At this moment I would simply like to take a second to communicate my prequel trilogy experience and then quickly respond to some other good posts that I haven't had time to reply to yet.

Go-Mer seems to have the impression that I didn’t like the prequel trilogy simply because it wasn’t the original trilogy and that certainly wasn’t true for me. I’m guessing he thinks I couldn’t handle the differences or some such nonsense. In actuality, the way I liked and disliked the films was far more complicated and heartbreaking for me.

I wanted to love the prequel trilogy in a very substantial way. I badly wanted to love these films. I even desired to enjoy these films so much that I was willing to overlook fairly big flaws. I didn’t need perfection so long as the stories could work for me in one way or another.

Then, the first time I saw each of the prequel trilogy films, I thought they were actually great! Phantom Menace I liked a lot and I watched it nine times in the theaters. I don’t like it quite as much now that the newness of the film has worn off, but I still can find it viewable today. With Attack of the Clones I was bit less interested simply because the dialogue was so horrible and the acting was bad, but otherwise I really liked it the first time I saw it. The battle at the end was ‘awesome,’ I thought. It wasn’t until the second viewing of AotC came along that I began to have second thoughts. Then with Revenge of the Sith, I thought it was absolutely fantastic the first time I saw it. I even went so far as to say it was the best of the prequel trilogy films and I even felt it sort of saved the prequel trilogy and matched up to the original trilogy to a sufficient degree. The acting was good and so was the drama in a surface sense. Heck, even Hayden acted like Darth Vader should have acted (the whiny-ness was gone). Sure, maybe the “Noooooo!” at the very end was lame, but I was willing to overlook that. So, then, the question is: what happened to me?

How could I go from enjoying the scene where Yoda fights with a lightsaber to hating that scene? How could I go from enjoying the idea of Jango Fett to thinking he shouldn’t have even been in any of the films? How did I go from loving many of the small OT references to thinking they were way too overdone and convenient? How did I lose so much of the initial enjoyment I had for so many of the prequel trilogy’s concepts? I’d have to answer that the newness of having something related to Star Wars finally wore off.

Seriously, after growing up watching the original films endlessly, how could I not have loved seeing the episodes that were “intended” to come before them? How could I not have loved seeing Star Wars themes and characters in new adventures and with fresh content? And, why do I now find so much of the prequel trilogy films to simply be cheap and hollow sensationalism? Because they actually were all along. I just allowed myself to be blinded by my love of Star Wars at first. Like a kid who enjoyed some crappy cartoon show as a small child and then grows out of it, I realized that what I was watching wasn’t very good. That’s what brings me down the most about all of this. I wanted to enjoy the prequel trilogy and I actually did initially enjoy its supreme glitz and superficial drama, but when I began scratching beneath that surface I found the films to be very lacking.

With Attack of Clones, I even actually liked Anakin at first. Seriously, it was so awesome to finally see him and Obi-Wan in action! Yet, while my like for Obi-Wan in the film increased as time went on, I began to be annoyed more and more with Anakin. “‘I killed them!’ I see. ‘I killed them all.’ Mmmhmm. ‘Not just the men.’ Yep. ‘But the women’ Yeah I get it, you said “all.” ‘And the children.’ Yeah, shut up about it already!” Then Padme just stared blankly at everything he did! Uhg. It’s all just so hollow to me and I never wanted to envision Anakin as such annoying whiner. It makes Darth Vader into someone stupid.

