Seriously, WHY Do People Consider The Star Wars Prequels to be Horrendous?

[Ron Alphafight]

I think it's a little unfair to chastise someone for pointing to the red letter media reviews of the Star Wars prequels when asking why those movies are so horrendous. Yeah, we've probably all seen it and seen people point to them several times before, but that doesn't make them any less accurate.

OT though: the writing was terrible, the acting was also terrible, there are huge plot holes, characters do things that make no sense or contradict their motivations, and there are just so many little things they do wrong that there is no way they could be considered good or even decent movies. Calling the prequels good movies is like trying to tell someone that you went on nice picnic except for the part where you got swarmed by ants. Then bees. And it was raining. And a dog peed on the food.

To me it doesn't even matter that they are Star Wars movies. If they were completely unrelated to Star Wars, I'd still think they were bad. They are just all around poorly executed, with the exception of some special effects. I don't hate George Lucas for making them, I just think they suck.

And if anyone asks for specifics, I'm just going to point to the red letter media videos because the movies have already been dissected thoroughly and I'm not about to waste my time re-dissecting movies I don't like when someone has done it better than I could.

 

[BNguyen]

the characters were bland and everything they did seemed implausible or utterly ridiculous - take for instance the flying car chase scene in the second movie or anakin's acting in the first movie as well as the third movie - balance the force my ass

 

[SonOfMethuselah]

Early disclaimer: I have a fondness for the entire saga. I had the original trilogy DVD box set and episodes I, II and III on DVD until last year, when I got the entire saga on Blu-ray for Christmas. Every year on the second Saturday of December, I watch all six movies. (Yes, there's a significance to that). I don't hate any of the movies. I also saw the prequel trilogy before the original trilogy. I was about 7 when The Phantom Menace came out, just to give a little context.

Now, that said, I do see that the quality of the prequel trilogy is lesser than the original trilogy. In reality, I would say that Return of the Jedi would actually be pretty close to prequel trilogy level, because that, in my mind, at least, is where it all starts to go silly. Return has some pretty stellar moments, though, and some really strong scenes, which the prequel trilogy lacks, so it still manages to be above their level.

My biggest problem with the prequel trilogy is, and has always been, a matter quite different than wooden characters, too much CGI, over-choreographed lightsaber sequences and such: the way I see it, the prequel trilogy is substandard because it doesn't tell the story it should have.

If you've ever seen Revenge of the Sith, then I want you to call up a scene from near the end of the movie: the lightsaber duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin. Consider the moment where Anakin is lying on the edge of the lava flow, unable to move due to the wounds Obi-Wan has inflicted. Recall Obi-Wan shouting down at him about how Anakin was supposed to be the man to bring balance to the Force.

Think about that scene. Those two men were Master and Apprentice. They have been together since Anakin was a boy. Obi-Wan saw them as brothers. He certainly seems distraught about having to injure Anakin so badly. But have you, as a viewer, ever felt so much as a pang from that scene? Probably not.

See, the thing Lucas missed (in my opinion) with the prequel trilogy, is that he didn't have to go back to the very beginning. We didn't have to see Anakin as a child, joining the Jedi Order. What we needed to see was what Obi-Wan gave importance to in the original trilogy: what we needed to see was the Clone Wars. Considered a trilogy of live-action movies where you see Obi-Wan and Anakin as Master and Apprentice at first, taking part in a galactic conflict attempting to keep the Republic from falling apart.

In a series of movies like that, watching the two fight side-by-side, you would get a better sense of the bond they were supposed to share. In the prequel trilogy, you see Anakin as a whiny adolescent, being ignorant and defiant to the man he should, by all rights, see as a father figure. Is that what we needed? No.

What the prequel trilogy really should have shown was not what led Anakin to become Darth Vader, (and, yes, I would agree that they don't do a particularly good job at that), but the context of the relationship that existed between Obi-Wan and Anakin, and how the dynamics changed because of the transformation Anakin was going through. Yes, you cannot have a prequel trilogy that does not show Anakin falling to the dark side, but it would have had so much more impact if you could have seen how that transformation affected those around him.

