STAR WARS: "Rise of Skywalker" **SPOILERS**

I think GL was never an actor's director, but man, he sure seemed to have declined over the span between 1977 and 1979.

Even with the "you can write this stuff but you can't say it" dialogue of "Star Wars", the actors packed a punch and showed charm and charisma rarely found in the Prequels.

And don't forget GL came to fame with a heavily character-based comedy! The GL of "American Graffiti" was able to work with young actors and get good performances out of them.

To coin a phrase, the GL of the Prequels was more machine than man. I think he focused so heavily on technical elements over the decades that he viewed movie-making as a purely mechanical exercise by the 90s.

That shows in spades during the Prequels!

 

I think that Lucas just doesn’t like to direct people. He’s fine with shots, scenery, etc. without the uncredited rewriting that the duo from American Graffiti had done, I think it could have been much worse for Star Wars. Casting was the secret for the original trilogy as far as the actors goes.

 

I think you're right that he was never a true actor's director, but I still think he got a lot worse over the years.

I mean, it's not like he worked with crap actors in the Prequels. McGregor, Portman, Neeson, and plenty of others with real talent.

Very few provided actual good performances, though, and I think that comes down to GL...

 

I think I already provided the following link a while back, but just for anyone who missed it, Michael Kasminski who wrote the definitive The Secret History of Star Wars book did a detailed look at the initial rough draft of Episode I and it's interesting to see how it changed from page to screen;

The Secret History of Star Wars

 

Indeed, when you look at the talent in the prequels it should have been the easy part to rely on the performances. There for sure is not the same level of interaction and charisma between the characters as there was in the OT. Maybe there was too much 'green screen' stuff going on as well?
But ultimately it is the Director's job to ensure the actors are comfortable with their roles and able to give the best performance possible and for whatever reason George didn't seem to be able, or want to do that on the prequels. He had a story to tell and that seems to have been his focus to the detriment of the acting.
My overriding emotion through the prequels though is boredom... I can forgive a lot if the movie itself is entertaining and not boring but unfortunately I find a lot of the prequels rather slow.

 

Hayden Christianson and Jake Lloyd not withstanding, that cast for the Prequels was packed with talent,and not just talent but fairly well known actors. Even Natalie Portman was a veteran of sorts by the time of TPM. Liam Neeson,Ewan McGregor,Portman,Sam Jackson, Christopher Lee,not to mention returning series veterans like Anthony Daniels and Ian Mcdarmid. And yet....most of them didn't give particularly good performances.

Neeson was fine for TPM (should honestly have survived until Sith and been the one to face off against Palpatine and get betrayed by Anakin,btw) and of course Ewan and Ian were fantastic as Obi-wan and Palpatine (particularly in "Sith") the rest were wasted.

Thats in part due to the writing,but let's face it the original trilogy wasn't shakesperian writing either. A good part of it was in the direction. While Lucas was never a great director,he was at least a decent one back in the 70s. I'd say aside from a few shining moments here and there throughout (most of them in ROTS),George became ,frankly,a mediocre at best director by the time of the prequels.

 

Yeah, I think it is needed and I do actually really like it. It is better than the two JJ films. Cut out the love scenes and it's great.

 

apart from the acting and the script, a big part of the problem w/ the prequels, particularly the phantom menace, is the story structure. it's hard to feel a sense of urgency in a story where a big part of the plot is getting stranded on a desert planet and needing a spare part for your spaceship.

 

That's true. Much of that has do with the editing and shots, which feel more like a soap opera than a feature film. So many of the shots are static and dull, with little more than A and B camera angles that are cut back and forth. There's rarely a sense of kinetic motion, with the exception of some of the lightsaber fights. The ones at the end of TPM and ROTS at least feel exciting and are cut pretty well.

 

OWK had to be the one to face Anakin and get betrayed since that's what we were told in the OT.

I know GL took liberties with connections between the OT and the PT, but that would've been too massive for even him!

 

Hopefully this gets back on topic. This is about TROS. For now, I’ll leave the PT critiques to you fine forum members. Personally, I love the two GL Trilogies... and to quote Oatsdad, screw the naysayers!

 

I should have been clearer. I mean instead of Mace Windu facing down Palpatine,it should have been Qui Gon Jinn. Imagine Anakin having to literally chose between basically,his two fathers figures? and ultimately chosing Palpatine,and realizing that he made the wrong choice. We are to believe the moment Anakin basically allowing Palpatine to kill Mace Windu is the moment where Anakin in pure despair and self hatred, falls into the grip of the Dark Side and basically becomes Palpatine's tool. I never bought that, because Mace Windu is the one guy on the council who was outright hostile to Anakin through the prequels. That wouldn't be enough to break Anakin's spirit...but basically the closest thing he had to a father? The man who put him on the path to become a Jedi? The one man who was his biggest believer and supporter even more than Obi-Wan? Basically being responsible for allowing that man to die? That...that I could see breaking Anakin.

