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

[Gaiseric]

Too clean, too much CGI, Jar-Jar, too choreographed, Anakin wasn't interesting, and the Confederation doesn't compare to the Empire as baddies.

 

[snagli]

I never understood what's so bad about them. I thought they were neat, just not in the same league of 4-5-6. I mean, 4-5-6 was a scifi epic, while 1-2-3 was more an action focused series.

Sure, Jar Jar was annoying and the love story between Padme and Anikin was retarded, But I loved the action scenes.

 

[JesterRaiin]

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

That old fart that steered prequels in all directions at once instead of mantaining continuity. I'm not sure about his name. Yuhas ? Kutas ? Lucas ?

 

[lucky_sharm]

I seriously suggest you go watch the 'RedLetterMedia' reviews to see exactly what ruined these movies.

This comment is aimed both at people who defend these movies and anyone who just isn't sure.

The reviews are longer then the movies themselves haha.

How about no? Furstoval, I'm not going to watch a review longer than the movie it is reviewing, and secondly, why can't people accept that some people, myself included, liked the prequels despite them focusing more on explosions than exposition?!

A) The review itself is quite entertaining and fun to watch.

B) Brings up some very valid points.

C) Sums up most of the prequels flaws in general.

The flaws being an inconsistent tone, the lack of a relatable, well developed protagonist, wooden overly choreographed sword battles, fake plastic CGI backgrounds, very poor script and direction, terribly uneventful dialogue scenes, and the inability to engage the audience at an emotional level.

 

[Veylon]

I think Episode I needs to be separated from II and III. The Phantom Menace was a movie that lacked a story. The plot never really cohered and just meandered by, handing the idiot ball to one character after another. The heroes and villains alike were completely lacking in any substance. The Trade Federation failed to be threatening, the Jedi failed to be wise, and the Naboo situation had no gravitas to it.

II and III suffered mainly due to the obsession with having one cool scene after another. We've got assassin droids, big battles, lightsaber fights, conveyor belts, all that. And yet they drag on so long without consequence they actually become boring. The Separatists continue to be unimpressive, the Jedi continue to be doltish and unsympathetic, the various villains are incredibly underwhelming.

In all of these, the actors spew dialogue that varies from mechanical to ludicrous hamminess. The final verbal confrontation between Obi-Wan and Anakin is particularly notable for its sheer absurdity. It's as though George Lucas tossed some temporary filler in and then never replaced it.

But the main millstone around the Prequels' collective neck is the plot. Every character is required to be an incompetent fool for the story to play out as it does. All the way from Nute Gunray's moronic attempted assassination of two Jedi to Obi's decision to leave Anakin alive and seeking revenge. All in service of a script barely worth the name.

 

[Seventh Actuality]

Writing and acting. I couldn't care less about midichlorians or Jar Jar Binks, but the dialogue and performances by some of the main actors ruined the whole thing. And no, they weren't stellar in the original either, but they were passable enough not to actively detract from everything else.

That said, the lightsabre fights in the prequels are ridiculously entertaining and inventive.

 

[Captain Pirate]

That's actually a really interesting perspective that I never quite considered before, but it makes sense if you think about it. I was never quite sold on the whole "Anakin-Padme" romance to begin with, as I didn't find it nearly as interesting as say, Han and Leia from the original trilogy. But you're right, it is a pretty big leap to go from using unnatural power to safe your secret wife to slaughtering basically everyone you know and grew up with.

I will say that it is possible that Anakin may have given up on trying to be good (and therefore think rationally about moral decisions) once he started down the dark path. I think he realized it after letting Windu die, that even though he began doing all of this to save Padme that there was no going back to the Jedi. And so he decided to commit to it fully without reservation (or mostly, as there is still some conflict within in him by the time of ROTJ).

I agree it is possible that Anakin just abandoned the good side, since he'd gone so far he may as well continue the dark path, but I still thought it unrealistic how sudden and dramatic the change was.

