Re-watched the Star Wars prequels.

[Gorn Captain]

To me, it's the "ultimate freedom" that Lucas got with the prequels that messed it up.
For the OT, he had less money, so needed to be more creative. Once you get $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to make your movie, you tend to lose control and think that 500 Tie fighters are always better than 4. No, George, it's what you do with those 4 fighters that makes the scene exciting, not the volume.

To compare: Star Trek TOS was great even though they had little money. They got creative. Then comes ST TMP ("let's go 2001 style"), and what do you get: lots of flashing lights and boring.....

No amount of CG can remedy weak writing.

[Mikey]

This was probably mentioned before but one thing I hate about the prequels is there's always too much distracting background stuff in every scene.

It's like every single space is filled with ships flying by or something.

After a while it gets very annoying.

Almost like having multiple people all talking to you at once and trying to listen to just one.

[Gorn Captain]

This was probably mentioned before but one thing I hate about the prequels is there's always too much distracting background stuff in every scene.

It's like every single space is filled with ships flying by or something.

After a while it gets very annoying.

Almost like having multiple people all talking to you out once and trying to listen to just one.

Too many ingredients spoil the mix....

[LonnieFisher]

Too Much CG Garbage!!

[The Toyroom]

How come Lucas has never gone back and tweaked American Graffiti with CGI?

[huedell]

I never really notice CGI stuff or it's supposed shortcomings
----from JURASSIC PARK to the PIRANAH 3-D preview...I've never liked
a movie less because of it...and that goes for the SW CGI stuff too.
It just doesn't register w/my brain the way it does (seemingly) for so many
others.

[Sandman9580]

The fascinating thing about Lucas is that he oftentimes seems to be two different people. He's a very conservative, shrewd businessman. He's highly imaginative and creative, and started his career with a strong leaning towards the avant garde and experimental cinema. If you watch his student films and first two features, he wasn't interested so much in classical narrative as in an anthropological, almost documentary-like exploration of specific times and places. (When he was still planning to direct Apocalypse Now, his plan was to go into the jungle with a 16mm camera and make it guerilla-style, with U.S. soldiers as extras.)

And then there's Star Wars. It was an honest embrace of "old-school", romantic cinema, the kind of movie he would have liked when he was a kid. It was - for him - a heady exploration into "classical" narrative and myth, which he learned about as he was writing. Whether he regarded this as natural progression, or just another big-budget "experiment" whose cost was being covered by someone else, I don't think any of us can know. (Though I suspect the latter.)

He's a brilliant, "big idea" conceptualist, but he's always struggled with writing. THX was pretty abstract, and he needed a lot of help with Graffiti. (According to his secretaries even his grammar and spelling were atrocious.) If you read about the first drafts of "The Star Wars", they were all over the place. Luke Starkiller was a general, leading a bunch of kids. Two of the kids were brothers, searching for their Dad. Leia was their cousin, daughter of Beru and Lars Owen. Eventually the brothers evolved into Luke Starkiller and Han Solo. Solo was a burly, bearded, thinly-disguised version of Francis Ford Coppola, and had a girlfriend who was a cross between a bear and a guinea pig. In later drafts he loses the girlfriend and becomes a large reptile. Mace Windu is the master Jedi Bendu in the story, and everyone's looking for something called the Kiber Crystal.

The script-writing period was a mess, the shooting was a mess, and the editing was a mess until Lucas brought in some outside help. If you watch Star Wars carefully, you can see how much of what's "iconic" about it are contributions from other artists; the conceptual/visual design, all of the sound design, and especially the music. Lucas was - and remains - a talented overseer, and he got very lucky with Star Wars.

You can also read the first draft of ESB online (which Lucas didn't write). It too is pretty bad, but it got a huge benefit from re-writes, on-set improvisation, and an experienced director who really knew what he was doing. By then the movies were a cultural phenomenon, but Lucas wanted to do other things like produce (rather than direct) other films and use Star Wars money to finance companies. He resented being "Mr. Star Wars", because it was something he wanted to move on from, but eventually he just accepted it. And without using the hokey "Dark side" analogy, I think in Lucas there is (or was) a constant struggle between the experimental artist he wants to be, and the shrewd and savvy businessman he naturally is. But maybe I'm wrong.

As for the prequels:

People say he's surrounded by yes-men now, and that's probably true as far as it goes, but Lucas never took well to suggestions from others. I think the reason the prequels were so bad were 1) he didn't take enough time to let the details of the story percolate. 2) He was all too aware of the mythic status the first trilogy had reached, and that's a very limiting place to have to write from - even for really good writers. 3) The shrewd mogul in him wanted it to appeal to way too many people. 4) He lacks the emotional sensitivity to be a good director with actors, and the cinematic sensitivity to be a good director with camera people and cinematographers.

