I'll never get the hate. Really the only thing wrong with the prequels is the writing, acting, pacing, characters, and special effects. Other than that they're great.
@@Apvizionz I was saying in my comment that if they at least did a better job with the ships and had much better cool factor with those and battles with them almost everything else would have been mostly ignored Focusing on the Jedi themselves was done well We got to see more into their world It’s just everything else was kind of lame
The problem with the prequels is they had Star Wars attached. Movies of that quality didn't deserve so much attention. They were ok. They deserved to go unnoticed.
@@davidbowles7281 when the prequels came out sure a lot of people didn't like them, calling them the worst star wars movies, I personally didn't mind them, but now sense Disney has sank its teeth into star wars the prequels look a whole lot better.
Hahahaha, as a graphic designer his analogy makes perfect sense. Sometimes having limited options makes you more creative and clever than having everything available to you. When you have everything available to you, you go nuts and things can get ugly quickly.
Absolutely. Especially if you're working with a color palette, being limited often makes art even better. The recent Dune movies are a good example. Limits and deadlines are often good. Even for stuff like articles and Op-Eds, a limited amount of words and time to research and produce makes a more focused piece.
That's the same reason the director's cut of Donnie Darko is so terrible. The workarounds the director had to do for the original theatrical release were accidentally a lot better. The opening song in the original ended up being absolutely perfect, for example. The one the director wanted from the beginning, and used in the opening of the director's cut, is absolutely terrible and doesn't fit at all.
Lucas was surrounded by 'yes-men'. Watch the BTS features, and you'll be sickened by Rick McCallum's sycophantic worship of George and how "George was so brilliant" and could do no wrong.
Spoken like some one who never created a damn thing, no true creator wants limitations on what they create. People forget that George WAS limited when making the prequels. People forget that Pixar was created by George, that the prequels pioneered three times as much shit as the OT did, shit that's still in use today like deep fakes. McCullum was in charge of the budget and as long as Lucas stayed within the budget the fuck did he have to say? People also forget that Star Wars was an INDIE FILM, Lucas spent his own money to make them. If I'm spending my money to make a movie no one's telling me what I can and can't do.
@Fenris30 you're not making an argument here... I'm in construction, thats about as creative a profession as is practical and we have budgets, so screw off with that noise, mate. I'm also an artist, musician, and game designer. RM was a sycophant, watch the BTS. He was there to sign off enough money for whatever George wanted to do, it was more for legal purposes than actually having to limit himself. Your last point is EXACTLY why the PT sucked (the greatest offender being Episode 1) Lucas needed pushback from his friends. Spielberg watched some early cuts and was too good of a friend to give him notes, unlike the OT (particularly Star Wars) as because it was George's money and not a studio, the pressure was off and they didn't feel compelled to make the absolutely best film that they could. Limitations actually force you to be more creative. Without limitations there is no discipline.
What he needed was people who really understood the story and premises that made Star wars great, because (rather surprisingly, perhaps) it turned out that George himself didn't.
he needed someone who could sit there and tell him that looks stupid George. But anyone who got to work for lucasfilm had to practically treat him like a god. Nobody was allowed to criticize his ideas.
Personally I believe the prequels should've started basically with Episode 2. We didn't need to see Vader/Anakin as a little kid. They should have spent more time exploring Anakin and Obi-Wan's adventures and relationship. We would have lost nothing by skipping over little Anakin and starting with teen Anakin. Deal with any necessary parts of Anakin's early life in a quick flashback or with exposition.
No flashbacks, but exposition would have helped a lot, and also allowed the audience to sympathize with Anakin making him more vulnerable and more human.
@@rumblehat4357exactly just let Anakin reveal his past slowly and in ep 2 he would discover that the jedi lied to him and he was born of no father etc it would have been a cool twist to the trope
I think part of the reason George wanted to go to the phantom menace was the set up of losing Qui Gon and Obi Wan becoming the master not that Luke really needed. However other than that I would agree, much of the rest is just world building that could have been let go of.
Correction: Adam gets this wrong all the time. She didn't work on TPM. He only worked on Clones and Sith. Also. Nothing lazy or easy about the CGI in the prequels. It was incredibly difficult. The problem is far more simple. George had total control. No one there to help steer him. No Marcia Lucas and no Gary Kurtz.
Not that it's the end all be all but IMDB says he worked on TPM and AoC, not Sith. Which would track as Mythbusters got its start around the same time Sith was in production.
It's like with bands. Since people are only good if they have the right people to work with. There are geniuses like Hendrix that can make good music with whoever and then there are people like the members of Deep Purple. They have great potential but it's the chemistry between the members that made them great. Alone they are not as impressive.
Totally agree with Adam Savage about that. I also have a thought about the prequels. I was a kid when the original trilogy came out. Kids are pretty easily impressed by stuff, as everything’s new to them. We took those films in to our hearts and loved them. We then had to wait another 16 years for anything new. That’s a hell of a long time when you’re a kid. Also, in those 16 years, the original trilogy is released on video, and we watched them over and over again, loving them more and more. I think it’s fair to say, that by the time episode 1 came out, Star Wars was then untouchable and sacred. To add to that, we were no longer kids in 1999. We were then in our mid to late 20s, and intensely passionate about things. The humdrum of adult life hadn’t had enough of a chance to beat that out of us, yet. We were going to judge things very harshly. That’s a hell of a lot of pressure to live up to. It’s no wonder the prequels they fell short of expectations for my generation. However, talk to people who were kids when the prequels came out, and you get a totally different response. They were really well received. The only problem, is that my generation were shouting the loudest about it, as those kids didn’t have much of a voice at the time.
I come from a similar perspective, as I was also a kid when I saw the original Star Wars and it became a huge part of my life. 16 years passed and we got the Phantom Menace. But, while the original Star Wars was loved by kids it never felt like it was dumbed down FOR kids. I know people have issues with the Ewoks and maybe that was the start of focusing more on making kids giggle and coo at the screen. The prequels never felt particularly clever or funny. People have already commented on the poor writing. But they seemed to rely more on funny voices, bathroom humor, and slapstick in Episode 1. Cute for kids, cringey for adults and for the people who grew up with the series. Episode 1 was visually stunning with the best lightsaber duel we’d seen up to that point, but the rest was a huge disappointment
@@oldcdog91 Agreed. Things did start to slip a bit in Return of the Jedi. There were some parts of the prequels I liked (Qui Gon, Darth Maul, Jango Fett, introducing the Lars Homestead, Count Dooku, all the Jedi, Kashyyyk & the Wookiees, The Clone Troopers, Palpatine and Sidious coming together), but they didn't have that je-ne-sais-quoi of the originals. I dare say the why is a blend of me being older and more cynical, as well as them not being as good. It's always a danger to revisit something much later on. It's so easy to soil a legacy if you get it wrong.
The originals are overrated. If you watch them as an adult you realise how many plot holes they have even though telling a simpler story compared to the prequels. Only the original 1977 Star Wars is solid in terms of plot. Still Leia goes to Yavin 4 even though knowing she is being tracked. In TESB you have Vader wasting most of the movie by stubbornly chasing the Millennium Falcon instead of searching Echo Base around to find Luke. Later Vader catches Han and Leia who could be useful hostages but then he sells Solo to Boba Fett and the princess escapes once again. Not even Jar Jar is that idiotic. In ROTJ you have Leia "somehow" always knowing Luke was her brother after having kissed him twice. Obi Wan reveals himself as a liar when telling Luke and Leia were hidden when born. So Anakin / Vader didn't know he had a son but Obi Wan had told Luke his father left him his lightsaber to his son when coming of age.
Adam savage is forever cancelled for getting the title wrong for episode one. FOREVER. You were the chosen one! You were supposed to save the prequels, not misname them!
The prequels disrupted many peoples' head canon and vision of the Star Wars past. No one would be completely happy with something which conflicts with their hopes or imaginings.
And few people can be happy about a kid tripping an invading force to annihilation. Duel of the fates was good, portman has always been a favourite since Leon, the professional, but the rest wasn't exactly good. Clones is better but way too much stuff that is great for video games and revenge is ok if you disregard things like how Anakin doesn't understand anything. Also too much video game pampering. Even before it released I've viewed awakens as an attempt to introduce younger audiences. It's sad that starkiller base is so over the top but the rest is about equal to clones. I don't mind if she can fetch the lightsabre without training, Luke did that in empire. VIII had too many loose ends and weird physics. Why was there a video game part about racing horses... Uhmmm... Things? They briefed over the manufacturers but nothing came of it and I think Snokes death should have meant something in IX IX was bad. Just bad. It's way too much of everything.
Most fans have the opposite opinion. Phantom Menace most resembled a cohesive film (even if you disliked the plot). It blended real world locations and sets with CGI. It's the best looking prequel BY FAR, it's not even close. Clones and Sith went full green screen for almost every shot. Ewan McGregor himself said that if he knew he'd be doing so much green screen acting to nothing on Episodes II, and III... he wouldn't have come back to do them. That's very telling.
Well, I was 11 and it was the first SW movie I saw completely. So I liked Jar Jar when I first saw it lol. But yeah, he was annoying and didn't fit SW at all.
Jar Jar Binks. Spotted as an utter imbecile by everyone the moment he appeared on screen. The audience, the main characters, supporting characters who called him a complete fuck-up even by the standards of a society drawn to appear rather silly. Everyone knew he was an idiot by all measures. They keep him around out of kindness. Until they put him in a seat of power for no reason other than "we need a moron to do something stupid to give the BBEG his coup de gras."
Old guy, a huge fan since 1977 when I saw the original in the theater. Yet, the amount of stuff on the screen in Episode I is part of what I LOVED. It blew me away and it is WHY I saw it 10 times in the theater. I saw the Sequels once in the theater. I don't have that much problem with the writing of the sequels, but they are boring. So often, what is one the screen is one person in a forest I could see in my back yard. Even the OT wasn't that boring.
He’s being too kind 😊 Not a hater. IMO Star Wars originally degraded with Return of the Jedi, as it tried to be epic AND be a marketing tool for children’s toys. Note I felt that way as a young boy when I first saw RotJ. The Phantom Menace suffered that same kiddie element, but with mediocre / stiff writing, mediocre characters and indeed too much CGI. Again, not a hater. Rogue One, The Mandalorian (S1) and Andor show that the franchise can grow up. The original Star Wars was an epic space adventure for grown ups. Star Wars needs to be a little darker, mature and with less pandering to agendas.
Andor might be a bad example, since I found it boring and shallow. But it proved to me that I don’t want to see Star Wars in an ethical grey area. The Empire should be evil and the Jedi should be the good guys. Anakin did not come of as evil. He came off as stupid. The Jedi weren’t corrupt, they were inactive. Simple things like “you can’t go see your mother Anakin, a Jedi must abandon all emotional attachments.” In the first few minutes of Episode II would have made the movie 10x better.
Phantom Menace actually has a massive amount of practical effects. The Gungar city was practical, the audience at the pod race was practical, Padme's palace was practical, the Senate building was practical, most of the effects for the pod race (barring the aliens) were practical.
The only thing bad about ROTJ was how cheesy fake the teddy bear Ewoks looked. I think making a 2nd Death Star felt like we've seen this before even when I saw it at age 8 (rinse repeat), let alone when they made Death Star Planet as the very next sequel (Episodes 4, 6 and 7 all had Death Stars or equivalent!!! That's lazy!)
Hello there! Life-log Star Wars fan here. I was born in the last 70s and one of my earliest memories is seeing RotJ in the theater. My experience/feelings about the prequels in 3 sentences are: Phantom Menace was a story that needed to be told, but the dialog is so bad in parts. I actually like the detective noir Obi-Wan story in Attack of the Clones and how that leads to him and Annakin coming to the same place. RotS is a great movie; i like it better than RotJ and that's no knock against eithe rmovie. I have bigger problems with Rise of Skywalker, but will die on the hill of The Last Jedi being a cinematic masterpiece of a rumination on failure. Everything fails in that movie and I got that on my first viewing.
What he's basically saying is how people believe the prequels had too much CGI, when in actuality, The Phantom Menace had more practical effects than the entire original trilogy combined
@@riftshredder5438 no, he looked bad. you have to remember in the pre-CGI era the standard for special effects was *realism*. in the post-CGI era it's merely that it "looks good for CGI"
To me, the focus of the prequels was wrong. I remember when ROTJ came out, coming out of the movie and learning that there was going to be a prequel that showed Anakin's fall to the dark side. *That's* the story I wanted to see. But the prequels were just loaded with too much other crap. We didn't need to see Anakin as a pre-teen. The seeds of his fall don't even start until his late teenage years. We should've gotten more of his relationship with Obi-Wan and a lot less of the "love story" between him and Padme (which didn't really work). It could've just been a story about his need for recognition and acclaim dragging him to the dark side. Have him meet Padme as an *adult" and have them fall in love that way. The reason the prequels are getting a renaissance now is because of The Clone Wars. That show did Anakin's story correctly. I do like Revenge of the Sith. To me, that movie delivers on the promise of the prequels: We see Anakin fall to the dark side. It happens too quickly, but at least we get it. TBH, the prequels, to me, are just overstuffed with mostly uninteresting stuff. It's the cinematic equivalent of "This meeting could've been an email".
Going off your point about the volume, I think that the biggest flaw of it is that sometimes it just feels like you’re moving from room to room like a classic Zelda game like Zelda 1 or a Link to the Past Like sure it’s visually impressive, but as you said, Andor’s use of physical sets makes the world that much more believable
7:28 absolutely agree. What you’re saying right here is a big part of why Godzilla Minus One is so good. Filmmakers have gotten lazy, GM1 is what Hollywood should be aspiring to be.
As awesome as technology is today, and even at the early stages of Star Wars, nothing beats a practical set. You have so many people doing their specialty in making a set look a certain way from the construction crew, to the set decorator, the lighting, all of those people made the magic happen right before your eyes. And the best part is that the actors could play off the set, making the moment more believable. The prequels for me seemed to be too perfect. Any room you were in was pristine and lacked the “lived in” look. Some of the CGI creatures didn’t have any weight to them. You could feel the lack of substance when they moved about. I think the use of CGI was a bit overdone, and could have had a nice balance. As far as the storyline, I’m not sure if George Lucas had all of this written out when the first three movies came out, but to me it seemed a bit distant from what we had seen, like disconnected to a point. There could have been more to tie in to episodes 4,5,&6. But I mean overall I liked them. Just felt like they may have rushed the writing process. Gotta say, I enjoyed the first six episodes…just not as crazy with the last three. It’s all under the Death Star now. 😊
Particularly the action sequences in the prequels just pack too much into every shot. Its kind of a sensory overload where it gets hard to follow. Every shot in the original trio had a very clear meaning. Diving in to make the run. Oh noooo tie fighters closing in! the defense batteries opening up! Here comes the big bad ass boss! So dangerous!
At the time, TPM was hyped up to the point of bursting. It was opposite to the original 1977 Star Wars, that was originally relatively unknown and released to a limited number of theatres. Also, there was a long period between ROTJ and TPM (plenty of time to get it right) - by 1999 George had obtained full control over everything. Much of those he employed back in the 70s & 80s had gone, and those who had since come on board were more focused on pleasing George than necessarily doing what was best for the movie. It was all going to be "fabulous and amazing" because George was so brilliant. But, if you watch the Episode I making of doco, there were clearly issues which it seems were not resolved. To me, which was often reflected in reviews at the time, was that most of the characters were fairly boring or aggravating. So the audience didn't care about them and were not sucked into this galaxy far, far away despite the break through CGI. Overall, George did have some great story ideas, but the trilogy was full of filler and not enough time was spent on the meaningful scenes to develop the characters and make the story engaging. George has stated he thinks it was because the films were experimental and that they are "visual"storytelling. But wasn't the original Star Wars experimental? And aren't all movies are visual? The backlash was completely understandable.
The problem with Phantom menace is that its not needed, you can remove it from the line up and the series still works. -if I was to show someone Star Wars now it would be; 'Andor', 'Rogue One', 'New Hope', 'Empire strikes Back' in that order and THATS IT!
Ending on a cliffhanger? Despite its flaws, you gotta have the closure that RoTJ brings, right? Just my HUMBLE opinion. The movies you listed are my favorite and I agree with it except for the omission of Jedi
I dont know what you're trying to prove to yourself by ending star wars with Luke loosing a hand and Han being frozen It feels like a waste of runtime training Luke in ep4 and 5 just to never see the fruits of his training
George Lucas is good at starting off in the middle of his story when he has to build the entire world from scratch. There are no B-52 bombers in Star Wars with the entire history of how that military aircraft evolved into what became from the origins of flying vehicles. When George has to build a world from the beginning, it becomes easy to see where the cracks in the narrative are at. Apparently, before TPM, the jedi and the Sith had never fought each other, according to George, but then Palpatine says this line in RotS, "Once more the sith will rule the galaxy," and how does that work out? The Jedi were supposed to be guardians of Peace and justice in the galaxy for a thousand generations, which is roughly 30 thousand years or so. When we enter the story, Anakin was a kid. Kind of makes it strange to say, "When I first knew him, he was already the best starfighter pilot in the galaxy. I took it upon myself to train him as a jedi." Only to discover that when Obi Wan first met Anakin, he was a nine year old boy who had only just won his first podrace. Anyone keeping score would still put sebulba's piloting record over Anakin's because, "Sebulba _ALWAYS_ wins!" You can argue that Sebulba wasnt a starfighter pilot, at least not necessarily in that movie, but neither was Anakin. He got into a fighter, didnt know how to turn off the autopilot, and then sort of derped his way into destroying the droid control ship. My whole point here is basically, the foundation of Star Wars paid little attention to the lore the way it was presented in the originals, which is bad because the prequels are supposed to be the foundation upon which all of Star Wars stands. The peaces have to fit in a good story. When they don't, it will never be a good thing. So from that flaw, a whole slew of problems arise. You're getting a story about a guy who starts out as a nine year old, when he probably should have started out as 19 or older. Thats what the already established narrative called for. Then you have to somehow make this nine year old fall in love. To do that, you have to devote an inordinate amount of screen time to the romance, in what is easentially supposed to be a war story. If you go back to the orignials, there was a romance, but it didn't try to get in the way of the war story. In the prequels, much of the war story was abbreviated. The heroes were never in constant danger and on the run like with what worked so well in the originals. There were a lot of reports of war and unrest, whereas in the originals, the heroes were smack in the middle of everything going on. You didnt have time to worry about concerning reports from the front on Selucamai. When Vader mentions the fleet amassing near Sullust, our heroes are with that fleet. When the Imperial officer mentions the ship that blasted out of Mos Eisley, that was our heroes they were talking about. So watching the prequels, theres this giant sense of detachment from all the action going on, so I can watch Anakin and Padme fooling around in some meadow, or discussing sand, or using the force to eat fruit. i can watch a Hugh Grant movie and get most of that.