I would argue that the only place that even remotely hints at this is how Anakin becoming Vader affects Padme, but the relationship between those two is so poorly constructed that it doesn't carry any weight. As for him and Obi-Wan, we see Anakin go from being a whiny little shit to his Master, to Anakin being a whiny little shit to his elder, to Anakin being a whiny little shit who finally pulls a lightsaber on the guy. The relationship doesn't really change: Anakin's fall doesn't hold any emotional value.

I'll admit that, in a series like that, you'd lose some really good moments. Darth Maul and his double-saber has kind of become an iconic Sith figure (you don't have to like the prequel movies, but you have to admit, the first time you saw him activate both sides of that thing, you were kind of in awe). Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn was also one of the saving graces of the prequels, and in a series of movies about the Clone Wars, you'd lose him, too.

But you'd gain so much more. Now, I know that the Clone Wars has an animated series, but as far as I know, (and having not watched it quite as religiously as I have episodes I-VI, I could be totally wrong), it adheres close enough to the feel of the prequel movies, in that it doesn't really explore the depth of Anakin's relationships with the other Jedi as it should.

What I'm saying, if you boil it down into a nutshell, is that the prequel movies miss the most important things that the original trilogy suggests you should know about Anakin, or entirely misrepresents them. When I think about Alec Guinness telling Luke Skywalker that his father was one of his closest friends, and try to attribute that to what I know about Obi-Wan and Anakin's relationship, it just doesn't fit.

I don't dislike the prequel movies, but I do think they tell the wrong story. They try to chart Anakin's rise and fall, and do a pretty poor job of it. We know from the prequel movies that Anakin was an important Jedi. What we need to know is how his fall impacted his friends and loved ones, and the prequel trilogy doesn't show that.

 

[Asita]

Couple quick points of order:

The prequel movies ruined this by making force sensitives and jedi so prolific and well known that it makes the near mythic status that the force and its adherents has in the wider galaxy seem stupid and silly. It makes it feel boring, mundane, and every day instead of special and rare.

A New Hope already established by implication that the Jedi were a great organization with a long history. To quote Obi-Wan: "For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire." Mind you, that would be utterly impossible without a very sizeable order. It's also worth noting that seeing a lot of Jedi (especially at times when they'd naturally convene) is not indicative of force ability being particularly common any more than the sheer number of students at Hogwarts implies that magical ability is common in the Harry Potter universe.

It also helps to recall that the Star Wars universe is comprised of a Galaxy spanning Republic/Empire (depending on when you look at it), so even low rates would yield high totals in a short amount of time. Take the following as a case in point: Assume the incidence is quite literally one in a million (ie, a 0.0001% rate of occurance). Now look at Earth. Earth has an estimated population of 7.047 billion, meaning statistically one could expect 7047 Jedi from a population that size, which again, stems from a single planet. Take the rate and apply it to multiple earth-like planets and you naturally get a very high number of force sensitives very quickly, despite the very low incidence rate. Based on even the prequel trilogies, however, I'd venture to guess that the incidence rate was likely far lower.

Also Qui Gonn being Obi's master breaks prior established lore as Obi says in the original trilogy that Yoda was his master. No mention of this pointless Qui Gonn Jinn.

Uh, no it doesn't. Obi-Wan identifies Yoda as "The Jedi Master who instructed [him]". That does not necessarily imply that Yoda was his specific master, just that he taught him at one point. Given that Yoda is seen teaching younger Jedi in the temple, the obvious implication is that Yoda taught Obi-Wan (among others) when he was young. So what he told Luke was true, from a certain point of view.

Three - Not only to the prequels break and arbitrarily change the SW lore for no apparent reason (midichlorians anyone?) but the writers kept writing scenes where the characters would act completely out of character.

Actually, oddly enough, Midichlorians are ostensibly Lucas being consistant with the Lore of his universe. Ostensibly, the idea was explained behind the scenes as far back as 1977 (though Lucas supposedly couldn't find a way to incorporate it directly until Phantom Menace), and truthfully they do very little to affect the actual lore. As per Qui-Gon, "Midi-chlorians are a microscopic lifeform that reside within all living cells and communicate with the Force. ... Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force". That's their debut scene, which immediately establishes them as distinct from the Force itself, instead acting as the vehicle that allows entities to have a sense of it, thereby establishing why not everyone had the same level of Force Sensitivity. The actual nature of the Force itself remains as ill-understood as before.




