Opinions on the Star Wars prequels

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

I meant the cg one, because this might be my first time hearing about the Genndy five minute one.

You really never knew about the cartoon prior to the CG one? It was heavily promoted because it was the first Star Wars TV show in...ever.

[Cure]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

Please don't take away any of my geek cred!
Please!

Haha, it's cool. I'm not that type. Speaking of...

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

You really never knew about the cartoon prior to the CG one? It was heavily promoted because it was the first Star Wars TV show in...ever.

If she says she hasn't, she hasn't, man. No big deal.

[Slade]

I liked them all, with 2 being my least favorite. I'm not that big a Star Wars fan to begin with. It's fun stuff though and I love Vader.

I've always wondered if people would hate episodes 4-6 if they came out last?

[shuriken]

Originally Posted by Cure

Whaaaattttt look it up, that show is awesome. 5 minute episodes take some getting used to, but it's neat.

Those were pretty great. Was never a fan of the CGI clone wars TBH
I liked Revenge of the sith the best just hated Padme's "you're tearing me apart" and "she no longer had a will to live" ugh. Anikan's transition to the dark side was kinda half assed but whatevs. That aside great battles great interaction and great setup to New Hope.

Attack of the Clones was cool, hated whiny Anikan though. Do not remember much about it other than Mace killing Jango Fett.

Phantom Menace was ok. Take out the final battle and it's just kinda boring to me. you could tell it was setting things up for later sequels.

So they got better with each one I guess? I didn't like that Padme wussed out in the end. She was awesome in the beginning and middle though.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

No where near as good as the animated series that followed.
Maybe those movies should have been animated instead.

They weren't?

Originally Posted by Cure

Do you mean the CGI (THE Clone Wars) one or the Genndy 5 minute one? I haven't seen all of THE Clone Wars, but I liked the short 5 minute ones a lot. Grievous was more interesting in that show than in the movies.

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

I meant the cg one, because this might be my first time hearing about the Genndy five minute one.

Originally Posted by Cure

Whaaaattttt look it up, that show is awesome. 5 minute episodes take some getting used to, but it's neat.

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

Please don't take away any of my geek cred!
Please!

Here ya go, Plastron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c__EdPiU0No
Someone edited them into a feature length movie. I've only seen it once when some friends and I marathoned the Star Wars flicks (and some other SW themed stuff) back in college.

[Peanut]

I've got a bunch to say. Gosh. Buckle in, I guess. After some very recent discussion I think I've realized I dislike Episode I and II about equally and III less so, but I think they're all OK movies. I love them because they're Star Wars and I love Star Wars, but I have major issues with all of them.

Episode I - I think it showed pretty clearly that Lucas is awful and him having full control over every facet of a film is the worst possible thing.

A lot of the characters are awful. Nearly everyone from principle characters like Anakin and Jar Jar to Naboo fighter pilots have cringe worthy dialogue, annoying accents, awful line delivery, or wooden acting. I think Neeson and McGregor (who I personally think is the best thing about the entire prequel trilogy) are great, but they're two standouts in what seems like a cast of amateurs. There are so many poor deliveries in the movie I can just start popping them off one after another in my head non-stop. The scene where Anakin is trying to get his pod racer to work is pure gold in this regard, as the entire thing is a f*cking train wreck.

Anakin should be the linchpin of this movie (and, indeed, the trilogy,) but instead he's obnoxious as all hell. Every time he speaks it's like watching a 1st grader in a school play. The only scene he's in that I can stomach involves the pod racing, because he doesn't speak at all. Even then, you have the obnoxious commentary (though I love Greg Proops,) which feels like it's completely out of place. Everything to do with Anakin accidentally starting the Starfighter, accidentally flying away, then accidentally blowing up the droid control ship is awful, including every line he says along the way.

