Poll: Why all the hate on star wars prequels?

[thewatergamer]

Yes I know this is kind of a controversial topic amongst star wars fans but please keep it nice in here, this is all purely opinions and is meant to promote discussion

Anyway, Why all the hate on the Star Wars Prequels and other forms of star wars media? (specifically animated series)

Now before you rage at me here me out here

In regards to the animated series, I enjoyed them because of more focus on the clones vs. droids and jedi vs. sith mentality that I felt was kind of missing in the originals, don't get me wrong its still flawed (similar to prequels but I'll get to that) but I still enjoyed them, but whatever this is the internet.

Now in regards to the Star Wars Prequels:

What I Liked about them:

1. The Villians

-disagree with me all you want but to this day Count Dooku and General Grievous are my two favorite star wars villains (Darth Vader #3 mind you)

I like Count Dooku due to his sort of calm and collective nature as opposed to the other sith anger powered approach

and I liked General Grievous because he was a powerful warrior that didn't need the force, also he was evil as heck.

2. The Jedi Council

-The Idea of the Jedi Council Was pretty awesome to me anyway, with the apprentices and masters etc. even though not really much to go on here.

3.The Clones

-I personally really liked the idea of the clones vs. droids, more so than the rebels vs empire
once again my opinion but I've always admired the clones and I feel that in the originals the stormtroopers just weren't as cool

Now for the other part...

Things I HATE about the prequels

1. Jar Jar Binks...

Just...
What?

What were you thinking Lucas?
Most annoying character I have ever seen in any form of media...
I just can't go on about him...
*shudder*

2. Anakin Skywalker

Good Lord VADER WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU???

Seriously in the first movie (phantom menace) he was pretty much a whiny annoying kid who took too many risks... Just terrible character'

but in the last 2 prequels it only got worse, he went from being an annoying kid to being a really whiny teenager

I felt like the father son relation between Anakin and Obi-wan was kind of forced and dumb...
Mind you I liked Obi-Wans character in the prequels but good god I can't believe the whiny teenager from the prequels became the evil bad-*** we know and love
just terrible design of Anakin Overall

Other than these there are many other minor and major flaws but I can honestly say I am on the fence on this topic
I mean I don't think the prequels were evil or really terrible but I can't say they were good or worthy of the Star Wars License...

but thats just me what do you guys think?

Edit: Poll editing is not working for me for some reason... So I can't fix it maybe a moderator could do it? or is the website just updating?

The Poll Choices should be

"I Hated them"
"I am on the fence"
"I liked them"

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I love the prequels, but only in hindsight. At the time, I was as disappointed as everyone else. The reason for this, I think, is 20 years of hype, with a renewed push starting in the late 90's. No movie, no matter how amazing, could stand up to that hype. Especially since, when you look at them, the prequels compare favorably to the likes of The Fifth Element and Stargate, but not so much the original trilogy, which is on a plane of its own.

The only real exception is The Phantom Menace, which as far as I'm concerned has the right to stand with the original trilogy. It's definitely no sillier than Return of the Jedi, and parts of it are downright genius.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I wouldn't go so far as to call them objectively "good" movies, however I think they were not nearly as bad as some people like to claim. Some cringe-worthy bits here and there, and the writing needed more polish, but I liked them well enough. The last part of Episode III, the simultaneous duels between Vader/Obi-wan and Yoda/Sidious, is still one of my favorite few minutes of cinema ever.

I think if the prequels were TRULY bad, it would have done a LOT of damage to the franchise altogether, which they didn't. Star Wars is a big name in nerd entertainment to this day, perhaps not due in large part to the prequels, but not in spite of them.

GAH fuck it! I'm posting the scene! It gives me a nerd-on EVERY TIME!


Also, in before someone posts the Plinkett review.

 

[Berithil]

All of them are decent as popcorn flicks. No, they're not good movies, but they will suffice when there's nothing else to watch.

