seemed to me. Portman may be a good actress, but she appeared to be phoning it in (or maybe was told to act wooden, who knows?). Even Neeson and Lee did a decent job.

So while the dialogue was hokey and Lucas’s directing of his actors wasn’t good, it appears the casting was important as well. I think it would have been really interesting if the original rumors of Leonardo diCaprio playing Anakin came to fruition.

[Richard_John_Marcej]

@ISiddiqui

So while the dialogue was hokey and Lucas’s directing of his actors wasn’t good, it appears the casting was important as well. I think it would have been really interesting if the original rumors of Leonardo diCaprio playing Anakin came to fruition.

That would have been interesting!

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Richard_John_Marcej

Hayden Christensen. Wow… was he awful. This actor needed to show this transition. He needed to allow the audience to like him, to be on his side (even though we all knew how it would turn out). Instead, Christensen’s Anakin is whiney, annoying and petulant.

In fairness, you totally believe he’d grow up to father a son who really wants to go to Tosche Station and pick up some power converters.

[Dumbguy]

There are only two solutions for the Prequels:

1. Someone invents some sort of stasis virtual reality like the Matrix and programs the world to be exactly the same as our current reality except George Lucas decided to give up movies in 1982 and become the road manager of Bananarama and then died of a ketamine overdose at a yacht party on a mega-tour with Soft Cell and the Thompson Twins.

2. A meteor the size of Texas.

[Lobohan]

There is no way that Revenge of the Sith is anywhere near a competent movie. It’s the best of the prequels, but still utter trash.

The very plot is incoherent. Obi Wan and Annie’s plan is to fly to Gen. Grievous’ ship and save Palpatine. It turns out that Gen. Grievous has a button he can press that captures Jedis and renders them useless. He almost forgets to press the button!

Then he does press it, and Annie screams, “Oh yeah, that magic force field, how could we forget that!”

Yeah, why are the protagonists so fucking stupid in this movie? Like every meeting at the Jedi Council doesn’t end with, “… and remember, every time you’re in a big ship or large facility, the dude who owns it might fuck you by pressing that Jedi-fucking button. So… you know… just pick your battles, and hope that your R2 is close by and that they don’t immediately kill you.”

And the end fight scene. Obi has higher ground. He’s like a meter higher than Annie on a gentle slope.

They were just fighting while back-flipping off collapsing towers. They had a hover-skateboard fight over lava. And being one meter higher on a 22° incline is an insurmountable advantage?

And, “She’s lost the will to live.” Oh yeah? Then fucking intubate her you fucking dipshit.

AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!11111one

[gonzoron]

@Richard_John_Marcej

Jake Lloyd, a child actor who was a poster child for bad child actors. Every one of his line readings were stiff. I’d heard better from local kids at high school plays.
But, perhaps a worst hiring of Lloyd, was that of
Hayden Christensen. Wow… was he awful. This actor needed to show this transition. He needed to allow the audience to like him, to be on his side (even though we all knew how it would turn out). Instead, Christensen’s Anakin is whiney, annoying and petulant. I couldn’t wait to see him get chopped up!

This wasn’t my idea originally, but the prequels would have been immeasurably better just by ageing Anakin up ten years or so throughout. Even if it just meant that Christiansen was in TPM and another actor in the other two. I mean, wouldn’t a teenager working on a hot rod in his spare time and racing against his mother’s wishes make more sense than an 8 year old doing the same? And it makes the romance less icky. And it means he actually has time as an adult jedi before falling to the dark side, making it seem less like a foolish teenage whim.

(Going by actors’ ages he was 24 in ROTS, though still seems immature like a teen. Sebastian Shaw was 78 in ROTJ! and Hamill was 32. Where did those 22 years go? Sure, an actor can play a few years older or younger, but come on… wouldn’t becoming Vader in his 40’s make for a better story than in his 20’s?)

[Richard_John_Marcej]

@gonzoron

This wasn’t my idea originally, but the prequels would have been immeasurably better just by ageing Anakin up ten years or so throughout. Even if it just meant that Christiansen was in TPM and another actor in the other two. I mean, wouldn’t a teenager working on a hot rod in his spare time and racing against his mother’s wishes make more sense than an 8 year old doing the same? And it makes the romance less icky. And it means he actually has time as an adult jedi before falling to the dark side, making it seem less like a foolish teenage whim.

(Going by actors’ ages he was 24 in ROTS, though still seems immature like a teen. Sebastian Shaw was 78 in ROTJ! and Hamill was 32. Where did those 22 years go? Sure, an actor can play a few years older or younger, but come on… wouldn’t becoming Vader in his 40’s make for a better story than in his 20’s?)