More on topic, I can give you a few reasons:

Episode I was kinda a trainwreck in terms of focus. The primary plot point was the blockade of Naboo due to trade laws, not exactly a wonderfully interesting topic in and of its own right. But how does it explore this plot point? By following a freedom fighter force on the planet? Nope. Point of fact, that resistance movement doesn't happen until the third act, after we've already had a false climax in the form of the 10 minute long race. What's worse, the film jumped from plot point to plot point so fast that they neglected to develop them in the way required to make the audience connect. Take Coruscant, for instance. The protagonists' entire reason for leaving Naboo was to present their case to the Senate, and Amidala folds her hand after one attempt. ...I'm sorry, but are we really supposed to empathize with her view of the Senate as a corrupt and ineffective organization when they were given less exposure than the aforementioned race and because they wouldn't immediately jump in without first proving her accusations had a basis? Really? Don't get me wrong, I can see the intent of most of these scenes, but ultimately they lacked the buildup required to give the scenes the impact they needed.

Episode II...well let's just say that I feel the part that absolutely sunk this film was the fact that its main subplot was a romance that...well...didn't work out in any respect. To borrow Yahtzee's characterization: "To say Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman had chemistry in that film is like saying that a chair stacked on another chair is a sizzlingly erotic love scene". Frankly though, that's still giving it too much credit, if only by the omission of the subplot's other failings, which other posts here have already touched on. It also certainly doesn't hurt that Anakin's character was just poorly handled.

Then there's Episode III...which just handed the cast the "Idiot Ball" and had them run with it. Anakin in particular suffered here. Seriously, he knew the Sith's tactics to have no problems fighting and even killing them, he realized that Palpatine was a Sith Lord, and by correlation has been deceiving the republic for years and directly ordered him to kill another Sith Lord with whom he had to have been in cahoots with...and he trusts the guy's claims implicitly? What's worse, Anakin's characterization showed little development towards the iconic villain we know and love from the original trilogy. Which of course begged the question of why they even bothered in the first place.


tldr: Episode I lacked a sense of importance and had horrible pacing. Episode II put far too much emphasis on a romantic subplot that didn't work. Episode III felt contrived and lacked the character transition needed to justify the existence of the prequels.

 

[zehydra]

The acting was horrible and Jar Jar.

This basically sums up my feelings

 

[Vault101]

snip*

I am not a starwars fan

I have only ever seen "a new hope" (which I thourght was bloody good)

I was in a toy store once and one of them was playing on an ovrhead screen...and I thought to myself "my god...this is awful"

take that as you will

 

[Childe]

I understand why everyone hated the clone wars....that WAS really crappy, however i've never gotten why people hate 1 and 3. 1 is my favorite with Qui Gon Jin and three has some epic fight scenes. Sure the acting was perfect the whole time but its better then the baseball bat fight scenes of the older ones. Now before I'm ganged up on i understand the love for the old ones, however because i was born around the time of the new ones i just cant get into the fight scenes in the older ones. The book for the third movie also is a lot better then the movie because it explains a bunch of things the movie doesn't

 

[swani24]

I hated the fact that Spock dies.

LOL this is the best response ever

 

[elvor0]

Couple quick points of order:

The prequel movies ruined this by making force sensitives and jedi so prolific and well known that it makes the near mythic status that the force and its adherents has in the wider galaxy seem stupid and silly. It makes it feel boring, mundane, and every day instead of special and rare.

A New Hope already established by implication that the Jedi were a great organization with a long history. To quote Obi-Wan: "For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire." Mind you, that would be utterly impossible without a very sizeable order. It's also worth noting that seeing a lot of Jedi (especially at times when they'd naturally convene) is not indicative of force ability being particularly common any more than the sheer number of students at Hogwarts implies that magical ability is common in the Harry Potter universe.

