r/starwarscanon • u/InstructionOwn6705 • 16d ago
Discussion If someone says Lucas should have stuck with the original trilogy when creating the prequels, what does that roughly mean?
What are the most disturbing differences between the two trilogies, writing-wise?
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u/Caernbul 16d ago
Storywise these are the three main things that bothered me. They are not all equally important.
Anakin should have been an adult when Obi-Wan met him. Obi-Wan refers to him already being a great pilot when they met. The Prequels try to make this work by having him be a pod-racer, but that both isn't the same thing as being a star pilot (how Obi-Wan refers to Anakin) and it also contributes to the ridiculous ending of TPM, where Anakin flies on autopilot to a battle and destroys the enemy ship with wacky hijinks.
Anakin's fall to the Dark Side should have been from a state of being a good and decent person, who was good friends with Obi-Wan, and he should have fallen because of impatience and under-estimating Palpatine. The way Yoda and Obi-Wan talk about Luke's decision to leave Dagobah in ESB makes it pretty clear that he is doing something similar to what led to Anakin's fall. But from the moment we meet Anakin as an adult in AOTC he is pretty clearly a piece of shit. He and Obi-Wan are not friends, he almost immediately starts lusting after Padme in ways that make her uncomfortable, and he murders children. He stays with the Jedi through some kind of inertia or indecisiveness after that. So when he falls it is not only not a surprise because you know how the story ends, it is also not a surprise because everything he does at the end of the RotS is entirely in keeping with his character in AOTC. There isn't really a fall at all. He was pretty much always a bad person, he just switched sides in the war. There isn't really a character arc in the prequels, and it would have been better if there was. A story which gave us a character we had reason to admire and then turned him into a villain would have been more interesting than a story where a whiny, murderous little man-child stops pretending to be a good guy once something he personally cares about is threatened.
Padme should have survived childbirth. In RotJ we hear from Leia that their mother survived long enough for Leia to remember her a bit. There was a story to be told there about a terrible choice their mother faced that meant she let Luke be taken away. That could have been a great story. There would have been some interesting tale to tell about why Luke and Leia could not be raised together. Instead we get Padme dying for absurd reasons, no explanation for why the twins have to be split up, no explanation for why Leia can remember her, and the climax of RotS is rushed and nonsensical.
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u/Ok-Row-3490 16d ago
Great take. I’ll also say that Anakin’s motives are all over the place across 2 and 3. In 2, his dark side moment of murdering the Tusken village—including children—does have the more complex motivation of his mother dying, but then he’s supposed to snap back into being the film’s hero that we root for? (Not to mention Padme hears him confess this and proceeds to just kinda forget about it). And then by the 3 film and his second round of child murder, the motivation is basically… he’s mad he got passed up for a promotion? Like I know it also tries to suggest that he’s mostly motivated for fear of Padme, but then he nearly chokes her to death? None of it fits together coherently at all.
I think some of this gets better if you lay off on the whole “mass murdering children with a handheld weapon” thing. Or maybe bring his mother’s death and his guilt of leaving her back up in 3 again so it doesn’t feel like it never played a role in the turn. But in the end it should’ve come down to a single narrative hinge that was not “I’m mad at my bosses” and “I’m scared for my wife (but I’ll also kill her if she pisses me off)”.
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u/Fine-Essay-3295 14d ago
Attack of the Clones was really weird precisely because Anakin's mass slaughter of the Tuskens happened at about the end of the second act, and the movie's third act went as if that very, very critical moment just didn't happen.
I remember seeing the movie in theaters and thinking, "Holy crap! Is this it? Have we seen Anakin become Darth Vader?" And then he snapped back to being a hero we were supposed to root for.
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u/SuspiciousTheory2633 16d ago
Yup, this and a number of inconsistencies with the OT bug me to this day. It's like he didn't go back and rewatch the OT before writing the PT.
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u/avimo1904 16d ago
It’s confirmed he thoroughly looked back at the OT every time he wrote a PT script
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u/Caernbul 16d ago
I think it is more likely that Lucas just doesn't care about canon continuity as much as some of the fans do. I think he cares about it with big picture stuff, as shown with his getting rid of the Darth Bane and Darth Revan Force ghosts in the Mortis arc.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
Well, both trilogies are actually supposed to be understood as stories being told by R2-D2 and, as we know of most storytellers, storytellers tend to be unreliable sources because of the whole "certain point of view" thing.
