I refuse to show my 5 year old the PT

I asked my 8-year old what his favorite Star Wars movies were. He said VI & I were his favorite. I'd been rewatching all the movies. I watched them in the IV, V, VI, I, III, II order. My 8-year old watched VI, I, III with me. He didn't want to watch IV, V or II. He said they were boring. I asked him rank all six and he said, probably VI, I, III, V, IV, II.

 

You mentioned that you were 8 when TPM was released. That would make you the same age as my daughter. She saw the prequels first, and loved them.

Upon seeing the OT, her opinion was that the PT she loved was still really good, but the OT was even better. Now, as an adult, she is a dedicated SW fan, and she still holds that opinion. She considers the PT be be more of a fun lighter hearted trilogy, and the OT are somewhat darker and more adult oriented films dealing with far more emotional and personal themes.

I get the dislike you and many others have for the PT, and I believe that many of the reasons for this dislike are not without merit. I like the prequels, but perfect they were not. I still enjoy the films despite their faults. Others don't, and I have absolutely no problem with that view.

However, I do have to respectfully disagree with your opinion that the PT harms people's enjoyment of the other films, because that was certainly not the case with my daughter.

Some folks like the prequels, and some don't. To each his own.

 

We need to protect our children from the prequels

Seriously though I view the prequels as entertaining enough, but personally I don't feel they come anywhere near the MASTER TRILOGY.

Nostalgia, really?? I was 8 when I saw The Phantom Menace, and recognized it didn't come anywhere near the originals by the time Jar Jar showed up.

My childhood then ended abruptly when Jar Jar stepped in the poodoo.

3/10 would not watch again

Ending duel is cool though.

 

That reminds me of something really funny.

My daughter and I were talking about TPM on the way home from the theater, and I asked her which character she liked the most.
Not surprisingly, she said she liked Padme.

She really loved the movie, with one exception-

When I asked her what she thought of Jar Jar, she frowned and said "That double laser sword guy should have taken care of him".

 

Wow. So you're a millennial, huh? I would expect a different opinion from you regarding the PT simply by your generation (which I'm a part of as well as I'm 28) as it seems that millenials (and younger millenials) seem to embrace the PT more so than older generations (as the PT did bring in more fans into the Star Wars fan world, particularly the youth and millenials do seem to embrace all 6 Star Wars movies in general). Maybe you're lying to yourself about the PT and/or someone in your life made you feel bad for liking the PT. That said, it's cool if you have favorites (we all have our top ones).



I hesitated to state that you're a PT hater/basher since you don't seem to totally come off that way, but for those that are, I like to classify them in the following way (they fall in one or more of these categories):

1. Those that saw the OT during their original theatrical releases in 1977, 1980, and 1983 and have been blinded by their misguided feeling of nostalgia like they think they are experts on what Star Wars should be (I consider these folks old grumpy geezers).

2. Hipsters/modern beatniks/so-called hippies that like to go against what's popular and feel that they are God's greatest gift to the art world. They think vintage is a cool and trendy style and they like to talk like they are figures of authority in the world of fine arts and cinema but are really pretentious d-bags who nobody important really gives a crap about (nor care on what they have to say) yet they like to claim that prominent folks pay attention to them.

3. People that just like to troll on the Internet just to rile people up. They like to get satisfaction from the reactions from people who like the PT simply because trolling is a popular thing to do nowadays. It's an unfortunate sad trend that says a lot about how pathetic a PT hater/bashers life is.

4. People that did like the PT at one point but someone from a category above forced their opinions on them and made them feel bad for liking the PT because they were weak and lacked confidence.

That's it!

[this only applies for those that are PT haters/bashers so if you're not one, this doesn't apply to you]

To continue this train of though :

3. If you don't allow for your kids to see the PT, this could come back and haunt you later on. Your kids will probably stumble upon it and watch them and then ask you why you didn't show them those 3 movies as well. I can somewhat understand holding off on showing them ROTS due to it being PG-13 and being a bit more violent and dark, but you get my drift.

4. If you're just introducing a child to the world of Star Wars, I would suggest doing it in chronological order. That way, they are growing along with the movies as the movies' psychological aspects and deep themes get sophisticated from one to the other.

 

Your Daughter knows best!

 

I'am a mix of this three sentences. (points)
To which new category I belong to?

 

Most importantly, all 6 are Lucas's vision of Star Wars and it's good for your child to get the overall big pictured of the saga, from beginning to end of the Anakin/Luke Skywalker story (from finding Anakin, to him turning to the dark side becoming Vader, to his son Luke embarking on the journey in become a Jedi, to him redeeming his father back to the Light side at the end).

Afterwards, they can choose which one is their favorite and rank the rest.

 

I'm not condoning these films, they are not great films, they are not even good films. They are mildly entertaining films and Star Wars should be so much more than that.
Lucas had brilliant ideas when he come up with Star Wars and much of the Indiana Jones films, he used every convention in the book to make the stories and characters exciting to us.. but it seems that he gave up with the prequels, it felt to me like they were written by a very tired and bored George.

