So...the NiGHTS rumours

SEGA
101

Well in the cases you named it was basically the creators becoming to fond of their own creations. both phantom menace and matrix reloded would have been brilliant fan-fics, but both a really poor plot and/or storytelling.

one of the best character deepening techniques i’ve seen is in empire strikes back:
-vader is feared by his own men almost as much as by the rebells
-you get a slight view of what’s beneath vaders helmet that lets the viewer spectaqculate what happened to him to make him the dark lord

there are almost no character deepening technikes in phantom manace or matrix reloaded. for that reason i think giving depth to characters (and that also means strong AND weak points) is key to a successful sequel.

102

Exactly. A lot of creators (even game developers) end up drinking their own Kool Aid, so to speak, and lose perspective. Not saying that is was necessarily happened to Sonic Team, but just saying that it is one of many things that can happen to creators that could explain why one time they create a great “something,” and the next time - not so great.

Also, Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam had a good explanation. He said (and I’m paraphrasing) that people always complain about 2nd and 3rd albums not being as good as the first. He explained that it’s only natural, as a lot of artists spend their whole lives up to that point writing their first album. Everything after that they’re supposed to do in a year or two.

As for Phantom Menace - it’s not even just about expectations. There are things in the new trilogy that actively dispel various cool things in the original trilogy. There are gaps in logic… i.e. when people refer to the Force as being some sort of ancient sorcery, when the Jedi Council was still in existance not 20 years prior. Or the fact that Obiwan doesn’t remember R2 or C3PO. Just to name a few.

Matrix Reloaded - There are several issues I have with it. When it came out, I was impressed enough with the effects and whatnot, but I was hoping that everything would “come together” with the third movie. That didn’t happen, so ultimately, I was disappointed with the movie, but for very specific reasons.

  • The appeal of the original Matrix relied on people being able to related to the world and characters. They use clever explanations for things that we see or have heard of in the real world by using Matrix-logic (men in black, deja vu, etc). The vast majority of the movie takes place in a context that is much more identifiable to the audience (i.e. the Matrix world, which is our “real” world). After the second movie, most of the story took place outside of the movie, making the story much less relatable. In addition, a lot of the special effects were thrown together without any sort of meaning. In the first movie, every special effect used was done to build the world, show character development etc. But in the second and third movies, what we see is either “bigger and better” effects, or effects so far removed from our own reality that it breaks the willing suspension of disbelief. IMO, at least :stuck_out_tongue:
103

Agreed, I was also very disapointed with the direction they took the story… The first one makes you feel it’s gonna build up to something truly amazing, with the prophecy and everything, then it all turns out quite underwhelming, at least the way it’s presented with as you say little actual story and just action sequences. I guess that could have been the point of it though, with the main characters realising it at the same time the audience does and going “o shit” at wasting their lives for it… But I don’t think that made the audience feel any better about it…

104

In retrospect, I think the series took a wrong turn in the last 30 second of the original movie… the part that shows Neo flying into the air. The first movie was about discovery - Neo discovering he had special abilities. The second movie should have been about him learning to cope with those abilities and learning to manipulate the world within the Matrix. The audience was left out of that part of the story almost entirely.

105

another good theme for the second movie would have been for neo to realize that infact 99% of all humans think like cifer, that “true freedom” means nothing to them. in fact i think that most americans never refelct what the freedom they think is special about their country actually is. it certainly isn’t “to be free to be free”…

Or Neo finding out that the whole “the machines use humans as batteries” stuff is actually a lie, and the truth is that the machines try to study their creators. I mean what would you (a human) do if you could put God in a bottle and study the Creator of mankind?

106

They should have ditched the movies and started a tv series instead, with all sorts of different stories as seen in Animatrix. I loved some of those <3

107

Haha… All those ideas would have been infinitely more awesome. But, alas… what can you do? They were the creators and that is how they envisioned it.

But to LC’s two ideas… I think the first is much more interesting. How do you save a people that are reluctant to be saved? How do you free a people who did not know they were slaves?

108

[quote=“Abadd”]Haha… All those ideas would have been infinitely more awesome. But, alas… what can you do? They were the creators and that is how they envisioned it.