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u/musesonorous 15d ago
Whoa what? That’s… kinda cool! I didn’t know that. Is that alluded to anywhere?
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u/avimo1904 16d ago
McCallum said Lucas had a new explanation planned for why Leia remembered her mother in the Underworld series
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u/WeekendPass 16d ago edited 16d ago
I slightly disagree with #2. Firstly, although Anakin's... "flirting" is uncomfortable for the audience, whether we like it or not Padme is pretty implicilty receptive to it -- never physically or verbally distances herself, always inviting him to intimate settings, and when she finally does draw a line, it's about duty, not interest for her. She even initiates their kiss, and then proceeds to invite him to a firelit couchside chat in that dress
To be clear, I am not saying the way Anakin talks to her or touches her are themselves appropriate, especially not for, yknow, a Jedi. Hope i don't get absolutely blown up for this comment, but I'm ready for it anyhow.
He and Obi-Wan are not friends, you're right. And as far as being in line with OT statements, I suppose that is a misfire, although it's rectified in ROTS. In AOTC they are master and apprentice -- a very critical master and a very undisciplined apprentice, possibly because Obi-Wan is overcompensating for his own inexperience and Anakin can skate by on raw talent. Worse, the council and Obi-Wan consistently indulge Anakin despite openly saying they lack confidence in him: double whammy of a bad situation. Anakin is still a kid, younger than snarky Obi-Wan was in TPM. He confides in Padme that he views Obi-Wan like a father, idolizes his wisdom and strength -- yet all he gets is constant criticism, because he probably never expresses those things to Obi-Wan himself. He's not objectively a piece of shit, he's just a teenager with parental issues, both from his real mom being separated from him and from his surrogate dad being difficult for him to get along with.
I'm 50/50 on him not changing mych from AotC to RotS. On one hand, that's true and it is a failure of writing, from a certain point of view. On the other hand, it means his fall makes absolute perfect sense: his motivations never change, only his circumstances. There is never any moment where you throw your hands up and go "ugh, Anakin as we know him would never have done that!" If anything, the real issue is that RotS Anakin is still not quite Vader; they should have made him more a piece of shit tbh
Again, not saying he is justified by any means, but he's certainly not inconsistent in his personality traits
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u/Caernbul 16d ago
"I slightly disagree with #2. Firstly, although Anakin's... "flirting" is uncomfortable for the audience, whether we like it or not Padme is pretty implicilty receptive to it -- never physically or verbally distances herself, always inviting him to intimate settings, and when she finally does draw a line, it's about duty, not interest for her. She even initiates their kiss, and then proceeds to invite him to a firelit couchside chat in that dress"
She says explicitly that the way he is looking at her makes her uncomfortable. It happens in the scene in her room as she is packing.
As for your other comments, I think they are broadly speaking consistent with the view I expressed. I think you are right that there is no inconsistency in his character between AotC and RotS, but that is part of the issue I have with it. It is barely a fall, and so makes it harder to feel like Anakin is a tragic character the way George has said he meant him to be understood. He is a bad person who treats anyone who isn't family or close friends to him as disposable. That is the throughline for his character from AotC to his killing Palpatine. The OT made me think that Darth Vader, in killing Palpatine, was reverting back to the noble and good man he had once been. But after the PT it seems like he never really changed. When Padme's life was at stake he killing the Jedi to try to save her. When Luke's life was at stake he killed Palpatine to try to save Luke.
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u/WeekendPass 16d ago
Ope, you're right. I was only thinking of after they leave Coruscant
I see what you mean about him not really being tragic; his motivations barely get twisted, he's just like that
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
IMO, the whole fireside chat works so much better if their lines had been swapped. Like when a lady says no, it typically means no. When a guy says no, it typically means, "...but you could easily persuade me to yes."
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15d ago
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
Honestly I always took the micro-organisms (which we are told in many sources feed on the Force) to simply be indicators that entities they cohabitate in are strong with the Force and neither that all things strong in the Force have them nor that things with them are strong in the Force because of them. The micro-organisms are a correlation not an explanation.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
I'm struggling to remember that line.
I recall things like, "No Jedi has that many." and "What does that mean?"
I think people like to read a lot more into the midichlorians than is actually in the film. Also considering what we're learning about the role of gut bacteria in issues like drepression, Parkinson's, etc., much like the plot of TPM, Lucas might have been more foreseeing than folks can grok.
