Chen G.

Yeah. I seem to remember Doug Adams found it somewhat objectionable. This doesn't focus on the musicological lingo in the film but does focus on the dexterity of Blanchett's piano playing in the film:

Oh, I don't mean that it wasn't legit, so much as that had this "rapid-fire gobbledygook" feeling to it all. The Wagnerian in me would have liked more Wagner excerpts (I think there was a solo from Tannhauser at one point). Would have been nicely in keeping with a film somewhat about controversy and cancel culture...

Its a pretty nice film. Blanchett is excellent, and its always great to see Julian Glover in a movie! I also really, really like Nina Hoss in it! The musicological mumbo-jumbo that the film sometimes traffics in can be a little much, though.

This problem is hardly unique to the prequel trilogy, having also plagued Return of the Jedi a great deal: the cutting from the gloomy Emperor scenes to the Ewok crap could not be more peculiar if Marquand, Lucas and Kasdan tried. The lesson here is NOT that Return of the Jedi is somekind of prelude to the prequel trilogy but just that, as I always say, it doesn't do to lump these films together in trilogies: its best to look at them as individual entries, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I'd definitely agree there is a neither-fish-nor-fowl quality to Episode One, tonally-speaking. Its weird to see a film whose overall style is that of a children's film, but which ends with the death of the protagonist. I don't think Episode two has that in quite the same way: that movie is just goofy from start to finish, even if not entirely by design. Episode III has some of this inconsistency, too, but definitely lands harder on the more gloomy side of things. Interesting you associate this more Machiavelian turn in the prequels with Star Trek. I tend to think it more in terms of Dune and, to a large extent, Lucas trying to one-up Coppola and his Godfather films: the structure of the prequel trilogy is suspiciously similar to the "prequel" parts of The Godfather: Part II, and all the Machiavelian atmosphere is very much in Coppola's wheelhouse.

I keep on going back-and-forth on that kind of stuff, both with regards to the occupation the Naboo are experiencing and the film's rather picture-postcard view of slavery. On the one hand, its cloying. On the other hand, it is a film for younger audiences, which is both in-line with the rest of the series (with the slight exception of Revenge of the Sith) AND really works for the film as "Episode One" (and would have worked better still were it a prelude), so that audiences can "grow up" with the films, at least in theory.

Well, Frank Herbert kind of took something of the tropes of Edgar Rice Burroughs (man comes to alien desert planet, befriend the local noble savages and leads them against a technologically-superior but tyrannical foe) and inverted them, and Cameron's films owe a lot of Burroughs.

My understanding is Lucas considered all sorts of motivations all throughout: early drafts of Episode I seem to set-up a romantice triangle with Obi Wan, which would no doubt drive Anakin to jealousy and treachery, an idea hinted to in Episode III ("Obi wan was here? What did he want?") but mercifully kept at bay. There's the Dark Side as an external force compelling the individual like a drug, an obsession with artificially preserving life ("I will even learn to stop people from dying"), thirst for power, possessivenss over Padme and so on. Lucas was still experimenting with a great many of those as far as some of the very last pickups of Episode III, but I do agree he gets away with it because the kind of clutter of the different motivations is very psychology compelling (even though I still think the actual turn is still that bit too abrupt). I actually think that, of what we are presented with in Episode III, by far the most compelling motivation for Anakin is not the "official" reason of safeguarding Padme but rather the very credible fatherly relationship he develops with Palpatine, a notion that was particularly late in coming to Lucas but which works very well.

Correct. The prequel trilogy is often given as the most planned of the trilogies, but your critique exposes the flaw in that outlook: in some (not all) ways it is, in fact, the most episodic. Another aspect is that the three films look almost nothing alike: Episode I having been shot on 35mm anamorphic, Episode II on 960p anamorphic, and Episode III on 1080p spherical. Baffling. Add to that dropped plot threads like Boba (in any other trilogy, you'd surely have an older Boba in Episode III, something Lucas pondered), the whole Sifo-Dyas mystery, and the rather housewife-y role that Padme is reduced to in Episode III. Its also clear that rather than have a clear hamartia for Anakin's fall in mind since Episode I, Lucas had multiple possible avenues open and didn't decide on one until he was editing Episode III, although he gets away with that much better.

