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I think the problem is the prequationists are confusing 'children understand the movie' with 'children are entertained by the movie'. The former cannot be true because there is literally nothing there to understand as far as a sensible plot and themes are concerned. However there are lots of pretty scenes, explosions, and things with funny voices, and children love that shit. They don't care about themes otherwise they'd be asking what Barney the Dinosaur's motivation is. And that's what TPM and the prequels in general are: They're the big foam-filled purple dinosaur of the Star Wars franchise.

Destructionator XIII wrote:Eye gust thaught up teh brillent anal g. Rightten poorly Iz dis p0st?

evn a st00pid kid kan g3t it

so r u teh st00pid for saying it be teh HARD TWO READ

or did i do a poor job composing it

?

Watertown, NY Drug & Alcohol Treatment Centers

(Yes, I get it, just thought this was funny )

May I suggest a different analogy? It's as if I published a critique of the writings of a creationist, and you responded "You MISSED THE POINT! You didn't mention the typo on page 20!"

Are you in fact unable to perceive me as anything but a Lucas apologist, even though I said he was an awful screenwriter tonight in this thread?

emersonlakeandbalmer wrote: The 17 pages of harping is sadly wasted trying to explain why this "tax" issue is just one example of bad story telling (it may not bother some people but I real don't know how its been argued as anything other than bad writing).

I didn't think there was anything bad about the TF/tax issue. Not every villain craves "UNLIMITED POWAAAAAAAAAH!" Some just want money.

It isn't that the movie would somehow be good with one line explaining taxes, but rather that with one line Lucas could easily fix a glaring issue with his story.

The only people claiming it's a "glaring issue with his story" are Stoklassa and his admirers, almost all of whom are ignorant fuckwits.

It's wasted because Heathcliff's cockgoblins (yes, this means you) are so mindnumbingly stupid and dishonest. To anyone who has not gone Full Retard, it's pretty straightforward: Taxes were levied on trade routes; the Trade Federation (like almost every real-world business) doesn't want to pay more taxes than they absolutely have to, and will resort to underhanded measures to avoid paying (just to make sure the slower members of the audience can keep up, they are described as greedy), and makes a pact with the Devil a Sith Lord who promises them what they want (wonder what that could be! ), provided they do what he says. Only a bullshitter or an imbecile has a hard time getting the gist of the plot from this movie.

What's really funny is the clutching for straws the Red Letter Retards have to engage in.

Hey, I had some pretty good material back in 2010 when I actually cared!

I recently suggested to someone in a PM that the real problem with the prequels is that there's one too many and one of them has an ok structure with nothing entertaining in it (TPM) and another is packed full of fun but is a total vomitous mess in terms of structure (AotC). So really, we needed to marry the structure of TPM with the content of AotC, and then just have RotS.

Elfdart wrote:

It isn't that the movie would somehow be good with one line explaining taxes, but rather that with one line Lucas could easily fix a glaring issue with his story.

The only people claiming it's a "glaring issue with his story" are Stoklassa and his admirers, almost all of whom are ignorant fuckwits.

It's wasted because Heathcliff's cockgoblins (yes, this means you) are so mindnumbingly stupid and dishonest. To anyone who has not gone Full Retard, it's pretty straightforward: Taxes were levied on trade routes; the Trade Federation (like almost every real-world business) doesn't want to pay more taxes than they absolutely have to, and will resort to underhanded measures to avoid paying (just to make sure the slower members of the audience can keep up, they are described as greedy), and makes a pact with the Devil a Sith Lord who promises them what they want (wonder what that could be! ), provided they do what he says. Only a bullshitter or an imbecile has a hard time getting the gist of the plot from this movie.

What's really funny is the clutching for straws the Red Letter Retards have to engage in.

Cockgoblin!!!!! HAHAHAHAH You did it again! Damn girl, you so funny. Like are you saying I'm a goblin who's also a cock? Or like a cock who is transformed into a goblin... wait a minute I bet this is one of your clever puns like "red letter moroon 5". Are you implying goblin, like it gobbling? HAHAHAHAH You're fucking killing it! Damn you so smart, almost pulled a fast one on me.