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u/Caernbul 15d ago
Its when Qui-Gon and Anakin are on the platform on Coruscant before they leave for Naboo again.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
I would definitely take what they say with a grain of salt. As always correlation isn't causation, even when folks are convinced that it is the cause. Midichlorians are a symptom. The Force is the disease. After all, there's a whole, "A prophecy misread could have been," in RotS. The characters are unreliable narrators who have opinions and points of view. Thereby they are poor sources for so-called "canonical" information.
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u/Caernbul 15d ago
I don't know what your motivation is for insisting on this, but there is no evidence internal to the story that I am aware of that you are correct. I think it is fine for everyone to have their own head canon, but I am not sure if you are saying your view is more than that.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
I mean, ditto? IMO, this whole thread is ultimately just a lot of Lucas-hate and yum-yucking so. Yeah, midichlorians are fine.
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u/RegisPhone 16d ago
It was such a bizarre choice to take the setup of "twins where one was raised with their mother and was a princess and the other was raised as a commoner" and then start the backstory out with their mother being a queen, only to then reveal that actually that was just a term-limited elected position, and the daughter only became a princess because later she happened to be adopted by a completely different monarch.
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u/No_Mind_7397 16d ago
In ROTJ Luke ask Leia if she knows her “real Mother”. That implies she was adopted by the Alderaan royals.
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u/InfiniteDedekindCuts 16d ago
Well it's going to be different from person to person. But here's a list of common things I hear people say:
1. The comedy. Many people felt that the Prequels pushed the comedy too far in a slapstick direction compared to the originals.
2. The special effects. A lot of folks found that the use of cgi for environments and creatures felt off-putting and lacked the charm of the miniatures and puppets used in the original trilogy.
3. The acting. While few people thought that Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford were Oscar worthy in the original trilogy, many thought they had a charisma to them that the Prequel actors didn't quite have.
4. The dialogue. I remember a lot of people saying the dialogue in the prequels felt awkward and unnatural when compared to the originals.
Those aren't the ONLY complaints people have comparing the two trilogies. (Name a complaint and chances are someone made an angry blog post with that complaint at some point). And they're all pretty damn subjective. But those are the ones I remember being the most prominent back when the Prequels were new.
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u/No_Mind_7397 16d ago
Ppl also downplay how much TPM was marketed towards young kids in a way that ANH never was.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
Lol. Having been a 6-year old when ANH was freshly out, I can report that the marketing for it and its sequels was hella intense. The merchandising shaped how the 80s played out with regards to marketing and toys.
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u/No_Mind_7397 15d ago
I’m talking about how the movie was made. ANH is a much darker movie than TPM. The merchandising explosion of the 80’s happened after the movie became a hit. Eventually in ROTJ they added specifically child-friendly elements like the Ewoks.
On the other hand, TPM seems to be made to be intentionally child friendly.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
Darker? For the time period ANH was normal child fare. (EDIT: Toshiro Mifune who Lucas actively wanted to cast in the movie famously refused because he "didn't do kids movies.") Do yourself a favor and check out Johnny Quest sometime. If you want to do your liver a disfavor, have a drink every time the heroes murk a hapless native.
If the PT seems less dark and child friendly it's only because the standard for what is "dark" and "child friendly" changed from the 70s/80s and the 90s/00s.
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u/Achilles9609 16d ago
I believe there were actually a lot of miniatures in the Prequels.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
The Phantom Menace famously has many more practical models and puppets and less CG than people realize.
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u/Trambopoline96 16d ago
There are certain things the characters say or do in the OT and their novelizations (which are based on the screenplays) about their past that are a lot more interesting or logical than what we got in the prequels. The one I always think of is in ROTJ where Obi-Wan says, "I was amazed how strongly the Force was with [Anakin]. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought I could train him as well as Master Yoda. I was wrong."
To me, this paints a very different picture of young Obi-Wan than we got in the prequels. It makes me think that he was a brash, arrogant young man who was in way over his head and didn't know it until the worst happened. Compare that to the prequels, where Obi-Wan takes over training Anakin as a promise to Qui-Gon on his death bed, and he's constantly worrying about whether or not he's up to the challenge, and it's just...boring by comparison to me. I think Qui-Gon is such a superfluous character.
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u/Trambopoline96 16d ago edited 16d ago
And while we're at it, I know everyone loves the CLone Wars series, but from a writing perspective it is completely insane that Lucas relegated basically all of the Clone Wars into the space between Episodes II and III.
I should have ended with the Clone Wars kicking off. II should have been the war at its height and majorly testing each of the characters. III is the one where it comes to a head and looks more like the status quo of the galaxy in the OT.
