(Disclaimer: The following post will likely be highly
controversial for many people given the general reception of the ‘Star Wars’
prequels. With that in mind, I ask that you please refrain from posting any disrespectful
or trolling comments. Just remember that this is all just opinion-based. Thank
you!)
Following the release of the final film in the original
‘Star Wars’ trilogy, ‘Return of the Jedi’, in 1983, George Lucas had planned to
do a sequel trilogy. However in 1987, after most of his money was lost in a
divorce settlement between him and his ex-wife Marcia Griffin, who had been an
editor on ‘A New Hope’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’, Lucas decided to cancel this
planned sequel trilogy. However, years later, as ‘Star Wars’ continued to
maintain its popularity thanks to various things like a comic line by ‘Dark
Horse’, a trilogy of novels by author Timothy Zahn, and numerous fan-made films
inspired by the series, Lucas decided to start development of a new trilogy
after all. But this time, he decided to go backwards in regards to the story and
do a prequel trilogy, which would tell the story of how Anakin Skywalker became
Darth Vader. The first film in the new trilogy, ‘The Phantom Menace’, was
released in 1999 and the hype leading up to the film’s release was insane. Fans
were super excited to see a new ‘Star Wars’ film for the first time in 16
years. But of course, as we all know, all of that anticipation ultimately ended
up majorly backfiring on audiences. Sure, this new trilogy of films didn’t get
‘terrible’ reviews from critics but audiences, or more specifically ‘Star Wars’
fans, were far more negative towards them to the point where nowadays they’re
pretty much the most hated series of films on the internet.
So with all of that said, some of you might be expecting me
to join in on the bandwagon against these films, denouncing them as the
terrible trilogy of films that they are that were responsible for ‘ruining’ the
franchise. But believe it or not, that’s not what I’m going to do here today;
far from it. Even though I recognize that I’m obviously in the extreme minority
on this, I’m not afraid to admit the following; I do like the prequels. Now let
me be very clear, I don’t think that they’re ‘as good’ as the original trilogy.
But at the same time, in all seriousness, they’re not ‘as bad’ as the internet
has put them out to be. I’ve seriously seen some people actually refer to these
films, mainly the first two, as ‘the worst films of all time’, which is the
very definition of an overblown statement. Sure, they have their problems, no
doubt about that. But despite all of this, at the end of the day they’re still
‘Star Wars’ films. They still have that same feel and atmosphere to them… minus
the great writing of the original trilogy, but still. So today, on Rhode Island
Movie Corner for ‘Star Wars Month’, I’ll be looking at this prequel trilogy
that most people despise with a burning passion. More specifically, I’ll be
discussing the main reasons why this prequel trilogy didn’t work as well as its
predecessors… and not always the reasons that the internet primarily likes to
target. So without further ado, here are my thoughts on the ‘Star Wars’
prequels.
STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999)
We all know what went down with this film. It was, and
probably still remains as, the most anticipated film of all time. The hype for
the film was ridiculous to the point where some people actually bought
full-price movie tickets just to watch the trailer for the film and then leave
right after that. That just shows how much people were excited for this film.
There probably will never be another film more anticipated than this one… well,
except for ‘Force Awakens’ but let’s just hope that we won’t have another
‘Phantom Menace’ on our hands as far as audience reaction is concerned. Yet at
the end of the day, despite the fact that at the end of its initial run it
grossed over $900 million at the box office and would join the billion dollar
club when it was re-released in 3-D in 2012, it ended up disappointing a lot of
fans and you can still see that today, more than one and a half decades since
it first hit theaters. But is it really ‘as bad’ as the internet constantly
puts it out to be? As much as I know that some people are really, really going
to disagree with me, I can safely say that… no, no it isn’t. Heck, it even
isn’t the weakest of the ‘Star Wars’ films, which we’ll get to later.
But before I get into the main reasons why ‘The Phantom
Menace’ didn’t work as well as it did, I’m going to debunk two of the main
aspects of the film that some people really like to highlight as being the
‘main’ problems with the film when in reality that’s far from the truth. The
first of these is Jake Lloyd as young Anakin Skywalker. You really do have to
feel bad for this kid given all that he’s gone through since the film’s release.
He had the opportunity to be in one of the biggest franchises of all time in
the crucial role of Anakin Skywalker. And yet because the film ended up
disappointing a lot of fans, suddenly he became a scapegoat for the film and
he’s had to live with that ever since. I mean, okay yes I do agree that maybe
Anakin should’ve been older instead of being a nine-year-old… but I don’t think
Lloyd’s performance is ‘that bad’. I mean, I give him some slack because he was
just a kid and let’s face it, George Lucas isn’t really the best ‘actor’
director out there. The other big scapegoat, and boy am I really going to piss
off some people here, is Jar Jar Binks. Internet, you REALLY got to get over
Jar Jar. For the record, no I’m not defending him as a character. He was
clearly a misfire of an attempt by George Lucas to be the film’s source of
comic relief. But for god’s sakes, folks, he is not the main problem of ‘Phantom
Menace’ for crying out loud. That’s like saying ‘Emo Peter’ is the main problem
of ‘Spider-Man 3’. Neither of those arguments are true.