[/quote]

Exaclty and its so easy for us to pick apart ideas after they came out , overlooking of coruse than many of us would never have came up wiith such great Concepts inthe 1st place , and there’s no doubt tons of pressure from the studios to do this and that , to make ever more money . Never mind the Matrix or Star Wars just look at Jurassic Park , even though it was made with the same team , The Lost world was dire , I was shocked at how bad it was , and there’s a film made for all the wrong reasons

And am I the only one that to like Return of the Jedi more than any of other the Star Wars films? . Anyway Blade Runner eats the Matrix and Star Wars for dust , not thats how to make a SC-Fi :slight_smile:

109

Well, technically speaking, neither Matrix nor Star Wars is truly sci-fi, but I know what you mean :wink:

And no, Jedi was not better than Empire (that’s a scientific fact). Spelling Wookie backwards (sorta) and cutting them in half is not an acceptable means of broadening the appeal of a movie (damn Ewoks). And using the same foil (Death Star 2) is just uninspired. Oh, and the fact that the Death Star’s force field was generated from outside the Death Star on a relatively unguarded moon is just dumb. If I were the rebels, I’d just bombard that entire area. Sure, you’d kill a couple of Ewoks, but this was about the greater good.

110

I always thought that the shielding system included the generator on the surface as well. if the shield was strong enough to protect a whole battle station it probably was strong enough to protect anything in a kilometer radius around the shield generator… even if it wasn’t located in a high endurance bunker structure. I mean with that argumentation most sneak and sabotage missions in movie as well as in the real world history would have been pointless. the deathstar also had protection from a couple of patrol ships (the Executor for example) which would have made orbital bombardment or even an air to surface bombing run kinda difficult…

and although it is pretty obvious that Lucas wanted a second deathstar just because he thought people liked it, it is in fact not that unrealistic. 3vil overlords often try the same stupid things twice, just much bigger and with more money and human resources. just think about G.W. Bush’s way of warfare…

Oh and Strar Wars is Sci-fi, just a different kind called “space opera”

111

In A New Hope we are told that that the Jedi were around not so long ago (although no specific time frame is mentioned). Obi-Wan says: “A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights.” The Empire must have seen the Jedi as a threat, if they went to lengths to track them down one by one, something which is consistant with the prequels.

The Force was referred to as sorcery and a myth, but I don’t remember the word “ancient” ever being used. A myth doesn’t have to be thousands of years old (although they commonly are).

It is true that Obi-Wan didn’t (obviously) recognise the robots, but then, they are just robots. One robot looks very similar to another, so he could have simply thought that they were a different model of the same type. We see a different model of C3PO at the start of Phantom Menace. Given the size of the Republic, there were possibly millions of these robots manufactured.

Personally Empire is my favourite of the films, however I know people who think Return of the Jedi is the pinnacle of the series. All of the movies have their good and bad points. I found the political side of the prequels far more interesting than the more simplistic good rebels vs evil empire theme of the original trilogy. However, the characters had a lot of charm in the originals to make up for it. Anyway, my point is mainly that this is something which really boils down to opinion in the end. You can’t scientifically prove that one movie is better than another.

112

I can see where your disappointment is coming from. I enjoyed the more sci fi elements of the Matrix Reloaded, but didn’t enjoy Revelations that much due to the ending not being that interesting. Making Agent Smith a Virus and bringing in characters like the Keymaker and explaining more about the “programs” who lived inside the Matrix was something I found quite intriguing (this is coming from a person with a deep interest in the way software/computers work).

For the prophecy - there comes a time in every man’s life when something they believe in lets them down, or turns out to be different that what they once held to be true. Morpheus’ story was humanly believable to the end.

Of course, the Keanu’s Ass argument always wins, so I will say no more :wink:

113

Well I wouldn’t mind had they wrecked the prophecy aspect only to replace it with something else that was as intriguing as that… But the story imo just fell apart when they did that, the original movie was a great build up that should have led to something even better… There were some nice ideas thrown in the others but they couldn’t make up for the overall mess.

114

[quote=“Abadd”]Well, technically speaking, neither Matrix nor Star Wars is truly sci-fi, but I know what you mean :wink:

And no, Jedi was not better than Empire (that’s a scientific fact). Spelling Wookie backwards (sorta) and cutting them in half is not an acceptable means of broadening the appeal of a movie (damn Ewoks). And using the same foil (Death Star 2) is just uninspired. Oh, and the fact that the Death Star’s force field was generated from outside the Death Star on a relatively unguarded moon is just dumb. If I were the rebels, I’d just bombard that entire area. Sure, you’d kill a couple of Ewoks, but this was about the greater good.[/quote]

Don?t you think you?re reading far too much into the films, there tons of gaffs in all the films , even Empire , After watching Star Wars I was under the impression that a single strike of a Light Sabre is enough to kill a man , or only a small body part remains (like with the man inthe bar), Yet in Empire when luke gets struck by Vader Light Sabre he just losses his hand

To me the Star wars films are kids films in the main , and when I kid I didn?t pick on half the gaffs and mess ups , I was just enjoying the ride, but as a Adult I started to pick up on the mess ups in the New Star Wars films .

