The worst part of the prequels was the tragedy of an otherwise stellar performance as Anakin Skywalker, portrayed by Hayden Christensen, having to spit out the dialogue written by George Lucas.
Appropriately, Kylo Ren is the next best Sith baddy portrayed in film.
Yes! I loved the delicate touch of portraying him as petulant and somewhat undisciplined. Vader was a lapdog, even from the first movie.
But Kylo was something ... more raw. More unleashed.
I was so mad when fucking JJ Abrams ruined his arc in RoS.
“HE NAMED THEM LOTT DODD FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!” I scream as they fasten the straightjacket. “NUTE GUNRAY REFERS TO BOTH NEW GINGRICH AND RAY-GUN!!!” as I am sedated
I'm often lonely in liking the first of the three prequels but as a well known hater of II and III, I don't know anyone who hates them for their politics
My big complaint with III is that it had the worst lightsaber fight (30 minutes of jumping around CGI lava is too damn much) and also the worst scene ever in any Star Wars movie (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO).
Otherwise it's mostly just forgettable like the other two prequels.
I thought the first one just had a willfully silly whimsy that the second two lost. Might just be the era they came out, there was a mostly unfortunate self-serious thing happening in movies in the early.mid 2000s, might not have been mainstreamed yet in the 90s
Phantom Menace was at least honest? It was what George Lucas wanted to make.
Then he dialed it back (because everybody hated it) and tried to make something people would like, and it's still bad, but also it's not even honest anymore.
Interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way but it makes sense, To me "this movies accepts itself as a kids movie and it's fun" and II and III have this self-serious edginess that they do NOT earn - but could be the whimsy of ep I is what George honestly likes, the edge is fan service
II has Dooku who is great. I liked several of the fight scenes, I'm wondering which one you liked...
My billion dollar goofy idea is to remake II and III now with good dialogue writers and Jake Lloyd reprising as Anakin
This is backwards to me, so I gotta ask ... why the first one, but not 2 or 3??
Also, yes, I unironically liked the political sleuthing. It gets mocked for being dull or whatever, but I always found it compelling, and pulled in "real people", so it wasn't just wizards in personal beefs.
The writing is pretty bad but Hayden Christiansen could make the best screenwriting in history completely flat and lifeless. Good fencer, could've been a great stunt double. A huge and apparently lifelong error was made when George Lucas had him act
The first one is fun and whimsical as it should be
Blagh, strong disagree. The dialogue was terrible; Lucas cannot write dialogue, and that's okay, and he should have passed that to other people.
But Hayden's portrayal of an emotionally shattered and vulnerable victim of trauma was compelling and believable. Episode 3 was 😙🤏
As an autistic emotionally shattered and vulnerable victim of trauma, not in the least. My problem isn't that he's portraying someone who struggles to emote, it's that he struggles to portray anyone realistic.
Michael from "The Wire" AND Michael from "Peaky Blinders" BOTH captured it really well.
I think the Obi Wan storyline is a great microcosm of the entire prequel trilogy, good and bad. It's conceptually interesting, but becomes a mess when filtered through George's brain without editing. Why is there a noir homage in a kid's movie? Cause George likes that stuff!
Why does the mystery and its solution get totally ignored by the 3rd act? Because George assumes children (why, George, why?) understand that the Jedi are getting played by Sidious at every turn, so the mystery doesn't matter, and he needs a big ending set piece!
Yeah, George Lucas is definitely an ideas guy, and that's okay. But he's not a writer, and he should have left most of the refinement and dialogue stuff to other people.
To me, Obi-Wan was always the most boring part of Star Wars. He gets killed at the end of the very first movie!
The actors were doing their best, because Lucas was pretty clear that he didn't want to direct them, and poor McGregor has to convey being heartbroken about Ani even though they're separate for almost all of it, and is asked to be annoyed/disapproving dad and not caring dad in their shared scenes.
