4 ms·

Surprised he used the Jaws example when the clearest case of what he is talking about is what I refer to as the Tragedy of George Lucas. The first star wars tr

Surprised he used the Jaws example when the clearest case of what he is talking about is what I refer to as the Tragedy of George Lucas. The first star wars trilogy, but especially the first movie, was extremely budget constrained to the point where Lucas had to exchange his own salary for merchandising rights (an accidentally brilliant move), and they did the best with what they had. decades later, he decides that now he has the budget to make them the way he really wanted to, he goes and makes major changes with CGI and destroys the original copies, which can only really be found in unaltered digital form on underground sites. Then the prequels come and it's very obvious he had unlimited budget and creative control, and the result just simply was not even close to good, or at the very least not even close to the magic of the original trilogy. Giving creators unlimited control seems to have great capacity to end very poorly.

glitchc 2y ago
> Then the prequels come and it's very obvious he had unlimited budget and creative control, and the result just simply was not even close to good, or at the very least not even close to the magic of the original trilogy. Giving creators unlimited control seems to have great capacity to end very poorly. I hear this a lot, but the prequel plots had a great deal more politics, intrigue and a bevy of nuanced characters. The originals were pretty black and white in comparison. I think the prequel plots have aged better.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  Sorry, they just aren't. There are numerous breakdowns going into great detail why the plot is nonsensical and silly. This isn't even addressing the acting, which at times is so horrible it's laugh out loud funny (reportedly lucas only allowed actors to do single takes, although I'm not sure if that's ever been confirmed). From a cinematography standpoint, it's also kind of a mess, especially when you break down the absurd amount of shit he crams into nearly every single shot of the film. The only reason they have appeared to have aged well is because they filled in a lot of the silliness and nonsense with quality content from other sources such as clone wars (which ended up being good) and comics, etc. to fill in the gaps. It also helps them age a lot when you compare them to the latest trilogy, which I'm sure I don't even need to elaborate why that is. For the record I still occasionally watch the prequels now, but when they came out, they were very poorly received and for good reason.
  - dasil003 2y ago
    A few generations have grown up with them now, which greatly elevates their status. It's not that unlike the original trilogy in that way. I can think of any number of films that I liked as a child, some hold up better than others, but even the ones that don't, the early impression creates a lasting fondness that is stronger than many of the flaws which more mature first-time viewers might not be able to look past.
  - WJW 2y ago
    I think quite a lot comes from teenage nostalgia from whichever era you are from. The original trilogy is not actually all that good, but some people still talk about it as if those movies are the epitome of moviemaking. I think it has a lot to do with the circumstances that people first saw them in. The prequels are also not fantastic movies, but as the people who saw them in cinemas as children grew up they came to be loved more and more. It's not so much the movies themselves that are liked, but the associated memories. I wonder if in ~10 years we'll have a new batch of people who like the latest trilogy. First ironically as they get through their edgy teenage phase, then unironically as they grow up further and point out some great scenes from between the (admittedly many) terrible ones.
    - aredox 2y ago
      The very first Star Wars ("A new hope") is fairly basic in plot, but with very good moments and no mistake. The next two, especially the empire strikes back, are really good in their own right in terms of film-making artistry. They have the right tone, rhythm, imagery, scenography. The rest, though, is catastrophically bad.
      - sien 2y ago
        Rogue One is good. Interesting it doesn't fit into any trilogy.
        billyjmc 2y ago
        The best theatrical release since the original trilogy, IMO. I think part of it is because of how much gravity it imparts to the beginning of Episode IV. (And the other part is how objectively bad the prequel and sequel trilogies were.)
- slibhb 2y ago
  The prequels are truly awful. Some people (not me) say there's no accounting for taste but liking the prequels is as close as you can get to an objectively wrong opinion about art. The best thing you can say about the prequels is that they're ambitious. Lucas wasn't content to repeat himself. But the acting, characters, and script are all complete failures. The first Star Wars movie is indeed an example of "compromised visions are superior". The movie was famously saved in editing by George Lucas' then wife. Lucas didn't even direct the second and third movies, he handed them off to more capable filmmakers.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    Thanks for pointing this out! I oft like to quip that george lucas’s successes are often attributed to the people around him that stopped him from his worst impulses.
