Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Review

[Mal12345]

The Phantom Menace was breathtaking in 1999. The production values, visual and sound effects were flawless, but Jake Lloyd was annoying as hell. As for Jar Jar, I don't see what the problem was outside of him being the second most annoying character in the movie (someone had to fill in for C-3PO's lack of screen time). But why was the character such a racist stereotype? He was voiced and mocapped by a black guy imitating his grandmother!!!

For the boring first half, Attack of the Clones transformed into a work of genius during the last hour. (And even in the first half, there's an unintentionally funny love story that in and of itself is a genius in its stupidity.)[/I]

Such as the scene where Anakin admitted to Amidala that he is a murderer, but she married him anyway?

 

[The Ü™]

Such as the scene where Anakin admitted to Amidala that he is a murderer, but she married him anyway?

Hey! Stockholm syndrome is a very serious illness!

 

[Totenkindly]

While I liked the "saving the galaxy" storyline of the originals, I agree with you that the prequels had the meatier, more intriguing storyline. But the execution was *awful*. I mean, just terrible. There was more potential, but much less follow-through. Nonsensical plot holes/explanations, bad writing, ghastly dialog, deux-ex-machina explanations of stuff that didn't need explaining, "let's make an uneccesary character(s) to sell toys" -- all of that was in the prequels, in spades.

If you doubt me, go back and watch any of the "romance" scenes, especially in episode 2. If you can get through that without cringing, you're more forgiving than I am.

I find episodes 1 & 2 unwatchable, except for maybe the light saber fight with Maul in 1.

I actually laughed out loud in the theater during some of the love scenes in 2, I just could not contain myself. My boys (who were 11-12 at the time, I think), still heckle much of those movies. The movies really are just BAD in terms of execution and actor direction. They're mainly just eye candy.

Such as the scene where Anakin admitted to Amidala that he is a murderer, but she married him anyway?

Maybe she was into dark, mysterious, murderous men bursting with the power of the Force to choke her to death as part of some kinky love fetish on her part.

What the original series has that the prequels lack is a heroic story arc that people can care about, along with likable characters who can act.

I blame the direction, honestly. There were a number of high-power, competent "stars" in the prequels who have proven acting chops; they just were given a terrible script + no decent direction in terms of how to make all the scenes fit together into a dramatic arc. (I think Natalie Portman in particular has a record where she tends to flounder with a bad director and puts out some amazing work when she has a good one.) I'm sure there was so much "green scenes" too that they had nothing to play against, which makes direction even more crucial.

 

[Mal12345]

Maybe she was into dark, mysterious, murderous men bursting with the power of the Force to choke her to death as part of some kinky love fetish on her part.

Does anybody really know how Padme died? It was supposedly to occur during childbirth, right? but Palpatine lied to the newly-fledged Vader saying that he had choked her to death, whereupon he said NOOOOOOOOOOOO! and started busting shit up using the Force. I guess.

 

[Totenkindly]

Does anybody really know how Padme died? It was supposedly to occur during childbirth, right? but Palpatine lied to the newly-fledged Vader saying that he had choked her to death, whereupon he said NOOOOOOOOOOOO! and started busting shit up using the Force. I guess.

Well, the insinuation (I think) was that he hadn't killed her outright but severely damaged/weakened her (through choking) so that she expired during the rigors of childbirth. Yeah. Whatever. Does this guy even bother to read basic medical journals? Lucas is such an idiot outside his area of specialty. he creates too many "omfg" and "wtf" moments during his movies than can be dealt with.

 

[Mal12345]

Well, the insinuation (I think) was that he hadn't killed her outright but severely damaged/weakened her (through choking) so that she expired during the rigors of childbirth. Yeah. Whatever. Does this guy even bother to read basic medical journals? Lucas is such an idiot outside his area of specialty. he creates too many "omfg" and "wtf" moments during his movies than can be dealt with.

He can't edit, or write dialogue. So what's his area of specialty? Marketing Star Wars toys and games?

 

[The Ü™]

Does anybody really know how Padme died? It was supposedly to occur during childbirth, right? but Palpatine lied to the newly-fledged Vader saying that he had choked her to death, whereupon he said NOOOOOOOOOOOO! and started busting shit up using the Force. I guess.

I thought she died of a broken heart (both the Shakespearean kind and the physiological kind -- I mean when you die, you're heart always breaks down, right?). George was trying to be a poet before he could learn to write.

 

[Totenkindly]

He can't edit, or write dialogue. So what's his area of specialty? Marketing Star Wars toys and games?

