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Star Wars: Why does everyone hate the prequels?

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Kettch

Member
Episode III is only decent because it contains the impossible-to-fuck-up story line of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side. And it still got fucked up. Anakin going from a conflicted jedi to slaughtering kids in a couple scenes, because...why again? I have the high ground managing to be an even worse ending to a climactic fight than even TPM's. New mother has "lost the will to live". And so much more.

I've always argued that Episode III was actually the most disappointing of the prequels.
 
i can forgive bad acting and even a shit script. but the look and overuse of the cgi is just embarrassing.

oswuJ.jpg


that looks AWFUL.
 

Maengun1

Member
I'm not even a massive fan of the original trilogy (they're good films, but I was never OBSESSED with them. I was way more into the Indy movies as a kid), so I didn't really have the "ruined childhood" fanboy anger or whatever, but the prequels are just shitty movies all around.

- awful writing
- awful direction
- mind-bogglingly insane nonstop reliance on awful cgi
- mostly great cast of actors giving mostly awful performances (easily blamed on the 3 factors above)
- the story shits on the story of the original movies at nearly every turn. You don't have to be an obsessive fan of the OT to find that irritating.
 

jrush64

Banned
I love the prequels. Have always loved them. I prefer them to the originals except maybe Empire Strikes Back. My favorite is Revenge of the Sith.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Poorly written
Poorly acted
CG for the sake of CG

Pretty much this. They just don't have that Star Wars feel that the original three did. I can't stand to watch the prequels at all anymore, I just don't bother to try now. I still love the original three though, preferably without all the CG noise and clutter that Lucas added to the more recent versions of the films. I wish I had my THX VHS versions on discs with blu ray quality. :(
 

Bishop89

Member
Yeah but those where classics, standards have changed since the 70s, and SW was the first blockbuster Sci Fi series ever.

Just comparing the OT and the PT and saying both are bad is not enough. we should see with the new movie where the franchise goes.
The 70's had plenty of great quality scripts, quotes, writing.

How is that an excuse for the OT again?


On topic.
Phantom menace was fun, pod racing, Neeson, the music, and the end fight was great.

Aotc was pretty crap though. Only enjoyed the obi wan scenes, and music.

Revenge was great right through, besides the padme shit and the emperor fight scenes
 
Probably because they are boring unfocused bloated overworked badly written poorly directed tediously paced depressingly derivative movies without interesting or likable characters or any natural spark or sense of creative synergy which retroactively suck the good will out of a franchise that rose to prominence for being the opposite.

That sentence was better composed than the sequels.
 

Shaanyboi

Banned
Boring, nonsensical, ugly, unlikable characters, poorly written, and poorly acted.

They're bad movies. And this is without even noting how they actively cheapened so many facets of the original movies.
 
The 70's hasd plenty of great quality scripts, quotes, writing.

How is that an excuse for the OT again?


On topic.
Phantom menace was fun, pod racing, Neeson, the music, and the end fight was great.

Aotc was pretty crap though. Only enjoyed the obi wan scenes, and music.

Revenge was great right through, besides the padme shit and the emperor fight scenes
Am I the only person who can't stand the pod race scene? It drags on for far too long and the faces that the kid makes gets on my nerves. Mom...I did it.
 

Jill Sandwich

the turds of Optimus Prime
I just re-watched Ep 3 last night, and it's terrible.
tumblr_m2dgn7XYq91qzk4xzo1_500.gif


The one saving grace is Ian McDiarmid. He's the only guy who seems to get stuck into his role.
 

Kettch

Member
Just looking at how the lightsaber fights were concluded in the movies should give someone a good idea about their respective quality.

Episode I - Obi-wan, hanging on for dear life, does a huge flip over a stunned Darth Maul and gets revenge for his master. Well, probably not revenge, since a jedi wouldn't have feelings like that.

Episode II - Anakin displays his overconfidence a bit. Yoda does a bunch of flips and Darth Tyranus runs away.

Episode III - Anakin, in his arrogance, attempts to take the high ground and Obi-wan reluctantly cuts him down. Obi-wan then leaves him to die an agonizing death by burning.

Episode IV - Obi-wan sacrifices himself to become one with the force, in order to guide young Luke Skywalker on the path to becoming a jedi.

Episode V - Luke loses his hand to Darth Vader. No, I am your father. Luke despite his immaturity rejects the temptation of the dark side and instead chooses death.

