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[Dragonborn]

Are you saying Jedi can't sense danger only anger? Where are you getting that? Luke sensed the remote in ANH. It felt no malice towards him, it was just carrying out a program. How about the droids the Jedi have been fighting in the Clone Wars? They are robots, do they feel malice?

And Yoda only sensed it because he's Yoda? Okay, he sensed a disturbance in the force, I get that but why is he the only one? Did no other Jedi sense anything? He sensed it because he has to still be alive in Empire, it's stupid.

On that score and the transmission of the order, if it was simultaneous then surely Yoda wouldn't have sensed it. He'd have been a victim. Instead the mutiny seems to be staggered by Palpatine as Yoda can feel it as having just happened much like Obi wan does in ANH.

Here's the thing, the Jedi were in battle, they probably sense danger all around them. As I said, the troopers held no malice, they were just following their orders, as such the Jedi had no indication that they'd get shot in the back. The robots don't have have any malice, but then again, the Jedi know that the droids are enemies, and as such care should be taken. They had no idea the troopers would turn on them since Order 66 was pretty well hidden.

Yoda is 900+ years old, he's the oldest, probably wisest Jedi in the galaxy, and has an incredibly strong connection to the force (iirc, it's his area of expertise). That's the reason why he was grandmaster of the Jedi Order and that's why he was able to sense it all over the galaxy, he's just that well connected, if you will. In fact, Yoda has pretty much trained every single Jedi alive at the time (at least, their early training). And again, the order was carried out almost simultaneously across many, many planets. It's possible that Palpatine just had to send out the message (prehaps pre-recorded?). Or maybe he did do so individually, in which case he could still probably do it within a day.

Now, I'm not saying it makes perfect sense or that some of it may not be outlandish, I'm just offering an explanation.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Not gonna happen but I'm still foolishly hoping that Plagueis is the Sith that is trying to be resurrected if those rumors are accurate about someone or a group of people trying to resurrect the Sith order or one of the dead Sith. I think it would be really cool if that one scene in Episode III was actually a nugget of information that would end up being really important later on and it would make Plagueis feel like the true "big bad" of the episodes.

Again, no way that's happening, I just feel like since the name has been dropped and is canon, and the guy was Palpatine's master that he could be a really imposing and ruthless villain.

I don't see why that can't happen.

 

[Real Hero]

I hope beyond the OT heroes, they make up new stuff for everything else, villains included. It should be a trilogy on its own for a new generation of kids.

 

[BFIB]

Not gonna happen but I'm still foolishly hoping that Plagueis is the Sith that is trying to be resurrected if those rumors are accurate about someone or a group of people trying to resurrect the Sith order or one of the dead Sith. I think it would be really cool if that one scene in Episode III was actually a nugget of information that would end up being really important later on and it would make Plagueis feel like the true "big bad" of the episodes.

Again, no way that's happening, I just feel like since the name has been dropped and is canon, and the guy was Palpatine's master that he could be a really imposing and ruthless villain.

I'd love a Plagueis tie-in. You find out that Plagueis was attempting to build a Sith Council to combat the Jedi, until Palpatine killed his master so he could have all of the power to himself. Then you find out that Palpatine used the Midichlorians to give himself ever lasting life, and that he has been the lone Sith Master for a thousand generations, just waiting for the time to be right. I hate that midichlorians are even a part of the discussion, but I've just accepted that since its canon, you have to find a way to tie it together at least.

 

[brandonh83]

I don't see why that can't happen.

Mainly because I think for one, it was just a scene to give us a bit of information about Palpatine's past and probably shouldn't be looked into, for two I'm basing that hope on rumors that may or may not pan out, and for three while what happened in the prequels is canon, I still think that they'll try to actively avoid using elements from them after the backlash.

I personally don't think it would hurt anything especially since execution is key, but I do think they would be slightly wary about doing something like that.

I'd love a Plagueis tie-in. You find out that Plagueis was attempting to build a Sith Council to combat the Jedi, until Palpatine killed his master so he could have all of the power to himself. Then you find out that Palpatine used the Midichlorians to give himself ever lasting life, and that he has been the lone Sith Master for a thousand generations, just waiting for the time to be right. I hate that midichlorians are even a part of the discussion, but I've just accepted that since its canon, you have to find a way to tie it together at least.

Heh, the Midichlorians are fine. People mistook them as an explanation of the Force, but they're more or less some kind of product of the Force. Think of them like... calories. Weird example, but that's kind of how I saw them. A measurement of energy but not the food itself.

I also still think the Midichlorians were part of Lucas' gameplan with the prequels; the Jedi relied too much on the known science of the Force that they didn't really truly grasp it until Qui-Gon died and communicated his knowledge to Yoda and Obi-Wan after the Jedi had been wiped out largely because they were blind on their own ego. That's why you go from oh Anakin got lots of Midichlorians to Yoda's description of the Force in Empire. People think Lucas changed his mind about the Force or made the Force too static or scientific but again I think that was the point of the movies.

 

[Master Yoshi]

What are the odds that this guy makes a cameo?

 

[Raptor]

Yeah, I think that "feel" is pretty much on purpose though, he knew it needed to start transitioning to that sort of feel in the originals in terms of art design and with all the bad shit that happens naturally in the narrative, it just makes sense. I actually like the contrast that Episode I establishes, it's definitely more light-hearted and then II and III keep cranking up the darkness. For me it worked sort of like Harry Potter, which was enjoyable for me to watch it go from happy and wondrous to get fucked.

