This is especially evident when you watch the Clone Wars miniseries by Genndy Tartakovsky. Tartakovsky is ten times the storyteller Lucas is, and he has absolutely no trouble portraying Anakin as a skilled, heroic Jedi Knight who has internal demons, along with Obi-Wan as a too-stern but caring mentor. Anakin is very much a sympathetic and even likable character in the miniseries.
First, a relevant *Spaced *clip.
Second, in watching the Youtube review with Dark2Phoenix, we distilled out (through much debate) an idea about (one reason) why the prequels are so bad. George has had decades of immersion in his Star Wars universe. He had the original ideas, and presumably nitpicky fanboys have been asking for more and more details. As a result, instead of building a story around characters, Lucas essentially filmed some encyclopedia entries about his world. Watching it is like reading a bad history textbook - lists of names and events, with nothing to connect to.
And of course there will always be a few people who are so obsessed about a subject that reading an encyclopedia entry about it is fascinating, and a few people who can appreciate the story behind the entry on its own merits. But most people need an engaging story.
The proof of how bad Lucas is as a story-teller is to look at the Extended Universe materials produced by others. A large percentage of it is excellent, and the majority is very good at least. So it isn’t the fault of the material. Lucas should have hung it up after Jedi and just watched the money roll in. Instead, he set out to piss on everything he had created.
Lucas didn’t start talking about this stuff in any sort of meaningful way until after “Star Wars” hit paydirt. It wasn’t called “Episode IV” that night you saw it. They came up with that afterwards, when the dollars were mounting up and it was obvious Star Wars was a goldmine.
While I’d agree that “Return of the Jedi” wasn’t a very good movie, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as any of the prequels, for (I hate to admit) all the reasons cited by the 70-Minute-Review guy:
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For better or for worse, ROTJ had a coherent story. It wasn’t very good, and it did have some plot holes, but it wasn’t just flatly stupid and illogical the way “The Phantom Menace” was.
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The core group of characters remained pretty good, although Lando had no clear purpose.
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The light saber duel was great.
You really aren’t missing anything.
No clear purpose? My god, man, it’s Billy Dee! He doesn’t need a purpose!
Return of the Jedi would have been redeemed in many peoples’ eyes if they’d made one change: instead of Endor, use Kashyyyk, and instead of Ewoks, use Wookiees. Instead of C-3PO telling a childrens’ story, have Chewie, Han, and Leia plead with the village of Wookiees to rise up against their Imperial subjugators, talking to them as adults. It loses the cute factor many people seem to hate and would have added extra depth and meaning to the location without changing the core story at all. I know they originally wanted to use Wookiees, and they should have stuck with it.
Honestly, though, I don’t have a real problem with ROTJ. Despite its faults, it’s still Star Wars.
I would have liked a Kashyyyk storyline. Maybe there could be some sort of conflict between Chewie and some of his elders as to whether or not they should take any action.
My own idea (though I think I like yours better) would be to introduce a species that was still primitive, but primitive because of tradition, rather than lack of intelligence or technology. They could have a sort of mystic culture, with abilities that turn out to be Force manipulation, only under a different name. That way Leia could develop some sort of connection with them, and possibly some of her own Jedi powers (though not to the point where she’s throwing things around with her mind). Then when the final battle of Endor comes, the natives, who are normally fearful and reclusive, are persuaded to help Han, Leia and the gang using their Force abilities. It would be a species LIKE the Ewoks, only less cutesy and clumsy. The problem, though, is that if the species were Force-users, then Vader would probably have sensed something coming from them and had them all killed.
But I agree, I liked RotJ. One thing it did really, really right was the final lightsaber battle. I gotta admit, the music playing in the background when Luke really starts hacking away at Vader still gives me chills. And the 70-minute review gave me a whole new perspective on it: the fact that Luke’s fighting was becoming very unsophisticated and aggressive because of his anger. The special effects weren’t as great as in the prequels, but the emotion in the original trilogy’s fight scenes trumps those of the prequels any day of the week.
I dunno, I just think it’s the wrong way to approach something like Star Wars. There are many possible interesting, emotionally complex stories where a good kid goes bad. To me, though, Star Wars is a story with good guys vs bad guys. We know the empire is bad because it’s run by a man in a pitch black mechanical suit who chokes people that piss him off, and a cloaked wizard who shoots lightning from his hands. The troops in the empire all wear masks, making them a faceless enemy. Their craft have aggressive names like Star Destroyer and Death Star. They blow up entire planets purely as a political move. There really isn’t much room for nuance here. The prequel trilogy tried to inject nuance into a fable that doesn’t have any room for it, and it did it badly.
Bumped to give Bijou Drains a space to rant about people who didn’t like the last 3 movies.
Can I get a gold star for having a stalker following me around?
As for SW episodes 7-9 if you did not like them then off with your head!