What Do You Think of the Star Wars Prequels ?

[Vince W]

In reality, the prequels (and subsequent pitiful content), are our own fault. By purchasing beta, vhs, laser-disc, dvd versions of the film, multiple copies of the soundtracks, toys, comics, magazines, books, and any other related effluvium we gave Lucas the resources to make the prequels without regard to anyone or anything. Without any sort of control or influence, we get what we got. So the next time you lament the state of Star Wars you need to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

 

[BAYLOR]

I found Rogue One to be one of the least memorable movies I've ever seen. There was nothing noteworthy about it, just... blah. I did like Solo best of all the Disney movies.

Rogue One was a pretty good film . Im curios to see how the tv series prequel is going to work out.

Solo was quite good , I wish it more successful then it was because the adventure of Han Solo would have made for a fun movie series.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Between Last Crusade (arguably his greatest film) and Phantom Menace Lucas directed one film - and it shows. We should have been forewarned with all the tinkering he did to the first three films, but the realisation that Star Wars had gone down the drain was still a shock when it came. PM is a disaster even from the opening credits, going on about a Trade Federation blockade. They were a confusing mess, and even having watched them recently for the third time (they ARE actually a bit better third time around) I'm struggling to keep up with the storyline and the zooming to different locations for the next set-piece. How is a kid meant to find any interest in trade negotiations or midicholrins?

The pod race was great, some of the battles looked amazing - in fact on Blu Ray most of the space-battles look astounding. But the storyline makes makes little sense, neither do the actions of many of the characters, the acting is poor, the scripted dialogue is utterly terrible. The dialoguie in the original trilogy isn't great, but the calibre of how it was delivered is. There is nothing to compare with Peter Cushing or Alec Guinness in the prequels, and GL got incredibly lucky finding acting gold nuggets like Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher who really carry the movie.

It's quite ironic really, because the original Star Wars was built on a budget, with minimal special effects, few top-grade actors and low expectations that it would amount to anything. The Phantom Menace is pretty much the exact opposite of that , as are the outcomes that both films received.

As for Rogue One. Well, I'm old enough to have watched the original trilogy at the movies. There is so much great stuff in there, and they are all endlessly watchable. But Rogue One is as good as them. They got the acting spot on. They got the humour spot on. The story is interesting, and the viewer realises that not every Rebel in the Star Wars uniform is a knight in shining armour. And as has been mentioned, at the end we get arguably the best 4 minutes of the whole saga. Ever wondered why Darth was so feared across the galaxy? Ever wondered what the TRUE power of the Force could do (not just throws bolts of static electricity from your palms)? This 4 minutes was the redemption for having watched 7 HOURS of prequel-trilogy Darth, and it alsmot made up for it.

 

[Parson]

A few months ago after I got Disney Plus I watched the entire Star Wars movie catalogue in numbered order 1-9, and I was surprised. I liked 1-3 a lot better than I remembered liking them. I liked 4-6 less well (the old special effects hurt it!). And 7-9 were about as I remembered feeling about them.

My take? Having no expectations for #7 in 1977 and being blown away because it was SOOOO much better than anything else back then doesn't leave you with a very true understanding of how well it was done. And #1-3 were seriously hurt originally because my/our expectations were so high, and yet we all knew what had to happen in the end.

 

[Boneman]

#7...? Presume you mean #4, in 1977?

 

[Danny McG]

This entire thread confuses me.......
There are only three Star Wars films.
End of.

 

[Parson]

#7...? Presume you mean #4, in 1977?

Exactly! 4 not 7. Sometimes I think my brain and my body are operated by different operating systems.

 

[BAYLOR]

This entire thread confuses me.......
There are only three Star Wars films.
End of.

I liked the JJ Abrams films . yes they may lacked the magic that that the original trilogy had but , they were way better those godawful prequels that Lucas did.

 

[Rodders]

I think the prequels are far superior to the sequels.

I really resent the way that the sequels overrode Lucas’s whole story about Vader bringing balance to the force. I also thought that too much was taken from the original trilogy. It became a remake. Don’t get me wrong, I find them watchable, but they aren’t great movies.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The sequels definitely did take much from the original trilogy , but tbh they're part of the same universe, so that is to be expected. The prequels were had far more originality, but when we went to the cinema to see Phantom Menace, we didn't want to see a film that bore no resemblance to the original three.

Take out lightsabre battles and mentions of The Force and for much of the time you wouldn't even realise that the prequels had any relationship to Star Wars at all. That isn't what most Star Wars fans wanted or expected.

 

[BAYLOR]

I think the prequels are far superior to the sequels.

I really resent the way that the sequels overrode Lucas’s whole story about Vader bringing balance to the force. I also thought that too much was taken from the original trilogy. It became a remake. Don’t get me wrong, I find them watchable, but they aren’t great movies.

The sequels definitely did take much from the original trilogy , but tbh they're part of the same universe, so that is to be expected. The prequels were had far more originality, but when we went to the cinema to see Phantom Menace, we didn't want to see a film that bore no resemblance to the original three.

Take out lightsabre battles and mentions of The Force and for much of the time you wouldn't even realise that the prequels had any relationship to Star Wars at all. That isn't what most Star Wars fans wanted or expected.

The real problem with the prequels was George Lucas. He did a very poor overall job with just about every aspect of these films, especially the writing . As a director, he was never great with managing actors and it really showed here because much of acting those prequel films was flat out terrible . He keep tacking on ever more grandiose special effects and fantastic scenes at the expanse of good story telling and character development . In his earlier years Lucas was constrained by studio executives and the limitations of film making technology and special effects which, he and his team had to come up with as they went. In other words. In the early years he had people who say no to him or this is bad idea and that forced him to him to emphasized story telling . Fast forward to the late 1990's , George Lucas no such limitations on him, he could do anything he wanted and, he did. Also he had stopped directing movies after Star Wars and that too showed . I think had he keep directing movie in some ways shape of form , that might made some difference in what we got.

 

[BAYLOR]

Not a great subject to bring up.

These films were a massive disappointment to me. The stories were weak and the acting ranged from the merely wooden to the sublimely abysmal. I've not seen them since they were released.

They haven't gotten better with age.

 

[Vince W]

They haven't gotten better with age.

I know many people are seeing them differently because of the Abrams films. It's like saying being hit in the head with a hammer isn't so bad after having had a boulder fall on you.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Imho the sequels are okay. Not on a par with Rogue One , but not that bad. There is some stuff in there's that's outright cringeworthy (eg Leia using The Force in space) but they were had far better direction and dialogue than the prequels. Tbh Abrams did a really good job on the Star Trek movies and I think he did as well as could be expected with the sequels. The original Star Wars movies were a unique thing - almost perfect movies. A brilliant blend of comedy, romance, sci-fi action and thriller; that's why they're still revered 40 years later. Nothing could compare to that, nothing could even come close.

In the prequels we've seen just how badly Star Wars films could have been handled; we don't get that with the sequels. Not amazing films by any stretch, but not bad films.

 

[BAYLOR]

I know many people are seeing them differently because of the Abrams films. It's like saying being hit in the head with a hammer isn't so bad after having had a boulder fall on you.

Its rather unfortunate that thye are reevaluating the Lucas prequels , because quite frankly, thye merit any kind of reevaluation, they're still junk. The Star Wars franchise would have been better served had Phantom Menace flopped at the box office. That would given Lucas pause to consider. It might connived him to lean other do the writing and directing home himself.

 

[IAmTR]

The prequels are both a cool study in world building and also a tragic study in trying to do too much imo.

I know it's not for everyone but the political spectrum was pretty cool to me. Watching the galactic Senate befall the same fate as Rome by giving too much power to the Chancellor/Emperor. Trade tensions with the CIS. Also it had many holes but were well plugged by some expanded universe books.

At the same time, they kinda lost their way. For example it's very unclear who is the main character of phantom menace which made the movie as a whole a little bit lacking in direction. I enjoyed the movie but still it wasn't the best effort. Though it had my favorite lightsaber fight in the series. I also have a problem with how Anakin's fall was portrayed. Did he have a force premonition of padme dying? If so, then we have the time travel paradox of "well if he just didn't see the future in the first place then he wouldn't have gone on the path to set that in motion. If it was a dream Palpatine gave him then I'd like that to be more clear.

Anyway, I'm glad they were made. A lot to enjoy and a lot to learn from.

 

[Night_Eternal]

I have never been a prequel hater, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. I can look past all of the faults and enjoy myself when I rewatch them. Plus I love Ewan McGregor in everything, ever since Trainspotting. He nailed the Obi Wan role enough for me to enjoy episode 2, and he did great with episode 3, along with Ian McDiarmids chilling performance as Palpatine. I didn't like the lack of character growth for Padme, though. She never felt like she reached Leia levels of badassery and coolness. She even got pretty much brushed aside after her and Anakin "fell in love". Sure, Jar Jar and sand are pretty goofy, but that's not enough to ruin them for me. Something about them is still fun, and fun is something that I've found missing from the Disney movies. Heck, I'd rather watch episode 1 with sixty extra minutes of Jar Jar being the butt of more fart jokes than a single second of the new films (though what I have seen of The Mandalorian is promising).

 

[BAYLOR]

The prequels are both a cool study in world building and also a tragic study in trying to do too much imo.

I know it's not for everyone but the political spectrum was pretty cool to me. Watching the galactic Senate befall the same fate as Rome by giving too much power to the Chancellor/Emperor. Trade tensions with the CIS. Also it had many holes but were well plugged by some expanded universe books.

At the same time, they kinda lost their way. For example it's very unclear who is the main character of phantom menace which made the movie as a whole a little bit lacking in direction. I enjoyed the movie but still it wasn't the best effort. Though it had my favorite lightsaber fight in the series. I also have a problem with how Anakin's fall was portrayed. Did he have a force premonition of padme dying? If so, then we have the time travel paradox of "well if he just didn't see the future in the first place then he wouldn't have gone on the path to set that in motion. If it was a dream Palpatine gave him then I'd like that to be more clear.

Anyway, I'm glad they were made. A lot to enjoy and a lot to learn from.

They were like the Two hour video game movie sequences .

 

[Matteo]

First one dreadful - the kid was annoying and it looked like a video game.
Second one even worse - Hayden Christensen was terrible, zero chemistry between him and Nathalie Portman, and the story...
Third, better but still only 'OK'.

I also preferred not knowing exactly why Anakin became Vader (and the reason the films showed was very weak), and liked the mystical explanation of the force.

Also I'm sure I read (many years ago) that Luca$ said he wanted to wait before doing any other Star Wars films until special effects developed enough to make the films look good. But, ironically, to my eyes the spaceships, in particular, look far more convincing in the original trilogy. I assume this is because they exist as actual objects (albeit models of course) rather than computer rendered.

 

[Vince W]

Also I'm sure I read (many years ago) that Luca$ said he wanted to wait before doing any other Star Wars films until special effects developed enough to make the films look good. But, ironically, to my eyes the spaceships, in particular, look far more convincing in the original trilogy. I assume this is because they exist as actual objects (albeit models of course) rather than computer rendered.

I'm of the same mind.