    - kranke155 2y ago
      Sure but at some point in time Lucas also allowed those people to correct him on his mistakes.
- bitwize 2y ago
  Did you get Mandela Effected here from an alternate universe where the movies described in the "What If the Prequel Trilogy Was Good?" videos actually got made?
- roenxi 2y ago
  Once a movie's defence involves it having "politics" that is a bad sign - even a 3-hour movie isn't really long enough to give politics a treatment that is interesting; the storytelling is too turgid. Game of Thrones seasons 1-3 had politics, intrigue and a bevy of nuanced characters and showcased why something like the Star Wars prequels didn't really work. A good political story needs to be long and gritty and requires an inspired writer with a deep grasp of social dynamics (Lucas fell down here pretty hard - if he had a better grasp of his own limitations he wouldn't have attempted to tell a political story). And the politics of the prequel was uncomfortably black and white. "There is Good v. Evil and Evil Won At Politics!" is an approach with a frustratingly low-functioning level of emotional intelligence; that just isn't how interesting politics works. Part of what made GoT such a sensation was political storylines were done properly.
  - naasking 2y ago
    > even a 3-hour movie isn't really long enough to give politics a treatment that is interesting; the storytelling is too turgid I think Oppenheimer did pretty well on that. Better than I would have expected if someone had described it before I had seen it.
  - slibhb 2y ago
    Probably the best political movie of all time is Z. It's 2 hours and not very nuanced.
deepfriedchokes 2y ago
The best art is made by starving artists.
- alexk74 2y ago
  Yes, but the starving artists don't create art to have something on the plate, they are just not understood by the public.
  - deepfriedchokes 2y ago
    Yes exactly, they’re not in it for the money else they’d be chasing money instead of art. That’s why it’s so good; they’re willing to suffer for it. Money corrupts everything.
toast0 2y ago
I'm going to go on record and say that the Tragedy of George Lucas started in ROTJ. Watching it for the first time in a while a few years ago, the Gonk Torture scene[1] was where my switch flipped. That scene is just a callout to the looped animatronics in the line at Star Tours --- does bad looped robotic torture add anything, or did Lucas put it in because nobody would tell him no. I think ROTJ is also where Lucas started becoming dependent on chroma key (although he had used it before). Some of the chrome keyed scenes are groundbreaking effects wise, and that's neat, but it takes away from immersion. The prequel trilogy has so many scenes that feel sterile because the actors are clearly separated from the backdrop. It's hard to feel like the actors are in a desert wasteland when they don't even look warm. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O0-dCLFadQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O0-dCLFadQ
- stnmtn 2y ago
  I think this scene does add something, which is showing how scary this environment is to droids as R2 and C3pO are walking in. It shows it quickly, efficiently, without having to use dialogue on it. It takes ~15 seconds, and also has the fun side-effect of being a cute easter egg to anyone who went to star tours. I think it's a rare example of a good easter egg because it still communicates something important to the scene without just feeling like it's there for a nod or reference.
  - optimalquiet 2y ago
    > and also has the fun side-effect of being a cute easter egg to anyone who went to star tours. I don't think that was an explicit callout to Star Tours -- which opened at Disneyland years after RotJ came out (1983 and 1987). If anything, the easter egg went the opposite direction!
- Modified3019 2y ago
  >The prequel trilogy has so many scenes that feel sterile because the actors are clearly separated from the backdrop. It's hard to feel like the actors are in a desert wasteland when they don't even look warm. Ah, that’s it! That perfectly encapsulates why the prequels felt so off.
Svoka 2y ago
Did you ever consider that all "magic" was people watching kid movies as kids and that it never was great? Like, nostalgia. I think that comparatively to the market Star Wars was ahead of it's time, 50 years ago. But now we just tell way better actlual Sci Fi stories, which are not child oriented movies with lots of funny costumes and simple rags-to-hero plot?
kranke155 2y ago
Lucas wanted other people to direct the films, in his defense, nobody took him up on it. He had some inkling that maybe he shouldn't be directing the films, but he couldn't find a way to convince someone to take them on... I suspect it was a combination of being intimidated by what was being proposed (prequels to some of the most beloved films of all time) and Lucas retaining creative control to a level other people felt like they couldn't really do it? Not sure. I'm sure when Lucas passes away we will learn a LOT more about the entire thing.

