PT Is it just me or do the prequels seem to be "cool" again by people? (see warnings on pgs. 9-12)

Over the past couple years I've seen a resurgence of prequel love by people all over the internet and in real life. One example, among many, is how when Hayden Christensen showed up at Celebration this year, he got a standing ovation. Compare that to 2015 at Celebration, during the surprise Star Wars concert, when the orchestra started playing prequel themes, the crowd booed very loudly. But that's just ONE example.

I think people who were born in the 90's grew up with the prequels, and good or bad, those movies were a huge part of peoples childhoods and teenage years. Right from The Phantom Menace I always really liked the prequels and in my heart I always thought they were good movies, and I'm a guy who grew up in the 80's.

I think Disney realizes that no matter what people thought of the prequels, those movies made a LOT of money, which is why they are no longer ignoring the prequels and even included a prequel character in Rogue One. And I have a huge feeling Hayden Christensen will be in The Last Jedi and when that does happen I think people in the theater will clap!

 

I feel like the prequel fans are just being more vocal, since they feel like Disney has been ignoring those movies completely. It's up to us to make them realize that there are aspects we love and don't wanna see ignored.

 

I think the PT haters just got tired.

 

With a crowd like that I would not be comfortable even calling myself a SW fan and be in the same room with such people. No, make that I wouldn't even want to share anything with them, including this planet. It's one thing to dislike a movie, another to be this disrespectful towards one of movie history's greatest composers!!

 

Well, the people that were kids in the 90's are older now and have more of a voice. It's not that it's new, it's just louder.

 

I'm with you there. I can see just on this forum alone, there are a number of OT fan people who grew up in the '70s and '80s who have either always liked the prequels, or who took the time to revisit them later in life and grew to appreciate them and are now voicing their newfound perspectives.

 

Boy, do I have the article for you (although I suspect you may have read it already).

http://screenrant.com/star-wars-prequel-trilogy-good-popular-underrated/

 

It's mostly you, although the resurgence of Star Wars over the past 2 years has created renewed interest in all of the older movies. No doubt the ST, R1 & Rebels have seen the PT & OT gain a lot of new fans. Particularly kids.

 

There was a time where it felt like the PT got bashed non-stop but these days i do notice more positivity towards the prequels.

Infact if anything id say the bashers are slowly dwindling because fandom is starting to balance out.

 

What kind of tasteless philistine boos any singular part of the prequel themes?

 

Agreed, that's moronic.

 

Depends where you look. In some SF circles Star Wars was never cool to begin with.

 

Nerds with no lives of their own who want to ruin things other people enjoy.

 

Seriously booing a concert? If I were in charge they would have been thrown out. That's tasteless and immature.

But the prequels reputation has indeed improved somewhat.

 

it's because the pt was never as bad as the memes say and the people who were younger and not bitter at the time they watched them are becoming adults.

 

Its because of two main reasons. The people who grew up with the prequels have gotten older and are now becoming a louder voice. Also, with TFA we now know what a non Lucas SW movie looks like, and it has caused people to appreciate the prequels more, even if they still believe Lucas had excesses with the prequels. They now have an appreciation for those "excesses". TFA has given prequel fans more confidence in defending the prequels. The most interesting opinion I have heard about TFA is that it had the "opposite problems of the prequels and somewhere between TFA and the prequels is a good SW movie". I guess this comes from the belief that Lucas's excesses were contained in the OT.

 

The kind of tasteless philistine who boos the music of John Williams, apparently.

 

Probably. It's been 18 years since TPM came out. Babies born that year would now be graduating high school. Maybe some of said babies grew up watching and liking the prequels, and never bought into, or weren't exposed to, the largely online campaign of hatred against them. As others have said in this thread, they've added their own voices to the chorus and perhaps tilted it a bit away from the negative.

The prequels may or may not be perceived as cool(er) these days, but trashing them is not as cool as it used to be, or at least it seems that way. I've seen online discussions where people who don't even necessarily like the prequels, reply thusly to other people who are screeching about how horrible the prequels are: "So why do you keep spending so much time on them?" The prequel-dislikers don't get as many "high fives" as they used to when they go into lengthy rants about the prequels' badness and extol the so-called virtues of the Red Letter Media reviews.

 

Honestly the maniacal, over-the-top hate may have actually contributed to their resurgence, because I think a lot of people recently started watching them for the first time in a long time, and even if they didn't love them, they were like, "Huh, they're not that bad. They're actually pretty decent."

 

I just see so much that is creative, inventive, and unique in the prequels. Over time my appreciation of them has only grown.

 

So the high expectations of the PT worked against it but now low expectations are working in its favor? The circle is now complete.

 

Some people actually booed because of prequel music at a live event? That's just embarrassing and cringey. And they were probably middle aged men, too. Hah. Those people need to get a life.

 

I think it's a number of reasons why the prequels get more appreciation they they used too

To name a few

1. The Kids who grew up with them will see them different to the ones who grew up with OT

2. While people complained about them being different to the OT originally I think many have come to appreciate them because of that since TFA was abit to much like a repeat of OT

3. People have come to accept them more since they ain't the last Star Wars films to be made anymore

I also think the clone wars show helped.

 

I also think there was a significant segment of the casual OTists that were genuinely satisfied with TFA. Whatever it is that they wanted ("that SW feel") was satiated to some degree and they feel less inclined be upset about the PT now. TFA took the anger wind out of their sails. Obviously, the hardcore crusaders would still soldier on, but they lost a fair number of their casual minions.

 

The prequels seemed much cooler in 2011 than in 2016, but I see that era becoming more prominent in fandom now. The generator that grew up with the prequels is getting older, but I think rogue one helped spark the renewed interest in them. It provides a respectable number of callbacks to the prequel era and may have reminded audiences that they had quite a bit to offer as well.

Even the absence of prequel elements in TFA could have revived their popularity among the fandom. I personally went into the film hoping not to see too many, then left it wishing there were more. I didn't appreciate them until they weren't there, and the same may have been true for other fans.