I think a case could be made that the three prequels are really about Palpatine/Sidious and his rise to power. He goes from being a nothing representative from a nothing planet at the ass-end of nowhere to being the ultimate ruler of the entire galaxy. He acts as mentor and coach to a confused young lad who is being led astray by a dangerous cult while at the same time trying to rescue civilization from the forces of chaos and disarray.

It's the feel-good story of the decade, by God!

The main character in the prequels is Lucas' enormous, misguided, overinflated ego.

It's about time we stopped calling him a genius and reexamine his legacy. I think he just "got lucky" with the initial Star Wars thing.

Put him in the same class with Coppola. Godfather I and Apocalypse Now: Great. The rest: meh.

Could not agree more. Basic plot stuff is missing, not just dialog and acting.

What happend to people like Lawrence Kasdan, who I believe helped in one of the first three?

Well, there you go. That's the problem. You can make various arguments about numerous characters being the main character.

Which means there really isn't any main character. Except perhaps in this third one, but even then, Anakin gets less screen time than your typical main character.

How many scenes was Luke NOT in in any of three star wars films? In the first one, he's only not on the screen for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, tops.

Excellent point. Apparently the prequels are about Industrial Light and Magic. Lucas himself once said (paraphrasing) that all the special effects in the world can't save a bad story.

Come now, isn't it obvious? The main character is Jar-Jar.

(takes out razor, slits wrists, bleeds out all over Darth Chocolate M&Ms).

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

P.S. Hey, now that's more like it. . . tierra del fuego for the link.

Obi-wan.

Boba, you've been outed; no need to continue with the "I'm too cool for this" obligatory Star Wars bashing.

Aniken is the main character in all three prequels.

That we're debating that fact does not speak well for the quality of the films.

Seriously, though, this Screenwriting 101 critique of RotS isn't getting you very far. Aesthetic rules are descriptive, not prescriptive -- and dull death if followed literally.

And who's the main character in 'Empire'? Vader has at least as good a claim as Luke.

Well, it should be obvious to anyone - the main characters in both series are R2D2 and C3PO. It's a commentary on the needlessly confusing and quarrelsome world of the biologicals in which the innocent Droids find themselves enmeshed. To quote Lucas himself: "It's a story about two Droids."

Seriously, though, this Screenwriting 101 critique of RotS isn't getting you very far. Aesthetic rules are descriptive, not prescriptive -- and dull death if followed literally.

Wrong. They are prescriptive, and one violates them at one's great peril. These rules have been rules since Aristotle, and they're rules because movies which follow them work and those that don't largely fail.

And who's the main character in 'Empire'? Vader has at least as good a claim as Luke.

Ummm... LUke? Duhhhhh.

Vader has a claim as a main character in Empire? Oh really? What dramatic changes does he go through?

I've read a lot of books about screenwriting, and I've written three, and I've read a lot of amateur scripts, and of course I've seen a lot of movies.

I'm not into Syd Field's "The Second 'Plot Tweak' must come at minute 88" bullshit, but there are rules I know are genuine rules, or as close to a "rule" as you can have in an artisitic, creative field.

The main character thing is a rule.

So is the rule about Act 1 -- introducing all main characters and the fundamental conflict -- needing to wrap up by minute 17 or, at the very latest, 21.

A lot of what people say about screenwriting is pure bullshit. But some things -- the need for a clear narrative arc, the need for one scene to make the next almost inevitable, a SINGLE main character (exception: ensemble slice-of-life films), Act One wrapping up pretty damn quickly -- those are real rules. I swear they are.

Like that Act one finishing by minute 17... I didn't believe it, it sounded too restrictive and mechanical to me, but you try thinking of a successful movie that does NOT introduce all the main characters and set up the basic conflict in a hurry, rather than waiting for, say, the half-hour mark.

There are exceptions, like the LOTR trilogy, I guess. But I think even exceptions that are successful would have been better had they followed the real rules of the game. (not the bullshit rules, which aren't rules, but just stupid crap people say when they can't really define what's wrong with a script)

Ace, your aspiring-screenwriter side has taken over here. I don't know what you think you know about the Poetics, aesthetic history (see, e.g., French neoclassicists v. Shakespeare), or popular culture vis-a-vis high culture, but this statement pretty much gets them all totally wrong.

These rules have been rules since Aristotle, and they're rules because movies which follow them work and those that don't largely fail.

I imagine that link leads to the box-office take.

I'm talking about failing dramatically and artistically. There have been a lot of sucky movies that made a mint.

If you want it in less aspiring-screenwriter terms: the movie sucked because I couldn't give a shit about anything that was going on on-screen.

Obviously, I'm assuming your screenwriting rules leave out "experimental" films, such as Pulp Fiction or Memento.

You don't need to always follow the "rules"-- but you better damn be sure you know what you're doing if you don't.