-snipity-

While your point on the size of the empire leading to a sizable amount of Jedi being available etc etc makes perfect sense and works very well, the prequels are set only 20 years before the Originals. Given the amount of Jedi that were kicking around, in government, fought huge battles, and in the prequels don't exactly seem secretive(not in the Harry Potter sense at least), the amount of scepticism about the force and Jedi, that exists within the Originals makes it all seems very poorly thought out.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but I mean it would be like me questioning whether Vietnam happened. 20 years ago, there were an entire order of Jedi across the entire Republic, ruled the way it was in the Prequel, then there was a galaxy spanning Coup d'état, resulting in the deaths of almost all the Jedi, the government being otherthrown and what are Nazis by any other name now in charge. There ARE going to be people around who remember what it was like, who lived through it and it would still be very fresh in peoples minds. If Jedi are presented mythically in the originals, more than 20 years is going to have needed to pass before they would even begin to gain that status.

But the most insulting part? The evil Empire of the original trilogy and the Emperor's dastardly evil plan all hinged upon a single event: Jar-Jar putting forth the motion to grant Palpatine emergency powers. WHAT. So the Empire exists only because of fucking Jar-Jar? The Emperor's brilliant plan to seize control of the galaxy relied on Padme appointing an oafish moron into her position? That is the ultimate insult, the ultimate middle finger. Now whenever you look at the Empire in the original trilogy, in all of its evil glory, you're forced to remember that all of this was made possible by the most obnoxious CGI character ever imagined. It's actually made the original trilogy harder for me to watch, knowing that the Emperor, who was supposedly this cunning mastermind in the original trilogy, hinged his bets on such a convoluted and moronic plan.

Having successfully wiped most of the prequel series from my brain I have one thing to say to you. You my friend, are a bastard. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!

 

[The Pumpkin Witch]

Personally, I mostly liked the prequels, (except for the second one) worts and all, and I while I can certainly understand why most people don't, here's another way to remember them: The movies as a D&D campaign in web comic form. [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0001.html]
It's entirely possible you'll end up liking Jar-Jar, or at least his player.

I made it to your post and I have not read any further. The Darths & Droids series is one of the funniest things I have read in years! Thanks for posting it.

OT: George Lucas is a bad writer. He did not plan his original trilogy out but largely made it up as he went. He did the same with the prequels, only to have much worse results since he had to fit in the originals' plot points.

He is also notorious for being an absent director. People who criticize all the actors should know that Lucas orders his actors to tone down their emoting all the time. He is also notorious for giving very little direction beyond his trademarked phrase "faster and more intense".

 

[ThePS1Fan]

inb4 red letter media review.

I'l just post this here before anyone else to save trouble.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/

And just like with Bob's review, I'll simply say "This video aside..."

Please try again my friend.

I'm sorry, but you can't do that. You can't ask why people don't like something and then say their reasons don't count.

 

[Asita]

While your point on the size of the empire leading to a sizable amount of Jedi being available etc etc makes perfect sense and works very well, the prequels are set only 20 years before the Originals. Given the amount of Jedi that were kicking around, in government, fought huge battles, and in the prequels don't exactly seem secretive(not in the Harry Potter sense at least), the amount of scepticism about the force and Jedi, that exists within the Originals makes it all seems very poorly thought out.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but I mean it would be like me questioning whether Vietnam happened. 20 years ago, there were an entire order of Jedi across the entire Republic, ruled the way it was in the Prequel, then there was a galaxy spanning Coup d'état, resulting in the deaths of almost all the Jedi, the government being otherthrown and what are Nazis by any other name now in charge. There ARE going to be people around who remember what it was like, who lived through it and it would still be very fresh in peoples minds. Yet in the Originals it's mostly presented as having always been that way, or at least for a long time. If Jedi are presented mythically in the originals, more than 20 years is going to have needed to pass before they would even begin to gain that status.

True. That does make things seem more than a little odd. The Expanded Universe, at the very least, tried to explain it via the Empire providing no small amount of anti-Jedi propoganda and officially sanctioned historical revisionism, actively discouraging belief in the Force while simultaneously fostering resentment towards the Jedi Order. Oddly enough, this almost works, given that those we see explicitly show their disbelief aren't terribly much older than Luke, meaning they'd be expected to have grown up in that environment. On the flip side, such open disbelief is actually fairly rare in the original trilogy (Off the top of my head, I can only recall Han and Officer Motti (whom Vader choked for his insolence) be openly contemptuous of the concept). Point of fact, the Rebel Alliance had a bit of a tendency to use the phrase "May the Force be with you", implying that belief in the Force wasn't exactly out of practice.

