When did you realize the Prequels sucked? — Page 9

RicOlie_2 said:

I'm pretty sure that's what Adywan is planning to do once he finishes ROTJ:R.

Fixed(?) 

Dammit Anchor, I fixed the prequels just for you*, and you won't even watch them. :-(

Darth Id said:

Fang Zei said:

For me it was a very delayed reaction.

May of 2006, finding out that the unaltered Star Wars dvd's would be sourced from the 1993 laserdisc ...

 Not only delayed, but a complete non sequitur reaction to a completely unrelated event.  Strange indeed.

I guess it was more of a really long denial, one that the ultimate insult of a non-anamorphic dvd of Star Wars in 2006 finally ended.

Anchorhead said:

To me, after having read a myriad of interviews with Lucas and the people involved with the original film, it seems as though he never really understood why the first film was such a phenomenon.    Looking at the crawls, it seems he still didn't understand it twenty-two years later. 

We started with a princess trying to save the galaxy in her starship to a dispute over republic taxation?  Yeah, that's an adventure.

I still remember that a mother who was sitting nearby me in the cinema, was reading the 'scroll' aloud to her youngster.  But I knew by the time she read out the 'taxation of trade routes' nonsense, that the kid would *really* be confused as to what the hell was meant to be going on...and I recall thinking it wasn't a great start to the show compared to the chapter wording in the 'ANH', 'ESB', and 'ROTJ' scrolls.

Thing is, during the few years leading up to the 'Phantom Menace' release, the dictator Sadaam Hussein had constantly been the subject of troublesome stories in the news...and I imagined that Lucas was possibly cooking up a prequel trilogy that was going to be somewhat timely and pertinent to the real-life events at the time...which perhaps involved the 'Emperor' as an already-established dictator that was causing all kinds of problems for the galaxy...and that this would possibly explain how the 'clone wars' came about originally...

I still wish I'd been right about that notion, but I guess Lucas thought that 'business matters' was more interesting as a mcguffin for his saga set-up than anything else at the time.

It's previously been suggested by some that 'slavery' could have been used as a main issue in the movie's storyline instead...and that's one possibility that would have made for a more satisfying 'boo, hiss' factor, if the 'Emperor' had been written to be behind that kind of thing.

However, considering the iconic establishing scene that kicked off the original trilogy, I was then looking forward to seeing what kind of imagery Lucas had conjured up to kickstart the very beginning of his overall 'saga'...only to get a straightforward panning shot of the red Ambassador ship, and a fairly bland introduction to things overall.

I guess I expected too much right from the off...but yeah, the alarm bells began to ring for me by what was being described in that initial 'scroll' wording.

New member from Germany here. I've been a long-time fan of the original trilogy. They've been my favorite films since I first watched them as a kid in the early 90s or so. I also loved Timothy Zahn's books, and all those great Lucas Arts games, from Dark Forces / Jedi Knight to the X-Wing / TIE Fighter series. Playing Jedi Knight online, I joined a clan and met guys from around my country. I have many fond childhood / teen memories that are in some ways related to Star Wars.

I've been thinking about signing up on a Star Wars themed forum for a while, but there's one big problem with most forums:
The majority of people there regard the prequels as legitimate Star Wars movies, and users who strongly disagree are bashed as "prequel haters". I'm really glad I found this forum where I can freely express my opinion on the prequels. And here we go:
 
For some reason, prequel lovers seem to think that people like us hated the prequels from the beginning.

Quite the opposite is true. Like many of you, I WANTED the prequels to be good. From the awful title crawl of TPM to the last dull CGI battle of ROTS, I knew that something was wrong. And yet I thought "maybe you have to watch the movies again so they can grow on you". They didn’t.
However, I tried to find comfort in the fact that AOTC was a tad better than TPM, and ROTS a little better than AOTC… maybe even a good film. Maybe even a Star Wars film, just for a different, younger, more action-oriented audience.

In short – I was in denial.

I never really felt comfortable with the prequels. I knew that I liked the original trilogy much, much better, but I didn't really know how to feel about Episodes I-III.

Then came the Plinkett reviews, and they felt like therapy! They helped me put the finger on what’s wrong with the prequels (without having to watch them again). They helped me form my current opinion on the prequels: They should never have been made, and I cannot accept them as "canon", especially in those parts where they contradict the OT.

First time poster, so take it easy on me(?).

There was no one moment for me. It was a culmination of many different things that when added up, some time ago, I admitted to myself that I really don't like the prequels. At all. Sometimes I think it's because I'm from the in-between generation of SW fans: born during the first trilogy, I never experienced any new SW material during my more formative years. I remember ANH coming to HBO around 1980/81 and watching it religiously (y'know, for a 4 year old). Then, I convinced my uncle to take me to see ROTJ when I was 6... I had no idea ESB even existed (and I was even a bit confused while watching ROTJ in the theater). It wasn't until I was around 11 or 12 (late 80s), my mom would allow me walk to the video store and rent movies (being poor this was a welcomed source of entertainment, might I add). I started renting the OT on a regular basis during a time when the OT was pretty well kind of forgotten and overlooked in the zeitgeist. Some years later (1992?), they rereleased the whole trilogy in the movie theater. I watched all three movies back to back on at least three different occasions. 