The overabundance of special effects did not allow Episodes I & II to have moments to breathe and allow the audience to appreciate the film visually. Episode III also had a great number of special effects, but I liked that movie more. Sometimes less is more.
By Episode III he had gotten all the nerdy details out of the way and micro-explained ever single point to death. I feel like he was free to finally tie all the knots together and there was for once a mooth path to the conclusion and he couldn't get distracted by dumb, over-cute, over-explaining stuff. That's why it seemed so much better a movie. I feel it makes a very satisfying lead-in to the original trilogy. Just a little editing would have done the same for the first two, the first one was especially just on the verge there, very beautiful scenery and a wonderful journey, just could he have put a little less corn in it?
@@angelainamarie9656 the three Star Wars films that I generally hate are Episodes 1, 2 and 9. And so I've located fan edits (by HAL9000 I believe) which improves these films and makes them at least tolerable. The edit of Phantom Menace actually makes Jar Jar into an interesting character that you care about, if you can believe that.
5:40 One of my mantras from the SubGenius Church is "Too much is always better than not enough." Whether we are talking about Fonts or Computer Graphics or Artificial Intelligence, when it is first launched into the maelstrom of creative minds worldwide, we want to do everything with it all at once. For some people who are first learning how to shoot a gun, it's not enough to just shoot one bullet and then call it a day. You wanna know how it feels to empty the clip. THAT is what happens EVERY TIME a new modern technology hits The Human Condition. the Model-T wasn't enough. We needed the Corvette! Then we needed THE R.V.! What the Wright Brothers hammered together in their little flyer, we needed the 747! Then we needed to jet out into space! TOO MUCH!
I'm one of the "haters," and it's really not very deep or complicated. The prequels were simply badly written and badly directed. The original trilogy's movies were team efforts, not just George Lucas on his own, so his shortcomings could be compensated for by the skills of others. Not so in the prequels, it seems. The prequels haven't got *better* with age. I attribute their "rehabilitation" both to the fact that a substantial portion of the fanbase is now young enough that the prequels are "their" Star Wars and so form their baseline of quality, and to the fact that the Disney sequels have established a new baseline of just how *bad* Star Wars can be that's substantially below where the prequels are. Makes them look better by comparison.
The Prequels did suck. Lucas was smothered by Yes-Men and made too many mistakes. With ESB and ROTJ there were other directors that had some more, but not complete, control. Lucas should have asked for more help, if not guidance, concerning the writing and story. The thing that hurts me the most, beyond anything else in Star Wars, is that the Prequels turned Darth Vader, and demi-god who was the most frightening man in the galaxy, into a stupid cry-baby who threw a bunch of fits and was a complete pussy.
@@aresnir2725 Not sure what you mean. I first saw Vader in 1980 in a movie theater. I think the "pink glasses" are really for those who saw the prequels at the same time as the OT. They'll never understand how frightening he was for over 20 years.
The overuse of computers isn't why the prequels suck. They suck because of Jar Jar, Anakin, color over-saturation, ass writing, and a certain level of corniness.
He needed to rely more on practical sets and focus on developing the story on the ground level instead of assuming the metanarrative was somehow going to carry our collective interest. HOW that narrative developed over time from moment to moment on a granular level was more important. He was surrounded by yes men. I mean, Ben Burtt did quite a lot of video editing when he should have been spending all his time on sound. Loads of red flags.
@@av3nger3 They did have sets they used they also filmed on location. And as for practical effects they used far more practical effects, miniatures in The Prequels than they did in The Originals. Also it's a myth that he was surrounded by Yes men. That was all brought about by Mr. Plinkett taking one snippet of behind the scenes video and taking it way out of context. If you watch the behind the scenes entirely not only will you see people telling Lucas no. They actually make suggestions that he listens to.
So many great points in the comments! Prequels lack surprise because we know where it is going. No chemistry between Padme and Anakin even though that was supposed to be the source of his turn to the Dark Side. Jar Jar. Too much boring politics. It lives on in memes because it is one of the last films seen by an entire generation. Harry Potter, Star Wars Prequels, the Matrix, LOTR basically defined movies for millennials and younger gen x.
As I'm in my 60's, I saw the original Star Wars in the theater in 1977. Recently, I spoke to a very much younger person who saw the Star Wars movies 'in order'; prequel first. When they watched ' A New Hope', they wondered why it looked so bad and unremarkable. I explained to them that it was made back in the mid-1970's. Even still, they couldn't wrap their head around the fact that technology and computer graphics were being created, and it didn't really exist at that time. That conversation still boggles my mind!
I was born in 1988. I watched the originals in theatres when the special edition was released in 1997. "A New Hope" looks great to me. Its beginning is stunning and the Death Star battle is thrilling to the end. The special edition fixed some details but most of the movie looks like the original film. Besides ANH is the only Star Wars movie that works alone. You don't need to watch its prequels and sequels to enjoy it. Nevertheless I also love classic movies like Casablanca or Modern Times so I may not be representative of my generation. I liked the prequels when released as well but I admit ANH is the best Star Wars movie.
@@claudioforjan1743 Since you like ANH and classic movies, I recommend you watch 'The Guns of Navarone''. As for the prequel, Lucas has defended it's flaws saying that it was intended for children. Yet it has a sexual attraction obsession between Anakin & Padme, constant boring senate segments, etc... The problem some people have with the sequel TFA, is that it is actually a combination of all the original three movies thrown into one. My favorite of 'all' the Star Wars movies, even outside the three trilogies, is 'Rogue One'. Even by how they have the heroes meet their fate takes the movie out of the typical cookie-cutter mode of Star Wars. Just some thoughts...
I often wonder if its easier for us (GenXer here) that lived through the transition from analogue to digital, practical effects to CGI etc. We witnessed it and can see from both sides. I often explain to my GenZ nephew that all the stuff like Google and the internet wasn't at your fingertips when I was a teen; he nods his head and says he understands but I think he (and may of the young folks of today) aren't really getting it. One of my recent favourites was "how did you watch a film whenever you wanted, without streaming?" - umm, vhs tapes, rental stores, had to wait for a repeat on tv! Or the old, "how did you look stuff up without Google?" - books! I suppose it must be a difficult concept as our lives are so entrenched with everything digital, to imagine a world, and life, without it.
If he watched them in chronological order, that’s a tragedy. Ruins the end of ESB. And by the way, if you think ESB is a less beautiful movie than the prequels, that’s like hating filet mignon because you’d rather eat McNuggets. It means your taste was ruined by junk.
The font comment Adam Savage made has cohort: way back then, with the internet burgeoning new and shiny, web code was implemented to allow blinking, winking, siding fonts and other nonsense. And for months going to a website was like going to a circus - a crazy, madman circus of pages overflowing with winking, blinking messages moving text and other distractions. Today's ads do not compare to the craziness of enabling childish web design features for childish web designers.
People hated on the Prequels because they were badly written stories. You can make a film that has great production values, but if the story isn't good for various reasons, audiences will tune out, at the least. And if you're making a prequel to an established franchise, and you do odd things that stand out to the audience, stuff that rankles their experiences of the franchise itself, you're going to create a backlash. Take Jar Jar Binks. Why was this character so loathed? It wasn't just that he was annoying, because you can make annoying characters that audiences may forgive them for being annoying; case in point: Gertie from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, played by Drew Barrymore. She was annoying, but she was supposed to be, because she's a little girl, and the sister to Elliot, who dresses E.T. up and puts make-up on him. But, we love her because she's annoying and charming. Jar Jar was not only annoying, but was completely incompetent. He was utterly useless. This makes him unlike any main character thus presented so far in the Star Wars franchise: That he was incompetent at everything made him even more detestable. Say what you want about, say, C-3PO, that he was whiny, kind of prissy, but he was competent at one thing, which was translation, which does come in handy. If you don't make a main character competent at something, you make him unlikeable to the audience because he's a distraction. I could easily say something similar about Anakin Skywalker. In The Phantom Menace, he's competent, but too competent; he's a great pilot, a great tinkerer, and he is also strong with the Force. But George presents him as a little kid. Now, in a movie where most of the main characters are adults, having a child in the movie is not good because, as a kid, he's limited to what he could feasibly do and what he's expected to do. To have this kid partake in a dangerous Pod-Race (a major plothole, by the way) and then get into a starfighter and do his thing against the Trade Federation only made him annoying. It's not that audiences don't like kids, but if you're going to put a child in danger, it has to be in such a way that enables the audience to really care about what happens to him. Putting him in a situation he has no control over, only to magically come through in the end only annoys the audience because he's a little kid, and it makes the adults around him seem rather stupid, notably Qui-Gon Jinn, allowing him to stay in that starfighter like that. There's no reason at all to bring Anakin to a potential combat zone; they should've just had him stay at the Jedi Temple, which is what any sane, rational adult would've done. Then having Anakin appear as an angsty teenager didn't do this character many favors. George really makes Anakin out to be an asshole in the subsequent films. Why anyone like Padme would bother to hook up with Anakin, of all people, defies belief. He's rude, creepy, and he whines. Not a good way to make a character likeable. It also didn't help that George made Vader the lynchpin of the entire franchise. There are so many other issues, but Adam is trying to show things from his own perspective, and I can appreciate that. He does say that the stories weren't all that good, but special effects alone cannot carry a movie. Even George Lucas said so, years back, around the time he was working on Return of the Jedi, where he said that a special effect without a good story behind it is a rather boring thing.
I think the issue for a lot of people was the PM was aimed at 10 year olds and they wanted something more serious. Then in AotC Anakin was such an awkward teenager. I enjoyed the movies as much as the originals which I think were over hyped because they were such a departure from anything that came before. People are hard to please sometimes. I thought it was wonderful to have some new SW after so many years had passed. The CGI was a treat. I liked the innovation.
As one of those original haters here's what I couldn't and never will forgive. I spent my life adoring the original trilogy, seeing it more times than I can remember. I loved it for the very great and very unique qualities it has. After coming out of Phantom Menace I felt baffled by the experience. It didn't feel anything like watching an expansion of my favorite trilogy. Literally NONE of what made me love the OT was present in the PT. It missed all the marks. It did have qualities of its own but nothing I really cared for in my Star Wars. The things I truly cared for were missing entirely. To put insult to injury so many aspects that were top notch in the first films were mediocre at best in the PT. For what good they have, these weren't and never will be my Star Wars.
Yoda puppet in The Phantom Menance looked terrible though. I was so happy when Lucas went back and reshot those scenes digitally. It’s hard for me to watch Empire because it hasn’t aged the best. Even though I still love that film.
@@joehenry9546 true. I seen a old hour behind the scenes on PM. Actual footage during production. What I took from it was, the team got a little to excited about the use of CG and the easy it brought to the table. Seems like they got a bit lazy cause of it and that made a lack of "movie magic" in the film. For me I love,love,love JarJar. He truly reminds me of myself in my late teens. Annoying, clueless yet had some awesome dumb luck in life. LoL
The prequels failed quite simply because they lacked character, personality, and relatability. None of the characters were in any way relatable, funny, cool, or charismatic. In particular, it needed one central protagonist who is closest to the audience. In the original Trilogy that was Luke. In the prequels, who's the "main hero"? There isn't one. Obi Wan is kind of stuffy and stiff, and Anakin is kind of jerky and odd. We _kind of_ like them both, but neither man is _the_ hero. Somehow, the Disney Sequels failed EVEN MORE spectacularly at this, completely lacking anything even resembling a hero.
The remastering of the originals was terrible. The pod race was boring, with no jeopardy. The trip under the water was a monty python cartoon. Aside from the one light sabre battle it was boring. I didn't believe any of it. the things they had everyone doing were ridiculous mario cart stuff.
The reason the prequels sucked: 1. Too much 6 yr. old Anakin. 2. The Clone Wars were named after the soldiers - messed up Boba Fett's mythos. 3. Too much beurocracy. 4. Not enough Darth Vader. 5.Windmill Lightsabers🤮
I have long maintained that George Lucas 's secret motivation for selling Star wars to Disney is that he knew what a cluster they would make of it, and everyone would finally get off his back about how bad the prequels were. History has justified my opinion.
I couldn't agree with you more dude. His way of saying to the fans, if you thought my shit was bad, wait till you see what these clowns do with it. Now you'll really have something to bitch about. A one, two fuck you punch!
I believe it was Irvin Kirchner said that the movies should have humor, but not silly. From return of the Jedi, it was all about toy, sales at the expense of story. Tend to be extremely silly. I think people wanted a more serious tone to it, but it cannot be silly.
I think episode 1 lacked a true main character or that it didn’t develop its main characters enough. Anakin is a kid with questionable acting, Obiwan was fine but he wasn’t the focus, and Qi Gon was just very stoic. We don’t learn anything about Obiwan or Qi Gon. The Sith aren’t fleshed out at all. And then Padme and her servant were very confusing and had some awful dialogue. So it lacked any kind of substance to the characters. Attack of the clones tried to fix that but Anakin either isn’t written well enough or isn’t acted out well enough to make the audience sympathetic. He just comes off as an angsty teen who snaps and kills a whole village. The clone wars show did a much better job portraying Anakin and making us actually like him and show us how the Jedi failed him just as much as he failed them. The prequels are just a great idea executed poorly. In my opinion.
its main character was Qui-Gon Jin.... and he Died. You're Second main character, is Obi-Wan Kenobi.... and you saw him become a Jedi Knight and transition into that lead character for the next two movies.
I didn’t like the prequels at first, ESPECIALLY Jar Jar (and I still hate that character), but after I watched them at home and gave them a chance, you realize the storytelling and character development was needed to give depth and meaning to Anakin’s transformation. Now, did you need that much 6-year old Anakin time, did you need that much Anakin/Padme love story time, probably not, but IMHO, everything comes together in ROTS and and it’s an absolutely amazing movie and climax that explains painfully why Anakin made his choices.
One thing that took a good friend and I 25 years to figure out that just makes ZERO sense about Episode I. The Jedi are sent to Naboo to negotiate and see what's happening. Then they "rescue" Padmé and bring her to Coruscant to corroborate their findings. But once on Coruscant, the reason for the Jedi to even have been on Naboo is ditched, and Padmé's suddenly the very first time anybody hears about something being fishy on Naboo. The Jedi could have just reported their findings, Padmé would have confirmed them, and done. So yeah, the writing is even worse than you think.
"But once on Coruscant, the reason for the Jedi to even have been on Naboo is ditched, and Padmé's suddenly the very first time anybody hears about something being fishy on Naboo" Not true. Everyone knew about the blockade. That's the basis of the plot. THey just didn't know it evolved into an invasion. "The Jedi could have just reported their findings, Padmé would have confirmed them, and done." They were sent in secret by the Supreme Chancelor, who was acting behind the Senate's back. It would have gotten him into serious trouble.
I think the reason people didn’t like the prequels is they weren’t very good. Lucas took too long for the prequels, too many unnecessary bad stereotypes, too much bad storytelling, the motivations were ham-fisted, the world building was weak, and too much CGI.
I dislike the prequals because Lucas took one of my favorite movie villians and turned him into a angsty teen that hates sand and gets tricked by an old man. 😒
Agreed. We were promised an amazing star fighter seduced by the dark side…and got an angst- riddled whiner that no one liked and was kind of a prick to begin with. If I was luke, I would have disowned Anikin as my father.
Lucas literally invented the character. He could make it whatever he wanted to tell the story. You either just don't like Star Wars, or don't understand it.
I think the problem is, how do you show the fall of good person and try to maintain them as a hero. All the interactions between Anakin and everyone else on his slow turn was just awkward. Padme didn't seem that moved when Anakin explained he killed the women and children sand people too. Pretty freaking heinous act. Or Anakin getting upset about being given a seat on the council but not made a Master, very cringe.
One of the things that struck me when a friend of mine recounted what it was like to work with Stephen Spielberg on E.T.: "Stephen, we don't have the money to do that." It was a refrain of the ADs, because Spielberg wanted to do some mind-blowing stuff. He and his crew, like Lucas in the first Star Wars, were forced to find creative ways of making magic happen on camera because Hollywood simply lacked the technology to make it happen within a reasonable time frame and budget. I'm sure Spielberg ran into time constraints with Jurassic Park, he probably wanted more dinosaurs but stuff like Massive hadn't been invented yet. But I think the fandom is resistant to new ideas that challenge their fond and sacred memories, and the prequels did that to some extent. For many fans of the first trilogy, the prequels were a moment where they disagreed with Lucas' story before episode IV. And even now, people are fiercely defensive of nostalgia, I just saw a comment on a Trek video saying, "Make more TNG, DS9, and Voyager". Good things end for reasons we will seldom agree with, and "bad" things continue because it's profitable..