So what is the actual main problem with ‘Phantom Menace’?
It’s quite simple, really… the writing just wasn’t up to par with the previous
three films. It’s basically a case of style over substance. Sure the visuals
are nice and all, but that comes at the expense of the story and the
characters. A story based around ‘trade negotiations’ and ‘treaties’ is a
little too ‘political’ for a ‘Star Wars’ movie. And then when you get to the
characters, there are so many ‘main’ characters in this film that we don’t
really have a ‘main character’ in the vein of Luke to follow. It’s not Qui-Gon
because, spoilers in the extremely unlikely case you haven’t seen this 16-year
old film, he’s killed by Darth Maul in the final duel. It’s not Obi-Wan because
he spends a lot of time just sitting around doing nothing up until, again, the
final duel. And it’s not really Anakin either because he doesn’t show up until
45 minutes in. Many people, like YouTube personality ‘Belated Media’ (I’ll
provide links to his excellent ‘What if Episodes I and II were Better?’ videos
below; They really do set up a great outline for what could’ve been really
awesome ‘Star Wars’ films), make the argument that Obi-Wan should’ve been the
main character through it all and that Darth Maul, the villain who was well
set-up and then was wasted by being killed off at the end (for now we’ll ignore
his appearances in other forms of ‘Star Wars’ media, including ‘The Clone
Wars’), should’ve been the primary antagonist for Obi-Wan given the fact that
he killed Qui-Gon… and I agree.
So with that said, are there good things in this film? Yes,
there are. Despite not really having the best material to work with, Liam
Neeson and Ewan McGregor both do fairly solid jobs as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan,
respectively; McGregor in particular really stands out as one of the best
elements of the whole prequel trilogy. As noted earlier, the visuals are still
pretty solid. Though with that said, re-watching this film on Blu-Ray makes it
clear that a lot of the visuals are really starting to show their age. The
whole pod-racing sequence is pretty entertaining (it did lead to a great video
game spin-off), and the final fight between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Darth Maul is
easily one of the best lightsaber duels in the entire franchise even if it may
not necessarily have the same emotional depth as the duels in the original
trilogy. Ultimately, I’ll say this; I’m not saying that ‘The Phantom Menace’ is
the absolute best entry in the ‘Star Wars’ franchise; it isn’t. But believe
when I say that this is not ‘the worst film ever’ as some people on the
internet like to refer to it as. Does it have problems? Yes it does, but this
just goes to show what happens when you overhype a film too much… it’s not
going to please everyone and unfortunately this may happen again with ‘Force
Awakens’. I’ll admit that I may be a little biased towards this film as it was
the first ‘Star Wars’ film that I ever watched in theaters. I went to go see it
in 2012 when it was re-released in 3-D and before you say anything, I never saw
the original trilogy when it was re-released in theaters in 1997 (I was 2 at
the time) and never saw any of the prequels during their original theatrical
releases, so this was my first real opportunity to see a ‘Star Wars’ film in
theaters.
Rating: 3.5/5
STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002)
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Ultimately, despite its problems, ‘The Phantom Menace’
actually isn’t the weakest of the ‘Star Wars’ films to date. That ‘honor’
instead belongs to its sequel, ‘Attack of the Clones’. Because while ‘Attack of
the Clones’ does make some improvements in the wake of its predecessor’s
shortcomings, it brings in a whole new set of problems that are actually much
more prevalent than the ones in the ‘Phantom Menace’. So first, let’s get the
‘post-Menace’ improvements out of the way. The story is much more focused than
it was in the original and is not all about trade negotiations and treaties,
though of course the political aspect of the story is still there; thankfully
not as much in this one. Also in this film, instead of having too many main
characters to the point where there actually wasn’t any distinguishable ‘main’
character, this film limits its primary protagonists to the trio of Anakin,
Obi-Wan, and Padme. And again, the visuals are fine for the time. Though with
that said, it should be noted that this was the start of a trend for the
prequels as nearly every major sequence in the film was primarily shot in front
of a blue-screen; in other words, most of the environments were computer
generated. Sure, they look nice and polished but it’s a lot more obvious and,
to put it bluntly, fake-looking. Though to ‘Clones’’ credit, it isn’t as
egregious in its use of CGI environments compared to its sequel, as there still
were ‘some’ real locations used, like Spain and Italy for scenes on Naboo and
the Tunisian desert for scenes on Tatooine.
