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Is Revenge of the Sith the Best or Worst Prequel?

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Anyone else getting tired of arguing the same thing over and over? I wonder if we’re intent on arguing things that have been argued to death maybe we could switch things up and argue about a different movie?

I’ll go first. ROTS is the best prequel (of the trilogy).

For starters it’s easily the most watchable in terms of pacing. Both TPM and AOTC drag throughout, with long tangential sequences that imbalance the overall structure. ROTS only has one such bloated section, but you get it over and done with up front.

It’s also the film that comes the closest to coherent character work. Most characters in TPM just stand there. In AOTC they’re all over the place. Execution aside, ROTS is the best in terms of creating multi-dimensional (and arguably likable) characters, with an effort made as well to actually challenge them and make their stories compelling.

That’s it for now. Fight me.

P.S. Only one thread rule: no arguing about the ST.

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I agree. A good fanedit of ROTS actuality approaches coaxing a genuine powerful emotion out of me, whereas the other two edited just become decent fun action movies.

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For me it’s the second worse. AOTC is just totally unsalvageable and is the absolute low of the franchise. ROTS is a little better. I’ll agree, of the PT, it probably has the best “character work” as you put it. But what really kills the film for me is the absolutely terrible handling of Anakin’s motivations for turning to the Dark Side, the very fast actual turn and embrace of it, and him murdering children. Follow that with the way the film totally craps all over continuity with the OT and I just can’t find any real enjoyment in it.

I find TPM to be the most bearable prequel but a lot of that is because it looks the most like a Star Wars film and it’s so far removed from the OT that I have an easier time overlooking its inconsistent continuity. Also, I actually like Qui-gon and Darth Maul (as much of a wasted character as he was). I also have a little nostalgia for TPM with the marketing and the build up and excitement for new Star Wars (I remember cutting class early to stand in line for tickets! I was in high school at the time). By the time AOTC came out, reality had sunk in. And with ROTS, I was just hoping it would at least kinda stick the landing. But it didn’t.

Jedit:
I don’t know why but I feel the need to point out I’ve not watched any of the PT in well over a decade. The closest thing I’ve done is read Darths and Droids and watch the Auralnauts’ edits on YouTube. And honestly, that’s how I prefer my exposure to the PT to remain: as parody. Those are genuinely entertaining and fun. Something that cannot be said of the PT in its purer form.

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It’s the worst one.

TPM holds together as a… weird, sort of boring at times… movie. And AOTC is a misguided… boring movie with bizarre slapstick cartoon portions.

ROTS is largely a powerpoint presentation in which everything from the prequels metamorphosizes into the way it was for ANH. Nothing anyone does makes any sense, and it is where the reality of the fact that these were prequel movies rendered itself onto this movie. It’s crunch time.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I’m not too sure. ROTS might have the most surface-level entertainment value, but I feel TPM is the most well-made movie of the three. For starters, it’s not a bad looking movie (all the stuff set in space still looks fantastic), and I appreciate its visual continuity with the OT. It also has a superb John Williams score, and its sound design is pretty great as well. Overall, it’s defintely not a very good movie, but it’s got a lot going for it.

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John_ said:

Overall, it’s defintely not a very good movie, but it’s got a lot going for it.

TPM or RotS?

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canofhumdingers nailed it for me. I can’t sit through AotC. I made it over halfway through RotS. I can sit through all of Phantom Menace.

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TPM is boring and has no protagonist worth caring about.
AOTC has an unconvincing love story.
ROTS has Anakin going from simply wanting to keep Palpatine alive to slaughtering children with no resistance or conflict about it.

I can’t say which is worse, they are all bad in very different ways.

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Hal 9000 said:

It’s the worst one.

TPM holds together as a… weird, sort of boring at times… movie. And AOTC is a misguided… boring movie with bizarre slapstick cartoon portions.

ROTS is largely a powerpoint presentation in which everything from the prequels metamorphosizes into the way it was for ANH. Nothing anyone does makes any sense, and it is where the reality of the fact that these were prequel movies rendered itself onto this movie. It’s crunch time.

