First, Star Wars
May. 24th, 2005 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsyth(Basically crossposted to David Brin's Blog in comments.)
I saw Episode 3 this weekend, and it didn't suck. I don't think I could quite call it good, either. It was far too rushed. A cardinal rule of writing is "start as close to the end as you can." You want to start where the action is, because it's more interesting, and you don't need to bore your reader with lots of crap they don't need to know. And Episode 3 was really the prequel to the other Star Wars movies. Episodes I and II were just filler, that we didn't need. They could have been combined into one, or maybe one and a half movies.
And what I would have done was to play up the corruption and inefficiency in the Senate, and the hidebound Jedi order, to show WHY the Emperor's action seemed a good choice. And taken longer to show Anakin's being duped and led into the dark side. I'd have made Dooku into not just a pawn, but actually believing in the separatists, and using dark ends to what he thought were good means. Give Darth Maul's tiny part over to Dooku and Grevious. I'd have shown more of the budding Rebellion too, Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and the others who watched what Palpatine was doing but couldn't get people to listen to them and were finally driven outside the channels of authority. Yes, the center of the movie is Anakin (and R2-D2), but there's many other things going on, most of which didn't get any mention.
Obi-Wan was out on the street in Episode 2, he and Anakin could have seen the way the Jedi were losing trust and respect, and try to tell the Council, who wouldn't listen. And then Obi-Wan would start to lose some too, when he got promoted to the Council.
And I'm pretty sure Palpatine was sending Anakin the visions of death, which would have explained why he didn't think "Hey! There's hospitals, with bacta and droids and other practically magical tech, maybe they can keep her from dying!" Or hadn't they invented the C-Section a long time ago in a galaxy far far away?
But basically, Episode 3 was the real story, that Lucas wanted to tell, and should have been telling from the beginning, the other two movies were filler. And so Episode 3 was rushed, confused, and has a completely tin ear for romance, but is an overall better movie than either other prequel. But it's sad that the most emotion I felt was at the deaths of ideas, when the Jedi were being slaughtered for example, as opposed to things tied to any of the actual characters. Even though they were misguided and hidebound in the end, the Jedi had many admirable qualities, and did work to try and bring about good for the most people they could. And even though Lucas has FUBARed much of the continuity for the other books and things about Star Wars, Luke's Reformed Jedi School of Making It Up As We Go Along avoided many of the flaws of the old Jedi order. Heck, they even let Jedi get married.
Yeah, okay, I'm a geek. But Star Wars was a big part of my life for a long time, and still is, and not all of it sucks as bad as the prequels.
Actual posts about the trip itself soon.
Tags: Mindscribbles, Movies, Politics, Writing
I saw Episode 3 this weekend, and it didn't suck. I don't think I could quite call it good, either. It was far too rushed. A cardinal rule of writing is "start as close to the end as you can." You want to start where the action is, because it's more interesting, and you don't need to bore your reader with lots of crap they don't need to know. And Episode 3 was really the prequel to the other Star Wars movies. Episodes I and II were just filler, that we didn't need. They could have been combined into one, or maybe one and a half movies.
And what I would have done was to play up the corruption and inefficiency in the Senate, and the hidebound Jedi order, to show WHY the Emperor's action seemed a good choice. And taken longer to show Anakin's being duped and led into the dark side. I'd have made Dooku into not just a pawn, but actually believing in the separatists, and using dark ends to what he thought were good means. Give Darth Maul's tiny part over to Dooku and Grevious. I'd have shown more of the budding Rebellion too, Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and the others who watched what Palpatine was doing but couldn't get people to listen to them and were finally driven outside the channels of authority. Yes, the center of the movie is Anakin (and R2-D2), but there's many other things going on, most of which didn't get any mention.
Obi-Wan was out on the street in Episode 2, he and Anakin could have seen the way the Jedi were losing trust and respect, and try to tell the Council, who wouldn't listen. And then Obi-Wan would start to lose some too, when he got promoted to the Council.
And I'm pretty sure Palpatine was sending Anakin the visions of death, which would have explained why he didn't think "Hey! There's hospitals, with bacta and droids and other practically magical tech, maybe they can keep her from dying!" Or hadn't they invented the C-Section a long time ago in a galaxy far far away?
But basically, Episode 3 was the real story, that Lucas wanted to tell, and should have been telling from the beginning, the other two movies were filler. And so Episode 3 was rushed, confused, and has a completely tin ear for romance, but is an overall better movie than either other prequel. But it's sad that the most emotion I felt was at the deaths of ideas, when the Jedi were being slaughtered for example, as opposed to things tied to any of the actual characters. Even though they were misguided and hidebound in the end, the Jedi had many admirable qualities, and did work to try and bring about good for the most people they could. And even though Lucas has FUBARed much of the continuity for the other books and things about Star Wars, Luke's Reformed Jedi School of Making It Up As We Go Along avoided many of the flaws of the old Jedi order. Heck, they even let Jedi get married.
Yeah, okay, I'm a geek. But Star Wars was a big part of my life for a long time, and still is, and not all of it sucks as bad as the prequels.
Actual posts about the trip itself soon.
Tags: Mindscribbles, Movies, Politics, Writing
