He’s still on the hook for the special editions which were a worse crime than any of the prequels
It still doesn’t explain WHY the blockade was happening. The horrible forced love scenes that made no sense. “I’m a senator!” As well as rolling around a hill of flowers. Not to mention the rest of all of the prequels and dealing with medichlorions as a medical fact rather than the mythos of force sensitive beings having measured for power. I still enjoy them, no doubt. But they got issues.
The OT was also corny. People who pick apart details like this are thinking too hard.
Yes. The entirety of all filmmakers think too hard about their craft…
I mean… yeah?
The blockade was happening because Palpatine and Plagueis arranged it. The trade federation said they wanted a better trade deal, but were really there to avoid being killed by the sith (motivation) and to militarily take over the planet (goal given to them by the sith). They likely also had an expectation that they’d get a better deal, which might have been better prices, reduced tarrifs, setting their own tarrifs, exclusivity/monopoly, or anything that could be used to increase their wealth. The specifics weren’t important to the overall plot, main point was that they were attempting to ecnomically dominate Naboo at first and then were financially backing one side of the clone wars and their main motivation was because the sith would kill them if they didn’t (which was their fate in the end even though they did because they were always just tools).
The planet was picked because it was Palpatine’s home planet and he was the senator; it was a false flag attack intended to garnish sympathy that he would leverage for more political power.
Also, the theme of unforeseen consequences of individualism and elitism have on a person is spot on for Lucas. Yeah, individualism can be good, especially as someone who came from a collectivist culture where conformity is upheld and loathed it, but I have to admit individualism killed community. It’s one reason for the male loneliness epidemic, which is the low key theme of Star War prequels and how Anakin became Darth Vader. This is alongside with toxic masculinity on keeping a stiff upper lip, and not being attached to emotions including love. The blind worshipping of rationality of elites dismisses emotion, even though the latter is just as real as facts. Corruption also drives populism and the yearning for dictators.
George Lucas presented these interesting ideas and themes, but have done so in such an awkward way on the prequels. I think the amazing action scenes are what lifted and saved the prequel series rather than the heavy themes.
Edit: clarity and formatting
If you don’t mind some spoilers for Jedi: Survivor
Tap for spoiler
Cal decides “The Jedi fucked things up, I’m not beholden to their rules” and starts a relationship in that game. It feels nice
Credit where credit is due. I feel such themes will always be awkward because at the end of the day, they are so fundamental to the human experience that you will always upset someone without even trying when you bring them up.
You have people who hate individualism because they grew up neglected even in their own homes and isolated from any sense of community and family.
You have people who hate collectivism because they were pressured since youth to perform or conform to a specific route.
Both extremes are always wrong, but its important to address by reframing the narrative.
That, for me, has always been the strongpoint of fiction and entertainment.
Lucas never was leftist enough to write a good political driven plot as much as he could a rebel based one. He just had too much liberal in him to do it justice.
too much liberal i see in you, yeeess, the liberal side of the force is strong in you
The man is a billionaire now.
I totally think Star Wars could’ve pulled off a more political plot – I actually even think it could’ve been just as good for a popcorn flick as the OT and far better for the people who want deep, complex, meaningful lore while enhancing the OT. Palpatine’s plan to instigate a war and play both sides, to me, is the actually perfect Palpatine backstory. Anakin’s backstory in the (very) broad strokes is extremely compelling too, and Obi-Wan was overall fantastic. Problem is that George completely fucked up the writing, Anakin’s character development and his relationship with Padmé, a lot of the acting, etc., and squandered so much of the potential the premise had.
This new wave of prequel apologia, that, imo, was catalyzed by the influx of memes, is pointing at criticisms of the prequels from like 15 years ago while totally ignoring the more nuanced, well-argued, and – I think – damning criticisms of the modern day. It’s basically strawmanning when the criticisms are so old and so dead.
In my own personal opinion, there are at least two major things that bring the prequels down:
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The pacing sucks. They tried to cram too much shit into three movies, and the Episode 1 was kind of a wash for character development because they spend the entire movie simply introducing us to the main characters for the next two films. If they had either spread it out over more films or narrowed their scope a little more, it would have been a much more enjoyable viewing experience.
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The dialogue is bad. The wooden acting, flat delivery of the lines, and lame slapstick I attribute to George being high off his own supply - both fans and the creative team puffing him up and telling him what a genius he is when what he really needed was someone in the room to step in and write and direct for him when he was clearly having issues with both late into production. Just in general he needed someone to tell him “No” from time to time.
There are probably more things than that, but just taking the prequels in a vacuum and not considering their greater impact on the lore, those are the two most glaring issues with them. Supplemental media spends a lot of time trying to plug plot holes and lore inconsistencies that were created by the prequels.
Overall I think they are decent but flawed films. I never thought that the political intrigues were bad, but they could have shown us more and told us less to really drive the point across.
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Agree with your comment mostly, but I think the prequel apologia is catalyzed by all the kids who watched when they were less than 10 years old becoming adults a decade ago, and remembering them through the rose-tinted lens of nostalgia.
In the prequel heyday Lucasfilm absolutely deluged the world with toys and cross-marketed products, those kids were surrounded by it and of course watched the films, saw the cool parts, and didn’t understand enough to see that the films were very flawed from an adult perspective.
I blame Weird Al, personally. I can’t listen to The Saga Begins without legitimately wanting to watch that movie at least a little.
I agree, and i think it’s more than just nostaliga. All the additional media/shows added so much extra context, which makes the movies seem better then they actually are, because it tends to get blended together in people’s minds growing up.
Characters like Anakin or Darth Maul, who are wrtten absolutely terribly in the movies are much more liked because of shows like Clone Wars, which influenced the way people remember the movies additionally to the nostalgia.
Yeah that’s a great point. Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars did an amazing job expanding and legitimizing the plots and characters introduced in the prequels.
I’ve not seen the clone wars, but I found the prequel to be more engaging. Tho I didn’t really watch much star wars growing up. I caught up as an adult.
I’d always thought it was catalyzed by the widespread shitposts which were then seen by kids who’d never watched or been exposed to the prequels before. The kids, in my interpretation, took the tongue-in-cheek love for the prequels and the way the meme community would twist the prequels’ flaws into strengths (under 7 layers of irony) and adopted it as an unironic love for them.
The base idea doesn’t make the writing and direction any less terrible
And it’s like we sent Jar Jar Binks to negotiate for us.
Sigh. An administration both evil and incompetent. I swear, the U.S. has had such bad luck with its recent government you’d think we’d built the nation on an ancient Indian burial ground or something…
So send sith lord Binks?
…yeah. About that…
I want to see Iranian Jedi negotiators…
the blockade was the least offensive thing about TPM.
TPM
(I thought you meant me for a second)
Oooh, that’s why I don’t get this reference. It’s from one of the first three “episodes”.
Nope, I’ll never get those 20 minutes back from the senate scene
Soon I will have a new apprentice this one far more racist and moronic!
