Poll of the Day > Best Star Wars Trilogy?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm not sure what the Prequels or Sequels are. They made 3 Star Wars movies.

George Lucas made 6 Star Wars movies, a truly timeless telling of the story of Anakin Skywalker.

I'm not sure what the Prequels or Sequels are. They made 3 Star Wars movies.

I think it's pretty inarguable that IV-VI are the best, but the issue with the rest is that... like, the prequels are terrible but there are some decent roots in there. You can see what they're trying (and admittedly mostly failing) to do... and they're vastly improved if you outright fast-forward through large chunks of them, lol. I think the sequels have higher highs than the prequels but they're also a jumbled mess with no clear vision to them at all and really nothing of interest to say or add. I feel like they somehow managed to botch their potential even harder than the prequels and that is saying something.

i can agree with this. what little good this is in the sequels is really cool, but there's so little of it and everything else is such jumbled up trash that it's hard to care. the prequels are really dull and mind-numbing at parts, but they still have their moments and they tell a coherent story. the prequels also treat their characters with much more love and respect, rather than tossing any potential out the window after one movie (other than jar jar, which although unfortunate given what lucas was supposedly trying to do with him, is sort of understandable).

any character that was actually kinda badass or likeable in the sequels was either killed or treated like shit to make room for rey and sometimes kylo. i think that's probably the worst thing they did and the reason they suffered the most.

Darth Jar Jar?

like, the prequels are terrible but there are some decent roots in there. You can see what they're trying (and admittedly mostly failing) to do... and they're vastly improved if you outright fast-forward through large chunks of them

It's worth noting that I've had conversations about how to "fix" the prequels. It's not that hard to keep a lot of the same story beats but present things differently. But I can't even imagine how you would fix the sequels without pretty much scrapping the entire mess and starting over from scratch. A decent story could be told with Rey as main character, and Finn and Poe as strong secondary support (and with Kylo as whiny emo Vader), but it wouldn't look anything like the story that was actually told.

If anything, the worst problem with the prequels is Phantom Menace - what they should have done is skip that movie entirely, have Obi-Wan meet Anakin when Anakin was a hotshot teenager (and drop Qui-Gon entirely), then have the three movies basically be just before the start of the Clone Wars, during the Clone Wars, and then at the end of the Clone Wars/after the Clone Wars. And the Clones would be the enemy, not your allies (because that's how most wars get named - after the people you're fighting/beat, and because you can make the clones monsters).

Keep Maul, but expand his role (make him the primary front-facing antagonist until Anakin kills him, no Dooku or Grevious except possibly as secondary villains),

Ironically, a lot of the little issues with the prequels are fixed if you just go back and watch the original trilogy, and listen to what people say about the past. Take most of what Obi-Wan says about Anakin and Vader at face value (and remember what Leia said about her mother). Don't be stupid and have Obi-Wan hide Luke on the exact same planet Anakin came from (Tatooine shouldn't show up at all until almost the end of the last movie, as some backwater world where no one ever goes and no one will ever think to look for Luke). Make Uncle Owen Luke's actual uncle (and Anakin's brother), not a step-uncle (or go all-in and have him not be related at all). Don't do stuff like having a democratically-elected "queen". Don't push Jar-Jar so hard (you can still have him, just don't make him overwhelming).

Also, make the Jedi rarer even in the Old Republic era (which helps explain why they're almost a myth only 20 years later), and don't have them all dress like Obi-Wan in the first film (that should be his desert planet disguise, not the "official uniform" of a Jedi). Make them wandering magistrates with ancient authority, not an arm of the galactic government. Make their culture one of masters training apprentices on the go, not having a centralized school with tons of kids. Make them rare, special, almost legendary badasses who can change the entire course of a battle when one shows up. When Vader turns, have him hunt down the survivors one by one, not just kill them all off via stupid clone troopers.

(A lot of Lucas' decisions in the prequels feel like him just trying to come up with ways to sell more toys. But that makes for a shit movie. Step one is NOT DOING THAT.)