When you put it that way yeah it makes sense, we go from all almost childish to juvenile to straight up darker with murders all over and stuff.

 

[brandonh83]

When you put it that way yeah it makes sense, we go from all almost childish to juvenile to straight up darker with murders all over and stuff.

I'm not saying the childlike wonder in Episode I couldn't have been handled with a lot more... tact... stuff like Jar Jar was way too on the nose who was written to make three year olds and no one older giggle.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

These arguments about ROTS vs. ROTJ are happening a lot more frequently, it seems. And they typically end up boiling down to a basic argument: Whether individual scenes within a movie are more important than the quality of the movie entire.

Even in this thread, the prevalent defense for ROTJ over ROTS seems to be that ROTJ has two or three better scenes, and until ROTS can prove they have similar scenes, it'll never be as good.

But when ROTJ isn't spending time on Death Star II, the movie is largely flat, flat looking, and bored with itself/boring the audience. There might not be a single scene in ROTS that's as dramatically interesting as the throne room duel or the space battle - but on a whole, it's a much more even movie.

Neither of them are very good, no. But essentially it comes down to a personal question: Do you define a movie solely by its peaks and discard its valleys, or do you consider the experience as a whole and judge from there.

It seems most people who pick ROTJ aren't really picking that whole movie - they're just picking 20 or 30 minutes of it and handwaving the rest away, while people who pick ROTS are picking the whole 2 hours, faults and all.

Question: What's the chances Gwendoline Christie is John Boyega's superior at the beginning of this flick?

 

[BFIB]

ROTS is the best of the prequels, but its only because we actually get to see the fall of Anakin. Although it was poorly done.

Instead of this awesome fall from grace, we see him chop off Windu's arm, and become Vader in 30 seconds because he basically had no other choice.

It wasn't his fall to the darkside, it was "well, I can't answer for this, so sure, I'll do whatever you want."

 

[GentlemanCrow]

Here's the thing, the Jedi were in battle, they probably sense danger all around them. As I said, the troopers held no malice, they were just following their orders, as such the Jedi had no indication that they'd get shot in the back. The robots don't have have any malice, but then again, the Jedi know that the droids are enemies, and as such care should be taken. They had no idea the troopers would turn on them since Order 66 was pretty well hidden.

Yoda is 900+ years old, he's the oldest, probably wisest Jedi in the galaxy, and has an incredibly strong connection to the force (iirc, it's his area of expertise). That's the reason why he was grandmaster of the Jedi Order and that's why he was able to sense it all over the galaxy, he's just that well connected, if you will. In fact, Yoda has pretty much trained every single Jedi alive at the time (at least, their early training). And again, the order was carried out almost simultaneously across many, many planets. It's possible that Palpatine just had to send out the message (prehaps pre-recorded?). Or maybe he did do so individually, in which case he could still probably do it within a day.

Now, I'm not saying it makes perfect sense or that some of it may not be outlandish, I'm just offering an explanation.

I think a better explanation is the Jedis' powers turn on and off to suit the need of the script. Nothing about The Order 66 sequences works if we judge those Jedi by the traits we know they have. The two examples I gave clearly show that Jedi can protect themselves from unemotionally provoked attack. Luke couldn't see the remote and he was a few hours into his training. So full on Jedi Masters and Knights not sensing a gun at their back is just stupid.

Also while Yoda may be 'well connected' we know that OT Obi wan is just as connected because of him sensing the destruction of a planet. He's not as old as Yoda nor as strong, so we are told.

 

[brandonh83]

ROTS is the best of the prequels, but its only because we actually get to see the fall of Anakin. Although it was poorly done.

Instead of this awesome fall from grace, we see him chop off Windu's arm, and become Vader in 30 seconds because he basically had no other choice.

It wasn't his fall to the darkside, it was "well, I can't answer for this, so sure, I'll do whatever you want."

For me it was set up well and over the course of all three movies. He had the visions about his mom, those came to fruition, then at his mother's grave he vowed to not let anything like that ever happen again, fast forward to III where he has the same visions of Padme and even goes to Yoda for advice about it, who basically brushes him off.

Then Palpatine drops in the information about knowing how to keep Padme alive, involving Sith-exclusive powers, Anakin begs Windu to at least put him on trial, Windu declines, and all Anakin sees at that point is the last possible avenue to protect his wife and child. I thought him murdering kids may have been over the top (though it was still fucked up so I liked it) but the reasoning, I felt, was there.

What's interesting to me is that you're right that it wasn't really Anakin falling to the dark side, it was Anakin and Palpatine both using each other for different means to an end. I thought it was interesting how Anakin only subscribed to the dark side to keep someone else from dying, so no, it wasn't really legit, but at that point Anakin had nothing else after Padme died and Palpatine kept him alive in the Vader suit so he was sort of obligated to Palpatine at that point.

 

[Raptor]

For me it was set up well and over the course of all three movies. He had the visions about his mom, those came to fruition, then at his mother's grave he vowed to not let anything like that ever happen again, fast forward to III where he has the same visions of Padme and even goes to Yoda for advice about it, who basically brushes him off.