 

[MrPeanut]

inb4 red letter media review.

I'l just post this here before anyone else to save trouble.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/

And just like with Bob's review, I'll simply say "This video aside..."

Please try again my friend.

I'm sorry, but you can't do that. You can't ask why people don't like something and then say their reasons don't count.

What he is asking is stating your own opinions instead of "uuuhhh, well, heres this video".

Honestly, the trilogy is done, time to stop whining, it won't make the prequels go away.

 

[R Man]

Can I get in on this? A lot of topics have already been covered, such as the role of hero and villains in the trilogies,and poor characters and characterisation. But I want to mention aesthetics. The original trilogy was quite sterile and had very clean lines. It was almost modern, and quite functional and understated. Personally I think this fits with our 'apple-chic' present and view of the future. It was simple, bold and allowed for effective contrasts.

On the other hand the prequel trilogy was much busier, and over bright to the point of distraction. It was how I imagine people in the 70's would have imagined the future (ironically). As a result it's unfocused and overblown. One element of this exaggeration of visuals are giant monsters and the like in the prequels, which I think detracts from the human element of the story.

 

[Something Amyss]

What he is asking is stating your own opinions instead of "uuuhhh, well, heres this video".

Which, apparently, is a bad thing on the internet.

 

[Zenn3k]

Because they are horrible.

They are made very cheaply, outside of special effect budgets.

Just remove every single action scene and watch ONLY the dialog scenes, watch them all back to back. You'll notice a few patterns. Short-reverse-shot camera angles, and sitting. Thats the entire movie.

The logic of the films is lacking within the universe thats been established. Why doesn't Qui-Gon trade the credits to someone who might have use for them (like a trade runner, or smuggler) to get the money needed to pay Wotto? Or better yet, TRADE his broken ship (that he bet anyway) for a WORKING ONE! How does he know Wotto is the only one with the part? He just takes his word for it?! OMFG MY BRAIN EXPLODE!

Thats just 1 scene.

Anyway, its not just bad scifi (and it is), its a bad series of movies overall. They are poorly constructed films made by a bad director that happened to get really lucky with Star Wars (EP:4) and American Graffiti. Lucas is a hack. Even Red Tails has a poorly made film.

 

[Vault101]

What he is asking is stating your own opinions instead of "uuuhhh, well, heres this video".

I assume the Video explains it better than he can...and is entertaining

[quote/]Honestly, the trilogy is done, time to stop whining, it won't make the prequels go away.[/quote]

....what?

he asked WHY they were considered bad and people told him...just because the matter is said and done it doesnt mean the reasons why the prequels are bad go away

 

[AnotherAvatar]

They were flimsy films created to strengthen a marketing empire and little else.

The tale of Lucas is ironically also the tale of Darth Vader: A passionate, capable and somewhat heroic youth is drawn down the path of oppression by fear of inadequacy and the desire for power.

And this is coming from a youth who once loved the prequels simply because I was in the generation they were marketed too, here we are years later and the spell is broken, I can see how shallow those films were and what a slap in the face they were to long time fans (Mostly because the originals are actually good films, pulpy, but good).

Mind you I now feel that Bioware's original Knights of the Old Republic (based on a comic series which I'll really have to read at some point) is the high point of that series, possibly even topped by KotOR II (at least... the restored edition, fucking Lucas again...), however even that has been ruined by the Empire (of marketing) with tOR, which while good in many ways, like the prequels it just totally lacks the soul of the originals and is clearly designed more to get your money than for the sake of art/fun.

 

[katsabas]

The bad ending is a big part of the problem to a lot of OT fans. I mean, we already know he falls, so there has to be some reason to care about the prequels. But Anakin is completely unsympathetic through the entire prequel trilogy.

I don't know. Throughout the 3rd movie, I was constantly repeating to myself 'please don't get mad and purge the entire Jedi order'. Hayden managed to get some emotion out of it but not as much as he could have. Anakin was not COMPLETELY unsympathetic (I mean, I got that he didn't join the dark side willingly) but other than that, I am pretty much where you are.