What Ruined the Star Wars Prequels? (If you didn't like them?)

[lucky_sharm]

The plot is a boring, contrived and convoluted mess about taxes, the dialogue is somehow worse than that of Final Fantasy XIII and none of the actors can actually act. The latter is especially weird, since a lot of the people involved either have been or are excellent actors elsewhere.

But really, there's no reason to discuss these films as "films" at all. They're commercials for toys. That's it.

It's hard to act when every set takes in green screen.

It become Star Wars cliche. There was nothing very fresh about it. The only thing that I think they vastly improved was the lightsaber duels. Lets all just admit that Episode 4-6 were pathetic. Mostly because what they used for lightsabers in those movies were too delicate and would shatter if you hit them too hard. I enjoyed the intense fast duels of the prequels.

While the sword fights are faster, what they gain in speed they lose in realism and sense of danger. In the Empire Strikes Back, while the choreography is dodgier the battle actually paces itself and we can see Luke get visibly worn down and bruised up while Vader slowly became more aggressive in both posture and fighting, up to the point where Luke gets his hand cut off, screaming in pain afterwards.

Whereas in the fight between Anakin and Count Dooku(?), the choreography is so flawless to the point that there's no way that the duel could end convincingly without making either character do something outrageously stupid. And when Anakin gets his arm cut off, how does he react? "ahh."

When there's too much choreography, the actors become exhausted to the point that they can't emote or show pain in anyway.

Here's an example of a well done sword fight:


It starts out like a playful squabble, but soon enough the contest turns into a death match as the two characters quickly develop a grudge for one another.


Eventually it escalates to the point that they begin pounding on each other, seemingly with the intent to kill. There's a sense of danger and grittiness in the scene, where everyone in the vicinity gets caught in the crossfire between the two.

 

[Murtagh]

This 20 second clip from Episode III succinctly summarizes all that is wrong with the prequels.
http://youtu.be/LjdkqrIJFr4

Do you think that Yoda was shoehorned into the prequels??

http://www.weirdworm.com/4-star-wars-plot-twists-ruined-for-future-generations-by-the-prequels/

 

[Murtagh]

Star Wars prequels make the same mistake as nearly all prequels:

They explain too much. This takes away the mystery & wonder that made the originals so great.

Just my 2 cents.

What do you mean?? The mystery and wonder of the originals??

 

[Murtagh]

There are two things that spring to mind without linking the Red Letter Media reviews (because honestly, that's just cheating in this thread).

First is that Lucas waited 16 years to make Star Wars. By that time, his status as a legend had solidified to the point that he was impervious to feedback. If he started working on Ep 1 in, say, 1984, I think more people would have been willing to proof read what he was working on, and he would be more open to feedback. By 1997, he was essentially a monolith.

Second, Anakin was just so mishandled that it ruined any weight the film had or relevance to the original trilogy. There's one point in the OT that any Prequel had to nail - Luke's belief that "There's still good in him." That is, we have to have a likable figure to become invested in. The story of the fatally flawed hero has been done time and time again that it seemed like a no brainer. Instead, we never see what makes Anakin a good guy. It's just assumed that we understand that he's the flawed hero so Lucas can get on to showing how flawed he is. In the end, all we see are his flaws, and the whole series is cheapened because the audience is left feeling that that there was never anything good in Anakin to begin with.

He was very super-handsome.......

 

[Cabisco]

Many things, such as the acting (when you hate the lead it's never going to go well) and some generally bad characters like Jar Jar.

The main reason however, one I doubt many will agree with is that it explained too much and not in a good way. In the first three films the force was this wonderful mystical power, in the new three it got explained, kinda ruining it with science. In the first three films we learned Vader was lukes dad and was corrupted, did I need another three films to drag this out? No, it became slow and ponderous as you slowly waited for 'evil', we already knew it was going to happen and I didn't need three films to slowly watch this, especially as I know the end result for him. Did I need to know about Mr Fett, about him being the blueprint to the clone army?

I didn't need to know all these things in the idiotic amount of detail the movies gave them when I already knew enough and knew how it ends. It become a history lesson for something I already knew enough about.

 

[Murtagh]

Many things, such as the acting (when you hate the lead it's never going to go well) and some generally bad characters like Jar Jar.

