Return of the Prequel Hatred Poll... (Better...!!)

[VulcanMindBlown]

Now, you can multi-vote for options...!!!

I just think that it got to a bad start with a trade dispute, Jar Jar and Anakin Skywalker. Yes, some of those things are underwhelming... I don't like them as much as I did before I turned 13, but I AM still a George Lucas fan when it comes to Star Wars. The idea for the Prequels were already there as a backstory, people just didn't like it because they thought it was more geared for kids, it was too different and/or the acting was too hoaky.... Even though many mature Star Wars fans around the world roll their eyes when they think or hear about the first three numbered episodes, I know that George Lucas already planned them and I liked how they were a different, more modern way of doing Star Wars, with better battles, visuals, and a rich background of a fall of a Galactic Republic.... !!!

 

[Kibbin]

I chose plot/writing but I don't think that's fair. I've said for a while that at its core the prequels have a decent enough plot. It's just told very poorly. While the sequels have a terrible plot told well. This is a gross over simplification and you can point to things like the overly comercial nature which in my mind lead to key things like the clone wars being spun off into everything but the movies and giving us instead only the very beginning and the very end. (Yes I know this sort of thing started with the Ewoks).
Likewise I think George is a decent enough idea's man but works well when he turns it over to someone else while the prequels he had nothing but an army of yes men surrounding him.

 

[BillJ]

Other: Just that they are wildly uneven movies. Though I don't hate them. I watched them earlier this year with my 11 year old son.

 

[Mach5]

The Phantom Menace - undoubtedly very flawed, but unironically one of the most underrated and the most irrationally hated movies of all time.

Attack of the Clones - bad, but a nice individual moment here and there, plus off-the-chart meme value.

Revenge of the Sith - Inferior music and visuals compared to The Phantom Menace, suffers from many of the same problems, but ultimately a better movie, worthy of those high IMDB and RT scores it received. I also vastly prefer it to TFA.

None of these films ruined my childhood, which is nice.

 

[Smellmet]

I like the prequels more than the sequel trilogy all day long.

 

[Reverend]

Yay, another thread dedicated to venting hatred! That's just what we needed right now, it's been ages since the last Hate Week!

 

[Smellmet]

Yay, another thread dedicated to venting hatred! That's just what we needed right now, it's been ages since the last Hate Week!

It's becoming very tedious isn't it. I might start a prequel appreciation thread.

 

[Jedman67]

Bad acting, bad writing, bad directing. Notable exceptions: Jake Lloyd was fantastic in TPM, as was Ahmed Best. Hayden Christenson was just a terrible actor in the prequels, in my opinion; Ewan McGregor was a little better.
Overall, too much emphasis on CGI before the technology was really mature, poor directing and dialog, but with a better scriptwriter and director they could have been tons and tons better.

 

[Campe]

It's becoming very tedious isn't it. I might start a prequel appreciation thread.

I've been debating posting a Star Wars appreciation thread considering how much negativity is going on in the forum these days.

 

[suarezguy]

I didn't hate them but they were less successful probably because they were too different from the OT/what people expected and the characters (Anakin was too unlikeable in AotC and Obi-Wan too formal throughout).

Edit: I think, interestingly, the complaints of Too full of CGI have greatly become fewer, over time that being the case has become very common in blockbuster films and even popular with viewers.

I also think most of the people who first saw TPM under 10 are still pretty indifferent to Jar-Jar.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I don't hate them. I view them, Jedi, and the Disney stuff all the same:

They're all vastly inferior to the original two (but so is the bulk of film history) but still Star Wars. Sith and Jedi are the best of the bunch and Clones and TLJ the worst, but the quality difference between them is pretty insignificant - all things considered.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, I don't hate them either. Being inferior to SW77 and TESB doesn't make the PT films bad.

TPM has grown on me considerably since I saw it, actually. It's anything but slavish to the OT.

If the significance of a work of art is proportional to the discussion it engenders, heck even limiting it to non-critical discussion, then the PT is a major work of art, of historic proportions. It has certainly enriched my life. I'll even cop to Jar Jar having enriched my life.

 

[Pondwater]

I’m one of the few that actually like the prequels. Except for the lovey dovey stuff in Attack of the Clones.

 

[2takesfrakes]

All George Lucas seems to care about, really, with the prequels is the effects. His direction of the actors is clunky and awkward, just like the scripts, themselves. As a demonstration reel for ILM, the prequels are Oscar-worthy. Otherwise, they feel very heavily clichéd and there's very little interaction in them that seems organic. Lucas had almost 20 years (!!!) to come up with these movies and fans are being told the whole time about this incredible backstory, how they don't know the half of what STAR WARS entails, this and that. Well, OK ... let's have it, then! And instead of something that seemed to be cooking for all these decades, it comes off as something he wrote when he was on the shitter, one afternoon. And he's got all of these excuses that were -- quite noticeably -- unrequired and unexpected in the trilogy he'd made before.

"These movies were always meant for pre-teens" being my favourite. Another excuse favoured by Lucas is that audience expectation was too high, which made what they were finally presented with seem inferior. You know, I'm sure that ALIEN fans expected ALIENS to be a great movie, too, and it didn't need any excuses for why it sucked (which it didn't). How do you account for this, George? And all of the other stupidity in it like slavery, Immaculate Coneception, leaders with horrible fashion sense elected to rule before they've old enough to sprout pubic hair, aweful CGI aliens ... the whole smack, I could handle so much better had this trilogy just had much more characterisation. The cast is the only thing that saved these films. Had Lucas relied on no-name talent, the prequels would've been the end of STAR WARS.

 

[BillJ]

Hayden Christenson was just a terrible actor in the prequels, in my opinion; Ewan McGregor was a little better.

This likely has more to do with the director than the actors. At some point, Lucas became more interested in the tech than the people and it shows in the prequels.

 

[Tuskin38]

Yeah, Ewan at least has great outside of these movies.

 

[BillJ]

Yeah, Ewan at least has great outside of these movies.

Don't forget Natalie Portman who is a very good actor, but came across about as interesting as cardboard in the prequels.

 

[Tuskin38]

I haven't seen Hayden outside of the Prequels, so someone else will need to comment on him.

 

[Reverend]

Don't forget Natalie Portman who is a very good actor, but came across about as interesting as cardboard in the prequels.

Portman is an inconsistent actor at best, which to me usually means they're generally dependent on their director to tell them what to do and are otherwise either lost, or utterly disinterested. Those kinds of actors a generally blanks slates onto which the director projects their vision. More proficient actors tend to bring a bit more to their roles and can turn in a memorable performance even with a dull script and incompetent director.

That's not to say Padme wasn't chronically and increasingly underutilised as the trilogy progressed. Far too passive a player in a story that she was theoretically the fulcrum of. The first fault was indeed Lucas's, but Portman didn't exactly do much to improve matters either.

 

[Terok Nor]

I don't hate them but I do hate Jar Jar in TPM and I disliked Anakin in AOTC and ROTS. I actually like AOTC the most of the three because of the CGI. Even for its time it still looks pretty good. Probably not essential viewing but decent popcorn movies.