For me it was a combination of things, and he nails a few… Star Wars is a feeling, leaving the theatre after 4 completely exhilarated and over stimulated, after 5 feeling the same yet concerned for Han and blown away by the father / son revelation, after 6 feeling much as 4, completely satisfied and buzzing. Episode 1 ended with a funeral?! After political debates?!! What?… It is clear there was a good team working on the OT, and were sadly missing thereafter. George had lost the plot and was surrounded by yes people. He had too much say, and wasn’t reigned in by others. The story was solid enough in the main, yet the execution was poor. Yes, far too much CGI, and no reference points for the actors to get into the feel of the scene. The OT had so much more, and set such a high bar. The chemistry between Hamill, Fisher and Harrison was delightful. Later joined by the charismatic Williams. The droids were charming, and became corny in the PT… why George why?… Why have young Anakin build C3PO on Tatooine? That one decision alone sums up why so many disliked the PT. It never measured up to the OT, never has, never will… and we all WANTED it to SOOOO MUCH. Highly disappointing overall, not seen them in years, doubt I’d see them again, no interest. Folks rave about Revenge of the Sith. Yes, the films improved slightly one by one, but for me ROTS wasn’t much better, and not good enough. Anakin’s transition from Jedi to Sith was so brief and clumsy. The PT was a massive kick in the teeth for many fans, myself included. Even the battle droids looked ‘cute’ and merchandise worthy…😢 Bad films with very little redeeming qualities, but not as bad as Disney, I can give George that. The only consistent factor in quality throughout, was the music score. John, take a bow.
😂😂😂 "Episode 1 ended in a funeral after oolitical debates"...More like after Duel of the Fates, one of the most memorable duels in the series. But if you prefer to stick with the idea of political debates, for two minutes of footage, then fine.
@@davidmr11able far more than 2 minutes, the theme was strong throughout you’ll find. Trade negotiations 🥱. The Duel of the Fates scene was good, for 4 minutes, which doesn’t make a movie. One of the best? Nowhere near…
I first saw Star Wars in 1977 at age 10 I loved it I saw The phantom menace in 1999 at age 32 I loved it The phantom menace Back In theaters 25 years later Better than ever I love the Prequels
@@jimbass1968 The trade blockade is just the trigger for the action, nothing more. There isn't much debate, and the scenes in the Senate are minimal. But well, I guess it's subjective. All your comments are tremendously subjective and show a lot of ignorance about the saga. Like for example Anakin's transformation, saying that it's fast and dumb is not knowing the Force and the dark side. But I always wondered why that seems wrong to you, on the other hand you agree that Luke has legitimate reasons to go over to the dark side if he kills Vader or the Emperor to save his friends... Besides, you see problems where there aren't any. What's the problem with Anakin building 3PO? Or with the CGI? There is no difference between a lot of CGI or a lot of Stop-Motion, prosthetics and costumes. The prosthetics and puports are not more credible than the CGI, everything is fake, and it's your suspension of disbelief that makes it more or less credible. But your personal tastes are not a universal truth.
The Trade War plotline was boring and contrived, the Gungans were terrible, Anakin as a small boy was cloying, they killed off the two most interesting characters before we really got to know them (Qui-Gon and Maul), and nobody really does anything interesting. Plus the whole movie just feels like it was done on a green screen. It just felt sterile and distant.
the prequels suffered from a lack of dramatic tension to a degree because we know how things play out for the characters. we arent wondering if anakin dies, or what happens to obi wan or will palpatine be victorious. the original trilogy was about what happened. the prequels were about how things happened.
Before episode 1 was confirmed, I told friends that episode 3 needed to end with Anakin taking an act of vengeance because he believed his pregnant wife had been killed.
The distaste for the prequels really boiled down to one thing. George Lucas, while younger, had a more accurate and mature impression of 12 year olds in the 70s. Flash forward to the 90s and something happened to where Lucas had a less mature view of 12 year olds. Perhaps it was having his own children. Either way, most of the problems of the prequels wouldn't have existed if Lucas respected his intended audience as much as he did in the original trilogy. The original trilogy was, indeed, perfect for young preteens. The prequels, however, are perfect for 7 year olds. He went from making things adult enough to be cool to kids to making things immature enough to not be cool to 12 year olds. It's that simple. All of the cringe silliness comes from Lucas imagining 12 year olds to be far more immature than he did during the 70s. The prequels are blatantly less mature than the originals. Sure, there a numerous reasons that could be listed from having a main character portrayed with really bad acting(Lucas' fault for accepting bad takes, for any reason), adding biblical nonsense like virgin birth and prophesy, too much cgi, perhaps. None of that makes it lame, though. It was the immaturity like Jar Jar poop jokes and robots from outer space saying "roger, roger" for no in-universe discernable reason, cartoon antics from Jar Jar during the climax of Phantom Menace, etc... that were the problem. Instead of remaining the same age-demographic or maturing the prequels to grow older with established fans, he chose to regress beyond the original movie and go more childish and that was just, lame. He tried to course correct with the subsequent sequels but the damage was done and the silliness was canon. I don't hate the prequels but I would have been much more into them if I were a very small child of maybe 6-7 but by 12 years old, I was too close to adulthood to enjoy cartoony antics in my "cool" movies. The prequels are just more cartoony and less serious. I'd love to say that EpIII matured but right from the jump you have Grievous crouching and cackling for no reason like a cartoon villain. The irony there is that Grievous was actually intimidating and cool in the cartoon clone wars shorts, and then got made more cartoonish, in character, in the actual live action! ./facepalm Instantly went from being the new "cool" character to cartoony villain. Makes me so glad they didn't give Darth Maul an evil chuckle or a catch-phrase or something because it could have happened. Lucas was aiming way younger than 12 years old with the prequels.
@@Deuteromis Calm yer panties, princess. I don't hate the prequels. Unfortunately for you, there is a stigma attached to them and that is the reason this video was made. All of fandom knows this is the case. You sound silly trying to pretend everyone else didn't live through these movie releases. XD You can pretend but, people actually lived through it as adults. Maybe you were a child and so you have your nolstagia-goggles on. In no way were the prequels anywhere near as popular as the original trilogy. That's because ep1 turned a lot of people off and ep2 is considered the worst in the series(not counting Disney garbage). You can't rewrite history for those who lived through it, kiddo. Nice try.
I suppose slaughtering children at the end of Episode III at the hands of Anakin (Darth Vader) passes as entertainment for 7 year old kids in 2005. I would take the prequels over the fan service, preachy, agenda driven pieces of fan fiction that passed as the sequel trilogy from Disney.
@@dmac7128 lol, yes, the fact that none of the slaughtering was in the actual movie and only implied, shows that it was for 7 year olds. It's like you missed the part where i mentioned that Lucas tried to make all due corrections with the subsequent sequels. Weird. ...and yes, Disney Star Wars is trash.
I just think it's much more satisfying wondering exactly what happened in Episodes 1 through 3 with your own imagination than actually seeing it could ever be. I'll never understand the urge to do prequels, how interesting can a story be when you already know the ending? Just move forward.
Have you never watched a movie more than once? There is so much to enjoy and appreciate about a movie beyond beyond being surprised by the plot twists.
There is a certain combination of red text on blue (or vice-versa) that makes the text shimmer or wobble, as if your eyes couldn't track and process them at the same time. I specifically remember Omni magazine making frequent use of this color combination. I'm going to investigate further now. Apparently this effect is known as "chromostereopsis".
I don't understand people who are big fans of the prequels. They're idiotic, very poorly written. Visually, yeah, the movies are best watched with the sound off so you don't hear the bad writing. Still a lot of the dumbness leaks through but it's muted.
It's hard to connect with the bland, headstrong, Gary Stu Jedi. They don't have enough personality to effect the plot. And that's a mistake on George Lucas's part. That's why I'm so glad Kurtzman had so much say over the original trilogy. There's not even character to be had in the lightsaber fights. You can see the innocence in the way Luke fought in Empire compared to Vader. You could feel the rage in the way Luke attacked Vader in Jedi.
@@LukeLovesRose LOL no he wasn't, his character wasn't that complex at all. He grew up thinking the Jedi were one thing but over time found out they were flawed. And the argument that he was a Gary Stu has been disproven like the one Luke is. Only ignorant people use that argument. But please explain how I'm wrong and I'll gladly respond like all the others who made that ridiculous claim.
@@Deuteromis He was supposed to be complex and obviously Lucas failed. Thats the only way to make Darth Vader redeemable by Jedi. You don't have him slaughter younglings Watching people constantly try to defend bad movies is hilarious
@@LukeLovesRose Kid he wasn't supposed to be that complex lol. Him. Slaughtering children shows how far he was willing to go to save Padme. Not only do you continue to show your ignorance in the character, but also failed to show how he was a Gary Stu. LOL
I heard the CGI hate at the time but I didn't care. I was disappointed to see the man who would ultimately become the most terrifying force in the galaxy was nothing more than giant crybaby with no presence or charisma.
The prequels were plagued by bad writing, bad acting (mostly), incoherent stories, sanitized digital environments (which have aged very poorly), massive corniness (3P0 taking on the personality of a battle droid on a conveyer belt anyone?), and no kid wants to hear about trade agreements and congressional hearings...
I think part of what Savage is referring to is the same thing that happened between LOTR and The Hobbit. Too much reliance on CGI and digital and not enough on realism, actors, and world-building with props and sets. The Hobbit could have been just as amazing and ground breaking as LOTR, but it fell short. Great story, IMHO, but it was not as good as the originals that came before it simply due to that.
After the (sometimes literal) torture that making the first LOTR trilogy turned out to be, Peter Jackson and his team didn't want to come back for The Hobbit, and it shows. They were done with anything of that scale, especially when Hobbit was stretched into a trilogy, and they simply got lazy and took as many easy ways out as they could.
For me, a 40 year old lifelong Star Wars fan who used to watch the movies literally every day, I can't stand the prequels. Primarily, the Original Trilogy has so many references to the backstory that the Prequels absolutely ignore (and worse, George went back and changed the OT to mitigate some of the conflicts!). Second, much of the plot and writing in the prequels is confusing or just bad. Like, why exactly are the Trade Federation invading Naboo? What tax laws are they upset about? Why are they forcing Amidala to sign a treaty to make the already-in-progress invasion legal? And why did Jango Fett hire another bounty hunter to assassinate the target he was hired to assassinate? Who exactly ordered the clone army and why? When Palpatine reveals he's a Sith lord to Anakin, he waits at his desk while Anakin goes to get Mace Windu to arrest him? And after Padme dies, why does he still feel the need to serve Palpatine? Third and most importantly, they are a completely different tone from the Original Trilogy. Yes, the OT was also made for children, but adults could enjoy it too. To this day I can't sit through the Phantom Menace with baby Anakin and Jar Jar Binks. Worse yet, The Phantom Menace was marketed as an adult film, which was a bait and switch and a total d*ck move by George.
I agree with the bait and switch. I can still enjoy them but that comes more through nostalgia and sharing it with my kids. As films they are very flawed, but at the same time they are lightyears ahead of what disney did, because at the end of the day there is an actual story.
@@TheForceFandom People bitch and moan and nitpick the story details in the PT but at least there was a larger overall story happening and building towards something. The Disney Sequel Trilogy had no such plan - they were completely making it up as they went along.
@Ziz62266 funny because they had Zero Plan and just made it up for the Original Trilogy yet somehow managed to pull it off ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Disney is just unbelievably stew pidd it seems ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Plus the prequels had a soft color theme going on, whereas the originals had a kind of grimy, gritty, high contrast thing going on that was best recreated in Rogue One. Should have stuck with that.
My number one problem with the prequels is the story. We were promised the story of Anakin slipping into the dark side. We didn't get that. We got a lot of talk about politics and the weakest romance I've ever seen in a movie. But Anakin goes from being a mop-haired little kid who can build sentient robots and race in Formula One, to being a typical petulant teen, to suddenly slaughtering a roomful of children. There was nothing believable about his arc. If they had gotten this right, much of the rest could have been forgiven. Even Lucas's abuse of the tools could have worked if he had kept the story tight. The original movie worked so well because it never strayed from the core story. The prequels were more a collection of side quests. We didn't need to see all the machinations that led to the clone war. We could have started the films with the war already in progress. Or it could have just been a thing that suddenly happened. It didn't even really need to happen. The war was only there because it was mentioned in the original movie. It didn't serve any purpose for the core story. And that whole subplot distracted from the main story. I haven't warmed to the prequels at all. I still hate them. The only reason I've seen them twice is because it made sense to watch all the movies before going to see the sequels. And the only reason the prequels are seeing a resurgence is because the sequels were abysmal, for the most part. The last film is the worst movie I've ever seen that wasn't made by Zak Snyder. TLJ, however, ranks in my top 3 of all Star Wars movies. So it isn't like I only like the OT and think everything else is garbage. I actually put TLJ and Rogue One ahead of RotJ. The prequels are objectively bad movies, based on criteria universally accepted by fans and critics. If people like them for nostalgia, fine. But it isn't just the abundance of CGI that ruined them.
The haters are Generation X, who spent years devising in their heads what the characters' ideal origin story would be. 20 years after everyone imagined their ideal versions of the world in Star Wars, the prequels came along; Generation X, in fact the most spoiled generation on wheels, had a nervous breakdown. They massacred the actors, the franchise and George Lucas Just note that rejection of the prequels is high among generation X, but it is low among generation X who already grew up watching Star Wars with the 6 films in the collection. This generation hasn't had 20 years to imagine how things should be. George Lucas after years and years of being slaughtered, trampled and laughed at in newspapers, magazines and programs and becoming synonymous with “the man who ruined his own history” all because of a useless Generation X who was hurt by the prequels. Who knew he would sell this crap
You do realize that GenX ends, depending on what source you use, at 1980. The premise of your statement doesn't make sense, even if GenX ends at 1984. GenX didn't "massacre" the actors. You're thinking of the Millennials and GenY. For the most part, the criticism is the almost exclusive use of green screen and lack of animaltronics. What made the original shine was the use of practical sets and animaltronics, and actors that seem to actually want to be in the movie. There seems to be a certain "magic" when practical sets, props, animaltronics, etc when watching them, and any movie that uses uses the same processes. That being said, the prequels aren't bad but aren't the greatest either. I don't feel a need to watch them every year as a ritual like I do with the original three movies.
Why do you think Gen Xers are spoiled? I'm a Gen X person, and wonder what exactly you mean. And no, I am not offended by the idea or any answer you may have. I am genuinely interested about what you have in mind.
The thing I don't like about the prequels is that now every time I watch the original movies, obiwan sounds like a pathological liar. Absolutely nothing he says to luke is true, from any point of view 😂
In Empire, when Obi-wan says to Yoda "he was our last hope" and Yoda replies "No, there is another", I like to imagine Yoda thinking "Damn it, Kenobi, can you stop lying about everything?"
The prequels were flawed in EVERY aspect. Who is the main character in Phantom Menace? Seriously. There’s WAY too much going on. Too many characters, and the whole “trade federation” storyline is confusing for a younger casual watcher. I didn’t even know what was going on there. It was boring. Too many effects as he said. It was a commercial for “wow, look what I can do!” Instead of story. Lucas is a terrible writer and even worse director that doesn’t work with his actors. He just sits there and says “action”, hence the terrible wooden acting. And, this is just my opinion, Anakin should have been a teenager. A “Harry Potter” story, where he is tempted by his “magic”, and slowly becomes prideful.
@Jelperman no lol 😆 the movies are aimed at Big Critics, but pushed with sensibilities of a movie aimed at 10yr old children. Lucas was dying for Artistic Affirmation because somehow legions of fans & moolah weren't enough ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Never had any problems with "the effects"... it was all visually stunning and overwhelming at times. If Adam's point was that Lucas was obsessing over effects and not on developing characters or tightening story, I think he's right. The original trilogy gave us a singular villain to fear and respect almost from the opening credits. The prequels gave us Boss Fights in the form of disposal villains. The original trilogy gave us three fully realized characters and a quasi-love triangle. The prequel trilogy gave us two fully realized characters and a MacGuffin... and while the Fall of Anakin was important, nobody could be invested in Anakin enough to see it as a tragedy; just a plot beat to set up the next films.
OG fan here. We hated the Prequels because how horribly Anakin Skywalker was written. We hated the Prequels more when Clone Wars(Best SW screen content since 1983)really showed how much potential the story had and how much Lucas squandered it. Also, the problem with the Prequels' digital effects is that they looked like a video game. They didn't have depth to them. They looked cheesy AF. Also, they have aged worse than the OG trilogy and I will die on that hill.
Savage is right. But it's just one part of the massive puzzle that is the prequel films. As many have said, Lucas didn't have limits. Anything that hit his head, he told it to his crew. Then they went off and found a way to make it work. But back in the first three films, he'd write these crazy, elaborate concepts. And when it came time to shoot it, people told him "we can't do this part. But we can change it." And then those changes done by a third party often ended up being the best parts of the films. As for the grand question of why people didn't like the prequels, I'd say it comes down to pacing and tone. People can accept cheesy writing. They did in the first three Star Wars films. But it's because it was balanced with the famous editing changes that made the films well paced and a tone that was grounded. The prequels did the opposite. Also, on the topic of the cheesy writing, that's actually the prequels saving grace. You can go back and watch the prequels and literally every line is quotable. In that "so bad it's good" way. Compare that to the sequel films and I doubt you can remember any lines besides "destroy the past" and "they fly now!" and "somehow...Palpatine returned." But nearly every line of dialogue in the prequels has been used for a meme at some point. And they have retroactively made the prequel movies fun and funny.
