Current Events > What do people really hate about the Stat Wars prequels?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I found this stupid article when looking it up:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/05/star-wars-why-does-everyone-hate-the-prequels.html

He talks about how the original movies were based on good vs. evil whereas the prequels are about a trade dispute. That's about the dumbest argument I've ever heard. Of course the prequels are about good vs evil too.

The prequels just set up a much more comprehensive universe and showed us the basis behind the war. Sure, sometimes less is more, but I'm not understanding that as a knock against the prequels. I really like seeing Coruscant, the Senate, and the Jedi Council. It's a living, vibrant world instead of a mostly desolate universe that we had in the original movies.

It's almost like a reward. Star Wars was a comparatively low-budget film, so while George Lucas wanted to make a huge, galaxy sprawling epic, there was only so much he could do at the time. So he based it mainly on a desert planet and we had to imagine all the other exciting worlds out there. With the prequels, they actually gave it to us. So many worlds and interesting alien species.

Plus there's a lot of really exciting shit that happens. First of all the lightsaber duels completely blow away anything in the originals, yet in this article the guy actually whines that there's too much standing around talking about taxes instead of fighting with lightsabers. Get fucking real. They use them a lot more in le prequels than the originals.

Then there's so many exciting sequences. The pod race is epic. When those centipede things are trying to kill Padme in her sleep and Obi Wan just jumps right through the window and it leads to this amazing chase sequence. That's so good and it can't be denied.

Oh but Jar Jar is annoying and Anakin is a brooding teen so let's ignore all the good stuff.

I had stats in college, it's not fun even when it's not a war.

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vigorm0rtis posted...

I had stats in college, it's not fun even when it's not a war.

Oh son of a

I hate them for the awful, awful acting/dialogue and the numerous overdone tropes

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Colorahdo posted...

I hate them for the awful, awful acting/dialogue and the numerous overdone tropes

The only bad acting is from Anakin. There's plenty of really good acting. Padme is a delight to watch in every scene.

They're the most boring movies imaginable with terrible incoherent plots and some of the worst dialogue in a movie of that scale that I can think of.

The Phantom Menace is a weird adventure movie that contains almost no adventure, and as a result feels like some sort of weird fun vacuum. Qui Gon is a bland, boring character that drones out dull lines, Anakin is an obnoxious kid, and Obi Wan does less in this movie than Jar Jar Binks does. There's nothing in this movie outside of the occasional flashy action scene to distract from the fact that you spent the 30+ minutes between each of them watching qui gon and obi wan wandering around green screens and bad sets with a wisecracking cartoon character

Attack of the Clones is a real nightmare of a movie. This is where the overwrought, terribly done dialogue really shines out of all the prequel movies. Obi Wan is slightly more likeable in this one and in its better moments sounds more like a Star Wars character than anything in the previous entry, but everyone else involved is intensely unlikable The jedi council all act like they're completely embarrassed to be on screen. Anakin went from annoying kid to emo teenager with nothing in between so you get no opportunity to feel sorry or emphathize with him, and he delivers some of the most wretched dialogue in the movie. Padme is like a shrill, helpless crash test dummy meanwhile with no personality except for "i must somehow fall in love with anakin while he cries." every scene they are in is written like something from a horrible television drama and neither of them sound like human beings, let alone convincing in their motivations.

Revenge of the Sith is better than Clones if for no other reason than people talk less than in the other two. It's basically greenscreens: the movie and every other scene is a unfollowable nonsensical action seqence but the spectacle of people doing three thousand flips and twirling laser swords while riding motorcycles is immensely more tolerant than anyone in these movies speaking. It's still really really awful though, everyone is still acting on the caliber of daytime soap opera people and the dramatic stuff is just as bad as AotC if not worse. People are way too nice to this one because Phantom and Clones were so utterly in your face atrocious, but I really think the badness level is a lot closer to them than people think and the miniscule amount of highlights in it only elevates it about a step

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The only prequel I hated was Ep2. I genuinely love Ep3, and Ep1 is, well, it's dumb fun.

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they suck

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It's almost entirely due to the stiff acting and poor dialogue. The broad concept of the story was honestly fine (minus some nitpicks I have), though there's also the problem of audience investment. The second movie in particular begs the question: "Who really cares about a bunch of clones fighting a bunch of droids?"

The villains were basically cartoon cutouts, and the only genuinely likeable hero was Obi-Wan. Anakin was some sort of creepy stalker with rage issues, Qui-Gon died super early and didn't come back because George Lucas was a tyrant director and Liam Neeson hated working with him, Padme was boring as hell, Mace Windu was just Samuel L. Jackson saying Jedi lines, etc. etc.

I like the prequels. I think they have a lot of redeeming qualities that hyper-critical people tend to ignore when trashing them for their negative points. That said, there is a big old bucket full of negatives. Most of the negatives are in the dialogue and direction--the acting seems bad at first glance, but it's not the actors' fault, it's the direction. Everybody in the prequels is a high-tier, oscar-calibur actor. Even Hayden Christensen is surprisingly good when he's paired with a competent director.

There are some incredibly stupid plot points that were completely unnecessary, as well. Why is Anakin a virgin birth? Why is he "the chosen one?" Why is there a prophecy at all? Why do midichlorians exist? How in fuck did Anakin build C-3PO, and furthermore, why does a house-droid on Tatooine need to be fluent in over 6 million forms of communication? Why "kill" Darth Maul in the first movie and try to start over with a brand new villain (Dooku) in episode II with almost no time to get invested in him?

Tons and tons of problems. Too much CGI (a lot of it didn't age well, either), too much 'romantic' dialogue that falls flat on its face, useless/annoying side characters, child actors (Anakin and Boba were both bad), etc. etc. etc.

The force was also turned into a flashy super-weapon rather than a means of 'knowledge and defense' as Yoda claimed it to be in The Empire Strikes Back. Lightsabers were made weightless like a fencing blade rather than a big broadsword like in the OT and the ST...basically, the prequels are a flashy over-the-top anime based on Star Wars, rather than the proper origin of the world's most iconic villain of all time.

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sand

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I've never "hated" them, even when Plinkett made it popular.

I just always thought they were...too kiddy. Mostly on account of the CGI and the bad dialogue.

The fall of Anakin Skywalker really should have been a more mature take on Star Wars but it somehow regressed.

Of course, as I have grown older I realize that Star Wars is primarily a vehicle to sell toys and merchindise to children and I should have never actually expected, at least the mainstream films, to "grow up" with me. And the fact they had seemingly regressed was a byproduct of parents becoming more and more sensitive to what children should be exposed to.

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Script is wretched, especially Jar Jar and any romance scenes. Occasionally they hit on a few decent lines, but otherwise it's extremely amateurish.

Lucas gets nothing out of the actors. Most of the actors deliver mediorce performances at best with only a few exceptions (Christopher Lee comes to mind). The performances get ESPECIALLY bad whenever they're interacting with CGI elements.

It actively undermines a lot of the compelling features of the original trilogy. Mitochlorians are a famous example of this. It turns Anakin into the most loathesome, angsty, and irritating character imaginable, which undermines the menace of Darth Vader.

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probably the individual character writing and CGI.

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Well I just finished watching Attack of the Clones and it was great. That huge battle scene with all the Jedi, and Yoda shows up to save the day? That is what it's all about right there.

I don't understand how Master Yoda got the clone army to fight for them. They're bad guys but for that battle they helped the Jedi survive.

The clones aren't bad guys though

Most of the cringey dialogue is a feature, not a bug.

Like pretty much everything surrounding Anakin is supposed to show that he is an angsty teen who doesn't fit in with the Jedi because he wasn't raised to be a robot. So he has to wing puberty on his own, while also being given the impossible task to repress himself.

Obi-Wan's "only a Sith deals in absolutes" line is lolsworthy, but it is unironically supposed to show that the Jedi are hypocrites who can't even see their own hypocrisy.

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DarthAragorn posted...

The clones aren't bad guys though

The end shows that it's Palpatine with the army of clones as it plays the Darth Vader music. Obviously they're bad guys.

Purely posted...

The end shows that it's Palpatine with the army of clones as it plays the Darth Vader music. Obviously they're bad guys.

Have you, uh...have you been paying attention? Palpatine is the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and is on the same side as Yoda and the Jedi.

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Purely posted...

Well I just finished watching Attack of the Clones and it was great. That huge battle scene with all the Jedi, and Yoda shows up to save the day? That is what it's all about right there.

I don't understand how Master Yoda got the clone army to fight for them. They're bad guys but for that battle they helped the Jedi survive.

Boy you were really not paying attention were you?

And if you consider that a "good" fight scene I don't know what to tell you. It was two armies literally running at each other like they were suicidal. It captures NONE of the actual tragedy of battle, the intensity of war, or the majesty of the courage involved. It was a bunch of bad actors doing spin kicks at thin air then panning shots of jedi deflecting blasters.

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Purely posted...

Well I just finished watching Attack of the Clones and it was great.

yikes

Attack of the Clones was the first movie I ever saw where, in theaters, I thought "wow, this is... really bad." I was a very excited 11 year old and was able to conceive how badly written it was.

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The half-assed attempt at politics. Ain't nobody got the time for Space C-SPAN.
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Pogo_Marimo posted...

It was two armies literally running at each other like they were suicidal.

Now, to be fair, a lot of the vehicle designs and effects shots from the battle were amazing. Especially that scene of the clones and droids shooting at each other through a sandstorm with the realistic lighting of their blasts against the dust.

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ThePrinceFish posted...

Most of the cringey dialogue is a feature, not a bug.

Like pretty much everything surrounding Anakin is supposed to show that he is an angsty teen who doesn't fit in with the Jedi because he wasn't raised to be a robot. So he has to wing puberty on his own, while also being given the impossible task to repress himself.

Obi-Wan's "only a Sith deals in absolutes" line is lolsworthy, but it is unironically supposed to show that the Jedi are hypocrites who can't even see their own hypocrisy.

No, Lucas didn't write Anakin to be annoying and unrelatable on purpose, and if he did, he's a bigger moron than any of us thought.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

Now, to be fair, a lot of the vehicle designs and effects shots from the battle were amazing. Especially that scene of the clones and droids shooting at each other through a sandstorm with the realistic lighting of their blasts against the dust.

That has very little to do with making compelling cinema. That's the Michael Bay method of analyzing movies.

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Pogo_Marimo posted...

No, Lucas didn't write Anakin to be annoying and unrelatable on purpose, and if he did, he's a bigger moron than any of us thought.

You don't think Lucas intentionally wrote the consequences of not taking a Jedi as a child even after he wrote that the zealous cultists literally ONLY take children?

Anakin being an annoying teenager is the logical expansion of what happens when you take an older child into the order.

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ThePrinceFish posted...

Most of the cringey dialogue is a feature, not a bug.

I would buy this explanation if not for the whimsical, sweeping romantic music playing over some of the most awkward dialogue in the history of film romance. The scenery and score of the movie tells us that we're supposed to be inspired by young love, but the dialogue doesn't deliver on its promise.

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I love how the article literally saids

The prequels are boring and annoying and soulless, but then so are lots of other movies.

Aka, these movies are bad but it shouldn't be hated just because there are a lot of bad movies out there.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

Have you, uh...have you been paying attention? Palpatine is the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and is on the same side as Yoda and the Jedi.

Smh

I mean yeah I know they didn't realize he was evil yet. However, the music certainly tells us, the audience, that he is... and my point is, why didn't they just take out the Jedi at that point? They had the opportunity then. Instead they save them and then wait for Order 66 or whatever in the next movie to show their true colors.

Apparently in the Clone Wars series it's revealed the clones didn't have a choice, it wasn't their true colors, they just literally could not disobey order 66 because of a control chip in them

ThePrinceFish posted...

You don't think Lucas intentionally wrote the consequences of not taking a Jedi as a child even after he wrote that the zealous cultists literally ONLY take children?

This is one of the things I'll give him. Lucas actually did a decent job of depicting the fall of the Jedi due to their rigidity and arrogance--Anakin wasn't entirely at fault. The problem was that when he was open and honest about his feelings in front of Yoda, Windu, and the council, he was treated with disrespect and told to simply "let go of all that you fear to lose," which might be decent advice for a trained and masterful Jedi, but terrible advice for a person going through a hard time. He desperately wanted help, he asked for it, and nobody gave it to him.

This was one of the things the prequels did well, and with a surprising level of subtlety. We, the audience, tend to see Anakin as whiny and annoying, but really he's a kid who left his home to become a Jedi and needed more guidance than the average padawan. The reason he falls into Palpatine's web is because Palpatine was the only one who told him that it's okay to be angry, that it's okay to feel love, that it's okay to ask for help.

That said...when portraying a character who is intentionally immature, temperamental, and impulsive, Kylo Ren is a way, WAY better example. He loses his temper in realistic ways, but it doesn't compromise his intimidation factor because he's not "whining," he's struggling to control himself. Kylo Ren is what prequel Anakin should have been. Unstable, but still competent and intelligent.


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ThePrinceFish posted...

You don't think Lucas intentionally wrote the consequences of not taking a Jedi as a child even after he wrote that the zealous cultists literally ONLY take children?

Anakin being an annoying teenager is the logical expansion of what happens when you take an older child into the order.

Making your main character for 5 hours worth of film be annoying and unlikeable is fucking stupid.

It is fucking stupid.

People aren't annoyed by great protagonists OR antagonists. They need to be entertaining, or relatable, or engaging, or interesting, or menacing, or even baffling. Anything but annoying. It's bad cinema. It's always bad cinema.

Joker isn't annoying. Hannibal Lecter isn't annoying. Darth Vader isn't annoying. Norman Bates isn't annoying. The Sheriff of Nottingham isn't annoying. Hans Gruber is not annoying. Good characters are almost exclusively not annoying for a very good reason. Because annoying characters annoy the audience. Don't fucking annoy me for 5 hours because you're trying to make a point about puberty in a Jedi's upbringing.

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Purely posted...

and my point is, why didn't they just take out the Jedi at that point? They had the opportunity then. Instead they save them and then wait for Order 66 or whatever in the next movie to show their true colors.

Palpatine's plan is another one of the parts of the prequels that was handled surprisingly well. He was maneuvering everybody against one another to create his own rise to power. Episode II showed how he secured emergency powers (and thus the means to raise and maintain an army) by which he could later use to subjugate the systems that opposed him (systems which would eventually become the Rebel Alliance from the OT, systems which include Naboo and Alderaan).

Episode III is about making himself a martyr worthy of permanent power--keep in mind that the Chancellor is an elected position, and over time, as he said himself in Episode III via the story of Darth Plagueis, he was afraid of "losing his power." When the Jedi sought to arrest him for being a Sith Lord, as he knew they would--because he fed Anakin the means by which to bring the Jedi to his office and attempt an arrest--he used their attack as a justification for turning against the Jedi and naming them enemies of the Republic.

It all does make sense if you watch the prequels as Palpatine's master plan, rather than a loosely connected series of political scenes and battle scenes. Almost every single detail winds into the culmination of Palpatine becoming the permanent emperor of the "first Galactic Empire."

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ultimate reaver posted...

They're the most boring movies imaginable with terrible incoherent plots and some of the worst dialogue in a movie of that scale that I can think of.

The Phantom Menace is a weird adventure movie that contains almost no adventure, and as a result feels like some sort of weird fun vacuum. Qui Gon is a bland, boring character that drones out dull lines, Anakin is an obnoxious kid, and Obi Wan does less in this movie than Jar Jar Binks does. There's nothing in this movie outside of the occasional flashy action scene to distract from the fact that you spent the 30+ minutes between each of them watching qui gon and obi wan wandering around green screens and bad sets with a wisecracking cartoon character

Attack of the Clones is a real nightmare of a movie. This is where the overwrought, terribly done dialogue really shines out of all the prequel movies. Obi Wan is slightly more likeable in this one and in its better moments sounds more like a Star Wars character than anything in the previous entry, but everyone else involved is intensely unlikable The jedi council all act like they're completely embarrassed to be on screen. Anakin went from annoying kid to emo teenager with nothing in between so you get no opportunity to feel sorry or emphathize with him, and he delivers some of the most wretched dialogue in the movie. Padme is like a shrill, helpless crash test dummy meanwhile with no personality except for "i must somehow fall in love with anakin while he cries." every scene they are in is written like something from a horrible television drama and neither of them sound like human beings, let alone convincing in their motivations.

Revenge of the Sith is better than Clones if for no other reason than people talk less than in the other two. It's basically greenscreens: the movie and every other scene is a unfollowable nonsensical action seqence but the spectacle of people doing three thousand flips and twirling laser swords while riding motorcycles is immensely more tolerant than anyone in these movies speaking. It's still really really awful though, everyone is still acting on the caliber of daytime soap opera people and the dramatic stuff is just as bad as AotC if not worse. People are way too nice to this one because Phantom and Clones were so utterly in your face atrocious, but I really think the badness level is a lot closer to them than people think and the miniscule amount of highlights in it only elevates it about a step

Literally this.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

Palpatine's plan is another one of the parts of the prequels that was handled surprisingly well. He was maneuvering everybody against one another to create his own rise to power. Episode II showed how he secured emergency powers (and thus the means to raise and maintain an army) by which he could later use to subjugate the systems that opposed him (systems which would eventually become the Rebel Alliance from the OT, systems which include Naboo and Alderaan).

Episode III is about making himself a martyr worthy of permanent power--keep in mind that the Chancellor is an elected position, and over time, as he said himself in Episode III via the story of Darth Plagueis, he was afraid of "losing his power." When the Jedi sought to arrest him for being a Sith Lord, as he knew they would--because he fed Anakin the means by which to bring the Jedi to his office and attempt an arrest--he used their attack as a justification for turning against the Jedi and naming them enemies of the Republic.

It all does make sense if you watch the prequels as Palpatine's master plan, rather than a loosely connected series of political scenes and battle scenes. Almost every single detail winds into the culmination of Palpatine becoming the permanent emperor of the "first Galactic Empire."

Agreed. I thought the over-arching plot was actually a very good template. Palp's manipulated the weaknesses of a democracy to install himself as a dictator, and he was doing clever long-term gambits to make his plans come to fruition. He was using and discarding people in a classic dictator manner. The problem was how Lucas filled in the plot from there on.

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They were poor in every tangible metric of filmmaking.

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They're boring as shit and the Anakin/Padme romance is so clunky and awkward that I cant take it seriously.

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Inert and unfeeling acting, inert pacing, only the shitty Muppets have any personality, nonexistent story, action sequences that basically exist to try and justify the lack of story and go on foreeeeever, dumb characters, dumb fanservice that basically exist to pad out the non-story...

Seriously, its like one movie's worth of story spread between three movies.

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IShall_Run_Amok posted...

Seriously, its like one movie's worth of story spread between three movies.

I disagree. I do think that the story should have been prioritized differently, with Episode I basically being told as flashbacks or dialogue rather than drawn out into a whole movie, but I think the story of the prequels is meaty enough to take up three films with decent pacing. There's a lot to it. The fall of Anakin, the arrogant collapse of the Jedi Order, the political manipulation and warmongering of Palpatine as a means to become the Emperor, the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin, the consequences of adhering more to the dogma of the Jedi than to the needs of a friend/student, etc. etc.

There's a ton of material, and while I did say I think it could have been presented better, there's no doubt in my mind that the prequels are telling a great story in broad strokes. The specific details are what I dislike.

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