Art direction / Special effects (both sight and sound).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Light_&_Magic

Also, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_lucas :

During this time, an experimental filmmaker named Bruce Baillie tacked up a bedsheet in his backyard in 1960 to screen the work of underground, avant-garde 16 mm filmmakers like Jordan Belson, Stan Brakhage and Bruce Conner. For the next few years, Baillie's series, dubbed Canyon Cinema, toured local coffeehouses. These events became a magnet for the teenage Lucas and his boyhood friend John Plummer. The 19-year-olds began slipping away to San Francisco to hang out in jazz clubs and find news of Canyon Cinema screenings in flyers at the City Lights bookstore. Already a promising photographer, Lucas became infatuated with these abstract films.

...At an autocross track, Lucas met his first mentor in the film industry — famed cinematographer Haskell Wexler, a fellow aficionado of sleek racing machines. Wexler was impressed by the way the shy teenager handled a camera, cradling it low on his hips to get better angles. "George had a very good eye, and he thought visually," Wexler recalls.[7]

... Lucas was deeply influenced by the Filmic Expression course taught at the school by filmmaker Lester Novros which concentrated on the non-narrative elements of Film Form like color, light, movement, space, and time...

...He was passionate and interested in camerawork and editing, defining himself as a filmmaker as opposed to being a director, and he loved making abstract visual films that create emotions purely through cinema.[7]

He really doesn't have a LOT of hands-on credits in modern film, although he's been involved in a lot of films (with some other big names, and where he did not really have full artistic control over the picture):

... His work from 1971 and 1977 as a writer-director, which established him as a major figure in Hollywood, consists of just three films: THX 1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars. There was a 22-year hiatus between the original Star Wars film and his only other feature-film directing credits, the three Star Wars prequels.

I thought she died of a broken heart.

If only they had had superglue.

George was trying to be a poet before he could learn to write.

Like trying to fly a plane before you know what a wing is.

 

[The Ü™]

Art direction / Special effects (both sight and sound).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Light_&_Magic

I'm really looking forward to Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim.

 

[Speed Gavroche]

Theses videos explain very well why the prequel sucks.

I think Attack of Clones was the worst of every. The "love story" between Anakin and Padmé is boring as hell and pathetic. Hayden C is a terrible actor and Natalie P is overated.

Ther episode 1 could have been not bad, we just had to eject the gungans and to eject Amidala, to make consistent characters, to make an Obi-Wan who's not such boring , to eject the Naboo,....well.

Overall, every characters are boring, stupid an worthless, especially in the episode 2 and 3. Qui-Gon was not bad, but he was not consistent, the only thing we remind about him is his beard.

The original trology, a contrario, is a true set of actually good movies.

 

[Hazashin]

Wow, you were able to deduce that Anakin was to become Darth Vader?

No, no, no, I mean, analyze his character and see how he was. It seems to me that the majority of people don't quite understand him, and it's because he wasn't done very well.

 

[Hazashin]

Such as the scene where Anakin admitted to Amidala that he is a murderer, but she married him anyway?

I'm not sure if many people would view the Tuskens as people and wouldn't think much of it.

 

[Hazashin]

He can't edit, or write dialogue. So what's his area of specialty? Marketing Star Wars toys and games?

His specialty is the idea of Star Wars. I don't think he knows the whole story very well and sees it as a "big picture"; either that, or he knew parts of it very well but just didn't know how to fill in the gaps very well. I also think that he can't relate to his audience well because he doesn't realize that his audience doesn't have the story in their head like he does. Or something to that effect? I don't know.

 

[Hazashin]

What the original series has that the prequels lack is a heroic story arc that people can care about, along with likable characters who can act.

But that "heroic story arc" that the Original Trilogy had that you speak of is boring. I find tragedies more interesting (though, having looked at these reviews has made me realize some things I never have before, but t seems like every negative review I've read of any movie or game I like or even love makes me like it less and that disappoints me).

 

[Mal12345]

Theses videos explain very well why the prequel sucks.

I think Attack of Clones was the worst of every. The "love story" between Anakin and Padmé is boring as hell and pathetic. Hayden C is a terrible actor and Natalie P is overated.

Ther episode 1 could have been not bad, we just had to eject the gungans and to eject Amidala, to make consistent characters, to make an Obi-Wan who's not such boring , to eject the Naboo,....well.

I've seen it argued in other places that the series would have done well to eject episode 1 altogether.

Overall, every characters are boring, stupid an worthless, especially in the episode 2 and 3. Qui-Gon was not bad, but he was not consistent, the only thing we remind about him is his beard.