And thank god. I was worried you wouldn't respond with the same thing you've been saying over and over again with nothing new to add. Please continue to repeat things as though they are true. Its fun to read about scenes that are "straightforward" because you've been backing them up with great examples. Like the time Nute said, "Fuck the senate! those taxes are bullshit, lest invade this planet, but when we do it no body destroy nothing." and his second in command was all like "But don't we own the senate? What about the blue dude with the horns? Why are we taxing ourselves?" and Nute was all "Is that regal?" Then an 8 year old blew up their ship accidentally.

Anguirus has a fair point about the Sith not needing more expose and while I'm firmly in the more expose for the Sith camp, it's still a matter of individual taste and I'll leave it at that. Unless.. you want to use the Sith as a character motivator. For this they suck ass as far as the movies go. Well they suck ass even if you include the EU material but at least then you can pick and choose the more interesting parts and just dump the rest.
Name dropping is really bad when it's not followed up in any meaningful way. This is what the Sith in the prequels amount to. Sure the Jedi speak about them as some great ancient foe that has been extinct for generations and terms like "Sith lord" and such are bandied about and then somehow me as the viewer is expected to give a shit, even if I really don't know the first thing about them.You could say "oh but the Jedi think this is serious", well that would work a lot better if the Jedi weren't such cardboard characters. If your story involves the ye olde two sides of the same coin aspect, you should give both sides some solid background and not just expect people to accept your view by basically telling them "These are the good guys, those are the bad". I'm still waiting to see if someone picks up the challenge O.K Damien put forth, that should be good for a laugh or two. Similar challenge could be proposed about the Jedi Order too. It's pretty hilarious really, the movie tries so hard to make the destruction of the jedi order evocative, and I'm thinking "And I should get all weepy.. because???"

By the way, this "oh you just don't get it" shit needs to stop. I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread gets what's going on in the movies. We in fact get told a lot of shit that should have been shown, not told. Sometimes I feel watching the PT is like watching a powerpoint slideshow with "bullet points" and the presentor just monotonely goes through them even though everyone in the room can see his end conclusion.. which is the last "bullet point". God I hate powerpoint.

-Gunhead

Anguirus wrote:Ok, but...why is that? We get about equivalent amounts of exposition, though it is more spread-out regrading the Sith. So this is a subjective feeling, which I can answer with my subjective feeling that I instantly understood who the Sith are and what they do when I first saw the movie. And all I knew about them beforehand was that Darth Vader and an EU guy named Exar Kun were Lords of the Sith. The concept made more sense after Episode I, not less.

Sure, a lot of this is very subjective. But you still need to admit that TPM is fairly atypical in this regard. Very few movies setup a major antagonist (like the Sith) without providing some concrete exposition about who/what they are and what they hope to achieve. Imagine if we took away the flashback scenes in Terminator, or Kyle Reese's dialogue explaining what a Terminator is. The movie would probably still work, to some extent, but it would be significantly less involving because we might not even understand exactly what a Terminator is until the end of the movie.

No, I'm not missing the point.

Nute Gunray: wants money.
Darth Sidious: wants power
Tarkin: wants power
Sauron: wants power
Balrog: ???
Orc: ???

Please describe to me how any of the ??? entries' actions follow from their motivation?

Stop being silly. Nobody here is complaining that Stormtroopers or Battledroids don't have significant motivation. Orcs are basically just Battledroids, and the Balrog is basically just the fucking Rancor. Wild animals, dragons and monsters don't need much motivation. Since you're capable of breathing and using a computer, you obviously must know this, so what sort of point are you trying to make here?

Now look at the section I bolded. You know, and I know, exactly what the TF's motivation is. Now your second sentence is what I've been saying all along, that TPM has a flimsy Excuse Plot. It's a plot that is meant to be extremely simple, but also meant to SEEM like it arose from a complicated political situation, and it didn't quite hold together logically on its own.

Fine, but you're just arguing semantics. For this entire thread we've all been complaining that the Trade Federation has no apparent motivation for their actions. Yeah, we know they're greedy, but why are they invading Naboo? Regardless, I agree with you on this point.

