+1

Well no, he replaced Sebastian Shaw, I think Alec is still there. I almost would have liked it better if he had replaced both Obi-Wan and Anakin with the younger version, but it was only the one. That, combined with the musical number in RotJ (what the FUCK), is why I will only watch the original version now.

The last 5 minutes of Jedi in the new cut is a vomit inducing train wreck. Right after Luke torches Vader and looks up in to the sky, from the moment the first firework lights up the sky, it is awful.

Well, I suppose that it's appropriate then that that music, the stuff that's playing when Luke sends his dad off with the flame, is my favorite 2 minutes of music in any Star Wars movie.

There are two simple explanations for the deterioration ...

1. Joseph Campbell died.

Joseph Campbell specialized in the hero myth. He understood why some hero stories carry on across millennia, and other don't...and then consulted with Spielberg on the original trilogy - adding all the critical components to make the series a classic.

Basically, it's not that Spielberg sold out, per se'...it's that he never understood solid myth writing on his own. When Campbell died, Luke Spielberg wasn't ready.

2. The original series completed the myth. The classic hero myth in a nutshell...
- Boy is thrust from childhood.
- Child finds mentor.
- Mentor shapes the child to the hero.
- Hero succeeds trial by fire.
- Hero overcomes father, ascends to throne.
- Child redeems father's discretions (or, in this case, redeems the father himself.)

The original trilogy completed this series. There really was nowhere for the movies to go. When Spielberg originally got it into his head to do 9 movies (circa 1976) there was still plot written into them. Once it became obvious only three films would be budgeted for, the scripting was re-written to complete the myth in three.

Then Spielberg comes back and says, "Ok...I'm rich. I'm an industry standard. I can do what I wanted all along and make all the movies. So fuck you." But there was no need for the movies. They was nothing more to say and they ended up being nothing more than footnotes. I.E. Now that the story's done, here's some cool stuff that happened to the guys before hand.

A history lecture - with good special effects. No one cared.

I've got an even better explanation: It was George Lucas who created Star Wars, not Spielberg.

By the way Wil, the writing gets better with every article. You really do speak to a generation. A geeky, possibly live in their parents basement far too long, generation, but a generation none the less.

Ok...that was the biggest brain fart ever. Like forgetting your wife's name.
neverpostdrunkneverpostdrunkneverpostdrunk

Except for a few egregious errors it made sense though. The first trilogy completed everything. There was nothing more that needed to be said. Hence the prequels simply could not live up to them.

Right on Wil, right on.

Honestly, I think that's true of a lot of sequels (I'm particularly thinking of the Matrix sequels). The first movie or trilogy or whatever told the main story, did everything interesting with that idea, and then because it made money, a sequel rolls into production. And falls flat on its face 'cause there's nothing there.

This was the biggest problem. Lucas failed utterly in making the prequels into, first of all, good stories in their own right, and, secondly, in making a complete story among the three. Far too much obsession in linking the prequels to the originals. In dealing with an insurgency, it made sense for a few individuals to shoulder the story on their own. It strains credibility to then assume that an enormous galactic war a generation before would essentially be fought by the exact same people, albeit using their parents as stand-ins in some cases.

Why the same damn droids? Why? Why make Boba Fett essentially the last warrior of the clone wars, instead of just letting him be a badass assassin? Why a senator Antilles, simply because his son would become a mediocre pilot who was lucky enough to simply not die? Why must the only Jedi Master who survives be the primary statesman Jedi of the earlier era? It would have been a better story if he'd crafted it to survive on its own merit, with brief glimpses of what was to come, rather than these tiresome accounts that turned the original movies into an extended apologia for the prequels.

He invented extra bits of story, even though he'd alluded to plenty that could have been explored better. I propose this:

Episode I: Anakin discovered and trained by Obi-Wan. Palpatine begins his rise (his arc was perhaps the most entertaining in the first trilogy). Main struggle and villain is on some much smaller scale than intersystem politics. A Jabba kind of character. Maybe Palpatine is a local magistrate who helps them (overtly) and hinders them (covertly). Not because he sees something so special in Anakin, or because of any freaking prohecy or nano beasties, but simply because he's a bit of bastard who gets off on it. His overt help makes the locals happy with him, and he's elected senator at the end.

Episode II: The Clone Wars. Anakin is now a Jedi and War Hero. Kenobi is a general; fights with Bail Organa. Actual kickass piloting on Anakin's part, that isn't all but obstructed by animators drawing like a fourteen-year-old virgin sequestered with a nude Jessica Simpson. End of Episode II: Anakin becomes Vader.

Episode III: The Empire has begun. Vader's kids are hidden. Not much screen time spent on this, as they are infants. Vader and Palpatine have control of the population at large, and are now hunting down the Jedi systematically. Many die. We see how Obi-Wan manages to disappear. Yoda is chased to Dagobah, fights a powerful dark jedi (using more Force and less Cirque du Soleil shite) and wins. This battle creates the cave Luke visits in Empire.

I'm just sayin', is all.

I'd watch it.

Sounds good. but before I commit my 500 million to this, is there titty?