Episode 1 had obnoxious kid Anakin, but at least it didn't have the incredibly forced romance that came with the 2nd and 3rd movies. The writing was pretty weak at times, with things being shoehorned in simply to progress the story along, even if it makes no sense (sending the separatist leaders to a volcanic planet? Why? Oh, right, so Anakin can become toast and warrant him becoming Darth Vader ^_^)

There are some pretty good parts in each movie, but there are also pretty bad parts as well.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

It's a combination of nostalgia for the older films, and the fact that Lucas didn't have anyone to reign in his crappy writing and plot devices with the prequels. Midi-chlorians? What happened to "An energy field that penetrates us, surrounds us, and binds the universe together"? I just wish George had kept the mysticism that seemed to be implied in the first trilogy instead of giving it a "sciencey" explanation. There's a host of other flaws that bugged me, but I'm not going to elaborate.

 

[Xan Krieger]

They made Darth Vader, one of the most iconic movie characters into a little *****, that is a sin for which I cannot forgive the prequels.

Also Jar Jar Binks, a a creature with a jamaican accent and no skills or talents at all. It was an annoying character that should've been stomped on by an AT-AT.

 

[shrekfan246]

The only real exception is The Phantom Menace, which as far as I'm concerned has the right to stand with the original trilogy. It's definitely no sillier than Return of the Jedi, and parts of it are downright genius.

I have to agree, I've never understood why Phantom Menace in particular was viewed so negatively, outside of Jar Jar and Anakin annoying older audiences. As nonsensical as it may be for them to stare each other down and all, the final lightsaber duel between Darth Maul, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan combines all of the impressive choreography of the prequel trilogy with the raw power and emotion of the original trilogy, and as much as it may just be pointless filler, the podracing sequence is absolutely brilliant in my opinion.

Even Qui-Gon and Maul's duel on Tatooine (the only other major lightsaber duel in the film, which was restraint later removed from the following two films that certainly helped TPM) was just really excellent in its design and how it played out. Sure, midichlorians, kid actors, joke characters, no strong villain like Vader or the Emperor, and a relatively weak script (though still better than the two that followed it); I can see why The Phantom Menace would disappoint people who had been waiting twenty years for it. I was admittedly young when I saw it, but I had seen the original trilogy before, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I still liked it overall more than any single film out of the original three. Really, apart from a script that suffers a bit too heavily from establishing origin stories for characters everyone already knew, Phantom Menace still had a lot of what made the original movies into the "classics" that they're considered.

As far as the other two go, they've got even worse scripts than Batman & Robin, so the only way I really will defend them is that they're in a similar void of space as J.J. Abrams' Star Trek films - Decent action flicks with a science-fiction/fantasy setting, fun to watch if you don't get hung up on the little things.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

They're lazy and needlessly flashy and expensive.

CGI special effects are time consuming and expensive, but it's easy for a studio to just throw money at special effects and get a pretty much guaranteed outcome that'll fit neatly into a timeline. You've got no idea exactly how expensive or how long old school special effects will take, but they just look so much better. CG has a place, but it's in sprucing up a real effect, not replacing it entirely.

The fight scenes. Way over-blown. They look pretty cool, but kind of go against most of what the original movies demonstrated, with much more conservative light saber combat. You know, almost like they realize they're wielding omni-directional instruments of instant dismemberment. No flourishes, complicated blade spinning and other such flamboyant bullshit.

Explaining the force. This is not the kind of Sci-Fi where you need to explain a goddamn thing. Technology is just a replacement for magic and we never ask how magic works, it just does.

So, yeah, I've got some issues. However, liked movies with more flaws than this. They aren't cultural hallmarks like the originals were. My mother still remembers the sense of awe she had at the opening of the first movie, the rebel ship fleeing from the star destroyer that just keeps going and going and going. Nothing like that had ever been done before. The prequels were just more action movies with too much money to spend.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I hate them. They are terrible movies where none of the characters' choices and motivations make sense. The characters are terribly written, and most of the acting is totally wooden.