Anguirus wrote:Although, when you get right down to it, the specific objection that has been harped on for...fuck me, 17 pages, is a lack of background exposition that could have been solved with a single cleverly written sentence of dialogue, in one of the early scenes of the Coruscant sequence.

Sure, I said the same thing myself earlier. If the script indicated that the Trade Federation wanted some valuable mineral or something on Naboo, nobody would be complaining about this. However, the fact that the major conflict in TPM is so poorly explained is really indicative of an overall lack of plot coherence in the Prequels. The Sith issue is very similar.

So really, our point of disagreement may as well be that you (I guess?) think the lack of this sentence is a cause of TPM being a bad movie, while I am slightly more charitable and think it's more like a symptom of it being a mediocre movie.

No, it's just one issue that's interesting to talk about. I think TPM is a seriously flawed movie, and it would require more than a single line to fix it.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a character being a cipher, or with that particular character being a cipher, that's what I'm getting at. Not all works must flesh everybody out. The Balrog's motivation is he's a big evil thing. Nute Gunray's motivation is he's a slimy arch-capitalist with no scruples and a gullible streak.

But again, Nute Gunray's invasion of Naboo is the whole movie. I mean, how often do I need to say this? The Phantom Menace = Invasion of Naboo. Everything that happens in the movie revolves around this invasion. We're supposed to be anxious when we see Trade Federation forces marching around Naboo, and cheer when the good guys make progress towards defeating them. So, it would really help to know what the Trade Federation is trying to accomplish here, so we know what's at stake.

ok how about this

instead of this go nowhere shit about taxation

let's have this in the opening crawl

IT IS A PERIOD OF UNREST IN THE GALAXY. POWERFUL CORPORATIONS MONOPOLIZE THE FLOW OF GOODS TO PLANETS OF THE NEW REPUBLIC. IN AN EFFORT TO BOYCOTT THESE REPRESSIVE PRACTICES, NABOO HAS TURNED AWAY FROM DEALING WITH THE SPACE TOYOTA TRADE FEDERATION. FEARING A LOSS OF PROFITS, THE GALACTIC HONDA TRADE FEDERATION HAS BLOCKADED NABOO TO FORCE ITS PEOPLE INTO STARVATION AND MAKE THEIR GOVERNMENT CAPITULATE.

see look. clear threat. no mention of vague taxation. the stupid audience understands bad companies and starvation

even the children (who love movies like Baby Geniuses and Kangaroo Jack) can understand!

so now you can shoooooooooooooow not teeeeeeeeeeell about the problems.

throw in some actually suffering peasants and replace the weak, ineffectual villains with some real strong Japanese alien businessmen and you've got a better movie :D

Haha, someone resurrected that stupid "What is a Sith?" question again? At least the prequels gave them a name. In the original trilogy, Vader and the Emperor (the same guy with the same music who appears in TPM) were just the bad guys. No name, no backstories, no reasons for betraying the Jedi. They were just accepted as the villains, with their evil actions in the present being what mattered.

But of course, taking a consistent look at the original trilogy is something that a lot of prequel bashers don't like to do.

Destructionator being a shameless lying troll again:

Destructionator XIII wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote: RLM literally says that Qui-Gon was "making shit up" for stating that an invasion was going on

Liar. We went over this a long time ago.

Really? You want me to post the direct quote again?

RLM gets so nitpicky as to make criticisms about laser beam visuals that appear for a couple of frames, only he's incompetent at that as well so he shows clips that flat out contradict him and exonerate the movie on his stupid points against it there.

You're the nitpicker. He was talking about the tension in the scene, and looking for some frame by frame visual doesn't address his point.

Another variant of the old "ignore everything that he actually said, he was just making some subjective MAIN POINT that's intelligent and insightful and totally true."

This is why everyone is better off just disregarding you.

Jim Raynor wrote:Haha, someone resurrected that stupid "What is a Sith?" question again? At least the prequels gave them a name. In the original trilogy, Vader and the Emperor (the same guy with the same music who appears in TPM) were just the bad guys. No name, no backstories, no reasons for betraying the Jedi. They were just accepted as the villains, with their evil actions in the present being what mattered.

