Leading into our post-BSG-4.0 Star Wars podcast arc, we’re asking that everyone take a little time out sometime in the next few weeks to pull out their copies of the Star Wars movies and give 'em a re-watch.
Feel free to discuss here, and don’t be afraid to call in your Star Wars audio comments any time – we’ll queue 'em up for use in the appropriate podcast during the arc.
The beginning is awesome. It gave me the idea that should do a series called “Jedi Knights”
By the time this film came out, the proverbial baloon had burst. Lucas lamented that it wouldn’t do well because it would be dark. That weren’t the prob Georgie. Was Empire a walk in the park? Look how well recieved that was. Ugh.
Was it a good film? Was it a bad film? At this point I don’t think anyone cared. People had already formed their opinions of the prequels and this film did not change them. At least IMO I don’t think they did (there I just spoke for a world of people. frakkintalos unable to leave room because of the size of his head).
The film suffers and excels in the same areas that the other two did. There are miscues and brillant moments. It was truly a nourishing but unsatisfied meal. Fortunately, the LotR trilogy satisfied that need.
I haven’t rewatched (silly PS2 doesn’t like to play my Star Wars DVDs, so the computer it is…) yet, but this was one of my favorites. Seriously. Except for the Padme part which just angered me.
There’s lots of good stuff there. And who didn’t get a shiver when the Vader suit comes out? Well, I’ll have more to say when I rewatch it… which I’m looking forward to!
you mean how the vaguely badass, almost-worthy reverse-inheritrix of Leia’s legacy becomes a helpless, whiny baby-momma?
Episode VI was okay, certainly far better than the other two prequels. I might go so far as to say that Lucas should have started the prequel trilogy a little bit before Episode III (i.e., the stuff that was done for the “Clone Wars” cartoons – are we rewatching those, too, guys?) and expanded this film into the whole trilogy. Certainly, of the three prequels, this is the meatiest (even though that ain’t sayin’ much.)
I will say, though, hearing [spoiler] James Earl Jone’s voice call out for Padme [/spoiler] was a nice bridge between the two trilogies.
One thing that I was disappointed in was the portrayal of General Grievous. He had the potential of being the coolest Star Wars villain since Darth Maul and his acrobatics were toned down to a point where the only thing he had going for him in the fight with Obi Wan were his spinny hands. The Clone Wars series showed him flipping around, grabbing people’s faces with his feet, jumping incredible heights, and other awesome super-robot things. If Lucas and ILM had put some of that action in the actual movie (probably would have been pretty difficult), the character would have succeeded a whole lot more. The part when he was walking on the outside of the ship was awesome, though.
OMG I know - I HATE that part of this movie.
That video is hilarious - I think the Christopher Lee lines were dead on with what he would say.
I was really only upset that all of Padme’s important parts were cut out. Almost all of her involvement in what would become the Rebel Alliance was gone. As for the rest of Padme’s parts in Ep. III, I didn’t hate them because I can see where a woman that pregnant would be extremely emotional upon having her entire world upended. It was only upon re-watching the saga and getting to the end of ROTS that I realized while Leia has a lot of her mothers traits, most notably the political skill, Luke is really the one who is the most like Padme emotionally. The two of them are truly the only two in the whole GFFA who believed that some part of Anakin was still there in that suit.
Well and if you look at the deleted scenes for Ep. 3 there is an entire arc that is Padme still being a Senator and fighting against Palpatine’s power grabs… but of course that part got cut out.
Though it’s great to see so many other people noticing and commenting on the same things that I’ve noticed! 
This was also true with Episode II – all the scenes that even remotely smacked of honest-to-goodness character development got left on the cutting room floor. Meanwhile, Lucas added back in scenes to Episode I that extended the CGI-gasm he’d created. Sigh.
That seems to be the hallmark of the prequels. Cut the good stuff and leave in or add back in the unimportant stuff. I’m just thankful that a young Han Solo didn’t appear in ROTS, young Boba Fett was more than enough.
One thing always bothered me about Anakin’s destiny as the “chosen one who will bring balance to the force.” For there to be balance, there must be equilibrium between the light and dark side of the force, right? Well, during episode one, it is obvious that the light side has overwhelmingly been prevalent, as there are only two Sith lords at a time, and many Jedi in comparison. So to bring “balance” a lot of Jedi would have to die; which they did. So at the end of this episode, and when all the Jedi were finally hunted down, balance was restored. Two Sith and Two Jedi. It just seems odd to me that the Jedi Council didn’t see how this one was going to turn out.
My personal theory about Anakin and balance of the Force is that he didn’t achieve his destiny until the ROTJ because both sides had to be completely wiped out. The Jedi were so wrapped up in their code that over time they weakened themselves by ignoring the emotions that should exemplify the light side while the Sith spent a thousand years growing stronger by reveling in the emotions of the dark side. So in order for balance to be restored to the Force, Jedi and Sith as we saw them in the prequels had to be destroyed, leaving behind a half trained Jedi, not completely indoctrinated in the code.
The whole prophecy re: balance in the Force is problematic because (a) it comes out of nowhere after the original trilogy, but more problematic in the context of the story because (b) it is not introduced at the start of Episode I. The (astonishingly dull – trade routes? really? c’mon!) opening scroll leads us to believe all is well in the Jedi world. It’s not until Anakin is introduced that the prophecy is mentioned, and, sorry, that’s too late. There should have been discussion early on about “Master, have you noticed the Force is out of balance?” “Yes, my young padawan, but remember the prophecy…” Blah blah blah. You can’t shoot a gun in Act II that you haven’t put on the mantelpiece in Act I.
That being said, since we are stuck with some prophecy of someone bringing balance to the force, the theory I like best is that the Promised One is Luke, who manages to balance detachment with emoton, something the Jedi we see in the prequel trilogy never manage to do (as ol whatersname alludes to above).
Brilliantly put.
That being said, since we are stuck with some prophecy of someone bringing balance to the force, the theory I like best is that the Promised One is Luke, who manages to balance detachment with emotion, something the Jedi we see in the prequel trilogy never manage to do (as ol whatersname alludes to above).
That makes much more sense. I also thought that perhaps the Sith were throwing the force out of balance by their evil deeds, gaining power by turning the Republic into an Empire and such. They were like a nasty infection that was assumed wiped out but managed to take hold again and grow until it threatened to consume everything–largely due to Jedi arrogance and ignorance, as discussed elsewhere. Once Vader/Anakin pulled himself together and destroyed the Emperor, it allowed the universe to get back to normal life, free from the inbalance of tyranny.
Thanks, both your comments definitely make a lot of sense. Since I have started to get into the EU universe, I noticed this seems to periodically happen where there is a balance in the force, it is found through the Jedi order and/or the sith, being whittled down. It almost seems like the whole: “this has all happened before, and will happen again.”
It was actually the EU that was responsible for my theory on Force balance. I blame it all on the KOTOR video games and the Zahn books (mainly Survivors Quest).