Because Anakin completely f*cks up the space battle, though it's pretty bland and boring to begin with, we're left with the lightsaber fight and the f*cking Gungan/Battledroid CG sh*tfest. I hated the land battle as a kid and now that the CG looks awful I hate it even more. It's hokey and the Gungan are awful. The lightsaber duel is, of course, the best part of the movie. The music is incredible, the fight is fun and you don't hate everyone involved. I do think people are nuts when they say killing Qui-Gon and Maul was wasting the two best characters in the film, though. 1) Qui-Gon needed to die to push Obi-Wan and make him more stubborn in regards to training Anakin and 2) Darth Maul wasn't a good character. He was a a generic villain who looked neat and did a few cool things, but there was zero characterization.

With that, I think this movie feels a bit more like Star Wars than the other two. It's a bit more simple and focuses very clearly on a few places at a time, where as II and III feel far busier. Also, MIDI-CHLORIANS ARE STUPID AS ALL HELL!

Episode II - I think this one is perhaps the hardest for me to watch, because so little of it is funny-bad the way Ep I is, but instead straight up bad. I think the payoffs are better than Ep I and there are whole sections of this movie I can watch and enjoy, which is a step up, but unlike Ep I there are entire sections of the movie that have zero redeeming value.

Everything, and let me stress everything, to do with Anakin and Padme is anime Jigglypuff-level sleep inducing. You get what had the potential to be an awesome scene, where Anakin embraces the Dark Side for the first time and slaughters the Sand People, but it's ruined not only by the coincidence that Anakin managed to turn up at just the moment his mother died, but by Hayden Christensen's delivery of the "I hate them!" line. Speaking of Hayden, he's a disaster. Not on the level of lil' Ani, or Jar Jar, but he's awful. He's so bad he retroactively ruins Darth Vader for me and in my mind I've created this very clear line where Anakin-Vader lives and "real" Vader lives, so as not to destroy how I feel about the character in the OT.

And where all that sh*t (and the majority of the political nonsense) is awful and un-watchable, you have the great stuff with Obi-Wan on Kamino, which is great. Watching a Jedi actually go about his business in a fashion that doesn't involve jumping headlong out of balcony windows is something of a novelty in the the PT, so I appreciate it even more now. You get Boba origins, a unique fight between Obi-Wai and Jango, info on the clones and some decent cloak and dagger stuff involving the plot to overthrow the Republic, which are actually the coolest parts of the PT to me. I should also mention how McGregor really starts to channel Alec Guinness in this one, further cementing him as the best part of the trilogy to me.

I think the coliseum stuff sucks, though there's some decent Jedi stuff in it, it just doesn't feel like Star Wars to me. Yoda finally dropping the mitts was probably the highlight of the movie, because Yoda is awesome and seeing him pulling off cool sh*t was a novelty back then, but now it's not so great. Dooku is a much better villain than Maul, but he's underutilized and obviously entirely worthless come Ep III. Also among the awful sh*t is the entire sequence with C-3P0 (who is absolutely abhorrent in almost every way in the PT) in the factory. This is also the start of R2 having all kinds of whizbang gadgets that are nowhere to be seen years down the line (story wise) which always really f*cking bugged me.

Like I said at the beginning, recent conversations have led me to reevaluate Ep II quite a bit and I've settled on it being just as bad as Ep I for a lot of reasons. Nothing in Ep I is as good as the Kamino stuff and nothing is as exciting as Yoda fighting, but Ep II also has a lot of legitimately awful stuff in it that isn't even entertaining for laughs, which makes it way harder for me to watch than Ep I. It gets extra points for essentially making Jar Jar the one who sets the rise of the Empire in motion.

Episode III - This is easily the best of the trilogy, but it also has a ton of issues, including the absolute worst scene/line delivery in the entirety of Star Wars, the biggest logical fallacies and the lamest explanations for the few burning questions remaining in the lore. I'm gonna break this one up a little more strictly into good vs bad, because there's a lot to this movie and I'm getting tired of writing and kinda wanna go watch them lol.

