Solid Snake

Yeah...the only "criticism" I can think of for Threepio is his, from what I guess is more modern, gay like impression now.

coli

C3PO was never annoying to people in 1977, and if you look at all the important scenes of the original, C3PO didn't say a word in those scenes:

-When Obiwan talks to Luke about what happened to Lukes father, right before that, C3PO, "If you don't mind sir I am going to shut down."

-The trench run shows C3PO looking at Leia the whole time but neither say a word as the tension mounts and Luke finally blows up the deathstar.

-In Episode I, Jar Jar ruins EVERY scene he is in. When Anakin meets Padme for the first time, it should have been an eerie scene for fans who saw the OT first, and Lucas has Jar Jar doing Three Stooges schtick through the whole damn scene!

It is pretty scary but Lucas actually mimicks the PT defenders on the interenet on his defense of the PT. What the PT defenders do is to prop up the PT, they tear down the OT, essentially making the argument that ALL the movies are average, so nothing has changed!

No you morons, you can make an argument that Jedi is average, but the reason we fell in love with the movies is because SW and Empire are great fucking movies! We defend those movies because they are as good as scifi movies can get! The PT defenders can enjoy mediocrity that Lucas has thrown your way, the OT defenders enjoy quality.

Travis McClain

A great point. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm really eager to see how the PT generation reacts to the forthcoming Blu-ray releases and the inevitable tweaks to those films. Will the frustration OT fans have had for the last 13 years finally register, or will they shrug it off and say they still don't get what all the fuss is really about? I suspect the overall reaction will be indifference; I suspect the majority of the box set buyers will be OT fans, who will buy the half they dislike to have the half they love. Younger fans, I think, will simply take a pass altogether because they've "moved on."

The Valeyard

I hate that man.

Sonic

Xander

I love the OT and enjoy moments of the PT. I will buy them all on Blu-ray. But it will be a cold cold day in hell before I watch them in 3D.

rexinnih

I will buy them on BD when they come out. Doubtful I'll watch 3D versions in the theater.

milo bloom

That's not exactly what I'm saying. I've been thinking about this for a while, and I've tried to share it on forums and such here and there, and I sometimes get a few people who "get" what I'm saying, so let me try again.

There is a feel to The Phantom Menace, despite it's myriad and acknowledged flaws, a feel to it that makes it, of the PT, the easiest and most "fun" to watch. Even though 2 and 3 are more "mature", if they had managed to keep some of this feel, they would have been even better, and maybe even helped bring TPM up the way ANH and TESB bring ROTJ up.

I really can't explain it any better than that, it's hard to quantify, but maybe if you try to understand what I'm getting at, you may be able to feel it for yourself.







----------------------------------------

As for people hating C-3PO: Yeah, Lucas is off on that one. A lot of the old making-of material shows that Lucas himself originally didn't like Daniel's performance (he had original envisioned the character as a slick, used-car dealer type), but he was eventually won over. I don't recall people having reactions anything like the ones they had towards Jar Jar. If it was anything, it was the fact that his figure usually didn't have any accessories, so buying him was more like a duty of filling out your roster, rather than getting a neat figure with a cool blaster.

And even with 3PO's occasional obnoxiousness, he was always balanced by R2. If Qui Gon or Obi Wan would have reacted to Jar Jar's antics in anyway, it might have deepened the character a little bit.


Written while listening the Charles Gerhardt re-recording of The Empire Strikes Back score, FWIW.

mcnabb

As much as I dislike TPM, I get what you're saying. I think TPM is the only PT movie that doesn't take itself too seriously. AOTC tries to sell the viewer on the Padme/Anakin romance, which just kills any momentum in the movie whenever is goes to them. ROTS is supposed to be this greek tragedy, yet the dramatic scenes are laughable: Anakin turning to the darkside, Padme losing the will to live, Darth Vader yelling NOOOO!

It is hard to explain but TPM has that innocent feel to it that AOTC and ROTS. Now don't get me wrong, the movie is a turd, but put in the context of comparing it to AOTC/ROTS, it definetly feels different.

milo bloom

While I don't agree that it's a complete turd, I am glad that someone else gets what I mean about it's feel.

One of things I hope we get with the Bluray or these 3D releases, is for Lucas to allow someone he trusts to tweak the editing and pacing of the PT. I've long felt so many of TPM's problems also stem from pacing issues that another few months in the editing bay would have solved.

