Could the Star Wars prequels have ever been accepted?

George introduced so many inconsistencies in the first film alone he should have been barred from making any more. We should have known what was coming mind, when he had stone age teddy bears easily crushing the Imperial forces in Return of the Jedi.

Vince W said:

George introduced so many inconsistencies in the first film alone he should have been barred from making any more. We should have known what was coming mind, when he had stone age teddy bears easily crushing the Imperial forces in Return of the Jedi.

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Don't be too proud of an incredible technological fighting ability you believe a country has over ingenuity and desperation. Vietnam and 9/11 come to mind of simple techniques used to thwart a very powerful country and make it's head spin. Overly self-confidence was the poison Mr. Lucas was emphasizing with the Ewoks helping fight that legion of Imperial Troopers.

Huttman said:

Don't be too proud of an incredible technological fighting ability you believe a country has over ingenuity and desperation. Vietnam and 9/11 come to mind of simple techniques used to thwart a very powerful country and make it's head spin. Overly self-confidence was the poison Mr. Lucas was emphasizing with the Ewoks helping fight that legion of Imperial Troopers.

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Perhaps. But some of those tactics would have taken a lot of time and effort to set up. The Ewoks would have been planning their attack for some time before Luke & co. arrived on the the scene.

maybe they had been.. that base must have been there a while already?

Vince W said:

George introduced so many inconsistencies in the first film alone he should have been barred from making any more. We should have known what was coming mind, when he had stone age teddy bears easily crushing the Imperial forces in Return of the Jedi.

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As bad as the Ewoks were , they are far far better then Jar Jar Binks.

Huttman said:

Don't be too proud of an incredible technological fighting ability you believe a country has over ingenuity and desperation. Vietnam and 9/11 come to mind of simple techniques used to thwart a very powerful country and make it's head spin. Overly self-confidence was the poison Mr. Lucas was emphasizing with the Ewoks helping fight that legion of Imperial Troopers.

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I thought you were intentionally riffing on this, at first:

Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

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And I agree - at the same time that Lucas was making an optimistic feel-good movie about good kids taking on the evil empire, he was also probably portraying Emperor Nixon and a negative take on the US-as-empire. (At least it seems like I've heard that somewhere.) Some dark irony in all the fun. This was while Coppola was tramping about in the jungle trying to make Apocalypse Now and we know Spielberg has the warm fuzzies for government authority. So, yeah, there are real-world examples of weak low-tech folks resisting strong high-tech folks, and maybe theme got the better of realistic depiction, and Lucas wanted to sell a lot of toys and, besides, the Force was with them. Lucas killed several birds with one stone there, and it's not completely ludicrous. And, yes, much better than Binks.

Weren't the Ewoks originally supposed to be Wookies? If that had been the case, would we have considered Wookies as any more capable of attacking Imperial Stormtroopers with log traps and similar, just because they're tall and strong?

I always accepted Ewoks as a bit of an anomaly, but thinking about it, I agree with Huttman - shot so soon after the Vietnam war ended in defeat, Lucas could have been trying to directly underline the point of poorly equipped but determined beating overconfidence on technology

J-Sun said:

I thought you were intentionally riffing on this, at first:

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Of course I did. After all, it is a SW thread

HareBrain said:

He starts a supposedly epic sci-fi film with a trade dispute!

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I think Episode 7 starts with the Stormtrooper General Strike.

Brian Turner said:

And remember the Gungians (Jar Jar's people) had shields at the end of Phantom Mence to protect the Gungans from droid blasters? Is it my imagination, or does this technology conveniently disappear in later films? Or did the Gungans just jealously guard the patent?

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Maybe it's like Dune and lasguns and shields don't mix? But seriously, there is always going to be that when you make prequels - Star Trek: Enterprise was full of it.

J-Sun said:

So, yeah, there are real-world examples of weak low-tech folks resisting strong high-tech folks.

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Brian Turner said:

Weren't the Ewoks originally supposed to be Wookies? If that had been the case, would we have considered Wookies as any more capable of attacking Imperial Stormtroopers with log traps and similar, just because they're tall and strong?

