Is the PT really all that bad?

Well, he does paint himself, doesn't he? This is not his natural skin color, I think. These are tattoos.

I don't know what your fancy new canon says, but the Legends show us this young Maul.

 

The issue isn't with black designs.
The issue I have is with the shining, and very obvious, red and black makeup, and the clearly visible join lines on the clearly shiny rubber prosthetic horns.

It's just bad makeup.

I also don't know, nor care, what is and is not canon. I just watch the films.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Caring about canon is the dessert to the meal.
Optional but not required

 

It's always one of those "to each his own things." Certainly there has been fume about the ST, perhaps some of it valid. No film or film series is perfect. Some of the PT fume is over the top, no doubt, but I don't remember it being quite as over the top as it has been for TLJ. But again, to each his own.

The one thing about the ST... the acting is far better. Lucas just can't direct actors. And the decision to forgo using practical effects when possible was a bad one. But that's just my 2cents.

 

This is where I strongly disagree.

SW has always been about innovation. These movies have always been the pinnacle of technological process in cinema. The practical effects in the OT were revolutionary. By the time the PT came to be, practical effects had long been considered a relic. Something new was needed. And Lucas delivered, once again, stunning effects, new revolutionary ways of shooting a film. From the effects to the cameras themselves. Innovation has always been his game.

And then JJ came. His (Disney's?) decision to shoot old-school infuriated me. Apart from James Cameron and Andy Surkis, almost no one is interested in improving the CGI in movies. Marvel flicks are atrociously cheaply made. The same can be said about DC movies and some other big budget films. The progress has stopped. We're back to the seventies. This is ridiculous. No, the puppet Yoda has never been better. Can the E2-E3 Yoda be improved? YES! You just have to try! We're never getting better if we continue to look to the past.

With silicon masks and blast-looking aliens (I'm sorry, but aliens in the ST are atrocious) we're destroying Lucas's legacy - SW legacy as well. From revolutionary ways of implementing green screens, CGI and digital cameras to ancient animatronics and people in suits. This is simply sad and not worthy of SW name.

 

I think the prequel trilogy had as many weak elements as strong ones, and we have to thank/blame George Lucas for that. If he had delegated the direction and dialogue (like in the original movies), most issues would've been fixed.

 

Yes, Lucas made a huge and very important step in regards of CGI, but that doesn't mean that it is good. Even back then it looked not that great and now ROTS looks like a Playstation 2 video game...

Practical effects will always look better. A practical explosion ist still better than a CGI explosion and you can't make it more realistic because it is already real.

The right way to do it is using practial effects which get enhanced by CGI.

 

My God, have you ever seen a PS2 game? I have, since I collected most of the SW games for it. Let me remind you:

This is PS2:



And this:



This is ROTS:



The effects will get worse with time. Just like the OT looks kinda bad compared to the PT.

Okay, it's one thing. You can copy the explosion and enhance it with the computer. Like when Lucas shot real lava and merged it with special effects.

 

Stuff like this:


will always look better than stuff like this:

You don't need to enhance a real explosion because then it's not real anymore. Something already real can't be made better because it's already the most realistic version of it. The purpose of CGI is to make stuff possible what isn't possible with practical effects or to make a sloppy practical effect look better. But some movie maker use CGI to make the production easier, cheaper or faster. I'm not saying that Lucas is such a movie maker. Definitely not. I actually do think that he would have used more practical effects and miniatures in his version of the ST than in the PT.

Yes, something like that. Unfortunately he had also to add a 20 minutes of useless and meaningless videogame like fight sequence.

 

That is your opinion. I disagree. The old stuff looks fake. Take your nostalgia goggles off. Not everything from the past is better. It was great for the time. It's aged, like most of the CGI from the 90s. Thatks technology. It gets better. With thinking like yours, we'd still use people in costumes in the new Planet of the Apes films. Progress is important. SW is about progress.

Okay, good to know we can shoot real starship explosions in space. I didn't know that was an option.

