Star Wars New Trilogy

[Kibishii]

My wife was playing Star Wars Legos on the 360 and we started talking about why we thought the new trilogy was unpopular with so many people. I am not trying to bash the new trilogy, but just thinking of reasons (and there are many) why it wasn't nearly as popular as the OT.

 

[BXCOLLECTOR]

I went with "Darth Maul died too fast", would of been cool to see him in the sequels killing more jedi's

just a shame that my fav jedi killed him

 

[wookilar8]

I went with too much CGI. The space shots looked great but too many interior shots looked fake.

 

[pixletwin]

Bottom line is that George was writing it as he was going along. Its clear his idea of character development for all the characters involved was vague at best.

 

[Dally]

I actually liked the New Trilogy. It wasn't as great as the original, but it was still great. I guess all of those reasons you listed factor in to why I didn't like it as much as the original.

 

[King Darkness]

Should have been an "all of the above". I liked the prequels, but all the reasons in your poll are specific things I did not like about them.

I think if I had to choose one thing that most annoyed me about the prequels was the quick death of Maul, I think he should have been the key antagonist throughout the trilogy, ultimately dying in the 3rd at the hands of Anakin who takes his place at the Emperors side.

 

[Darth Madden]

I liked the PT (well, except for about 90% of TPM) but the reason I didn't like it neary as much as the OT is probably because i'm not a kid. When I first say ANH in the theater I was 7 and it blew me away, and I was hooked. Now I am older and they just don't have that same special feeling to them anymore.

 

[Agent0028]

I really enjoy the PT, but my disappointment in it is close to Pix's explanation. To me it just seems like Lucas didn't have it fleshed out well enough. There were other problems with it, but I think that is what bugs me the most.

 

[Amanaman]

It's all about the story/development. With the OT, Lucas wasn't financially comfortable with his own yes-men doing his bidding, leading to a patchwork of a cluttered story with poor character development. A lot of themes introduced in the PT were not resolved.. did Ani ever mention anything about freeing the slaves in Tatooine after TPM?

and there was too much fan service and watered-down homages to the OT, instead of trying something original. The binary sunset in ROTS takes away the impact of Luke's scene in ANH.

 

[Ultimate Weapon]

Should have been an "all of the above". I liked the prequels, but all the reasons in your poll are specific things I did not like about them.

I think if I had to choose one thing that most annoyed me about the prequels was the quick death of Maul, I think he should have been the key antagonist throughout the trilogy, ultimately dying in the 3rd at the hands of Anakin who takes his place at the Emperors side.

I completely agree. I like Christopher Lee and think he did a fine job as Dooku/Tyranus, but in the overall arc of the story, I would have preferred Maul to be the main Sith antagonist. One issue that I had with the prequels was the constantly revolving evil villain - it's Maul, no it's Dooku, no it's General Grievous. It caused a lack of parallel continuity for me which existed in the OT personified in Vader.

I don't think the revolving villain was the only problem, but it was one that I think hindered the consistency of the story. CGI also helped - just because computers let you do anything you want, doesn't mean you should. And of course poor Jar Jar - such a completely undignified mess of a character. If Gorge had written him as a parallel to Chewbacca - a stoic protector - given him some form of dignity, there would be so much hatred towards him.

That said, I do enjoy the prequels. These are just the major nagatives that stand out to me.

 

[shocktrooper_au]

* Too many Sith (or Villians) Maul, Sidious, Dooku, Grevious
* To much CGI (fine for the ships) would of liked
at least a couple of guys in real armour for the close up shots
* To many preconceived ideas in to many fans heads
(for me the clone wars should have been Clone vrs Clone or Clone vrs Republic)
What do I care if a droid wins or loses a battle.
* To clean (ANH was dirty)
* Story concentrated on the wrong part of the story arc
* The Story was to choppy. Anakins transition to fast and to big
a leap from hero to villian and made Anakin/Vader out to be a cry baby not a Hero & not a Villian
* And finally the actors just didn't gell like the OT actors, I believed Hans, Lukes, Leia's Characters and the interaction was more natural and seems real even to this day.

Other than that I like the PT

 

[TheObsoleteMan]

I think there's two reasons it didn't have the same impact on people as the OT.