By that logic, you could cut the original and just watch The Empire Strikes Back... The plot of the classic trilogy doesn't really start until a good halfway into Empire. Its only there that a bigger conflict with the Emperor is set-up: "Only a fully-trained Jedi knight, with the Force as his ally, could conquer Vader and his Emperor." Both trilogies, to varying extent, have this presentation of a prelude, plus a more closely-knit duology of films. In both cases, its probably the result of a lack of forethought on the part of Lucas, although for different reasons.

I guess for some here (and I very much approve) Star Wars had reached such super-saturation that any new project needs to have its raison d'etre aruged about.

I actually wrote a lengthy essay arguing to the opposite in that particular case... But I feel like the Star Wars case is very different.

I feel like its much, much, MUCH more detrimental in Star Wars, and while the prequels do give some stuff back, I feel like in that case the scales are tipped way too far in the direction of detracting from the original film, as opposed to enriching it.

Although I'm sure Lucas had a lot of input into this book - and especially the prologue - the book was principally the work of Alan Dean Foster and was only credited to Lucas to keep the appearance of the single visionary. In fact, the requirement to have the book credited to Lucas deterred his first choice of writer, Dan Glut. All the "Whills" stuff is from Lucas' early drafts. Its basically his version of Burroughs' "Girdley Wave." None of which is to go against your basic argument, of course. Oh, and just one more thing I can't resist: This is supposed to be in the background of the movie: The whole idea is that the Emperor is the lackey of the Imperial officers and, specifically, Tarkin, not the other way around. Tarkin's line "regional governors now have direct control over their territories" was obviously mean to be read more smug than it does in the film, being that Tarkin is a regional governor.

I mean, we're given all sorts of reasons to feel sorry for the guy: he's the bastard of the family and subsequently had been passed on for the throne, the frequent allusions to "Weibes wonne und werth" certainly seem to suggest to me grief for the loss of a mother, and clearly his relationship with his father is highly disfunctional, and in act one he tells Siegfried he can't partake of the blood brotherhood because "cold and stubborn, scarcely does my blood stir / my cheeks never to reden." And yet, its clear Gunther's ("Thine alone was wisdom, never was a brotherly quarrel better settled!") or Alberich's ("Are you not cunning? Bold, and wise?") effusive praise of Hagen are not said in cynicism. In general, I think Wagner had sympathy for his antagonists: I've heard Fasolt (surely the "antagonist" of scene 2 of Rheingold) described as "the only nice person in the Ring." And there's Telramund in Lohengrin (not so much Ortrud), Venus in Le Tannhauser, Klingsor in Parsifal and perhaps even Melot in Tristan. Even Hunding, who lends himself to being a cackling bad guy, does earnestly seek vegenance for his slain kinsmen, and at the very least is shown to be a man of principles and the product of the (obviously very twisted) social norms of the world in which he lives.

I mean, if we're meant to take Alberich and Hagen as antisemitic caricatures...then caricatures they sure ain't. Its very clear to me that Wagner has sympathy for Alberich: in the first scene of Rheingold, its not that Alberich is this lascivious predator and the Rhinedaughters are just innocent little girls. Wagner has then tease him in a very, very mean way to motivate his actions and have the audience gain some measure of sympathy for him, and certainly that's also the case with Wotan wrestling the Ring from him. That's not the action of a raving antisemite seeking to ridicule and demonise the Jewish "other." And that's perhaps even more the case with Hagen. Act Two, scene one is one of my favourite scenes in The Ring (and one I feel no staging had done full justice to) because Wagner is so incredibly succesfull at evoking the audience's pity for his two antagonists, and I think the whole irony of the scene turns on the fact that, yes, Alberich in his own disfunctional way DOES love Hagen, and he ends-up losing him to his own "curse." There's even a kind of twisted nobility to the music in Hagen's "Ihr freien Söhne, frohe Gesellen," which is repeated in that scene. Again, scarcely something an antisemite would write for a character he would concieve as Jewish. Its his comic villains - Mime and Beckmesser - who are more open to accusations of antisemitism. I don't really see it with Mime, and I only kinda, sorta see it with Beckmesser, maybe.

