Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off

[innocent jogger]

Cloak of Deception, Outbound Flight and Labyrinth of Evil deserve a recommendation too.

I enjoyed Shatterpoint as well.

Cool, I'll have to check these out. I've only ever read Darth Plagueis, and by "read" I mean listened to the fantastic unabridged audio book several times.

Cloak of Deception is another personal favorite of mine, it always drove me nuts that Cloak of Deception is the real Episode 1 of the prequels and Phantom Menace is Eposode 2. Its not like the stuff in CoD is optional, it's mandatory reading to understand the story of Phantom Menace. Every complaint people have about the story in Phantom Menace not making sense is explained perfectly clear in CoD and improves PM big time. I'll never understand how George Lucas expected PM to go over well with viewers WHEN THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE STORY IS MISSING.

I disagree, the story of Plagueis is a whole different story entirely even if some stuff happens at the same time.

In my view, Cloak of Deception is Episode 1 and Plagueis is Episode 0.

I can see that. It's really only the last few chapters that really link into PM, but even then it made me understand and like PM a little bit more. It's still a pretty terrible entry (PM I mean) though and I have a fan edit version that is the only one I will watch.

 

[Gorton Colu]

I still think Phantom Menace was and is a great movie. Many of the complaints against it can be leveled at A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.

It's biggest issue has already been mentioned recently, but imo, Lucas was too ambitious with it. Should have done an extended edition a la Lord of the Rings.

 

[Illuminati Order Official]

I still think Phantom Menace was and is a great movie. Many of the complaints against it can be leveled at A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.

I don't hate it. But I think it should focus more on politics and show us how the Republic is slowly collapsing under its own weight. Tatooine part, while memorable and important for overall story, could be shortened a little in favor of longer Coruscant story where they unsuccessfully try to resolve the conflict by diplomatic means.
The movie certainly gains a lot by watching it as a middle part of a trilogy combined of Cloak of Deception, Phantom Menace and Darth Plagueis.

 

[Gorton Colu]

I don't hate it. But I think it should focus more on politics and show us how the Republic is slowly collapsing under its own weight. Tatooine part, while memorable and important for overall story, could be shortened a little in favor of longer Coruscant story where they unsuccessfully try to resolve the conflict by diplomatic means.
The movie certainly gains a lot by watching it as a middle part of a trilogy combined of Cloak of Deception, Phantom Menace and Darth Plagueis.

Agreed, which is why an extended edition could have been a nice compromise. It has always felt like a movie from another trilogy.

Dune Part 1 and 2 are both roughly a half hour longer. It would have benefited from even 20 extra minutes of footage.

 

[BullfrogBill]

I should add that I really love The Phantom Menace, I'd even give it 3rd place in my autismo SW movie ranking. But it IS a flawed movie way more than ANH or RotJ were. Phantom Menace didn't properly explain why exactly the Trade Federation put a blockade on Naboo's trade route, it never explains why the Nemoidians are working with Sidious, it never explains what controversy Chancellor Valorum is facing, Palpatine just says he's facing accusations of corruption and that's the
only explanation we get in the movie.

Those are the biggest things that come to my mind at the moment but ANH has a much more exceptable starting point because it's a simple story about a rag tag rebellion taking on a tyrannical empire. It's a story as old as time. All you really needed to know to get into the story of ANH is Empire has big weapon and the rebels have the blueprints, the Empire are desperate to get those blueprints. This is all explained very simply within the first 10 minutes of the movie.

The story of the prequels was much more complicated than the OT and Phantom Menace just kind of drops you into the middle of a bunch of political bullshit with almost no context or explanation for what's going on except "trade blockade!" And then later we meet Valorum for 5 seconds before he's impeached as if that's suppost to have any impact considering we never really know what he's being impeached for.

 

[Gorton Colu]

I should add that I really love The Phantom Menace, I'd even give it 3rd place in my autismo SW movie ranking. But it IS a flawed movie way more than ANH or RotJ were. Phantom Menace didn't properly explain why exactly the Trade Federation put a blockade on Naboo's trade route, it never explains why the Nemoidians are working with Sidious, it never explains what controversy Chancellor Valorum is facing, Palpatine just says he's facing accusations of corruption and that's the
only explanation we get in the movie.

Those are the biggest things that come to my mind at the moment but ANH has a much more exceptable starting point because it's a simple story about a rag tag rebellion taking on a tyrannical empire. It's a story as old as time. All you really needed to know to get into the story of ANH is Empire has big weapon and the rebels have the blueprints, the Empire are desperate to get those blueprints. This is all explained very simply within the first 10 minutes of the movie.

