Poll: Independent of the original trilogy. Are the second and third Star Wars movies bad films?

[Something Amyss]

ROTS was pretty okay. I mean, it's not a glowing endorsement, but it's still decent.

AotC is pretty bad, though. I think there are some decent elements that could have made for a good movie, but is it good? No.

 

[Jadak]

Ah, I voted no, but only because I misunderstood the question.

I thought we were going to talk about if Empire Strikes Back or Return of The Jedi could be considered good movies outside the context of being in a trilogy. Bit of an odd question, but less than the presumably rhetorical question of whether 2 and 3 are shit.

Still, all things considered, ROTS does have it's moments, but that just makes it a bad movie with some good sequences, not good movie.

Edit: Actually, association with the original trilogy is the only thing that makes any of them even a little bit good. Seeing the extermination of the Jedi, Palpatine's manipulative rise to power and the foundation of the Empire are all worthwhile even if they are buried under a layer of shit. Out of context, all of that would have less meaning.

 

[Mangod]

Ordinarily I'd be in total agreement on the point about Christensen, but I do have to admit that Doug Walker gave a good defense of it in his list of good things from the Prequel Trilogy.[footnote]If anyone wants to jump to it, it's #6, at around 7:15 in the video[/footnote]. It's a bad and bland performance on the whole, but that's true for most of the actors in these films - even Samuel L. Jackson and Christopher Lee give wooden performances[footnote]Though Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid largely did wonderful with theirs[/footnote] - and consequentially the results seem better attributed to bad direction and a bad script than the actor's actual ability.

I was just about to say the same thing. Honestly, it's really hard to judge acting ability based on the prequels, because of how wooden everyone who isn't Ewan McGregor or Ian McDiarmid is. If you'd never seen any of the actors in anything else previously, you'd assume that Samuel L. Jackson and Christopher Lee were terrible actors.

As for the prequels themselves... I can't really disassociate them from the original trilogy, which might disqualify my oppinion, but I still think that the problems they suffer from in terms of storytelling preclude them from being called "good".

 

[StatusNil]

Ah, I voted no, but only because I misunderstood the question.

I thought we were going to talk about if Empire Strikes Back or Return of The Jedi could be considered good movies outside the context of being in a trilogy. Bit of an odd question, but kess than the presumably rhetorical question of whether 2 and 3 are shit.

Well, I'm happy I'm not the only one who made that mistake.

From what I can recall, the second and third prequels certainly weren't any good. In fact, my dominant memory of Episode II is most people in the theater laughing out loud at Anakin's angsty emoting like it was a comedy.

I should probably refresh my memory one of these days, seeing as I currently have them on the ol' DVR apparatus. Yet I feel an odd reluctance in The Force.

 

[happyninja42]

Eh, they're not great films. And since your question specifically tells us to consider them without the baggage of the original trilogy, and just look at them on their own....they're an ok trilogy. Not the best story I've ever seen, but nowhere near the worst sci fi story I've seen, not by a long shot.

I don't hate them, but I don't really like them as a whole. They have moments in them that I find amusing, or enjoyable, but as a complete work, they've got more negatives for me than positives.

 

[Pyrian]

I thought we were going to talk about if Empire Strikes Back or Return of The Jedi could be considered good movies outside the context of being in a trilogy.

Interesting. ESB is the better movie, but I think it would suffer more from being removed from the trilogy. It's like, you can forgive almost any lack of setup. Indeed, many writing workshops talk extensively about starting as late in the story as possible. For example, the original trilogy skipped the entire prequel trilogy, and was better for it (what with the prequels involving many spoilers for the original trilogy). ANH and RoTJ both work fairly well as standalone stories. But ESB as a standalone commits the otherwise unforgivable sin of failing to conclude... It leaves way too much of its own plot hanging to work by itself.

 

[09philj]

Episode III is fairly meh. Not bad, not great, has good elements (Final confrontation) and bad (Grievous). I actually think Episode II is worse than Episode I. Ewan McGregor tries his best throughout the films, and Ian McDiarmid's transition of his performance from a bit bland to trying to devour the scenery was good. The rest... eeeeh.

 

[Casual Shinji]

They're bad simply due to being badly directed. Even if the script and acting was good, it's still mainly talking heads and walking in front of a fuzzy green screen, with goofy, cartoony action sequences.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

No. The prequel trilogy are not bad films. Original trilogy has flaws. Prequel trilogy has flaws. Neither really has an edge on the other.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

No. The prequel trilogy are not bad films. Original trilogy has flaws. Prequel trilogy has flaws. Neither really has an edge on the other.

You know a lot can be said for personal taste, but I don't get this stance at all. The prequel trilogy movies are objectively bad, they have poor writing in both plot and dialogue, the direction is awful, the pacing is terrible, and they let the CGI get in the way of decent performances. Honestly, there are good parts of all three movies, but those parts alone are good and don't stop the movies as complete packages from being bad. On the other hand the original trilogy is composed of three good movies, that have a few bad parts, which don't stop the movies from being good as complete movies. The prequel trilogy fails on a bunch of fundamental levels preventing them from being good movies, while being bad in ways that prevent them from being in the category of "so bad it's good".

 

[Ambient_Malice]

No. The prequel trilogy are not bad films. Original trilogy has flaws. Prequel trilogy has flaws. Neither really has an edge on the other.

