PT Anyone besides me prefers the PT to the OT?

I also prefer the PT for the very same reasons you mentioned. TBH, without the PT I don't think I would have been the fan I am today, I would have liked the movies but that's pretty much it. I liked the redemption of Vader in RotJ but the PT makes me appreciate it even more than I originally did. The visuals combined with JW's music and the actors made me invested into the universe, the story and its characters. Plus without the PT, I wouldn't have been able to see some of the best SW stories in TCW and Rebels, so yes to me the PT is absolutely essentially what "feels" like SW just as much as the OT.

 

Not really, no.

I'm too much of a rural American to ever fully tip the scale in that favor. The PT is no doubt a design factory without limits, but where its venues are typically on the go or, conversely, idle for cosmopolitan etiquette, the OT envelopes its heroes with a more potent sense of the frontier, often matched with a 'Barbary Coast' atmosphere of lurid piracy; a kind of adventuring that, as a kid, consistently reinforced my whimsy to go outside and play in the woods behind my house. Tea time is for aristocracy; hesitation and harangues for the clergy. I like rocks and (gaffi) sticks, gambling and impromptu schemes. All the main PT characters to one degree or another (sans Jar Jar, perhaps) seem uncomfortably poised for the stage, or ill-fated as pieces on a chess board. By no means a criticism, such is essential to the settings and storytelling, even lyrical. It's just, the OT characters enjoy more free range, and in freer form, as loose cannons dashing through the proceedings -- across pulp covers -- without apology, or wandering through the wilds like Tom, Huck and good-natured Jim. To put it another way, where the PT heroes are Greek, the OT are folk.

All that's merely my gut feelings. Of course I hold in equal esteem the PT for its deep expansion of Lucas' filmmaking. Neither is better. The above is, among other reasons, why I simply can't award the OT 2nd place.

 

Strange how I dig that former post I gave a "thank you" to its creator for soliciting; and yours.

I dig the rusty, sarcastic, ruggedly sentimental fairy-tale "pirate" adventure of the OT; and the sedimentary mythopoeia of the PT in all its hare-brained, running-(or pacing)-around-in-circles, board-room-meeting-solemn extremity.

Yes, the OT is very folksy; bluesy, ballsy. It has a balmy, reckless, aw-shucks, cut-loose feel. It's all grist and carbon scoring and knick-knacks and oil baths and fetid swamp monsters and open-air arboreal adventures and the like. While the PT is permeated by an unapologetic lyricism and absurdist goof factor and panoramic-juxtapositionary-observational style -- a rarefied slickness and stacked methodicalness -- that is just about the most surreal thing evah.

Hard to do without either. In truth, it is the special tension between the two, the OT ghost in the prequel machine (and vice versa), that makes Star Wars, or Lucasian Star Wars, just about the most symphonic, the most zany, the most beautiful, the most layered, the most dense, the most expansive, the most lush, radical, and vivacious thing there is.

Life as a performance. That might be what most discomfits and unwrenches people about the PT. Amidala in the Senate. Jar Jar in the Senate. Anakin "acting out". The strange rituals, the odd manners and repeating gestures. The strained humanity. The strange "smell" of everything. It's not your father's Star Wars. It isn't even your mother's or your sister's. Might be Wookiee Star Wars. The trilogy that doesn't get a medal; but doesn't need one.

Wookiee, Ewok!
Yoahwwobbawanga?

 

Always ready to proclaim my love for PT!

 

I do. Arguably it's part nostalgia but at the same time, the PT is where my imagination soars. When I think of epic, I imagine a Coruscant sunset with people who are extrordinary are gonna change the face of the galaxy. The PT is the reason why SW still is part of something I enjoy. I don't think I'd care about it without the amazing characters they introduced, the characters they fleshed out and the world's that were created. Add my favorite character plus the backdrop of my favorite war in the SW universe and it's a recipe of everything I love about space opera, epics and tragedies. Truly greatful these films in particular exist.

 

This sentiment, is also similarly how I feel. The excitement of the vast extravaganza when pretending to fly off into space as a young child, rummaging through the Mos Eisly(really my parent's bedroom) Is a moment, and memory ingrained into my head. The PT resulted in a reality...A begged reality of destruction and woe, forthcoming unto the, or *my* possible future. While loving the movies as a child, they made me feel very....Depressed at times. Or even a much stranger expression, decompressed. Like someone broke me down of tiny pieces and put me back together wrongly..

I will admit however, that I immensely love the PT, and find myself watching it more because it relates to my perception and moral reality. The OT, in hindsight like you explained, folk.


"Singing through the sunset, drunk of non-discomfort and happiness, while living without much of worry or despair."

A very old poem I wrote when I was younger in the country sides of South Carolina..