But of course, taking a consistent look at the original trilogy is something that a lot of prequel bashers don't like to do.

Horseshit. Vader was the face of the Empire in the OT. A Jedi gone bad. They never needed to delve into the Sith crap back then because his character was fleshed out enough without it.

emersonlakeandbalmer wrote:Do me a favor, could you link to the multiple times someone brought up hunting wildlife? Can you name the person that said this without looking it up? Are they even still posting on this thread?

You're a joke. Yes, the person said it, and is still in this thread. And yes, he's still carrying on as if he hadn't completely embarassed himself already.

Maybe you could argue the point about how the blockade was affecting the planet since it was never shown in the movie?

Most people can understand the simple concept that being blockaded is bad, you know. When I was a kid sitting in elementary school, hearing about how the Union blockaded the Confederacy during the Civil War (the first time I even HEARD the word "blockade"), the teacher didn't need to specify the all critical goods being denied to the South. She briefly described what a blockade even was, and I thought to myself "Hmm, that makes sense."

Apparently, this is too difficult a concept for some of the pseudointellectual armchair film critics in this thread.

Do you want me to take it back for "them" since "they" won't do it? Are you a child? Because that's what it sounds like.

I want you (as in all of you bringing up this stream of utter nonsense) to open your eyes and see how utterly stupid you're coming across as.

Galvatron wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote:Haha, someone resurrected that stupid "What is a Sith?" question again? At least the prequels gave them a name. In the original trilogy, Vader and the Emperor (the same guy with the same music who appears in TPM) were just the bad guys. No name, no backstories, no reasons for betraying the Jedi. They were just accepted as the villains, with their evil actions in the present being what mattered.

But of course, taking a consistent look at the original trilogy is something that a lot of prequel bashers don't like to do.

Horseshit. Vader was the face of the Empire in the OT. A Jedi gone bad. They never needed to delve into the Sith crap back then because his character was fleshed out enough without it.

Yeah, so fleshed out that a Jedi gone bad (for no stated reason) was all he was. Until the very ending of TESB threw in the total retcon about him being Luke's daddy too (still no motivation). Your strong insistences that you're totally right are really funny, when you so clearly gloss over the actual point being made.

Go pretend that Lucas is too afraid to put out a director's cut catering to your own obscure fanboy demands again.

Jim Raynor wrote:Yeah, so fleshed out that a Jedi gone bad (for no stated reason) was all he was. Until the very ending of TESB threw in the total retcon about him being Luke's daddy too (still no motivation).

"Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force" = motivation

Anguirus wrote:Although, when you get right down to it, the specific objection that has been harped on for...fuck me, 17 pages, is a lack of background exposition that could have been solved with a single cleverly written sentence of dialogue, in one of the early scenes of the Coruscant sequence.

This is it in a nutshell.

The opening crawl already gives the viewer a gist of things. The taxes really don't even matter, the movie focuses on the blockade and invasion. We are flat out TOLD that the Trade Fed is "greedy" and hoping that its use of military force can get its way on a tax dispute. That's all anyone needs to understand the plot - something that children were able to do just fine.

The same people are whining about what amounts to trivia, the kind of irrelevant little detail that might pop up in an EU novel or tie-in comic book for the truly hardcore who just HAVE to know. What is even the difference if it was spelled out? If Nute Gunray had one line like "We won't release your planet until those taxes are lifted"? Insert that one trifling little line (spelling out what can already be inferred from the opening crawl), with the plot, characters, fight scenes, and visual effects all staying the same. Oh wow, BIG difference!

That's really the test to see if someone's just obsessing over pointless crap. Yet some people have utterly warped this little trivia detail in their heads, elevating it to the "character motivation," "story," or "overall plot" of the movie. No, it's not.