Also imagine the ending battle of Obi-wan and Anakin having the added significance of the fact Anakin killed their mutual former mentor? They were basically brothers. Imagine the added emotional weight and pure agony for Obi-wan going into that fight and the one two punch of losing his mentor and having to kill his brother in the matter of a few hours.

If I could make two significant changes to the prequel storyline, I would have had both Darth Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn survive the Phantom Menace and Christopher Lee's count Dooku appear in the Phantom Menace as a member of the Jedi Council. We would have found out that between Phantom Menace and Clones that Dooku had left the order, and Qui-Gon would have taken his place on the Jedi Council, leaving Anakin in Obi-Wan's tutilege. Qui-Gon would have been Anakin's biggest supporter on the council and clash with Mace over him while being a listening ear for Obi-wan as he deals with training his headstrong rebellious little brother,while Palpatine on the other hand was a listening ear (and ultimately a dark influence) for Anakin...

I would have kept the Qui-Gon, Obi-wan and Anakin analogous to a father figure of sorts and his two sons all building to a moment of inevitable tragedy the night Qui-Gon goes to arrest Palpatine. Plus,Palpatine literally forcing Anakin to chose between his two fathers in order to break him would be pure text book Sheev Palpatine. Visions of Padme's death would still push Anakin to betray the Jedi , but basically killing Qui-Gon would have been THE moment Anakin Skywalker died and Darth Vader was born.

Oh...and I would drop the whole thing of Anakin personally murdering Children. That was...a bit much to ask the audience to accept for his future redemption.

I just guess I always felt Qui-Gon and Liam was wasted in the same way Darth Maul was. Darth Maul should have been the main Sith "sub boss" through out the trilogy with both he and Doku being unwitting pawns for old Darth Sideous himself to sacrifice in his long game to push Anakin to the edge and over the cliff to the dark side.

At least that's my two cents!

 

Yeah...sorry. its easy to go on tangents with Star Wars. All of Star Wars.

I'm with you through. I loved the original trilogy ,but I appreciate the prequels for what it is and the sequels for what they are. I think the vitriolic hyperbole slung at both the latter is childish,Petty and pointless. Some of the episodes are better than others....but it's ALL a vital part of Star Wars at the end of the day,and I am incapable of hating Star Wars. It's a big beautiful saga. Messy and imperfect in places and if you look two hard at the seems it doesn't all work seemlesely,but it does work as three separate yet intertwined mythological sagas of good vs. evil spanning decades a long time ago and far far away.

I still like TROS. I'm not as enthusiastic about it as I was in December,but it's a fun movie. It should have been maybe a bit longer to allow the break neck pacing of the first 40 minutes to slow down a tad,and the whole Palpatine being a clone and how he survived ROTJ SHOULD have been explained in some fashion within the film, but I still maintain it's a good Star Wars film and far from the worst.

 

Yeah, your points make sense.

One thing I've never understood about Vader relates to his status.

If you see "Star Wars", we know that Vader's important, but he's also clearly subordinate to Tarkin.

"Sith" further establishes that this relationship started a good 20 years before the events of "Star Wars", as they meet at the end of "Sith".

Once the Death Star got blowed up, suddenly Vader seems to be 2nd only to the Emperor in the Empire's hierarchy.

Given Vader is the Emperor's closest ally and right-hand man, why was he subordinate to Tarkin? Shouldn't Vader be superior to all Imperial officers?

And BTW, I'm 99% sure the answer to this dilemma is "George didn't think this out when he made 'Star Wars'", but I'm still leaving it up for discussion!

 

"Rise" will probably always be my least favorite of the Sequels, but I like it, and watching the whole ST in one fell swoop made it more effective for me.

I saw "Rise" 3 times before I took in the marathon last week - 2X theatrically and 1X on BD/4K when that arrived mid-March - but the 4th worked best because of the context...

 

Yeah, back before George decided to rewrite history and claim it was all a grand plan that he wrote out as he came out of the womb he would say that his original vision for Vader was that of just another bureaucrat in Empire but he decided to make him the main villain when he sat down to develop Empire because he got such a good reaction from the first film or something. The vision of Vader the bureaucrat is on display in a few places when you watch Star Wars both through Leia's quips and when Vader turns to Tarkin and asks "What do you mean."