Episode VI - Luke, after being pushed to anger and cutting off his father's hand, realizes what that path would lead him to and fully rejects the dark side once more. Darth Vader, unable to witness the suffering of the son who believes in him, finally finds the light inside himself and turns on the Emperor.

Hopefully Episode VII will have more to it than a simple emotion and a bunch of flips.
 
My favorite was episode 3, but I feel the prequels were extremely boring in most scenes with pointless political dialogue and everyone just standing around doing nothing. The acting and questionable dialogue was poorly done and despite being slow to get anywhere some of the things seemed very poorly paced. Also, many of the characters were crap.

Although, the prequels had better ideas or rather more interesting ones than the OT. Anakain's fall to the dark side and being a tragic hero would imo, have been very memorable and tragic. With actual world building, the impact on seeing everything crumble under control of the Empire could have been more interesting too and evoke more feelings of the Jedi purge, which was pretty powerful in some cases.

Personally, I think PT could have done a better job of expanding the universe from the smaller, simpler, but better story that was in the OT. I prefer some of the EU material and the clone wars TV show over all six of the movies. The prequels kind of tried to do the adventure and the master-student bond like it was in the OT, but that fell flat. Maybe if it was something like how Raven went into the Mandorian Wars and fell into the dark side while establishing relationships with the Jedi more it would probably would have turned out better. Also get rid of the some of fantasy tropes. It worked in OT, but not in PT( in terms of dialogue at least) .
 

Fj0823

Member
I really like them in spite if their flaws just likr I like episodes 4 and 6 in spite of theirs. Empire is pretty much perfect, just needed a little less C3P0. Clones is by far the worst of the bunch.

But overall I enjoy my time with all of them ans both trilogies were integral parts of my childhood.

I think the "hate" is mostly an internet thing. Just like the hate for Transformers or Call of Duty. In which the internet thinks they're majority when in reality they're just a very vocal minority.

I've yet to meet any raging purists here in Costa Rica. And I'm bery close to the fandom and know a lot of people in our version of the 501st legion.

In fact most people my age either favor the prequels, like them all or have never seen them. This is all anecdotal of course.

Also according to theforce.net Lucasfilm has studied the matter and concluded that most fans see the 6 movies as 1 saga. And like them all with each having their favorites of course. Hence the current push in prequel content in other media.

I'm not saying "real haters don't exist" as everyone is entitled to their opinion. All I'm saying is that outside The internet Star Wars is a revered 6 movie saga people love.
 
I can write a whole paper on their bad acting, writing, etc. but the bottom line is they weren't fun films. just veruy dour, drab settings and characters.
 

jett

D-Member
One thing I find funny is when people complain about the writing and acting of the prequels, but completely give the writing and acting of the OT a pass. I mean, okay, the writing and acting in the OT isn't quite as bad as the prequels, but it's still pretty damn bad. Especially in Episode IV.

It's just bizarre to me how people ridicule the poorly written and delivered lines of the PT, but they happily quote the poorly written and delivered lines of the OT.

I'd say the writing and acting is only poor in ANH. It gets a pass because it's fun despite its shortcomings. The PT movies don't fit that description.

When it comes to acting, everyone suddenly became better in Empire, even James Earl Jones as Vader. But the real improvement is Mark Hamill. To me there's just an incredible difference. He's near Hayden Christensen levels of awful in ANH, but is legit good in ESB. The NotLucas effect.
 
Seeing lightsaber battles that weren't complete garbage is one of the high lights. There's a good sized amount of people who dislike what a slog the OT is.
 

inm8num2

Member
The prequels ultimately lack the basic thing that made the OT so memorable - compelling characters. All of the issues (writing, dialogue, story beats, etc.) result in me not really caring much about the characters, perhaps other than Obi-Wan.
 

Branduil

Member
I just re-watched Ep 3 last night, and it's terrible.
tumblr_m2dgn7XYq91qzk4xzo1_500.gif


The one saving grace is Ian McDiarmid. He's the only guy who seems to get stuck into his role.

McDiarmid is the only guy having any fun in those movies. If Anakin chose the dark side because everyone else was a boring cardboard cutout that would be a lot more believable than the stated reasons.
 