Also, love how one of them tried to dismiss the Sauron comparison, letting Sauron off the hook for being even MORE vague, because he's supposed to be basic archetypal devil or something. Yeah, well that's Sidious's role in the prequel trilogy. He's the satanic tempter, working behind the scenes and trying to corrupt people. Meanwhile Nute Gunray gets a tougher treatment because he's supposed to be a "character," even though he's pretty much a small supporting role. The patsy. The movie doesn't focus on him in any way. And he's more fleshed out than any big Orc or Witch King.

Man, "big Orc" was so confusing! We needed to have his "character motivation" spelled out for us!

Galvatron wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote:Yeah, so fleshed out that a Jedi gone bad (for no stated reason) was all he was. Until the very ending of TESB threw in the total retcon about him being Luke's daddy too (still no motivation).

"Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force" = motivation

This is truly comical. A one-liner that glosses over the point even more than the previous post.

"What is the Dark Side? How did he even meet the Emperor? Who was the Emperor before being the Emperor? How did the Emperor learn all these Dark Side powers? How was Vader seduced? Why would he turn on his friends?"

I keep calling people on their previous crap because they don't own up to it (seemingly ignoring that they said it even as they press on and manufacture more trivial things to whine about), but also because it so clearly illustrates the warped mentality they have toward this movie.

Really, why a blockade is bad needs to be explained? Saying that someone can just hunt wild animals to overcome the blockade? Asking why someone would jam comms during a military attack? Why someone with the rank of "General" can speak with authority during a military meeting?

If you choose to be so willfully ignorant, harping on trivia like the exact nature of the tax dispute suddenly seems sensible. Suddenly, these little things (or even complete non-issues) are supposedly critical to the plot of the entire movie.

The underlying fact about this whole 18 page thread is several people's lack of self-awareness, and their redefinition of what is normal. Yes, it is far more normal of me to care about the actual story and action, than a piece of trivia (obsessing over trivia is not what "processing fiction" is about to most people). No, the average person does not seek out websites and forums to whine about movies years and years after the fact.

Get a grip and take a good look at yourselves. This thread is an embarassment to SW fandom.

Jim Raynor wrote:"What is the Dark Side?

The evil side? It's self-explanatory unless you're an idiot.

Jim Raynor wrote:How did he even meet the Emperor? Who was the Emperor before being the Emperor? How did the Emperor learn all these Dark Side powers? How was Vader seduced? Why would he turn on his friends?"

Good questions to be answered in the prequels, sure, but not necessary for the plot or characters of the OT to make sense.

Galvatron wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote:Yeah, so fleshed out that a Jedi gone bad (for no stated reason) was all he was. Until the very ending of TESB threw in the total retcon about him being Luke's daddy too (still no motivation).

"Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force" = motivation

Which is little more than saying "Vader went bad".

Gunhead wrote:By the way, this "oh you just don't get it" shit needs to stop.

Why? Because the truth hurts and Stoklassa's fanboys really are a bunch of flaming retards? On the contrary: It needs to be repeated often.

I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread gets what's going on in the movies.

Could have fooled me.

We in fact get told a lot of shit that should have been shown, not told.

You want to see the Senate vote to tax the trade routes? You want to see Gunray sign his pact with Sidious?


In ANH, Tarkin walks into a meeting room and tells everyone that the Emperor just dismissed the Senate. Are you disappointed that they didn't shoot such a scene? If so, your idea of film-making sounds like Super Shadow's wish/wank list.

Elfdart wrote: Which is little more than saying "Vader went bad".

It's saying WHAT made Vader go bad. So WHY did it make him go bad? Well...

"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."

The Force is power and that power has corrupted him.

I have a feeling this will go on forever until somebody steps in and locks it.

EDIT: Not that I'm advising as such, just saying there could be many more pages on the way.

Galvatron wrote:

Elfdart wrote: Which is little more than saying "Vader went bad".

It's saying WHAT made Vader go bad. So WHY did it make him go bad? Well...

"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."

The Force is power and that power has corrupted him.

Why did he desire that power, then? What was his motivation for gaining that power? At least the prequels gave pretty clear reasons for Anakin to seek out ever greater power - he wanted to prevent his loved ones from getting hurt and in extreme cases from dying.