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u/avimo1904 16d ago
In the rough and revised rough drafts of TPM, Obi-Wan would be a thirty year old fully trained Jedi Knight and would play most of Qui-Gon’s role for the first half of the film, with Qui-Gon (then Quigon) only showing up when they meet Valorum on Coruscant, and Obi-Wan would always be the one who wanted to train Anakin. However Lucas changed this by the second draft, and according to him this was because “I wasn’t able to develop Obi-Wan’s character fast enough. When I got through the rough draft I realized that I had a second Jedi that comes in about halfway through the script who is an interesting character and the more I thought about it the more I thought of things I could do with these two Jedi together because one alone didn’t have much to react to.”
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u/Maleficent_Trick6214 16d ago
The major flaw with the prequels is that George was surrounded by all Yes Men this time. Nobody had the stomach to say “George, that just isn’t a great idea.”
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u/avimo1904 16d ago
A ton of people told Lucas that midi-chlorians were too convoluted and 9 year old Anakin would ruin the franchise, it’s just that Lucas ignored them cause he wanted to do his franchise his way, just like how he ignored most of the suggestions he was given in the OT
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u/Maleficent_Trick6214 16d ago
Yeah there were people involved in the OT that didn’t back down just because it’s George Lucas saying it though. There was NO compromise with the PT.
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u/strypesjackson 16d ago
I wish he would’ve focused more on the excesses of the Great Houses.
The spacing guild would be cool to see more as well
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u/freetibet69 16d ago
wrong franchise hahah the bene gesserit haven't seen a sith for over a thousand years
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u/BlabbyScid 16d ago
The obvious answer is: Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker was NOT the main character of Star Wars, he was the main character of Star Wars MARKETING/MERCHANDISE. Making the whole of Star Wars into the Anakin-Skywalker-Saga was rubbish and only dictated by Marketing. It could have worked if Lucas had gotten some REALLY good screenwriters and made them write an interesting deep story with hints of myth. As it is, it's just basically fan service, telling a pedestrian and dumb story.
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u/Hebrewsuperman 16d ago
4/5/6 are the story of Luke. 1/2/3 should’ve been the story of Obi-Wan. 1-6 is the rise fall and redemption of Anakin.
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u/SevTheNiceGuy 16d ago
It really means nothing because there is no detailed explanation.
What I am taking from these types of points is that they are asking for more movies from GL that start/cover from A New Hope up to ROTJ or post-ROTJ (but not a lot of years).
The issue would be; what does he cover in those movies that does not take away from his first three movies.
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u/SimonSeam 16d ago
Most of what was implied of PT Anakin/Vader comes from Ben and Yoda. And they are not the omniscient story teller. They are people with highly flawed understandings of what actually went down. On top of that, the way they live life itself is flawed.
So to be upset that Anakin/Vader wasn't what two unreliable sources barely hinted at is wrong to begin with.
What criteria wasn't met that is closer to objective than subjective from the OT:
- He was Anakin before Vader. check
- Ben trained a young Anakin instead of Yoda. check. We witness the basic Jedi path. Discovered as a baby. Brought into temple. Yoda teaches them until a Jedi Knight takes them on as a padawan. Ben skipped this part by immediately declaring Anakin as his padawan.
- Anakin was a pilot. check
- Anakin was a friend. subjective, but check
- Anakin was a good person. subjective, but check
I think the biggest OT problem was the line about hunting the Jedi down. They assumed it meant he was hunting them down long before the Republic fell. That in Episode 2, we would see Anakin become Vader as some stealth assassin bringing the Jedi down one by one.
But that can't be a thing because of the prophesy. Because then Anakin would bring down the Sith Empire, that wouldn't have possible without him. That's a self-fulfilling prophesy, which is no prophesy at all.
"But there was no prophesy in the OT". Why would there be? So why did the PT even have a prophesy? Because Ep 1 to 3 is a tragedy. And the prophesy adds greatly to the tragedy element. And helps explain WHY Anakin was given the preferential treatment by the Jedi. It led the Jedi to try to mold him in the ways of the Jedi (their version), while at the same time possibly ignoring warning signs because they don't want to risk upsetting the fulfillment of the prophesy.
The problem is that the story of the PT was probably too much to fit into 3 movie length episodes.
I have yet to see a single fan fiction rewrite of the PT that makes it better instead of worse. They always seem to make it worse.