glitchc 2y ago

> Then the prequels come and it's very obvious he had unlimited budget and creative control, and the result just simply was not even close to good, or at the very least not even close to the magic of the original trilogy. Giving creators unlimited control seems to have great capacity to end very poorly. I hear this a lot, but the prequel plots had a great deal more politics, intrigue and a bevy of nuanced characters. The originals were pretty black and white in comparison. I think the prequel plots have aged better.

JohnMakin 2y ago
Sorry, they just aren't. There are numerous breakdowns going into great detail why the plot is nonsensical and silly. This isn't even addressing the acting, which at times is so horrible it's laugh out loud funny (reportedly lucas only allowed actors to do single takes, although I'm not sure if that's ever been confirmed). From a cinematography standpoint, it's also kind of a mess, especially when you break down the absurd amount of shit he crams into nearly every single shot of the film. The only reason they have appeared to have aged well is because they filled in a lot of the silliness and nonsense with quality content from other sources such as clone wars (which ended up being good) and comics, etc. to fill in the gaps. It also helps them age a lot when you compare them to the latest trilogy, which I'm sure I don't even need to elaborate why that is. For the record I still occasionally watch the prequels now, but when they came out, they were very poorly received and for good reason.
- dasil003 2y ago
  A few generations have grown up with them now, which greatly elevates their status. It's not that unlike the original trilogy in that way. I can think of any number of films that I liked as a child, some hold up better than others, but even the ones that don't, the early impression creates a lasting fondness that is stronger than many of the flaws which more mature first-time viewers might not be able to look past.
- WJW 2y ago
  I think quite a lot comes from teenage nostalgia from whichever era you are from. The original trilogy is not actually all that good, but some people still talk about it as if those movies are the epitome of moviemaking. I think it has a lot to do with the circumstances that people first saw them in. The prequels are also not fantastic movies, but as the people who saw them in cinemas as children grew up they came to be loved more and more. It's not so much the movies themselves that are liked, but the associated memories. I wonder if in ~10 years we'll have a new batch of people who like the latest trilogy. First ironically as they get through their edgy teenage phase, then unironically as they grow up further and point out some great scenes from between the (admittedly many) terrible ones.
  - aredox 2y ago
    The very first Star Wars ("A new hope") is fairly basic in plot, but with very good moments and no mistake. The next two, especially the empire strikes back, are really good in their own right in terms of film-making artistry. They have the right tone, rhythm, imagery, scenography. The rest, though, is catastrophically bad.
    - sien 2y ago
      Rogue One is good. Interesting it doesn't fit into any trilogy.
      - billyjmc 2y ago
        The best theatrical release since the original trilogy, IMO. I think part of it is because of how much gravity it imparts to the beginning of Episode IV. (And the other part is how objectively bad the prequel and sequel trilogies were.)
slibhb 2y ago
The prequels are truly awful. Some people (not me) say there's no accounting for taste but liking the prequels is as close as you can get to an objectively wrong opinion about art. The best thing you can say about the prequels is that they're ambitious. Lucas wasn't content to repeat himself. But the acting, characters, and script are all complete failures. The first Star Wars movie is indeed an example of "compromised visions are superior". The movie was famously saved in editing by George Lucas' then wife. Lucas didn't even direct the second and third movies, he handed them off to more capable filmmakers.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out! I oft like to quip that george lucas’s successes are often attributed to the people around him that stopped him from his worst impulses.
  - kranke155 2y ago
    Sure but at some point in time Lucas also allowed those people to correct him on his mistakes.
bitwize 2y ago
Did you get Mandela Effected here from an alternate universe where the movies described in the "What If the Prequel Trilogy Was Good?" videos actually got made?
roenxi 2y ago
Once a movie's defence involves it having "politics" that is a bad sign - even a 3-hour movie isn't really long enough to give politics a treatment that is interesting; the storytelling is too turgid. Game of Thrones seasons 1-3 had politics, intrigue and a bevy of nuanced characters and showcased why something like the Star Wars prequels didn't really work. A good political story needs to be long and gritty and requires an inspired writer with a deep grasp of social dynamics (Lucas fell down here pretty hard - if he had a better grasp of his own limitations he wouldn't have attempted to tell a political story). And the politics of the prequel was uncomfortably black and white. "There is Good v. Evil and Evil Won At Politics!" is an approach with a frustratingly low-functioning level of emotional intelligence; that just isn't how interesting politics works. Part of what made GoT such a sensation was political storylines were done properly.
- naasking 2y ago
  > even a 3-hour movie isn't really long enough to give politics a treatment that is interesting; the storytelling is too turgid I think Oppenheimer did pretty well on that. Better than I would have expected if someone had described it before I had seen it.
- slibhb 2y ago
  Probably the best political movie of all time is Z. It's 2 hours and not very nuanced.

