An Intelligent and Respectful Discussion About The Positives and Negatives of the Prequels

The Good:
Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon
Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan
Ian McDirmiad as The Emperor
Natalie Portman as Padme
Politics in the GFFA
Some Jedi; (ie Kit Fisto, Plo Koon, Mace Windu)
Villains: Darth Maul (Awesome) General Grievous (Crazy Awesome)
Palpatine/Sideous pulling the strings for the Republic and the CIS
End Duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin
Duel between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan and Darth Maul
Destroyer Droids (I thought their design was superb)
Space Battles
The Pod Race
More lore

The Bad:
Jar Jar
Little Anakin in tPM and his age difference with Padme
Some Bad Lines
Battle of Geonosis was like watching an animated movie with the acceptation of some humans
Anakin, Padme "The kiss you should not have given me..." scene (Bad lines)
Jar Jar
Baby Boba; To see the younger version of the Boba Fett in the OT, it took away the sheer awesomeness and mystery of the character.
Padme's planet was Naboo: I saw this in a video. Really, the planet should have been Alderan, so that we, the fans, would actually feel something when it is destroyed. Instead we get next to no scenes of Alderan with the exception of one short scene with Bail Organa. Plus Jar Jar might've been on Alderan when it was destroyed! It would've been perfect!
Did I mention that Jar Jar was one of my negatives?

Overall, I am fine with the PT. I loved them when I first saw them, granted I was only like ten then, back then I didn't like the OT or PT more. It was all Star Wars to me, and that's what I liked. Now I realize that the PT is nowhere near the caliber of the OT. Hayden? I don't mind his acting, he has some good moments; However those moments are indeed few and far between. I liked the actual Pod Racing scene, but I hated the design of some aliens (Ben Quadrenaros.) To be honest the PT shaped the Star Wars galaxy in so many ways. Palpatine's plot to take over the galaxy is the strong point of the trilogy.

 

I agree with the good list.

 

I agree with the bad list.

 

Here's all I have to say to the PT haters/bashers, which are by the way really in the minority (as I'm about to prove) but have the loudest mouths spewing nonsensical and irrational stamements as they troll throughout the Internet making others fell bad for liking the PT due to their miguided feelings of nostalgia. One cannot carry an intelligent conversation with them because they act like conservative Republican who are afraid of change and are out out of touch with society. One can't take these PT haters/bashers seriously as the Star Wars fans they claim to be; I'll even go as far as calling their fandom into question:



http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/1645247/mobile/

Note that I'm not stating that one shouldn't point out flaws in the PT, nor am I'm stating that people shouldn't have the right to form opinions. I'm referring to those that are just downright hating, stating that the PT are bad/horrible/terrible films, stating that they don't consider the PT as part of SW or pretend that they didn't happen, or any combination of these things


By the way, only PT haters/bashers are considered trolls, NOT the other way around.

Come at me PT haters/bashers! I'll destroy any argument that you throw at me.

 

Yup when so call "fans" hate half the sega and TV shows then you realize that do they really like SW?

 

Lapping up everything George Lucas gives you doesn't make you a fan boy, a real fan boy understands the essence of what made the saga good in the first place.. and ignores anything they feel is sub-par.

 

You're using the word fanboy like it's a good thing...... anyways seeing your an OT fanboy, your nostalgia will prevent me from talking sense into that ridiculous statement of yours. A fan would embrace everything not "ignores anything they feel is sub-par". I want you to realize how ridiculous your biased comment is. The nostalgia is real with this one.

 

OT fanboy and proud son.

 

Star Wars fan and proud of it. (darth)

 

Not really IMO.

 

I voted other, I love the visuals, the political story, the clones and the Jedi - most of all Palpatine. What spoils them are some of the cringey scenes with Anakin and Padme in all 3 films - zero chemistry between the actors making the romance thoroughly unmoving - and the poor jokes. The OT had jokes and one-liners but these were developed on set by the actors and directors , and contributed a lot to the "cool" factor - all of the banter between Fisher & Ford is perfect, Hamill also had great chemistry with Ford, but really shone ironically with R2 and Yoda, making them more believable and "real". Liam Neeson also had that talent, perhaps the biggest tragedy of the prequels was killing off Qui-Gon.

 

A Fartkraum retrospective on the prequel trilogy:

GOOD
Liam Neeson as Qui Gon
Darth Maul, and Ray Park's casting
Innovative CGI
Some exploration of life on Coruscant in ATOC
Coruscant chase sequence is great!
Duel Of The Fates
Anakin's violent end at the hands of Obi Wan
Ian Mcdiarmid's performance as Palpatine/Sidious
Sidious/Yoda duel, I liked that a lot. Yoda spinning the platform with the force and shooting force lightning back at Sidious was fantastic.
John Williams' genius

BAD
STIFF Dialogue
Jar Jar
Little kid Anakin
Little kid Boba Fett
Childish humor
Wooden characters across the board
Droids and Boba Fett were forced into the plots unrealistically, making them feel like fan films at times
At times, actors did not feel connected to their environments
It didn't look gritty enough (specifically Attack Of The Clones outside the more practical scenes)
Count Dooku was a poor villain and his defection from the Jedi order was a pointless plot point, he should have been on the Jedi Council in The Phantom Menace to give his character more weight
Anakin was unrealistically immature in all three films, only 10 year olds could relate to him.
Attack Of The Clones easily had the most unrealistic CGI of the three films, just look at the shadows/blurriness during the Count Dooku duel with Yoda, and how video gamey all the Clone Wars sequences were.

