SPECULATION Simon Pegg: "I hate the prequels."

I knew he used to hate them but thought he might have cooled. As has probably been mentioned in this thread, he made his feeling pretty well known on the series "Spaced". Berating a kid trying to buy a Jar Jar doll, calling TPM a "jumped-up fireworks display of a toy advert", getting fired from the comic book store over it and setting fire to his Star Wars stuff like Luke's Vader-bonfire from RotJ. It was a little over the top but you could tell it came from a real-life dislike of TPM. That was before the AotC and RotS, so I never heard what he thought of them. But after all these years and the fact he worked on the new Trek films as an actor and later writer made me wonder if he was still felt the same way. Because to a lot of Trek fans (not myself, but I didn't enjoy them AS much as the old ones) those movies are worse for Trek than the PT was to Star Wars. I guess he hasn't had a change of heart though. I'm not a big PT fan myself, they don't make me angry or anything but I tend to ignore them. I've actually gotten to the point where I enjoy TPM due to nostalgia, even though it's not really part of my head canon. It was a pretty exciting time to be a Star Wars fan, for the first time since the mid-80s that Star Wars was back at the forefront of pop culture.

 

I was trying very hard to find a good GIF from Trailer Park Boys for you but I couldn't find one that probably wouldn't cross the line.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 3, 2017, Original Post Date: Jul 3, 2017 ---

Overall this hatred towards the PT has died down significantly since Disney bought Star Wars. GASP! I know it kind of flies in the face of PT apologists (those who blindly defend) but once we started getting more new Star Wars, the hate died off A LOT.

When the PT was the last Star Wars we were going to get on the big screen, yeah the hate was amplified.
Wait almost 20 years....and this is what you get and it might be the LAST thing you get...it isn't surprising why a lot of the original fan base (i.e. not kids) were miffed.

But then Disney buys the property. Now, we get new Star Wars and since those 3 films aren't the last Star Wars movies we're gonna get, they don't seem that bad.

 

Yes, the guy probably has some influence, but who cares? If you like or dislike the prequels, what does it matter what other people think?

 

Why do some fans call those who love the PT "apologists"? What the hell? I'm not an "apologist". I'm a fan of the Prequel Trilogy. Period. Just as I'm a fan of the Original Trilogy. Are those who love the OT going to be labeled as OT apologists as well?

 

From what I've seen it's increased. I think after the PT was over it was out of sight/out of mind for the majority of people who don't pay attention to Star Wars unless a new film with a new wave of hype comes along. With the approach of TFA a whole new round of PT-bashing began. Countless blogs and articles about where the PT went wrong and stuff like that. And people I know who used to like them who now deny it. It did become the popular thing to do. And while many of us didn't like them there were A LOT of people who did. The PT didn't make all that money and sell all that merch because everybody hated it. Those people are hard to find these days. While I was never that fond of the PT I do respect those "apologists" for sticking to their guns even though it wasn't the popular thing. I question their taste but not their integrity.

 

If you honestly think it's been an increase then I think you are sorely wrong.
There's been a serious thawing with them.

well considering you took it personal when nothing of the sort was intended...I think we know the answer to that.
But your hyper-defensiveness about the PT would probably qualify you as an apologist.

 

I'm not apologizing for crap. I don't think the PT requires any apology.

While I was never that fond of the PT I do respect those "apologists" for sticking to their guns even though it wasn't the popular thing.

Why bother using the phrase "apologists"? Why not simply refer to those who love the PT as "fans"?

 

The same reason people who like the ST are called defenders and those who hate anything that isn't the OT are purists.

EDIT:
And I'm going to add for further edification in the discussion, an apologist is not one who apologizes for something.

Apologist:
a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial.

Defending the PT can be seen as controversial as it is largely seen as "bad" by most critics and fans.

 

OR, maybe we've just had different experiences and noticed different things. If you can show me your data, graphs and spreadsheets which show how I'm "sorely wrong" I'd be glad to look at it. That's why I said "From what I've seen", because I noticed a whole lot of PT bashing in the past few years where before it seemed to have been mostly forgotten. Your experience isn't a universal truth anymore than mine is. There's probably a lot of both going on. I'm not even sure where your original reply came from anyway, I was talking about Simon Pegg and you started in on what feel like a rehearsed speech about PT "apologists" and what they'd have you believe. And it would appear Pegg hasn't cooled with his prequel dislike. He didn't just rate them the lowest he used the last few seconds of his minute to say "I hate the prequels".

 

My online experience with the Prequels has been much more positive in the last couple years. I see tons of click bait articles about things the Prequels did well, not to mention things like the Ring Theory and stuff like that proliferating on the internet.

Additionally, another thing that has contributed to a warmer reception towards the Prequels is The Clone Wars. After a good five years of that show fleshing out both the main characters and side characters, plus detailing tons of other things from that era, it has helped a lot of fans view the Prequel era through a much friendlier lense.

Even a lot of people who still dislike the Prequels have made peace with them and their place in the Star Wars saga at this point. I see much less seething hatred of the Prequels, both online and offline in my interactions with Star Wars fans nowadays. The extreme haters still exist of course, but I would say that their voices are much less amplified nowadays.

 

People who don't like them still won't like them but they don't "hate" them they way they used to. It's just how it works now that we have new Star Wars.
It's cyclical.

 

Fair enough. As I said there's probably a lot of both going on. I'm not sure this is something that can be generalized one way or the other. In my personal experience the ST and Rogue One seems to have created a sharper contrast between the OT/ST and PT. I get into a lot of Star Wars discussions at work because I work at Amazon and you can barely take two steps without tripping over a piece of Star Wars merchandise. In my experience the PT seems more alienated than ever as it's now sort of the oddball of the lot. That experience doesn't mean it's true the world over obviously. In my online experience it's hard to tell because the arguments about them seem to mostly be between people that have an agenda wanting to bash the "apologists" or "purists". Labels that sound like they were made up by a "purist" as it assumes the OT needs no defending (which I seem to be doing a lot of these days) and that fans of the PT or ST have to defend or apologize for their trilogies. I've never been called a purist for loving the OT, just an "old man".

The quotes were supposed to convey that I was simply using their terminology and not necessarily agreeing with it. If I were calling PT fans apologists I wouldn't have put it in quotes like that.

 

Best to worst:

1. Return of the jedi (original version)
2. The force awakens
3. The empire strikes back (any version)
4. Rogue 1
5. A new hope (original version)
6. Clone Wars pilot
7. Return of the jedi (SE/DVD)
8. A new hope (SE/DVD/Bluray)
9. Caravan of courage
10. The battle for Endor
11. Return of the jedi (Bluray/Vader noooooo-version)
12. Star Wars holiday special (as a whole, occasionally I do watch the Boba Fett-segment and would rank it slightly above the Clone Wars pilot).
13. The phantom menace (so bad it's almost good).
14. Attack of the clones
15. Revenge of the sith

 

good one m8 I almost laughed.

 

Argee Dekaa129 and jedi77-83

 

Why do people keep giving Simon Pegg acting jobs? All the films he's been in are generally rubbish. Especially the Star Trek ones.

 

I love Simon Pegg, Spaced is one of my favourite TV shows of all time and the Cornetto trilogy is my favourite none star wars or Lord of the Rings trilogy.

However I also love the prequels.... well apart from Anakin blowing up the droid control ship by accident in the Phantom Menace... that bits awful...... but apart from that i love them.