So what’s the big issue with the film? Well, it mainly stems
from the film focusing a bit too much on the growing romance between Anakin and
Padme. Now I get what Lucas was trying to do; he was trying to mirror the
romance between Han and Leia in the original trilogy. That’s fine, but in
execution it’s nowhere near as good as it was with Han and Leia. The romantic
dialogue is, well… the line ‘I don’t like sand’ should give you an idea of what
it’s like. And ultimately leads Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman don’t
really have as great a chemistry as Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford did in the
original films. Portman was unfortunately wasted here and basically the whole
trilogy in general and as for Christensen, well, I’m not going to be as harsh
on him as the rest of the internet is because, let’s face it, most of the big
names of the cast, like Samuel L. Jackson and Christopher Lee, don’t really get
off any better because, as noted earlier, Lucas really isn’t that great of an
actor-director. With that said, though… yeah they could’ve gone with a better choice
for Anakin. I mean, we could’ve gotten Leonardo DiCaprio in the role and even
with Lucas’ direction I believe that DiCaprio would’ve turned out much better.
But the other big issue of the film, again, comes from the
romance in that, as I noted earlier, they spend WAY too much time on it, so
much so that the middle section of the film is mostly just Anakin and Padme
being all romantic on Naboo. But because of the mediocre dialogue and the fact
that this romance is generally bland, that means that the film drags… quite a
bit. I mean sure, there are some fairly entertaining action sequences from time
to time, namely the scenes between Obi-Wan (once again, Ewan McGregor is one of
the few ‘shining spots’ of this cast) and bounty hunter Jango Fett, father of
original trilogy bounty hunter Boba Fett (or I guess in this case, his ‘clone
son’). But for the most part, most of the best action sequences in the film
occur near the end, including the first action sequence involving Yoda. Dare I
say it? Even ‘Phantom Menace’ didn’t drag as much as this film. So as is, I
hate to say it but ‘Attack of the Clones’ is easily what can technically called
the ‘worst’ of the six live-action ‘Star Wars’ films to date. Now let me be
clear; I don’t ‘hate’ it. Despite all that I’ve said here, this is still a
‘Star Wars’ movie and it still has that ‘Star Wars’ feel that still shines
through even in the weakest entries in the series. But even with that said,
there’s a lot of things that bring ‘Attack of the Clones’ down, even more so
than ‘Phantom Menace’.
Rating: 3/5
STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005)
After two less-than-stellar entries in the ‘Star Wars’
franchise with ‘The Phantom Menace’ and ‘Attack of the Clones’, the prequel
trilogy at least ended on a high note with ‘Episode III: Revenge of the Sith’. ‘Revenge
of the Sith’ is easily the best entry in the prequel trilogy. While it does
still have some of the issues that have plagued the entire trilogy, namely some
less-than-stellar writing in certain scenes, it does a much better job in
feeling more like a ‘Star Wars’ film. This is the best of the prequel trilogy
when it comes to visuals, which have aged much better than in the previous two
films. Though with that said, as I noted earlier, I’m pretty sure that there
wasn’t any actual practical set locations used during filming save for
background location shots. Part of me is amazed at how a film like this is able
to do that and how the actors are somehow able to make it look believable even though,
during filming, they didn’t really have anything to work off of. The whole
Obi-Wan-General Grievous sequence was basically just Ewan McGregor working
against a green-screen wall. Though even with the whole predominantly
green-screen visuals in mind, the action sequences are pretty darn solid,
including the duel between Yoda and Darth Sidious and the climactic final duel
between Anakin and Obi-Wan, even though the latter goes on maybe just a bit too
long.
‘Revenge of the Sith’ was the first entry in the series to
rated PG-13. While it’s safe to say that the main reason for this was due to
the scene at the end where Anakin gets heavily burned by lava, the film does
maintain a generally darker tone than the other films in the franchise.
Overall, I liked that the film did take this route as it did make sense given
the darker nature of the story with Anakin’s downfall, turn to the dark side,
and ultimately his transformation into Darth Vader. With that said though, at
times the film is perhaps just a bit ‘too dark’. I mean, keep in mind that this
is still a franchise aimed at a generally younger audience and yet there’s a
scene where Anakin kills young Jedi. Sure it happens off-screen so we don’t
actually see it happening but did we really need to see that in a ‘Star Wars’
film? No, no we didn’t. So in the end, while I can’t really say that ‘Revenge
of the Sith’ is ‘as good’ as any of the original three ‘Star Wars’ films, it is
definitely the best of the prequel trilogy. It still carries over some of the
issues from the last two films, namely in regards to writing, but those aren’t
as big of a problem here as they were in the previous two films. The ‘Star Wars’
prequel trilogy may not have turned out as well as many ‘Star Wars’ fans had
hoped but if anything, it at least ended on a better note than when it first
started.
Rating: 4/5
'What If Episode I was Good?' by Belated Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgICnbC2-_Y
'What if Episode II was Good?' by Belated Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAbug3AhYmw
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