Maybe Vader in the OT desired power for its own sake. That's a motivation and many real-life people do have it. However, many real-life people also desire money for its own sake and do some terrible things in order to gain more money. Stupid things, even. Like setting up unjust blockades or throwing a hissy fit because someone threatens their income. Maybe they might back up some shady character whom they think is totally under their control or at least on equal footing to them only to have that backfire on them badly.

Tiriol wrote:Why did he desire that power, then? What was his motivation for gaining that power? At least the prequels gave pretty clear reasons for Anakin to seek out ever greater power - he wanted to prevent his loved ones from getting hurt and in extreme cases from dying.

Maybe Vader in the OT desired power for its own sake. That's a motivation and many real-life people do have it. However, many real-life people also desire money for its own sake and do some terrible things in order to gain more money. Stupid things, even. Like setting up unjust blockades or throwing a hissy fit because someone threatens their income. Maybe they might back up some shady character whom they think is totally under their control or at least on equal footing to them only to have that backfire on them badly.

*looks around*

Umm, did anyone ever dispute that desiring money for its own sake (greed) was a good motivation? No.

Fucking hell, it's like you can't even read: No one has a problem with 'greed' being a motivation. What everyone is having trouble with is how that motivation is expressed through the actions we see in the movie. Hey, the little Asian stand-in thingies want money. Alright... so how does the blockade help them with that? I've watched the movie a few times, I have yet to see how. No one here has been able to show how except by resorting to out-of-movie supposition.

But that's alright, give it another page at most and someone will forget this ever existed, the number of times this has happened is only in the double-digits now.

Oni Koneko Damien wrote:

Tiriol wrote:Why did he desire that power, then? What was his motivation for gaining that power? At least the prequels gave pretty clear reasons for Anakin to seek out ever greater power - he wanted to prevent his loved ones from getting hurt and in extreme cases from dying.

Maybe Vader in the OT desired power for its own sake. That's a motivation and many real-life people do have it. However, many real-life people also desire money for its own sake and do some terrible things in order to gain more money. Stupid things, even. Like setting up unjust blockades or throwing a hissy fit because someone threatens their income. Maybe they might back up some shady character whom they think is totally under their control or at least on equal footing to them only to have that backfire on them badly.

*looks around*

Umm, did anyone ever dispute that desiring money for its own sake (greed) was a good motivation? No.

Fucking hell, it's like you can't even read: No one has a problem with 'greed' being a motivation. What everyone is having trouble with is how that motivation is expressed through the actions we see in the movie. Hey, the little Asian stand-in thingies want money. Alright... so how does the blockade help them with that? I've watched the movie a few times, I have yet to see how. No one here has been able to show how except by resorting to out-of-movie supposition.

But that's alright, give it another page at most and someone will forget this ever existed, the number of times this has happened is only in the double-digits now.

When I saw The Phantom Menace for the first time I was what, 12 years old? I had no difficulty in comprehending that a ruthless corporate entity with a standing army at its beck and call would resort to violence or using threats of violence to achieve something. I had no difficulty in understanding that the taxes which were mentioned in the opening scrawl were hurting the Trade Federation in some way. Hell, now when I'm an adult I understand it even more, considering the anguished screams and crocodile tears of private sector whenever the government decides to raise some taxes. If they were as lacking in morality as the Trade Federation and had the same amount of military hardware at their command they would try to do something, however illogical it might be. And would they take direct action at a capital city? No. Like any bully they target those who are weak.

What I don't understand is why it's so hard to understand that. Why did Grand Moff Tarkin destroy Alderaan? Because it was harboring Rebels? It was never said to do so in the movie. Tarkin only wanted to demonstrate the Death Star's firepower by destroying an entire planet. How much different is the Trade Federation in this, except that they are not blowing up planets?

TPM is not an excellent movie or a priceless classic. Yet it is entertaining enough. I couldn't give two shits about the tax issue when I saw it as a child, I merely aknowledged that it was the reason behind the Trade Federation's actions. The movie has enough flaws on its own, no need to harp about supposed lack of motivation for the Trade Federation (whose leaders are portrayed as generally incompetent anyway, so them acting illogically because someone tells them it's a good idea isn't that far-fetched an idea).