Considering I was, literally, the last generation of kids to love Star Wars before the prequel trilogy was released, and was still a kid and loved the new episodes, I think I have a rare view on the saga. While I can be not too aware of my cultural surroundings at times, I'm not too socially retarded so I am in the know that basically everybody else who knew star wars before 1998 hated the new episodes, while the other camp is still too young to go on the internet without parental controls, and so their voices are not as loud (also their numbers are probably paltry compared to the old school nerds). Then there's the fact that in the last decade the internet has expanded its audience beyond loners and smart people, so the sheer volume of information coming from the later generations, and the companies with a presence to take advantage of these new demographics, makes them harder to find. So far, I think I have heard positive feedback online from a number of people in the single digits, although I admit I did zero research (get used to this. Seriously, my method is to just pop on whenever I have the weakest of ideas and just start typing shit and see what happens. 90% of my started posts get junked, and if I wasn't such a star wars fan I would be unsure if this would ever get finished), and I'm sure there are some young adults out there making their arguments in favor of. Or perhaps the new generations just don't care, and this realm of the internet is still the domain of the old and nerdy, and forever the projected opinion will be of disdain for episodes one through three.
Well, I liked them. I would say loved, but that is looking more and more like childlike ignorance and the accompanying lust for laser battles and spaceships, and the signature combination thereof that these movies fulfilled. Looking back, though, I can see why most Original Trilogy fans hated them, because the elements I was ignorant of, or that I didn't fully comprehend, just kind of destroy the feel that the old movies cultivated. Hell, even Return of the Jedi, while my favorite episode in the past, is now kind of cheesy. But I'm not here to talk about that, but the first three. While certain characters, boring plot, and terrible dialogue (I could recognize the last one by the time 'Sith' came out) really made the whole thing a painful ordeal, the core of the movies was still valid and awesome. The story of Anakin becoming Vader? I think that was the one thing Lucas nailed with the new movies. I almost want to believe that he is just a tired old man, and all he wanted to do was tell that story, and everything else was just "fuck, I should have made 'A New Hope' episode II, lets just use filler of senate meetings to stretch it into three movies".
To get the flaws out of the way, and I KNOW I am not saying anything new, and definitely not mentioning all of them, but for the sake of presentation I do so, lets start with Anakin. Phantom Menace was like a premature ejaculation. Lucas was looking through all the porn files of his brain's computer that were his SW ideas, and just threw them all together and said "done!" before actually getting serious. There were the good, which I will get to, but there were some just awful elements and plot devices that were entirely unnecessary or even killed the pace of the movie. Most of these were caused by the decision to focus the plot on a 10 year old Anakin Skywalker, an immaculately conceived 'chosen one' who was really just a kid who sucked at reading scripts. That's the problem with child actors; they are rarely good at what they do. That's why Niel Patrick Harris was famous well into adulthood, and continued to act his whole life. He was good at it. What's Jake Lloyd done since PM? I don't know either. Yet it was decided that he was perfect to be the center of the new Star Wars. I get that the whole purpose of the prequels, that is to add depth to the original trilogy by giving a whole history of the conflict it focuses on. And again, I sympathize with his predicament in having to fill three movies with what could have been two, or even just one really long movie. Anyway, he did it wrong, and Phantom Menace could have been just a bit better if they removed Anakin from the major role or the movie entirely. The whole first intallment could have been a prelude/prequel, telling the story of the Republic and the Jedi Order before the schism. I will admit, it was cool to have Liam Neeson training a young Obi Wan. Hell, that should have been the entire focus of the movie. To learn how Obi Wan failed Anakin, you see first how he came into the position to take him as his apprentice. Taking Anakin out of the story lets the Kenobi story flow better, and sans all the whining to boot. Also, he becomes the hero of the story, and there would be no need to rely on a cascade of accidents to make it look like he saves the day. He could just, you know, save the day, all on his own, being the badass Jedi he is. This wouldn't even require an entire removal of the kid, they could pick him up, say some mildly foreshadowing things about his great potential, drop him off at padowan school and go right back to shooting lasers at things. You get to shoehorn in young Vader without making a boring movie about some little bastard saying cute but obviously scripted things. Or even better, don't make him the 'chosen one' at all, just some other kid learning to be a Jedi that they meet in the temple at some point and quickly forget about. Cut to the second movie, and he's suddenly Obi-Wan's apprentice. No need to tie a story of how the kid knew and shared adventures with Obi before their pairing, just how fate turned out, and if Anakin was given care to another Jedi, that person would have been the hermit in the desert at the beginning of episode IV. In short, it was a bullshit move to try and get younger kids interested in a new SW series, which was superfluous to begin with because I was 7 and I loved a 15 year old movie starring only adults, because what I got out of SW wasn't some kid my age but people I wanted to grow up to be, and also explosions and lasers and spaceships.
This would also take out the full-length, real time podracing scene. It was cool, but just dragged on and on, and maybe, if George really wanted it in there, as it doesn't need to be about the kid and could have just been about them needing to get parts for their ship via gambling, it could have been background action over some of the important but drudging dialogue about senate debates and contract disputes and property taxes, or whatever most of what filled large chunks of time in the senate hall, that could have been reported back to the Jedis in an abridged manner. Say Padme tells Neeson the gist of the meeting while the race is going on, and as they wrap up each interchange we cut back to an exciting part of the race. Repeat until all of what needs to be said is said, just as the race comes to a close finish. Probably saved 20 minutes of movie with that edit alone, and it still doesn't change the basic plot.
The worst, absolutely worst part of the first movie was the Jar Jar character. There are probably terabytes of ranting against just him on the first results page of google alone when searching for things that made PM terrible, so there is nothing new to say on this. But I will just take a moment to point out how blatant a clone he is of antiquated stereotypes of black and asian people. Not just him, but the entire Gungun race, although he stands alone as all the worst parts put into one guy and given 20% of the dialogue, despite being nothing but a hindrance, and annoying while being so. Similar to the Anakin character, he could just be let go, but even more so as he had nothing to do with anything, at all, and his absence only makes the experience better.
After all this, plus better dialogue, action and supporting characters, you're left with a decent movie about what the galaxy was like before the Galactic Civil War (the conflict in the OT) during the reign of the Old Republic and before the Jedi died off, and even nicely sets up the events that lead to the era immediately before that, the Clone Wars. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Jedi security to protect the queen of an economically oppressed planet and must defend her from a Sith assassin, culminating in a climatic battle and duel with Darth Maul (in my opinion one of the coolest movie bad guys ever, in terms of appearance and style). Qui-Gon dies, Obi-Wan becomes a true Jedi, and the defeated faction begins turning the gears of war that lead to the Clone Wars.
The second movie, Attack of the Clones, was a step up and all around a better movie, but still lacked something to make it good. For one, the new Anakin, despite being a different actor, is still a whiny little turd. The period of this episode is during Anakin's training with Obi-Wan, yet he acts like a self righteous, undeserving and selfish dick. Perhaps this was intended for the character, add some arrogance to get you to see him as Future-Vader, but I feel it really keeps you from liking him, a vital part of making his fall from grace tragic. The reasoning is that he is very good at being a Jedi, and knows it, so he acts like he should just be made a master already despite showing clear signs of not being anywhere near ready for the role. Okay, I get it, but again, I hated that guy and not seeing him get punched in the face made the two hours before his hand gets sliced off quite unbearable. Other characters were less hateable, and actually I didn't mind anyone not named Skywalker speaking. Jar Jar makes an appearance, but his two lines were done and that was that.
The story was slow, uninteresting, and convoluted as hell. There were a few action scenes before the climactic battle at the end, but it just wasn't enough to compensate for the angsty romance or, somehow, longer senate scenes. The senate scenes only established Palpatine's road to emperorhood, and the romance was unnecessary. Sure, its cool to know how Anikan met the ass he tapped to make Luke and Leia, but we don't need to know how she didn't really like him that way, but wait, she did, but wait, he can't fall in love, but wait, he'll do it anyway, but wait, he's not allowed to get married, but wait, they do, and, oh yeah, no consequences for breaking a cardinal rule of the Jedi Order. This could all have been summed up with Padme admitting from go that she wanted his cock. Fucking chicks, man, adding an hour of lovey crap on average to every movie. So many missed space battles. Anyway, yeah, so Anikin gets married, Palpatine is setting himself up for power, and Obi-wan traces an assassination attempt to a bounty hunter that cloned himself specifically so the Republic could build an army to fight nothing, except now there is something, and this is never fucking explained despite being a crucial point to the whole saga. Oh, and the bounty hunter clones himself a special one that turns out to be Boba Fett. WHY? Why was it necessary, beyond toy merchandising, to include him or offer a backstory of any sort? He was cool enough being a faceless badass with no story at all, leaving you to use your imagination? Oh, sorry, right, Lucas hates imagination, at least in other people. I think it reminds him he lost his. But anyway, the army of Fetts is accepted by the Republic to fight this sudden enemy of robot armies, even though a magnet could do just that, and off they go to blow shit up! Yadda yadda, the bad guys lose, turns out they were designing the death star, etc, movie ends.
Same as PM, AotC is still a solid movie. You have Anikin training under Obi, and they are put on security detail for Padme while she is in town to sign a treaty or something, an assassin tries and fails, and after a shorter chase scene they catch her and learn that her orders come from someone on a planet specializing in the production of clones. Obi goes to investigate while Anikin stays on watch. Meanwhile, Palpatine could use the threat that the assassin was sent by the cloners, assume power and take control of the facility (all under shady pretenses to cultivate his evil personality), thus acquiring an army to formally declare war on the Separatists. Turns out Anikin and Padme hook up while Obi is gone, and they keep it secret as Anikin would be expelled from the Order for pursuing a relationship. War breaks out, Anikin runs off to fight, bitch isn't seen till the next movie. Obi and Anikin arrive on a planet hosting the factories making the robots, and attempt to do some sabotage or something, are spotted/caught, first battle of the Clone Wars occurs right there as they had a corps of soldiers waiting in orbit that drop down and storm the factory. Battle battle battle, perhaps some spaceships take off to dogfight amongst the capitol ships, and good guys win, end movie with foreshadowing of the next episode.
Finally, there was Revenge of the Sith. Of the prequels, this one was good as it was, sans the carryover that I took the liberty to exclude from the others. Still, some room for improvement. For one, I mentioned the crappy dialogue? It was all Anikin bitching about how he still wasn't a master Jedi, despite being all awesome and whatnot. It's expressed that they feel he shouldn't be a full master, as he is married and carries anger from losing his mother that Sammy J can tell is corrupting his motives. He knew full fucking well when he got married that this would affect his prospects, but he said he didn't care. Well, he lied. But, if he kept his relations secret, as I proposed, this wouldn't be the case. He could still be angry over his mother's death, and that would be reason enough to not promote him. Then, you get to hear the enemy robots talking to each other. This is retarded. For one, they are combat droids, they shouldn't have the need to verbally communicate, what with wireless data transmissions that don't require broadcasting your dialogue to enemies. Also, they say stupid ass shit, like "yep, this looks like a jedi ship!" and then screaming "woah!" when surprised. The fuck. They're robots. In the time it took for it to scream like that, a computer would have recognized the situation, established the path of the fall, and automatically correct its stance as to not fall. But no, they weren't robots, but slapstick comedians.
The secondary bad guy, Grievous, is pathetic. He's a biological creature that's striving for robotic immortality, has somehow killed at least four jedi despite moving like a hip-replacement patient, and is named just so sloppily that they may as well have named him "Mr. Badguy."
And the ending, just... ugh. Padme dies from losing the will to live? If that's all it took, then emo kids would cease to exist. Also, isn't she in a room filled with medical equipment and robots programmed to automatically begin reviving a dying human? She may have slipped into a coma, but god damn it those machines would keep her heart and lungs going forever. Anikin could have killed her in a fit of rage, or she could have flown her ship into a meteor, anything, but christ, that was lame.
Finally, how the Jedi are killed off is stupid. They are supposed to be these feeling creatures that detect what no other can, yet can't feel a change when the soldiers they've been leading for the past few years suddenly change their allegiance? Bullshit.
But, considering the edits I made, you get:
Anikin and Obi are bravely fighting the war, Palpatine tells Anikin he knows of him and Padme, bribes him with offering to train him as a personal apprentice with the promise of power and the freedom of pussy, and Anikin accepts. It gets found out, Anikin fully defects, turns out Padme got knocked up and doesn't tell Anikin about it until the kids are born, he flips out and kills her, and in his final battle with Obi gets burned and mutilated as he does. The Jedi scatter after Anikin turns coat and massacres the heads of the Jedi Order, and one by one either fade out or die off, save Yoda and Obi. Like I said, it was a good movie on its own, so not much outside of that main arc needs adjustment.
And there you go, the prequel trilogy made less shitty, possibly even awesome. Sadly, this will never happen for real, and we are stuck with Lucas's crappy half-formed ideas, and even when he does change this train wreck around he'll somehow make it worse, like add more Jar Jar. But this is my opinion.
Well, I liked them. I would say loved, but that is looking more and more like childlike ignorance and the accompanying lust for laser battles and spaceships, and the signature combination thereof that these movies fulfilled. Looking back, though, I can see why most Original Trilogy fans hated them, because the elements I was ignorant of, or that I didn't fully comprehend, just kind of destroy the feel that the old movies cultivated. Hell, even Return of the Jedi, while my favorite episode in the past, is now kind of cheesy. But I'm not here to talk about that, but the first three. While certain characters, boring plot, and terrible dialogue (I could recognize the last one by the time 'Sith' came out) really made the whole thing a painful ordeal, the core of the movies was still valid and awesome. The story of Anakin becoming Vader? I think that was the one thing Lucas nailed with the new movies. I almost want to believe that he is just a tired old man, and all he wanted to do was tell that story, and everything else was just "fuck, I should have made 'A New Hope' episode II, lets just use filler of senate meetings to stretch it into three movies".
To get the flaws out of the way, and I KNOW I am not saying anything new, and definitely not mentioning all of them, but for the sake of presentation I do so, lets start with Anakin. Phantom Menace was like a premature ejaculation. Lucas was looking through all the porn files of his brain's computer that were his SW ideas, and just threw them all together and said "done!" before actually getting serious. There were the good, which I will get to, but there were some just awful elements and plot devices that were entirely unnecessary or even killed the pace of the movie. Most of these were caused by the decision to focus the plot on a 10 year old Anakin Skywalker, an immaculately conceived 'chosen one' who was really just a kid who sucked at reading scripts. That's the problem with child actors; they are rarely good at what they do. That's why Niel Patrick Harris was famous well into adulthood, and continued to act his whole life. He was good at it. What's Jake Lloyd done since PM? I don't know either. Yet it was decided that he was perfect to be the center of the new Star Wars. I get that the whole purpose of the prequels, that is to add depth to the original trilogy by giving a whole history of the conflict it focuses on. And again, I sympathize with his predicament in having to fill three movies with what could have been two, or even just one really long movie. Anyway, he did it wrong, and Phantom Menace could have been just a bit better if they removed Anakin from the major role or the movie entirely. The whole first intallment could have been a prelude/prequel, telling the story of the Republic and the Jedi Order before the schism. I will admit, it was cool to have Liam Neeson training a young Obi Wan. Hell, that should have been the entire focus of the movie. To learn how Obi Wan failed Anakin, you see first how he came into the position to take him as his apprentice. Taking Anakin out of the story lets the Kenobi story flow better, and sans all the whining to boot. Also, he becomes the hero of the story, and there would be no need to rely on a cascade of accidents to make it look like he saves the day. He could just, you know, save the day, all on his own, being the badass Jedi he is. This wouldn't even require an entire removal of the kid, they could pick him up, say some mildly foreshadowing things about his great potential, drop him off at padowan school and go right back to shooting lasers at things. You get to shoehorn in young Vader without making a boring movie about some little bastard saying cute but obviously scripted things. Or even better, don't make him the 'chosen one' at all, just some other kid learning to be a Jedi that they meet in the temple at some point and quickly forget about. Cut to the second movie, and he's suddenly Obi-Wan's apprentice. No need to tie a story of how the kid knew and shared adventures with Obi before their pairing, just how fate turned out, and if Anakin was given care to another Jedi, that person would have been the hermit in the desert at the beginning of episode IV. In short, it was a bullshit move to try and get younger kids interested in a new SW series, which was superfluous to begin with because I was 7 and I loved a 15 year old movie starring only adults, because what I got out of SW wasn't some kid my age but people I wanted to grow up to be, and also explosions and lasers and spaceships.
This would also take out the full-length, real time podracing scene. It was cool, but just dragged on and on, and maybe, if George really wanted it in there, as it doesn't need to be about the kid and could have just been about them needing to get parts for their ship via gambling, it could have been background action over some of the important but drudging dialogue about senate debates and contract disputes and property taxes, or whatever most of what filled large chunks of time in the senate hall, that could have been reported back to the Jedis in an abridged manner. Say Padme tells Neeson the gist of the meeting while the race is going on, and as they wrap up each interchange we cut back to an exciting part of the race. Repeat until all of what needs to be said is said, just as the race comes to a close finish. Probably saved 20 minutes of movie with that edit alone, and it still doesn't change the basic plot.
The worst, absolutely worst part of the first movie was the Jar Jar character. There are probably terabytes of ranting against just him on the first results page of google alone when searching for things that made PM terrible, so there is nothing new to say on this. But I will just take a moment to point out how blatant a clone he is of antiquated stereotypes of black and asian people. Not just him, but the entire Gungun race, although he stands alone as all the worst parts put into one guy and given 20% of the dialogue, despite being nothing but a hindrance, and annoying while being so. Similar to the Anakin character, he could just be let go, but even more so as he had nothing to do with anything, at all, and his absence only makes the experience better.
After all this, plus better dialogue, action and supporting characters, you're left with a decent movie about what the galaxy was like before the Galactic Civil War (the conflict in the OT) during the reign of the Old Republic and before the Jedi died off, and even nicely sets up the events that lead to the era immediately before that, the Clone Wars. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Jedi security to protect the queen of an economically oppressed planet and must defend her from a Sith assassin, culminating in a climatic battle and duel with Darth Maul (in my opinion one of the coolest movie bad guys ever, in terms of appearance and style). Qui-Gon dies, Obi-Wan becomes a true Jedi, and the defeated faction begins turning the gears of war that lead to the Clone Wars.
The second movie, Attack of the Clones, was a step up and all around a better movie, but still lacked something to make it good. For one, the new Anakin, despite being a different actor, is still a whiny little turd. The period of this episode is during Anakin's training with Obi-Wan, yet he acts like a self righteous, undeserving and selfish dick. Perhaps this was intended for the character, add some arrogance to get you to see him as Future-Vader, but I feel it really keeps you from liking him, a vital part of making his fall from grace tragic. The reasoning is that he is very good at being a Jedi, and knows it, so he acts like he should just be made a master already despite showing clear signs of not being anywhere near ready for the role. Okay, I get it, but again, I hated that guy and not seeing him get punched in the face made the two hours before his hand gets sliced off quite unbearable. Other characters were less hateable, and actually I didn't mind anyone not named Skywalker speaking. Jar Jar makes an appearance, but his two lines were done and that was that.
The story was slow, uninteresting, and convoluted as hell. There were a few action scenes before the climactic battle at the end, but it just wasn't enough to compensate for the angsty romance or, somehow, longer senate scenes. The senate scenes only established Palpatine's road to emperorhood, and the romance was unnecessary. Sure, its cool to know how Anikan met the ass he tapped to make Luke and Leia, but we don't need to know how she didn't really like him that way, but wait, she did, but wait, he can't fall in love, but wait, he'll do it anyway, but wait, he's not allowed to get married, but wait, they do, and, oh yeah, no consequences for breaking a cardinal rule of the Jedi Order. This could all have been summed up with Padme admitting from go that she wanted his cock. Fucking chicks, man, adding an hour of lovey crap on average to every movie. So many missed space battles. Anyway, yeah, so Anikin gets married, Palpatine is setting himself up for power, and Obi-wan traces an assassination attempt to a bounty hunter that cloned himself specifically so the Republic could build an army to fight nothing, except now there is something, and this is never fucking explained despite being a crucial point to the whole saga. Oh, and the bounty hunter clones himself a special one that turns out to be Boba Fett. WHY? Why was it necessary, beyond toy merchandising, to include him or offer a backstory of any sort? He was cool enough being a faceless badass with no story at all, leaving you to use your imagination? Oh, sorry, right, Lucas hates imagination, at least in other people. I think it reminds him he lost his. But anyway, the army of Fetts is accepted by the Republic to fight this sudden enemy of robot armies, even though a magnet could do just that, and off they go to blow shit up! Yadda yadda, the bad guys lose, turns out they were designing the death star, etc, movie ends.
