What Prequels?

Matt pays a visit to the galaxy far, far away:

I was watching Star Wars IV: A New Hope last night on television, and somehow it occurred to me for the first time that a new generation who watches the six movie cycle starting with The Phantom Menace is going to wind up with a very different perception of the story than the original audience got. This is true in terms of a few big plot points, like that whole thing about Darth Vader being Luke's father, but also in terms of some broader atmospheric points. The beginning A New Hope is cloaked in a sense of mystery. For all we know old Ben Kenobi really is just a crazy old man and Han Solo's skepticism about "hokey religions" is justified. The audience rides along with Luke throughout the film, learning to trust in the power of the Force. New audiences won't have that experience, they'll already know much much more than Luke does about the Jedi, the Empire, the Skywalker clan, etc.

Maybe this will be true of the general public, but I can promise you this much: In the Douthat household, the prequels don't exist - not now, and certainly not in a future where I'm charged with introducing a new generation to the Skywalker universe. Indeed, I intend to carefully vet all of my children's friends to ensure that there's absolutely no risk of a playdate or sleepover bringing them in contact, even fleetingly, with Jar Jar Binks, Count Dooku, the midichlorians and Padme Amidala, Queen of frickin' Naboo.

Comments

I actually agree with this. And not a Sailer in site!

But even the original movie is mostly unwatchable now - despite the novelty value of watching Don Rumsfeld play Grand Moff Tarkin.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 3, 2008 4:49 PM

You forgot to mention Mace Windu.

Steve won't be happy.

Posted by James | July 3, 2008 4:49 PM

We at least can agree on something

Posted by The Mansion | July 3, 2008 4:51 PM

Oh yeah, good luck with that plan. I agree with the sentiment, but you have an exaggerated idea of the power of parents.

Posted by David A | July 3, 2008 5:20 PM

My kids will learn that the Wachowski brothers died in 2000...

Posted by Ben A | July 3, 2008 5:26 PM

Ross, did you get the KKK's permission to post this? Considering you seem to think they are a worthwhile source of cultural criticism, you don't want to lose favor with him.

Posted by Reality Man | July 3, 2008 5:30 PM

My children will earnestly believe that the world ran out of ideas for new music in 1989.

Posted by minderbender | July 3, 2008 5:32 PM

Next post will be Ross saying 'I don't agree with everything Sailer is saying, but I think he has something in stating Ewoks are genetically superior to Wookies'.

Posted by James | July 3, 2008 5:33 PM

Ross,

My kids won't be allowed to watch the prequels WITHOUT the Mike Nelson Rifftrax playing.

Posted by Joe Marier | July 3, 2008 7:05 PM

This is why I have no children. They might have opinions that differed from mine, and how could you possibly love a child that's WRONG?

Posted by Ry | July 3, 2008 7:29 PM

I hear what you're saying, Ry, but I'll bet Ross's parents (who were Democrats) wish they'd kept him away from Steve Sailer.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | July 3, 2008 7:33 PM

I don't buy the premise that kids who start with episode I will ever make it to A New Hope. They'll just stop watching, if not after I, after II for sure.

Back when episode I first came out, I had friends who joked about keeping their children in isolation and forcing them to watch the six episodes in order.

Posted by Justin | July 3, 2008 7:41 PM

I have been successfully pretending the prequels don't exist for some time.

For me, it isn't even so much the problems of wonder... or the flat-out contradictions in the plots... it's the disturbing opposition between the moral universes of the two trilogies.

Posted by Ezekiel | July 3, 2008 9:16 PM

I think that, once one has watched the original trilogy, Episode III makes a pretty good stand-alone prequel. You see the fall of Anakin, the consolidation of Palpatine's power, the decimation of the Jedi, the exile of Obi-Wan and Yoda, the death of Amidala, etc. Even Chewbacca makes a cameo, and you don't have to worry about the irrelevancies of Qui Gon Jinn, Jar Jar Binks, Anakin's immaculate conception, the robot backstory or pod races.

You may not know who the hell Count Dooku or General Grievous are, but I've seen all three prequels and I'm not really sure I know why we should care about them.