Then Palpatine drops in the information about knowing how to keep Padme alive, involving Sith-exclusive powers, Anakin begs Windu to at least put him on trial, Windu declines, and all Anakin sees at that point is the last possible avenue to protect his wife and child. I thought him murdering kids may have been over the top (though it was still fucked up so I liked it) but the reasoning, I felt, was there.

What's interesting to me is that you're right that it wasn't really Anakin falling to the dark side, it was Anakin and Palpatine both using each other for different means to an end. I thought it was interesting how Anakin only subscribed to the dark side to keep someone else from dying, so no, it wasn't really legit, but at that point Anakin had nothing else after Padme died and Palpatine kept him alive in the Vader suit so he was sort of obligated to Palpatine at that point.

The bad part for me is when Palpatine says something along the lines of "only one have achieved to cheat death but if we combine our knowledge blah bla" right there and then it all falls down and Anakin should have arrest him or straight up kill him right there, he looks very fucking dumb to still say "I will do whatever you ask" fells forced in order to fulfill what we already know, Lucas should have handled that a little better, more convincing, Anakin always showed knowledge beyond his years, he is a tech genious for fucks sakes, and to be lied and convinced like that seems and feels wrong to me.

Maybe that was the intent? to show him inmature and dumb in those kind of matters and adding the fact that he wanted full on power to prevent people from dying, I don't know.

 

[TheXbox]

These arguments about ROTS vs. ROTJ are happening a lot more frequently, it seems. And they typically end up boiling down to a basic argument: Whether individual scenes within a movie are more important than the quality of the movie entire.

Even in this thread, the prevalent defense for ROTJ over ROTS seems to be that ROTJ has two or three better scenes, and until ROTS can prove they have similar scenes, it'll never be as good.

But when ROTJ isn't spending time on Death Star II, the movie is largely flat, flat looking, and bored with itself/boring the audience. There might not be a single scene in ROTS that's as dramatically interesting as the throne room duel or the space battle - but on a whole, it's a much more even movie.

Neither of them are very good, no. But essentially it comes down to a personal question: Do you define a movie solely by its peaks and discard its valleys, or do you consider the experience as a whole and judge from there.

It seems most people who pick ROTJ aren't really picking that whole movie - they're just picking 20 or 30 minutes of it and handwaving the rest away, while people who pick ROTS are picking the whole 2 hours, faults and all.

Question: What's the chances Gwendoline Christie is John Boyega's superior at the beginning of this flick?

The whole 2 hours of ROTJ is better than the whole 2 hours of ROTS. It's that simple. I do like ROTS, but it is deeply flawed from top to bottom. Say what you will about Ewoks, but across the board you can say the performances in ROTJ were at least adequate. The dialogue doesn't make you physically cringe from embarrassment. I don't know how anyone could say that ROTS is a more "even" movie when even in individual scenes there is a huge disparity in quality between two actors (Christensen, McGregor), let alone the dramatic shifts in quality from scene to scene. The worst parts of ROTS are worse than the worst parts of ROTJ, and the best parts of ROTS are still not as good as the best parts in ROTJ.

 

[CloudyTuba]

What are the odds that this guy makes a cameo?

I would honestly be 100% on board with that. Another robot in the background.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

The whole 2 hours of ROTJ is better than the whole 2 hours of ROTS. It's that simple.

Well then you're not the "most people" I'm referring to in my post

I should also clarify - I'm not saying one of those ways of consuming movies is wrong, either. There's no right answer as to how you choose to digest your entertainment, really. It's just it appears to split down those lines.

 

[GentlemanCrow]

But when ROTJ isn't spending time on Death Star II, the movie is largely flat, flat looking, and bored with itself/boring the audience. There might not be a single scene in ROTS that's as dramatically interesting as the throne room duel or the space battle - but on a whole, it's a much more even movie.

ROTS isn't even, tonally or structurally. It zips around unconnected set pieces, rushing through plots points that should have been spread into the other two film to get to an ending that didn't need to be spelt out as bluntly or obviously. I don't like or care about any of the characters. Obi wan goes off on a mission and Anakin gets tricked. Grievous doesn't matter and how the Jedi are taken out was uninspired. The fights are overlong and look ridiculous.

ROTJ has two main plot points. Save Han and destroy the Death Star. The Jabba stuff is exotic and interesting and the infiltration of his palace and it going pear shaped is cool and very different from what we've seen before. Jabba, unlike Grievous is a threat, whom we have heard about for ages, his reveal is creepy and has a pay off. I like all the main characters and enjoy watching them dance. The Ewok stuff drags but everything to do with the Rebels in space and the Death Star is great. The end saber fight is dramatic and chilling.

I can watch Jedi. I can't watch Sith.

 

[Bucket Mouse]

These arguments about ROTS vs. ROTJ are happening a lot more frequently, it seems. And they typically end up boiling down to a basic argument: Whether individual scenes within a movie are more important than the quality of the movie entire.

Even in this thread, the prevalent defense for ROTJ over ROTS seems to be that ROTJ has two or three better scenes, and until ROTS can prove they have similar scenes, it'll never be as good.

But when ROTJ isn't spending time on Death Star II, the movie is largely flat, flat looking, and bored with itself/boring the audience. There might not be a single scene in ROTS that's as dramatically interesting as the throne room duel or the space battle - but on a whole, it's a much more even movie.

Neither of them are very good, no. But essentially it comes down to a personal question: Do you define a movie solely by its peaks and discard its valleys, or do you consider the experience as a whole and judge from there.