The original trology, a contrario, is a true set of actually good movies.

Well, nobody wanted to argue with Lucas. He surrounds himself with intellectually void sycophants who nod whenever he speaks and laugh whenever he makes a lame joke. It wasn't like that in 1977.

 

[Mal12345]

No, no, no, I mean, analyze his character and see how he was. It seems to me that the majority of people don't quite understand him, and it's because he wasn't done very well.

Anakin's downfall wasn't even interesting. He was just some angry kid (whether he was 17 or 27 or whatever) who kept finding more and more excuses to get angry and want power. But getting mad at his teacher wasn't good enough. Obsessing over a dream about Padme dying wasn't good enough. I can see jealousy being a decent motive, except there was nothing so complex as a love triangle.

About halfway through the second episode Anakin seemed happy enough rolling through the grass, but the next thing you know he's cutting off someone's head next to the beginning of the third installment. (No wonder it was the only Star Wars series movie rated PG-13 in the US. Egads, what has happened to Star Wars?)

Recall that Yoda had a bad feeling about Anakin at the end of the first installment. But none of the Jedi council listened to him. All he had to do was say "no," and history would have been very different. Why does Yoda have such a weak will? And if you stop and look at every decision made by the council, not a single one was even close to anything like common-sense and every single one of them led inexorably to more political power for Palatine. How wise were they really? And what was their whole problem anyway? Don't they get out enough and see how the world really is? Were they too reliant on the Force to tell them things? but that of course was blocked. So all they could do was sit around impotently hemming and hawing while Yoda mumbled some gibberish about a prophecy and the Senators were led around like sheep believing everything they were told.

[Edit: these frustrations are related to viewing pleasure and not to plot per se. As one of the audience, I can't do anything with the information the movie is giving me to create a rewarding experience that was worth my nickel. I agree with Mr. Plinkett the reviewer in that I watched part 3 just to make it official that I watched them all.]

 

[Mal12345]

But that "heroic story arc" that the Original Trilogy had that you speak of is boring. I find tragedies more interesting (though, having looked at these reviews has made me realize some things I never have before, but t seems like every negative review I've read of any movie or game I like or even love makes me like it less and that disappoints me).

Some people, a very few, have a more Shakespearean mindset about literature. But is it so bad that if it's not a tragedy then it's no good? I can get into a tragedy, if it's a good one. If it moves me in some way. If the story doesn't simply denote a series of events reading like a history lesson - Anakin got mad here, and then he got mad there, and then he fell in love there, and said stupid stuff there, and there...

 

[Hazashin]

I've seen it argued in other places that the series would have done well to eject episode 1 altogether.

Agreed; either that, or make the movies longer, because shoving Anakin's downfall into two 2-hour movies where there a lot more things going on made it rushed (though Lucas just HAD to keep it at the 2-hour length he wanted). Or, they could've just cut out some of the slack.

Well, nobody wanted to argue with Lucas. He surrounds himself with intellectually void sycophants who nod whenever he speaks and laugh whenever he makes a lame joke. It wasn't like that in 1977.

You make a good point here, and I've said this before. However, the Originals may have been better movies, especially for their time, but I just didn't find them interesting.

Anakin's downfall wasn't even interesting. He was just some angry kid (whether he was 17 or 27 or whatever) who kept finding more and more excuses to get angry and want power. But getting mad at his teacher wasn't good enough. Obsessing over a dream about Padme dying wasn't good enough. I can see jealousy being a decent motive, except there was nothing so complex as a love triangle.

There was more to it than that. I was able to write a 17,681 character (3,252 words) personal analysis of his character, because I was being tired of people complaining about him (since he was my favorite character of the entire film, right after Obi-Wan). Also keep in mind that, not only was he a slave who had animal-like logic, outside of his mother, who he hardly saw after he left to become a Jedi when he was 9, Obi-Wan (and even then, he was awfully cold with him many times), and Padme were the only ones that loved him (though he wrongfully thought the Emperor cared for him, which is why he often went to him for reassurance). Qui-Gon was nice for him for a time, but he didn't exactly love him and he died shorty after they met each other. Plus, the Jedi were very strict with him and set in their ways.

Recall that Yoda had a bad feeling about Anakin at the end of the first installment. But none of the Jedi council listened to him. All he had to do was say "no," and history would have been very different. Why does Yoda have such a weak will? And if you stop and look at every decision made by the council, not a single one was even close to anything like common-sense and every single one of them led inexorably to more political power for Palatine. How wise were they really? And what was their whole problem anyway? Don't they get out enough and see how the world really is? Were they too reliant on the Force to tell them things? but that of course was blocked. So all they could do was sit around impotently hemming and hawing while Yoda mumbled some gibberish about a prophecy and the Senators were led around like sheep believing everything they were told.

