Footage of Vance during the negotiations:
Star Wars Kid deserves better than to be compared to the VP
Star Wars Kid was so ahead of his time. Nowadays, that video would just be the first in a series called "can I train to be a Jedi in 30 days using only household objects?"
This made me go look it up out of curiosity, and apparently Star Wars kid is 38, Vance is 41. Close enough.
That's wild and kind of makes me want to see him do "Star Wars middle age man."
Dude has to get up for work tomorrow, he doesn't need the shoulder and back pain just for your entertainment.
Source: similar age, sore shoulder from randomly sleeping on it "odd"
But maybe if somebody would place a nice stick or broom near him he couldn't resist.
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.
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 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 agree that the prequels could have been great movies they just got hampered by the fact that George Lucas did not have a co-director who is allowed to tell him no
His first wife saved Star Wars in the editing bay. He was wise to let others direct Empire and Jedi.
One of the scenes that bothers me the most is where Anakin states that from his perspective, the Jedi are evil, and then gives zero reasons. But it would be trivial to explain himself.
The Jedi are a religious organization that wields great authoritarian political power, often unilaterally, including later as we observed, political assassinations. They're obsessed with finding people who are chosen at birth and have a policy of rejecting anyone who is too old to be fully indoctrinated.
They're basically fascists. If you ever eliminated the sith, the next thing you'd want to eliminate are the Jedi.
How much more interesting would it be if they actually presented the Jedi, including their inherent flaws?
In my own personal opinion, there are at least two major things that bring the prequels down:
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.
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.
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…
........yeah. About that.......
Jar Jar is a fine diplomat in universe. JD is unironically worse than Jar Jar is in canon.
Fair enough. Don’t ask me to forgive him for his dialogue, though
As if lines like "Open the fucking straight you crazy bastards!" are so much better.
And is Melania's patois really any less grating than Jar Jar's?
Meesa nevah go on the LoLo Spressa, no sirree sa!
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 new trilogy had similar issues. People complain about how bad the middle one was - and it was pretty bad - but at least it was setting things up for a more interesting, more complex plotline, like when the one dude was talking about how the same corporations making weapons for the rebels were also manufacturing for the Empire.
And then JJ Abrams took the reins again and... somehow... emperor palpatine returned.
I feel like star wars could have gone more into politics and philosophy, maybe flesh out the main story a bit more (aka not spinoff shows). They could have done so much more but of course story and consistency are clearly secondary to magic space wizards swinging around spicy glow sticks.
Then it would be more like Dune 1984. Far more political. I know you said not including spinoffs, but Andor has everything you mentioned in spades minus space wizards and glowing swords.
George Lucas had a missed opportunity to unintentionally radicalize Star Wars fans against capitalism. Seriously.
the blockade was the least offensive thing about TPM.
TPM
(I thought you meant me for a second)
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
the prequels politics were really interesting. it was most things else about them that sucked
Love that they went deeper into the politics in the prequels. Wish the trade route blockade bit had been more fleshed out.
I want to see more Star Wars plotlines that aren't JUST about the heroes. Of course I haven't seen the more recent shows or played too many of the games. I think S1 or S2 of The Mandalorian is the newest thing I've seen. Haven't had the time to keep up and maybe there's lovely new Star Wars content that's perfect for me and I just haven't seen it yet.
I'd really love to see something in the lower levels of Coruscant. Like the cancelled game Star Wars 1313. I'd love to know more about the politics of different eras.
There's an interesting universe, interesting planets, interesting species and people. But most stories are about a select few heroes and villains (thankfully more than just the Skywalker and Palpatine lineages now). There's so much more that could be done without being repetitive. It's like a money printing machine that they're just not using.
The base idea doesn't make the writing and direction any less terrible
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
He's still on the hook for the special editions which were a worse crime than any of the prequels
Politics in film can be interesting when it is executed well. The problem with the prequels wasn't necessarily the ideas, but the execution was just awful.
Soon I will have a new apprentice this one far more racist and moronic!
The theatrical 35mm scan versions of the prequels floating around on the internet are really cool if you're a fan. Not quite as polished as the 4k77 or Despecialized stuff, but still super neat to watch if you saw the prequels in theaters.
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