It seems most people who pick ROTJ aren't really picking that whole movie - they're just picking 20 or 30 minutes of it and handwaving the rest away, while people who pick ROTS are picking the whole 2 hours, faults and all.

I may have highlighted the Throne Room sequence as RotJ's best (and arguably the saga's best), but don't misconstrue that as me "handwaving" the rest of the movie away. RotJ is obviously the weakest of the OT, but the first two acts are not dramatically far removed from the tone and events of the first two movies. Jabba's Palace, the Rancor fight, the skiff, Yoda's death and the Endor speeder chase all feel inline with the rest of the movies. So by my estimation, you have a movie which coasts along, content with being decent, lulling on Endor and climaxing spectacularly on the Death Star. Overall, it is a good film.

In contrast, Episode III doesn't contain a single great sequence, let alone one as coherent as the Throne Room. Most everything is fundamentally flawed in how it is set up and executed. There may be scenes which ostensibly feel inspired, such as the opera scene, but McDiarmid's magnetic screen presence and mellifluous delivery can't prop up a dubious plot about saving Padme from death. A romance plot can't be convincingly tragic if the protagonist is a remorseless child murderer and the leads have no chemistry. A duplicitous clone army can't work if the Republic don't question their origins and enrollment. A brotherly relationship can't come to an end if the characters don't demonstrably like each other. A fight over lava can't cash in on decades-old imagery and expect the audience to care on the basis of visuals alone.

Episode III is a movie that has convinced people that it is good because the surface level stuff checks out.

 

[BFIB]

For those who really feel disconnected with The Clone Army and Ep. III should really watch The Clone Wars on Netflix.

I felt the same way before watching Clone Wars, but I'm about halfway through the series, and it has some of the best material Star Wars has offered.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

ROTS isn't even, tonally or structurally. It zips around unconnected set pieces, rushing through plots points that should have been spread into the other two film to get to an ending that didn't need to be spelt out as bluntly obviously. I don't like or care about any of the characters. Obi wan goes off on a mission and Anakin gets tricked. Grievous doesn't matter and the Jedi being taken out was uninspired. The fights are overlong and look ridiculous.

The evenness you're seeing in Jedi I don't see at all. That is a movie split in two, tonally, and the two halves don't ever really join together. You have to hop from banal kids movie to relatively compelling space-drama every 20 minutes, and it doesn't work, for me. It's the cinematic equivalent of watching someone with ACL tear try to run.

Plus again, the pace of the movie, the look of the movie, and the general listlessness all the leads are performing with drag the movie down, for me.

I don't disagree that Sith is obviously the only movie Lucas really cared to make, and you can tell by the amount of plot he's placed in that film - and the speed at which he moves through it (the only one of the prequels to really capture the pacing of the Original Trilogy) but for me, they're two sides of a problematic coin:

Jedi is 30 minutes of movie surrounded by 90 minutes of meandering. It's waterlogged and bloated because there's not enough story left in the trilogy to fill the third movie. Sith has too much of its trilogy's story crammed into it for the final chapter because Lucas spent too much time dawdling in the ultimately unneccessary, storywise, Episode I.

But again, I'd prefer the amount of story and the speed at which they push through it, as in Sith, than I do a movie that pretty obviously exists only because you can't release a 40 minute closing chapter to Star Wars.

Episode III is a movie that has convinced people that it is good because the surface level stuff checks out.

I dunno. I think most people who prefer Sith to Jedi aren't making the argument that either movie is particularly good, though. At least I'm not. Neither movie has convinced me they're overall "good." But if I had to pick which of the movies was a better film overall, I'd pick Sith.

 

[brandonh83]

I dunno. I think most people who prefer Sith to Jedi aren't making the argument that either movie is particularly good, though. At least I'm not. Neither movie has convinced me they're overall "good." But if I had to pick which of the movies was a better film overall, I'd pick Sith.

I think they're both great movies so I'm not personally beating around any bushes. I just think Sith is more entertaining and consistent. As much as I love Star Wars, to me they're just well produced action movies with likable characters and amazing art direction and music. I get really excited about it and don't exactly put them under the microscope of scrutiny because they're just meant to be fun movies.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Hey, to each their reach!

I just like that nobody's tried to claw each other's eyes out for having differing opinions on a bunch of space movies.

 

[brandonh83]

Hey, to each their reach!

I just like that nobody's tried to claw each other's eyes out for having differing opinions on a bunch of space movies.

I know, right? I used to love talking about Star Wars but too many people are too upset about the prequels to have any real level-headed discussions about them. It's nice for a change to be able to lay opinions out on the table without feeling like you're in a poker match with a bunch of gun-toting gangstas. The difference here is that no one is saying "you're wrong" but rather "I disagree or agree and here's why." It's easy enough to just post "you're wrong watch the Plinkett reviews" (which is lazy as fuck) and there are plenty of super valid criticisms about the prequels, but some people such as myself were just along for the ride and actually found some of Lucas' story decisions to be interesting instead of just giving fans exactly what they wanted or predicted.

 

[BFIB]

I know, right? I used to love talking about Star Wars but too many people are too upset about the prequels to have any real level-headed discussions about them. It's nice for a change to be able to lay opinions out on the table without feeling like you're in a poker match with a bunch of gun-toting gangstas. The difference here is that no one is saying "you're wrong" but rather "I disagree or agree and here's why." It's easy enough to just post "you're wrong watch the Plinkett reviews" (which is lazy as fuck) and there are plenty of super valid criticisms about the prequels, but some people such as myself were just along for the ride and actually found some of Lucas' story decisions to be interesting instead of just giving fans exactly what they wanted or predicted.

