Han Solo wasn't lying after all!

[Knight of Clear Skies]

As humble thread starter, I have to unexpectedly leap in in defence of the prequels.

And I thought I was on thin ice in my defence of The Da-Vinci Code.

If you got some enjoyment of them, then fair enough. There may well be some flashes of inspiration there, but I found them difficult to spot against the overwhelming feelings of of indifference they engendered in me. I thought they were flawed in conception, suffering from the Titanic problem: will the ship arrive there OK? We know exactly what the state of play will be at their conclusion. Vader's character arc in the prequels is essentially the same as Michael Corleone's in The Godfather - the tragedy of an optimistic and innocent character's descent into hell, trapped by a cage of circumstance and their own decisions. It's a powerful story, but one that requires far greater deftness of touch than Lucas and Christian Hayden possess. The strengths of the original trilogy are bound up with their innocent and uncynical outlook, while the prequels are muddled.

Incidentally, The Godfather is a film I only fully appreciated when I considered it as a tragedy which is only incidentally about gangsters.

[badgerchap]

Have to agree about the Godfather; for me it was difficult to love as much as public opinion seemed to dictate.

Haydn Christensen was one of the weakest links for me. I sometimes feel he got the role for the sake of being pretty, rather than acting talent. To me Anakin should have been inherently likeable, and we should have pitied him near his descent into Vaderhood. Instead he came across as petulant and snivelling.

That said, I would like to have seen the prequels without ever having seen the originals. I wonder if that might have changed people's opinions?

Posted via Tapatalk on an ageing iPhone so please excuse any erroneous spellings or accidental profanities!

[Crebles]

I found the remains of the Death Star. It's half way between Sheliak and Sulafat in Lyra..... 

[AstroJon]

The standard Kessel run is an 18 parsec route. The following is copied from Wookiepeida...

The Kessel Run was one of the most heavily used smuggling routes in the Galactic empire. Han Solo claimed that his Milleniun Falcon "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs". A parsec is a unit of distance, not time. Solo was not referring directly to his ship's speed when he made this claim. Instead, he was referring to the shorter route he was able to travel by skirting the nearby Maw black hole cluster, thus making the run in under the standard distance. By moving closer to the black holes, Solo managed to cut the distance down to about 11.5 parsecs.

[AstroJon]

Ahem, it appear the wookiepedia quote has already been shown and I can't edit/delete posts yet. Please ignore...

[badgerchap]

I'm willing to bet about nine billion Ankh Morpork dollars that George Lucas didn't think of this excuse when he wrote the script

[symesie04]

Hmm seems the thread has gone a little of piste, from the original concept of parsec as a measurement to the plots of the films and even the abilitiy of Mr Lucas as a director.

Well all i can say is "stay on target" "STAY ON TARGET"