1) The OT came out at a time when huge fantasy special effects event movies were non-existant. People just hadn't seen anything like that before. The scale of it was almost incomprehensible the first time you saw that huge Star Destroyer that just kept going... and going... and going. By the time TPM came out, special effects and genre films were run of the mill.

2) The OT's story was wizards, pirates and princesses. The PT's story was political intrigue, betrayal and murder.

 

[nash]

My wife was playing Star Wars Legos on the 360 and we started talking about why we thought the new trilogy was unpopular with so many people. I am not trying to bash the new trilogy, but just thinking of reasons (and there are many) why it wasn't nearly as popular as the OT.

you actually talk about star wars with your wife?

 

[Kibishii]

you actually talk about star wars with your wife?

Yes, my wife is pretty cool. She listens to all of my comic book and Star Wars jargin, she goes to the Comic-Con every year with me without complaining, and enjoys video games as much as I do (although she doesn't like violent games or overly violent movies), she also almost never makes me watch sappy chick-flicks.

I completely agree. I like Christopher Lee and think he did a fine job as Dooku/Tyranus, but in the overall arc of the story, I would have preferred Maul to be the main Sith antagonist. One issue that I had with the prequels was the constantly revolving evil villain - it's Maul, no it's Dooku, no it's General Grievous. It caused a lack of parallel continuity for me which existed in the OT personified in Vader.

I chose poor acting, because Portman and Christensen were both horrible, but I never thought of the villain issue in that manner. My wife really liked the Darth Maul character and she was always angry that they killed him off so fast; her fighting him in SW Legos got us talking about the subject.

Possibly a more consistent way Lucas could have done it would have been to include Dooku in all three films as head of the Trade federation (and then head of the Separatists) and as a Dark Jedi (still removing Anakin's arm in #2 so that Anakin could kill an unarmed person). Maul could have been the main antagonist in all three films; this could have led to a very interesting plot to separate him from Obi-Wan and leading to his (Anakin's) betrayal. While Grevious was interesting, he was an unnecessary character.

 

[JacktheRipper]

I'm not a huge SW by any means, so I like portions of the newer movies. Some of the things you mentioned are problems I had with the movies. However, my biggest gripe is with Lucas and how he said had the whole story planned out even before film the first movies. How does Obi not know their is another when he knew there were two offspring? Was he in the hot desert sun that long?

 

[Kibishii]

Another 'hole' in the story is how R2-D2 is flying around and such in the NT and we never see any of that in the OT. Also, C3-P0 has no recollection of Obi-Wan in ANH?

 

[TheObsoleteMan]

Lucas is full of it when he says he had the story all planned out. It's obvious that he hadn't decided Anakin and Darth Vader were the same person until ESB and that Luke and Leia were siblings until ROTJ. He was making it all up on the fly. The inconsitency between OT and PT is just lazy writing.

 

[Darth Madden]

Also, C3-P0 has no recollection of Obi-Wan in ANH?

Bail did say to have his memory erased when they were turned over so that one I understand.

 

[pixletwin]

Another 'hole' in the story is how R2-D2 is flying around and such in the NT and we never see any of that in the OT. Also, C3-P0 has no recollection of Obi-Wan in ANH?

1) R2 was an old droid by epIV

2) C3PO's memory was wiped at the end of Ep III

 

[DarkArtist81]

Should have been an "all of the above". I liked the prequels, but all the reasons in your poll are specific things I did not like about them.

I think if I had to choose one thing that most annoyed me about the prequels was the quick death of Maul, I think he should have been the key antagonist throughout the trilogy, ultimately dying in the 3rd at the hands of Anakin who takes his place at the Emperors side.

I agree. Maul should have been more than what he was, especially after they hyped him like they did.

The PT had many problems. The graphics were too clean, there was no central villain to hate, the romance wasn't as believable, acting was wooden (with the exception of most of Ewan and Ian's scenes), overuse of CGI, some hokey dialog, and most importantly to me... the way they handled Anakin's fall.

I would have liked to have him start his descent in Ep II, leaving it at a cliffhanger with him making his choice. The third film could have been full of a lot more of Anakin being evil and killing Jedi... It would have been much more heart wrenching had he been known to be evil but lying to everyone.

And during the final fight, I thought that Obi and Anakin should have spoken a bit more... just to add more emotion to the battle.