And 5) yes, in all fairness to him, expectations were sky high, and nothing short of jaw-dropping brilliance would have met them. For all his talent, he was just really, really lucky the first time around, and it's hard to do it twice.

*It will be really interesting to see in a decade or so what people in their twenties and thirties think of the prequels.

[jds1911a1]

Sounds like Chewy's family

I had the same thought

or we can get a whole series of the 10 nobaody characters in the topless robot list.
we can find out everything we never wanted to know about the tibanna miners in cloud city and ice cream maker guy

Franlkly I would rather see a season long comedy done like the Troops fan film about imperials

[jds1911a1]

I never really notice CGI stuff or it's supposed shortcomings
----from JURASSIC PARK to the PIRANAH 3-D preview...I've never liked
a movie less because of it...and that goes for the SW CGI stuff too.
It just doesn't register w/my brain the way it does (seemingly) for so many
others.

CG is like any other effect if used in the right proportions it is seamless and enjoyable.
Jurassic park is a perfect example of done right. there is CG in every scene but it is blended into the real shots and great effort was done to give "natural" movement to the dino's. I was 20 when JP came out and I bought the film totally
IN stark contrast is a film like Deep blue sea which uses CG sharks. Sharks have been filmed thousands of times there is no exscuse for unnatural movement. combined with over the top green screen only set shots ruin the suspension of disbeleif.
before CG it was explosions and gunfights - see Jean claude van damm films . A great gunfight or a massive explosion cannot offset a weak story.
I felt the same way about the prequel trilogy. Tyring to use massive amounts of effects to mask weaknesses that were actually pointed out by the overwhelming volume of effects.

The prequels seem to suffer from the same bad mix that all the sci fi films of the 80's that tried to be star wars did

[ctc]

>it's the "ultimate freedom" that Lucas got with the prequels that messed it up.

I can see that. I think that another factor is that when the first film was done, nothing quite like this had been done before. They had to plan every shot, every idea, every scene.... Nowadays there’s been so many Star Wars rips, clones and copies that a lot of the film can be (and was) “off the shelf.” I got that problem with tons of stuff, especially concerning the nerdly arts. Once one person does it and it makes money, EVERYBODY does it. (Can you say “vampires, vampires, vampires?”)

>there's always too much distracting background stuff in every scene.

My biggest gripe with CGI isn’t CGI; but the sloppiness it encourages. This is one instance: there’s no composition to the scenes, just a lot of stuff happening. So there’s no real feel, just.... stuff. (‘Course, it’s nowhere’s near as bad as the “Transformers” films.) There’s a tendency to resort to prepack vectors too.... hence every sweeping city shot looking quite similar, every ship fight, every Napoleonic Era mass army charge. (And again, not just in these films.)

There’s other stuff too:

5 Annoying Trends That Make Every Movie Look the Same | Cracked.com

Don C.

[Gorn Captain]

What bothered me about the prequels, is the lack of motivation to be more creative.
Even in the OT, Lucas borrowed heavily from older sources, but in those days, we were used to meager pickings in the SF department, and less access to information.
So in those days, SW seemed very fresh.
These days, we have all info on the net, in reference books, ....
So movies need to be more creative to keep on challenging viewers.

So when you watch the podrace scene, and Lucas so easily make references to modern-day races, with sports presenters, gives names to aliens that refer to things we know here on Earth, lets droids say "roger, roger", it's no longer a galaxy far far away, it spoils the magic.
It started during Jedi (Salacious Crumb and Bib Fortuna, what a dynamic duo), and got worse in the PT.
I don't find those names funny, only stupid. General Grievous? Jeez, what's next: Darth Slightly Annoyed?
I think the last thing we want SW to be is silly. Like screwing 3PO's head on another droid and letting him say "die, Jedi dogs!"

As a wise man said in this thread, Lucas is good at picking talent and letting that work for him, but in this case, he shouldn't have relied so heavily on himself and the "yes, George, it needs more Jar Jar scenes" crowd.....

[wolfie]

How Wude, meesa taut i was faboo.

[Gorn Captain]

How Wude, meesa taut i was faboo.

How's the Jar Jar Appreciation Society going?
Any progress on getting Lucas to go for a spin-off?

[Mikey]

I think if the prequels were never made Lucas would have lost a ton of newer fans.
Not lost actually, just never got.

Yea, they suck --- but they did bring in a ton of money, so i'm sure he don't care what anyone thinks of them.

He could have filmed himself taking a dump and called it Star Wars episode 1 and he still would have made money.

Wait, I forgot ... he did that

[Doc]

I think if the prequels were never made Lucas would have lost a ton of newer fans.
Not lost actually, just never got.

Yea, they suck --- but they did bring in a ton of money, so i'm sure he don't care what anyone thinks of them.

He could have filmed himself taking a dump and called it Star Wars episode 1 and he still would have made money.

Wait, I forgot ... he did that

OMG I BUST A GUT>> THAT HURT