I would suggest to you that nothing was done in the prequels without Lucas’s approval. Part of a boss’s job is to hire the right people and trust their judgment, and you have to admit that when it comes to sound, Lucas hired the right guy and let him run with it.
Word. The guy’s a frickin’ genius and in 1977 practically invented sound design in the first place - R2D2, anyone? He also edited the prequels - I don’t know any other major film where someone did both of those together. Even more impressive as sound and picture editing both pretty much have to happen at the same time, it’s not like he was a production designer or similar.
Oh, dear god, the horror! I hadn’t even thought of that. (Maybe Han Solo’s mother and Padme could have been BFFs or something…)
Thank you. Sorry I got irritated so easily.
There was a Milenium Falcon sighting at some point though, but I don’t remember seeing where.
I find it quite depressing to watch behind the scenes footage of the prequels as it becomes quite evident very, very quickly how Lucas was surrounded by Yes-men. Everyone seems to hang on his every word like he’s the son of God, I can’t imagine anyone at any point saying to him “no George, that is a bad idea”.
Mr. Plinkett features that quite a bit. I mean, during Phantom Menace, Lucas clearly has actual doubts about the original edit. I mean, too many things were happening, too many people/ideas were introduced, and it’s a jumbled mess. Lucas can see it, but no one pushed hard enough for him to take radical steps to re-work it.
Phantom Menace could have been re-edited, reworked(with additional shooting) into a passable movie.
I have to say, I like the opening of the movie. Qui-Gon stabbing his saber in that door and all that was cool. It fell apart once Jar-Jar was introduced.
It’s here. Episode III. I thought it was good subtle throwback to the originals. Easy to defend as an addition as it could just be another YT-1300. Could be Han’s baby though. The Falcon is, after all, quite old when Solo gets his hands on it.
He ended them.
The editing of the behind the scenes footage in the Redmedialetter video is awesome. The face they make when they see the very first rough cut (incidentally I think the very same thing happened either on NEw Hope or Return of the Jedi where Lucas showed a more advanced editing ane the whole crew laughed as it was so frantic and overpaced that it became comical. Apparently he didi it again on Phantom Menace).
Anyone knows what’s the name of that prequel making off? I’d really like to watch it, dont know if it’s available on youtube.
IIRC there’s a rather long one one on the TPM DVD. I’m visiting my parents in the UK right now so can’t check my DVDs but Wikipedia says:
I’ve got a weird feeling that a lot of stuff that had previously been on starwars.com is on there as well.
Yeah, it’s the one on the Phantom Menace DVD. Seriously, it was an excellent making of, much better than the movie.
I noticed when Episodes 2 and 3 came out, they contained a lot less detailed documentaries on the making of. No full access filming showing the struggles and doubts of the filmmakers.
I wonder why. 
Ha thanks Mahaloth and Amanset, I’ve just put you in my will.
Now, the tricky part, get a hand on the making off without buying that pos of Phantom Menace.
I trust you’re not leaving me a Phantom Menace DVD? 
What did I like? The CGI visuals were incredible. I hadn’t thought about the sound track before now, but thinking back it’s good.
The one subtle plot point in TPM was that Palpatine/Darth Sidious was manipulating both sides against each other and their interests, to advance his interests. You may legitimately think it wasn’t all that subtle, but consider what the director who insisted Jar-Jar Binks was a good idea (:rolleyes: * 3 trilogies) could have done with the concept. Instead, the phrase “phantom menace” was never uttered in the film.
What else was good - not much. 
There’s a deleted scene in AOTC where Padme and Anakin stop st her parents’ house on their way to hide out. As I recall, Padme’s sister comments how handsome Anakin is, and you can see Padme checking out Anakin’s butt. This is the only scene that sets up Padme falling for Anakin for any reason other than the pre-determined story arc. Lucas left this on the cutting room floor. Lucas could easily have trimmed a few minutes to include this scene, as it was crucial to the believability of the plot.
Another thought: Anakin and Padme have a fling while hiding out in the most romantic location in the galaxy. Padme understands that a long term relationship would be bad for both of them, and breaks it off. Anakin can’t deal with this and stalks Padme, but only at a rom-com level so the audience is still somewhat on his side. Then Ani learns that he knocked up Padme, and she still wants nothing to do with him. The Jedi Council punish him for his relationship - rules are rules after all, and that rule is there for good reason. Ani’s mentor and friend Palpatine is there to help …
Lucas hasn’t made a “Star Wars Holiday” TV special of the prequels. Yet.
He also cast Brian Blessed in “Phantom Menace” and hopefully he got a nice check for that.
As Lucas and his minions admit, there really wasn’t anything they could do at that point; taking out stuff would have just made the movie even more incoherent. I believe that at that point they were long past the opportunity to re-shoot.
As irritating as Jar-Jar is, that character really doesn’t have a lot to do with why it’s a bad movie. The film is weak as hell before Jar-Jar shows up.
Would it have been a better movie without Jar-Jar? Nah, not really. It would have been a bit less overtly stupid, but the story and characters still wouldn’t make sense.
So today I was re-watching I and II and it occurred to me AGAIN… Why the fuck did no one go buy Shmi from Watto? Sure, they only had Republic credits in I, but with all the Jedi resources, with all of Naboo’s resources, they couldn’t find something to get her out of slavery after the blockade was cleared?
Watto lost everything in the pod race. He was broke. It wouldn’t have taken much money.
And Shmi didn’t have to be part of Anakin’s life or anything. Just get her out of slavery so maybe the fear everyone sense in him would have abated.
If Shmi had been purchased at fire-sale prices from Watto and was just doing housekeeping for the Senate on Coruscant, then Anakin wouldn’t have had to slaughter the Sand People and maybe he wouldn’t have turned to the dark side.
(But like I said upthread. I liked the prequels. This one plot point just got on my nerves today and I saw this thread and figured I’d post it)
The great areana battle. Wow.
I was talking about that with my wife. I do enjoy it, but I still like the Death Star attack, the Hoth battle, and the Jedi Death Star sequence better because they looked more real. I wish they had used their computers to make ships that looked like the models in the first movies and then made them do all those cool things at the end of AOTC.
I like that sequence, but it just seems to computery for me.
Yeah wow, Jedis with only melee weapons attacking an enemy vastly superior in number equiped with area based missile weapons, therefore impossible to parry. Way to shit all over the Jedi myth (lets add a shitting on the Fetts with Jango being at least as clumsy as his “son” in RotJ).
There’s something very true in the redletter analysis, that Jedi knights and laser swords looked so much cooler in the Original trilogy because doing the effects was so tedious that they only whipped out the swords when it was strictly necessary.
Less is more.