Mabuse

I agree about TPM too. It is flawed in ways that the Original Trilogy is not, but of the three prequels it feels the most like the OT. It's fun, not too serious, swashbuckling.

Regarding C3PO I do remember reading in a Lucas biography that at a screening for executives there was some objections to the character: Annoying, hard to understand, etc. I recall one executive was pissed that the mouth didn't move and felt that because the mouth didn't move people would have a hard time understanding the character.

Ky-Fi

I agree. TPM had more classic moments, and its bad moments were in the same vein as the worst moments of ROTJ. But AOTC and ROTS were bad in all new, original kinds of ways.

Travis McClain

I think, if I might take a stab at it, the attraction is that we knew going into the film just enough of what to expect (Obi-Wan meeting Anakin for the first time, seeing the pre-Empire era, etc.). Everyone had their imagined ideas of what the film would be--most of which have since turned into their ideas of what should have been--but we went in with a sense of wonder.

Afterwards, the prequels existed for the sole purpose of showing us what Obi-Wan had teased in A New Hope about the Jedi Knights, the betrayal of Darth Vader and the rise of the Empire. We already knew how it turned out, and we'd seen how it started once we saw The Phantom Menace. Connecting the dots felt more compulsory than anything at that point.

And I think Lucas himself felt that way, especially with Attack of the Clones; the film's energy is just lacking; it's incongruous with the sense of wonder, urgency and adventure of the rest of the series.

GrouchoFan

I was there in 1977, my young friends, and I will testify unequivocally: people LOVED C-3PO. He and R2-D2 were universally hailed as the Laurel & Hardy of the sci-fi world. (Of course, back then, people still knew who Laurel & Hardy were.) The characters within the movies may find him annoying (the Han Solo/Threepio interactions are priceless), but the audience loved him.

To paraphrase, "I knew Threepio. I worked with Threepio. Jar-Jar Binks, you're no See-Threepio."

As for 3-D Phantom Menace, yeah, I'll probably see it. Any opportunity to see any Star Wars movie in a real theater, whether it be 2-D, 3-D, scratchy b&w 16mm print, I'm there. But for the record, I'm against the 3-D conversion on principle. If it was made in black and white, don't colorize it. If it was made flat, don't dimensionalize it decades after the fact. And if Darth Vader's line is "Bring my shuttle," don't change it to "Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival," because it's a pointless change no one wanted, and not an improvement.

Ky-Fi

Right now George Lucas is reading this thread and he has that blank, wounded Dan Quayle expression on his face.

MBoyd

Won't be watching this. Make a new SW film in 3D and I will keep an open mind . . . like I had about the live action TV show until they canned it!

kstublen

Is George Lucas really that out of touch with his audience? I'm 22. When The Phantom Menace came out I was 11. By then I had already seen the Original Trilogy many, many times and I loved them. I can't imagine I'm the only one in that position.

I've seen the Prequel Trilogy and the only one that is even halfway decent is Revenge Of The Sith, and that's mostly due to the final scene between Anakin and Obi-Wan and seeing Darth Vader created. All of the movies had their moments, but they just missed the point of the originals. I felt that way when I saw them for the first time back when I was a kid, and I still feel that way today. Now, maybe if you asked kids that were 10 now, they'd like the Prequel Trilogy better, but under 30 is way too broad.

The ONLY good thing that came from The Phantom Menace was the Pod Racing video game for N64. I sure did love that game.

Tom Creo

All it would take is a well crafted trailer to get everyone's asses in the theaters to see this. It happens every time. It happened during the re-releases, the Special Editions, and it happens for every single damn home video release (Beta, VHS, Laser, DVD, a future Blu Ray, and of course, the inevitable 3-D version). You say you're not gonna see/buy it again yet you do. If anything else, you'll see it so you can bitch about it on the internet. Lucas knows this and you know it. You can't escape it. You will go see it.....again. It is your destiny.

Jason

Just because it's a serious drama doesn't mean you can't do some comedy in the background. Would it kill somebody to throw a pie, for god's sake!

kstublen

MBoyd

Look at this quote from an article today. It's like his employees don't even want to admit what's going on here.

Tom Creo

And what exactly did you get from that quote?

inri222

TGM

I'm all for slave Leia's golden bikini tits in 3D, right in my face.

calhoun07

I'd be on board if Lucas announced the previous episodes 1-3 now no longer exist and he's making NEW prequels that tie better into the OT. And if he was letting people like Darabont and Spielberg and JJ Abrams direct the movies. Other than that I can't be bothered with this crap anymore.