Which order should new fans experience Star Wars?

[Darth Snoopy]

U still my friend DS.

Thanks, J!

Now where's my walker?

 

[The Josh]

Thanks, J!

Now where's my walker?

Anytime

Its on order.

 

[D. Martin]

My problem with the PT is that it doesn't do enough to link up with the OT in a meaningful way. The most obvious problem is the over use of CGI. The OT universe is not a pristine looking place. It has a used, gritty feel to it that was lost in the PT. I think it should have been filmed on location with real sets just like the original.

It bridges perfectly with the Blockade Runner in ROTS. The gritty look of things can be chocked up to it being a different time. nineteen years of Imperial oppression can be blamed.

Additionally, there are too many things that are explained in the PT that don't need to be explained (Midi chlorians, force ghosts). Conversely, there are so many missed opportunities to explain plot holes in the OT (why was Luke able to train for three weeks and go toe to toe with Vader who had been a Jedi for 30 some years? Why was Luke "hidden" on his home planet under his real last name?)

Tatooine is far from the center of the galaxy, and there is no way Vader would ever step even one foot on that planet... And, besides a few key people, no one knows that Vader is Anakin.

(Darth Maul, Liam Niasson playing Obi-wan and McGregor playing Anakin etc. etc.)

Huh? Where does that come form?

I think of the PT as existing in an alternate universe. Things are similar to the OT but they don't quite match up. I think the same thing about the CW series. As individual sagas, the OT the PT and CW are all great. However, trying to make them one whole story just doesn't work for me.

James Keegstra claimed the holocaust was a hoax...

 

[SwedishHeat]

((since its pretty clear by Sidious' story about Darth Plaegous that Anakin's inception was intentional and his discovery by the Jedi either followed his plans perfectly or severely altered his plans))

Doesn't this statement imply that Sidious would have found a way to turn Anakin regardless??. . . making Qui-Gon's involvement in Anakin's life irrelevant.

With the Force in play, it's hard to argue that it's coincidence that Anakin found his way to Palpatine.

 

[a-dev]

OK, with Midi-Chlorians brought into the debate I feel I need to explain the importance of Qui-Gon.

To save time and to make it easy to discuss, I'll go in point form:

-We get introduced to Qui-Gon in TPM and quickly learn that he doesn't follow along with the mindset of the Jedi Order, who after a thousand generations have become complacent enough to dissect their faith.

-This complacency lead them to discover Midi-Chlorians, which to the Jedi scientists explain how they got strength; how they can communicate with the force. In this discovery, faith was no longer the guiding, erm, force of a Jedi's life.

-The Jedi Order follow the what they call the Unifying Force, which is an overall view that seems to ignore the subtle hints that the Force gives out. Qui-Gon tells Obi-Wan to follow the Living Force, which is the pulse that binds all the elements together. Essentially, He's trying to teach Obi-Wan the same thing that Yoda was teaching Luke: Faith.

-The Jedi Order would never have acknowledged Anakin if not for Qui-Gon's insistence, and if Anakin never became a Jedi, he never would have given balance to the Force. Arguably, If Qui-Gon lived and defied the Council's orders, Anakin would have been raised learning the force the same way Luke ended up learning it, and he wouldn't have become jaded by the obvious complacency of the Jedi Order, and no doubt, he would have been protected from Sidious (at least until Sidious found a way to kill Qui-Gon) ((since its pretty clear by Sidious' story about Darth Plaegous that Anakin's inception was intentional and his discovery by the Jedi either followed his plans perfectly or severely altered his plans))

-Qui-gon's death is a direct result of the Order's complacency too. The council refused to believe his claims of the Sith Lord. If they followed the Living Force as Qui-Gon did they would have taken this threat seriously and sent a pile of Jedi.

-Let's assume that it is Qui-Gon's death that turns Count Dooku, his former master, away from the Jedi. Lets assume further, that Dooku actually intended to join the Sith to destroy them only to be corrupted as quickly as Anakin was.

-(not to take away from the above point Let's assume further, since the OT have some pretty serious power given to names and their importance -Anankin died, killed by Darth Vader, as an example- that Count Dooku was once a Jedi known as Sifo Dias, who was killed about ten years before AOTC shortly after the death of Qui-Gon. Since we know that Sifo Dias commissioned the the clone army and we know that Tyrannus hired Jango Fett, is it too far fetched to assume that both men are actually count Dooku? Think about this one for a while, and if you discard EU like Lucasfilm does, it holds more water than my Aunt Ginny's ankles.