He is correct. Everyone has their own little nit picks with those prequel movies. This charater, that character. dialogue, etc. But EVERYONE complains about the CGI. Its everywhere in those films. And the CGI was very quickly dated when they were released just because of the technology at the time.
I hated episodes 1 though 3, and I was not that big of a fan of Return of the Jedi. Why did they try to explaine the Force as microbes? It was better leaving it as a mistery. C3PO being built by the kid, when a siver version of the robot was shown in Empire. Way to many issues to list here. It was as if Lucas didn't watch his original movies. The special effects were not the problem, it was the plot, charaters, the cute kid crap, racial sterio types, etc. Episodes 7-9 were not much better. Really, after the the original two, the movies are dissapointing. I have not watched the TV shows, lost interest. Time for something new. There are tons of great books out there waiting for their movie.
I was 17 when they came out and have never been so hyped for anything in my life as i was for these movies to come out. I hated them because they were lazily written and you can objectively point to reasons why they aren’t good. The only people that liked them are those who were children when they watched them.
Not true. I was 26 when The Phantom Menace came out, and I still love that film. It wasn’t perfect, and I know it could have been written better. But, it was still a fun movie going experience for me.
You made a really good point there. When you have limitations you have to think long and hard about what you're doing. You need to be extremely thoughtful. When limitations pretty much are nonexistent one tends to try to do too much. Less is more, and in the difference between the originals and the prequels, it shows. Adam's point about fonts is spot on. Graphic design was mostly atrocious in the 90s, and in some ways still is.
They were heavily criticised at the time - but apparently some book or comic 'fixed' it by inventing some nonsense about the Jedi being so advanced and godlike that waving lightsabers in empty space was 4D chess or whatever.
I thought it was okay to start with episode 1 in terms of the story but wanted to see something quite different. I get what Lucas was setting up, but he could have gone with a totally different story. We didn’t need so much time on Tatooine with the pod racing scene and everything. He should have shown us Darth Plagueis and what he and Palpatine set up. The prequels should have been way darker.
In terms of the visuals, I thought they were and are great. I was a kid when I first watched the trilogy, so maybe I was easy to impress. But I wasn't disappointed by the graphics. But why were the Prequels so hated or disappointing? Because the story fundamentally betrayed narrative expectations. For example, midicholorians. So regular folk can't train for years to become Jedi or have Jedi powers as it's all genetic. Also, there are the ridiculous plot lines or screenwriting to carry the narrative forward, such as when Anakin didn't have the high ground, and _that_ was literally announced as, and thus the predetermined reason for, Anakin losing against Obi Wan Kenobi.
Yeah, the midichlorians thing was I think an effort to sound more Trekkie. I could be wrong, as the Trekkies back then were real loud about SW not being ‘sciency’ enough.
I never understood the "high ground" thing as being the *litteral* high ground, but the moral (fighting for a morally just cause), emotional (better grip on himself and does not fight with anger) and/or technical high ground (better skilled fighter). But yeah, still bad dialog writing.
The Midichlorians were basically there to explain why not everyone was using the Force. If anyone could manage the Force, 99% of the Galaxy should be made up of Jedi dropouts who use Force pull to drag random items around the house to them. From there, a genocide of the Jedi to such a degree that it destroys common faith in the Force (ie Han Solo) should be objectively impossible. In other words, this is to patch up a plot hole. Also, by voicing the complaint as such, you're essentially saying that self-insert fanfiction being canon is more important than a cohesive world. By that logic, Batman is an objectively better hero than Superman because you need Kryptonian DNA to be Superman. Personally, I don't consume stories to pretend that I'm the MC, I consume them to enjoy someone else's journey.
@@GameCat16 I disagree with your analysis, as your logic is faulty and your views are overimposing. Yes, the introduction of midicholorians patches up a plot hole, and it's that very patch up that's the issue. Another explanation or "patch up" would have been better. For example, why not have it so that acquiring the force was limited to a relative few who kept it secret to keep power to themselves, like Greek Fire? On top of the dedication required to obtain the force, and the opposition involved, it became a completely lost knowledge. Or some other, perhaps more clever world building. The point is that your logic doesn't follow, as it's a false dichotomy--criticizing a given lore explanation in favor of a better alternative, is not mutually exclusive to building a cohesive world. Also, _you_ may like to be an uncritical consumer of someone else's story, and that's your right and opinion. However, many people do not like to be passive viewers, and criticizing various works is a perfectly valid approach. Those telling the stories must tell a compelling narrative to draw viewers into their world, and passing viewers' scrutiny is a natural part of that process. Moreover, excusing continuity flaws or poor writing altogether because it's someone else's story is _consistent_ with the broader philosophy of moral relativism. And that's not a tenable position to hold, as it's logically flawed, since you'd be asserting a universal claim of relativism. If I were evaluate a work and notice say, a continuity error, a lazy deus ex machina device to carry the plot forward, etc., then I will criticize it. Likewise, if I wrote a story and there were some plot holes and criticisms because of them, then I'd like to know so that I could consider correcting them and improve upon my writing quality.
@@kovko69 First off, I never said, "Don't criticize." Rather, I said that your criticism was flawed, poorly thought out, and drenched in preference as opposed to objectivity. Second, your proposed alternative still has problems. The Jedi were well-known across the Galaxy to the point where they're remembered even in the OT, even if they're regarded as myth. It would be very difficult to hide the secrets, even rudimentary, in that context. Especially when they're peacekeepers to the Galaxy.
Remember, there was a 15 year period where Lucas unabashedly said there would never be more Star Wars, and I lived every ine of those days, so I celebrate everything since even if it isn't all fantastic.
Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman had, like, zero onscreen chemistry. And the writing for their "love story" was about as cardboard as a cereal box. Aside from not caring for Jar Jar and his unlikely-in-the-extreme comedic grandstanding, this was my main complaint. The two actors were obviously only into each other because it said so in the script. I chiefly blame whoever cast them for not finding two actors who actually were attracted to one another. Not like they had a banger of a script to work with, though...
I’m Gen X and I grew up with Star Wars and I think you have to have a perspective like mine to truly understand it Before Star Wars there was NOTHING even close to what they did with those films They were the first high concept/big budget franchise A New Hope stated that! From the VERY beginning of the film seeing a planet that actually looked real followed up by this HUGE Star Destroyer that looked so real and so amazing was beyond what anyone had ever seen or imagined before and up until 1977 the original Star Trek was the best sci-fi we had Nothing if this scope or magnitude was ever created and it changed film and cinema forever so when the prequels came out everything was the opposite of what we actually liked about Star Wars The lead character was a whiny kid who was crying and complaining The ships were so homogenous and boring The story was so weighed down by the politics and the many characters and factions in the films The visual effects and the sets were all classic GL and ILM and all of that was top notch The light saber battles were stunning and that part was definitely a huge improvement over the originals but it wasn’t the same happy, positive tone that Star Wars set I remember when I was in the theater watching the first one with a buddy of mine thinking how I kind of enjoyed the film but at the same time was extremely disappointed with it because everything I expected out of a Star Wars film just wasn’t there I liked Liam Neeson and the Obi Wan kind of He did turn it to be a very good Obi Wan That’s the criticism While I wasn’t as hard on the films as other people I was very disappointed and I think what frustrated the fans the most was the push back Lucas gave us at the time That only made it worse and His tearful nonsense was just a show to get sympathy I think he was well aware that he didn’t deliver what fans wanted and this is the plight of creative people He had a different vision than what he had for the original movies and creative people tend to think that when they do something great that people will love them no matter what they do and the fact is that producers and studio executives are the ones that understand that you need to be consistent and it’s artists that fight that notion I’ve seen it a lot in the music industry around that time as well What we have now is where NO creative expression is really allowed and that’s far worse so that’s why the sequels make the prequels look amazing by comparison and in all fairness the story GL was trying to tell was really good It just wasn’t what the fans wanted to see Has he even just done a better job making the ships and battles better and more exciting I’ll bet you no one would have complained about any of the rest of it He just completely missed some of the main things that drew people to Star Wars and the thing is that if he had written those movies first they probably would have flopped and that’s how you know you have a dud on your hands Every movie has to stand on its own merits and they really didn’t quite do that
A: the ORIGINAL StarWars BraGGeD about getting liguists and reversing african languages etc.etc. ... In the Prequels EVERYBODY Just Has An ITALIAN ACCENT!!?? B: JarJar had a goofy voice AND said very dated things like ExSweeeze me (from Wayne's World) and characters doing hiphop dance moves ...VERY 1990's C3PO, Yoda etc. voices greW on people ...jarjar's was too far. C: Lucas's Film Friends (Coppala etc.) DIDN'T LIKE HIS FIRST DRAFT Of StarWars. AND IF you look at the pre-edited versions you can sEE WHY...Convoluted plots jumping between layers etc. ...thAT'S his Natural Inclination ...(theoretically his wife simplified the plot in editing ...but jury's still out) D: JarJar's Slapstick IS ACTUALLY ThE SamE As Indiana Jones so it SHOULD WorK BUT GoofY Voice +Knowing He's a fake bunch of pixels was just too much for a character to remain watchable
Young Anakin is the main reason, Jar-Jar is secondary. No one wanted to see Darth Vader as a baby--and it showed. And no one needed a comical character to break the tension(jar-jar)--Lucas never let the tension build. Also, the switch from Sci-Fantasy to Sci-Fi (metachlorines) was also very jarring. Obi-wan Kenobi was also terrible in the prequels. Ben Kenobi was a wise and kind person. Ewan was a pretentious prick. There were a lot of good stories of Darth Vader hunting down Jedi's that were told in the Marvel Comic Series back in the 80's. Those stories were far better than Lucas prequels and he should have just stole those. We would have started the prequels at end of Episode III. I learned nothing from episode 1-3. I dislike them today as much as I did when I first saw them back in 1999.
What are you rambling about? We learned plenty from the Prequels. The people who hated The Prequels were the fans who grew up on The Originals who were mad the films weren't made for them.
@@Deuteromislisten the memes are great and I actually enjoy ROTS a lot, but those movies were badly made and they didn't tell a coherent story at all.
I try to get my kids to understand. Episode IV was the most epic, followed by V. I saw Star Wars with my brother when it first came out, at the Coronet Theatre in San Francisco. We grew up with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, and Star Trek. E4 was absolutely epic, then E5.
From what I remember of the hate when it came out was that the prequels had none of the craft or the focus of the originals. They felt like tentpoles made for kids by people who couldn't write. The heart was gone from it. And the *BETRAYAL* we felt when "midichlorians" were introduced--The Force wasn't something you got stronger in with greater spiritual enlightenment but by a biological factor...it *RUINED* so much magic of the original series. So much of the world felt fake because Lucas didn't want to build sets. The one thing the Sequels got right was the production design: the sequels felt real because they used sets and only used CGI to integrate things you couldn't shoot physically. The prequels didn't immerse you in the same way the originals did. The thing about things "feeling real" comes from real objects being touched by real photons: models, miniatures, etc. were all real, physical, tangible objects that had textures and colors that computers can't properly replicate. But currently, VFX artists aren't unionized and so I think the overuse of CGI was to put all the visuals on cheaper workers with no legal bargaining power so you used less traditional labor that costs more to use and takes more time.
No one HATES the prequels. Some of us just dislike portions of the prequels. Small portions. Like anytime Padme and Anakin are alone together on Naboo. Other than that, we LOVE the prequel trilogy. Also, Jar Jar is annoying. But Ahmed Best is awesome, so yeah.
I absolutely HATE the prequels. Well... the first two, anyway. ROTS was actually pretty decent. However, the first two have so many things wrong with them that it's very hard to list them all. Those that grew up with the original trilogy would obviously make the comparison which wasn't flattering to the prequels at all.
I thought the prequels sucked...even as stand alone movies if they weren't star wars. Glossy drive in flixs that were duller than most of the late 70s SW ripoff B movies. The first SW movie before editing by Marcia Lucas was terrible too. She and Lucas' colleagues saved that film by telling him he was all over the place with useless scenes that were hard to follow. The stories could have still been saved into the 9 film franchise with one major change. OBW was Luke and Leia's Father as he had an 1 night affair, moment of weakness, during the clone wars. That's why he watched over them in secret. Aniken killed their mother in a fit of jealous rage for he knew the truth...he sensed it in the Force...that's what turned him. Then the last 3 could have revealed that like a Greek tragedy....instead of simply copy paste Rey as Palpatene's secret daughter.
3:08 I am old enough to know what Adam is talking about. Multiple fonts should not be used on the same page w/o good reason. Back in the old days, using a printing press was an arduous effort. You had to painstakingly place each letter down in just the right way manually. Then computers came along and the printing presses went to landfill. When ALL THE FONTS were at your fingertips, there were graphic designers who felt like they were like diving into Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory with these fonts! It was a cornucopia of possibilities, but using all those fonts on the same page is a sin. You pick one clean cut font that's easy to read which fits with the subject matter in question and you move on. You don't use a different font for every phrase or every word. That's just evil on your eyes.
Indeed. It's the literary equivalent of handing someone a box of used tissues... it's simply not done by people possessed of sanity without some particular and compelling reason to do the otherwise gauche.
I'll never get the hate. Really the only thing wrong with the prequels is the writing, acting, pacing, characters, and special effects. Other than that they're great.
Hahah, you had me in the first part.
@@Apvizionz I was saying in my comment that if they at least did a better job with the ships and had much better cool factor with those and battles with them almost everything else would have been mostly ignored
Focusing on the Jedi themselves was done well
We got to see more into their world
It’s just everything else was kind of lame
The problem with the prequels is they had Star Wars attached. Movies of that quality didn't deserve so much attention. They were ok. They deserved to go unnoticed.
@@Apvizionz lol you had me there 🤣👍
@@Jordan-Ramses Chef's kiss 👨🍳 👌 well said
Better than the sequels
Prequel haters just might be watch caused Lucas to sell to Disney. I don't know if these guys have realized that yet
@@frankzappa9853 Good. Lucas failed. The fact that Disney failed too doesn't make Lucas failing any less true.
@@davidbowles7281 when the prequels came out sure a lot of people didn't like them, calling them the worst star wars movies, I personally didn't mind them, but now sense Disney has sank its teeth into star wars the prequels look a whole lot better.
Chud take.
@@frankzappa9853I’ve always liked the prequels then again I grew up during the prequel era
Hahahaha, as a graphic designer his analogy makes perfect sense. Sometimes having limited options makes you more creative and clever than having everything available to you. When you have everything available to you, you go nuts and things can get ugly quickly.
Absolutely. Especially if you're working with a color palette, being limited often makes art even better. The recent Dune movies are a good example. Limits and deadlines are often good.
Even for stuff like articles and Op-Eds, a limited amount of words and time to research and produce makes a more focused piece.
That's the same reason the director's cut of Donnie Darko is so terrible. The workarounds the director had to do for the original theatrical release were accidentally a lot better. The opening song in the original ended up being absolutely perfect, for example. The one the director wanted from the beginning, and used in the opening of the director's cut, is absolutely terrible and doesn't fit at all.
The crux of the issue was that George Lucas was too uninhibited. He needed people to reign him in when he "went to far in a few places."
Lucas was surrounded by 'yes-men'. Watch the BTS features, and you'll be sickened by Rick McCallum's sycophantic worship of George and how "George was so brilliant" and could do no wrong.
Spoken like some one who never created a damn thing, no true creator wants limitations on what they create. People forget that George WAS limited when making the prequels. People forget that Pixar was created by George, that the prequels pioneered three times as much shit as the OT did, shit that's still in use today like deep fakes. McCullum was in charge of the budget and as long as Lucas stayed within the budget the fuck did he have to say? People also forget that Star Wars was an INDIE FILM, Lucas spent his own money to make them. If I'm spending my money to make a movie no one's telling me what I can and can't do.
@Fenris30 you're not making an argument here... I'm in construction, thats about as creative a profession as is practical and we have budgets, so screw off with that noise, mate. I'm also an artist, musician, and game designer. RM was a sycophant, watch the BTS. He was there to sign off enough money for whatever George wanted to do, it was more for legal purposes than actually having to limit himself.
Your last point is EXACTLY why the PT sucked (the greatest offender being Episode 1) Lucas needed pushback from his friends. Spielberg watched some early cuts and was too good of a friend to give him notes, unlike the OT (particularly Star Wars) as because it was George's money and not a studio, the pressure was off and they didn't feel compelled to make the absolutely best film that they could. Limitations actually force you to be more creative. Without limitations there is no discipline.
What he needed was people who really understood the story and premises that made Star wars great, because (rather surprisingly, perhaps) it turned out that George himself didn't.
he needed someone who could sit there and tell him that looks stupid George. But anyone who got to work for lucasfilm had to practically treat him like a god. Nobody was allowed to criticize his ideas.
Personally I believe the prequels should've started basically with Episode 2. We didn't need to see Vader/Anakin as a little kid. They should have spent more time exploring Anakin and Obi-Wan's adventures and relationship. We would have lost nothing by skipping over little Anakin and starting with teen Anakin. Deal with any necessary parts of Anakin's early life in a quick flashback or with exposition.
No flashbacks, but exposition would have helped a lot, and also allowed the audience to sympathize with Anakin making him more vulnerable and more human.
@@mikepatton8691 Nice. That's a huge problem with these 💩🚽🧻🪠 "movies" solved right there 👌
Machete Order.
@@rumblehat4357exactly just let Anakin reveal his past slowly and in ep 2 he would discover that the jedi lied to him and he was born of no father etc it would have been a cool twist to the trope
I think part of the reason George wanted to go to the phantom menace was the set up of losing Qui Gon and Obi Wan becoming the master not that Luke really needed.
However other than that I would agree, much of the rest is just world building that could have been let go of.
There's a lot of charm, grit, and humanity in the originals that makes the prequels feel flat, stiff, and too clean.