deepfriedchokes 2y ago

The best art is made by starving artists.

alexk74 2y ago
Yes, but the starving artists don't create art to have something on the plate, they are just not understood by the public.
- deepfriedchokes 2y ago
  Yes exactly, they’re not in it for the money else they’d be chasing money instead of art. That’s why it’s so good; they’re willing to suffer for it. Money corrupts everything.

toast0 2y ago

I'm going to go on record and say that the Tragedy of George Lucas started in ROTJ. Watching it for the first time in a while a few years ago, the Gonk Torture scene[1] was where my switch flipped. That scene is just a callout to the looped animatronics in the line at Star Tours --- does bad looped robotic torture add anything, or did Lucas put it in because nobody would tell him no. I think ROTJ is also where Lucas started becoming dependent on chroma key (although he had used it before). Some of the chrome keyed scenes are groundbreaking effects wise, and that's neat, but it takes away from immersion. The prequel trilogy has so many scenes that feel sterile because the actors are clearly separated from the backdrop. It's hard to feel like the actors are in a desert wasteland when they don't even look warm. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O0-dCLFadQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O0-dCLFadQ

stnmtn 2y ago
I think this scene does add something, which is showing how scary this environment is to droids as R2 and C3pO are walking in. It shows it quickly, efficiently, without having to use dialogue on it. It takes ~15 seconds, and also has the fun side-effect of being a cute easter egg to anyone who went to star tours. I think it's a rare example of a good easter egg because it still communicates something important to the scene without just feeling like it's there for a nod or reference.
- optimalquiet 2y ago
  > and also has the fun side-effect of being a cute easter egg to anyone who went to star tours. I don't think that was an explicit callout to Star Tours -- which opened at Disneyland years after RotJ came out (1983 and 1987). If anything, the easter egg went the opposite direction!
Modified3019 2y ago
>The prequel trilogy has so many scenes that feel sterile because the actors are clearly separated from the backdrop. It's hard to feel like the actors are in a desert wasteland when they don't even look warm. Ah, that’s it! That perfectly encapsulates why the prequels felt so off.

Svoka 2y ago

Did you ever consider that all "magic" was people watching kid movies as kids and that it never was great? Like, nostalgia. I think that comparatively to the market Star Wars was ahead of it's time, 50 years ago. But now we just tell way better actlual Sci Fi stories, which are not child oriented movies with lots of funny costumes and simple rags-to-hero plot?

kranke155 2y ago

Lucas wanted other people to direct the films, in his defense, nobody took him up on it. He had some inkling that maybe he shouldn't be directing the films, but he couldn't find a way to convince someone to take them on... I suspect it was a combination of being intimidated by what was being proposed (prequels to some of the most beloved films of all time) and Lucas retaining creative control to a level other people felt like they couldn't really do it? Not sure. I'm sure when Lucas passes away we will learn a LOT more about the entire thing.