-After Order 66, and maybe before then, Yoda is communicating with Qui-Gon, and pledges himself to the slain Jedi's training, in doing so, turning Yoda into the Jedi Master that trained Luke with a focus on the Living Force and not the Unifying Force. Faith. Not Midi-Chlorians. Even though for 800 years, Yoda trained Jedi the exact opposite.

-Qui-Gon then went on to train Obi-Wan the same thing.

-Bottom line, with out Qui-Gon's influence, the entire story would have unraveled differently. There is no telling what Sidious' plans for Anakin were before he was discouvered by Qui-Gon, but the dialogue in ROTS clearly indicates that Sidious had a hand in Anakin's creation.

Y'see, like IrishJedi I appreciate your attempt to bind everything together and give depth. But...wheres this all coming from? Certainly not up on screen, the novelisation perhaps? Otherwise it might aswell be fan fiction.

You are arguing from what is, from what we got, whereas I tend to argue from what could have been or indeed should have been based on what was already established. Most of what you say above helps to clarify Qui-gons importance to the PT sure...but not particularly the overall saga. What I ask is was he really that important to tieing everything together to the OT? He's never once mentioned in the OT so I'm inclined to think no. Certainly none of the surviving characters saw any need to mention him.

Take every mention of Qui-gon in your post above and replace it with Obi-wan - doesn't that seem better and just as plausible? I'm sorry but I just don't see how Qui-Gon served any purpose that Obi-wan couldn't have or shouldn't have fulfilled.

When I talk about how Qui-gon damaged the overall story I point to the fact that his presence delayed for an entire film what many would regard as the real key relationship of the PT - that of Anakin and Obi-wan. Anakin and Obi-wan don't meet in TPM till about half-way through the film, they share about 2 exchanges of the briefest dialogue. Don't you think this was a complete waste of precious time?? The Star Wars story is about Anakin's fall to the darkside and the breakdown of a once great relationship with his mentor Obi-wan. Obi-wan should have discovered Anakin, Obi-wan should have been the one to push for his being trained - there was absolutely no need for some middleman, much as I liked the Qui-gon character and Neeson's performance.

There was no need for his inclusion to explain force ghosts, many agree that that never needed any explanation at all. It was safely taken for granted until Lucas overcomplicated it in TPM by not having Qui-gon's body disappear. Even in and of itself its still pretty nonsensical. If Qui-gon is the first jedi to survive past death just why did his body not disappear? Just unneccessary overcomplication.

This is a huge problem with the PT - overcomplication of silly things and total ignorance of the important stuff. You guys think the PT we got enhances the OT? I'd love to know what you'd have thought had it actually been done even somewhere close to the expectations of the average OT purist.

 

[D. Martin]

1997? In 1991, "Heir to the Empire" made it onto the NY Times bestseller list. In 1993 "X-Wing" was the best selling CD-ROM of the year. Late the same year Hasbro/Kenner signed a multi-hundred million dollar deal to produce new Star Wars toys for years to come. In 1994 "Rebel Assault" broke every record for a CD-ROM.

Yeah, I was there. I saw that happen too. But making existing Star Wars fans excited is a lot different from getting everyone talking about Star Wars and it being all over the place.

Besides, using your own style of comparison, there were other best selling fiction books in 1991:


1 Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind," Ripley, Alexandra
2 The Sum of All Fears Clancy, Tom
3 Needful Things King, Stephen
4 No Greater Love Steel, Danielle
5 Heartbeat Steel, Danielle
6 The Doomsday Conspiracy Sheldon, Sidney
7 The Firm Grisham, John
8 Night Over Water Follett, Ken
9 Remember Bradford, Barbara Taylor
10 Loves Music, Loves to Dance Clark, Mary Higgins
11 Cold Fire Koontz, Dean R.
12 The Kitchen God's Wife Tan, Amy
13 Sleeping Beauty Michael, Judith
14 Star Wars: Heir to the Empire Zahn, Timothy
15 WLT: A Radio Romance Keillor, Garrison

Surely they couldn't all be better than Heir To The Empire, or is that they couldn't all be worse. I'm not sure how your comparative scale works...

 

[D. Martin]

Doesn't this statement imply that Sidious would have found a way to turn Anakin regardless??. . . making Qui-Gon's involvement in Anakin's life irrelevant.

With the Force in play, it's hard to argue that it's coincidence that Anakin found his way to Palpatine.

He was the chosen one (a concept that even the Jedi were unsure of). Would Sidious have turned him regardless? I think so, but I'm not so sure there would have been redemption. With Qui-Gon came Padme, with Padme came obsession, with obsession came love, and with love came offspring... And a good center for Anakin's redemption.