The RLM reviews [http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/] (link just in case) explain pretty much that, but there's really one thing for me which sums up just how dumb Anakin's storyline was in the prequels and it's this: Anakin wasn't seduced by the Dark Side of the force, he was tricked into becoming evil.
It's really as stupid as it sounds...
And the whole Palpatine thing was written as one giant Deus(Diabolus?) Ex Machina; Every missed opportunity by the Jedi to prevent their fall is basically handwaved with "Palpatine/The Dark Side was clouding their judgment".

And that's not even mentioning the giant character hole wherein "The boy who's been a slave with his mother all his life gets freed, becomes a Jedi and befriends a queen, never once comes back for her in 10 years". There is seriously no way in hell that you could make such a young boy just forget that his mother is still a slave in a junk shop in the desert.

This is also a good point, it does seem quite the cop-out that it's all just clouded by Palpatine.
Perhaps it would've been better if the Jedi had large suspicions all along that someone in a high power position was a member of the dark side, and they simply couldn't think how to act on it without causing a galactic political upheaval. Therefore, this could work in Anakin's 'Dark-converting' favour, as if they act upon Palpatine too late, trying to assassinate him near the end of the third film, Anakin might realise that they aren't willing to do what is necessary for peace at the right time, and therefore go to Palpatine.

I also like your point about his mother and Padme.
Perhaps, if I continue my idea about changing the prequels to Anakin being power-dependant and wanting galactic peace, then maybe she could die as a result of extreme poverty while Anakin was away training, convincing him again that if great power is used correctly, then he can end the poverty that killed his mother.

So all in all, if I re-did the prequels Anakin would, throughout the 2nd and 3rd films, occasionally be put into scenarios that either A) reinforced his belief about great power being used for good, B) have discussions with Palpatine in which Palpatine would subtly hint about the faults of the Jedi and the power of the Dark Side, or C) see the Jedi fail in a peacekeeping role, or do something that isn't in the galaxy as a whole's interests.

This just gave me another idea; perhaps at some point in Episode 3 Anakin starts a debate with Mace Windu on the policies of the Jedi, and why he thinks they should take a more active role in politics and try to use their Force powers for the good of the galaxy. The arguement gets heated, and Windu ends up insulting Anakin as 'rash, young, and reckless', prompting him to challenge him in combat. They have a duel that spreads across the Jedi Temple, culminating in the grand central hall, in which hundreds of Jedi are residing/walking about.
Windu bests Anakin, and the Jedi all seem disgusted and mutter insults and degrading comments, while Anakin tries to convince them to listen to him; that the Jedi have a responsibility to use their powers for even greater good.

This helps when Anakin sees, roughly just after the middle of the third film, Mace Windu making a violent attempt on Palpatine's life, and his pleas for a peaceful trial are ignored, this, coupled with Anakin's previous run-in with Windu and Palpatine's shared desires for galactic peace, throw him over the edge and he initiates a duel with Windu, not cutting off his hand and letting that be it, but fighting him one-on-one, all the while Palpatine urges him on.
This time, Anakin wins with the newly accepted powers of the Dark Side, and he kills Windu.

This leads to, when Palpatine declares him his new apprentice, Anakin not crying and going with it, but instead realising what he thinks must be done.
Order 66 is executed, and Anakin goes along to the Jedi temple. Here we see him and the 501st Legion massacre the Jedi, and Anakin displaying his newly acquired powers. We do not see him killing the younglings, and it is instead implied that they are brought under Palpatine's wing, to serve as his future Imperial Personal Guard.

The rest of the film plays out as normal, as I'm not saying Anakin shouldn't have the relationship with Padme, after all, how would Luke and Leia be created, but that it shouldn't be central. Therefore, instead of him murdering her in a moment of total insanity, she simply hides in the ship, and when Obi-Wan returns she assumes the worst, as he does, and they go to Polis Massa where she gives birth, before dying out of having nothing to live for: Not only is her lover gone and turned to the Dark Side, but the democratic, free galaxy she fought for is soon to be under an Imperial rule.

I apologise for the rant, I just got very carried away.

 

[Bassik]

A) The review itself is quite entertaining and fun to watch.

Not really. I've seen a few minutes of it and all I got out of that was "We don't like it so you shouldn't either!"

B) Brings up some very valid points.

So does a spiked wheel.

C) Sums up most of the prequels flaws in general.