The story of an Anakin who grew up as a hotshot rebellious teenager on a planet like Nar Shaddaa, who was found and trained by Obi-Wan, with the two of them becoming actual friends during a massive war, who slowly turned for reasons that make sense, and then who ultimately becomes the Right Hand of the Emperor while his lover runs away and hides the kid (that he never knew she was pregnant with) would make a way better story than what we got.

*snip*

I mean, the Republic couldn't do anything to stop a blockade of a single planet that was being done by a force that wasn't even all that strong in the first place. The GUNGANS managed to put up a fight against them after all! But the galaxy-spanning Republic full of multiple nations? Couldn't do it.

Also known as bad writing.

Original > Sequels >>>> Prequels

Actually... No. That's really how it was supposed to be.

Original > Sequels >>>> Prequels

Does the EU exist because of the prequels or was it already planned anyway?

If anything, the worst problem with the prequels is Phantom Menace - what they should have done is skip that movie entirely, have Obi-Wan meet Anakin when Anakin was a hotshot teenager (and drop Qui-Gon entirely), then have the three movies basically be just before the start of the Clone Wars, during the Clone Wars, and then at the end of the Clone Wars/after the Clone Wars.

For what problems the sequels had - and they had plenty of them (the last one in particular) - they were all watchable movies, which is more than I can say about Episodes II and III.

The Prequels commit the ultimate sin of Star Wars: Theyre boring.

As bad as II and III are, I'd still be willing to watch them again if I was with someone who wanted to watch them. For all their faults, I could still throw one of them on if I was stuck somewhere with nothing to do, no Internet, no DVDs, and there was literally nothing else to do other than watch one.

But if I was with someone who wanted to watch the sequels again (specifically VIII and IX), I'd categorically refuse. And then seriously reconsider whatever sort of friendship I had with that person. For the rest of my life, the only way I will ever see one of those films again is if someone pays me a significant amount of money to do so. Their very existence offends me waaay more than the prequels ever did (and I absolutely hated the prequels at the time). They're not watchable, they're an open sore in the fabric of the universe. They are tales told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

but Disney still fucked the franchise up worse than he ever did.

I agree that this is the ideal, but if you're going for maximum fixage for minimum effort, I still say that the easiest thing to do would be to keep Qui-Gon, but swap his personality with Obi-Wan.

I had a revelation a few years ago - TPM and the PT as a whole would be drastically improved if you took Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and swapped their personalities.

You and I are of almost the same mind, except swapping the movies around.

I enjoyed Episode VIII, though it is a very non-Lucasean Star Wars movies. It has flaws, but I still think there is a solid movie beneath them.

Episode IX is bad. Like, there's no putting lipstick on that pig - it is just awful, in a completely irredeemable way. That being said, if someone wanted badly to watch it again, I would do it. I'd never watch it myself, given the option to literally anything else, but if it was already on I'd do my best to shut my brain off and block out the utterly tawdry plot and try and focus on the handful of glimmers of cool things that occasionally surface in the dreck.

But Episodes II and III are so bad, so utterly putrescent, that I will never willingly watch them again. They have singed their way into my memories and I feel I am forever stained by them, irrevocably tainted by the corruption they have wrought upon this existence. They are, without exaggeration, two of the worst movies I have ever seen - bad not just by Star Wars standards, but by any meaningful standards. I swear the only people who actually like the prequels are either those who like them for the memes, who appreciate them for being "so bad they're good", or who saw them when they were children and have not yet viewed them with an adult's sensibilities.

Whatever the case they are awful. They are George Lucas at his absolute worst. They are what happens when you let him run a movie without a sizable cadre of handlers to temper the worst of his excesses and forge the raw material of his (admittedly impressive) creativity into a coherent narrative. They contain, in spades, the myriad hallmarks of his weaknesses in filmmaking (plodding, nonsensical plots; absolutely atrocious dialogue; flat and boring characters; and zero interpersonal chemistry). The Original Trilogy had these flaws too, but a combination of excellent editing by Marcia Lucas (who left George midway through Return of the Jedi) and an extremely strong lead cast to carry the plot comfortably wallpapered over most of them.