The story of the prequels was much more complicated than the OT and Phantom Menace just kind of drops you into the middle of a bunch of political bullshit with almost no context or explanation for what's going on except "trade blockade!" And then later we meet Valorum for 5 seconds before he's impeached as if that's suppost to have any impact considering we never really know what he's being impeached for.

You make good points.

I was mostly referring to the criticisms of The Phantom Menace of wonky dialogue, wooden acting, political spergery, and weird native aliens.

Those criticisms can be made against ANH and ROTJ.

I personally subscribe to the theory that the biggest haters and biggest instigators of hate against the prequels were young Xers an old Millenials who watched the OT as adolescents and were disappointed that TPM didn't reinvoke those same feels when they watched the movie as 20 and 30 year olds.

The prequels, especially Attack of the Clones were flawed, but they were fun and did alot of things well.

 

[remiem]

And then later we meet Valorum for 5 seconds before he's impeached as if that's suppost to have any impact considering we never really know what he's being impeached for.

A lot of the prequel material literally comes down to because Palpatine is a Mastermind of some supreme 4D chess level and he needs it to be so, so it is so. I think George wrote himself into a bit of a corner in having Palps have such reach and so many strings he's pulling. He's basically basket weaving every galactic event in his favor as much as possible so that the only way you could gently segue into the storyline is if you had a prequel to the prequels that shows Palpatine's beginning and the starting off point of everything he does to begin his slow rise to power.

Edit: a word.

 

[BullfrogBill]

The prequels, especially Attack of the Clones were flawed, but they were fun and did alot of things well.

Absolutely. I love the prequels deeply, flaws and all. But I always looked at the movies as an adaptation of the novels so the films were always second to the books for me. I know it's literally not true and that the scripts were written first obviously, but the novelization of each movie did come out first so technically the novels are the og releases.

Either way the shit Disney and Dave Filoni did to Star Wars makes the prequel movies look like masterpieces.

A lot of the prequel material literally comes down to because Palpatine is a Mastermind of some supreme 4D chess level and he needs it to be so, so it is so. I think George wrote himself into a bit of a corner in having Palps have such reach and so many strings he's pulling. He's basically head weaving every galactic event in his favor as much as possible so that the only way you could gently segue into the storyline is if you had a prequel to the prequels that shows Palpatine's beginning and the starting off point of everything he does to begin his slow rise to power.

Agreed 100%. That's why the books are so much better, you get to see pretty much every step of Palpatine's plan in action and every little detail contributes to the downfall of the Republic. Add in the other EU connections that come into play way later after the prequels like Outbound Flight and Zenoma Sekot and you have perfection imo.

 

[Gorton Colu]

but the novelization of each movie did come out first so technically the novels are the og releases.

I read Labyrinth of Evil and the ROTS novelization before the movie came out and even with spoilers it was a great decision.

 

[Ghostse]

I still think Phantom Menace was and is a great movie. Many of the complaints against it can be leveled at A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.

It's biggest issue has already been mentioned recently, but imo, Lucas was too ambitious with it. Should have done an extended edition a la Lord of the Rings.

I've posted before that TPM should have been a TV mini-series. The first time we see Anakin on the big screen he should have been an adult.

I personally subscribe to the theory that the biggest haters and biggest instigators of hate against the prequels were young Xers an old Millenials who watched the OT as adolescents and were disappointed that TPM didn't reinvoke those same feels when they watched the movie as 20 and 30 year olds.

There two problems.
First, I really, really, REALLY cannot overstate the hype for TPM. It was multiple years of constantly being hyped up everywhere. TV stations were publishing the times they'd play the fucking trailer. Every commericial for about the year leading up to release had some Star Wars tie in. It was EVERYWHERE.
It is not that TPM was a bad movie, it was that we had been made to expect ultimate perfection - all your star wars dreams come true. There was constant teasing at how we'd get to see how Vader was made. Not only that, but there had been Shadows of the Empire a year or two before, and that had some great output. So if Lucas was passing over making a movie of SotE, this new stuff would have to be even better.
And then we got a good movie with flawed execution.
The example I use is imagine your parents talking about "For your birthday We're going to florida and we've got tickets to this GREAT PLACE". They are talking about how excited they are, and how much fun the rides and shows will be. Then seeing that you're going to be flying to orlando. So you are utterly stoked for Disneyworld. Then you go, but in stead of taking the Disneyworld exit they take you to the Florida State Fair.
Its not that you can't have a good time at the State Fair but its a big comedown from the Disneyworld you've been hyped to expect and thus the trip is now completely ruined. If your parents had just said "We're going to the Florida State Fair" it wouldn't have been a disappointment.

Second is a lot of older fans they knew that the OT cast wasn't getting any younger. If Lucas had made sequels instead of prequels, all the core OT cast would have been young enough to reprise their roles without any issues. So some especially older fans were pissed instead of a last hurrah with Luke, Leia, and Han we got Mannequin Skywalker awkwardly trying to hit on Padme while Jar-jar CGI'd around the place.

So I don't begrudge anyone their prequel hate through the aughts. Its mainly just now that if you can't rewatch the prequels and realized that while they aren't what we deserved, they aren't as awful as RLM made them out to be, then that just means you're still just following what's "cool" and have no opinions of your own.

 

[Gorton Colu]

That's fair @Ghostse The hype was real. I was a child when TPM came out so after watching the OT and then getting to watch TPM, I was just ecstatic and exhilarated. I only noticed the flaws when I got older. A mini series or even a show would have been an interesting idea. Like a Young Indiana Jones series but for Anakin.

The missed opportunity of sequels with the OG cast is the real bummer.

 

[Ghostse]

A mini series or even a show would have been an interesting idea. Like a Young Indiana Jones series but for Anakin.

It would have given Lucas time and space to set up and show some of the deep backstory he had built up for TPM instead of just having the opening crawl being "The Chinese have blockaded Renaissance Italy because they think their tax rate is too high. Anyway, now enjoy this drawn out ship docking sequence".

I mean, we could have an entire episode or two focused just on Pod Racing.

 

[BullfrogBill]

It was multiple years of constantly being hyped up everywhere. TV stations were publishing the times they'd play the fucking trailer. Every commericial for about the year leading up to release had some Star Wars tie in. It was EVERYWHERE

there had been Shadows of the Empire a year or two before

Man the 90s was such a good time to be a Star Wars fan, what a golden age.

The missed opportunity of sequels with the OG cast is the real bummer.

I hated everything about the Disney sequel movies, but I will never ever forgive them for NEVER reuniting the trio when all three actors were still alive. Just seeing the three of them together on the big screen again was going to be the one very small silver lining to those movies I was so sure, hell add Lando to the reunion too as a cherry on top, and Chewie of course. And then they killed off Han. I couldn't belive it. Then Carrie Fisher died in Minecraft so we couldn't even ever see at least Luke and Leia reunite. I sat through those diarrhea globs of movies waiting and knowing there was gonna be a big reunion and it never happened. What a squandered opportunity. Why even make a sequel trilogy if you had no intention of getting the gang back together.

 

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

I disagree, the story of Plagueis is a whole different story entirely even if some stuff happens at the same time.

In my view, Cloak of Deception is Episode 1 and Plagueis is Episode 0.

I'd easily reccomend reading Plagueis first thing for starting the Prequel saga and moving right into Cloak of Deception after.

Plagueis is more a piece you read after everything in order to tie everything other into a larger narritive

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

A lot of the prequel material literally comes down to because Palpatine is a Mastermind of some supreme 4D chess level and he needs it to be so, so it is so. I think George wrote himself into a bit of a corner in having Palps have such reach and so many strings he's pulling. He's basically basket weaving every galactic event in his favor as much as possible so that the only way you could gently segue into the storyline is if you had a prequel to the prequels that shows Palpatine's beginning and the starting off point of everything he does to begin his slow rise to power.

Edit: a word.

The weirdest thing about TPM is that it actually needed more Senate-like scenes. Or as I put it, Mister Palpatine goes to Coruscant. A movie that rests on Ian McDiarmid getting increasingly frustrated with Republic bureaucracy and turns to the Dark side to fix it.

 

[Ghostse]

The weirdest thing about TPM is that it actually needed more Senate-like scenes. Or as I put it, Mister Palpatine goes to Coruscant. A movie that rests on Ian McDiarmid getting increasingly frustrated with Republic bureaucracy and turns to the Dark side to fix it.

And that would be awful in a Star Wars movie, but in a TPM mini-series that would be just excellent. Over the course of the whole thing we could see Papa Palps really just wanted to make things better, and as his efforts are continully stymied by a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy we see him fall to the dark side. And there's enough going with other narratives you could hide big set-ups - something being mentioned wouldn't make it an obvious chechkov's gun beause this isn't the focus and it doesn't need to be delivered on in the next 90 minutes.

 

[Übertroon]

I imagine a lot of people would have even fonder memories of the prequels if it leaned even more heavily into the galactic politics aspect and showed on film how the Republic slowly turned into the empire.

The "too much politics" crowd can now just be chalked up to dimwits who think taxation leading to conflict is silly.