And I could pick nits with Four, Five and Six as well. So what?

Hold on, I might not care much for the Star Wars films, but Red Letter Media is awesome. Just take a look at one of those Plinkett reviews, they are extremely weird and funny and their entertainment comes not just from the nitpicking, but also a lot from the character of mister Plinkett, who is an old alcoholic murderer who happens to review crappy science fiction films.
If you like Star Wars too much for it to be criticized, at least try another one. The Avatar review was also very funny...

 

[efAston]

A kid accidentally destroying the not-death-star.

I didn't like any of that film, but that just proved to me that they didn't even have an excuse for all the garbage; it was garbage pivoting on garbage.

 

[uc.asc]

Bad acting, bad writing, massively excessive CGI for the sake of massively excessive CGI.

The plots, in general outline, could have made for worthy prequels, but what they needed was to be made with the same technology as the originals, actors that can act, and dialogue written by somebody who knows how to write dialogue. And it wouldn't hurt if somebody had bothered to direct them....

What really pisses me off is right at the end of the last prequel when there's a single shot of the interior or the blockade runner. Boom, it looks like star wars.

The original trilogy was made almost entirely with real objects and environments, and it showed. It felt real, and the result was suspension of disbelief. Most scenes in the prequels are 90% CGI, and for many people CGI can never feel real.

As an example, compare the speeder chase in episode 6 with the pod race in episode 1. Which one is better? Which one feels more real?

 

[Bassik]

To me, it wasn't the actors, nor the effects, nor the green screens, nor anything like that.
It was the way they were written, they didn't connect with me at all. I'm no big fan of star wars, but the original three films at least made sure you felled emotionally invested. You cared about what happened. In the prequels I didn't care.
The main enemies were the droids, and whenever someone fought them they went down like they were made of wet paper. That wasn't exciting.
The characters were bland and their dialogue was weird and emotionless, so that didn't help either.
I especially have a grievance with general grievous. (Sorry)

General grievous was the bad guy from the third film, but I don't even know who or what he is. Is he a robot? How did he get those lightsabers? I guess Dracula trained him in the arts of Jedi, but can a robot even learn the force? I though the force was biological now, so I guess he can't.
What were his motivations? Why did he fight the republic? But if the republic is controlled by the Emperor, then is he actually a good guy? No because we see him talking to the hologram of the Emperor.
This character came from the Clone Wars TV series, right? So they wrote him in the film as if everyone has already seen the clone wars and knows who general grievous is. But that is just such a huge flaw in the writing, it frustrated me that they had this cool villain and just wasted him because old Jorje can't write for crap.

 

[Lhianon]

for me it was that the prequels ignored most of the continuity established in the books, if you give the authors the license to write in your universe you should respect what they have written.

also, anakin and midichlorians (or however this things are called)

 

[uc.asc]

This character came from the Clone Wars TV series, right? So they wrote him in the film as if everyone has already seen the clone wars and knows who general grievous is. But that is just such a huge flaw in the writing, it frustrated me that they had this cool villain and just wasted him because old Jorje can't write for crap.

Except the movie came before the series, and the series assumed everybody knew who he was because they had seen the movie. He's sort of obnoxious so I'll admit to not paying too much attention to him, but I still have no idea what his backstory is.

 

[sedrikhcain]

It was the writing, particularly the dialogue, as someone else said. Christensen didn't do the best job in the world but there really wasn't anything he could've done to make Anakin's change seem less like it came out of nowhere, because the script just didn't give him any logical way to get there.

On top of that, the dialogue in the Padme-Anakin courtship scenes in Episode 2 is so bad it causes me physical pain to watch them. I remember the laughter in the theatre during those scenes. MAJOR cringe factor.

 

[Samus Aran but a man]

George Lucas directed it.

Also, a lack of Han Solo or a Han Solo like character.

 

[SadisticBrownie]

I actually kinda liked them. Then again, I saw them when I was young, and before the originals. The dodgy acting by Christensen and the cheesiness of the first two drag them down by a fair bit.
Aside from Christensen though, the cast was awesome. Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Christopher Lee and Samuel L. Jackson? Also, Jar-Jar wasn't bad, at least from my 7-year-old's perspective.