CGI is better for some things. Practical effects - for other things. The sheer awesomeness of General Grevious would be impossible without it. The fantastic planets of the PT (the ST has dreadful planets) would be impossible without it. The massive clone armies... you get my point. Practical effects are usually good for close shots. There are TONS of practical effects in the PT - a lot more than in the OT. Lucas used all technology available. He just wasn't afraid to experiment.

The fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan is the most important in the series. You think anyone would have wanted a short 4-minute duel? Lucas made the fight memorable and epic and showed us what two Jedi at the peak of their powers could do. We all know the most useless 20 minutes of Star Wars. Thanks Rian.

 

How can real sets and practical effects look fake?

I've never claimed that.

Yes, you're right. But AOTC and ROTS aged prettly badly compared with the OT. TPM looks still good though, because it's mainly made of practical effects and miniatures.

You completely missed my point.

Yes, Grievous looks awesome. But that's it. George should have rather spent his time on making a good character than a cool looking one.

That's not true. There are dozen films with massive real life armies. I never understood why Lucas decided to make every single clone trooper CGI.

Ralph McQuarrie, Chris Evans, Harrison Ellenshaw etc would disagree with you here.

And that's a good thing, yes! But I still can critize the look of it 15 years later. I looks dated while the OT still holds its performance 40 years later.

Yes, it was porbably the most emotional fight in the PT, but that's not difficult. Btw I would have prefered a 4 minutes long duel over this 20 minutes dance. I don't watch Rebels but that Maul vs Kenobi fight was more impactful than that one of Obi-Wan vs Anakin and the Rebel one only took seconds... The ST is going in the right direction again. It gives us real and emotional lightsaber duels.
IMO the best lightsaber duel of the PT is Anakin vs Dooku (ROTS), because it feels real and has alot of impact.

 

I still believe the one thing that would make the prequels much better would simply have been better dialogue. GL should have wrote the story, but someone else write the script. Lots of wooden boilerplate lines and poor dialogue hurt the narrative flow. Putting brakes on what should have been good moments and hurting performances because actors werent comfortable with the words.

 

You might as well say the same thing about the Original Trilogy.

But okay . . . if you dislike the PT, you dislike it. But the question posted for this thread strikes me as irrelevant. The way it's phrased, one would think it's a question that can be easily answered. It can't be. This is a question that will eventually produced different answers from different people. It's just a matter of taste . . . for all of the films in the franchise and beyond.

 

Yeah, I have to say the effects in the PT look crappy now. I watched the entire saga before I went to see TFA and I was struck by how crappy it looked. I thought it was just me. AOTC, in MANY cases, looks like crap.

Hmmm. I thought the dual between Obi-wan and Qui-Got vs. Maul was epic. The ones with Dokuu? not so much. I also thought the fight between Obi and Anakin as a bit over the top and long in the tooth, so to speak.

I love how some, not all, of the PT fans employ ridiculous arguments like "practical effects" are not as good as CGI. Really??? No one in the industry would agree with that, even today, almost 2 decades after Lucas decided to go with as many CGI effects as he could.

 

Didnt say I dislike the PT. I just said the number 1 issue that would take PT from good to great is dialogue.

 

I was only talking about the moment from 2:23 - 2:27:

For me this is the best depiction of a lightsaber fight in the PT. It's very Kendo like.

That's no fight, it's a dance. They don't even try to hit each other.

 

I wonder why shoot all these martial arts movies if you just can give everyone a gun.
It looks fantastic. It's a movie. A fantacy. Stop searching for bizarre realism when we talk about duels of space wizards. It's STYLE.

 

I don't get this argument.

It doesn't even look fantastic. It looks boring. Like a choreography, because it is one. The OT and TFA (I can't really say it about TLJ though) at least tried to have real and intense fights.
I'm not searching for realism, I'm looking for my personal fun and I want dirty, rough and brutal duels.

 

Lighsaber fights are one of the most iconic things about SW. It is literally one of the most unique aspects of the saga. And you call it boring. Sorry, I don't get that. What, fighting in the OT was better? Well, I won't change your opinion, but that's very subjective.

 

I'm just calling most fights of the PT boring.

Most people think Luke vs Vader (TESB) is the best duel of the whole saga. While I think Luke vs Vader (ROTJ) is the best one.