In addition to what others are saying, sometimes explanations are better left not given. There's a mystique and power to something not explained, and that can be a powerful storytelling tool. A lot of people will tell you they want to have an explanation for such and such part of the world, but sometimes the story benefits from not explaining things. The prequels have no understanding of this concept.

i can forgive bad acting and even a shit script. but the look and overuse of the cgi is just embarrassing.

oswuJ.jpg


that looks AWFUL.

Holy hell, that looks like the cover of a paperback novel from the 80s.
 
I really like them in spite if their flaws just likr I like episodes 4 and 6 in spite of theirs. Empire is pretty much perfect, just needed a little less C3P0. Clones is by far the worst of the bunch.

But overall I enjoy my time with all of them ans both trilogies were integral parts of my childhood.

I think the "hate" is mostly an internet thing. Just like the hate for Transformers or Call of Duty. In which the internet thinks they're majority when in reality they're just a very vocal minority.

I've yet to meet any raging purists here in Costa Rica. And I'm bery close to the fandom and know a lot of people in our version of the 501st legion.

In fact most people my age either favor the prequels, like them all or have never seen them. This is all anecdotal of course.

Also according to theforce.net Lucasfilm has studied the matter and concluded that most fans see the 6 movies as 1 saga. And like them all with each having their favorites of course. Hence the current push in prequel content in other media.

I'm not saying "real haters don't exist" as everyone is entitled to their opinion. All I'm saying is that outside The internet Star Wars is a revered 6 movie saga people love.
Howard Stern hates them. I'd say that's a good barometer of the masses.
 

Fj0823

Member
If we're gonna bash OT dialogue

Luke:"MYNAMEISLUKESKYWALKETANDBENKENOBISENTMETORESCUEYOU"

Leia:"BEN KENOBI?"

How does she knows who Ben Kenobi is? She asked for Obi-Wan not his distant relative.
 
Because prequels as a concept is dumb. No one cares about Darth Vader as a little kid, people just like Darth Vader, right? We got enough of this back story in the original trilogy to be satisfied, without the need to see him as a little fucking kid racing or whatever the hell. It was so pointless. If anything, they should have gone way back in the past like Knights of the Old Republic and made a stand-alone story that was interesting with no ties to the original trilogy. Like, would anyone watch a Jurassic Park prequel where all the dinosaurs were babies? I just don't understand, it's useless. Fuck... who asked for this?
 

Shaanyboi

Banned
i can forgive bad acting and even a shit script. but the look and overuse of the cgi is just embarrassing.

oswuJ.jpg


that looks AWFUL.

I don't even understand the point of this. Just... big empty rooms and pillars. That's like the "go to" bland cg environment. Just walkways, pillars, and halls. Why not show a garden? Or like a nice place to meditate? Or a view that looks out over the city? This is just... boring.

Not even to mention how bad it has aged.
 

Fj0823

Member
I don't even understand the point of this. Just... big empty rooms and pillars. That's like the "go to" bland cg environment. Just walkways, pillars, and halls. Why not show a garden? Or like a nice place to meditate? Or a view that looks out over the city? This is just... boring.

Not even to mention how bad it has aged.

Because they used a real set for the gardens?
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
My favorite part of the RLM reviews was when Plinkett (is that his name?) dissected that scene in Ep. 2 where Obi-Wan jumped out of Padme's window and latched onto that hovering robot. So much wrong with that. Aside from the midichlorian shit, probably the stupidest thing Lucas did in the prequels.
 
The last time I watched them, I had so many questions about why characters would behave a certain way and why they did what they did. They're written pain terrible. Poor George needed people to help him, not simply suck his balls.
 
midi-chlorians killed the mystique behind the Force

Qui-Gon's character takes the place that Ben Kenobiy should have had when it comes to giving a damn about Anakin.... Obiwan comes off as hating Anakin since day 1 in the Prequals.. which doesn't jive with what he said to Luke

Anakin is too powerful, too gifted, too talented, there is no way to relate to him in Episode 1 because he is perfect without flaws. It is hard to believe when compared to how believable Luke was in his journey from Star Wars, to ESB and to ROTJ

I wonder if Midichlorians do hurt the force. If in episode IV Obi tells luke the force and energy field doesn't that retcon Episode I even though Episode I was filmed after the fact. Due to Obi-Wan saying this long after anakin was told of the midichlorians. Maybe Midichlorians are just an indicatory of one having a strong connection to the energy field of the force.

I feel as long as Obi-Wans explanation later in time is canon, it can also dispute Qui-gons.
 
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