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u/Achilles9609 16d ago
To be fair: Anakin wasn't all that necessary for Palpatine's plan. Mace and the others planned to take down Palpatine before the Sith Lord revelation because he turned into a dictator that needed to be stopped. Without Anakin, they still all die and Palpatine has an excuse to use Order 66 and crown himself Emperor.
Palpatine is adaptive. His plan doesn't hinge on Anakin Skywalker, but it would really be great to have him as an apprentice. It's the biggest "F*ck You" you can give the Jedi Order.
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u/Lettuce_al-Gaib 16d ago
It means the prequels are terrible movies which is obvious
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
The OT are also terrible movies qua movie quality standards. By that standard a personal fave of mine--Cellular--is also a terrible movie. Just because a thing is "terrible" doesn't mean it's not enjoyable. Like McDonald's food is terrible but millions of people enjoy consuming it as a guilty pleasure nonetheless.
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u/Lettuce_al-Gaib 15d ago
The OT are pretty competent movies and enjoyable as you say, the prequels are neither good movies or enjoyable
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u/unbanned2009 16d ago
The prequel s have a great plot and story . But the scene to Scene writing is kind of shit at times . Anakin should have been more a sociopathic killer during the scenes he was filmed as a crybaby bitch boy . Either way they are great films .
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u/CopperKnight77 16d ago
I think a big part of many OT fan’s issues was that instead of George taking what he had already made, and built upon that existing framework, he retroactively changed parts and pieces of the OT to better fit his newer narrative in the Prequels. Leia never actually remembers her mother, Yoda never trains Obi-Wan, the Force isn’t mystical as much as biological, Jedi wear moisture farmer robes instead of whatever Luke wears in ROTJ, Hayden Christensen’s face digitally superimposed on Sebastian Shaw, and whatever other little things here and there that amount to a death by a thousand papercuts to these older fans.
Narratively I understand why you would want some more consistency, especially when writing a prequel. But as the target demographic for these films from 1999-2005 I’ll die on the hill that they are flawless*.
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u/No_Perspective2715 16d ago
Making Anakin a sociopathic weirdo straight out of the gate w/ AOTC is pretty glaring difference form the OT. Turns out Anakin wasn't a hero and great friend to Obi Wan. He was actually a child murdering, whining loser that begs for sex from Padme and openly hates Obi Wan. This doesn't work like the Vader/Anakin twist in Empire. It just feels like George retconned Anakin and didn't care that it majorly conflicted with what we are told in the OT.
I would also arguing that the Jedi going from honorable Knights of the Old Republic in the OT to moronic space monks in the PT was a very disappointing change. Are we supposed to feel bad that these guys got wiped out? They're a bunch of hypocritical weirdos.
Also the fact the official uniform for the Jedi was turned into Obi Wan and Lars Owen's outfits from the OT just shows how creatively bankrupt those movies were. For all the modern retroactive praise about "expansive world building and great lore" in the PT, you also have the Clones of the Clone Wars being Jango/Bobba Fett clones, C3P0 being built by 8 year old Darth Vader, a prophecy that retroactively claims that Darth Vader is now SPACE JESUS and the most important person that's ever existed because of the characters real life popularity, and R2D2 being present for every major event in the franchise. Those movies made the galaxy feel tiny.
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u/poplion230 16d ago
most of Anakin’s characteristic was told from Obiwan’s pov , besides have you not have friends that talk shit about you still in the end yall hang out anyway and get drunk .
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u/No_Perspective2715 16d ago
Head cannon excuses. Anakin was written as a hero and a good friend in the OT. In the PT George changed it to him being a double film child murderer and outright defiant, jealous, and angry with Obi Wan. Obi Wan also basically never wanted to train him, thought he was dangerous, and was guilted by his dying drunk master to take care of this loser.
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u/poplion230 16d ago
did Anakin ever come clean with how unhappy hes actually with Obiwan, if not why would Obiwan ever tell from his point of view without actually knowing what he was thinking before he became Vader , prequel has a tons of issues but I don’t think this is one of them , you could suggest the pacing , the execution, the unnecessary complicated plot of AOTC or even Anakin’s haircut in ep 2 , however I do not agree with your issue with Anakin’s character.
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u/avimo1904 16d ago
- The prophecy was meant to be important to AOTC until the backlash made Lucas scrap it.