It was all intentional
@@aresnir2725 I don't believe for a second that the prequels were intentionally flat and stiff.
@@bonchbonch 🍕👍
The cleanliness was deliberate. It was to show the Galaxy in a pre-Empire time.
@@GameCat16 No, Episode 2 and 3 looked clean because they were filmed with digital cameras. The Phantom Menace was filmed on 35mm.
Correction: Adam gets this wrong all the time. She didn't work on TPM. He only worked on Clones and Sith.
Also. Nothing lazy or easy about the CGI in the prequels. It was incredibly difficult.
The problem is far more simple. George had total control. No one there to help steer him. No Marcia Lucas and no Gary Kurtz.
Wait Adam worked on Episode 2 and 3 not Episode 1? I must have missed that I thought it was 1 & 2
Not that it's the end all be all but IMDB says he worked on TPM and AoC, not Sith. Which would track as Mythbusters got its start around the same time Sith was in production.
@@mattperson7293 Total control, yes
"Absence of limitations is the enemy of art" - Orson Welles
It's like with bands. Since people are only good if they have the right people to work with. There are geniuses like Hendrix that can make good music with whoever and then there are people like the members of Deep Purple. They have great potential but it's the chemistry between the members that made them great. Alone they are not as impressive.
@@EbonyPope hm interesting 🤔
Totally agree with Adam Savage about that. I also have a thought about the prequels. I was a kid when the original trilogy came out. Kids are pretty easily impressed by stuff, as everything’s new to them. We took those films in to our hearts and loved them. We then had to wait another 16 years for anything new. That’s a hell of a long time when you’re a kid. Also, in those 16 years, the original trilogy is released on video, and we watched them over and over again, loving them more and more. I think it’s fair to say, that by the time episode 1 came out, Star Wars was then untouchable and sacred. To add to that, we were no longer kids in 1999. We were then in our mid to late 20s, and intensely passionate about things. The humdrum of adult life hadn’t had enough of a chance to beat that out of us, yet. We were going to judge things very harshly.
That’s a hell of a lot of pressure to live up to. It’s no wonder the prequels they fell short of expectations for my generation. However, talk to people who were kids when the prequels came out, and you get a totally different response. They were really well received. The only problem, is that my generation were shouting the loudest about it, as those kids didn’t have much of a voice at the time.
@@tristandunn4628 the prequels simply do not compare in quality to the original. Rot Jedi barely even compares to SW and ESB
I come from a similar perspective, as I was also a kid when I saw the original Star Wars and it became a huge part of my life. 16 years passed and we got the Phantom Menace. But, while the original Star Wars was loved by kids it never felt like it was dumbed down FOR kids. I know people have issues with the Ewoks and maybe that was the start of focusing more on making kids giggle and coo at the screen.
The prequels never felt particularly clever or funny. People have already commented on the poor writing. But they seemed to rely more on funny voices, bathroom humor, and slapstick in Episode 1. Cute for kids, cringey for adults and for the people who grew up with the series. Episode 1 was visually stunning with the best lightsaber duel we’d seen up to that point, but the rest was a huge disappointment
@oldcdog91 that lightsaber duel was pretty Ace, yah! 😍👍 ♤♡◇♧
Everything else tho, total Yawn 🥱 😴
@@oldcdog91 Agreed. Things did start to slip a bit in Return of the Jedi. There were some parts of the prequels I liked (Qui Gon, Darth Maul, Jango Fett, introducing the Lars Homestead, Count Dooku, all the Jedi, Kashyyyk & the Wookiees, The Clone Troopers, Palpatine and Sidious coming together), but they didn't have that je-ne-sais-quoi of the originals. I dare say the why is a blend of me being older and more cynical, as well as them not being as good. It's always a danger to revisit something much later on. It's so easy to soil a legacy if you get it wrong.
The originals are overrated. If you watch them as an adult you realise how many plot holes they have even though telling a simpler story compared to the prequels. Only the original 1977 Star Wars is solid in terms of plot. Still Leia goes to Yavin 4 even though knowing she is being tracked.
In TESB you have Vader wasting most of the movie by stubbornly chasing the Millennium Falcon instead of searching Echo Base around to find Luke. Later Vader catches Han and Leia who could be useful hostages but then he sells Solo to Boba Fett and the princess escapes once again. Not even Jar Jar is that idiotic.
In ROTJ you have Leia "somehow" always knowing Luke was her brother after having kissed him twice. Obi Wan reveals himself as a liar when telling Luke and Leia were hidden when born. So Anakin / Vader didn't know he had a son but Obi Wan had told Luke his father left him his lightsaber to his son when coming of age.
Adam savage is forever cancelled for getting the title wrong for episode one.
FOREVER.
You were the chosen one! You were supposed to save the prequels, not misname them!
Hahah
Someday you'll be his age and then see how fast and accurate *your* memory is.
The prequels disrupted many peoples' head canon and vision of the Star Wars past. No one would be completely happy with something which conflicts with their hopes or imaginings.
And few people can be happy about a kid tripping an invading force to annihilation.
Duel of the fates was good, portman has always been a favourite since Leon, the professional, but the rest wasn't exactly good.
Clones is better but way too much stuff that is great for video games and revenge is ok if you disregard things like how Anakin doesn't understand anything. Also too much video game pampering.
Even before it released I've viewed awakens as an attempt to introduce younger audiences. It's sad that starkiller base is so over the top but the rest is about equal to clones. I don't mind if she can fetch the lightsabre without training, Luke did that in empire.
VIII had too many loose ends and weird physics. Why was there a video game part about racing horses... Uhmmm... Things? They briefed over the manufacturers but nothing came of it and I think Snokes death should have meant something in IX
IX was bad. Just bad. It's way too much of everything.
Most fans have the opposite opinion. Phantom Menace most resembled a cohesive film (even if you disliked the plot). It blended real world locations and sets with CGI. It's the best looking prequel BY FAR, it's not even close. Clones and Sith went full green screen for almost every shot. Ewan McGregor himself said that if he knew he'd be doing so much green screen acting to nothing on Episodes II, and III... he wouldn't have come back to do them. That's very telling.
The question filmmakers should always ask when doing special effects; Now we can do it that way ... but (should) we do it that way?
Jar Jar Binks... I remember cringing hard as soon as he entered the stage and that feeling never left.
Jar Jar is truly one of the best characters in Star wars
Well, I was 11 and it was the first SW movie I saw completely. So I liked Jar Jar when I first saw it lol. But yeah, he was annoying and didn't fit SW at all.
Took me years and several viewings before I “got” Jar Jar. I never “got” the awful love dialogue between Padme and Anakin. Cringeworthy to this day.
Jar Jar Binks. Spotted as an utter imbecile by everyone the moment he appeared on screen. The audience, the main characters, supporting characters who called him a complete fuck-up even by the standards of a society drawn to appear rather silly. Everyone knew he was an idiot by all measures. They keep him around out of kindness. Until they put him in a seat of power for no reason other than "we need a moron to do something stupid to give the BBEG his coup de gras."
Mesa Mesa Jar Jar. How wude! 😅
Old guy, a huge fan since 1977 when I saw the original in the theater. Yet, the amount of stuff on the screen in Episode I is part of what I LOVED. It blew me away and it is WHY I saw it 10 times in the theater. I saw the Sequels once in the theater. I don't have that much problem with the writing of the sequels, but they are boring. So often, what is one the screen is one person in a forest I could see in my back yard. Even the OT wasn't that boring.
He’s being too kind 😊
Not a hater.
IMO Star Wars originally degraded with Return of the Jedi, as it tried to be epic AND be a marketing tool for children’s toys. Note I felt that way as a young boy when I first saw RotJ.
The Phantom Menace suffered that same kiddie element, but with mediocre / stiff writing, mediocre characters and indeed too much CGI. Again, not a hater. Rogue One, The Mandalorian (S1) and Andor show that the franchise can grow up.
The original Star Wars was an epic space adventure for grown ups.
Star Wars needs to be a little darker, mature and with less pandering to agendas.
Andor might be a bad example, since I found it boring and shallow. But it proved to me that I don’t want to see Star Wars in an ethical grey area. The Empire should be evil and the Jedi should be the good guys.
Anakin did not come of as evil. He came off as stupid. The Jedi weren’t corrupt, they were inactive.
Simple things like “you can’t go see your mother Anakin, a Jedi must abandon all emotional attachments.” In the first few minutes of Episode II would have made the movie 10x better.
Phantom Menace actually has a massive amount of practical effects. The Gungar city was practical, the audience at the pod race was practical, Padme's palace was practical, the Senate building was practical, most of the effects for the pod race (barring the aliens) were practical.
The original Star Wars was meant for 12 year olds, according to George. It just happens to appeal to all ages.
The only thing bad about ROTJ was how cheesy fake the teddy bear Ewoks looked. I think making a 2nd Death Star felt like we've seen this before even when I saw it at age 8 (rinse repeat), let alone when they made Death Star Planet as the very next sequel (Episodes 4, 6 and 7 all had Death Stars or equivalent!!! That's lazy!)
Yes
Hello there! Life-log Star Wars fan here. I was born in the last 70s and one of my earliest memories is seeing RotJ in the theater.
My experience/feelings about the prequels in 3 sentences are: Phantom Menace was a story that needed to be told, but the dialog is so bad in parts. I actually like the detective noir Obi-Wan story in Attack of the Clones and how that leads to him and Annakin coming to the same place. RotS is a great movie; i like it better than RotJ and that's no knock against eithe rmovie.
I have bigger problems with Rise of Skywalker, but will die on the hill of The Last Jedi being a cinematic masterpiece of a rumination on failure. Everything fails in that movie and I got that on my first viewing.
What he's basically saying is how people believe the prequels had too much CGI, when in actuality, The Phantom Menace had more practical effects than the entire original trilogy combined
That point was made nowhere in this video?
jar jar looked really bad though, so that stands out more than all the stuff you don't notice
@doltBmB back in 1999, Jar Jar looked very good compared to everything else
@@riftshredder5438 no, he looked bad. you have to remember in the pre-CGI era the standard for special effects was *realism*. in the post-CGI era it's merely that it "looks good for CGI"
@@doltBmB ok Zoomer, show me your ticket from 1999
To me, the focus of the prequels was wrong.
I remember when ROTJ came out, coming out of the movie and learning that there was going to be a prequel that showed Anakin's fall to the dark side. *That's* the story I wanted to see. But the prequels were just loaded with too much other crap.
We didn't need to see Anakin as a pre-teen. The seeds of his fall don't even start until his late teenage years. We should've gotten more of his relationship with Obi-Wan and a lot less of the "love story" between him and Padme (which didn't really work). It could've just been a story about his need for recognition and acclaim dragging him to the dark side. Have him meet Padme as an *adult" and have them fall in love that way.
The reason the prequels are getting a renaissance now is because of The Clone Wars. That show did Anakin's story correctly.
I do like Revenge of the Sith. To me, that movie delivers on the promise of the prequels: We see Anakin fall to the dark side. It happens too quickly, but at least we get it.
TBH, the prequels, to me, are just overstuffed with mostly uninteresting stuff. It's the cinematic equivalent of "This meeting could've been an email".
Going off your point about the volume, I think that the biggest flaw of it is that sometimes it just feels like you’re moving from room to room like a classic Zelda game like Zelda 1 or a Link to the Past
Like sure it’s visually impressive, but as you said, Andor’s use of physical sets makes the world that much more believable
I think when you go back to Mando 1, it was used really well, didn't feel too bad, but the more time that goes on it feels weirder.
7:28 absolutely agree. What you’re saying right here is a big part of why Godzilla Minus One is so good. Filmmakers have gotten lazy, GM1 is what Hollywood should be aspiring to be.
As awesome as technology is today, and even at the early stages of Star Wars, nothing beats a practical set. You have so many people doing their specialty in making a set look a certain way from the construction crew, to the set decorator, the lighting, all of those people made the magic happen right before your eyes. And the best part is that the actors could play off the set, making the moment more believable.
The prequels for me seemed to be too perfect. Any room you were in was pristine and lacked the “lived in” look. Some of the CGI creatures didn’t have any weight to them. You could feel the lack of substance when they moved about. I think the use of CGI was a bit overdone, and could have had a nice balance.
As far as the storyline, I’m not sure if George Lucas had all of this written out when the first three movies came out, but to me it seemed a bit distant from what we had seen, like disconnected to a point. There could have been more to tie in to episodes 4,5,&6. But I mean overall I liked them. Just felt like they may have rushed the writing process.
Gotta say, I enjoyed the first six episodes…just not as crazy with the last three. It’s all under the Death Star now. 😊
Particularly the action sequences in the prequels just pack too much into every shot. Its kind of a sensory overload where it gets hard to follow. Every shot in the original trio had a very clear meaning. Diving in to make the run. Oh noooo tie fighters closing in! the defense batteries opening up! Here comes the big bad ass boss! So dangerous!
At the time, TPM was hyped up to the point of bursting. It was opposite to the original 1977 Star Wars, that was originally relatively unknown and released to a limited number of theatres. Also, there was a long period between ROTJ and TPM (plenty of time to get it right) - by 1999 George had obtained full control over everything. Much of those he employed back in the 70s & 80s had gone, and those who had since come on board were more focused on pleasing George than necessarily doing what was best for the movie. It was all going to be "fabulous and amazing" because George was so brilliant. But, if you watch the Episode I making of doco, there were clearly issues which it seems were not resolved. To me, which was often reflected in reviews at the time, was that most of the characters were fairly boring or aggravating. So the audience didn't care about them and were not sucked into this galaxy far, far away despite the break through CGI. Overall, George did have some great story ideas, but the trilogy was full of filler and not enough time was spent on the meaningful scenes to develop the characters and make the story engaging. George has stated he thinks it was because the films were experimental and that they are "visual"storytelling. But wasn't the original Star Wars experimental? And aren't all movies are visual? The backlash was completely understandable.
@@ashdoginc yes, boring and aggravating characters 🙄 SW original trilogy had cool interesting characters. Even C3P0
No Marcia Lucas is why.
The problem with Phantom menace is that its not needed, you can remove it from the line up and the series still works.
-if I was to show someone Star Wars now it would be; 'Andor', 'Rogue One', 'New Hope', 'Empire strikes Back' in that order and THATS IT!
Ending on a cliffhanger? Despite its flaws, you gotta have the closure that RoTJ brings, right? Just my HUMBLE opinion. The movies you listed are my favorite and I agree with it except for the omission of Jedi
I dont know what you're trying to prove to yourself by ending star wars with Luke loosing a hand and Han being frozen
It feels like a waste of runtime training Luke in ep4 and 5 just to never see the fruits of his training
George Lucas is good at starting off in the middle of his story when he has to build the entire world from scratch. There are no B-52 bombers in Star Wars with the entire history of how that military aircraft evolved into what became from the origins of flying vehicles.
When George has to build a world from the beginning, it becomes easy to see where the cracks in the narrative are at.
Apparently, before TPM, the jedi and the Sith had never fought each other, according to George, but then Palpatine says this line in RotS, "Once more the sith will rule the galaxy," and how does that work out? The Jedi were supposed to be guardians of Peace and justice in the galaxy for a thousand generations, which is roughly 30 thousand years or so.
When we enter the story, Anakin was a kid. Kind of makes it strange to say, "When I first knew him, he was already the best starfighter pilot in the galaxy. I took it upon myself to train him as a jedi." Only to discover that when Obi Wan first met Anakin, he was a nine year old boy who had only just won his first podrace. Anyone keeping score would still put sebulba's piloting record over Anakin's because, "Sebulba _ALWAYS_ wins!"
You can argue that Sebulba wasnt a starfighter pilot, at least not necessarily in that movie, but neither was Anakin. He got into a fighter, didnt know how to turn off the autopilot, and then sort of derped his way into destroying the droid control ship.
My whole point here is basically, the foundation of Star Wars paid little attention to the lore the way it was presented in the originals, which is bad because the prequels are supposed to be the foundation upon which all of Star Wars stands. The peaces have to fit in a good story. When they don't, it will never be a good thing.
So from that flaw, a whole slew of problems arise. You're getting a story about a guy who starts out as a nine year old, when he probably should have started out as 19 or older. Thats what the already established narrative called for. Then you have to somehow make this nine year old fall in love. To do that, you have to devote an inordinate amount of screen time to the romance, in what is easentially supposed to be a war story.
If you go back to the orignials, there was a romance, but it didn't try to get in the way of the war story. In the prequels, much of the war story was abbreviated. The heroes were never in constant danger and on the run like with what worked so well in the originals.
There were a lot of reports of war and unrest, whereas in the originals, the heroes were smack in the middle of everything going on. You didnt have time to worry about concerning reports from the front on Selucamai. When Vader mentions the fleet amassing near Sullust, our heroes are with that fleet. When the Imperial officer mentions the ship that blasted out of Mos Eisley, that was our heroes they were talking about.
So watching the prequels, theres this giant sense of detachment from all the action going on, so I can watch Anakin and Padme fooling around in some meadow, or discussing sand, or using the force to eat fruit. i can watch a Hugh Grant movie and get most of that.
The overabundance of special effects did not allow Episodes I & II to have moments to breathe and allow the audience to appreciate the film visually. Episode III also had a great number of special effects, but I liked that movie more.
Sometimes less is more.
By Episode III he had gotten all the nerdy details out of the way and micro-explained ever single point to death. I feel like he was free to finally tie all the knots together and there was for once a mooth path to the conclusion and he couldn't get distracted by dumb, over-cute, over-explaining stuff. That's why it seemed so much better a movie. I feel it makes a very satisfying lead-in to the original trilogy.
Just a little editing would have done the same for the first two, the first one was especially just on the verge there, very beautiful scenery and a wonderful journey, just could he have put a little less corn in it?
