[ SECRET POST #2743 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2743 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 077 secrets from Secret Submission Post #392.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Don't feel bad -- I think the PT films are better than the OT

[(Anonymous)]

The problem (taking the Padme thing as an example) is that all of those things happen but I never got a sense that it was happening for that reason. Not just that it wasn't explicitly stated, but there's just no indication, for me, in anything of Natalie Portman's performance, in the script as written, in any of it, that says that's what was happening with her character.

I agree that it's a very plausible interpretation, and I'm even prepared to acknowledge that might have been what George Lucas was going for - but I just don't think it was ever really executed on screen. When I watch the movies, I usually just see her kind of going and doing those things. Why? Because that's what the plot is telling her to do. That's what I see on screen.

Similarly, with Qui Gon and Obi Wan, I agree that they take on those roles in the film. But there's never a sense for me that the actions they take that place them in those roles are, really, in any way related to their characters. I never really got a sense of who Qui-Gon is and what it means that he's a maverick and why he's a maverick and what that means for him, and how it results in the specific actions he takes. You do, somewhat, get a sense of that for Obi Wan, but mostly because Ewan MacGregor is a phenomenal actor and because he manages to stick around till Revenge of the Sith, which is the only prequel movie that's actually kind of decent. The thing is that it's not actually set up that way. It just kinda... happens that way.

And I don't think the argument about Lucas being a visual director holds up. Like, it's fine to tell the story through visuals, but that can't be an excuse for actively bad or non-existent writing. And the writing in the prequels, especially the first two, is so bad to me that it's hard to see what amount of visual storytelling could save it. The dialogue is frequently clunky and bad, and there's just no attention paid to character in a real sense. Neither through actions nor speech. It's just missing. Even in the examples you're giving of the scene with Anakin and Padme there - there's certainly a symbolic grammar of filmmaking present there and in the rest of the prequels, but that can't make up for the fact that who these characters are, how their being manifests itself in action, or what their interaction is - none of these things are well-defined at all. These are two different things, conceptually. No matter how well the framing of the shots and the mise en scene mirrors the situation of the characters, that's not the same as character work.

Moreover, I'm not sure that the claim that Lucas is a visual director really holds up, because Lucas was able to create clean, distinct, meaningful characters whose identity was integrally linked to their actions and informed the plots in the original Star Wars movies. They might not have been deep characters, they might have been a little cliched, they might not have had meaningful character development - but he's made movies with characters who play on screen through being well-written. It doesn't have to be deep or realistic character work. It just has to be something that's visible and that visibly informs the plot - something that shows up on screen. He did it in the original Star Wars movies. He did it in American Graffiti. Hell, he and Spielberg did it in the Indiana Jones movies. So it's clearly something that's possible for him as a filmmaker, and I can't help but think that the prequels would have been immeasurably improved if that had also happened in the prequels. And it doesn't.

To some extent, I think this is a difference of taste - I probably care more about writing than about visual language and mise en scene, we probably have very different ideas about what movies should look like, you seem to care more about character DEVELOPMENT as such than I do, etc. But I do think that the flaws in the writing of the prequel are really severe and, at the end of the day, they're real, serious problems for the success of the prequels as movies.

Re: Don't feel bad -- I think the PT films are better than the OT

[(Anonymous)]

I guess, for me, that I like the PT so much because I feel it's a stupendously well done example of "show, don't tell." I see the characters' behavior and, although the films don't make explicit through dialogue what their motivations are necessarily, I can still trace patterns and events and see how everything fits together.

For Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, for example, one of the biggest examples I can think of showing that Qui-Gon is a maverick is when Obi-Wan laments to him that if he would just follow the rules he would already be on the Council -- to which Qui-Gon replies that he will do what he must and Obi-Wan still has much to learn. Later on, due to a disagreement about Anakin, Obi-Wan apologizes to Qui-Gon -- but not because he's been persuaded by his way of thinking or thinks he made a mistake -- but because it's "not his place" to disagree with his Master. This really, I think, helps to set up Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's roles in the story and why Anakin's training goes so awry -- because Anakin is an unusual case that was handed to a very "traditional" Jedi (Obi-Wan) to whom he couldn't connect to as well as Qui-Gon.

As for the dialogue, I honestly don't think it's that bad. It doesn't have the smoothness of finesse of better directors, but I think it fits the environment very well. The awkwardness and stiff formality fits the PT setting in much the same way that the gung-ho attitude fits the OT.

And, although I agree that the OT characters are clean and distinct, they are also much more archetypal than the PT characters. People are much more comfortable with them as a result of that because they feel familiar. But I wouldn't say this means that they are better written necessarily. Same with Indiana Jones. I think the PT, in contrast, has characters that are much more difficult to describe because they don't fit into neat little boxes -- but I don't think that's a bad thing. In fact, to me, that's part of what makes them superior.

And I think there's a great deal of character development -- Obi-Wan going from wet behind the ears padawan to strict master to a Jedi who has loosened up and is more comfortable in his skin. Anakin going from a cheerful (though still somewhat cynical) little boy to an arrogant, displeased teenager, to a neurotic, fearful adult trying to do good. Watching Padmé slip away as her influence wanes with Palpatine's rise. Compare that to the OT where Han Solo basically only has a character arc in ANH -- going from selfish rogue to hero. Or Leia, who is not developed in the slightest (her reactions to Alderaan's destruction and the revelation of Vader as her father are completely glossed over).

I watched the PT first, so maybe I'm biased, but I think people look at them too much through the lens of the OT. And, if that's the case, then I can see how they fall short because they aren't TRYING to be the OT. They're trying to complement and subvert much of the OT. On their own, though, I consider them superior films.

Re: Don't feel bad -- I think the PT films are better than the OT

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I guess I don't have too much more to say, except at the point where you're ascribing stilted, awkward dialogue as an intentional stylistic choice, I'm probably just not going to agree with you. Especially in the PT where it just never plays like a stylistic choice on screen and where it doesn't really vary by characters' profession, relationship with each other, social standing, situation, or whatever. The dialogue is equally stilted, and stilted in the same way, between Anakin and Padme in intimate romantic situations as it is between Obi-Wan and Anakin as close friends, or between members of the Jedi Council talking privately, or between Senators on Coruscant talking publicly, or between Watto and Anakin and Qui-Gon on Tatooine. Even if there's an element of awkwardness to all of those situations, it should at least be varied according to the conditions - a low-class junk-dealer on a backwater planet shouldn't be awkward and stilted in the same way as a political potentate. But they are.

I mean, this is subjective, I can't prove you wrong. And there are times where it makes sense for it to be awkward and stilted. There are moments in the Anakin and Padme relationship where it would be a really logical way to play that relationship to have them be awkward with each other. But there are so many other times when the dialogue is stilted when it doesn't make sense, and where it doesn't seem to come from any logic of the situation, that I just can't read it that way. The Anakin and Padme relationship almost always plays at least somewhat stilted, as does the film's dialogue in general.

RE: characters - I'm fine with characters not fitting into neat little boxes, the problem is when you have characters who just aren't there at all, or who are only there occasionally, which is how I see the PT characters. Character has to show up in the actions and attitudes of the characters on screen, not just in their role in the plot.

Thanks for writing all this though, even if I disagree with you it's been an interesting conversation. Sorry if I've been repetitive and wordy.