The main reason however, one I doubt many will agree with is that it explained too much and not in a good way. In the first three films the force was this wonderful mystical power, in the new three it got explained, kinda ruining it with science. In the first three films we learned Vader was lukes dad and was corrupted, did I need another three films to drag this out? No, it became slow and ponderous as you slowly waited for 'evil', we already knew it was going to happen and I didn't need three films to slowly watch this, especially as I know the end result for him. Did I need to know about Mr Fett, about him being the blueprint to the clone army?

I didn't need to know all these things in the idiotic amount of detail the movies gave them when I already knew enough and knew how it ends. It become a history lesson for something I already knew enough about.

I kind of liked the midichlorians. They made Star Wars (SW)series more like science fiction and superhero-ish, rather than all fantasy and supernatural and mystical and magical..

Luke's dad was a handsome, long-haired, awesome-badass voiced, Hayden Christensen. What don't you like about that?? Knowing that Luke's father was Anakin Skywalker during/in the original trilogy, before the prequels came out, is one thing, actually seeing him is a totally different story. They made Anakin Skywalker into a detailed, tangible, character, just like his son...

 

[Murtagh]

I got so bored of the prequel trilogy that I stopped watching at Episode 2.

What didn't I like about them?

- Annoying, cocksure little kids have a way of riling me. Guess who the lead character of Episode 1 was!

- Moody, morose, sullen emo ****s have a way of riling me. Guess who the lead character of Episode 2 was!

- Too many "comic relief" characters. The humans were all serious, "straight" characters. Anything with so much as a touch of CGI to it was there for pure comedy slapstick value.

- Too many set-pieces. At times it seems like the films were just thinly-veiled promo material for the inevitable videogame tie-ins.

- It's widely known that Episodes 4-6 are the sci-fi equivalent of a medieval fantasy setting (longsword duels, etc). Episodes 1-3 completely turn this on its head because, hey, it's the 21st century and we all have the attention-span of gnats nowadays. Sword-fighting just doesn't cut it any more, you need gratuitious backflips and breakdancing moves! What crock. Darth Vader was a sinister villian precisely BECAUSE of his brooding presence and economy of movement. If Vader wants you dead, he does it with a mere gesture - he doesn't leap around like a retarded monkey with its ass on fire.

- Midichlorians *coughbullshitcough*

- In summary, it just wasn't particularly fun to watch. Sure, there was plenty of visual spectacle, but there was really no weight to the characters, the story, or anything. It's yet more testament to exactly why George Lucas SHOULDN'T be given free creative reign on a project: he's an unfocussed fruitloop who has a bad habit of throwing faeces all over his past works and calling it "art". The guy is frankly a liability to himself and should have been put out to pasture years ago.

What do you mean by cliche??

 

[Murtagh]

There are two things that spring to mind without linking the Red Letter Media reviews (because honestly, that's just cheating in this thread).

First is that Lucas waited 16 years to make Star Wars. By that time, his status as a legend had solidified to the point that he was impervious to feedback. If he started working on Ep 1 in, say, 1984, I think more people would have been willing to proof read what he was working on, and he would be more open to feedback. By 1997, he was essentially a monolith.

Second, Anakin was just so mishandled that it ruined any weight the film had or relevance to the original trilogy. There's one point in the OT that any Prequel had to nail - Luke's belief that "There's still good in him." That is, we have to have a likable figure to become invested in. The story of the fatally flawed hero has been done time and time again that it seemed like a no brainer. Instead, we never see what makes Anakin a good guy. It's just assumed that we understand that he's the flawed hero so Lucas can get on to showing how flawed he is. In the end, all we see are his flaws, and the whole series is cheapened because the audience is left feeling that that there was never anything good in Anakin to begin with.

Why do you hate/have something against Hayden Christsen so much?? His looks?? I think that you didn't expect Darth Vader to be a handsome, long-haired, young man, with that beautiful, yet, evil and creepy, voice........

 

[Murtagh]

Your Ugly Face ruined the Star Wars SW prequels!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[klaynexas3]

Little going on in the first movie, nothing going on in the second, and a relatively poor character arc for Anakin in all. He was a kind a loving character up until he thought he'd lose his wife, then chokes her out after slaughtering hundreds. That's not an arc, that's an angle, a sharp turn on the drop of a dime in the opposite direction. Besides that, the third wasn't too bad.

 

[Batou667]

What do you mean by cliche??

Did you mean to quote somebody else? I didn't say it was cliche.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I do sorta like the prequels... BUT ... there are flaws.

I prefer episodes 1 and 3, since 2 drags on a bit, and I can kinda see the overuse of CGI.

Never had a problem with Jar-Jar, though they did at least make him less and less prominent throughout the movies. (I also recommend the webcomic "Darths and Droids", which makes the Star Wars movies a bit easier to handle...)

 

[Accel]

Go watch the older movies, maybe even watch some serious old movies while your at it too.
The original triology was made up of both drama and action for those with some taste in movies.
The newer movies are family/kids movies. Dumbed down to be access able to even the slowest kids. Now, the originals weren't complex in a way that would be inaccessable to kids; they just weren't made solely for five year olds. My evidence: Jar Jar fucking Binks.

Spoiler: The Extanded Rant

Now that only accounts for the movie and part of the second. But there's enough bad acting and CGI in those to make up for any holes in my hypothesis.

Because Ewoks were totally for grown ups.

The real problem was Lucas did the same thing twice, he made family films but the second time 'round the fans of the original felt snubbed because it wasn't aimed solely at them. People complain about the prequels but really, you could do one of those Red Letter (or whatever it is) reviews of all the Star Wars movies.

The stupid glaring fault with the death star
Weird incest
Fucking Ewoks
Luke becoming a jedi master in an afternoon
Boba Fett's a pointless character
Storm Troopers are hopelessly incompetent


And I love Star Wars.

Those are all mostly nitpicks though. And that level of nitpicking, while still valid, can be done with ANY movie. But at no point does stuff like really ruin the movie for you. And for films like the original trilogy, you can totally forgive them because everything else was so enjoyable (the charisma of the actors and characters, the action, the storyline, the many iconic and quotable moments, etc).

The prequels are not only have a lot more of the stupid shit on the level of the Ewoks, but they're also severely lacking in the many things that made the original trilogy so loved (the story was dull, the characters were stale, blah blah blah) so it doesn't balance out at all.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Short answer: Red Letter Media critique does it better than I can.

Long answer, in no particular order:

Jar-Jar.
Overused CGI.
Unspeakable dialogue.
We knew how it would end.
Frankenvader yelling "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
Lucas's continuing fuckery with the original trilogy never would have happened without the prequels.
Midichlorians.
Wooden, indistinct characters.
Bad racial profiling.

 

[Do4600]

Nearly everything. Worst of all the writing was fucking terrible, Lucas managed to somehow make the dialogue patronizing, shallow and witless all at the same time. Lucas aimed his direction at slow seven-year-olds. There is no subtlety.

What's wrong with these movies is George Lucas. What's wrong with George Lucas is that he didn't write or direct ANYTHING for 22 YEARS! From 1977 to 1999 the only thing he wrote was OUTLINES for scripts, not actual scripts, OUTLINES for tv movies for fuck sake! He didn't direct anything at all between 1977 and 1999. Anybody that thinks they can quit their profession for more than two decades and come back and head up a $115 million project by themselves is clearly out of touch with reality.

The only good things that came from these movies are double-bladed light-sabers, the battlefront games and three more John Williams scores.

 

[Do4600]

...but they're not some massive offense to the art cinema either.

They totally are. These prequels are what happens when you assemble a huge amount of talent and money and put it into the hands of an incompetent. Lucas made the writing and directing frame of this "house" with pine needles and then covered the whole thing with cgi duct-tape until it could withstand a mild breeze and called it finished.

 

[General Vagueness]

OK so they were bad, that doesn't make them an insult to your senses or to the entire medium of film.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Bland characters, way too much boring dialogue about space politics that nobody on Earth except George Lucas finds interesting, and a lack of emotional attachment to pretty much anything or anyone.
Plus the sense of having foregone conclusions kind of hurt feelings of any sort of suspense or tension for many scenes.

 

[FalloutJack]

Okay, I just want a show of hands: How many people so far have said GEORGE LUCAS?