@@angelainamarie9656 the three Star Wars films that I generally hate are Episodes 1, 2 and 9. And so I've located fan edits (by HAL9000 I believe) which improves these films and makes them at least tolerable. The edit of Phantom Menace actually makes Jar Jar into an interesting character that you care about, if you can believe that.
I hated it mainly because of Jar Jar and the kid. He was to young.
5:40 One of my mantras from the SubGenius Church is "Too much is always better than not enough." Whether we are talking about Fonts or Computer Graphics or Artificial Intelligence, when it is first launched into the maelstrom of creative minds worldwide, we want to do everything with it all at once. For some people who are first learning how to shoot a gun, it's not enough to just shoot one bullet and then call it a day. You wanna know how it feels to empty the clip. THAT is what happens EVERY TIME a new modern technology hits The Human Condition. the Model-T wasn't enough. We needed the Corvette! Then we needed THE R.V.! What the Wright Brothers hammered together in their little flyer, we needed the 747! Then we needed to jet out into space! TOO MUCH!
Except for fonts. Too much with fonts? That's cringeworthy. Ick. Don't do that.
😂😂
I'm one of the "haters," and it's really not very deep or complicated. The prequels were simply badly written and badly directed. The original trilogy's movies were team efforts, not just George Lucas on his own, so his shortcomings could be compensated for by the skills of others. Not so in the prequels, it seems.
The prequels haven't got *better* with age. I attribute their "rehabilitation" both to the fact that a substantial portion of the fanbase is now young enough that the prequels are "their" Star Wars and so form their baseline of quality, and to the fact that the Disney sequels have established a new baseline of just how *bad* Star Wars can be that's substantially below where the prequels are. Makes them look better by comparison.
The Prequels did suck. Lucas was smothered by Yes-Men and made too many mistakes. With ESB and ROTJ there were other directors that had some more, but not complete, control. Lucas should have asked for more help, if not guidance, concerning the writing and story. The thing that hurts me the most, beyond anything else in Star Wars, is that the Prequels turned Darth Vader, and demi-god who was the most frightening man in the galaxy, into a stupid cry-baby who threw a bunch of fits and was a complete pussy.
Yes Vader is sooo less interesting once you've seen him pout & dither...
You should see OT without pink glasses. Vader was always like that, not demi-god.
They only suck for people who are too stupid to follow the story
@@aresnir2725 Not sure what you mean. I first saw Vader in 1980 in a movie theater. I think the "pink glasses" are really for those who saw the prequels at the same time as the OT. They'll never understand how frightening he was for over 20 years.
@@elivanto1673 you should rewatch those movies today, not relying on past experience
The overuse of computers isn't why the prequels suck. They suck because of Jar Jar, Anakin, color over-saturation, ass writing, and a certain level of corniness.
I've never hated the prequels... i was just disappointed by them. George needed to have worked on the story and tightened it up a bit.
@@staffakartherma they're total garbage 🥱🥱🥱
The story was just fine.
He needed to rely more on practical sets and focus on developing the story on the ground level instead of assuming the metanarrative was somehow going to carry our collective interest. HOW that narrative developed over time from moment to moment on a granular level was more important. He was surrounded by yes men. I mean, Ben Burtt did quite a lot of video editing when he should have been spending all his time on sound. Loads of red flags.
@@av3nger3 They did have sets they used they also filmed on location. And as for practical effects they used far more practical effects, miniatures in The Prequels than they did in The Originals.
Also it's a myth that he was surrounded by Yes men. That was all brought about by Mr. Plinkett taking one snippet of behind the scenes video and taking it way out of context. If you watch the behind the scenes entirely not only will you see people telling Lucas no. They actually make suggestions that he listens to.
@@av3nger3 the 'story' was so dreadful 🥱
So many great points in the comments! Prequels lack surprise because we know where it is going. No chemistry between Padme and Anakin even though that was supposed to be the source of his turn to the Dark Side. Jar Jar. Too much boring politics.
It lives on in memes because it is one of the last films seen by an entire generation. Harry Potter, Star Wars Prequels, the Matrix, LOTR basically defined movies for millennials and younger gen x.
As I'm in my 60's, I saw the original Star Wars in the theater in 1977. Recently, I spoke to a very much younger person who saw the Star Wars movies 'in order'; prequel first. When they watched ' A New Hope', they wondered why it looked so bad and unremarkable. I explained to them that it was made back in the mid-1970's. Even still, they couldn't wrap their head around the fact that technology and computer graphics were being created, and it didn't really exist at that time.
That conversation still boggles my mind!
I was born in 1988. I watched the originals in theatres when the special edition was released in 1997. "A New Hope" looks great to me. Its beginning is stunning and the Death Star battle is thrilling to the end. The special edition fixed some details but most of the movie looks like the original film. Besides ANH is the only Star Wars movie that works alone. You don't need to watch its prequels and sequels to enjoy it.
Nevertheless I also love classic movies like Casablanca or Modern Times so I may not be representative of my generation. I liked the prequels when released as well but I admit ANH is the best Star Wars movie.
@@claudioforjan1743 Since you like ANH and classic movies, I recommend you watch 'The Guns of Navarone''.
As for the prequel, Lucas has defended it's flaws saying that it was intended for children. Yet it has a sexual attraction obsession between Anakin & Padme, constant boring senate segments, etc...
The problem some people have with the sequel TFA, is that it is actually a combination of all the original three movies thrown into one.
My favorite of 'all' the Star Wars movies, even outside the three trilogies, is 'Rogue One'. Even by how they have the heroes meet their fate takes the movie out of the typical cookie-cutter mode of Star Wars.
Just some thoughts...
I often wonder if its easier for us (GenXer here) that lived through the transition from analogue to digital, practical effects to CGI etc. We witnessed it and can see from both sides. I often explain to my GenZ nephew that all the stuff like Google and the internet wasn't at your fingertips when I was a teen; he nods his head and says he understands but I think he (and may of the young folks of today) aren't really getting it. One of my recent favourites was "how did you watch a film whenever you wanted, without streaming?" - umm, vhs tapes, rental stores, had to wait for a repeat on tv! Or the old, "how did you look stuff up without Google?" - books!
I suppose it must be a difficult concept as our lives are so entrenched with everything digital, to imagine a world, and life, without it.
They were clearly an idiot lol
If he watched them in chronological order, that’s a tragedy. Ruins the end of ESB. And by the way, if you think ESB is a less beautiful movie than the prequels, that’s like hating filet mignon because you’d rather eat McNuggets. It means your taste was ruined by junk.
The font comment Adam Savage made has cohort: way back then, with the internet burgeoning new and shiny, web code was implemented to allow blinking, winking, siding fonts and other nonsense. And for months going to a website was like going to a circus - a crazy, madman circus of pages overflowing with winking, blinking messages moving text and other distractions. Today's ads do not compare to the craziness of enabling childish web design features for childish web designers.
Geocities!
People disliked the prequels because they were badly written and directed. Everything else was fine.
Nah, cg is trash
People hated on the Prequels because they were badly written stories. You can make a film that has great production values, but if the story isn't good for various reasons, audiences will tune out, at the least. And if you're making a prequel to an established franchise, and you do odd things that stand out to the audience, stuff that rankles their experiences of the franchise itself, you're going to create a backlash.
Take Jar Jar Binks. Why was this character so loathed? It wasn't just that he was annoying, because you can make annoying characters that audiences may forgive them for being annoying; case in point: Gertie from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, played by Drew Barrymore. She was annoying, but she was supposed to be, because she's a little girl, and the sister to Elliot, who dresses E.T. up and puts make-up on him. But, we love her because she's annoying and charming. Jar Jar was not only annoying, but was completely incompetent. He was utterly useless. This makes him unlike any main character thus presented so far in the Star Wars franchise: That he was incompetent at everything made him even more detestable. Say what you want about, say, C-3PO, that he was whiny, kind of prissy, but he was competent at one thing, which was translation, which does come in handy. If you don't make a main character competent at something, you make him unlikeable to the audience because he's a distraction.
I could easily say something similar about Anakin Skywalker. In The Phantom Menace, he's competent, but too competent; he's a great pilot, a great tinkerer, and he is also strong with the Force. But George presents him as a little kid. Now, in a movie where most of the main characters are adults, having a child in the movie is not good because, as a kid, he's limited to what he could feasibly do and what he's expected to do. To have this kid partake in a dangerous Pod-Race (a major plothole, by the way) and then get into a starfighter and do his thing against the Trade Federation only made him annoying. It's not that audiences don't like kids, but if you're going to put a child in danger, it has to be in such a way that enables the audience to really care about what happens to him. Putting him in a situation he has no control over, only to magically come through in the end only annoys the audience because he's a little kid, and it makes the adults around him seem rather stupid, notably Qui-Gon Jinn, allowing him to stay in that starfighter like that. There's no reason at all to bring Anakin to a potential combat zone; they should've just had him stay at the Jedi Temple, which is what any sane, rational adult would've done.
Then having Anakin appear as an angsty teenager didn't do this character many favors. George really makes Anakin out to be an asshole in the subsequent films. Why anyone like Padme would bother to hook up with Anakin, of all people, defies belief. He's rude, creepy, and he whines. Not a good way to make a character likeable. It also didn't help that George made Vader the lynchpin of the entire franchise.
There are so many other issues, but Adam is trying to show things from his own perspective, and I can appreciate that. He does say that the stories weren't all that good, but special effects alone cannot carry a movie. Even George Lucas said so, years back, around the time he was working on Return of the Jedi, where he said that a special effect without a good story behind it is a rather boring thing.
I think the issue for a lot of people was the PM was aimed at 10 year olds and they wanted something more serious. Then in AotC Anakin was such an awkward teenager. I enjoyed the movies as much as the originals which I think were over hyped because they were such a departure from anything that came before. People are hard to please sometimes.
I thought it was wonderful to have some new SW after so many years had passed. The CGI was a treat. I liked the innovation.
Prequels were terrible due to: 1) terrible writing, 2) terrible acting, 3) terrible directing.
As one of those original haters here's what I couldn't and never will forgive.
I spent my life adoring the original trilogy, seeing it more times than I can remember.
I loved it for the very great and very unique qualities it has.
After coming out of Phantom Menace I felt baffled by the experience.
It didn't feel anything like watching an expansion of my favorite trilogy.
Literally NONE of what made me love the OT was present in the PT.
It missed all the marks.
It did have qualities of its own but nothing I really cared for in my Star Wars.
The things I truly cared for were missing entirely.
To put insult to injury so many aspects that were top notch in the first films were mediocre at best in the PT.
For what good they have, these weren't and never will be my Star Wars.
They're awful garbage 🗑 🙄
When you make some movies, they will be yours. Star Wars are George Lucas movies.
@@aresnir2725 yup that's right he owns all the failure ✅
So you love the sequels
@Taekwondorocks Oh, we can hate the awful prequels AND the godawful sequels 🥱
If Lucas had hired a great director, the prequels would have been amazing. You could tell be RotS that George was getting better at directing.
It is a shame that he didn’t learn from ESB in that regard.
This make me want to create a what if series around d this idea.
CG got carried a way. Missed them puppets
Yoda puppet in The Phantom Menance looked terrible though. I was so happy when Lucas went back and reshot those scenes digitally. It’s hard for me to watch Empire because it hasn’t aged the best. Even though I still love that film.
@@joehenry9546 true. I seen a old hour behind the scenes on PM. Actual footage during production.
What I took from it was, the team got a little to excited about the use of CG and the easy it brought to the table.
Seems like they got a bit lazy cause of it and that made a lack of "movie magic" in the film.
For me I love,love,love JarJar.
He truly reminds me of myself in my late teens. Annoying, clueless yet had some awesome dumb luck in life. LoL
The prequels failed quite simply because they lacked character, personality, and relatability. None of the characters were in any way relatable, funny, cool, or charismatic.
In particular, it needed one central protagonist who is closest to the audience. In the original Trilogy that was Luke. In the prequels, who's the "main hero"? There isn't one. Obi Wan is kind of stuffy and stiff, and Anakin is kind of jerky and odd. We _kind of_ like them both, but neither man is _the_ hero.
Somehow, the Disney Sequels failed EVEN MORE spectacularly at this, completely lacking anything even resembling a hero.
the prequels are poorly written, poorly acted and most importantly poorly directed.
And too much CGI, which gave it an unreal, cartoon like quality. It didn't feel like a real universe, whereas IV, V, and VI did
The remastering of the originals was terrible. The pod race was boring, with no jeopardy. The trip under the water was a monty python cartoon. Aside from the one light sabre battle it was boring. I didn't believe any of it. the things they had everyone doing were ridiculous mario cart stuff.
The reason the prequels sucked:
1. Too much 6 yr. old Anakin.
2. The Clone Wars were named after the soldiers - messed up Boba Fett's mythos.
3. Too much beurocracy.
4. Not enough Darth Vader.
5.Windmill Lightsabers🤮
6. Teen Anakin/Hayden should have been shoved in a locker for being a whiny pest.
I hate the prequels and sequels.
I have long maintained that George Lucas 's secret motivation for selling Star wars to Disney is that he knew what a cluster they would make of it, and everyone would finally get off his back about how bad the prequels were.
History has justified my opinion.
That’s an interesting thought.
I still hate him for the prequels.
I couldn't agree with you more dude. His way of saying to the fans, if you thought my shit was bad, wait till you see what these clowns do with it. Now you'll really have something to bitch about. A one, two fuck you punch!
I believe it was Irvin Kirchner said that the movies should have humor, but not silly. From return of the Jedi, it was all about toy, sales at the expense of story. Tend to be extremely silly. I think people wanted a more serious tone to it, but it cannot be silly.
I think episode 1 lacked a true main character or that it didn’t develop its main characters enough. Anakin is a kid with questionable acting, Obiwan was fine but he wasn’t the focus, and Qi Gon was just very stoic. We don’t learn anything about Obiwan or Qi Gon. The Sith aren’t fleshed out at all. And then Padme and her servant were very confusing and had some awful dialogue. So it lacked any kind of substance to the characters. Attack of the clones tried to fix that but Anakin either isn’t written well enough or isn’t acted out well enough to make the audience sympathetic. He just comes off as an angsty teen who snaps and kills a whole village. The clone wars show did a much better job portraying Anakin and making us actually like him and show us how the Jedi failed him just as much as he failed them. The prequels are just a great idea executed poorly. In my opinion.
its main character was Qui-Gon Jin.... and he Died. You're Second main character, is Obi-Wan Kenobi.... and you saw him become a Jedi Knight and transition into that lead character for the next two movies.
"Snaps and kills a whole village". Well yeah they tortured and killed his mom after obi wan told anakin to ignore his dreams about her.
Yep. These movies are such garbage 🗑 😒
@@bigwhopper6501 the women and children didn’t torture his mom
@@bigwhopper6501 also that doesn’t justify what he did, you think he’s the only Jedi to have some bad things happen to him?
I'm 50 years old and, of course, grew up with the classic trilogy in my heart. I love all the prequels. Specially TPM and ROTS. I love all six films.
I didn’t like the prequels at first, ESPECIALLY Jar Jar (and I still hate that character), but after I watched them at home and gave them a chance, you realize the storytelling and character development was needed to give depth and meaning to Anakin’s transformation. Now, did you need that much 6-year old Anakin time, did you need that much Anakin/Padme love story time, probably not, but IMHO, everything comes together in ROTS and and it’s an absolutely amazing movie and climax that explains painfully why Anakin made his choices.
One thing that took a good friend and I 25 years to figure out that just makes ZERO sense about Episode I.
The Jedi are sent to Naboo to negotiate and see what's happening.
Then they "rescue" Padmé and bring her to Coruscant to corroborate their findings.
But once on Coruscant, the reason for the Jedi to even have been on Naboo is ditched, and Padmé's suddenly the very first time anybody hears about something being fishy on Naboo.
The Jedi could have just reported their findings, Padmé would have confirmed them, and done.
So yeah, the writing is even worse than you think.
@Azzameen99AZ yep ✅️ This "movie" is astoundingly unbelievably Bad 👎
"But once on Coruscant, the reason for the Jedi to even have been on Naboo is ditched, and Padmé's suddenly the very first time anybody hears about something being fishy on Naboo"
Not true. Everyone knew about the blockade. That's the basis of the plot. THey just didn't know it evolved into an invasion.
"The Jedi could have just reported their findings, Padmé would have confirmed them, and done."
They were sent in secret by the Supreme Chancelor, who was acting behind the Senate's back. It would have gotten him into serious trouble.
I think the reason people didn’t like the prequels is they weren’t very good.
Lucas took too long for the prequels, too many unnecessary bad stereotypes, too much bad storytelling, the motivations were ham-fisted, the world building was weak, and too much CGI.
I dislike the prequals because Lucas took one of my favorite movie villians and turned him into a angsty teen that hates sand and gets tricked by an old man. 😒
Yup. Pure trash 🚮
Agreed. We were promised an amazing star fighter seduced by the dark side…and got an angst- riddled whiner that no one liked and was kind of a prick to begin with. If I was luke, I would have disowned Anikin as my father.
Lucas literally invented the character. He could make it whatever he wanted to tell the story. You either just don't like Star Wars, or don't understand it.
@bobjason7540 yes definitely .. George invented the character .. and was free to make sad silly yawnathon movies about him, true🥱👍
I think the problem is, how do you show the fall of good person and try to maintain them as a hero. All the interactions between Anakin and everyone else on his slow turn was just awkward. Padme didn't seem that moved when Anakin explained he killed the women and children sand people too. Pretty freaking heinous act. Or Anakin getting upset about being given a seat on the council but not made a Master, very cringe.