Same as PM, AotC is still a solid movie. You have Anikin training under Obi, and they are put on security detail for Padme while she is in town to sign a treaty or something, an assassin tries and fails, and after a shorter chase scene they catch her and learn that her orders come from someone on a planet specializing in the production of clones. Obi goes to investigate while Anikin stays on watch. Meanwhile, Palpatine could use the threat that the assassin was sent by the cloners, assume power and take control of the facility (all under shady pretenses to cultivate his evil personality), thus acquiring an army to formally declare war on the Separatists. Turns out Anikin and Padme hook up while Obi is gone, and they keep it secret as Anikin would be expelled from the Order for pursuing a relationship. War breaks out, Anikin runs off to fight, bitch isn't seen till the next movie. Obi and Anikin arrive on a planet hosting the factories making the robots, and attempt to do some sabotage or something, are spotted/caught, first battle of the Clone Wars occurs right there as they had a corps of soldiers waiting in orbit that drop down and storm the factory. Battle battle battle, perhaps some spaceships take off to dogfight amongst the capitol ships, and good guys win, end movie with foreshadowing of the next episode.
Finally, there was Revenge of the Sith. Of the prequels, this one was good as it was, sans the carryover that I took the liberty to exclude from the others. Still, some room for improvement. For one, I mentioned the crappy dialogue? It was all Anikin bitching about how he still wasn't a master Jedi, despite being all awesome and whatnot. It's expressed that they feel he shouldn't be a full master, as he is married and carries anger from losing his mother that Sammy J can tell is corrupting his motives. He knew full fucking well when he got married that this would affect his prospects, but he said he didn't care. Well, he lied. But, if he kept his relations secret, as I proposed, this wouldn't be the case. He could still be angry over his mother's death, and that would be reason enough to not promote him. Then, you get to hear the enemy robots talking to each other. This is retarded. For one, they are combat droids, they shouldn't have the need to verbally communicate, what with wireless data transmissions that don't require broadcasting your dialogue to enemies. Also, they say stupid ass shit, like "yep, this looks like a jedi ship!" and then screaming "woah!" when surprised. The fuck. They're robots. In the time it took for it to scream like that, a computer would have recognized the situation, established the path of the fall, and automatically correct its stance as to not fall. But no, they weren't robots, but slapstick comedians.
The secondary bad guy, Grievous, is pathetic. He's a biological creature that's striving for robotic immortality, has somehow killed at least four jedi despite moving like a hip-replacement patient, and is named just so sloppily that they may as well have named him "Mr. Badguy."
And the ending, just... ugh. Padme dies from losing the will to live? If that's all it took, then emo kids would cease to exist. Also, isn't she in a room filled with medical equipment and robots programmed to automatically begin reviving a dying human? She may have slipped into a coma, but god damn it those machines would keep her heart and lungs going forever. Anikin could have killed her in a fit of rage, or she could have flown her ship into a meteor, anything, but christ, that was lame.
Finally, how the Jedi are killed off is stupid. They are supposed to be these feeling creatures that detect what no other can, yet can't feel a change when the soldiers they've been leading for the past few years suddenly change their allegiance? Bullshit.
But, considering the edits I made, you get:
Anikin and Obi are bravely fighting the war, Palpatine tells Anikin he knows of him and Padme, bribes him with offering to train him as a personal apprentice with the promise of power and the freedom of pussy, and Anikin accepts. It gets found out, Anikin fully defects, turns out Padme got knocked up and doesn't tell Anikin about it until the kids are born, he flips out and kills her, and in his final battle with Obi gets burned and mutilated as he does. The Jedi scatter after Anikin turns coat and massacres the heads of the Jedi Order, and one by one either fade out or die off, save Yoda and Obi. Like I said, it was a good movie on its own, so not much outside of that main arc needs adjustment.
And there you go, the prequel trilogy made less shitty, possibly even awesome. Sadly, this will never happen for real, and we are stuck with Lucas's crappy half-formed ideas, and even when he does change this train wreck around he'll somehow make it worse, like add more Jar Jar. But this is my opinion.
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