Agreed. The prequels could have been better, and should have been better. But, its still Star Wars, and its canon. There are pieces of the prequel trilogy that I like, and some that I don't. But I still enjoy watching them, even though the OT still stands head and shoulders above it.

 

[Lucky Forward]

What are the odds that this guy makes a cameo?

Approximately 3,720 to 1.

 

[brandonh83]

Agreed. The prequels could have been better, and should have been better. But, its still Star Wars, and its canon. There are pieces of the prequel trilogy that I like, and some that I don't. But I still enjoy watching them, even though the OT still stands head and shoulders above it.

Yeah. For me they're kind of mixed in terms of quality, episode-wise I mean. I personally don't consider "the OT" to be way better because III is actually my favorite overall. Now, IV and V are obviously better than I and II, but for me while I liked VI, I didn't really ever feel like it got as "big" as it needed to be because before VII-IX were announced, it was the finale and sort of a letdown in that regard.

However with the announcement of three more, I don't have to look at VI as the grand finale because it isn't anymore, so in a way the announcement of the next three movies retroactively made VI easier for me to accept. It's no longer the ending of the saga, and to me that's a good thing. It's a fine movie on its own, but for me not acceptable as the ending to Star Wars.

 

[Windu]

Approximately 3,720 to 1.

 

[Dragonborn]

I think a better explanation is the Jedis' powers turn on and off to suit the need of the script. Nothing about The Order 66 sequences works if we judge those Jedi by the traits we know they have. The two examples I gave clearly show that Jedi can protect themselves from unemotionally provoked attack. Luke couldn't see the remote and he was a few hours into his training. So full on Jedi Masters and Knights not sensing a gun at their back is just stupid.

Also while Yoda may be 'well connected' we know that OT Obi wan is just as connected because of him sensing the destruction of a planet. He's not as old as Yoda nor as strong, so we are told.

But again, you're ignoring the fact that the troopers were allies. The Jedi did not see it coming, they didn't expect that the troopers would go from protecting their backs to shooting them the next. You get what I'm saying there?

I'm not saying other Jedi didn't feel it. We know that some of them did survive the purge, including Yoda, so it's possible others were able to sense it before their doom.

 

[megashock5]

ROTS is the best of the prequels, but its only because we actually get to see the fall of Anakin. Although it was poorly done.

Instead of this awesome fall from grace, we see him chop off Windu's arm, and become Vader in 30 seconds because he basically had no other choice.

It wasn't his fall to the darkside, it was "well, I can't answer for this, so sure, I'll do whatever you want."

The biggest problem for me is that it should have hurt when he turned. But for that to happen we would have had to like him up to that point, and I didn't. He was a whiny petulant brat for most of 2 and 3 who bitched at Obi-Wan instead of the "good friend" that was mentioned in 4.

I mean, we all knew it was coming (that's the story) but it just didn't carry the emotional weight it should have because I was never rooting for him in the first place.

 

[BFIB]

The biggest problem for me is that it should have hurt when he turned. But for that to happen we would have had to like him up to that point, and I didn't. He was a whiny petulant brat for most of 2 and 3 who bitched at Obi-Wan instead of the "good friend" that was mentioned in 4.

I mean, we all knew it was coming (that's the story) but it just didn't carry the emotional weight it should have because I was never rooting for him in the first place.

I think that's my biggest issue with the prequels. We know how the OT starts, so all you have to do is lead the story there.

Instead, we get all of these additions to the OT to fit what the prequel story told, when it should have been the other way around.

 

[pringles]

I may have highlighted the Throne Room sequence as RotJ's best (and arguably the saga's best), but don't misconstrue that as me "handwaving" the rest of the movie away. RotJ is obviously the weakest of the OT, but the first two acts are not dramatically far removed from the tone and events of the first two movies. Jabba's Palace, the Rancor fight, the skiff, Yoda's death and the Endor speeder chase all feel inline with the rest of the movies. So by my estimation, you have a movie which coasts along, content with being decent, lulling on Endor and climaxing spectacularly on the Death Star. Overall, it is a good film.

In contrast, Episode III doesn't contain a single great sequence, let alone one as coherent as the Throne Room. Most everything is fundamentally flawed in how it is set up and executed. There may be scenes which ostensibly feel inspired, such as the opera scene, but McDiarmid's magnetic screen presence and mellifluous delivery can't prop up a dubious plot about saving Padme from death. A romance plot can't be convincingly tragic if the protagonist is a remorseless child murderer and the leads have no chemistry. A duplicitous clone army can't work if the Republic don't question their origins and enrollment. A brotherly relationship can't come to an end if the characters don't demonstrably like each other. A fight over lava can't cash in on decades-old imagery and expect the audience to care on the basis of visuals alone.

Episode III is a movie that has convinced people that it is good because the surface level stuff checks out.

Pretty much. The prequels are badly written, badly acted and broken movies. Ep3 may be better on the surface but all the core issues remain. Compare that to ROTJ, which has some problems (ewoks) but at the core is still a good movie. There's drama, characters we care about, good actors and some really memorable setpieces.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

I mean, we all knew it was coming (that's the story) but it just didn't carry the emotional weight it should have because I was never rooting for him in the first place.