I agree with this, except that I think AOTC is worse than ROTS. But all the things you highlight are the reasons I’ve never understood why ROTS is rated as highly as it is by most.

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ROTS completely lacks subtext. Characters say exactly what they’re thinking and talk about what they’re going to do in the next scene/what they’ve done in previous scenes. On top of that, what they actually do say makes no sense. All of the characters are one dimensional and boring. The only arc in the movie took place in one scene, and it was because ‘remember Star Wars’.

Some people say the fan service in TFA is bad, well look at the ending of Revenge of the Sith! Hey look, it’s Darth Vader. It’s the Emperor! It’s Governer Tarkin! It’s the Death Star! It’s baby Leia! It’s the binary sunset!

The ending tricks you into liking it because it has things you already have an emotional connection to (mainly the Binary sunset.)

TPM has all of these problems too, but it’s way easier to sit through. The weird out of touch racism is fun to think about. The visuals are (mostly) pretty decent. The score is pretty phenomenal.

JEDIT: Attack of the Clones is just as bad as Sith. The ‘Remember Star Wars’ is pretty tame in comparison though.

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The Phantom Menace is just boredom. The only reason why to watch it is the John Williams score and that it’s the best looking Star Wars prequel.
I actually LIKE AOTC (yes, I’m the one person who likes it). But still, the only thing I really like are the action scenes, because those are the only scenes in the whole prequel trilogy where I feel something and care about anything what’s going on.
Which means that ROTS is definitely the worst for me. It’s not even watchable. I honestly can’t say anything positive about the movie, except for John Williams’s score is brilliant as always. It LOOKS like a computer game, the story makes no sense, the acting is horrible, the actors stopped caring a long time ago, the dialogue is like it was written by a 8 years old… Well at least it’s funny if you’re drunk enough.

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I think most people were expecting Anakin to be put in the Vader suit at the end. Where we got stiffed is we didn’t get to see Vader do much of anything. Vader was so prominent in the advertising and merchandising, that the fact he was barely in the movie was a bit of a letdown.

I sort of regret never trying these as I just didn’t want to think of Anakin burning over breakfast.

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Where were you in '77?

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I think it is the best of the PT… and the best prequel out of the 5 produced so far… and the best SW flick post-OT.

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It depends what I’m looking for. ROTS has an almost operatic feel to me, and while it still has issues in the execution department, I think overall it has a good story, and great visuals, even if it’s a little too CGI heavy at times. I also think the performances range from acceptable to pretty good. At the same time there’s a part of me that prefers TPM. I think TPM is visually the most appealing, having the best blend of location shooting, traditional effects work, and CGI. I sort of see TPM as Star Wars with lower stakes, and blander characters, but overall still fairly entertaining. I was never really that bothered by Jar Jar as much as some.

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The Phantom Menace is comfortably the best imho, and actually has a lot of great stuff in it (and a few not so great things too!).

Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith both fall a distant second - really there isn’t much to separate the two. They have the feel of being shot ‘back to back’ in The Hobbit tradition. Actually the final Tatooine shot in ROTS when Obi hands over the twins was captured during AOTCs production. Sadly, that one brief moment is the only location shot in the whole of ROTS - the entire film was made within the greenscreen environs of the Sydney studio and ILMs computers - and that safe, sterile, deadness permeates it.

Hal, you made a valiant effort with the films and when I watched your edit I objectively think you have improved them. However there is only so much that can be done, and I think Adywan made a very wise choice to drop what would have been many years toil trying to polish them further with his planned PT Revisited.

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to be fair, dialogue in RotS is at times much better than in TLJ imo.

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JEDIT: Nevermind.

“Get over violence, madness and death? What else is there?”

Also known as Mr. Liquid Jungle.

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Collipso said:

to be fair, dialogue in RotS is at times much better than in TLJ imo.

If you are serious, would you care to cite examples?