Well, if I can be cynical here, I think we all know why they went with a kid for the first film. Selling the next generation of Star wars fans with a kid as the lead. That;s how Marketing minds think. And if that’s the reason why, we’re all the worse for it.

[Lobohan]

@gonzoron

This wasn’t my idea originally, but the prequels would have been immeasurably better just by ageing Anakin up ten years or so throughout. Even if it just meant that Christiansen was in TPM and another actor in the other two. I mean, wouldn’t a teenager working on a hot rod in his spare time and racing against his mother’s wishes make more sense than an 8 year old doing the same? And it makes the romance less icky. And it means he actually has time as an adult jedi before falling to the dark side, making it seem less like a foolish teenage whim.

(Going by actors’ ages he was 24 in ROTS, though still seems immature like a teen. Sebastian Shaw was 78 in ROTJ! and Hamill was 32. Where did those 22 years go? Sure, an actor can play a few years older or younger, but come on… wouldn’t becoming Vader in his 40’s make for a better story than in his 20’s?)

Yeah, no doubt. The child Vader was a terrible decision. The idea that several adults thought it was cool for an 8 year old to enter a race where many participants die (and it’s evidently okay to throw garbage into an opponent’s turbine), makes them all seem stupid.

[Death_of_Rats]

@Richard_John_Marcej

While that’s true, it’s the character of Anakin that’s so central to the film. All three revolve around him. As you said McGregor and Portman both had to deal with Lucas’s dialogue, and while they weren’t great, they were passable. But they were supporting characters. The lynchpin is Anakin and unless someone can pull it off, no amount of cgi and special effects will save it.

The problem with that is the Hayden Christensen gave Lucas *exactly *what he wanted in that performance. Even a better actor would have been directed the same.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Richard_John_Marcej

While that’s true, it’s the character of Anakin that’s so central to the film. All three revolve around him. As you said McGregor and Portman both had to deal with Lucas’s dialogue, and while they weren’t great, they were passable. But they were supporting characters. The lynchpin is Anakin and unless someone can pull it off, no amount of cgi and special effects will save it.

Actually, the comments in this thread have got me wondering about that.

Like the man said, the bit in EMPIRE where Yoda is gently reminded of Obi-Wan’s shortcomings as a student back when kinda falls short in the prequels. And, likewise, it’s not Obi-Wan who wanted to train Anakin over Yoda’s objections; it was Qui-Gon.

So imagine Ewan McGregor, still doing a dead-on impression but in full-on dick mode, doing everything Qui-Gon does: he tries to mind-control Watto, he shrugs and moves on to cheating at dice as Plan B; and he tells lies to better gamble at the races, and upon winning a slave he recklessly decides to train that kid even though Yoda wisely advises against it.

And now imagine that guy – ignoring authority, mind-controlling people as Plan A, lying and cheating and doing as he sees fit as Plan B – is the one who does a half-assed job of teaching the kid what’s what, and maybe looks the other way when his pupil seems smitten with the hot chick they’re bodyguarding.

'Cos he’s reckless and kinda freewheeling and does whatever seems like a good idea at the time, y’know? But he’s a three-dimensional character: lazy but manipulative, on the side of good but willing to take shortcuts: a guy who’s always had stuff work out for him, a guy who decades later will be lying his ass off to Luke before mesmerizing some stormtroopers – but who, in these prequels, is basically in over his head trying to work that devil-may-care schtick with a kid in desperate need of self-control.

So Obi-Wan, not Anakin, is the guy we watch screwing up in slow-motion during the prequels. (I mean, yeah, Anakin screws up too, but Obi-Wan is center stage.)

[Nonsuch]

@Miller

Overall, while Phantom Menace is bad, it’s mostly Hollywood Blockbuster bad. Attack of the Clones is bad-bad. If you gave Roger Corman a bottomless barrel of money, he would make Phantom Menace. If you gave Coleman Francis a bottomless barrel of money, he would make Attack of the Clones.

A Roger Corman Phantom Menace would have been infinitely preferable. At least there’d have been tits in it.

[garygnu]

@ISiddiqui

That “Room” movie which is likely going to be nominated for numerous Oscars (and possibly even Best Picture)? The one with 97% on RottenTomatoes? I think your scale is a bit skewed ;).

Let’s go 0 being “Ishtar” level and 100 being “Godfather, Part 2” level (I preferred 2 to 1). I’d give TPM a 30, AotC a 45, and RotS a 60. I generally think of the prequels as being better than most folks, but people seemingly lose all manner of perspective when it comes to them.

He probably is referring to Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room” from 2003. Widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made.