Posted by right | July 3, 2008 9:16 PM

Dooku is played by Christopher Lee, and therefore is indispensable. Episodes 1-3 have a better grand-scheme plot -- the collapse of the Republic. It's a little like watching I Claudius, except for the terrible dialogue and childish range of emotions and terrible acting by Christensen... But I do like the political themes of the prequels. And Chris Lee. And the action choreography excels that of 4-6. MacGregor also shines in his Alec Guinness impersonation.

Posted by Gyrd | July 3, 2008 11:15 PM

This post is several weeks too early. Maybe Clone Wars will redeem the prequel era.

Posted by Quietus | July 4, 2008 12:01 AM

"I agree with the sentiment, but you have an exaggerated idea of the power of parents." DA

TR: I agree with points. It's a lovely sentiment, but not very realistic.

First you'd have to assure your kids are never alone with a TV that has cable. Because I don't think the prequels have anything in them that you can block.

Even if you accomplished that to assure they never come "in contact, even fleetingly, with Jar Jar Binks, Count Dooku, the midichlorians and Padme Amidala" you'd need to effectively ban the Internet (It seems like every major character in every Stra Wars movie is featured on Wikipedia) and homeschool them. After that you'd need to prohibit several satirical shows and animated series as well.

Granted in theory if you moved to Tonga much of this might be easier. It's kind of poor, but it's the most advanced nation I found where TV and computers are fairly rare.

Posted by Thomas R | July 4, 2008 2:46 AM

ANH is great largely because of two qualities: the innocence,yet allusiveness, of it all, and Alec Guinness' masterful performance as Obi-Wan, with all the wry subtleties of expression he manners without explanation. Guinness-- and to an extent Peter Cushing-- saved that movie, and Guinesss' Mifune-ness made all that force gobbledygook seem like wisdom. Admirable as Ewan's mimesis has been, he never could catch Guinness' gravitas, even if it was only partial. This, I think, is what kills the prequels more than anything, even the rancid romance scenes: they never managed to make the force as meaningful and locating as Guinness made it seem (all the more ironically for his mere 40 minutes in that first movie). Guinness made that grandpaternal gesture vivid, and so the movie lasts and so he stays much more vivid in the imagination than McG's more prolific performance. Similarly, Yoda as puppet was many things: wise but cranky, goofy yet astonishingly alert; but that's what I think alienates so many of us from the prequels: it's the idiotic, unironic, shallow, utterly digitized figuration of the Jedi. (Reminds me of Graham Greene's critique of Ginny Woolf, that her world were paper thin.)

Never underestimate Alec Guinness. Or the original Yoda.

Or, for that matter, Christopher Lee, who did more than anyone to revive the sentiments of the old movies. Too bad Lucas didn't know what to do with him.

Posted by Dr J | July 4, 2008 6:29 AM

Ross, I agree with you about Jar-Jar, Dooku, Amidala, et al, however you will have to find some other way to introduce them to Darth Maul.

He was cool. Boba Fett cool.

Posted by Mark B | July 4, 2008 1:09 PM

OK, it's the 4th of July and I've had enough beers to offer a kind of, sort of defense of the prequels. Clearly, Episode I is a bad movie, Episode II is about as bad, and Episode III -- while worthwhile -- suffers too much from residue from the first two prequels (and the fact that Padme is even more annoying in this movie than the other two).

But the prequel trilogy is a different trilogy than the original trilogy in more ways than just the poorer quality. It's about political intrigue, the formation of personal alliances and friendships, and the evolution or breakdown of these relationships and how values shape these relationships. That several contending philosophies of the Force are addressed through these relationships -- the radical Qui Gon Jin and the conservative Obi-Wan, for example, or the correlation between belief in expansive powers of the Force and expansive powers of the executive -- is kind of cool, I think.

Plus, I think Darth Maul is cool, Obi-Wan a really cool lead character, and that Ian McDiarmid turned in a really hammy-but-in-a-cool-way performance in Episode III. And John Williams' score? Exceptional.

Nevertheless, execution is everything, and while Lucas had some really cool "big ideas," he really would have benefited having someone else sit in the director's chair and by relinquishing a little creative control as he did with Episodes V and VI. The coolness of Darth Maul and double-bladed lightsabers, while immense, is outshined by Jar-Jar Binks and a depressingly bad performance by Natalie Portman.

