As promised, I'm jumping back into the ring of Star Wars lists. As long as the last SW list post was, I felt like I left some stuff off. "Here we go again..."

Least favorite moments of the saga:

1. Jar Jar stepping in animal droppings, and Jar Jar standing downwind of the gas expelling creature -- Jar Jar never really annoyed me in the same way that he annoyed everyone. To me, he was more a minor case of poison ivy than all out genital herpes. But these two minor scenes were just BAD. Not only were they just grossly unfunny, and unnecessary, they broke the forward movement of the unfolding scene. "Oh cool, they're headed into Mos Espa. Look at that, that's cool...Oh, there goes Jar Jar again." or "This race is going to kick ass. The John Williams music has me all pumped up and ready to go...Oh that Lucas, he sure knows how to make me chuckle with that gas expulsion."

2. Occasionally, Luke is just almost too annoying to stand -- There are some lines that Luke delivers in Ep IV, that just make me CRINGE. "Oh it just isn't fair. Biggs is right, I'm NEVER going to get off this rock." or when he's in the Millennium Falcon cockpit and he's pointing to all the blinking buttons. "WHAT'S THAT ONE?" F*ck the Greedo shooting first scene, Han's badassness is secured completely in the way he slaps Luke's hand away from the Falcon control panel as if he were swatting away flies. Extra points if Obi Wan had slapped his forehead in embarrasment.

3. Back to Jar Jar -- His Olympic freestyle dive into the swamp was just lame. You know, with a few minor cuts, Jar Jar would have been a pretty good character.

4. The total awkwardness felt in this encounter:

[after a successful rescue of Princess Leia]
Luke: So, what do you think of her, Han?
Han Solo: I'm tryin' not to, kid.
Luke: [sotto voce] Good.
Han Solo: [baiting him] Still, she's got a lot of spirit. I don't know, whaddya think? You think a princess and a guy like me...
Luke: [quickly] No.

I just cringe with embarrasment with this one. Not so much with Han, but Luke. I get the same feeling with this scene as I get when I see a 36 year old virgin in a bar hitting on someone nearly nearly half his age. You just want to say, "Give it up dude, she's not into you."

5. Back to Jar Jar -- Let's just tackle this right here and now. Jar Jar isn't horrible, but here's the deal...EVERY single character in the Star Wars Universe has a line or a scene that is memorable for all the right reasons. Everyone, except Jar Jar Binks. He doesn't have one single line that you'd want to quote, unless your purpose in doing so was to make your friends uncomfortable. He doesn't have one scene where you think, oh that's cool, that's memorable. He's not awful, he's just a throw away character. No more Jar Jar bashing from me.

To Jar Jar's defense, I watched Ep. I with my niece and nephew a few weeks ago, and they liked Jar Jar, so who am I to say that he's a complete throw away. I think one could make an argument that it may have been genius to bookend the the prequel trilogies with images of a playful Jar Jar on Naboo, with him at Amidala's funeral. Just a thought...

6. Anakin/Vader = Narcissist -- Perhaps one of the weirdest character traits to spring forth in the prequels is Anakin and Darth Vader being the galaxy's biggest narcissist. Everything becomes about him. He whines and is self centered. He wants everything to go through him, or he wants it destroyed. He slaughters basically an entire village of Tusken Raiders and nearly half of the Jedi temple (including children), yet is ultimately seeking redemption through his son in Ep VI. I guess we're seeing what happens when you tell a 9 year old kid that he's the best thing since sliced bread.

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Scenes that I'm mixed on

1. The Sports Announcers during the Pod Race. -- I initially HATED these characters. Truth be told, after my very first viewings, I disliked these characters more than I disliked Jar Jar. But like Jar Jar, they've grown on me. Now I think they're alright. They're not blowing my socks off, and I think the scene would have worked just as well without them, but they add a certain campiness that the prequels sorely lacked overall.

2. The arena fight in "Attack of the Clones" -- There's just something about seeing Anakin, Obi Wan, and Amidala fight those three massive creatures that just doesn't sit well with me. I almost wish that something more menacing awaited them, instead of those three creatures. It seemed to be unnecessary. It didn't take much away from the movie, but it certainly didn't add anything

3. The Ewoks -- Some people loathe the Ewoks more than they loathe Jar Jar. I don't. There are times during the final battle when I think that they actually made it believable that these furry creatures could destroy the Empire's best troops. But these scenes would have been better, and ten times cooler had they actually been Wookies, or some other massive creature.

4. The first lightsaber duel between Darth Maul and Qui Gonn in "The Phantom Menace." -- It isn't bad, it just isn't that good. I mean, here is the first fight between a Jedi and Sith in over a millenia, and it lasts all of about 5 seconds. Come on, that should have been a momentous occasion. I haven't really heard a good explanation as to why that scene was so short.

