When Star Wars still could have been great.

[zdover]

In 1999, the people at Skywalker Ranch made six short films called "tone poems" to advertise the upcoming release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Each tone poem featured a major Star Wars character reading a monologue introducing and developing his or her character. Three of the six of them are truly great, and show that if the

Comments

Wow

[whooper]

Thanks for sharing - I somehow had missed these the first time around. My enjoyment is tempered only, as you mention, by the brief additional knife-twist this gives the whole rotten experience of the prequels.

Jason and I, unsurprisingly, have dissected what we felt failed in the prequels at length. For me, one of the biggest frustrations is that - compared to the work most other films, books, stories, etc - much of the heavy lifting had already been done. The story's ultimate arc was already determined, the pathos was already in place, and a great deal of the important character development had at least had the scaffolding constructed. Beyond that, the monetary success was already a sure thing as well. Given even these conditions, the depth to which Lucas fumbled the entire prequel arc goes beyond failing and into inscrutable. They weren't even edited well, and Lucas had been an editor whose success with Star Wars was in large part his careful and cutting-edge editing to move the story and set the tone.

Anyway, thanks for sharing. Also, the grapevine spoke of you and law school coming together - good luck!

What if dreams came true?

[zdover]

I'm glad you got to see them, and that this post brought them to your attention. That vindicates it.

Tell the others!