 

I never really thought "Star Wars" painted Vader as "just another bureaucrat". I mean, he's clearly special, given his Force powers, and he gets to wear that funky costume instead of the drab green of the other Imperials.

We also know there was a major backstory with Vader evident even in "Star Wars", since we're told he killed Luke's father and we know of his history with OWK. That set him apart from the other Imperials right there.

It just seemed odd that he went from Tarkin's 2nd in command to the overarching commander of the Empire 2nd only to the Emperor!

Maybe Tarkin was 2nd to Palps and when he died, Vader got that slot - dunno.

BTW, does it really seem logical that it took them more than 20 years to build the 1st Death Star?

 

One thing to keep in mind about Vader and his relationship to the Emperor circa the writing of the original Star Wars is that at the time the Emperor was NOT a sith Lord or a force user in George's original conception of the story. It's heavily implied that in fact there had been several emperor's over the course of the time of the Empire and maybe before.

In one possible version of events,it's the military and the trade federations that's running the whole show and "The Emperor" is merely a formality,an empty suit of sorts ,a puppet to justify the existence of the Empire itself. Basically,there really was no Emperor per say,but only those near the top of the Imperial food chain knew that fact.

Basically the Empire was George's commentary on the military industrial complex.

When you keep in mind too that at this point,Vader wasn't Anakin turned to the Dark Side,but just a bad seed Jedi traitor that sold out to the empire and acted as their Jedi hunter/killer and merely a blunt tool to instil fear in their enemies,it sort of makes sense that he's just another lackey in the ranks. A high ranking lackey,but a lackey nevertheless.

Of course when George ,on his second or third draft of the story for Empire realized Anakin should be revealed to be Darth Vader, then the whole back story of the Emperor being a secret Sith Lord and the person who seduced Anakin to the dark side,began to take shape. Thus,Vader retroactively became the right hand of the Emperor.


As for the explanation of Vader's "demotion" in A New Hope, I think it was explained in some old EU novel set prior to the original Star Wars involving Palpatine punishing Vader for failing a mission or something,but now in the current canon I don't think there is an official explanation.

And as for the Death Star,it's insinuated in Rogue One that for a time construction on the Death Star had halted because Galen Erso ,the original designer,went awol before the main weapon system could be built. Hense the beginning where Grand Moff Krenic comes looking for him.Also apparently it took the Empire awhile to harvest enough Kyber Crystal (I.E. the power source of the lightsabers) to power the laser.

 

Dear Disney,

I told you once and I'll tell you twice - David Campbell has better ideas than you and he's probably cheap. Hire him.

Sincerely,

A.

 

He is extremely cheap ......... at 2 cents.

 

Damn, that's good, David!!! Having Anakin choose between his two 'surrogate' father figures would be the ultimate test for him, and one hell of a dramatic apex to his character arc in the prequel trilogy... having him choose wrongly and that choice directly leading to Qui-Gonn's death would absolutely break him and turn him to the dark side in a moment of emotional despair and desperation.. he would feel like he's blown it and has nowhere else to go but to Palpatine... better the devil (in all senses) you know... when you're damned, you might as well go all the way!!!

Of course, Lucas would have had to carefully plot and plan it all out in advance for it to have been that good... alas, he decided writing it on the fly to be a better option!

I disagree that Darth Maul should have survived Episode I; his death is what made Palpatine focus his attention on grooming Anakin instead. I do agree though that having Anakin personally slaughter the Jedi younglings was a step too far... I would have had the Clone Troopers do the dirty deed and Anakin with his back turned, mentally detaching himself from the act, an act of self-denial on his part despite him being responsible for the massacre in the first place.

David dude, I think you missed your true calling in life... if Disney ever decide to remake the prequel trilogy, they could do a hellluva lot worse than hire you as an active creative consultant... I'm serious...

On the other hand, I think you just ruined the prequels for me now, I'll be thinking of your would-be ideas every time I see them now and what could/should have been... good one, dude ...

Oh well, I still have the OT theatrical versions... you haven't ruined them yet for me ...

 

You flatter me. I'm far from a professional writer. I like spitballing and brain storming ideas but I'm too lazy to actually flesh anything out. You have to have discipline to write professionally which I just don't have.

I honestly wouldn't take such a job,mainly because I'd have the loony part of the Fandom hanging and burning effigies of me within like a day of my hiring. I'd be the new guy ruining childhoods somehow.

That being said,if Disney came to me will a 1 million dollar check,Michael Fremer's home audio set up and a couple Daisy Ridley clones...I'd find it hard to say no.
I'm cheap...but not that cheap.

Badabump....tissh!

 

Worst.movie.ever.

 

Ah...I've ruined Star Wars for someone. My life is complete.

And thank you for your kind words.