jobloffski
Posts: 1837
Joined: 30/9/2005
From: elsewhere
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Numerical first timers have many, many things in store that we didn't have...knowledge of such things as...
Leia is taken prisoner, and tortured by her own father.
Luke seeming to be having the same upbringing as his father
Owen lies to Luke about his father
Kenobi lying to to Luke about his father
Etc, and if they have 'bought into' the prequels, Kenobi being old is a shock, Kenobi's death at Anakin's hands is bigger, Anakin unwittingly trying to kill his own son, pretty much everything has an extra frisson. Empire is even darker because the jedi are lying to luke every step of the way, Luke's reaction to finding out vader is his father is a much bigger moment because rather than the ONE big shock being sacrificed ruining the film, numerical first timers have been waiting for nearly two whole films for him to find out, and his sense of betrayal by Kenobi and Yoda is bigger.
And for all the pickable holes in the prequels, the plot holes created by watching 4-6 first then seeing backstory that doesn't gel becomes what happened happened and everything that made Anakin fall to the dark side (believing the jedi were lying to him, his doom being the resultt of impetuously and arrogantly taking it upon himself to save the ones he loves seems, as the films did originally, seem to be leading Luke down the same path.
The lack of focus on Anakin in the prequels, becoming total focus on him by the end, flows relatively smoothly into the more character focused 4-6, the slow start to ANH follows absolute chaos in Sith, The prequels eventually become Anakin's story, the oldies then continue in that vein. So rather than the (jar) jarring change in tone from oldies to prequels, there is stylistic flow.
Effectively, having seen the originals first then the prequels is more problematic all round than 1-6 and 1-6 means that even when Luke is killing everybody in sight to save Han, which was not given a second thought originally, after Anakin has also been seen, dressed in black, with a robotic hand, killing everybody in sight at the end of Sith to save someone close to him, the flavour or Luke being on the same road to ruin as his father, with only the very ending thwarting that path, is more palpable.
All 'from a certain point of view' of course, as well as being very generous to the perceived faults in the films about which I have not exactly been generous before.
Completing the circle (ahem) the sight sounds and events in TPM, if they are the first SW you have ever seen are more entertaining, because all those things we had already seen, and wanted the new films to recapture as we saw them as kids, don;t even exist, making TPM more of a wondrous experience to the first timer.
And, handled with fists of ham it might have been, but the enonomic/political stuff (taxation of a federal system and constituent parts of a republic wanting to break away are rather more pertinent things to the USA (where some people do want their states to break away) and trade blockades/disputes are rather pertinent in being what causes wars, given the number of them that are about control of resources)). These elements are for the mature mind, the kids just see all the weird aliens and things floating around and ear catching sound mixes. And things being the will of the force just get accepted, as does the whole midi-chlorians thing, because that shows slavish reliance on technology over spirit/belief/faith in instinct/feelings, which eventually become the things that are the deciding factor in the outcome of the saga. Brushing off Anakin's dreams about his mother, without even looking into whether the fucking chosen one might be perceiving something real was slavish following of established tradition, and sticking to that, without compromise, destroys every organisation that does that, eventually.
So I guess I'm saying that I'm more willing to accept Lucas knew what he was doing than many are. Liking what he has done is not something that automatically follows, but I'm prepared to accept Lucas is totally entitled to ignore the shit he gets for what he has done with the films, because stepping back from picking on the individual bits people don't like and looking at the broader picture does suggest (to me at least) that there was a grand plan at work rather than random pulling of ideas from the rectum.
Anyway, blah blah blah, etc, in TPM, Qui Gon is the kind of Jedi that Luke will eventually become, his ways are seen as defiance, and it costs the jedi a very great deal, they try to make Luke do exactly what he is told, he wont have it, and triumphs, having more willingness to see the good in his father that his mother saw than Kenobi and Yoda, who are still clinging to the past and therefore aren't open to the possibility they might be wrong (yadder yader yadder)
Which in this 'revised' perspective on the saga makes TPM much more than a bunch of seemingly random shite. Unless you simply cannot divorce memories of the oldies from what chronologically comes first, and imagine seeing TPM through the eyes of a child who has never, ever, seen anything like it.
You must unlearn what you have learned...
Or I can go to hell along with allegedly childhood destroying George Lucas
< Message edited by jobloffski -- 14/2/2012 12:37:48 AM >
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Yes, dreamers dream and doers do. But if dreamers DON'T dream, doers don't have anything TO do. Everything that is only here because people exist, only exists because someone thought of it., or in other words, dreamed it.
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Just as shit as it was 13 years ago. - 
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