Apocalypse Whenever

[forsyth]

Y'know, every time I read something about the Left Behind books, it makes me almost want to write something like that. Not the crappy fundie side, or even the "end of the world" side of things. But take the whole "A third of the world's population disappears, just like that!" thing, and then run with it.

Eventually, of course, I'd have to explain how it happened, although I guess there'd be points to leaving it a mystery too. Hmm.

It's really the wasted opportunities that get to me. Just like with the Star Wars prequels.

Comments

[amazingadrian.livejournal.com]

Just color me curious here, but what opportunities did you think they wasted in the Star Wars prequils?

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Almost every one. For starters, Lucas waited to get to the story everybody wanted to see until near the end of the second movie, that being Anakin's descent to become Vader. Episode 1 could have been maybe 15-30 minutes at the beginning of Episode 2, and Episode 3 could have been two movies, easily.

Anakin and Padme's relationship? I didn't care, at all. It wasn't interesting, there was no chemistry, and there was no sense of much of anything there. I know it could have been done well, because there was more romance and tension in the single wordless scene in the Clone Wars cartoons where Anakin was taking off and she was watching him through her window.

Darth Maul was essentially a wasted character, really. He was just there to look scary. I think it would have worked better to the Emperor have Dooku as his apprentice the whole time, and then give Maul's role in episode 1 to Grevious, who then gets stuck in the robot body after Obi-Wan chops him in half. Which would set up an echo of what's going to happen to Anakin. As it was, Grevious just came out of nowhere.

And Dooku could have had so much more potential. Instead of just a generic "evil", what if he'd joined because he was sincerely upset over the inaction of the Republic about something? What if he was a public figure, speaking to convince people to join the Seperatist cause and then being seduced down to the Dark Side by his own self-righteousness? What would he do when he realized what he'd become? That would set up a parallel for Anakin, too. What if instead of killing "younglings" at the temple, or throwing Samuel L. Jackson out a window, the act that sealed Anakin's fate was killing a repentant Dooku, who realized what he'd been doing once the Emperor's concentration had shifted to Anakin? Anakin could have cut him down right before Dooku met with the Jedi or the Republic council or something, to tell them who Sidious was. Plant a bomb or something on his ship, and then Anakin's a hero, who saved X Senators.

And what about the Rebellion? There was almost NOTHING about it. No real scenes of Organa and Mon Mothma and other concerned senators meeting, or public protests, or anything.

Qui-Gon was mostly wasted too, since he died so soon. What if he'd stuck around and been able to be the voice of dissent in the Jedi Council, trying to shift them to do something? Working with the people who started the Rebellion, maybe? Trying to go out and do good instead of being as hidebound as the Jedi were presented as.

And the Jedi Council was presented as a bunch of suckers. Three of their Jedi Masters cut down in a second by the Emperor? Not noticing anything bad about what was going on? Charging into a freaking ARENA FULL OF DROIDS instead of just sneaking up on Dooku, or any kind of ambush?

Feh. I could go on. And have, IRL, but yeah, I basically consider the prequels a huge mass of wasted opportunity given over to showing off CG instead of story, and they blatantly ignored a lot of the "Expanded Universe" stuff that many people had spent years working on and making sure was approved by Lucasfilm. Which I could forgive easily if the movies were good in and of themselves, but they're not.

[amazingadrian.livejournal.com]

I agree. You raise a lot of points I would not have considered before.

I do agree with you about the general unneccesarity of Episode One. They didn't need an entire movie to set up the last two, especially when you consider that EP One looks downright banal compared to the real plot movers the sequels were. It was overly flashy and had a "Let's ease into this for the kiddies" feel. I also agree that the character placing was rather illy thought out, especially in the cases of Qui Gonn Jinn and Darth Maul. They basically exist in the movie just to die pretty much.

I was satisfied with the romance sequences in Episode 2. I figured they never really meant to really delve into it, rather than to just show "oh, hey, these two are falling in love, y'know?". It may have been better if the acting hadn't been so wooden, and they probably squandered some real cinematic opportunities a-la the Clone Wars Cartoon thing you mentioned. I also completely agree with your analysis of Dooku. I would have never considered that might have been, but it would have been oh so sweet! As it is, I think Lucas was trying to do something like that in subtext, as Episode 3 did open with Anakin killing him off, but it wasn't explored nearly enough if that was the case.

I also wish they would have gone more into the youth of the rebellion and tied in with the Expanded Universe. It would have given the films a lot more credit than they finished off with, that's for sure.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it didn't help that I didn't find Anakin anything other than annoying, really. Except, of course, in the Clone Wars cartoons. There was no connection, no interest, no real sense of anything, he was just a whiny brat.