115

LC - I had considered that, but if the shield generator could shield itself, why wouldn’t they have just built it on the Death Star? And sure, an evil emperor may be likely to create another Death Star, but it still makes for bad sequelitis.

(Oh, and technically, the definition of sci-fi is a story that contains elements that are not possible now, but potentially possible based on what we know about science. Matrix and Star Wars contain too many elements of magic for them to be truly considered sci-fi.)

Solo - I’m fairly certain that it was either the Imperial officer or Han Solo that refers to the Force as something old or ancient, though I don’t remember the specific line of dialog. Also, the movie talks of Darth Vader “hunting down” the Jedi, but he didn’t. He walked into the Jedi Academy and just killed everyone. Also, it wasn’t an Empire back then, either. It was still the Republic.

Semantics? Perhaps, but everything in the original trilogy speaks of the prior events in ways that imply the events of the past were not in recent history.

While C3P0 may be explained (and they made a cop out when they just opted to delete his memory), what abour R2? R2D2 appears to be his name, he’s a fairly memorable droid (you never see any other astromechs with his design), and Obi Wan (or Anakin, I forget which) used him to help pilot a ship.

Other inconsistencies - Leia remembering her “real mother,” we never really see why Anakin was dubbed the best pilot or whatever, why Vader appears as a force ghost at the end of ROTJ, etc.

To be honest, I really don’t care - my enjoyment of the original trilogy is not diminished. It just shows careless storytelling (hell, there are even inconsistencies within the original trilogy). But, regardless of those inconsistencies, the movies are simply not that good. The direction is poor, dialog is laughable, and the plots are raced along with little consideration for timing and emotional curves.

(Oh, and my comment about being “scientifically proven” was just a joke :p)

TA - Actually, Luke’s hand being chopped off is accurate enough. Obi Wan cuts off a guy’s arm, simply because that’s where he struck him. Vader just happened to only hit Luke’s wrist.

However, the Star Wars franchise had appeal to all ages. In fact, it didn’t have enough appeal to younger audiences after Empire (too dark), which is why Lucas replaced the Wookies with Ewoks. Star Wars has always been about the traditional hero myth, which is timeless. Lucas was a great student of the works of Joseph Campbell (scholar of the hero myth, try reading “The Hero of a Thousand Faces” - really hard book to follow, but fascinating)… which makes it even more disappointing that he didn’t use the anti-hero story (the fall of the hero) to portray Anakin’s story.

116

because the whole setup was a trap.
the emperor says so himself, he planned to capture the rebell commando alive, or if that was not possiblehe planned to nuke Endor with them. he let the rebells intentionally believe the deathstar was not operationable (even the partly open hull structure was planned), to make sure they would attack. when the rebell atack fleet drops from hyperspace they find themselves trapped between a fully operational deathstar and a huge part of the imperial fleet that came out of hiding from behind Endor.

You probably should watch the movie again…

117

I hate that. I hate the way they always think they “have to” appeal to all ages, and end up ruining good films with the addition of crap like jar jar binks.

I thought revenge of the sith was great cos it was just really dark… and no kid stuff in it. ahhh if kids want kid stuff, the parents shouldn’t take them to see star wars! go see barney the dinosaur or something.

118

[quote=“lordcraymen”]

because the whole setup was a trap.
the emperor says so himself, he planned to capture the rebell commando alive, or if that was not possiblehe planned to nuke Endor with them. he let the rebells intentionally believe the deathstar was not operationable (even the partly open hull structure was planned), to make sure they would attack. when the rebell atack fleet drops from hyperspace they find themselves trapped between a fully operational deathstar and a huge part of the imperial fleet that came out of hiding from behind Endor.

You probably should watch the movie again…[/quote]

That’s a good point, hadn’t considered that angle. I had always thought it would be enough to entice the rebels to attack and not let them know about the force field (the last Death Star didn’t have one). Then again, the Emperor was the best part of ROTJ, so anything regarding him gets a thumbs up from me :smiley:

119

oh, the 1st death star had deflector shields, but only against energy blasts and not missile attacks. that’s why the rebels had to fire proton torpedos into the reactors exhaustion vent.

120

Yeah, but Death Star 2 had shields that could repel entire ships.

OH DEAR GOD I’M A NERD!!!1!

Okay, I just had to let that out. :smiley: