Whats so bad about the Star Wars Prequels?

[The Madman]

Add to that the fact that, if your the kind of person that gets really analytical when you watch movies, the prequels have some bad scripts, pacing, characterizations, and all that other fluff.

You don't have to analytical to see the prequels are bad movies, I mean holy exposition batman, even a child could see when dialogue is that stilted and awkward. It's genuinely terrible. Then there's the over-abundance of cheesy CGI and reliance on 'ooo cool' factors to try and compensate for a complete lack of any emotional weight.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The posters above have mentioned some critical analyses of the prequels and the one about the Phantom Menace is quite good. The second is adequate. The third is nothing more than a guy griping and moaning and groaning. Literally.

It took years for people to start getting past their fanboy gripes, and there are many who live for condemning the prequels. You've probably noticed that already.

Yeah, I'm tired of this "butthurt fanboy" narrative the 5 people who enjoyed the prequels drag out of the closet and beat for effect as a hand-wave to all the criticism the films got. I'm not really a sci-fi film wonk. I think most of them are passing bad, including 1.5 of the original trilogy. I didn't grow up a "huge Star Wars fan", and I'm not grinding an axe because Lucas pillaged my childhood. I just see three terrible movies, badly made, and a massive squandered opportunity.

It's fantastic that you like them. I like a lot of bad things too. I wish I could like everything. But they're more or less beyond redemption, from a quality standpoint.

 

[HardkorSB]

So let me start by saying I'm a younger gent and my first Star Wars movie was The Phantom Menace. Which I loved at the time.

So onto the question. What makes the prequels bad? I really wanna know. I can understand Attack of the Clones because that movie suffered plot dragging like no tomorrow and I understand Jar Jar in the Phantom Menace being despised so much, but then again he is a children's character. But can someone explain to me why they are so bad. I loved the Revenge of the Sith, in fact it is tied with Return of the Jedi (holy shit just noticed the similar title) for my favorite. But the main question is what make the prequels bad in so many people's eyes.

Note:If all you are going to say is opinions, I understand that I want answers though, I fail to see what makes them so terrible to some people.

I just watched it yesterday as a part of a bad movie night, actually. Now, I don't really care for destroying the original trilogy, I can even skip continuity issues and dumb plot as long as the movie is entertaining but here's a few things:

- characters lack life and personality
- the acting is terrible (especially Jake Lloyd and Natalie Portman)
- the camera work is lifeless, everything is shot in the most basic of ways, no creative angles, no creative editing, no creative anything
- the dialogue parts are sooo boring, conversations spoken in monotone voices (people in this movie act as if the didn't want to be there) about political issues that you aren't properly introduced to and won't care about 5 minutes later
- the racism is all over the movie (and what's sad is that it's probably unintentional)

So, in short:
Monotone and boring.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

the acting is terrible (especially Jake Lloyd and Natalie Portman

Portman, Neeson, McGregor, Jackson...a lot of fantastic actors in those prequels, turning in unarguably the worst performances of their careers across the board. That's on the director.

Even poor Jake Lloyd, who couldn't act his way out of a paper bag if Jingle All The Way is any indication, hadn't a prayer with Lucas directing. Some directors can coax Oscar winning performances out of their stars. Others have them stare pensively at CGI marker and intone ball crushingly awful dialogue.

 

[Kolby Jack]

The prequels weren't very good movies (except for the lightsaber fights, Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, and Samuel L. Jackson), but I don't find them offensive. The story as a whole actually ties together nicely and probably would have been better received if it had been done by someone better at making movies. The problem was the mediocre-to-bad writing, some of the pacing, and the terrible acting of Hayden Christensen.

However, I still LIKE the prequels because I like the story behind it. I can ignore many of the faults of the movie simply because the overarching narrative is still interesting to me. If I didn't like the storyline, I couldn't like The Clone Wars even though it's a GREAT show. Luckily I do like it.

Not to mention the backstory just makes the movies even better. I know Star Wars canon is kind of insane, but even though I never play Dark Side in any Star Wars game I play, I do find the Sith very compelling as villains, and a large part of this is because of the rule of two. Fact is, the Sith CAN'T beat the Jedi in open conflict. They never have and they never will. The movies, and the works contained within their timeline, show exactly why the rule of two exists, its ultimate success, and eventually its ultimate failure. Sure, the scope of the Emporer's powers is just as insanely convoluted as the canon, but he's still the most successful Sith ever largely due to the existence of the Rule of Two.

Hm... got a bit off-track there, but yea, long story short, I like the story of the prequels, but I do agree with the consensus that they are bad movies. Maybe in a couple of decades (or sooner?) we'll have someone remake the whole thing, but better... hopefully.

 

[Casual Shinji]

In a nutshell, George Lucas is a bad writer and director, but everyone around him is too scared to call him on it.

I could list every single issue with the prequels in a giant list, but George's lack of quality as a filmmaker is the source of everything.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Note:If all you are going to say is opinions, I understand that I want answers though, I fail to see what makes them so terrible to some people.

Dude, really, we can hardly give you anything BUT opinions. Any parts of those films we can point out that were bad, you could potentially counter with "but I liked those" and boom, it's a matter of opinion again.

But seriously, the films are fucking dreadful. The characters are flat, boring and stupid. The cinematography is uninspired and lifeless (ENOUGH with the people either sitting around talking or walking down a corridor and talking). The plot is outright moronic in many, many places. And worst of all, it took the single most iconic villain in the history of cinema and made him a character you can NEVER take seriously again. Darth Vader was an epic-level badass. Anakin Skywalker is a joke.

I will just join with anyone who already said 'Red Letter Media'. The three prequel trilogy reviews there basically explain, in HILARIOUS detail, every single thing that makes them suck titanic balls. You know he knows what he's talking about when, early in the Phantom Menace review, he asks various people to describe (WITHOUT referencing their appearance, job, role in the plot, or actions) Han Solo and C3PO and then Qui-Gon Jinn and Queen Amidala. The people were able to come up with a boatload of descriptives for the original trilogy characters, but were barely able to come up with a single adjective to describe the prequel characters, so flat and lifeless were they. You should watch them. [http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/] Not only are they extremely enlightening, but they're also hilariously entertaining.

 

[VoidWanderer]

For me, as a huge fan of Lore, the 'reason' for being able to use the Force... Midi-Chlorians. In theory you could 'cure' the Force by killing these microscopic things in our blood. That is my main bug-bear about the prequels.

Secondly, Anakin as a character and the obvious lack of training he had. This kid, was able to build c3-po from spare parts... This slave kid was builting an incredibly advanced protocol droid, while building his own pod racer as well as racing the damn thing... as a SLAVE!?!? Does George even know what slave means? This kid had so much freedom he built an escape vehicle! This kid was had the crusiest 'job' in the damned galaxy. Yes, you could argue that this kid was 'ordered' to biuld it, but seriously, does this kid even sleep?

Anakin is the worst character in the prequels. The other thing is how is the wisest of the wise fail to understand that 'balance' doesn't mean we destroy our opposing force. How could they not se that Anakin was going to instrumental in destroying the Jedi Order so that the Sith, who have operated in the shadows for decades, if not centuries, could operate in the spotlight.

 

[Piorn]

I just find it sad that the old films looked more "real" than the new ones.

And I really didn't care what happened to the characters in the prequels. Anakin was a kid and an asshole all the time, so why should I care what happens to him?

 

[xPixelatedx]

Note:If all you are going to say is opinions, I understand that I want answers though, I fail to see what makes them so terrible to some people.

Watch the red Letter Media reviews, as others have said.

They explain why these were terrible movies from both the perspective of storytelling and movie making.

 

[EeviStev]

shnip

Yeah, there are some Mr. Plinkett reviews on RedLetterMedia that do a great job of explaining all the myriad faults the prequels have. They're long (movie length, in fact), but thorough. Go watch 'em.

Just be warned that they are in no way Safe For Work. Brace yourself for some disturbing depictions of imprisonment, psychotic rage and cat-fucking, or get ready to pause the moment the video cuts away from the Star Wars discussion.

 

[Galletea]

The scripts are lousy. Most other things -like jar jar for instance- could have worked if he had better lines.

 

[Elfgore]

Note:If all you are going to say is opinions, I understand that I want answers though, I fail to see what makes them so terrible to some people.

Dude, really, we can hardly give you anything BUT opinions. Any parts of those films we can point out that were bad, you could potentially counter with "but I liked those" and boom, it's a matter of opinion again.

But seriously, the films are fucking dreadful. The characters are flat, boring and stupid. The cinematography is uninspired and lifeless (ENOUGH with the people either sitting around talking or walking down a corridor and talking). The plot is outright moronic in many, many places. And worst of all, it took the single most iconic villain in the history of cinema and made him a character you can NEVER take seriously again. Darth Vader was an epic-level badass. Anakin Skywalker is a joke.