Sure, I'm just saying if you're a DP who also directs, you're sure to be very opinionated on directorial issues, and depending on the director and the project that can get you into trouble...

Yes! That was the explanation in the companion! That its just one of the more sensationalist aspects Wagner ported from the mythology. With the music, its undeniably effective in the theatre, though! We're not going to succesfully disentangle the complex subject of Wagner's antisemitism here, but I personally see no antisemitism in the Ring. I might see it in Meistersingers, but even there I'm not sold, in spite of Barry Millington's pointing out of the comparison between Walther's "Fanget An" to Grimm's "Jew among the thorns."

Well, then, why do we hear the sword's music, then? It always seemed very clear to me that - apart from the power that Alberich, who had renounced love, to rule over the Nibelungs - the Ring in Wagner's cycle has no power whatsoever: it doesn't help Alberich outwit Loge nor repel Wotan when he grabs it from him, doesn't help Fasolt when he's assailed by Fafner, the latter when he's assailed by Siegfried, doesn't help Brunnhilde when the brainwashed Siegfried assails her, nor Siegfried from being tricked and then slain by Hagen, etc... The various people seem to project unto the Ring their own inner desires: Wotan - who seeks after power - sees just that in the Ring; Fricka, who wants to keep Wotan from roming, sees the Ring as a way to achieve that; Donner, who's clearly the warlike God, sees it as a source of might; Fafner, who cares only for self-preservation, sees it as a source of immortality; and Brunnhilde sees it as Siegfried's love token... And, of course, the irony is - in all those cases - it doesn't work: even Alberich, who definitely exerts power to force the Nibelungs to horde gold, certainly doesn't seem happy or content when he has the Ring. Most of the things he later invokes in his curse (which I also think has no real power) are already true of him, too. I don't have the Ring of the Nibelung companion to hand to see Millington and Spencer have an explanation for that beat. But, then, its not like Gotterdamerung is without strenous plot contrivances, grunts in the direction of the forgetfullness potion.

I mean, the dead Siegfried inexplicably raises his hand at the end of Gotterdamerung... We Wagnerians don't question it.

Well, that guy was also a director, so...

Well, in the prose draft of Parsifal, Titurel is ressurected...

Quite. Now, I know the comeback will be “well, technically they don’t blow up those planets wholesale!” But frankly that blowing up of Jedha looks far more cataclysmic than the blowing up of Aldeeran, insofar as we see the effect FROM THE PLANET SURFACE. Definitely undermines the impact in the original.

Yeah, but then we got Rogue One, Solo, Obi Wan etc... Imagine watching all that stuff and then seeing the original for the first time: Vader's entrance? Meh. Seen him plenty for that to maintain its drama. The Droids wandering through the dunes? Meh, we've seen endless amounts of far-more-impressively-framed desert shots AND we know Tatooine so its no longer about the Droids venturing into the unknown. The cantina? Pfft, we've seen more weird aliens than stars in the sky. The Death Star blowing up Leia's home? Pfft, please! We've seen the Death Star blow up several planets by this point. The lightsaber battle? Pfft, we've seen people - including Vader and Obi Wan - slash and jump and throw objects at each other, so these two geezers gently poking at each other? NEXT! etc... You get my point.

He did A LOT of Tolkien-based pieces, not just this Lord of the Rings piece. He did a large number of Silmarillion pieces. Haven't heard a note of any of it.