The Phantom Menace was a fun kids movie with a couple of cool scenes and characters, Jar Jar was a ballsy move.. but that character bombed harder than the Death Star. Attack Of The Clones was an attempt at being more artistic but failing once all the CGI mayhem took place, and it went way overboard with the fan service. III was just a fairly entertaining blockbuster with some original trilogy imagery thrown in, but it loses its appeal once you rewatch it, it gets worse and worse with each watch.

Anyhow.. I put the prequels on the same level as the first Spiderman trilogy. Fun every now and then, mildly entertaining if you're flipping through the channels; but far from great.

Star Wars should always be great, and it wasn't just that the prequels weren't good enough.. but I feel George didn't try hard enough with his execution. Jar Jar should have been scrapped, little kid Anakin should have been scrapped. The Phantom Menace lowered the standards, it aimed at children, it didn't have a family quality to it. The kids had fun while the parents cringed at Jar Jar. A New Hope was fun for the whole family, it even had an art-house quality to it which I feel was lost starting with Empire.. but that didn't stop Empire from being awesome, I need more than two hands to count the amount of mindblowing things that happen in that film.

- Luke's encounter with the Wampa, using force grab for the first time
- The appearance of Obi Wan in ghost form
- Han Solo uses a lightsaber!
- Everything that happens in the Hoth battle
- Everything that happens on Dagobah
- Asteroid sequence and the asteroid monster
- Han and Leia romance
- Luke/Vader duel
- I am your father
- Luke's hand gets wacked
- Han Solo put in carbonite WTF
- Boba Fett
- Lando
- The Emperor, who the hell is that guy?

etc etc..

Now Attack Of The Clones...

The assassin chase through Coruscant was fun though.

Anyway, according to your logic, anyone who openly voices their dislike for the prequels is either:
1. Pretentious
2. Stupid
3. Weak
4. A troll

...and here we come to the final aspect of why I dislike the prequels, every prequel fan I encounter is unreasonable, they make personal attacks on those who don't like what they like, and say silly things like the quote above.

If someone was like "The original films are terrible!!" i'd ask them why, i'd say I disagree.. I'd jokingly tell them to jump into a Sarlacc pit, but I wouldn't start labeling them with insults.

 

The Prequels made me realize I was unduly harsh and had to reassess my venomous criticism of Star Trek V (1989).

I'm sorry Star Trek V.

 

1. I will defend the PT just as you would defend the OT. And for the record, I like both the PT and OT. Yeah, there were some flaws (and the OT had some as well) but that doesn't make them completely bad movies at all; saying things like "Star Wars should always be greatl" makes it sounds like they should all be completely perfect and flawless but realistically, we know that that's not the case, but that is far from saying that anything not perfect and flawless is bad and terrible (don't take things too seriously bro; yeah, Star Wars is great but there's more to life than just Star Wars). And it's funny how you state "and here we come to the final aspect of why I dislike the prequels, every prequel fan I encounter is unreasonable, they make personal attacks on those who don't like what they like" because the same thing can be stated about certain OT fans as well.

2. Sorry if my classification system sounds harsh but yeah, it's an unfortunate realization.

3. This classification listing only applies to those that are downright PT haters/bashers - those that declare the PT downright terrible/terrible/bad, those that state things like "I don't consider the PT as part of Star Wars", "the PT doesn't exist for me", etc. and/or makes others feel bad for liking the PT, so on and so forth - so if one doesn't consider themselves a PT basher based on how I described as such, then one shouldn't worry about it. These are the ones that I can't take seriously as the Star Wars fans they claim to be. And for the record, they are in the minority; they're just very loud and vocal on the Internet.

4. There's a reason why Lucasfilms was bought for $4 billion and it wasn't just because of the OT's worth and related material. Face it, the PT brought in a new set of demographics and a new generation of fans and everything that makes Star Wars, OT, PT, etc. makes up for the valuation of what LFL was worth when it was bought by Disney.

 

One of the most hilarious things I have ever heard is a guy I know who talks about how his kids have only seen the prequels 6 times so far but have watch the OT dozens of times.

Now I don't know how much that comes from him pushing things on the kids or them playing to their dad or whatever but the point is that they have seen them at least 6 times each or more and at that rate will keep seeing them over whether it's once a year or whatever.

So they are under 10 now. By the time they are 15 it's going to be well over a dozen times. So he is proud that they have seen the prequels ONLY more than just about 99% of the population watches ANY one movie of anything.

Most of the non-fans I know have maybe seen each Star Wars film a few times at most over decades.

Sometimes you need a sense of proportion.

 

Over the past two weeks, I have recieved dislike ratings on a daily basis from two-three members who frequent this section of The Cantina. Every opportunity they get, on any post I make which even has a hint of pessimism.. They will give it a negative rating. I am now 4th on the most disliked users, purely because we had a disagreement on the prequels.

If this happens to you, report them instantly. The pathetic behavior from these prequel fanboys needs to be stamped out.

 

Yep my six year old burned out my vcr at the time rewinding to that scene again & again &.....you get the idea.