The Phantom Menace is the best prequel.

 

Liam Neeson WAS good. But Qui-Gon Jinn wasn't.

From the very opening scenes of TPM, everything we had learned about the PT universe from the OT was basically negated. In that moment we realized that Obi-wan wasn't trained by Yoda other than some basic lightsaber class when he was 7-years old. That character brought everything we thought we knew into question. That is where the cognitive dissonance that stains the PT for those of us who grew up before the PT came out begins.

That character changed everything. And changed it that many of us are still trying to square.

 

..but Yoda is seen training a class of "younglings" in Attack Of The Clones, isn't it likely that he trained Obi Wan this way? This is something I never had issue with, along with the midiclorians thing..

Yes.. I have no problem whatsoever with the midiclorians, HOWEVER I think this is something that only the Sith should be thinking about, whereas the Jedi should brush science aside. That being said, I don't want to see midiclorians ever mentioned again in the the main films.. Maybe in that Filoni cartoon sh*t, but not the main saga.

 

If its Star Wars then I love it! They could have been horrendously bad and I would still have loved them.

 

First, in my Opinion, no one has the right to say what is and is not Star Wars except George Lucas. Even though he sold the rights to Disney in a legal sense, this is the universe he created, and for that he will always have my respect.

As far as the debate about the prequels being good, honestly it depends to me at what age you first watched Star Wars. For us older folks, I am 36, we grew up with the OT being something like nothing else. We all grew up in a different time. No cell phones, no computers, nothing for most of us but 3 channels on TV and play outside all day using our imaginations. I say that because it made Star Wars so special because nothing else like it existed, and we grew up with ONLY 3 films to love like our family. There was a long gap from ROTJ to TPM, nothing but a few novels to carry on and few Dark Horse comics, and I would add had it not been for the Timothy Zahn novels, one could argue the franchise would have possibly died out.

For the younger fans, who have grown up with many options for entertainment, cell phones, laptops, 100 + channels on cable, better clothes, different music, less reading and playing outside and using your imaginations, you probably like the Prequels because they had cool graphics and you watched them as a kid and they are special to you, much like how we older generations watched the OT. The difference being, in my opinion, it that you don't LOVE them like we love our OT, because it was all we had. My brothers and I would wear bathrobes and use broom handles to pretend to be Jedis. Now, you can buy any lightsaber that looks exactly like the movie versions, which weren't available back then. It was a different time.

I don't hate the prequels. I watch them and appreciate them for what they are, but I always feel it could have been better. I can't blame the dialogue, as the OT dialogue is pretty lame at times too. I didn't like the over usage of CGI, like everyone else. When we had our entire childhood to memorize the OT, we know every sound in the movie and every thing they talk about, so when something in the PT didn't line up, we noticed. Example: Leia tells Luke about her mother, her real mother in ROTJ, but in ROTS Padme dies immediately after childbirth. or Obi Wan, Uncle Owen, and Aunt Beru are all in late 30s or early 40s at the end when they are getting baby Luke, then 18 years later when we see Luke, the elders all aged about 30 years it seemed somehow. Yoda seemed off. In Empire, he seemed anti war. "war does not make one great; your weapons you will not need them". In the PT, he's spinning and going all Kung Fu. I would have handled the "clone wars" differently.

Conclusion. The prequels seem like they exist in the Star Wars universe, but don't seem to be the same characters and atmosphere of the OT. Doesn't mean I hate them, just can't watch them the same. You will see what I mean when the new trilogy comes out and younger kids are saying how much better they are then the prequels or originals. Then we shall band together and wipe them out, all of them!

 

I have talked to this many times with friends in 1998 that ANY Prequel of a popular TV show or movie may not always resonate with all the fans simply because there are a new set of characters to follow.

The reason you get invested in a movie franchise or a TV show is to follow the characters you care about. When you do a prequel of anything you don't have those lovable characters to fall back on. Its just natural that some fans would take to Padme/Anakin and some wouldn't. That why I was not crazy about the PT and always wanted the ST.

I think the best way to execute the ST is by having a new generation of characters, yet still have the OT characters guide them through the trilogy in supporting roles. That way you have the best of both worlds in that you have a new set of characters that drive the main story yet the old ones in the background to keep fans at ease that it still feels like the OT.

 

This scene seems funny because many of us viewed The Phantom Menace after already knowing and having a connection with R2-D2. To those characters on the ship at the time, R2 was just an awesome droid who happened to save the day. Also, not everyone dislikes droids in the SW universe.

 

Hello Greedo examines the Ring "Theory"