This is also a key problem in the Clone Wars show, I found. Neither Filoni nor Lucas were comfortable enough just letting Anakin be likable for long stretches of time. They had to undercut his character at every positive step by essentially elbowing you in the ribs and saying "HEY. REMEMBER. HE'S GOING TO BE DARTH VADER. WHAT AN ASSHOLE."

Like, if they'd simply made him likable, it would have actually hurt. But they never got around to doing that. They made sure to keep him at arms length, emotionally, except for when he was pouting, and then they let you in. Which is not a pleasant experience.

There's a couple clone wars episodes where he gets to just be a grinning smartass that you enjoy watching, but there's only a couple. Episode III carries a ton more weight if that character is allowed to be fun for longer than 2 minutes at a stretch over 5 hours of film.

Compare that to ROTJ, which has some problems (ewoks) but at the core is still a good movie. There's drama, characters we care about, good actors and some really memorable setpieces.

My problem with this is that the "core good movie" you're discussing isn't actually IN that movie. The drama is there because Empire sets it up, not because Jedi pushes it forward. The characters we care about are essentially ciphers, except for Luke, who is restrained and reserved for most of the movie anyway - so we care about them not for anything Jedi is doing, but for what Empire and Star Wars have already done. The good actors are turning in mediocre or plain bad work (again, except for Hamill).

But yeah, the setpieces are mostly good. The Barge rescue/Rancor fight is okay, the speederbike chase is fun, but the novelty of it wears off pretty quick, but that Death Star II battle is still the best single dogfight put on film, period. So there's that.

The core issues of the prequel are absolutely still present in Episode III, but they're at least filtered/diluted a little. Not emphasized for their ineptitude like in Episode II. What makes Jedi a worse film to me is that it drops the ball: It only works because you're invested in the previous two films. What made Star Wars and Empire good is largely absent in Jedi.

 

[Bucket Mouse]

This is also a key problem in the Clone Wars show, I found. Neither Filoni nor Lucas were comfortable enough just letting Anakin be likable for long stretches of time. They had to undercut his character at every positive step by essentially elbowing you in the ribs and saying "HEY. REMEMBER. HE'S GOING TO BE DARTH VADER. WHAT AN ASSHOLE."

Like, if they'd simply made him likable, it would have actually hurt. But they never got around to doing that. They made sure to keep him at arms length, emotionally, except for when he was pouting, and then they let you in. Which is not a pleasant experience.

There's a couple clone wars episodes where he gets to just be a grinning smartass that you enjoy watching, but there's only a couple. Episode III carries a ton more weight if that character is allowed to be fun for longer than 2 minutes at a stretch over 5 hours of film.



My problem with this is that the "core good movie" you're discussing isn't actually IN that movie. The drama is there because Empire sets it up, not because Jedi pushes it forward. The characters we care about are essentially ciphers, except for Luke, who is restrained and reserved for most of the movie anyway - so we care about them not for anything Jedi is doing, but for what Empire and Star Wars have already done. The good actors are turning in mediocre or plain bad work (again, except for Hamill).

But yeah, the setpieces are mostly good. The Barge rescue/Rancor fight is okay, the speederbike chase is fun, but the novelty of it wears off pretty quick, but that Death Star II battle is still the best single dogfight put on film, period. So there's that.

The core issues of the prequel are absolutely still present in Episode III, but they're at least filtered/diluted a little. Not emphasized for their ineptitude like in Episode II. What makes Jedi a worse film to me is that it drops the ball: It only works because you're invested in the previous two films. What made Star Wars and Empire good is largely absent in Jedi.

Come on, Bobby. You recognize this shit. Come over to our side.

I've said before that Fassbender's Magneto in First Class is a good model for Anakin. A quiet, masculine man with inherent darkness in his heart, but he is very likable because of all that banter and screen time he shares with McAvoy. First Class is merely a quite good film, but the filmmakers convincingly brought Magneto over to the dark side in the space of 2 hours.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Come on, Bobby. You recognize this shit. Come over to our side.

My side is that there is one great Star Wars film, one really good one, and then four that vary from terrible to okay-ish at best.

So basically, 2/3rds of all Star Wars movies aren't good. It's basically the same average as James Bond, which is another series I love. Same with Star Trek, too.

 

[brandonh83]

I've said before that Fassbender's Magneto in First Class is a good model for Anakin. A quiet, masculine man with inherent darkness in his heart, but he is very likable because of all that banter and screen time he shares with McAvoy.

Sounds boring, typical and predictable as a direction for Anakin's character to me. I think that's the problem, everyone wanted Anakin to be one thing but Lucas decided on something else. Obviously it's fine to not like that but when I hear someone say what "should" have been, it's just the most... safe thing. Nothing wrong with safe, but I'm personally glad that Anakin ended up having color to him other than just being a stoic douchebag that doesn't see very much development other than "dark dude who becomes... more dark because he was dark to begin with." Just doesn't sound very exciting to me.

I liked that what happened with Anakin was a product of some of the choices he made in addition to how the Jedi were conditioned and how in turn he was conditioned, in addition to deeper matters involving Force-centric visions and the unfortunate events surrounding what happened to his mom. That's far better to me than how most fans visualized him-- and that's why they're fans and not the visionaries/storytellers.

 

[Nicktendo86]

Here's the thing, the Jedi were in battle, they probably sense danger all around them. As I said, the troopers held no malice, they were just following their orders, as such the Jedi had no indication that they'd get shot in the back. The robots don't have have any malice, but then again, the Jedi know that the droids are enemies, and as such care should be taken. They had no idea the troopers would turn on them since Order 66 was pretty well hidden.

Yoda is 900+ years old, he's the oldest, probably wisest Jedi in the galaxy, and has an incredibly strong connection to the force (iirc, it's his area of expertise). That's the reason why he was grandmaster of the Jedi Order and that's why he was able to sense it all over the galaxy, he's just that well connected, if you will. In fact, Yoda has pretty much trained every single Jedi alive at the time (at least, their early training). And again, the order was carried out almost simultaneously across many, many planets. It's possible that Palpatine just had to send out the message (prehaps pre-recorded?). Or maybe he did do so individually, in which case he could still probably do it within a day.

Now, I'm not saying it makes perfect sense or that some of it may not be outlandish, I'm just offering an explanation.

I cannot buy any of that I'm afraid. The Jedi knew palaptine and his army couldn't be trusted, we could tell from the conversations between Yoda and Windu. We shouldn't have to perform wild mental gymnastics such as the explanation you have pit together (and kudos for doing so) but let's just accept its bullshit. A great portion of the pt just made no sense, and that is one of my reasons for detesting it so much.

 

[Real Hero]

I hated how the Jedi instantly knew Anakin was bad news then just said fuck it rain him anyway.

 

[GentlemanCrow]

Come on, Bobby. You recognize this shit. Come over to our side.

I've said before that Fassbender's Magneto in First Class is a good model for Anakin. A quiet, masculine man with inherent darkness in his heart, but he is very likable because of all that banter and screen time he shares with McAvoy. First Class is merely a quite good film, but the filmmakers convincingly brought Magneto over to the dark side in the space of 2 hours.

McAvoy and Fassbender in First Class encapsulate what I wanted from Obi wan and Anakin in a fashion that I find so impressive and depressing. Give me the money to remake the prequels right now and I cast them. No hesitation. The naive, freshly minted Jedi who thinks he can save his friend with a dark past.

It hurts so much that I can't watch that version of the prequels.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

I'm pretty sure I've quoted Bucket before on Full of Sith, regarding how X-Men First Class was a good example of how Anakin should have been handled as a character.

 

[Ravek]

I hated how the Jedi instantly knew Anakin was bad news then just said fuck it rain him anyway.

Yeah that was always weird to me too. It was almost like a pity.

It pretty much went against what the Jedi are known for. I mean, they are already their own worst enemy in many different ways, but this was just a blindly ignornant decision that cost them nearly everything.

 

[Sectorseven]

These arguments about ROTS vs. ROTJ are happening a lot more frequently, it seems. And they typically end up boiling down to a basic argument: Whether individual scenes within a movie are more important than the quality of the movie entire.

Even in this thread, the prevalent defense for ROTJ over ROTS seems to be that ROTJ has two or three better scenes, and until ROTS can prove they have similar scenes, it'll never be as good.

William Goldman described movies as a series of moments, where you walk away remembering particular events and the way they made you feel even if the overall film wasn't especially well constructed. So, personally I don't think it's unreasonable to prefer a certain film because of how specific scenes resonate with you.

 

[GentlemanCrow]

But again, you're ignoring the fact that the troopers were allies. The Jedi did not see it coming, they didn't expect that the troopers would go from protecting their backs to shooting them the next. You get what I'm saying there?

I'm not saying other Jedi didn't feel it. We know that some of them did survive the purge, including Yoda, so it's possible others were able to sense it before their doom.

No, I'm not ignoring it. It's a non issue. Danger is danger. It doesn't matter where it's coming from. Jedi have been shown time and time again to sense peril, of all kinds, whether it's been growing for sometime or an imminent threat.

How can the Jedi not see it coming especially when they are actively using the force at that very moment avoid 'danger'?

 

[Bucket Mouse]

Sounds boring, typical and predictable as a direction for Anakin's character to me. I think that's the problem, everyone wanted Anakin to be one thing but Lucas decided on something else. Obviously it's fine to not like that but when I hear someone say what "should" have been, it's just the most... safe thing. Nothing wrong with safe, but I'm personally glad that Anakin ended up having color to him other than just being a stoic douchebag that doesn't see very much development other than "dark dude who becomes... more dark because he was dark to begin with." Just doesn't sound very exciting to me.

I liked that what happened with Anakin was a product of some of the choices he made in addition to how the Jedi were conditioned and how in turn he was conditioned, in addition to deeper matters involving Force-centric visions and the unfortunate events surrounding what happened to his mom. That's far better to me than how most fans visualized him-- and that's why they're fans and not the visionaries/storytellers.

When you are making a prequel and you already have an established outcome with regards to a character, it's sometimes the best course of action to be boring and predictable to some extent, while framing this with new characters and fresh situations. It's supposed to be the same person, after all. It's all well and good trying to make Anakin this sort of Luke analogue - Luke if he had made the wrong choices - but that direction wasn't too inspired either and ultimately wasn't well executed. As it stands, I have a very hard time reconciling Anakin of the prequels with Vader of the OT.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

William Goldman described movies as a series of moments, where you walk away remembering particular events and the way they made you feel even if the overall film wasn't especially well constructed. So, personally I don't think it's unreasonable to prefer a certain film because of how specific scenes resonate with you.