Imagine scenes of riots having to be quelled by coruscant security forces, curfew and rationing being instituted when the clone wars is about to erupt, anti alien and prop palpatine rallies. Politicians with separatist sympathies being arrested. Give Padme something to do other than just be Anakin's love interest.

 

[Adamska]

And that would be awful in a Star Wars movie, but in a TPM mini-series that would be just excellent. Over the course of the whole thing we could see Papa Palps really just wanted to make things better, and as his efforts are continully stymied by a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy we see him fall to the dark side. And there's enough going with other narratives you could hide big set-ups - something being mentioned wouldn't make it an obvious chechkov's gun beause this isn't the focus and it doesn't need to be delivered on in the next 90 minutes.

Problem is OG lorewise he kind of always was a sociopathic piece of shit. Loathed daddy for lacking ambition and also being distant with him. Any potential good in him died due to his delusions into thinking he was destined to lead as a kid. He came to that conclusion due to early on realizing he had something in him that set him apart, he very quickly realized that he likely was force sensitive.

Then he found sith runes and knew what to do.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

First, I really, really, REALLY cannot overstate the hype for TPM. It was multiple years of constantly being hyped up everywhere. TV stations were publishing the times they'd play the fucking trailer. Every commericial for about the year leading up to release had some Star Wars tie in. It was EVERYWHERE.
It is not that TPM was a bad movie, it was that we had been made to expect ultimate perfection - all your star wars dreams come true. There was constant teasing at how we'd get to see how Vader was made. Not only that, but there had been Shadows of the Empire a year or two before, and that had some great output. So if Lucas was passing over making a movie of SotE, this new stuff would have to be even better.
And then we got a good movie with flawed execution.
The example I use is imagine your parents talking about "For your birthday We're going to florida and we've got tickets to this GREAT PLACE". They are talking about how excited they are, and how much fun the rides and shows will be. Then seeing that you're going to be flying to orlando. So you are utterly stoked for Disneyworld. Then you go, but in stead of taking the Disneyworld exit they take you to the Florida State Fair.
Its not that you can't have a good time at the State Fair but its a big comedown from the Disneyworld you've been hyped to expect and thus the trip is now completely ruined. If your parents had just said "We're going to the Florida State Fair" it wouldn't have been a disappointment.

I'm beginning to think that's a problem with the haters, not with Lucas.

Lucas started to show his decline as far early as ROTJ; where Vader went from a scheming, backstabbing son of a bitch who plotted with Luke to overthrow the Emperor in ESB, to a fucking training doll in ROTJ. The Imperial Fleet, which by all rights should've crushed the Rebel Fleet due to sheer size alone, is somehow defeated. The big bad Empire in the ground battle loses thanks to the aid of fucking teddy bears with logs. By making the bad guys lose so horribly, they undercut the good guys as well and made it look stupid that they struggled so hard against the Empire in the first two films.

ROTJ was a good movie, but it wasn't as good as ESB, and it was becoming more and more childish. It didn't have the grim atmosphere of the first two movies where in ANH, they genocide a planet by blowing it up and Luke's foster parents are reduced to flaming skeletons, and in ESB, they torture Han and mutilate Luke. So no shit, TPM, which is made after ROTJ, would be even more childish, especially since it's the 90s, and 90s culture was safe and sanitized as fuck. Notice how they replaced living soldiers with droids so that the Jedi won't feel guilty about downsizing a couple dozen vacuum cleaners with guns.

If you didn't see the writing in the wall, especially when you contrast 70s and 80s culture with the 90s, then you only have yourself to blame.

Second is a lot of older fans they knew that the OT cast wasn't getting any younger. If Lucas had made sequels instead of prequels, all the core OT cast would have been young enough to reprise their roles without any issues. So some especially older fans were pissed instead of a last hurrah with Luke, Leia, and Han we got Mannequin Skywalker awkwardly trying to hit on Padme while Jar-jar CGI'd around the place.

You do realize a good number of them fucking hated being in Star Wars, right? I mean, shit, Alec Guinness had Lucas kill off his character because he hated the role. If Lucas made Sequel movies on the regular during the late 80s and early 90s, these actors would've had burnout and would've quit the series, forcing Lucas to write out or kill off their characters. Literally, Harrison Ford's stipulation for appearing in TFA is that he will only play Han Solo if Han Solo dies. Between him and Carrie Fisher's burnout, you'd be left with Luke, Lando, Chewie, and the Droids, and I can hardly imagine a Sequel series without Leia and Han.

The wisest thing for Lucas to have done is maybe hire some Japanimation studio to animate the Thrawn Trilogy and Dark Empire, as well as other SW comics and novels, then have the OG cast show up as voice actors, which would've put less strain on them and would open the door for them retiring and someone else taking the role. That way, guys who want to keep on going like Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams can keep going, while Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher can do a few films or TV series voicing their characters, but can retire down the line and be recast.