Then with Revenge of the Sith, I had perhaps the most interesting transition. I was really into the moving dramatic scenes. I thought Anakin’s love for Padme was clearly evident and the acting was actually decent for a change. Then, after his change, Anakin almost seemed like the Darth Vader I had always imagined behind the mask in terms of the way that he spoke and brooded over his feelings in the film. I thought it was wonderful. So much of the film’s content really tugged on my emotions despite being stuffed in-between many long and boring sequences that were otherwise meaningless and pointless to me. For instance, the scene where he murders children didn’t move me in a good way or a bad way at first. It seemed so odd and un-relatable that I sort of just accepted it and didn’t think too much about it at all. If Darth Vader had a strong reason to kill children I knew that he could have gone through with it. But then, as weeks went by, I began to analyze the film in my mind, over and over again. It began making less and less sense to me. Without having the on-screen emotions and the music to make me feel as if I was empathizing with Anakin’s motives, I soon discovered that there was actually nothing for me to empathize with him about! He was a totally heartless murderer/evildoer and he committed his heinous atrocities over the most dubious of reasoning! It was sick and it was the very last straw for the prequel trilogy as far as I was concerned.

So, my favorite villain of all time was a whiny punk and a psychopath who basically murdered children like a coward? He even murdered his own wife (in a way) because his whiny selfishness was so powerful? What on earth was left for me to enjoy about any of the films anymore?! Darth Vader became revolting to me.

Originally posted by: CO

I always say that Lucas wanted it both ways with the PT, and that is why so many have not loved it, or chose to acknowledge as their saga. He wanted to tell a different story, with different characters, in a totally different time period, but still use the exact things that made the OT great, and that is why it came off so cheesy and cringworthy at times, and really just takes you out of the movie.

That’s true, but I believe you should even go further with that statement. The primary problem with the prequels is not just one between the lighthearted approach and the serious approach, but a whole host of incompatible concepts. In fact, with every new film in the series, including Empire, George Lucas has tried cramming more and more conceptual approaches into his films. It’s very interesting when you see what he’s done in this sense. It is as if George Lucas is man obsessed with so many different ideas, all fascinating on their own, but rarely does he stick to any one idea in a way where he does it sufficient justice.

The prequel trilogy suffers from this the most. Is Anakin a messiah or a monster, a tragic hero or a passionate victim, an innocent boy or a whiny coveter, a selfish megalomaniac or an altruistic warrior? Is Star Wars supposed to be a morality play using traditional mythological themes or an intentionally cheesy serial? Is it supposed to be a comedy incorporating wisecracking droids and a bumbling idiot or a serious drama delving into our darkest motivations as people? In the end, I don’t think George could keep his mind straight in terms of how to make all of the disparate concepts harmonize. At best, I’d imagine that he was only able to remember his favorite approach for disconnected scenes at a time and even then his attention could only care so much before becoming bored or lazy (if I had to guess).

Originally posted by: zombie84

Really, is it any surprise that in a series of 6 films, two are great, one is okay and three are below average? I think it is incredible that not just one is great but that two are.

Well, you make a very good point there. Yet for some reason it is very frustrating for me, as a Star Wars fan, to have seen the films fall to the place where they are now. I know they aren’t the worst films ever, but they could have been somewhat good.

Perhaps I believed Lucas’ own self promotion a little too much. Perhaps I shouldn’t have believed he was a genius who single-handedly built the original trilogy as he tried to claim (despite that no being true at all). Perhaps, then, the prequel movies and the SE wouldn’t be so frustrating for me now.

Originally posted by: vote_for_palpatine

Honestly, there is one PT moment that has the same amount of gravitas for me:

"Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic! To DEMOCRACY!!"

I wish they hadn't used "You were the chosen one!" in the trailers, or that might have been another moment I would have liked. But showing it in trailers let all the air out of that balloon.

Hah! Yeah, the “chosen one” line was definitely a moment for laughter in the way the trailer presented it. It seemed so generic and I thought it was going to be so cheesy. Then, in the movie, it actually made me very sad. The emotion that McGregor pours into that line is very potent.

Now that I think about it. Every truly memorable moment in the PT involved Ewan McGregor for the most part. He consistently acted well and the best story elements always surrounded him. That “Democracy” line was a good moment, but so were a number of the scenes where he took on the bad guys with good humor or intensity. Not only that, but the best OT references were from his character, like how Anakin would “be the death” of him or that “uncivilized” line about using the blaster. Just goes to make me believe even more that Obi-Wan should have been the central character of the prequels and not Anakin.