I never said it was unreasonable. Hell, I specifically said in a later post that there's no right or wrong way, or that one method was better than the other, mostly to make sure nobody felt they had to defend the way they watch their movies.

I just said that I'd noticed over time here that it seems to split along those lines, and I thought that was interesting. There's a common ground I thought I spotted, and I tried to call it out, because I personally think it's worth trying to find some common ground to help make the discussion more inclusive, even if the opinions vary wildly.

 

[brandonh83]

When you are making a prequel and you already have an established outcome with regards to a character, it's sometimes the best course of action to be boring and predictable to some extent, while framing this with new characters and fresh situations. It's supposed to be the same person, after all. It's all well and good trying to make Anakin this sort of Luke analogue - Luke if he had made the wrong choices - but that direction wasn't too inspired either and ultimately wasn't well executed. As it stands, I have a very hard time reconciling Anakin of the prequels with Vader of the OT.

Hey that's totally cool. I felt like the huge time gap between III and IV made it easy, at least for me to relate Anakin to Vader. It didn't work for everyone though.

 

[Mr.Pig]

Sounds boring, typical and predictable as a direction for Anakin's character to me. I think that's the problem, everyone wanted Anakin to be one thing but Lucas decided on something else. Obviously it's fine to not like that but when I hear someone say what "should" have been, it's just the most... safe thing. Nothing wrong with safe, but I'm personally glad that Anakin ended up having color to him other than just being a stoic douchebag that doesn't see very much development other than "dark dude who becomes... more dark because he was dark to begin with." Just doesn't sound very exciting to me.

I liked that what happened with Anakin was a product of some of the choices he made in addition to how the Jedi were conditioned and how in turn he was conditioned, in addition to deeper matters involving Force-centric visions and the unfortunate events surrounding what happened to his mom. That's far better to me than how most fans visualized him-- and that's why they're fans and not the visionaries/storytellers.

I don't think the real problem was that Anakin starts out good. What we're interested in, is how he becomes evil (especially since the movie unnecessarily spoils itself with his Skywalker-name)
I think however, that he is plenty dark and broody. We as an audience can buy that based on his upbringing and his mother's tragic death that he was unable to hinder (though his slavery life looked pretty damn comfy). Instead what annoys me is the fact that he isn't really seduced by the dark side as Kenobi said in ANH. Anakin seems to be completely practical about his betrayal of the jedi. He wants to save Padme and for that to be possible, Palpatine has to stay alive no matter what. After his "Oh, what have I done", then Anakin basically surrenders and is suddenly completely evil and ready to slaughter kids. That transition just isn't very convincing. The few pseudo evil things he has done before, are always something he regrets and is tormented by.

If he, on the other hand, had been slowly seduced by the dark side because he needed the power of the dark side to save Padmé/stop the war and we saw how the dark side made a difference for his abilities and was corrupted by that, then it would have been much more convincing. (Like a slow motion Boromir ;-)

 

[brandonh83]

From Obi-Wan's POV he was seduced by the dark side, but he really was "seduced" by its potential to save his wife and kid. I see no contradictions. It was just, again, different from what a lot of people expected. What went down was kind of chaotic and he was having to make rapid-fire decisions and at the time he was being mentally jerked in different directions. What Palpatine told him about the dark side combined with how the Jedi failed to help him even when he sought their help led to him making some kneejerk decisions that he couldn't change.

 

[maharg]

From Obi-Wan's POV he was seduced by the dark side, but he really was "seduced" by its potential to save his wife and kid. I see no contradictions. It was just, again, different from what a lot of people expected.

The problem is, if he was 'seduced' for practical reasons his immediate and ridiculous descent into child-killing monster doesn't really work. It's clear he fully buys into the Sith mindset pretty much immediately after the events in Palpatine's office, which go well beyond just trying to save Padme.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Essentially, he needs to have such a philosophical break with the jedi that him angrily cutting them all down makes total sense.

Lip service is paid to that during the lava fight, but it's just that: Lip Service. You never really get the sense he's angry at the Jedi for anything they've done. Annoyed/frustrated, yeah, but at no point do you get the sense that he's so sick of how stupid they are that everything about them needs to just go.

Alternately, if you make him a fun character, one who really loves getting into trouble and getting back out of it again, getting away with stuff, being a "Scoundrel," you can easily have him getting drunk on the pure POWER of it all and he can make that flip much more convincingly even IF he hasn't hinted towards being really upset at the Jedi before that.

You essentially turn him into a drug addict.

Some of this IS in there, it's just presented very limply, because Lucas is trying to keep the character in this gray area where you don't like him that much because you know he's going to become Vader, but you can't hate him that much because he's (ostensibly) the protagonist.

He's a walking waffle.

 

[brandonh83]

The problem is, if he was 'seduced' for practical reasons his immediate and ridiculous descent into child-killing monster doesn't really work. It's clear he fully buys into the Sith mindset pretty much immediately after the events in Palpatine's office, which go well beyond just trying to save Padme.

He was seduced by practical reasons, but it seems to me that there's a bit more of a mindset change once you "convert," almost like you're in a trance or hypnotized a bit or something along those lines hence things like Anakin killing the children, his eyes changing color, etc. At that point it did feel like he became a different person, but I would agree that maybe Lucas needed to explain that a bit better, if that's indeed the case.