Fast forward to the mid-90s. The SEs are announced and subsequently released. I was kind of excited since George touted these new releases as 'definitive' and certainly, many aspects of the VHS tapes from the 80s could use some fixing. In my personal life, I was an adult now and had joined the Navy. So, with the little money I now had (which was a whole more than compared to when I was 12), I bought the SE VHS collection. Some things I liked, some things I didn't. Though, in general, I was happy to have some version of the OT as my own (sidenote: little did I know how much money ol' Lucas would sucker out of me over the years).

I know the above paragraphs seem like random ramblings from a random rambler, but I feel it helps sets up the context for watching the prequels. Many people in my age group didn't "grow up" with Star Wars, at least from my perspective. There was general knowledge of what Star Wars was, but if you really wanted to enjoy it - it was definitely something you had to seek out.

So to try to answer the question again: when did I realize the prequels sucked? I don't know exactly when because only when you have the ability to view all three can you really surmise how bad they are but I would be lying if I didn't say we weren't warned early on. I do remember watching TPM in late 1999. I was on deployment with the military and through the 'Haze Grey Mafia' my ship received a bootleg Chinese copy of the TPM. We immediately wired into the ship's video system for a command-wide viewing. This was no easy feat.

There were problems right off the bat. First, there was the crawl. I remember thinking, 'Huh? What the hell is this taxation federation blah blah crap?" However, I assumed it would be easier to digest if I wasn't watching a bootleg. I let it slide. Then, Jar-Jar hit the stage. I hated whatever this abomination was. However, again, this was Star Wars and there are other character-types and profiles I absolutely loathe, like Ewoks. So ok, moving on. I let many problems slide during the first 30-45 minutes of the movie. Then the unholy 1-2 punch of WTF hit me when the movie lands on Tatooine and these two details are revealed:

Anakin's origin is a re-telling of Jesus Christ, complete with immaculate conception...

Star Wars Jesus also happens to build C3P0.

That's when I subconsciously knew, nothing good was going to come of these new stories. Nothing. Those two points in the plot were my worst nightmares come to bootlegged life that day. It told me, George Lucas wasn't interested in trying to make a compelling pre-OT adventure. This was going to be all about Anakin who was super special even before he was born. This was going to be Anakin's illogical story: the story of how a semi-adorable kid turns Jedi and eventually becomes Darth Vader. And it was all going to be driven home with over the top, fantastical, shoddy, nearly-whimsical storytelling. Jesus, just thinking about it now irks me to no end. A pauper woman being knocked up out of thin air - George, are you kidding me? This is where we start? 

And then, we find out Anakin also builds C3P0. That sealed it for me because this also meant, every ancillary character we already knew from the OT was going to be retrofitted into the PT regardless of necessity to the story. Which is exactly what happened in one way or the other in subsequent films. Chewbacca is buddies with Yoda. Boba Fett is actually a clone of Jango Fett who also supplied his DNA to make a bunch of clones who end up being all the Stormtroopers. It was painful just writing that last sentence.

At some point I tried to like AotC but it was more of what I feared and less of what I liked. To this day, I still don't know what the movie is about. In fact, the complete PT political system is more confusing than trying to explain how escrow works. I also went into the theaters hoping RotS was going to be the great PT redemption. But it's not. In fact, it had an impossible task. RotS carries the bulk of the responsibility of trying to tie the OT in with the newer films. And really, after TPM and AotC that's an impossible feat. No one was going to be happy and while it is arguably the better of the 3 PT films, it's still pretty mediocre.

I kind of feel like myself and people of my age weren't looking for a re-invention of the wheel. I don't have memories of the spectacular opening of Star Wars in 1977 that blew everyone's mind. Hell, there wasn't even much of an EU I can remember in my teens (though I could be wrong since I'm not that fanatical). In reality, my expectations were pretty low. If George just had gone back and told a decent story in the same universe I think everyone would have said, "hey this is cool." But instead, he retrofitted a plot that's at once both cheap and easy (like Anakin's progression), and over-the-top complex and arduous (trade federation politics, for example). In the end, the PT just doesn't fit. So much so, he's ended up damaging the source material from which it was created in his quest to make them fit into a newer narrative. That's really a bummer. 

I remember exactly when I realised the prequels suck.

Episode 1 - the "there is always a bigger fish" scene. I remember thinking - holy shit, this is a Star Wars movie, why the only feelings I feel are boredom and disgust? I felt disgusted always when Jar Jar or Anakin opened their mouths , and bored the rest of the time. This was the time when I realised this is not going to be the master piece I expected. I remember talking with my brother, he thought it was OK, but "only OK". The only thing I remembered from the movie was Natalie Portman, not because she gave a good performance, but because I thought she will be hot when she will grow a pair of boobs. I still can't understand why some people like Qwai Gong Bong or the red faced gymnast, they were exactly as boring as rest of the movie.

Episode 2 - I've seen it let's say it politely "intoxicated" and with my girlfriend, who liked kissing in public places, so I thought the movie was great, at least the scenes I remembered. A few years later when I've seen the DVD for the first time sobre I couldn't remember why I liked the movie. Some of the action scenes are good, but all of them were too long and too fake looking.

Episode 3 - I didn't expect absolutely anything, and that's exactly what I received. I was bored from the first shot. CGI ships firing CGI lasers on other CGI ships in CGI space with CGI droids and CGI clone troopers. Then we cut to a CGI set where CGI Dooku and CGI droids fight CGI Jedis. Then we got a million of boring talking scenes shot. Then we cut to the first comedy scene - "Anakin, join the dark side", "No", "Join the dark side", "OK, fuck off Samuel Jackson !". Then Anakin went to another CGI set where he killed with a CGI lightsabre some CGI aliens and one rubber masked alien, then an extremely long and extremely boring fight sequence which felt like it took 4 hours (similar to the podrace in episode 1). Then another funny scene happened when Anakin was burning alive and Obiwan was yelling at him that he loved him as a brother. Then another funny scene where we were told that Natalie died because she was bored  or something and then the last funny scene, with a tiny guy in a Darth Vader Halloween costume pretended he was Frankenstein's monster and yelled Nooooooooooo.
I don't get it, was this supposed to be a comedy?

You know, now that you guys mention it, those really aren't very good movies after all, are they?

pittrek said:

I still can't understand why some people like Qwai Gong Bong or the red faced gymnast, they were exactly as boring as rest of the movie.

I wonder how many of the people who like Qui-Gon (but not TPM) read the Jedi Apprentice book series in and around the time the movie came out. I started reading those books before I even saw TPM, and they really helped make him a compelling character in my eyes.

As for Maul, there's the whole "red-and-black horned Goth monster with double-bladed lightsaber" aesthetic going on, and some fans find that enough to make the character interesting. I used to like his visual appearance myself, but after years of Maul-knockoff Sith oversaturating the EU, it no longer appeals to me.

When I realized no one refers to Obi-wan by his proper name the entire trilogy.

Think is most of these aren't issues really issues if they (newer generations) watch EP1 first. The connections run in sequence and you don't think, oh he C3PO was built by Anakin, because you see EP1 first thing and see how he ends up with the Organas/Captain Antilles by the end of EP3. New generations that watch 1-3 first, not not 4-6.   

Sevb32 said:

Think is most of these aren't issues really issues if they (newer generations) watch EP1 first. The connections run in sequence and you don't think, oh he C3PO was built by Anakin, because you see EP1 first thing and see how he ends up with the Organas/Captain Antilles by the end of EP3. New generations that watch 1-3 first, not not 4-6.   

And that, in itself, is a problem. 

FrankT said:

When I realised they wasted Brian Blessed's talent in TPM. ...that took a while though.

Or, if it qualifies, when they changed the names of the original movies from just "Star Wars" to "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope", etc. ...you can't do that! You can't just DO that!...

 I didn't know that Brian Blessed voiced Boss Nass; I thought he would be that blue guy that stands next to the chancellor.

FrankT said:

Or, if it qualifies, when they changed the names of the original movies from just "Star Wars" to "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope", etc. ...you can't do that! You can't just DO that!...

 That happened in 1981 so...

In my first few years I saw the OT on tape countless times, so I did get a little bit of the pre-TPM era to form my tastes. I was in the target demographic for TPM during its theatrical release, if the whole "it was made for kids" thing is taken at face value. My elder brother, a child of the mid-80s, had me really convinced that this movie was going to be the best thing since sliced bread. When we saw the promotional materials with Darth Maul we play-dueled with lightstaff curtain rods and made lightsaber clashing noises each time they met. When he saw the movie he still clung to the Maul coolness and I thought the movie had a lot of colorful action going on but I could tell even then that something was missing that was present in the OT. I could not have articulated it at the time. It was only years later in between high school and college when I saw the RedLetterMedia reviews that my suspicions were confirmed. Before then I was convinced that there was something about it I just didn't "get". To answer OP's question, my realization that the prequels sucked happened in separate stages, reaching its full realization in 2010.

Especially if you look at the special effects now: TPM's CGI looks like it came from the early 90s while in AOTC and ROTS it looks even worse in HD, more on par with most PC games from the same time period.That's the disadvantage of shooting everything on a green screen, you get the worst SFX in the franchise.

I like the prequels. I don't feel that they clash tonally with the OT.

I don't want to derail the thread, just giving my 2 cents.