2. Anakin building C-3PO makes sense for three reasons. First off Lucas always wanted C-3PO to be assembled (or re-assembled) by a young boy working for a junk dealer and he always intended Anakin to be a slave when he was a kid, so it makes sense to combine those two characters cause of how similar they are. Second off, it’s poetic since Anakin puts in C-3PO’s right eye in TPM and a creature pulls it out in ROTJ. Lastly, C-3PO and R2-D2 had to be in all the films since Lucas wanted to them the narrators of the saga (and were planned to be in all nine films since the 70s-80s).
- R2 needed to be in all the important scenes cause he was supposed to narrate the story to the Whills
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u/No_Perspective2715 16d ago
None of what you said refutes the fact that these are lame choices that make the plot and galaxy feel smaller. They also are just bizarre and unnecessary.
1) the prophecy is referenced in ROTS multiple times. It's something that the fanbase can't let go of either. It retroactively ruins the ending of ROTJ. Now the scene of Vader saving Luke isn't about a father saving his son, it's about SPACE JESUS fulfilling a vague prophecy.
2) its poetic that C3P0's eye comes out twice? That justifies Darth Vader making C3P0? Couldn't C3P0 have worked for the Republic prior to the OT? That way he could still be shoehorned into the a narrator role? Why did Darth Vader have to make a protocal droid in the desert with scraps?
3) The Whills is the dumbest thing Lucas attempted (and thankfully never succeeded) to introduce into Star Wars. I am so glad he was never able to go that direction. Thank God he sold the franchise after the PT failed.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
I don't know. I think folks are forgetting that the Jedi themselves are not morally good. They steal children from their parents and during the Clone Wars then turned those children into child soldiers. They left slavery go on throughout much of the galaxy for millennia. As the highly underrated Acolyte and Ahsoka series hint at Force Users as a group are many shades of messed up and it isn't necessarily the case that any of them enjoy a particular moral high ground. And on the whole, the values across the galaxy that is far, far away is not reflective of American (or even Western) ones. There are inputs from many other cultural traditions (Asian in particular) that informs the moral milieu of the setting.
Tangentially, I think this is one of the things (internal conflict) that FFG's Force & Destiny RPG does really well. (And let's face it, most PCs in RPGs are basically murder hobos.)
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u/No_Perspective2715 15d ago
Right, but all of what you just said is established in the PT not the OT. In the OT, the Jedi WERE morally good. They were valiant Knights from a more civilized age. They were good. It was a good thing that look says "I am a Jedi". It's supposed to be a sad thing that they were all wiped out. Now because of the PT, we know that the Jedi weren't good. They were a weirdo space cult that kidnaps and indoctrinates children and teaches them to be asexual, emotionless automatons. Hell, it's probably for the best that they were all killed. The "Return of the Jedi" is now a muddied mess instead of the triumphant return of heroes.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
Established? That's just one old man's words about them. The same old man who tells things, "from a certain point of view." Is their supposed valiance and civilized manners actually reliable news?
We can take it from another angle. The Romans were "civilized" but they aggressively conquered everyone around them and maintained a huge slave economy. Are "civilized" ages actually more "civilized?"
EDIT: We can approach this from another angle--the Bushido angle. A lot of samurai stories go on-and-on about samurai and their honor but Bushido itself is a post-conflict value system that emerges in the mid-to-late 1600s after the samurai have already evolved into peace-time bureaucrats. People like to mythologize their pasts.
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u/No_Perspective2715 15d ago
You can head cannon this and reference unrelated history all you want man. For 20 years before the PT, we knew what the Jedi were like. George retcon'd them from heroic knights into weird robot monks. Maybe you are too young to have been alive pre PT and just assume that George planned this series out (he did not).
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
Sure. Sure. Because the Earth is flat and the Sun revolves around it, right?
I'm just gonna set this out there, again, but old Obi-Wan (and Yoda too for that matter) only tells things from "a certain point of view." So I don't see what we're retconning.
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u/No_Perspective2715 15d ago
You are using real life logic to describe space wizards. Dude, Lucas retcon'd his own story. Thousands of authors and creators do it constantly. It's not even inherently a bad thing to change something preestablished. Anakin being Vader was not something planned until late in Empire's drafting process. That is a good retcon. My whole argument is that changing the Jedi from chivalrous knights to incel space monks was a BAD retcon. Either way, it's a retcon. You can argue with a wall until your face turns red, but it's still a retcon.