5. Boba Fett's death -- Lucas said in the "Return of the Jedi" commentary, that had he known Boba Fett was such a big cult hero, he would have given him a more spectacular death. I kinda wish he had. But there's something almost unbelievably funny, and probably unprecedented, in the king of cool dying like a total chump. It'd be like if after cutting off that cop's ear in "Reservoir Dogs", Mr. Blue accidentally slips on the spilled gasoline and impales himself with his razor blade. You think this cool shit's about to happen, and bam, he gets taken out like one of the Three Stooges.

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Stuff that Could Have Been Improved Upon

Believe it or not, I think that these movies are ripe for a remake. Maybe not now, maybe not for fifty years, but someday, there's going to be a Peter Jackson like director, who takes each one of these movies, and gives them the epic treatment. They'll make them a little more adult, and a little more grand in scope.

In the meantime, here is a list of things that I would have liked to have seen, or been improved upon.

1. In Episode I, Anakin mentions that he's going to come back and free all the slaves: I thought that this was one of the most glaring loose ends that Lucas left untied. We thought that Lucas was going to somehow tie Anakin's fall into the freeing of slaves, especially his mother. I would have liked to have seen a 20 something Anakin taking a batallion of troops back to Tatooine to free the slaves, maybe even against the wishes of the Jedi council.

2. Anakin wiping out the Jedi: We don't really get to see Anaking/Vader taking out any Jedi. For 25+ years, we had this image in our head of Anakin hunting down the Jedi and taking them out, so it was a bit disappointing when it never came to pass. We see brief images of him marching in the temple, and taking a couple Jedi out, and we also get the implied wiping out of Jedi children, but where's the big, hulking Vader sneaking up on Jedi and stabbing them in the back? Where are the images of Vader on a Star Destroyer hunting across the galaxy for the on-the-run Jedi?

3. The Luke and Leia as brother/sister thing: This may be the most glaring proof that Lucas didn't have this whole thing worked out. There's strong proof that shows Lucas didn't even have the Anakin as Darth Vader as father of Luke thing worked out either. I've never read it, but Anakin shows up as a ghost in early drafts of "The Empire Strikes Back." Despite that, I'm willing to see that Vader means father in Dutch, and call it a day. But the Luke and Leia thing never really made much sense to me though. Either I wanted the tie completely severed, or I wanted just *a tad* bit more textual information about them. It wouldn't have taken much to expand on the relationship.

4. Continuity problems -- Although the stories work as six parts of a larger whole, there are certain things that would have been differently had they been filmed in chronological order.

The short list:
-The Emperor would have been in Ep IV and Ep V more. He's mentioned in Ep IV, and he has a brief scene in Ep. V. Had they been filmed in order, there maybe would have been a scene with the Emperor disbanding the Senate, as Tarkin mentioned, or maybe there would have been communications between Darth and the Emperor about Obi Wan.
-Ep IV and the first half of Ep V would have fed more directly into the mythology of SW more. If the movies had been filmed chronologically, I think there would have been more mention about the more important characters of the prequel trilogy. Maybe Obi Wan would have mentioned Luke and Leia's mother. Maybe Obi Wan or Yoda would have talked about the Emperor more.
-If the movies had been filmed in chronological order, more discussion would have been had about the lineage of apprentices and masters.

5. I would have jazzed up Anakin and Padme's relationship -- Part of the problem with the prequels is that for Ep III to fully work, you have to buy that Anakin and Padme's was one for the ages. I think they *almost* reached their goal, but there's just too much awkwardness between them for me to completely but into it. I think they were going for a James Dean like brooding sexuality, and a sexy politician like naivete, but I can't say they completely pulled either off with flying colors. Anakin seemed more whiny than brooding, while Padme seemed more dull than naive. Part of the problem is that they wasted a movie in Ep I with Anakin being so young. Had he been, maybe 5 years older, they could have worked on this relationship in Ep I a little more, so that when they see each other in Ep II, it's a little more believable that they'd be head over heels for each other.

6. Anakin's age in Ep I -- As I mentioned in the above comment, Anakin being so young in Ep I had it's drawbacks. It worked like gangbusters for the one scene it was supposed to work for (Anakin leaving his mom), but everything else in the prequels seemed hampered by his young age. Critics have said that they wanted to see Anakin in a "gee shucks" like role in a similar mode as Luke in Ep IV. Well, we got it, but he was so young and so unmemorable in Ep I, that we tend to look past his innocent phase, until all that we're left off his is whining and annoying behavior in Ep II and Ep III. Had he been better developed in Ep I, a lot of George Lucas' problems could have been avoided.

7. The Lightsaber duels in the prequels -- They seemed kinda too fast for their own good. I missed how slow and plodding the lightsaber battles in the original movies were. With the original movies having lightsaber battles that took their time, you could fit more dialogue and character development into the scenes. But with things being so fast in the prequels, everything starts to run together. The biggest detriment to having the fast lightsaber battles, is that all sense of proportion is lost. If someone is vastly more experienced than the last, then there never really was a sense that someone was fixing to get their ass wiped by their opponent, whereas in Ep V and Ep VI, you really had to wonder how this inexperienced fighter was going to defeat the plotting and methodological Darth Vader.

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That's all I got for now. Anyone have any other additions?

matt out