So a few days ago, I was telling a friend of mine about the "Backstroke of the West" bootleg, which he'd never heard of, and we decided to watch it last night. I was looking forward to this for two reasons: 1) I mean come on, those subtitles are hysterical, and 2) I'd never been able to sit through the entire Revenge of the Sith movie since I'd seen it in theatres 5 years ago, and I was going to make it this time, dammit.
We sat down, pressed play, and the laughs start coming. Engrish is one of those things that will always be funny to me. After about half an hour though, I started losing focus on the subtitles because I was distracted by how bad the actual movie was. Seriously, this movie is even worse than I remembered. I actually remember liking it in the theatres (when I was 16 and therefore my taste in everything sucked by definition), but for the love of christ, I could not get over how much of a shitpile this movie is. It's like the people responsible for writing the Twilight movies decided to shit out a Star Wars script. Even with the amusing subtitles I only made it about half-way through this abortion of a movie. It just made me really angry because I know that at some point I actually paid money to see this fucking movie.
So dear fellow forum members, I ask you: when was the last time you actually watched a prequel? And, now that they've had several years to settle and the hype is all but dead, do they suck as bad as you remember?
I watched Jason N's TPM edit maybe 3 years ago. It was better, but still...
I saw ROTS maybe twice in the theaters when it was out. I bought and sold the DVD without actually ever watching it.
I last saw AOTC at a friends house at a Star Wars Marathon in 2002. I slept through most of it so I would be awake once the classic trilogy started. AOTC really dragged on though when I was awake, and most of us wished we had just started with Star Wars and bagged the prequels.
I've not watched a prequel without RiffTrax for a few years now. That helps.
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I've seen a few fanedits of the prequels within the last year. I might occasionally watch a few minutes if I'm channel surfing and one of the movies happens to be on. But it has been a long, LONG time since I sat down and watched an official prequel DVD. It's a very painful experience.
You know of the rebellion against the Empire?
I tried to watch all of Ady's theatrical TPM reconstruction a couple months ago. I got past the podrace sequence, pretty much just so I could justify seeing something that was different compared to the official DVD. Then I gave up.
On the plus side, Ady did a wonderful job with the reconstruction.
I haven't tried to watch AotC in at least three years, and I tried to watch RotS around the same time as TPM, but I got through even less of that.
Does one enjoy going to the dentist to get a root canal or their teeth drilled.
To me that is the equivalent of what the Prequels are.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
I'm pretty sure it's been within the past year. I can't recall exactly when. But I'm not as uptight about the prequels as a lot of you are. I can tell ya this much though, I watch the prequels about the same number of times as I watch the OT. I watch them sparingly because I'm interested in a lot more movies than just Star Wars. But I do enjoy both trilogies regardless of what they "are".
Lionel Hutz said:
I watched Attack of the Clones in a bar last night. The sound wasn't on, but I think I got the gist of it.
I watched ROTS about 2 weeks ago. For all of its thematic merits, it really is an amateurishly executed, juvenile mess of a movie.
Obi Wan: "Anakin! Palpatine is evil!"
Hayden's non-response: "Don't make me kill you."
WTF?
I watched all three over the summer, Phantom Editor's version of Ep 1 and 2.
Really, I probably watch them a couple times a year, when Im in a SW mood but have watched the OT and Caravan of Courage more than enough times.
Thing is, it's been so long since I've seen any Star Wars movie that it had pretty much filtered out my "raging OT nerd" bias. It was still just a really bad movie. Again, it was like Star Wars meets Twilight.
So you'll love Spider-man reboot mixed with twilight. great stuff,lol.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
It can't be any worse than Spider man 3. Actually, none of them were that good to begin with, now that I think about it.
I watched them in chapter order (one a day, I - VI) earlier in the year after I got hold of 1080P versions.
Firstly, after watching on DVD, seeing them in 1080P was like watching them freshly once more.