Furthermore, I think Portman's poor performance in the movies highlights a really problem with Hollywood actors that is beginning to change. Heath Ledger's performance in the new Batman movie is apparently exceptional, and that is in no small part to the fact that he took the role of a comic book supervillain seriously whereas Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones, two otherwise talented actors, sucked it up in Batman Forever because they didn't take the material seriously or they were in an environment where the movie wasn't being taken seriously. Portman did swell in V for Vendetta and The Professional, so she has talent, but she clearly didn't take the role of Padme seriously, which is either from lack of interest in Star Wars or from a failure on Lucas' part to, well, write quality dialogue.

Posted by Matthew Struhar | July 4, 2008 4:17 PM

Re: Furthermore, I think Portman's poor performance in the movies highlights a really problem with Hollywood actors that is beginning to change.

I don't know that I blanme Ms Portman as I don't think she had much to work with. Padme Amidala is poorly conceived and written as a character, and I doubt any actress could have breathed much life into her given the bad lines and soggy mess of a personality inflicted on her.

Posted by JonF | July 4, 2008 5:02 PM

JonF, fair enough. I didn't mean to make it sound as if I were heaping all the blame onto her. Clearly, George Lucas is the chief culprit.

He, of course, is also the chief culprit behind the original trilogy, and we all know if that it weren't for that blasted awesome original trilogy, the prequels never would have been made.

Posted by Matthew Struhar | July 4, 2008 8:52 PM

My 12 year old nephew really likes Darth Maul though.

Posted by Herb | July 5, 2008 2:51 AM

Forget the Star Wars bullshit, how are you going to keep your children from watching the LOTR trilogy before they read the books.

Posted by Bill | July 5, 2008 6:04 PM

Oh, the irony of a twenty-something arguing for the pristine nature of the original trilogy. "Star Wars" and "Empire Strikes Back" aren't yours, puppy. Yours is the generation that paid millions to see those little twerps Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christiansen destroy any notion of a powerful Darth Vader.

Stop aping the habits of the well-educated and superior generations that came before you. Accept your destiny, Russ. You and yours killed The Force.

Posted by Cal | July 5, 2008 6:19 PM

As a parent I can attest that kids love the prequels. Adults telling them the prequels suck is like adults in 1959 telling kids that rock'n'roll is noise. Suck it up. Moreover, most adults' view of the original Star Wars tends to be bathed in a glow of childhood nostalgia that doesn't stand up to objective scrutiny. Case in point - Revenge of the Jedi is godawful, far worse than any of the prequels. Jar Jar is bad but he's not any worse than the Ewoks. And Natalie Portman is never worse than watching Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford sleepwalk through that movie just looking to cash their paychecks as soon as possible.

Posted by vanya | July 6, 2008 8:13 AM

At least Revenge of the Jedi has a relatively interesting plot with actual forward momentum. The prequels are complete snoozers absolutely awash in bullshit masturbatory CGI.

Posted by Bill | July 6, 2008 9:08 AM

I have to agree, as a 20-something in love with the sanctity of the original trilogy and displeased with the prequels even knowing I shelled out ten or so dollars (and would have gladly paid more) to see them, that Ewoks are really lame.

Posted by Matthew Struhar | July 6, 2008 6:41 PM

I agree with "Right". Episode III makes for a worthwhile stand alone - I'm really not sure you *need* to see the first two movies to understand what's going on.

It has the essence of what was promised and hinted at in the original trilogy: We know Obi-Wan was once a Jedi and General in the Clone Wars, and that his apprentice turned on the darkside, was defeated by Obi-Wan, and hunted down the remaining Jedi. And, oh yes, he fathered twins he didn't learn about until later. Episode III pretty much tells that story, and, with only a few missteps, tells it fairly well.

So the children could and should be exposed to the original trilogy (Special editions or original, take your pick), and, if they really enjoy it, you could hint that there is another movie which tells what happened back in the day and wait for them to beg to see it. Let them find out about Jar Jar and pod racing and why Padme's skin isn't like sand when they're older and more resilient.

Posted by Richard | July 7, 2008 9:45 AM