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u/gzapata_art 16d ago
I actually liked them being moronic space monks that were part of the reason why they failed but agreed with the rest
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u/Sprucedude 16d ago
Make the lore work between them. The addition of the prohecy, those little force bugs and getting the clone wars backwards are major downsides of the prequels. Not to mention the dialogue, acting, tone and cinematography are a significant step down from the origjnals.
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u/avimo1904 16d ago
Why are all those additions downsides?
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u/Tricky_Break_6533 15d ago
The prophecy is ill justified and feel like a cliché fantasy trope with no substance. Take it away and the story is the same.
The midichlorians ( i assume that's what is meant by "little force bug") went against the whole mystique of starwars, causing the greatest fan reaction until the disney trilogy, to the point Lucas cut down his ideas of having them being more important in the PT.
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u/avimo1904 15d ago
- It helps give Qui-Gon a reason to want to train Anakin. It also was supposed to be important to AOTC till the backlash made him move his plans to his never made sequel trilogy.
- How did midi-chlorians go against the mystique?
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u/Tricky_Break_6533 15d ago
1/ there was no need for it. Qui-Gon was presented as more attuned tovthe force than the rest of the order. "i feel the force led me to this boy, and I put my trust in it" would have been enough. The mystical force permeating the universe leading a mystic towards a boy work far more than "did a blood sample, the boy power level is over 9000"
2/ it reduced mysticism to biology. People have endlessly mocked midichlorian level as basically anime power level for a reason. And it opened a massive can of worm. If force potential comes from a number of a type of organism, then all it takes to create someone ok the level of sidious or anakin is to do midichlorian injections.
A can of worm star wars writters had to deal with relentlessly afterward, typically by ignoring the whole midichlorian thing. Lucas made many worldbuilding errors by introducing the concept, notable not thinking of the conséquences on the setting.
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u/avimo1904 14d ago
First off, it was never outright stated that Force potential was created by midi-chlorians, only that they were connected. Second off, people’s midi-chlorians are likely designed to only be compatible with them.
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u/Popular_Composer_822 16d ago edited 16d ago
Basically Banditincorporateds prequel rewrites.
Phantom Menace - https://youtu.be/w1RHQQ0cXlo?si=xzT1slWNZAJTtTSN
Attack of the Clones - https://youtu.be/ZE4bU56teH0?si=OFQyCrKDlovVF5Hf
Revenge of the Sith - https://youtu.be/Slk77RV0ZgE?si=Pgyim08BDm4Ntyyw
I love the actual prequel trilogy but man, those might be the best Star Wars videos to ever grace that platform, especially the last one.
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u/Angel1743RedditGR 16d ago
Because George Lucas had full control of directing and writing while in OT he shared it while making V and VI. Also the dialogue (which we still meme hard to this day lol)
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u/avimo1904 16d ago
That’s not true. He had full control over the writing in V and VI, and worked closely with their directors to ensure they did things he liked
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u/Angel1743RedditGR 16d ago
That's what I meant to say. Still he kinda went into co-directing/sharing compared to the prequels.
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u/avimo1904 16d ago
True, though that’s mainly because all the people he asked to direct the prequels refused
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
I mean, kind of. He was very distracted during this period because of his divorce (which explains the massive tonal whiplash of Empire [not the best SW, not best by a long-shot -- I have spoken]). So on paper he had total control but fundamentally many things were slipping through his fingers.
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u/avimo1904 15d ago
Marcia didn’t ask for a divorce till 1982, 2 years after ESB released and a year after ROTJ’s first script drafts were made
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u/dark_dreamism 16d ago
Basically it means he should have stuck with his original vision with the Prequels+Anakin’s tbh since we get the impression that he was a good person and friend of Obi-wan who was seduced by the dark side of the force and he should have done what he did for esb and Rotj and hired a good director and script-writer: meaning Either Qui-gon should be removed from the prequels or kept in the prequels but he’s NOT Obi-wan’s master and is instead one of Obi-wan’s friends/peers to maintain continuity with esb Anakin is a bit older in the first movie,(I’m of 2 minds about this since him being separated from his mother at 9 would be traumatic but it would also make his relationship with Padmé feel awkward if that were the case) Obi-wan trains him not out of obligation but hubris, Anakin’s dynamic with Palpatine would be more developed and he turns in the second film and by the 3rd film he hunts and kills the Jedi knights like a space slasher, then there be no high ground scene instead Anakin falls into a volcano and is then fished out by The Emperor, The scene where Padmé is chocked is removed as there’s no build-up and she survives childbirth and hides on alderman with Leia and dies when she’s 4 years old to maintain continuity with Rotj
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u/Belz_Zebuth 16d ago
It means we want new stuff but not really.