The prequels are pretty poor, not visually or technically but because they are just so dull and lifeless in terms of character dynamics. And things like R2's rocket boosters and '3PO's head swap and Palpatine melting just make me cringe and weep just thinking about it.
I've seen RoTS three times (once at the cinema, once on DVD, once at 1080P mkv)
I've seen Star Wars countless times, beginning from when I was able to tape it off TV. It's not like the OT is without problems - but what problems do exist are overshadowed by the fucking excellent bits.
People say that George made the PT for his kids or just for the money.
I'm starting to think that he only makes these films to make Marcia cry.
Where would we be without star wars pez dispensers, the world would be much worse off place,lol.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
Watched ROTS sometime last year when it was on Spike. My parents were semi-interested as they heard that one was decent and wanted to watch it. It was about as good as I remembered it, which is good in parts, bad in parts, decent overall (my parents seemed to enjoy it for a friday night television movie). TPM I probably watched some time in 2007, I always had a certain fondness for it so maybe I'll see the Blu Ray next year. AOTC, maybe 2006 or 2007, but I think I chapter skipped about 1/3 of the film, if not more. Of course, I've seen little snippets of the films since those years because I had to reference something for Secret History of Star Wars. To be honest, I watched TPM and AOTC about a dozen times or more before 2005, which is far more than either of them deserve in a lifetime, so I have no real desire to watch them for a long time to go, AOTC possibly never again. I honest to god tried to watch AOTC in early 2008 and I just couldn't make it, it was so awful I had to turn it off out of embarassment. ROTS I don't mind, I seem to watch it every 18 to 24 months or so, if only from television, and that seems to be enough.
I saw ROTS once theatrically in 2005- that was the last time I've watched any of the Prequels in their entirety.
Whenever one of them airs on TV, I'll watch a minute or two just to torture myself.
I actually watched a few minutes of ROTS on Spike a couple of weeks ago- and I had absolutely no memory of the scene I was watching.
Quite a difference from the days when I would try to catch every HBO airing of SW in 1983, even sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night, careful to avoid the "squeaky step" so that my mom wouldn't hear me. ;-)
TPM-last year with Ady's reconstruction. (Thank you ady!!) I like to be able to go back and review this one the way I originally saw it.
AOTC-used it to demo the school's new sound system because it was one of the few discs I had that had either Dolby EX or DTS ES. Got through about 5 min and then skipped around for 5 more. seeing these in 480p just makes all the more awful.
ROTS-hated it in theaters and finally was swayed into re-watching it by roommates who were convinced that it was great. Hadn't seen it in years by that point last year. I reiterate my original opinion that it is certainly the worst of the three.
Nothing compares to the horror of seeing AOTC in the motion sickness inducing omnimax dome!
VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
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I saw Phantom in the theater in 1999. I remember almost nothing about it. That is my sole involvement with anything Star Wars post-1983
I popped in the PT about 2 yrs ago. If I ever feel like watching them, the FFWD button is used A LOT! Too many cringeworthy scenes in the PT.
"There's no cluster of midiclorians that controls my destiny!" -Han Solo, from a future revision of ANH
Ric Olie said:
Lionel Hutz said:
I watched Attack of the Clones in a bar last night. The sound wasn't on, but I think I got the gist of it.
That's genius right there.
For me - 2005. That's when ROTS was released right? Or does the 70 minute review of TPM count?
"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt
Bingowings said:
I'm starting to think that he only makes these films to make Marcia cry.
that's the most plausible explanation i've ever heard.
Alright, well I watched all of TPM (Ady's theatrical reconstruction) last night. Pretty much all my complaints still stand.
However, this time I noticed that Liam Neeson seems to be thinking "WTF is this bullshit" during pretty much every scene, like he just knew how bad the film was going to turn out.
AOTC is next, whenever I can muster up the desire to watch that shitfest of a movie ...
I've watched Revenge some weeks ago. Not the best film of 2005 (that would be Batman Begins), but managed to entertain me for the most part. I really should watch all 6 films in a row someday.