So, first thing is that it has the best battle we never got to see in a Star Wars movie, which was the Battle of Kashyyyk. I got chills the first time all those Wookies lept up and started bellowing, unfortunately we didn't get to see much of if it. It also has what I believe to be the best scene in the trilogy, which is Order 66. Specifically, the scene of Yoda being overwhelmed by the awful sh*t taking place got me legit shook and I'm not gonna lie that I teared up in the theater watching it. I also like more of Obi-Wan getting stuff done on his own, even though Grevious was sh*t fight for him. The stuff at the end is also pretty ace. You get to see the Tantive IV in all it's old school glory and see Luke delivered to his aunt and uncle on Tatooine, which is a great ending.

Outside of that stuff it starts to get iffy. CG clone troopers with live action heads. Why? Padme dies from what...a broken heart? OK COOL, GEORGE! R2-D2 just killing droids with all his crazy spy car gadgets, but in the OT the most he can do is zap an Ewok ass. "Noooooooo!" etc.

The biggest f*ck you from this movie is for sure 100% Vader. Anakin's entire turn and his unshakable belief in everything Palpatine tells him is so unbelievable and bad that it's impossible for it to be anything but a let down. Palpatine convincing Anakin to execute Dooku in about 15 seconds. Stupid as f*ck. The comma inducing opera scene. Good lord that opera scene. Then, we get to the pinnacle of the horrendous story telling, which is not only an awful scene because it's entirely unbelievable, but because it's the worst acted scene in any of the movies by a mile. It's also super frustrating because it is THE MOST PIVOTAL SCENE IN THE ENTIRE TRILOGY! This is supposed to be THE moment. Anakin finally makes the leap and becomes Vader. It should have been movie magic. Instead we get McDiarmid absolutely sh*tting the bed and Anakin just flipping a personality switch. It's a joke and it destroys any worth the entire trilogy has for me. Seconds after Palpatine melts into the very vision of a Sith Lord, then outright tells Anakin he doesn't actually know **** about saving lives, Anakin goes ahead and murders children. Sidious admitted he lied to him, in a room where he had just murdered a bunch of Jedi masters (while making the dumbest facial expressions of all-time) and Anakin just bends the knee and says "OK. I'll do whatever you say from now on, master." It's THE WORST! Even putting aside the fact that Windu dies like a total b*tch (he sucked anyways, but seriously?) and "No, no, no! YOU WILL DIE!" is the worst line/delivery in the history of huge movies, the very core of this scene is a cluster f*ck. The entire purpose of this trilogy, the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker and his transformation into Vader, is flaming car wreck of twisted half-logic.

Now I'm worked up about Ep III. F*ck that sh*t. F*ck all these movies.

[NinjaPug]

Damn Peanut. Great job summing up the shortcomings of the PT. Like you, I still like them because I simply love Star Wars but the PT was such a huge missed opportunity. Lucas really **** the bed with the Anakin-Vader transformation. I had been fantasizing and theorizing about that and the Clone Wars in my head for years leading up to the prequels and couldn't believe that is what was put on screen.

[Brodie]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

You really never knew about the cartoon prior to the CG one? It was heavily promoted because it was the first Star Wars TV show in...ever.

What? You must mean first good Star Wars TV show. Because there were two others prior to it.

[Peanut]

I will defend Droids and Ewoks to my dying breath.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by Brodie

What? You must mean first good Star Wars TV show. Because there were two others prior to it.

Darn, you beat me to it.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by Jester

They weren't?

Not well they weren't. Animation was all...stilted and choppy. And don't even get me started on the voice acting.

Here ya go, Plastron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c__EdPiU0No
Someone edited them into a feature length movie. I've only seen it once when some friends and I marathoned the Star Wars flicks (and some other SW themed stuff) back in college.

This is why you're one of my favorites.

[sdp]

Decided to bump this since we're talking a lot about the prequels in the Ep. VII thread. As I re-watch them I'll be posting what I don't like about them but for the most part I do like them as I mentioned but not as much as I used to, I think the internet had a lot to do with that, they sucked the fun out of them. My main complaints about the prequels is the timeline, all these events happened way too close to Ep. IV and make many things from the OT no longer work as well. In my headcanon I like to think of the prequels as taking place many years before they're stated to.

[BabyTurtles]

I liked them....I mean I can't remember hating them.

I liked the fights ^_^ and I liked Anakin and Obi-wan~

[ssjup81]

I liked them ok and never found Jar-Jar annoying, but they lack rewatch value for me. I can watch the original trilogy without getting bored.

[Martian_Turtlesaurus]

How were the Sith supposed to defeat the Jedi order if they were just a master and an apprentice? And if the traditional Sith ritual of passage is for the apprentice to kill his/her master why would a Sith lord get one to begin with? And even worse why would Sidious scheme to recruit Luke? My theory the emperor had a death wish...
Also Darth Sidious seems to recruit Siths on that galaxy's Craigslist as there is always another one available as soon as they die (or even before)

Leia was an adoptive princess her mother having a royal or senatorial title is totally unnecessary. She could have been a peasant, a Jedi or a Hutt it makes no difference at all.

On the ruined editions Luke has no way to recognize the Jedi ghost next to Yoda and Kenobi. That's really awkward...

Twenty some years of isolation and some subsequent madness give Yoda more personality and sense of humor than he ever showed in the prequels. Also he looks way more believable

Midichlorians suck. The force was a philosophy or and old forgotten religion, of an exterminated order it was not a genetic gift. So Leia being Luke's sister was a messy and half baked twist as Vader would have noticed at the beginning of a new hope. And Leia mentioned to remember her mother which was impossible (as the most poorly programmed medical robot in the galaxy let her die while giving birth) and that only shows how unnecessarily creepy the added incest to the love triangle between Luke, Leia and Han is.

Also droids seem more cost effective than clones or the federation of commerce wouldn't use them for their army.

Uncle Owen apparently met Obi Wan and Anakin (?)
Obi: "I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade like your father did."

Obi Wan: "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." He had a R4 unit or maybe it was rented or Tatooine suns are very bad for your long term memory.

Also Tatooine clothes became Jedi uniforms retro actively. Nice way to blend and hide old Ben Kenobi.

The Jedi council refuses to let Anakin become a master when he already had a padawan in the clone wars

All I have left to say was expressed with impressive eloquence in the cheesy and immortal first word of Darth Vader "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

[sdp]

Originally Posted by Martian_Turtlesaurus

How were the Sith supposed to defeat the Jedi order if they were just a master and an apprentice? And if the traditional Sith ritual of passage is for the apprentice to kill his/her master why would a Sith lord get one to begin with? And even worse why would Sidious scheme to recruit Luke? My theory the emperor had a death wish...
Also Darth Sidious seems to recruit Siths on that galaxy's Craigslist as there is always another one available as soon as they die (or even before)

This is all explained in the book "The Rule of Two", which I guess is now non-canon. And while the rule of two does seem to have some very big holes the EU/Legends explains it pretty well. Something that the movies or now canon material doesn't. I personally choose to just enjoy the SW stories that exist and don't care if they are "legends" or "canon" so IMO that is still canon in my book. You really need to read the book to understand it but a quick summary, Sidious beleives he's too powerful to ever be topped by Luke or Vader, he just wants the best apprentice and that's how all sith masters think, they get cocky and eventually one day the apprentice becomes better than them which is fine because that means each generation of sith is more powerful than the last, it's the only way to rise instead of having hundreds of average siths, having two is far better. As a general rule one sith can easily kill hundreds of Jedi, exceptions would be master Jedis like the ones on the council.

Leia was an adoptive princess her mother having a royal or senatorial title is totally unnecessary. She could have been a peasant, a Jedi or a Hutt it makes no difference at all.

This is true but her being a royal/senator doesn't really affect it negatively so whatever.

On the ruined editions Luke has no way to recognize the Jedi ghost next to Yoda and Kenobi. That's really awkward...

As a kid I didn't think the ghost looked like the bald scarred helmetless vader either we only saw for a few seconds. So yeah I don't have strong feelings either way on this either.