You know a lot can be said for personal taste, but I don't get this stance at all. The prequel trilogy movies are objectively bad, they have poor writing in both plot and dialogue, the direction is awful, the pacing is terrible, and they let the CGI get in the way of decent performances. Honestly, there are good parts of all three movies, but those parts alone are good and don't stop the movies as complete packages from being bad. On the other hand the original trilogy is composed of three good movies, that have a few bad parts, which don't stop the movies from being good as complete movies. The prequel trilogy fails on a bunch of fundamental levels preventing them from being good movies, while being bad in ways that prevent them from being in the category of "so bad it's good".

The original trilogy have patches of poor writing, hammy performances ("I am your father" is more cringey than anything in the prequels), and The Empire Strikes Back is a poorly paced film that drags on way too long. The Trade Federation stuff may be dry, but at least it made some kind of sense. Original Trilogy can't make its mind up about what role Darth Vader plays and how the Empire actually "works".

The prequel trilogy has superior visual effects with far better model work. Their primary fault is they violate "show, don't tell", but the prequel trilogy was guilty of this, too. We never actually saw the death star plans being stolen, for example. Most of Luke's training is missing. We get TOLD about Luke's father in Star Wars instead of being shown him. (Remember that "I AM YOUR FATHER" wasn't even written at this point.)

 

[Thaluikhain]

What was wrong with American Werewolf in Paris? That was more wrong that the SW prequels, that is?

I thought we were going to talk about if Empire Strikes Back or Return of The Jedi could be considered good movies outside the context of being in a trilogy.

Hmmm...that's an interesting question, have to think about that.

 

[FPLOON]

The only good thing about those two movies was how they were translated in the LEGO Star Wars games... and that's not saying much...

Other than that, they're kinda pretty to look at... yet, for the life of me, I can't remember shit about them outside of LEGO Star Wars...

 

[BloatedGuppy]

There are sixteen people so far voting in this thread that I'd like to identify themselves, so I can disregard any film advice they might offer me over the coming years.

 

[GalanDun]

First and second? no. Third? Certainly. Episode III is the worst of the bunch.

 

[Flames66]

I only want to see someone try to defend them.

Also I don't post first in polls I make, just a personal habit.

If you are talking about the prequels, as most replies seem to be assuming, yes.

If, as I read the poll, you are talking about Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, no. Empire is one of my favourite films of all time and the final Luke vs Vader fight in ROTJ is one of the best scenes ever filmed.

You really need to be clearer about what the fuck you want to discuss.

 

[CeeBod]

The original trilogy gave us The Force - a mystical spiritual power that is latent in all living things, that has almost boundless potential to those that can weild it. A wonderfully evocative and powerful idea, that makes Jedi a form of warrior monk, and makes the nobility of their intentions more important than the power of their sword arm. It's also great wish fulfilment fodder - who didn't want to be a Jedi after watching the original trilogy?

The 2nd trilogy then replaced the mystery and wonder of the Force with Midichlorians, managing to turn an awesome idea into a question about blood-types... sorry youngling, you can't be a Jedi unless your blood tests as AB RhD positive.

Even if they were truly great films on an individual basis (spoiler - much closer to shit than great!) I would still consider them to be a complete abomination for this one utterly moronic idea. It was as if a million voices suddenly cried out "What the hell were you thinking George Lucas?" in terror and went suddenly silent.

 

[irishda]

The second prequel movie is bad. The second original movie is good. The third prequel movie is mostly good. The third original movie is decent.

But what the Star Wars fandom doesn't like to admit is how incredibly close these movies are to each other in terms of being good and bad.

If Attack of the Clones has better actors than Hayden and Natalie Portman (I don't know if she got better as an actress or just went with better roles) to compliment Sam Jackson, Christopher Lee, and Ewan McGregor, suddenly this movie is about on the same level as the others. If Revenge of the Sith removes "From my point of view...", "Only a Sith deals in absolutes", and "NOOOOO!" suddenly that's the best movie in the whole series.

As for the originals, they're saved from mediocrity by being the first technically proficient space opera. Mark Hamill's a good actor NOW, but back then he was only barely more human than Hayden Christensen, and Carrie Fisher wasn't much better either. There's a reason Harrison Ford and James Earl Jones became the two biggest stars out of the trilogy (although the Emperor is pretty dope as well and had a good journeyman career). Movie specific, Empire Strikes Back is weighed down by irrelevant subplots (Luke and the Wampa, 3P0 in Cloud city, Asteroid monster) and Return of the Jedi has Ewoks, the same wooden dialogue from everyone not named Vader, Solo, or Lando, and the Vader turn for no real reason unless you buy into Anakin's "Balance to the Force" theory.

Star Wars has bad movies and good movies throughout, but it's a thin red line that separates them

 

[Loonyyy]

Yes. I don't subscribe to the view that the prequels are the worst thing ever, but they're not as good as the originals. Some people put Revenge at the top of the list of the prequels.

I'm going to agree with a few people in the thread and put it last.

It's the worst. The action scene at the start makes no sense, the thing is filled with shitty comedy with no timing, that undermines any tone, with ridiculously poor timing on the editing. "We're smarter than this". This continues for the entire film. That's all that Grievous does. Grievous only matters if you followed the EU Clone Wars stuff, and like half of that was fucking comics, and the other half was novels. Really?

The whole thing takes far too long, and makes the jedi look like chumps, and Palpatine's plan to wipe them out way OTT.

AOTC is pretty poor too, but that at least has some cool visuals and fight scenes. Just pretend that Anakin on Naboo never happened, same with any of the scenes where he loses his lightsaber. Like, just block your ears and close your eyes when Christenson is on screen.

 

[cleric of the order]

No matter what we can say about the prequels, clone wars gave us republic commandos and as a whole they gave us extra factions in battlefront.
They ain't all bad
Also those Gendy tartakovsky clonewars animations.
Those were bitching
get hype