So I don't begrudge anyone their prequel hate through the aughts. Its mainly just now that if you can't rewatch the prequels and realized that while they aren't what we deserved, they aren't as awful as RLM made them out to be, then that just means you're still just following what's "cool" and have no opinions of your own.

I do. Their asinine hate led to the franchise being delivered to Disney's grubby hands, and what was once a franchise with a stable universe and a ton of promise, and turned it into Disney's latest cash grab machine full of SJW wankery, narcissism, and childish bullshit. At most, in the 2000s, woke in Star Wars meant that Juhani and Female Revan can be carpet munchers, and the Mandos in the Traviss novels allowed gays into their ranks; but they still showed the evils of extreme diversity culture with groups like the Diversity Alliance and the Peace Brigade. Nowadays, we have the Jedi being portrayed as evil because some dipshit witches are the ''good guys'' whom the Jedi oppressed.

Prequel Hate went far and beyond saying that the Prequels were inadequate; they basically painted Lucas as the Devil incarnate and said that he ruined Star Wars and cinema. For years he was held up as the example of bad cinema and directing, and he tried everything to change that image. He even made the TCW more dumbed-down to appease the same dipshits who called his Prequels bad, and we all know how that ended, with the Clone Wars EU getting shattered in half due to TCW overriding a lot of it. Lucas eventually sold Star Wars because people hated him so badly. It's one thing to say ''that movie had flaws, but had some fun parts'', and another thing to say ''that movie raped my childhood!''

Everything Disney did was to appease the Prequel Haters in those early years; they discontinued the Clone Wars series, their first Battlefront had no Prequel era, TFA was made from the ground-up as the anti-Prequel movie that would ''set things right'', even Rogue One was made to pander to OT nuts, and the result was that the accomplishments of the OT heroes got thrown down the drain, and the SWEU got canned and was relegated to the dustbin, because they killed off Chewie and Disney wanted to use him.

Not to mention the fact that PT haters famously despise the SWEU because they don't want to hear anything about the SWEU explaining the plot holes in the Prequels, when the SWEU had been doing that as far back as ROTJ, when they invented Battle Meditation to explain why the Imperials lost on Endor. Meanwhile, those of us who were sane just looked at the Prequels as mid-to-OK films with some good parts, and mostly enjoyed the SWEU content that flowed from Lucasfilm back when they were independent and had good writers on board. Good comics, good video games, good novels, that scratched the itch we had for ''good Star Wars'' whenever the PT failed to deliver.

It's like they said in the first Joker movie; ''You get what you fucking deserve.'' The next time some Prequel Hater whines about how bad Disney SW is, they should look in the mirror; the people responsible for Star Wars falling into Disney's hands is staring them straight in the face.

Prequel Haters destroyed Star Wars, and I'll never let the world forget it. They will always have my hatred, because they kept shitting on a man who at worst, made some mid-tier movies, but who still ran a company that provided a ton of good stories and media for those willing to go beyond the films.

 

[remiem]

Imagine scenes of riots having to be quelled by Coruscant security forces, curfew and rationing being instituted when the clone wars is about to erupt, anti alien and prop palpatine rallies. Politicians with separatist sympathies being arrested.

It's rather funny that social commentary could be made on current events through the very lens of the conflicts that could happen within the Star Wars timeline, but still allow for a good story without it being shoved aggressively and blatantly down your throat. Subtly and nuance where art thou? IMO. A big part of the reason that the old EU was so positively received is because it reflected real world events but spun into SW. The aftermath of the fall of the Empire was much more realistic. You don't just destroy a monolith of power that had many branches and held power for near twenty years by taking out one guy. It could be seen to echo the cold war where the various factions are fighting for the pieces of the pie, putting the wars in Star Wars. The infighting between the factions gave a lot of scope for stories. I knew it was going as bad way when they replaced the Imperial Remnant with the First Order- which was just exactly the same Empire 2.0 comically villainous.

Give Padme something to do other than just be Anakin's love interest.

Padme is a really bizarre character in the prequels. I don't think she was entirely thought out because her storyline with Anakin makes no logical sense with how she's initially portrayed. It gives weird pedo female teacher news story with her staying loyal to a kid 5 years younger. Not to mention logically, given her prior position and good breeding and beauty she'd be snapped up in a political marriage asap before Skywalker was even finished puberty. I've always wondered if she's meant to be just another pawn that Palps is playing with in terms of getting her and Anakin together but then she keeps doing other things that make her a nuisance to him politically.