Twenty some years of isolation and some subsequent madness give Yoda more personality and sense of humor than he ever showed in the prequels. Also he looks way more believable

I do think the prequels kind of ruined Yoda for me, we're to believe that for 800 years he was like that but 20 years later he's totally different? Like Peanut said, watching Yoda use a lightsaber in Ep. II was great when it came out but seeing superhero Yoda in all of the prequels after that ruined it for me.

Midichlorians suck. The force was a philosophy or and old forgotten religion, of an exterminated order it was not a genetic gift. So Leia being Luke's sister was a messy and half baked twist as Vader would have noticed at the beginning of a new hope. And Leia mentioned to remember her mother which was impossible (as the most poorly programmed medical robot in the galaxy let her die while giving birth) and that only shows how unnecessarily creepy the added incest to the love triangle between Luke, Leia and Han is.

I understand the Midichlorians argument somewhat but not fully. Yeah some people are born with a genetic gift for something but that doesn't mean others can't achieve that high level either through effort or that people who are naturally skilled are automatically the best at something, this is true in real life as well. Leia being Luke's sister is indeed messy but even back in the OT. The PT could've handled it much better but it was still given a difficult task by the OT.

Also droids seem more cost effective than clones or the federation of commerce wouldn't use them for their army.

Clones are more expensive but are superior in battle to droids so it's about strategy, a numbers game or skills game, the Separatist chose a numbers game with far more droids while the army inherited clones which were lower in numbers but better at their jobs.

Uncle Owen apparently met Obi Wan and Anakin (?)
Obi: "I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade like your father did."

Owen did meet Obi Wan and Anakin in the PT and he probably found out what happened when Luke was given to him. This isn't a big problem.

Obi Wan: "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." He had a R4 unit or maybe it was rented or Tatooine suns are very bad for your long term memory.

Yeah all of this could've easily been avoided with slight changes int he OT. The solution is he never owned a droid, the other ones were property of the Jedi Order or the Republic so yeah they shouldn't have had Obi Wan have so much dialog with his robot units int he PT.

Also Tatooine clothes became Jedi uniforms retro actively. Nice way to blend and hide old Ben Kenobi.

They became Jedi uniforms since Episode V though, since Yoda and then in Ep. VI you see Anakin's (original) ghost also with the Tatooine clothes/Uniforms. At least I don't think you see this outfit being worn by a lot of people in tatooine.

The Jedi council refuses to let Anakin become a master when he already had a padawan in the clone wars

This is very silly and the way Anakin is mishandled in the PT, apparently all of this is fixed int he Clone Wars cartoon which I'm watching right now, we'll see..

All I have left to say was expressed with impressive eloquence in the cheesy and immortal first word of Darth Vader "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

I don't thave a problem with this Noooooo. The one they added in RoTJ I can definitely agree with.

[Leo656]

They treated me fine. It's one of those things where I see the same bad stuff as everybody else, but for whatever reason it doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother them. I'unno.

[CyberCubed]

Let's hope the new movie is better than these, judging by the trailer they probably will be, although there's always a chance the movie could have some rage-inducing stuff given how little we know of the plot.

[chrisdude]

They're just as good, to me. But I didn't grow up with Star Wars, like a lot of people, and I was never really blown away by it, and I didn't hold much sacred, going into the prequel trilogy. Episode 3 is definitely my favorite of the six, and I really enjoyed watching Anakin grow.

[Leo656]

It seems like it might in some small part be influenced by how old a person was when they first got into Star Wars. I grew up "liking" it without having actually seen a lot of it, but I don't think I ever sat through an entire movie until I was like 12, when they re-released the originals on VHS and I borrowed them from my friend and watched them all. It kind of seems like if you were younger when you first saw them, you take it all more seriously and have more strict standards for them, and if you got into them around the age I did you're a little more loose with it. Not universally, just in general.

Like I see the stuff that's not great bout the Prequels, but I think when people obsess over it, they kind of willfully ignore how much stuff isn't great about the originals. There's good and bad in everything.