I will just join with anyone who already said 'Red Letter Media'. The three prequel trilogy reviews there basically explain, in HILARIOUS detail, every single thing that makes them suck titanic balls. You know he knows what he's talking about when, early in the Phantom Menace review, he asks various people to describe (WITHOUT referencing their appearance, job, role in the plot, or actions) Han Solo and C3PO and then Qui-Gon Jinn and Queen Amidala. The people were able to come up with a boatload of descriptives for the original trilogy characters, but were barely able to come up with a single adjective to describe the prequel characters, so flat and lifeless were they. You should watch them. [http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/] Not only are they extremely enlightening, but they're also hilariously entertaining.

By opinions I mean someone just putting "Dude people have other opinions in this world" and contribute nothing to the conversation at all.

And going by popular demand I will have to check out this Red Letter Media.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

They kind of lose the sense of fun that the original movies had- there's way too much political talk that I've never heard a SINGLE person say they enjoy, and the over-use of CGI is another big problem.
Films with political sub-plots can be interesting, but Lucas' dialogue for these segments in the prequels is so dry and dull it can make an entire theatre's worth of movie-goers start squirming in their seats and fidgeting.
CGI isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can become irritating when used too much- the prequels often feel extremely sterile and bland because of how many scenes were shot on green screen.
They're just two problems, but they're at least my two biggest problems with the prequel trilogy.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Plenty of people have already made the points I'd like to make, so I won't reiterate those. What I will add though is that one of the things with the prequels that irked me is how much they showed off the lightsaber at every given opportunity. Yes, it's a prequel to a time when Jedis were more common so one would expect to see more of it. However, they're brought out so often that the spectacle of just seeing them in action quickly starts getting diminishing returns from me. As other people have mentioned, the lack of emotional context to most of these lightsaber fights also detracts from the action scenes and results in very little tension with their inevitable conclusion. The overuse of green scenes as backdrops further detracts from the experience because they both limit the size of the environment that the actors can interact with as well as look incredibly fake as the scenes drag on. Other films like Sin City and Avatar have used them to create stylistic scenes or alien worlds, but the more realistic and boring settings the prequels have chosen (i.e. the ridiculous amount of walking down a hallway or talking in a room with a couch scenes) have robbed the fight scenes of some really memorable backdrops outside of perhaps 2 (the energy core in Phantom and the arena in Clones). So with little emotional investment, unmemorable environments, and the spectacle of the lightsaber run into the ground, the only thing I can draw from the fight scenes are their choreography. Even then, they are so obviously choreographed and telegraphed that they fail to hold my interest after they begin and before they end.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Midichlorians, Jar Jar, horribly accented brat for Anakin and the whole "pristine birth" thing, Queen Amidala, killing off the interesting villain, so much was dreadful.

 

[Images]

Midichlorians took a magical and wonderful force flowing through the universe and turned into an argument for genetic superiority.

George Lucas cannot write dialogue any more

George Lucas could only direct dialogue scenes one way over and over aqgain

MOAR ACTION does not equal better action

The villain's scheme makes no sense. No, not that I didn't get what he was doing but that it was completely illogical.

The love story is awful and disturbing

It contradicts not just minor unimportant trivia but major canon in the existing story, for the worse.

Its a completely unfocused mess

 

[Thaluikhain]

IMHO, the prequels didn't get anything right. Now, all movies have flaws, good movies give you something to make up for that.

The prequels got everything wrong.

The acting was rubbish. Not in a campy way, but in a just bad way.
The characters were rubbish. The best of them were merely boring and forgettable, the ones that were memorable were so because they were painful to watch.
The story was rubbish. It was lots of boring drivel for the purpose of linking cameos together.

I cannot think of a single good scene in the prequels. There might be ones that are tolerable, but none that are actually any good.

 

[bandit0802]

I'd say they were good ideas with bad execution. I can see that they have a place in the saga, but they were badly-written (especially Clones), Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen were terrible choices for Anakin. I refuse to believe they couldn't have found better choices for that character. They found Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, and Ewan McGregor, didn't they?

Apart from those aspects, I actually enjoyed the movies. Except Clones. God, that was awful.

For the record:
1. Empire
2. Jedi
3. Hope
4. Sith
5. Phantom
6. Clones

I want The Clone Wars, movies and tv show, erased from existence. The game by Pandemic can stay.

 

[Kellogs Fried Chickn]

I was painfully aware of marketing at that age and the PM just felt like a serialized toy commercial leaving me dazed and regretful afterwards. I think i went home and reinstalled Day of the Tentacle to comfort my soul, biology afterwards.