 

[D. Martin]

INAPPROPRIATE COMMENT - PLEASE EDIT/DELETE IMMEDIATELY

We are discussing filmed entertainment here, not the murder of millions of people - or deranged persons who deny it happened.

I agree. The point I'm making is whether a person believes it the other way or not, things that happened in the past happened. The PT isn't an alternate reality, it is the first three parts of the story which is Star Wars. Whether you would like to think so or not.

You know, I think the biggest trouble with these debates, as fun as they are, is they keep separating the story into two trilogies. I don't like that. To me it is all one big story and all the parts are equally important.

 

[thenammagazine]

Right. Marketing ploy, simple as that. She makes everyone seem like a retard, including the main characters, she's smarter than everyone else, removes the balls of the clones, basically she is Scrappy Doo mixed with a crappy version of Wesley Crusher. She adds nothing, the only way for her character to redeem herself is to die. Which she won't. If she died she'd actually serve a purpose story wise. Rex and Ahsoka should eat it, just for Anakin's character progression. She is no Leia NAM, and she doesn't in any way bring any kind of dynamic to the story. Just another calculated move by the machine. I am not above enjoying entertainment for all ages, but this ____ panders. A lot. And to answer the question in this thread, OT the PT. And if you hate your children the CGI CW and the Holiday Special.

Um... can we keep the word "rape" out of this discussion? And talk of people putting their heads up their ______'s? It just makes it... civil. And less... creepy.



Based on what? The fact that Alec Guiness was nominated for an Oscar for the role? Or that Alec Guiness' portrayal of the character is on the American Film Institute's list of 100 top screen heroes? Or that he uttered such forgettable lines as "Use the Force, Luke"?

Help me out here - was it McGregor's response when told of the "Attack of the Clones" title ("It's a terrible, terrible title" - Hollywood Film Festival - Aug. 6, 2001) that endeared him to all those households?

Have Nam look up "subjective" for you.



Oh, those people who quote popular media. Let's move beyond website lists then shall we? A few quick nuggets:

FACTS:

Star Wars was nominated for 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

Phantom Menace was nominated for six Razzies including Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Screenplay.

The Empire Strikes Back is pretty much universally recognized as one of the greatest sequels in cinema history - it is generally mentioned in the company of "Godfather Part II." (If you want to argue this, by all means, open the discussion.)

Attack of the Clones has a 54% (classed as "Rotten") Top Critics rating on Rottentomatoes.com. Metacritic gives it a rating of 54 out of 100. These are aggregates of Top National Critics - not "popular media."



As I've already mentioned, this list includes the likes of Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and Alvin and the Chipmunks 2, so careful with trying to read "quality" into that. "Three Men and Baby" was the highest grossing film in North America in 1987 - I DARE you to watch that tomorrow.

Anyway, since you work in the film industry, here's a few things to mull when thinking about box office... and how it is a teensy bit easier to land on that list in the past decade or so:

Empire Strikes Back opened on 127 screens in 1980.

Attack of the Clones opened on 3161 screens in 2002.

And yes, they are all on the list, but Adjusted for inflation, Classic Trilogy films essentially DOUBLE the grosses of each corresponding Prequel:

Star Wars: $1.426 billion
TPM: $679 million

Yeah-yeah, re-issues are included, but we are talking about DOUBLE here people, and the new films have the new box office climate in their favor (ESB was one of the most anticipated films in cinema history... and opened on 127 screens!) - which provides a really, really MASSIVE bump.




1997? In 1991, "Heir to the Empire" made it onto the NY Times bestseller list. In 1993 "X-Wing" was the best selling CD-ROM of the year. Late the same year Hasbro/Kenner signed a multi-hundred million dollar deal to produce new Star Wars toys for years to come. In 1994 "Rebel Assault" broke every record for a CD-ROM.

Despite Lucas' focus on Young Indy, the early nineties - yes, less than ten years after ROTJ left theaters - was a time of rapidly building momentum for "Star Wars." Intensely saturated pop-culture phenomena always burn out - they have to because you can't stay white-hot forever, people say "enough." But "Star Wars" - unlike say the Muppets - returned pretty quickly and powerfully after a (comparatively) short break. It absolutely dominated for nearly ten years, then took five years off before beginning the return.



Every person in this discussion should see (I know most have) this, so I have posted it for the uninitiated. It is a well thought out (with scholarly precision) analysis of The Phantom Menace. It meticulously goes through every line and scene and tries to sort out exactly what is happening. It is a definitive, in-depth analysis - with a dose of droll humor.