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I agree, I think most real-world examples you could cite would be a result of shear weight of numbers rather than their creativity with low-tech weapons. Only in fiction do you see Home Alone and Swiss Family Robinson beat the bad guys with sticks and stones and paint cans.

The thing that struck me most odd though, is that if the Empire was so evil why did they allow the Ewoks to remain anywhere near them.

Put a very sensitive military installation in middle of an area of potential hostility and allow all kinds of cover for them? Why didn't they simply burn the jungle down in a radius of 50 klicks?

J-Sun said:

that's the stuff I'm talking about when I talk about "pinball Yoda" - he's like this green ball bouncing around inside a machine rather than an actual "person". Totally silly and paradoxically unimpressive - undignified. Laughing and crying, yup.

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Watched Empire Strikes Back last week, and Return of the Jedi just now. The character of Yoda in the original films seems very different to the one in the newer ones - mischievous and clever, rather than ponderous and serious. And no pinball!

PS - Also changed the original title of this thread from "successful" to "accepted" as they were obviously a commercial success. But accepted? That's the discussion I'd intended.

The first film might have made made some money , but the audiences would have diminished for the sequels. Because the writing was lousy.

Brian Turner said:

The new films could never live up to our expectations, because we still clung to that image of Lucas showing us something new and unseen. It would be impossible to repeat within the same universe he created.

It was inevitable that the new films should disappoint.

But. Now we have the first of the new sequels next year. Perhaps our expectations have finally been tempered? Or will these inevitably disappoint, and make those who saw the original cinema screenings simply feel old - for having been there at the beginning, to wonder at something new?

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I agree they'd never live up to my expectations. I had just turned eleven when Star Wars came out. Not only was I the perfect age, but Lucas redefined adventure movies. I can never go back to age eleven, but I guess I hoped Lucas could replicate the magic.

My nephews don't know the difference between the old, the current, and then new movies. It's all Star Wars to them. To them, The Phantom Menace redefined adventure movies... for me too, but in a bad way. The second trilogy in no way disappointed them.

With the continual progression of CG, how can the new Star Wars movies separate themselves from the pack to the same degree that Star Wars did? Were the effects of Forbidden Planet in 1958 really any different from Logan's Run in 1976? No. By comparison, the Beastmaster and Conan the Barbarian (both from 1982) cannot even coexist with The Lord of the Rings when looking at effects. Granted, Peter Jackson had a much bigger budget. I don't think the new Star Wars can do anything now to separate itself from the Star Trek or Avatar franchises. But I'm not an insider, so we'll see.

I watched The High and the Mighty last night. Almost zero effects and nothing of note by today's standards. But the story builds slowly and comes together through the characters. It's not PC. Society was different, but the humanity of the characters is crystal clear.

I think a major reason for the successful relaunch of the Star Trek franchise (I'm not going to get into Star Trek: Into Darkness) was that the characters were so clearly set by the orignial show and movies. Heck, people still quote Spock, Scotty, Kirk, Chekov and McCoy. The new Star Trek had the benefit (and the wisdom to tap into) the original characters. We did not have to learn about Kirk's unconventional leadership, Spock's emotional control, or McCoy's sarcasm. Those characters are already stamped into our culture. All we had to do was see the physical similarities and then wait for the same jokes we've heard for the last forty-five years.

Lucas tried a bit of this in the second trilogy by bringing back C3PO, R2, Yoda, Obi Wan and Vader. But Vader was a kid, Obi Wan was emasculated, Yoda was pedantic, and the droids were beyond ridiculous. I never got to hear Vader state, "I find your lack of faith disturbing" or Han say, "Sorry about the mess" or Leia quip, "Will someone get this walking carpet out of my way."

As far as I know, the new Star Wars movies will not feature a reboot... but will be a continuation. So we'll get Han, Luke, Leia, and Chewie back. But Harrison Ford looks quite long in the tooth to do any action scenes and neither Mark Hamill nor Carrie Fisher look young or sexy. This means the dialogue needs to be tight... let the old pros work their magic with their characters. I hope this is the case...