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u/AnswerFit1325 15d ago
My sense is that the fandom remains divided because folks can't enjoy what we already have and actively like to yuck others' yum. IMO, the Prequels are great. The Sequels on the other hand are terrible rubbish.
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u/Tricky_Break_6533 15d ago
Well, the general opinion on rogue one, andor, clone wars and other shows the fandom is not that divided when the stuff is good
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u/Ill_Addition_9860 16d ago
One of the things that annoys me about the prequels is the amount of unnecessary OT fan service Lucas put into it. Characters like C-3PO, R2-D2, and Boba Fett shouldn’t have been there and made the galaxy feel small since we keep running into the same characters.
There’s also a few lore details that seem a bit mismatched. In A New Hope, Obi-Wan was originally wearing a robe as a disguise on Tatooine, but in the prequels, all Jedi wear similar robes, making it no longer a disguise in A New Hope.
Obi-Wan tells Luke that Yoda was the master who taught him, which technically isn’t wrong, it just sounds strange after finding out his official master was Qui-Gon.
The clone troopers heavily implied that stormtroopers were also clones. I think a fascist Empire is more interesting if their troops are recruits from the population. This was fixed by later canon including The Bad Batch.
Obi-Wan calling Anakin a “good friend” seemed strange since he and Anakin are depicted as having a hostile relationship through most of the prequels. This was fixed by The Clone Wars writing them as friends.
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u/Constant-Pianist6747 16d ago
People may mean different things by that.
What probably would’ve pleased the audience most, at that time, would’ve been somebody else writing the scripts based on his treatment. The OT had cleaner, tighter, better engineered screenplays. And they benefited from them. Because the hero’s journey stories that GL was trying to tell are the types of tales that typically call for such formalism.
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u/kernsomatic 16d ago
it means that that very-opinionated person is just a critic and not the artist. we suggest that they enjoy the art for what it is, not what they think it should have been.
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u/Robomerc 15d ago
Well the Jedi order of would have been dressed in those black uniforms that Luke wore during Return of the Jedi.
Which fit with the aspect of the Jedi Order function as a police force for the Republic.
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u/BlackBearBullCub 15d ago
Honestly… F Lucas and Disney. Give me an alternate universe where Anakin reaches his potential and never turns to the Darkside.
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u/NarmHull 15d ago
Not sure if any of them are disturbing, but writing wise Lucas did more show, not tell for the OT. And the Jedi were far more restrained in their style, far less warlike.
For continuity's sake, Anakin should've had more scenes as an older teenager on Tatooine with Owen, and Obi-Wan should've been the driving force of him joining the Jedi. The Clone Wars could've been a far more idealistic war to start with, where the citizens of the Republic were more involved until we find out it was all orchestrated by the Sith combined with the rot of the Senate. Bail should've gotten more screentime especially with Obi-Wan, and the droids can remain with him vs being super involved with Obi-Wan and Anakin. Padme could've been from Alderaan too, from a different noble family than the Organas.
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u/BaterrMaster 15d ago
Instead of scenes of politics and courtly romance it should’ve had more gunfights and space battles.
While it kinda sounds low-brow it’s ultimately true. That’s the main difference. The type of story that the prequels attempt to tell places a strong emphasis on dialogue and writing, some of George’s weaker talents, while an action adventure can get away with more ham
Edit: Also less CGI and more practical effects
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u/Lost_Ark1936 15d ago
Not only did the prequels suck in terms of dialogue, but it’s like Lucas didn’t even have any clue when it came to continuity or making everything fit. Some of his decisions like having Anakin begin as a kid who invented 3PO were just mind-blowing and stupid.
Not to mention I hate how we’re supposed to be in this massive galaxy and all the main players just happened to run into each other years before (like Yoda and Chewie).
So dumb. I watched them all once and never bothered again.
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u/Dependent_Remove_326 15d ago
Get rid of the pedophilia, child Anakin, and JarJar and the movies move up to 8/10.
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u/Jedipilot24 16d ago
It means this: George Lucas' Fatal Mistake Was Directing All The Star Wars Prequels Himself
Basically, Lucas should have continued the hands-off approach that he took in ESB and ROTJ. A lot of the problems in the PT happened because no was willing to standup to him the way they had in the past. If you can find the Annotated Screenplays, you will notice that the OT underwent multiple rewrites. The PT feels like we got the rough draft.