WHAT WENT WRONG WITH THE STAR WARS PREQUELS?

As I write this article with full knowledge that J.J Abrams is going to take the Star Wars movies in a new direction I re-watched all the Star Wars films. ALL of them.

I enjoy the Star Wars movies enough to see a huge difference between the originals and the god awful prequels. I know that people enjoy the prequels but there are also some who pot to them more than the originals. Whatever your opinion is for you to mentally analyse it yourself you have to as what went wrong with those films.

The films, specially the Phantom Menace and Attack of The Clones have no really interesting plot and if you ask a nine year old what’s going on he won’t exactly tell you accurately. I understand that Star Wars wanted to have this sort of political sub-plot in order to make it more likeable and 2009’s Star Trek did that really well. But when you get a point where this is what your movie relies on and brings the feel of the original trilogy down.

The original trilogy focused itself on a young farm boy finding his way into becoming a great Jedi. It was simple and had characters which would keep you loving the movie the whole way through. Most of the actors at the time were pretty much unknown and they became their characters more easily. The Phantom Menace focuses on a guy trying to be Chancellor who is evil but not really and then two Jedi’s and one annoying ass character finding this ten year old boy that in 12 years will become evil and there’s a bunch of CGI and blue screens.

George Lucas said that the prequels were the story he wanted to tell but did not have a chance to. The story he tells us makes us want to watch what will come next. Every character from the originals eventually appears in the prequels to remind us we are still watching Star Wars despite the story and characters not living up to it. If we are in the same universe why does this feel so uninspired. The villains are terrible, Darth Maul has no lines of dialogue’s that people will ever quote despite him being very cool looking, Count Dooko is just so generic and General Grievous is in Episode 3 in order to make the movie long enough to go in the theatres. Darth Vader was a cool villain who dragged us on when there wasn’t even a lightsaber fight.

The original films have what is now considered to be bad special effects but for their time they were good. The prequels CGI is just so noticeable that you feel cheated and even the environment feels fake and when you see set photos all of them are blue screened and the actors must have been so bored, it’s terrible. At least you can accept that the originals don’t use that much CGI and makes you accept its cheesiness.

I absolutely find the characters from the prequels boring without any reason for me to like them. Ewan McGregor did a good job in the prequels but his dialogue is just so unrealistic and out of place it’s difficult to watch. Episode 3’s Anakin was used in a bad way, he was so unreleatable which makes him an asshole. Every time I see the movie Chronicle on tv Dane DeHaan reminds me of how Anakin should have been.  I think that Episode 3 really tried but the fact that it tries to tie in both franchises it just does not work. They visually look different.

The prequels have an amazing cast, but they are all so boring. Han Solo is the most interesting character of Star Wars. Samuel Jackson’s Mace Windu should have been this franchises Han Solo but turns out to be a boring Jedi.

Phantom Menace introduces the anti-Jedi’s, the Sith. Are you kidding me? Don’t make anti-Jedi’s. Before Star Wars it was peace and the Jedi were peacekeepers. One of them turned bad due to the Emperor becoming evil and all the Jedi’s are killed, we have Star Wars. But not only are the Sith a reason to give villains to this prequel trilogy, the villains are bad. And they even  establish a rule that there can only be two. Why? I haven’t figured it out yet. Any chance of having afull Jedi versus Sith battle ruined.

Yoda fights with a little lightsaber and he is not the same crazy character we grew to love in The Empire Strikes back. The whole sense of adventure is gone, there is no adventure. The acting is bad due to the awful dialogue.

George Lucas had no care with the prequels, they rehash the original’s main themes, make them awful and they are basically everything Star Wars is not. They do have cool lightsaber fights, they are really entertaining, but when they happen so often like in The Revenge of The Sith or for no reason whatsoever like in Episodes 1 and 2 I am just not invested. Episode 3 had a cool fight, but where’s the cool dialogue.

John William’s score is amazing, that’s cool to hear but it’s not enough to sit through seven hours of bad dialogue.

Why did Anakin become evil? It made no sense in the end since Padme died any way. He was not corrupted by the Emperor.

I personally think Episode 3 should have been the Empire building not Anakin becoming Vader, you had two other movies and they were terrible. At the end of Episode 3 we see Darth Vader and the beginning of the Death Star and you finally care for what’s happening, it begins and as soon as you get exited it all fades black and you have to watch the originals to get what you wanted 3 movies ago.

So overall

“The Star Wars prequels not only fail to connect with the original trilogy, they don’t feel like the same universe are not as interesting and fun and are simply  bad movies in general.”

4/10 (Terrible)