But no such luck for the prequels, as George surrounded himself with yes-men who refused to call him out on his terrible ideas, then hung the plot on an actor who was nowhere near strong enough to carry the lead (as a sparse post-Star Wars resume populated with ever-more obscure titles demonstrates) and a leading lady with whom he had zero chemistry, then saddled them with a script that sounded like it was written by a five-year-old just to ensure that the project was doomed.

Say what you will about the sequels, but at their absolute worst they settle for merely being dumb, uncoordinated, and nonsensical. The prequels, by contrast, are aggressively bad - terribly written, terribly acted, terribly edited, and terribly coordinated. They are so bad that they retroactively make the original trilogy worse by undercutting its backstory and giving horrible answers to questions no one asked. They are a blight on the fabric of reality and humanity will never progress as long as they continue to exist.

Again, disagree. Disney's record with the franchise is certainly checkered, but they have done more good for the franchise than George did since the mid-90s (Rogue One alone is better than all of Lucas's post-RotJ contributions combined), and they still have yet to plumb the depths he reached (last I checked, Disney didn't go back and retroactively edit the previous films multiple times, making them objectively worse with each pass, like da Vinci editing the Mona Lisa with crayons).

what you will about the sequels, but at their absolute worst they settle for merely being dumb, uncoordinated, and nonsensical. The prequels, by contrast, are aggressively bad - terribly written, terribly acted, terribly edited, and terribly coordinated.

I enjoyed Episode VIII, though it is a very non-Lucasean Star Wars movies. It has flaws, but I still think there is a solid movie beneath them.

Again, disagree. Disney's record with the franchise is certainly checkered, but they have done more good for the franchise than George did since the mid-90s (Rogue One alone is better than all of Lucas's post-RotJ contributions combined)

most of us millennials liked the prequels before the memes.

also George Lucas clearly did not take himself to serious with the prequels and had fun imo

I like fun movies especially with such whimsical subject matter.

The prequel trilogy still felt like Star Wars though, the sequel trilogy felt like fanfic (and bad fanfic at that) with no direction and completely undercuts Anakin's sacrifice at the end of RotJ

I think the main problem for me is that I think the narrative works way better without a Jedi Council at all.

Then combine that with Obi-Wan's discussion with Yoda in Empire:

"I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience."

"He will learn patience."

"Much anger in him. Like his father."

"Was I any different when you taught me?"

...

"You are reckless!"

"So was I, if you remember."

Does that sound anything like Obi-Wan in the prequels?

Believe me, because I was around for it - when the prequels were new, Star Wars fanboards were mostly populated by millennials (because Zoomers were not around yet and Gen X and older hadn't really gravitated to those sorts of social forums in large numbers) and they generally fucking hated them. Only the youngest of the millennial contingent, who were still children at the time, seemed to look upon them with any degree of positivity, something that the Zoomers that came after them echoed. I noticed that opinions of the prequels started improving maybe 5-10 years ago, which is when the Zoomers who grew up with the prequels and saw them as children were old enough to opine on them.

To the contrary, part of the problem was that he took himself *too* seriously. He started listening to his own propaganda and forgot that a good executive of any kind builds a team that can tell him when he's stepping out of line.

Whimsical subject matter like a bloated and corrupt bureaucracy collapsing into violent civil war that ultimately results in a fascist dictatorship coming to power and instigating a genocide against its political opponents?

You have an odd definition of the word "whimsical".

I don't disagree, the sequels (except for Episode VII, which was deliberately aping Lucas's style) certainly don't feel like Star Wars, but I would rather have something that doesn't feel like Star Wars but is still good (like Rogue One) than something that does feel like Star Wars but is terrible (like AotC).

Not every Star Wars movie is Lucasean. Not every Star Wars movie needs to be.

Well, if you *really* want to fix the prequel scripts, you do that by feeding them into a paper shredder and starting over. Yes, you could rip out the Jedi council, you could remove Qui-Gon, you could delete the entirety of Episode I and start over with a plot that focuses on the Clone Wars (which always should have been the case - it was ridiculous not to kick off the principle conflict of the trilogy until the end of the second movie, then conclude it less than half a movie later)... but at that point you're not really "fixing" the prequels, you're completely rewriting them.

My hypothetical was "how do you improve the movies the most while changing the least"?