One of the things that struck me when a friend of mine recounted what it was like to work with Stephen Spielberg on E.T.: "Stephen, we don't have the money to do that." It was a refrain of the ADs, because Spielberg wanted to do some mind-blowing stuff. He and his crew, like Lucas in the first Star Wars, were forced to find creative ways of making magic happen on camera because Hollywood simply lacked the technology to make it happen within a reasonable time frame and budget. I'm sure Spielberg ran into time constraints with Jurassic Park, he probably wanted more dinosaurs but stuff like Massive hadn't been invented yet.
But I think the fandom is resistant to new ideas that challenge their fond and sacred memories, and the prequels did that to some extent. For many fans of the first trilogy, the prequels were a moment where they disagreed with Lucas' story before episode IV. And even now, people are fiercely defensive of nostalgia, I just saw a comment on a Trek video saying, "Make more TNG, DS9, and Voyager". Good things end for reasons we will seldom agree with, and "bad" things continue because it's profitable..
For me it was a combination of things, and he nails a few…
Star Wars is a feeling, leaving the theatre after 4 completely exhilarated and over stimulated, after 5 feeling the same yet concerned for Han and blown away by the father / son revelation, after 6 feeling much as 4, completely satisfied and buzzing.
Episode 1 ended with a funeral?! After political debates?!! What?…
It is clear there was a good team working on the OT, and were sadly missing thereafter. George had lost the plot and was surrounded by yes people. He had too much say, and wasn’t reigned in by others.
The story was solid enough in the main, yet the execution was poor.
Yes, far too much CGI, and no reference points for the actors to get into the feel of the scene.
The OT had so much more, and set such a high bar. The chemistry between Hamill, Fisher and Harrison was delightful. Later joined by the charismatic Williams. The droids were charming, and became corny in the PT… why George why?… Why have young Anakin build C3PO on Tatooine? That one decision alone sums up why so many disliked the PT. It never measured up to the OT, never has, never will… and we all WANTED it to SOOOO MUCH. Highly disappointing overall, not seen them in years, doubt I’d see them again, no interest.
Folks rave about Revenge of the Sith. Yes, the films improved slightly one by one, but for me ROTS wasn’t much better, and not good enough. Anakin’s transition from Jedi to Sith was so brief and clumsy.
The PT was a massive kick in the teeth for many fans, myself included.
Even the battle droids looked ‘cute’ and merchandise worthy…😢
Bad films with very little redeeming qualities, but not as bad as Disney, I can give George that.
The only consistent factor in quality throughout, was the music score. John, take a bow.
Jar Jar Binks alone was already enough to kill it, for me anyway.
😂😂😂 "Episode 1 ended in a funeral after oolitical debates"...More like after Duel of the Fates, one of the most memorable duels in the series. But if you prefer to stick with the idea of political debates, for two minutes of footage, then fine.
@@davidmr11able far more than 2 minutes, the theme was strong throughout you’ll find. Trade negotiations 🥱. The Duel of the Fates scene was good, for 4 minutes, which doesn’t make a movie. One of the best? Nowhere near…
I first saw Star Wars in 1977 at age 10
I loved it
I saw The phantom menace in 1999 at age 32
I loved it
The phantom menace
Back In theaters
25 years later
Better than ever
I love the Prequels
@@jimbass1968 The trade blockade is just the trigger for the action, nothing more. There isn't much debate, and the scenes in the Senate are minimal. But well, I guess it's subjective. All your comments are tremendously subjective and show a lot of ignorance about the saga. Like for example Anakin's transformation, saying that it's fast and dumb is not knowing the Force and the dark side. But I always wondered why that seems wrong to you, on the other hand you agree that Luke has legitimate reasons to go over to the dark side if he kills Vader or the Emperor to save his friends... Besides, you see problems where there aren't any. What's the problem with Anakin building 3PO? Or with the CGI? There is no difference between a lot of CGI or a lot of Stop-Motion, prosthetics and costumes. The prosthetics and puports are not more credible than the CGI, everything is fake, and it's your suspension of disbelief that makes it more or less credible. But your personal tastes are not a universal truth.
The Trade War plotline was boring and contrived, the Gungans were terrible, Anakin as a small boy was cloying, they killed off the two most interesting characters before we really got to know them (Qui-Gon and Maul), and nobody really does anything interesting. Plus the whole movie just feels like it was done on a green screen. It just felt sterile and distant.
the prequels suffered from a lack of dramatic tension to a degree because we know how things play out for the characters. we arent wondering if anakin dies, or what happens to obi wan or will palpatine be victorious.
the original trilogy was about what happened.
the prequels were about how things happened.
Before episode 1 was confirmed, I told friends that episode 3 needed to end with Anakin taking an act of vengeance because he believed his pregnant wife had been killed.
The distaste for the prequels really boiled down to one thing. George Lucas, while younger, had a more accurate and mature impression of 12 year olds in the 70s. Flash forward to the 90s and something happened to where Lucas had a less mature view of 12 year olds. Perhaps it was having his own children.
Either way, most of the problems of the prequels wouldn't have existed if Lucas respected his intended audience as much as he did in the original trilogy. The original trilogy was, indeed, perfect for young preteens. The prequels, however, are perfect for 7 year olds. He went from making things adult enough to be cool to kids to making things immature enough to not be cool to 12 year olds.
It's that simple. All of the cringe silliness comes from Lucas imagining 12 year olds to be far more immature than he did during the 70s. The prequels are blatantly less mature than the originals.
Sure, there a numerous reasons that could be listed from having a main character portrayed with really bad acting(Lucas' fault for accepting bad takes, for any reason), adding biblical nonsense like virgin birth and prophesy, too much cgi, perhaps. None of that makes it lame, though. It was the immaturity like Jar Jar poop jokes and robots from outer space saying "roger, roger" for no in-universe discernable reason, cartoon antics from Jar Jar during the climax of Phantom Menace, etc... that were the problem.
Instead of remaining the same age-demographic or maturing the prequels to grow older with established fans, he chose to regress beyond the original movie and go more childish and that was just, lame. He tried to course correct with the subsequent sequels but the damage was done and the silliness was canon.
I don't hate the prequels but I would have been much more into them if I were a very small child of maybe 6-7 but by 12 years old, I was too close to adulthood to enjoy cartoony antics in my "cool" movies.
The prequels are just more cartoony and less serious. I'd love to say that EpIII matured but right from the jump you have Grievous crouching and cackling for no reason like a cartoon villain. The irony there is that Grievous was actually intimidating and cool in the cartoon clone wars shorts, and then got made more cartoonish, in character, in the actual live action! ./facepalm Instantly went from being the new "cool" character to cartoony villain. Makes me so glad they didn't give Darth Maul an evil chuckle or a catch-phrase or something because it could have happened. Lucas was aiming way younger than 12 years old with the prequels.
You shown you know nothing while continuing the story, the Prequels were made for a new generation of fans, whi guess what loved the Prequels.
@@Deuteromis Calm yer panties, princess. I don't hate the prequels.
Unfortunately for you, there is a stigma attached to them and that is the reason this video was made. All of fandom knows this is the case. You sound silly trying to pretend everyone else didn't live through these movie releases. XD
You can pretend but, people actually lived through it as adults. Maybe you were a child and so you have your nolstagia-goggles on. In no way were the prequels anywhere near as popular as the original trilogy. That's because ep1 turned a lot of people off and ep2 is considered the worst in the series(not counting Disney garbage).
You can't rewrite history for those who lived through it, kiddo. Nice try.
I suppose slaughtering children at the end of Episode III at the hands of Anakin (Darth Vader) passes as entertainment for 7 year old kids in 2005. I would take the prequels over the fan service, preachy, agenda driven pieces of fan fiction that passed as the sequel trilogy from Disney.
@@dmac7128 lol, yes, the fact that none of the slaughtering was in the actual movie and only implied, shows that it was for 7 year olds.
It's like you missed the part where i mentioned that Lucas tried to make all due corrections with the subsequent sequels. Weird.
...and yes, Disney Star Wars is trash.
uhh... so politics are cool to 7 year olds? how? make it make sense.
The line delivery is the worst for me
I just think it's much more satisfying wondering exactly what happened in Episodes 1 through 3 with your own imagination than actually seeing it could ever be. I'll never understand the urge to do prequels, how interesting can a story be when you already know the ending? Just move forward.
Have you ever heard of Red Dead Redemption 2? Just wondering.
@@ArgNerevarine I've heard of it, but I lost the ability to play video games sometime around Resident Evil 2, during the Carter Administration.
Have you never watched a movie more than once? There is so much to enjoy and appreciate about a movie beyond beyond being surprised by the plot twists.
@@mrboost4186 I've watched movies more than once, but after The Phantom Menace, I've never again paid to see a prequel, I learned my lesson.
I was told in design school, that red text on black was unreadable to colorblind people.
Oh, this makes so much sense.
There is a certain combination of red text on blue (or vice-versa) that makes the text shimmer or wobble, as if your eyes couldn't track and process them at the same time. I specifically remember Omni magazine making frequent use of this color combination. I'm going to investigate further now.
Apparently this effect is known as "chromostereopsis".
I don't understand people who are big fans of the prequels. They're idiotic, very poorly written. Visually, yeah, the movies are best watched with the sound off so you don't hear the bad writing. Still a lot of the dumbness leaks through but it's muted.
Idiotic and very poorly written like this post.
Great post 📫👏
These "movies" are embarrassing🫣 So irredeemably silly🙄
Sterile. Too much special effects creates an uncanny valley that can feel sterile.
It's hard to connect with the bland, headstrong, Gary Stu Jedi. They don't have enough personality to effect the plot. And that's a mistake on George Lucas's part. That's why I'm so glad Kurtzman had so much say over the original trilogy.
There's not even character to be had in the lightsaber fights. You can see the innocence in the way Luke fought in Empire compared to Vader. You could feel the rage in the way Luke attacked Vader in Jedi.
Anakin wasn't a Gary Stu...it's hilarious people keep saying that.
@@Deuteromis No. He was just badly written as a complex character
@@LukeLovesRose LOL no he wasn't, his character wasn't that complex at all. He grew up thinking the Jedi were one thing but over time found out they were flawed.
And the argument that he was a Gary Stu has been disproven like the one Luke is. Only ignorant people use that argument.
But please explain how I'm wrong and I'll gladly respond like all the others who made that ridiculous claim.
@@Deuteromis He was supposed to be complex and obviously Lucas failed. Thats the only way to make Darth Vader redeemable by Jedi. You don't have him slaughter younglings
Watching people constantly try to defend bad movies is hilarious
@@LukeLovesRose Kid he wasn't supposed to be that complex lol. Him. Slaughtering children shows how far he was willing to go to save Padme. Not only do you continue to show your ignorance in the character, but also failed to show how he was a Gary Stu. LOL
I heard the CGI hate at the time but I didn't care. I was disappointed to see the man who would ultimately become the most terrifying force in the galaxy was nothing more than giant crybaby with no presence or charisma.
The prequels were plagued by bad writing, bad acting (mostly), incoherent stories, sanitized digital environments (which have aged very poorly), massive corniness (3P0 taking on the personality of a battle droid on a conveyer belt anyone?), and no kid wants to hear about trade agreements and congressional hearings...
Gr8 post 📫 🌟 so true
Laughable comment.
11 years old when TPM was released and I still loved the trade dispute. Nice try.
Kids are supposed to be seen, not heard. 😋
I think part of what Savage is referring to is the same thing that happened between LOTR and The Hobbit. Too much reliance on CGI and digital and not enough on realism, actors, and world-building with props and sets. The Hobbit could have been just as amazing and ground breaking as LOTR, but it fell short. Great story, IMHO, but it was not as good as the originals that came before it simply due to that.
After the (sometimes literal) torture that making the first LOTR trilogy turned out to be, Peter Jackson and his team didn't want to come back for The Hobbit, and it shows. They were done with anything of that scale, especially when Hobbit was stretched into a trilogy, and they simply got lazy and took as many easy ways out as they could.
For me, a 40 year old lifelong Star Wars fan who used to watch the movies literally every day, I can't stand the prequels.
Primarily, the Original Trilogy has so many references to the backstory that the Prequels absolutely ignore (and worse, George went back and changed the OT to mitigate some of the conflicts!).
Second, much of the plot and writing in the prequels is confusing or just bad. Like, why exactly are the Trade Federation invading Naboo? What tax laws are they upset about? Why are they forcing Amidala to sign a treaty to make the already-in-progress invasion legal? And why did Jango Fett hire another bounty hunter to assassinate the target he was hired to assassinate? Who exactly ordered the clone army and why? When Palpatine reveals he's a Sith lord to Anakin, he waits at his desk while Anakin goes to get Mace Windu to arrest him? And after Padme dies, why does he still feel the need to serve Palpatine?
Third and most importantly, they are a completely different tone from the Original Trilogy. Yes, the OT was also made for children, but adults could enjoy it too. To this day I can't sit through the Phantom Menace with baby Anakin and Jar Jar Binks. Worse yet, The Phantom Menace was marketed as an adult film, which was a bait and switch and a total d*ck move by George.
I agree with the bait and switch.
I can still enjoy them but that comes more through nostalgia and sharing it with my kids.
As films they are very flawed, but at the same time they are lightyears ahead of what disney did, because at the end of the day there is an actual story.
@@TheForceFandom People bitch and moan and nitpick the story details in the PT but at least there was a larger overall story happening and building towards something. The Disney Sequel Trilogy had no such plan - they were completely making it up as they went along.
@Ziz62266 funny because they had Zero Plan and just made it up for the Original Trilogy yet somehow managed to pull it off ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Disney is just unbelievably stew pidd it seems ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Plus the prequels had a soft color theme going on, whereas the originals had a kind of grimy, gritty, high contrast thing going on that was best recreated in Rogue One. Should have stuck with that.
@@fakereality96 Yep ✅️
The prequels are junk, and the fact that their reputation is improving is only because of the even worse sequels make them better in retrospect.
I don’t think that is the main reason.
But there are some who have grown more fond of them over time.
My number one problem with the prequels is the story. We were promised the story of Anakin slipping into the dark side. We didn't get that. We got a lot of talk about politics and the weakest romance I've ever seen in a movie. But Anakin goes from being a mop-haired little kid who can build sentient robots and race in Formula One, to being a typical petulant teen, to suddenly slaughtering a roomful of children. There was nothing believable about his arc. If they had gotten this right, much of the rest could have been forgiven.
Even Lucas's abuse of the tools could have worked if he had kept the story tight. The original movie worked so well because it never strayed from the core story. The prequels were more a collection of side quests. We didn't need to see all the machinations that led to the clone war. We could have started the films with the war already in progress. Or it could have just been a thing that suddenly happened. It didn't even really need to happen. The war was only there because it was mentioned in the original movie. It didn't serve any purpose for the core story. And that whole subplot distracted from the main story.
I haven't warmed to the prequels at all. I still hate them. The only reason I've seen them twice is because it made sense to watch all the movies before going to see the sequels. And the only reason the prequels are seeing a resurgence is because the sequels were abysmal, for the most part. The last film is the worst movie I've ever seen that wasn't made by Zak Snyder. TLJ, however, ranks in my top 3 of all Star Wars movies. So it isn't like I only like the OT and think everything else is garbage. I actually put TLJ and Rogue One ahead of RotJ. The prequels are objectively bad movies, based on criteria universally accepted by fans and critics. If people like them for nostalgia, fine. But it isn't just the abundance of CGI that ruined them.
Yes, the all-time Worst Ever "slipping into evil" 'story' to be filmed ... just cheesy🎥 😂
Wow! Hi, you saved me a lot of typing. I may just copy your text and update with my own dislikes. 😆
@@Viewerinview Glad to help. I know there's a bunch of us who feel this way.
@Viewerinview agreed, Terrific rundown 🌟
Thanks for sharing your perspective. Makes sense and I agree with a good but of what you said.
Watched phantom menace then 10 minutes of the next one nothing since.
The haters are Generation X, who spent years devising in their heads what the characters' ideal origin story would be.
20 years after everyone imagined their ideal versions of the world in Star Wars, the prequels came along; Generation X, in fact the most spoiled generation on wheels, had a nervous breakdown.
They massacred the actors, the franchise and George Lucas Just note that rejection of the prequels is high among generation X, but it is low among generation X who already grew up watching Star Wars with the 6 films in the collection. This generation hasn't had 20 years to imagine how things should be.
George Lucas after years and years of being slaughtered, trampled and laughed at in newspapers, magazines and programs and becoming synonymous with “the man who ruined his own history” all because of a useless Generation X who was hurt by the prequels.
Who knew he would sell this crap
You do realize that GenX ends, depending on what source you use, at 1980. The premise of your statement doesn't make sense, even if GenX ends at 1984. GenX didn't "massacre" the actors. You're thinking of the Millennials and GenY. For the most part, the criticism is the almost exclusive use of green screen and lack of animaltronics. What made the original shine was the use of practical sets and animaltronics, and actors that seem to actually want to be in the movie. There seems to be a certain "magic" when practical sets, props, animaltronics, etc when watching them, and any movie that uses uses the same processes.
That being said, the prequels aren't bad but aren't the greatest either. I don't feel a need to watch them every year as a ritual like I do with the original three movies.
@@mikel6755exactly my thought, the OT is revisited regularly while I never returned to the prequels. It just doesn’t have that magic appeal to me.
Why do you think Gen Xers are spoiled? I'm a Gen X person, and wonder what exactly you mean. And no, I am not offended by the idea or any answer you may have. I am genuinely interested about what you have in mind.
The thing I don't like about the prequels is that now every time I watch the original movies, obiwan sounds like a pathological liar. Absolutely nothing he says to luke is true, from any point of view 😂
In Empire, when Obi-wan says to Yoda "he was our last hope" and Yoda replies "No, there is another", I like to imagine Yoda thinking "Damn it, Kenobi, can you stop lying about everything?"