As for LOTR, I think its strength (and weakness) in this regard was that the audience always knew the story was going to be told over three movies. Thus, one could aruge that the standard three-act structure of a movie was superceded by a "mega-structure" that led the arc across all three films.

Of course, LOTR's three-film arc was very strong, whereas the prequel arc was. . . not.

Still, I felt (and feel) that Fellowship of the Ring is the weakest of the three LOTR films for precisely this reason-- it lacks any real resolution. I walked out of the theater a little bored, and not at all enthusiastic. Two Towers, however, finishes very strong, and overall was a much more satisfying film.

As long as we're on the subject, the three-movie/three-act structure of LOTR absolutely dooms the ending of Return of the King, in my eyes. I know I'm far from alone in thinking that movie took FOREVER to end as Jackson wrapped up each and every plotline from the three movies. Brevity would have greatly improved ROTK, Oscar-winner or not.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

That's because you brought A Poisonous Attitude to the movie and it was going to be a "failure" for you no matter what.

In the immortal words of some guy in some film somewhere - "Lighten up, Francis."

As long as we're talking screewriting 101 Ace, which do you think is more important: a good beginning, or a good ending?

It seems to me that nearly all my favorite films end well. Even if the beginning and the middle is weak, the ending absolutely has to work, or else I walk home unhappy.

However, movie after movie starts off well-- usually by introducing the neat-o plot hook ("Die Hard. . . in an Amish village!"). After that, entropy takes over, and a lot of little bad decisions along the way, or characters doing things their characterization does not justify, and the whole house of cards falls down.

Most movies suck, especially the good ones.

(No, that's not a misprint).

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Unbeknownst to all the people everywhere the real main character of all six movies is R2D2 the secret Jedi Master of the Universe.

Nowhere does it say midochlorians (or however you spell it) are restrictied to biological entities. Notice how R2D2 uses the Force to defend himself in the first movie and deflect all the blasts away from himself. Too bad he could not protect any of the other 'droids but it is a 'droid smash 'droid' univoresse out there.

Once he is awarded by Amdala though he is able to stay close to the action and influence events through out the Galaxy.

I mean you didn't really thing tha Yoda lifted that X-wing all by himself did you?

According to a Lucas interview I heard ????, the main character in all of 'em is Darth Vader. That's why there is no ...er, post-quel -- aka Episodes 7-9.

There have been a lot of sucky movies that made a mint.

Personally I count Episode III as a rousing success on the terms which Episode V had set. Some critics say that there aren't any good SW movies, and others that the episode we call "A New Hope" should have stayed at "Star Wars" and never built upon.

As for the major characters in the prequels - The prequel trilogy should've been Anakin's story as told by Obi-Wan. That would have allowed Lucas to make Episode I a trailer for the II-III-IV arc and to make Obi-Wan the main figure in that first episode.

Is Palpatine Sideous?

OK, we have more important topics now, but hey... From the horse's mouth:

Yes. I did the back story of where everybody came from. Those three movies [Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi] were actually one movie. It was kind of the tragedy of Darth Vader.

You know, the monster comes in at the beginning of the movie, throws everybody around. Halfway through the movie, you realise that the monster's actually a man - not only is he a man but he's the father of our hero, and in the end he turns out to be the hero inspired by his son. And that was the movie.

Crap. That second paragraph should also be in blockquote, thus:

Yes. I did the back story of where everybody came from. Those three movies [Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi] were actually one movie. It was kind of the tragedy of Darth Vader.

You know, the monster comes in at the beginning of the movie, throws everybody around. Halfway through the movie, you realise that the monster's actually a man - not only is he a man but he's the father of our hero, and in the end he turns out to be the hero inspired by his son. And that was the movie.

Ace, I completely agree with your point that many scripts fail for structural reasons, not superficial ones, like dialogue. (BTW, the dialoge in all the prequels failed because it was expository. It was expository because it was carrying the entire story, which should have been in the structural elements, and conveyed visually.)

But as for "rules," I firmly believe that there is only ONE true rule of all fiction -- the audience must care what happens next.

If it does that, it succeeds. If not, failure.

At each step of the way, there must be something that interests the audience (or reader) about the next thing.

That's why the device of using the frustrated goal is so powerful. It's not because it's the only thing that a story needs. It's because wanting something (but having trouble getting it) makes the audience care whether he actually does get it. By its very nature, it points toward the future, toward a conclusion.

This is just one of those important structural things a good script needs.


Or more importantly, a single hero is important to implement Joseph Campbell's monomyth and the hero cycle. I noticed that Lucas waited until Campbell had be buried several years before foisting this crap on us. I'm pretty sure that had Lucas passed Ep. 1-3 scripts to Campbell for review, Campbell would have shown Lucas how a real hero cycle works with his heroic gunning down of Lucas in cold blood.