Hell, I even hated the action. I hate all the stupid spinny bullshit where the characters look like they're ballet dancing rather than fighting. I hate the fact that Yoda and Darth Sidious have a lightsabers, and I really hate what they did to the idea of The Force in general.

I mean, are there worse movies out there? Yes, there are, but that doesn't mean that the Star Wars prequels are any good. I honestly think that the prequels deserve all the hate they've gotten over the years.

 

[The Madman]

Because they're bad movies? It really is that simple.

You're still free to like them, by all means, if someone enjoys them they can watch and re-watch those prequels to their hearts content. But objectively speaking they're just bad movies in so many ways as to be almost insulting to watch for many if not most other people out there, especially having seen the original trilogy which while not without faults of its own ended up becoming a cinematic icon.

Personally I don't even understand how anyone could like the prequels but then there's a lot of things I don't understand. I try not to let it bother me, they're just movies after all.

 

[ShipofFools]

I didn't grow up on Star Wars at all, as a little fellah I watched the original Star Trek all the time.
That said, while I did enjoy the original trilogy (Nothing special, but quite entertaining and well made) the prequels were just horrible films.

The original films had really cool, inventive special effects that still hold up today, while the prequels were a computer generated mess that is already starting to look dated. So much crap on the screen I don't even know what's going on sometimes.
But that wouldn't be so bad, if the story and the characters weren't so... boring.
In the original trilogy at least I cared about the plight of the rebels, Luke's destiny, Han's development from a creepy loner to a hero.
I didn't care about anything that happened in the prequels. The enemy (robots) seemed ridiculously weak, I still have no idea who count duku and general grievance are, and Anakin was rotten from the start. A fall from grace story generally doesn't work when the one doing the falling is already an evil, spoiled, rotten bastard.

But as I said, I'm not really into Star Wars. I'd watch the Star Trek trilogy any day over the Star Warses.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Stuff

Wow, Star Wars prequels? Welcome to a decade ago. Have you been on a deserted island or something?

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

I was 12 years old when Phantom Menace came out I saw the original trilogy on TV and when I saw the phantom menace I loved it i still think its pretty good along with the rest of the prequels. When I discovered the Internet and the fact that it hates the prequels I could not wrap my head around it.

*p.s. captcha: teflon president; nothing sticks on him .

 

[khiliani]

I quite like the prequels. I was 9 when the phantom menace came out, and it was my favorite movie at the time, and it sorta left an impression on me that star wars is about jedi doing awesome stuff, so when i went back a bit older to watch the originals i found them a bit boring in that respect. the first movie does remain one of my favorite movies, and the other prequels arent bad, though the casting of Anikin was terrible in my opinion. I never understood the hate that the prequels generated, cause i don't have the massive nostalgia for the originals i guess.

 

[Kingjackl]

I was about six when I first watched them. In other words, I was the target audience. I enjoyed them a lot, even though the only one I would argue has aged well is the third one.

 

[Mauler]

I loved the prequels and im proud of it because im a dying breed a minority thats being oppressed by all of the elitist oldschool star wars fans that consider Jar Jar the abomination... You know what the EWOKS were worse... They got two spinoffs... soo yeah... clone wars were bad though not the worst bat not good either so bad - medium good because it was only faffing around and too short storywise... yeah...

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I liked the original untouched movies. I didn't like the special edition, I didn't like the prequels. I couldn't possibly dislike them more. I also don't like the expanded universe much, despite having read many books in it back in the 90s.
The main problem with the prequels is they look assembly line, they have no soul, everything looks plastic. I should say that this isn't something I just reserve for Star Wars movies. I would have hated them even if they were completely unrelated to Star Wars. I just hate movies made almost entirely on a blue screen. They just don't do it for me. I find them fake, and lacking in any kind of emotion.
I love movies filmed on location, with old school action scenes, and traditional effects. I feel that the limitations it puts on film makers, creates a better final product. When they can just do whatever they want in a computer, I think everything becomes too over the top, and too indulgent. It just doesn't do it for me.
However, I am in the minority.