Its conclusions are an essential addition to this discussion.

And yes, this constitutes "popular" media - it has been viewed over 3 MILLION TIMES and it made the rounds of the film industry when first posted.

YouTube - Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (Part 1 of 7)

So I take it after ruling in favor of George Lucas, the court turned down your fifth appeal in the civil suit you filed to get him to pay for your therapy?

 

[D. Martin]

I don't think I want to read any more OT purists' opinions unless they are willing to sign their name to their statements.

 

[wofford29]

Can't the PT suck just because they're God ____ing awful? Completely independant of the OT. They're just God ____ing awful films. Wipe the OT from existence and let Star Wars begin and end with the PT and guess what, they would still be God ____ing awful.

 

[D. Martin]

Can't the PT suck just because they're God ____ing awful? Completely independant of the OT. They're just God ____ing awful films. Wipe the OT from existence and let Star Wars begin and end with the PT and guess what, they would still be God ____ing awful.

LOL! Wow, you've totally convinced me.

 

[intothevoid]

I watched 1-6, loved it. Especially because you save the best for last that way

 

[Darth Snoopy]

Anytime

Its on order.

'Bout time!

BTW...all this bickering is pointless. Neither side is gonna change what the other is thinking.

 

[Yodacappy]

Alec Guiness couldn't even get his own character's name right for christ sakes...

 

[OSCORP]

Can't the PT suck just because they're God ____ing awful? Completely independant of the OT. They're just God ____ing awful films. Wipe the OT from existence and let Star Wars begin and end with the PT and guess what, they would still be God ____ing awful.

I have no problem with people that enjoy the PT. But when they say they stand up to the OT, they're wrong end of story.


And no it's not cause i'm nostalgic

Enjoy them fine, go ahead. It's your dealio. There's a fine line with being a fan of all 6 films and being an apologist. Dave is one of them, Nam, is one of them.


I saw TPM 9 times in the theater. (i was a pot-head at the time so it helped) I lied to myself for a few years after, trying to justify they were good but misunderstood films. I came to my senses. I can't watch them anymore. I can still watch the OT. Why is that? The PT MAKES ME SICK, i have seen the OT more and i can still watch it over and over. I think that's called having a taste for genuine quality. (simple as that kiddies) The 70's and 80's were some magical times for movies. And GL had some people around him that knew what they were doing.


So i pick and choose what i like from the PT. Hey it had some EPIC moments like all SW films. And i choose to like those, cause they're genuinely good. But the bad far outweighs the good, and that's where the apologists need to just stop!!. And don't give me the purists crap. The argument is moot! At least the purists have good films to back them with if you wanna go down that road. (NOTHING WRONG WITH ENJOYING THE PT THOUGH)

Hey kids, like what you like. Like the PT AND OT fine!!!! Like just the OT FINE! Like just the PT fine. But there's 3 films that were far better than the last no matter how you wanna slice it.


AND YOU KNOW IT!

 

[thenammagazine]

Why is it the OT purists either only offer biased facts (leaving out the unbiased like critical acclaim and Academy Awards as well as boxoffice earnings) and state their slanted opinions as if they're facts? Do you think people don't see this? You don't like them, fine. But don't go belittling them with your opinions and acting like they're facts.

 

[IrishJedi]

The two trilogies are fundamentally different on both creative and technical levels. For starters, one (OT) focuses on the characters while the other (PT) is almost exclusively plot-driven, oft times at the expense of any real character development.

Yes, there are a lot of similarities. Duh, they are supposedly part of one cohesive saga. But if you watch TESB and the AOTC and still claim they're on the same level, well... I guess we're just on different planes of existence then.

 

[Lestat]

You counter your own argument bringing in Matrix. That was always intended to be a trilogy. Star Wars was stripped to be a stand alone movie. And I disagree about Episode 1. You're introduced to the Jedi and the Sith, the principles of the Force, etc. Lucas literally holds your hand through Episode 1, introducing you to the universe vs. Star Wars which condensed the whole ideal into a single scene with Obi Wan and Luke.

Again, whether Star Wars was intended to be a triology, has nothing to do with what I am saying. I just think Episode 4 is a better starting point. But we will have to agree to disagree.

 

[thenammagazine]

Again, whether Star Wars was intended to be a triology, has nothing to do with what I am saying. I just think Episode 4 is a better starting point. But we will have to agree to disagree.

I do like the slower pace it has in the overall saga. It slows you down from the PT roller coaster and eases you into the emotional onslaught of Empire. It's the perfect intermission.