jefranklin18 said:
The problem with Star Wars prequels was that there were good movies underneath, struggling to get out. It also looks as if there was only enough material for 2 films, and Lucas padded it out with the pod race, etc.
Yeah, I agree about the potential for great movies to be in there, but he mad some fatal mistakes. His CG was too clean, too clinical, what should've had the visual depth and grit of the first two movies was lost in an attempt to create an all encompassing environment out of CG. The worst of them was the Gungan vs Robot wars in the nice green grass!?!?!?!?! and we won't even go into JarJar - ok we will - him and the Gungan are possibly one of the worst conceived character creations in the history of movies. No-one wanted the 'spirit' of the Star Wars series reduced into a comedy.
As far as the pod racing went, there had to be some sort of a precedent to Anakins previously lauded abilities, and IMO it did end up being one of the more thrilling aspects of the first movie.
The other error I believe he made was loosing a concept of distance, expecially interstellar distance. Where there was previously time spent on the Millennium Falcon learning about Jedi training and playing holo chess/alien WWF, there were screen wipes. One moment we were at Tatooine and then next moment at Naboo (which again was an impossibly clean and pristine planet).
The only things I think he got right were Darth Maul, bringing back Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine/the Emperor and stunning light saber fights.
If Lucas had had a similar role as he had in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the films would have been a lot better. His directing of ANH was more luck than judgement, and the fact that he had 2 venerable actors (Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing) to guide him and an actor who was not afraid to say that the dialogue was terrible (Harrison Ford) probably did a lot to help him.
Utterly agree - Lucas has the money and the resources, but none of the required directing talent nor writing talent to produce the movies that should've been. What he does have is a brilliant conceptual talent, a large number of the ideas that were in the movies were stunning as were the design of vehicles and space ships, just implimented poorly.
I think the issue is that following his following out with Irvin Kirschner after ESB (the best of all 6), he seemed to surround himself with people that wouldn't say no to him and Rick McCallum in particular is credited with encouraging Lucas to make the films more "kid friendly" from ROTJ onwards. This manifested in the cuteness of the ewoks, the Tarzan noises from Chewbacca, etc.
Just my thoughts any way
Again, totally agree. There was no need to make a comedy out of such an epic story. Irvin Kershner I think would've relished the opportunity to add to the story. Perhaps too far to the other end, but I would've loved to have seen someone like James Cameron, Peter Jackson or Ridley Scott have a go.