One of the biggest problems with the Jedi is that they were often too narrow-minded, rigid, emotionally void and repressive (in all honesty, trying to repress your feelings is not good for your psychological health), and afraid of change. Completely anti-human. They just weren't adaptable or flexible enough, and ignored emotional needs altogether. On top of that, they knew that Anakin was taken in late and wasn't trained to control his emotions, and they didn't adapt to that either. They just hoped that he would learn. And when Anakin messed up, they got mad at him.

 

[Hazashin]

Some people, a very few, have a more Shakespearean mindset about literature. But is it so bad that if it's not a tragedy then it's no good? I can get into a tragedy, if it's a good one. If it moves me in some way. If the story doesn't simply denote a series of events reading like a history lesson - Anakin got mad here, and then he got mad there, and then he fell in love there, and said stupid stuff there, and there...

I'm one of the few who actually connected with Anakin, I guess. Perhaps because he was Sx-dominant and an enormous Fi-user?

 

[MacGuffin]

Anakin's downfall wasn't even interesting. He was just some angry kid (whether he was 17 or 27 or whatever) who kept finding more and more excuses to get angry and want power. But getting mad at his teacher wasn't good enough. Obsessing over a dream about Padme dying wasn't good enough. I can see jealousy being a decent motive, except there was nothing so complex as a love triangle.

About halfway through the second episode Anakin seemed happy enough rolling through the grass, but the next thing you know he's cutting off someone's head next to the beginning of the third installment. (No wonder it was the only Star Wars series movie rated PG-13 in the US. Egads, what has happened to Star Wars?)

Recall that Yoda had a bad feeling about Anakin at the end of the first installment. But none of the Jedi council listened to him. All he had to do was say "no," and history would have been very different. Why does Yoda have such a weak will? And if you stop and look at every decision made by the council, not a single one was even close to anything like common-sense and every single one of them led inexorably to more political power for Palatine. How wise were they really? And what was their whole problem anyway? Don't they get out enough and see how the world really is? Were they too reliant on the Force to tell them things? but that of course was blocked. So all they could do was sit around impotently hemming and hawing while Yoda mumbled some gibberish about a prophecy and the Senators were led around like sheep believing everything they were told.

[Edit: these frustrations are related to viewing pleasure and not to plot per se. As one of the audience, I can't do anything with the information the movie is giving me to create a rewarding experience that was worth my nickel. I agree with Mr. Plinkett the reviewer in that I watched part 3 just to make it official that I watched them all.]

Agree with all that (though I can still enjoy the prequels, or at least parts of them). I don't think the prequels are as bad as people make them out to be, but they certainly don't hold a candle to the original trilogy.

Agreed; either that, or make the movies longer, because shoving Anakin's downfall into two 2-hour movies where there a lot more things going on made it rushed (though Lucas just HAD to keep it at the 2-hour length he wanted). Or, they could've just cut out some of the slack.



You make a good point here, and I've said this before. However, the Originals may have been better movies, especially for their time, but I just didn't find them interesting.



There was more to it than that. I was able to write a 17,681 character (3,252 words) personal analysis of his character, because I was being tired of people complaining about him (since he was my favorite character of the entire film, right after Obi-Wan). Also keep in mind that, not only was he a slave who had animal-like logic, outside of his mother, who he hardly saw after he left to become a Jedi when he was 9, Obi-Wan (and even then, he was awfully cold with him many times), and Padme were the only ones that loved him (though he wrongfully thought the Emperor cared for him, which is why he often went to him for reassurance). Qui-Gon was nice for him for a time, but he didn't exactly love him and he died shorty after they met each other. Plus, the Jedi were very strict with him and set in their ways.



One of the biggest problems with the Jedi is that they were often too narrow-minded, rigid, emotionally void and repressive (in all honesty, trying to repress your feelings is not good for your psychological health), and afraid of change. Completely anti-human. They just weren't adaptable or flexible enough, and ignored emotional needs altogether. On top of that, they knew that Anakin was taken in late and wasn't trained to control his emotions, and they didn't adapt to that either. They just hoped that he would learn. And when Anakin messed up, they got mad at him.

That's all great, and I agree with you, but that's not the movies we got from Lucas. If all six movies are supposed to be "Anakin's story" as Lucas has said in interviews, then Lucas failed to tell Anakin's story adequately in the prequels.