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dahmage said:

Collipso said:

to be fair, dialogue in RotS is at times much better than in TLJ imo.

If you are serious, would you care to cite examples?

sure. when i get home i’ll be sure to get you some examples. but maybe in another thread or in a pm, since i think the point of this thread was to stop talking about TLJ and the ST, so i’m sorry for bringing it up dom.

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Collipso said:

dahmage said:

Collipso said:

to be fair, dialogue in RotS is at times much better than in TLJ imo.

If you are serious, would you care to cite examples?

sure. when i get home i’ll be sure to get you some examples. but maybe in another thread or in a pm, since i think the point of this thread was to stop talking about TLJ and the ST, so i’m sorry for bringing it up dom.

well, i guess i don’t need examples. My real question is which movie do you think has, on the whole, the worse dialog?

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oh, AotC. and out of the two i pointed out, RotS. just some bits and moments in TLJ are just as bad or worse than anything in RotS imo.

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pittrek said:

The Phantom Menace is just boredom. The only reason why to watch it is the John Williams score and that it’s the best looking Star Wars prequel.
I actually LIKE AOTC (yes, I’m the one person who likes it). But still, the only thing I really like are the action scenes, because those are the only scenes in the whole prequel trilogy where I feel something and care about anything what’s going on.
Which means that ROTS is definitely the worst for me. It’s not even watchable. I honestly can’t say anything positive about the movie, except for John Williams’s score is brilliant as always. It LOOKS like a computer game, the story makes no sense, the acting is horrible, the actors stopped caring a long time ago, the dialogue is like it was written by a 8 years old… Well at least it’s funny if you’re drunk enough.

You’re not the only one. AOTC is the only prequel i can actually sit though. It’s still a bad film, but it has it’s moments. TPM , for me , was depressing when i first saw it, and that feeling is something i have never been able to shake off.

ROTS is just garbage. The dialogue alone is the worse in the entire saga. It’s also the film that has the most cringe worth moment in the entire saga too; the balcony scene. It was on TV the other day and i decided to give it another go. God, i wish i hadn’t. It’s actually worse than i remembered. On looks alone, it is the worse. Everything looks like a video game cut scene. Ian’s performance, from the moment he begins to battle Mace Windbag is horrendous and laughable. The god damn face pulling he does ( and the same during the Yoda fight). I’ve seen Pantomime villains less cheesy than him in this. And that god awful make up. erghhhh.

Then we have Chewie, who also looks like crap, suddenly fighting alongside Yoda and the Jedi. People seem to complain about fanservice to berate the New films, but my god, this one just throws stuff in for the hell of it, and does it badly. Padme is supposed to be this strong character that they set up in TPM, but with each film following, she becomes a pathetic shadow of that persona. By the end of this film , she is completely unlikeable. In fact, she becomes a selfish a**hole. She knew Anakin was a bad one, he admitted to slaughtering a whole tribe of Tuskens , including the women and the children, but she shrugged it off. Now she knows he killed the “Younglings” (yuk, that description is ridiculous) and she is pregnant. So what does she do? Gets all teary and depressed because Anakin has turned then loses the will to live. Erm, she’s about to give birth to her children. Surely she should be more concerned about her own god damn children than some moaning, evil piece of crap, who she knew years previous he was screwed up. But , no, she doesn’t give a crap about what happens to her children and dies in the most pathetic manner. ( and please don;t even mention that stupid fan theory that the Emperor drained her life to save Anakin).

Then you get to the end. This seemed nothing more than George sitting down and going “oh shit, i need to include this stuff and also include these explanations, but i spent too much time on other stuff. Oh, well,. i’ll just cram it all in at the end. Where’s my checklist…”.

There is just one moment in that whole film that is watchable. And that is the scene with Anakin and Padme , in separate parts of Coruscant, when Mace heads off to confront Palpatine. And that whole scene is done with visuals and no dialogue. Williams’ music also boosts that scene. But the rest, it’s just sooooo bad.

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