How Would You Have Done the Star Wars Prequels?

[Spaceman Spiff]

1. No more then 2 Shot/Reverse shot talking scenes in the movies, and even then do it in a unique way.

That immediately made me think of

Spoiler: this video.

It's a long video, but a good watch for a SW fan that wasn't thrilled with the prequels. So much of what felt wrong/off in them is addressed by Mr. Plinkett. Spoiler= it's almost entirely due to George Lucas.

 

[IOwnTheSpire]

1. No more then 2 Shot/Reverse shot talking scenes in the movies, and even then do it in a unique way.

That immediately made me think of

Spoiler: this video.

It's a long video, but a good watch for a SW fan that wasn't thrilled with the prequels. So much of what felt wrong/off in them is addressed by Mr. Plinkett. Spoiler= it's almost entirely due to George Lucas.

The problem with those damn Mr. Plinkett videos is that people let these videos hand their opinions to them instead of forming their own opinions, and always jump to them whenever anyone offers any sort of defense of the prequels.

 

[Hoplon]

Naboo needs to be Alderann, raises the stakes when it is under threat in EP 4.
Bail Organa needs to be there from the start.
Anakin needs to be nearly an adult in ep 1.
Bin the gungans (oh yes that important battle in the middle of an empty field)
Owen and Beru Lars need be there earlier because it's important we care when we see them older and then when they get killed.
The enemy army should have been the clones, probably of the best people the republic had at the time. called the clone wars because there are several conflicts which our intrepid protagonists (minimum Obiwan, Padme and Anikin) figure out are all connected to the once place maybe. I dunno.

 

[LauriAJ]

Well, if I was in the charge of Star Wars then I would have had Earth make an appearance at some point...

 

[jklinders]

I couldn't make myself watch episodes 2 and 3. I got 5 minutes into Episode 2 and looked and listened to that wooden acting and horrid dialogue and said "nay nay."

So I'll just discuss some of the technical side instead. Part of the problem is that the whole damn set was a green screen room. There was very little on location shooting and with that in mind you are giving your actors nothing to react to but a frigging tennis ball on a stick. This is amplified when you have a child actor who read his lines like he couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. But even adult actors struggle in a green screen chamber, it gets worse when you get a kid doing it. Did Lucas have a budget for more than two cameras. But much of the talkier scenes seemed to be with a cheap 80s sitcom set up with a camera each focused on one actors head and it switching back and forth. Once you set it, you cannot unsee it. It's fucking terrible. The script needed an edit. Too bad Lucas did not realize that you cannot effectively be your own editor.


So if I was making the movies, I would have done more on location shooting, more practical effects to give my actors something to react to (CGI has it's place but he really did overuse it) and allowed an editor to actually tell me how I was screwing up.

There were actually plenty of practical sets, as these images show: [link]http://boards.theforce.net/threads/practical-effects-in-the-prequels-sets-pictures-models-etc.50017310/[/link]

Seeing a lot of scale models there, but no actual sets where actors acted. But that is splitting hairs. There was more physical models than I gave credit for.