The prequels were flawed in EVERY aspect. Who is the main character in Phantom Menace? Seriously. There’s WAY too much going on. Too many characters, and the whole “trade federation” storyline is confusing for a younger casual watcher. I didn’t even know what was going on there. It was boring. Too many effects as he said. It was a commercial for “wow, look what I can do!” Instead of story. Lucas is a terrible writer and even worse director that doesn’t work with his actors. He just sits there and says “action”, hence the terrible wooden acting. And, this is just my opinion, Anakin should have been a teenager. A “Harry Potter” story, where he is tempted by his “magic”, and slowly becomes prideful.
Meh Anakin should have been 20s like Luke. Yes absolutely correct, great rundown of the stupidly awful mess ✅️
The story was easy to follow if you actually paid attention. 🙄
If you can't follow the plot of a movie aimed at 10-year-olds, stick to watching Teletubbies -it's more your speed.
@Jelperman no lol 😆 the movies are aimed at Big Critics, but pushed with sensibilities of a movie aimed at 10yr old children. Lucas was dying for Artistic Affirmation because somehow legions of fans & moolah weren't enough ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Jelperman imagine pretending to believe that 10yr olds avidly follow & want on-screen discourse about Trade and Democracy 🫠 lol 🌪
Never had any problems with "the effects"... it was all visually stunning and overwhelming at times.
If Adam's point was that Lucas was obsessing over effects and not on developing characters or tightening story, I think he's right.
The original trilogy gave us a singular villain to fear and respect almost from the opening credits. The prequels gave us Boss Fights in the form of disposal villains. The original trilogy gave us three fully realized characters and a quasi-love triangle. The prequel trilogy gave us two fully realized characters and a MacGuffin... and while the Fall of Anakin was important, nobody could be invested in Anakin enough to see it as a tragedy; just a plot beat to set up the next films.
OG fan here. We hated the Prequels because how horribly Anakin Skywalker was written. We hated the Prequels more when Clone Wars(Best SW screen content since 1983)really showed how much potential the story had and how much Lucas squandered it.
Also, the problem with the Prequels' digital effects is that they looked like a video game. They didn't have depth to them. They looked cheesy AF. Also, they have aged worse than the OG trilogy and I will die on that hill.
Completely agree! The prequels also undermined elements of the original trilogy.
Savage is right. But it's just one part of the massive puzzle that is the prequel films. As many have said, Lucas didn't have limits. Anything that hit his head, he told it to his crew. Then they went off and found a way to make it work. But back in the first three films, he'd write these crazy, elaborate concepts. And when it came time to shoot it, people told him "we can't do this part. But we can change it." And then those changes done by a third party often ended up being the best parts of the films.
As for the grand question of why people didn't like the prequels, I'd say it comes down to pacing and tone. People can accept cheesy writing. They did in the first three Star Wars films. But it's because it was balanced with the famous editing changes that made the films well paced and a tone that was grounded. The prequels did the opposite. Also, on the topic of the cheesy writing, that's actually the prequels saving grace. You can go back and watch the prequels and literally every line is quotable. In that "so bad it's good" way. Compare that to the sequel films and I doubt you can remember any lines besides "destroy the past" and "they fly now!" and "somehow...Palpatine returned." But nearly every line of dialogue in the prequels has been used for a meme at some point. And they have retroactively made the prequel movies fun and funny.
He is correct. Everyone has their own little nit picks with those prequel movies. This charater, that character. dialogue, etc. But EVERYONE complains about the CGI. Its everywhere in those films. And the CGI was very quickly dated when they were released just because of the technology at the time.
I hated episodes 1 though 3, and I was not that big of a fan of Return of the Jedi. Why did they try to explaine the Force as microbes? It was better leaving it as a mistery. C3PO being built by the kid, when a siver version of the robot was shown in Empire. Way to many issues to list here. It was as if Lucas didn't watch his original movies. The special effects were not the problem, it was the plot, charaters, the cute kid crap, racial sterio types, etc. Episodes 7-9 were not much better. Really, after the the original two, the movies are dissapointing. I have not watched the TV shows, lost interest. Time for something new. There are tons of great books out there waiting for their movie.
I was 17 when they came out and have never been so hyped for anything in my life as i was for these movies to come out. I hated them because they were lazily written and you can objectively point to reasons why they aren’t good. The only people that liked them are those who were children when they watched them.
Not true. I was 26 when The Phantom Menace came out, and I still love that film. It wasn’t perfect, and I know it could have been written better. But, it was still a fun movie going experience for me.
@@joehenry9546 sure I guess you like what you like, who can argue with that.
You made a really good point there. When you have limitations you have to think long and hard about what you're doing. You need to be extremely thoughtful. When limitations pretty much are nonexistent one tends to try to do too much. Less is more, and in the difference between the originals and the prequels, it shows. Adam's point about fonts is spot on. Graphic design was mostly atrocious in the 90s, and in some ways still is.
"Absence of limitation is the Enemy of Art" - Orson W. 🎥
I recently rewatched Jurassic Park again, and it holds up so much better than the prequels.
Absolutely 💯 🌴 🦕 🦖 🌳 🌿
i can't stand the light saber "fights", those aren't fights, that dancing
They were heavily criticised at the time - but apparently some book or comic 'fixed' it by inventing some nonsense about the Jedi being so advanced and godlike that waving lightsabers in empty space was 4D chess or whatever.
The acting in the prequels was terrible. The lines in the prequels were awful.
I agree. Not Natalie Portman’s best performance.
I thought it was okay to start with episode 1 in terms of the story but wanted to see something quite different. I get what Lucas was setting up, but he could have gone with a totally different story. We didn’t need so much time on Tatooine with the pod racing scene and everything. He should have shown us Darth Plagueis and what he and Palpatine set up. The prequels should have been way darker.
In terms of the visuals, I thought they were and are great. I was a kid when I first watched the trilogy, so maybe I was easy to impress. But I wasn't disappointed by the graphics. But why were the Prequels so hated or disappointing? Because the story fundamentally betrayed narrative expectations.
For example, midicholorians. So regular folk can't train for years to become Jedi or have Jedi powers as it's all genetic.
Also, there are the ridiculous plot lines or screenwriting to carry the narrative forward, such as when Anakin didn't have the high ground, and _that_ was literally announced as, and thus the predetermined reason for, Anakin losing against Obi Wan Kenobi.
Yeah, the midichlorians thing was I think an effort to sound more Trekkie. I could be wrong, as the Trekkies back then were real loud about SW not being ‘sciency’ enough.
I never understood the "high ground" thing as being the *litteral* high ground, but the moral (fighting for a morally just cause), emotional (better grip on himself and does not fight with anger) and/or technical high ground (better skilled fighter).
But yeah, still bad dialog writing.
The Midichlorians were basically there to explain why not everyone was using the Force. If anyone could manage the Force, 99% of the Galaxy should be made up of Jedi dropouts who use Force pull to drag random items around the house to them. From there, a genocide of the Jedi to such a degree that it destroys common faith in the Force (ie Han Solo) should be objectively impossible.
In other words, this is to patch up a plot hole.
Also, by voicing the complaint as such, you're essentially saying that self-insert fanfiction being canon is more important than a cohesive world. By that logic, Batman is an objectively better hero than Superman because you need Kryptonian DNA to be Superman. Personally, I don't consume stories to pretend that I'm the MC, I consume them to enjoy someone else's journey.
@@GameCat16 I disagree with your analysis, as your logic is faulty and your views are overimposing.
Yes, the introduction of midicholorians patches up a plot hole, and it's that very patch up that's the issue. Another explanation or "patch up" would have been better. For example, why not have it so that acquiring the force was limited to a relative few who kept it secret to keep power to themselves, like Greek Fire? On top of the dedication required to obtain the force, and the opposition involved, it became a completely lost knowledge. Or some other, perhaps more clever world building.
The point is that your logic doesn't follow, as it's a false dichotomy--criticizing a given lore explanation in favor of a better alternative, is not mutually exclusive to building a cohesive world.
Also, _you_ may like to be an uncritical consumer of someone else's story, and that's your right and opinion. However, many people do not like to be passive viewers, and criticizing various works is a perfectly valid approach. Those telling the stories must tell a compelling narrative to draw viewers into their world, and passing viewers' scrutiny is a natural part of that process.
Moreover, excusing continuity flaws or poor writing altogether because it's someone else's story is _consistent_ with the broader philosophy of moral relativism. And that's not a tenable position to hold, as it's logically flawed, since you'd be asserting a universal claim of relativism.
If I were evaluate a work and notice say, a continuity error, a lazy deus ex machina device to carry the plot forward, etc., then I will criticize it. Likewise, if I wrote a story and there were some plot holes and criticisms because of them, then I'd like to know so that I could consider correcting them and improve upon my writing quality.
@@kovko69 First off, I never said, "Don't criticize." Rather, I said that your criticism was flawed, poorly thought out, and drenched in preference as opposed to objectivity.
Second, your proposed alternative still has problems. The Jedi were well-known across the Galaxy to the point where they're remembered even in the OT, even if they're regarded as myth. It would be very difficult to hide the secrets, even rudimentary, in that context. Especially when they're peacekeepers to the Galaxy.
Remember, there was a 15 year period where Lucas unabashedly said there would never be more Star Wars, and I lived every ine of those days, so I celebrate everything since even if it isn't all fantastic.
Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman had, like, zero onscreen chemistry. And the writing for their "love story" was about as cardboard as a cereal box. Aside from not caring for Jar Jar and his unlikely-in-the-extreme comedic grandstanding, this was my main complaint. The two actors were obviously only into each other because it said so in the script. I chiefly blame whoever cast them for not finding two actors who actually were attracted to one another. Not like they had a banger of a script to work with, though...
EP1 is garbage from start to finish, EP2 is better but not by much, EP3 was better again, but low bar was set so.....
I’m Gen X and I grew up with Star Wars and I think you have to have a perspective like mine to truly understand it
Before Star Wars there was NOTHING even close to what they did with those films
They were the first high concept/big budget franchise
A New Hope stated that!
From the VERY beginning of the film seeing a planet that actually looked real followed up by this HUGE Star Destroyer that looked so real and so amazing was beyond what anyone had ever seen or imagined before and up until 1977 the original Star Trek was the best sci-fi we had
Nothing if this scope or magnitude was ever created and it changed film and cinema forever so when the prequels came out everything was the opposite of what we actually liked about Star Wars
The lead character was a whiny kid who was crying and complaining
The ships were so homogenous and boring
The story was so weighed down by the politics and the many characters and factions in the films
The visual effects and the sets were all classic GL and ILM and all of that was top notch
The light saber battles were stunning and that part was definitely a huge improvement over the originals but it wasn’t the same happy, positive tone that Star Wars set
I remember when I was in the theater watching the first one with a buddy of mine thinking how I kind of enjoyed the film but at the same time was extremely disappointed with it because everything I expected out of a Star Wars film just wasn’t there
I liked Liam Neeson and the Obi Wan kind of
He did turn it to be a very good Obi Wan
That’s the criticism
While I wasn’t as hard on the films as other people I was very disappointed and I think what frustrated the fans the most was the push back Lucas gave us at the time
That only made it worse and His tearful nonsense was just a show to get sympathy
I think he was well aware that he didn’t deliver what fans wanted and this is the plight of creative people
He had a different vision than what he had for the original movies and creative people tend to think that when they do something great that people will love them no matter what they do and the fact is that producers and studio executives are the ones that understand that you need to be consistent and it’s artists that fight that notion
I’ve seen it a lot in the music industry around that time as well
What we have now is where NO creative expression is really allowed and that’s far worse so that’s why the sequels make the prequels look amazing by comparison and in all fairness the story GL was trying to tell was really good
It just wasn’t what the fans wanted to see
Has he even just done a better job making the ships and battles better and more exciting I’ll bet you no one would have complained about any of the rest of it
He just completely missed some of the main things that drew people to Star Wars and the thing is that if he had written those movies first they probably would have flopped and that’s how you know you have a dud on your hands
Every movie has to stand on its own merits and they really didn’t quite do that
Before Star Wars there was Nothing!
Really!
Stanley Kubrick with 2001 a space odyssey set the standard for quality special effects in SF!
@@TomGerritsen-o9r But with zero blasters or bounty hunters or cyborg wizards!
@@TomGerritsen-o9r gay!
@@7gmeister Gen X is gay!
@@bigtomboye So?
A: the ORIGINAL StarWars BraGGeD about getting liguists and reversing african languages etc.etc. ...
In the Prequels EVERYBODY Just Has An ITALIAN ACCENT!!??
B: JarJar had a goofy voice AND said very dated things like ExSweeeze me (from Wayne's World) and characters doing hiphop dance moves ...VERY 1990's
C3PO, Yoda etc. voices greW on people ...jarjar's was too far.
C: Lucas's Film Friends (Coppala etc.) DIDN'T LIKE HIS FIRST DRAFT Of StarWars.
AND
IF you look at the pre-edited versions you can sEE WHY...Convoluted plots jumping between layers etc. ...thAT'S his Natural Inclination ...(theoretically his wife simplified the plot in editing ...but jury's still out)
D: JarJar's Slapstick IS ACTUALLY ThE SamE As Indiana Jones so it SHOULD WorK
BUT
GoofY Voice +Knowing He's a fake bunch of pixels was just too much for a character to remain watchable
Young Anakin is the main reason, Jar-Jar is secondary. No one wanted to see Darth Vader as a baby--and it showed. And no one needed a comical character to break the tension(jar-jar)--Lucas never let the tension build. Also, the switch from Sci-Fantasy to Sci-Fi (metachlorines) was also very jarring. Obi-wan Kenobi was also terrible in the prequels. Ben Kenobi was a wise and kind person. Ewan was a pretentious prick. There were a lot of good stories of Darth Vader hunting down Jedi's that were told in the Marvel Comic Series back in the 80's. Those stories were far better than Lucas prequels and he should have just stole those. We would have started the prequels at end of Episode III. I learned nothing from episode 1-3. I dislike them today as much as I did when I first saw them back in 1999.
I can't take people who liked these movies very seriously they're just goofs
@@bigtomboye You just can't handle the fact that people actually paid attention to the films.
What are you rambling about? We learned plenty from the Prequels. The people who hated The Prequels were the fans who grew up on The Originals who were mad the films weren't made for them.
@@Deuteromislisten the memes are great and I actually enjoy ROTS a lot, but those movies were badly made and they didn't tell a coherent story at all.
@@penske_material That's cause you didn't pay attention kid. There was a coherent story.
I try to get my kids to understand. Episode IV was the most epic, followed by V. I saw Star Wars with my brother when it first came out, at the Coronet Theatre in San Francisco. We grew up with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, and Star Trek. E4 was absolutely epic, then E5.
I still loved the prequels. It took Star Wars to another level. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still a fun time.
From what I remember of the hate when it came out was that the prequels had none of the craft or the focus of the originals. They felt like tentpoles made for kids by people who couldn't write. The heart was gone from it. And the *BETRAYAL* we felt when "midichlorians" were introduced--The Force wasn't something you got stronger in with greater spiritual enlightenment but by a biological factor...it *RUINED* so much magic of the original series. So much of the world felt fake because Lucas didn't want to build sets. The one thing the Sequels got right was the production design: the sequels felt real because they used sets and only used CGI to integrate things you couldn't shoot physically. The prequels didn't immerse you in the same way the originals did.
The thing about things "feeling real" comes from real objects being touched by real photons: models, miniatures, etc. were all real, physical, tangible objects that had textures and colors that computers can't properly replicate. But currently, VFX artists aren't unionized and so I think the overuse of CGI was to put all the visuals on cheaper workers with no legal bargaining power so you used less traditional labor that costs more to use and takes more time.
No one HATES the prequels. Some of us just dislike portions of the prequels. Small portions. Like anytime Padme and Anakin are alone together on Naboo. Other than that, we LOVE the prequel trilogy. Also, Jar Jar is annoying. But Ahmed Best is awesome, so yeah.
I absolutely HATE the prequels. Well... the first two, anyway. ROTS was actually pretty decent. However, the first two have so many things wrong with them that it's very hard to list them all. Those that grew up with the original trilogy would obviously make the comparison which wasn't flattering to the prequels at all.
I thought the prequels sucked...even as stand alone movies if they weren't star wars. Glossy drive in flixs that were duller than most of the late 70s SW ripoff B movies.
The first SW movie before editing by Marcia Lucas was terrible too. She and Lucas' colleagues saved that film by telling him he was all over the place with useless scenes that were hard to follow.
The stories could have still been saved into the 9 film franchise with one major change.
OBW was Luke and Leia's Father as he had an 1 night affair, moment of weakness, during the clone wars. That's why he watched over them in secret. Aniken killed their mother in a fit of jealous rage for he knew the truth...he sensed it in the Force...that's what turned him.
Then the last 3 could have revealed that like a Greek tragedy....instead of simply copy paste Rey as Palpatene's secret daughter.
Nah. I hate the sequels. I hated them in 1998. I still hate them.
3:08 I am old enough to know what Adam is talking about. Multiple fonts should not be used on the same page w/o good reason. Back in the old days, using a printing press was an arduous effort. You had to painstakingly place each letter down in just the right way manually. Then computers came along and the printing presses went to landfill. When ALL THE FONTS were at your fingertips, there were graphic designers who felt like they were like diving into Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory with these fonts! It was a cornucopia of possibilities, but using all those fonts on the same page is a sin. You pick one clean cut font that's easy to read which fits with the subject matter in question and you move on. You don't use a different font for every phrase or every word. That's just evil on your eyes.
Indeed. It's the literary equivalent of handing someone a box of used tissues... it's simply not done by people possessed of sanity without some particular and compelling reason to do the otherwise gauche.