 

I tend to see them more as a whole unit rather than two separate trilogies at this point. They compliment and complete each other into sheer greatness for me. Don't really have a preference for either trilogy. I can basically turn on any of the original six films at any time and enjoy it.

 

Did you see the PT first? I was just wondering, because when you said that when you think of epic, you imagine a Coruscant sunset, it got me thinking. When I think of epic, I imagine a Tatooine sunset! LOL

I saw the OT first, so I was wondering what you had seen.

Well, actually, no, that's inaccurate. I saw TPM first but I was way too young to understand what it was or what was going on. There was a boy, a girl, and two machines. That's all I remember. I remember seeing TESB.

 

LOL good question.

I saw TPM first and then AOTC when I was 5 but I didn't care about SW. (My brother liked it alot) I then saw the OT afterwards and then my last SW film was ROTS. I saw ROTS months afterwards tho because I was too scared to see it theaters. My dad, brother watched most of it but we rented it and it took me 2 years to actually be able to buy it on DVD.

I guess it's ROTS that solidified my love for SW ever since. I guess it's the film that resonates the most.

 

I grew up on the PT. I love the whole saga but will always love it over the OT.

 

It's tough. I love PT, RotS is my favorite SW movie, but if i had to choose, i would go with OT.
TESB and ANH are just too good.

 

That's really what it comes down to. It's not about just appreciating the prequels only, but also appreciating how the two trilogies compliment each other. How they forge a precise clockwork yin/yang, form a symbiont circle and add so much deep context to each other. They sort of form an infinity symbol and continually feed into one another.

The PT did something I didn't think was possible; make me appreciate the OT more than I already did. And now vice-versa.

I don't prefer one trilogy over another, but if I had to pick between the Clone War/Sep vs. Republic or the Galactic Civil War/Empire vs. Alliance, I might have to lean towards the former 50.1% - even though, contrary to the OT, in which the war is a central part of the story, the Clone War isn't even in the movies, besides the set up and pay off. Though because of this I highly recommend the excellent Clone Wars animated series.
I love the subterfuge, the political intrigue, the questionable ethics of using clones & the Jedi serving as generals, the list goes on.
The PT films focus more on the ongoing Sith vs. Jedi war, but even that is largely covert and veiled in shades of gray.

I look at the difference between the OT and the PT sort of like football vs. baseball respectively.

In the OT you have the Jedi vs. Sith, but also the gridiron Empire vs. the Rebellion. In the PT you have the Jedi & Sith at their prime, and a Separitist war with Palpatine controlling both sides. So it's actually got football and baseball. Perhaps it's in the execution.

Even the love stories.
Han & Leia's love story unfolds in the midst of battle and while on the run, in a swashbuckling adventure. Ani & Padme had a little more room to breathe (pun). I like how different the two stories are on the surface, but are still essentially the same at the core. Again, I may have to lean 50.1% towards Ani & Padme. The forbidden-ness of it, the secrets they had to hide in the name of politics and religion. And again, the ethics; Anakin's actions on Tatooine, the co-dependancy, in a word, the tragedy.

 

I ever so slightly prefer the PT over the OT but will always love and respect the OT. Like Subtext Mining said, I like how the two trilogies complement each other. Watch the following video and pay special attention to the time span of 3:16 - 5:23:



While I think he sounds a bit too ridiculously hard on the OT I understand his point. It may sound weird to some people to say this, but it really does feel like the prequels are "the embodiment of Star Wars" . I certainly felt from the very beginning that the prequels are Star Wars in its purest form: unencumbered by such trivialities as a "hip" character like Han Solo, or the wisecracking shenanigans of the "big three" as they are being chased through the Death Star in Episode 4.

 

I love the PT more 'cause it offers more to discuss and more interesting situations. Instead of having one Jedi (Luke), why not have 1000's and a army to help them. Instead of fighting one enemy why not focus on impeaching leader. Focus on investigating banks (As in the clone wars episode "An Old Friend"). Focus on deception at high levels. Sure, most of the time they are fighting the separatists but still there's a lot more to discuss than just the separatists.

 

I do prefer the OT more however the PT is really under rated and I think they get more hate than what they deserve

 

I unashamedly stand by my opinion that the prequel trilogy is far superior to the OT. I prefer its sleek aesthetics, larger scope, politics, characters and themes.

But both trilogies complement and enrich each other perfectly.

 

TPM is a fun movie to watch, and I think ROTS will hold up very well. It has a great soundtrack, and the film has lots of dramatic and important scenes.

 

When just referring to the films the OT is preferred but when it comes to comparing eras, I prefer the PT era (including TCW) for various reasons.

 

The OT as wonderful as it is feels increasingly dated over time. The prequels CGI while not state of the art anymore still hold up at least to me.

 

^ HD has not been kind to the OT. But the special editions are just enough to hold them up for me.

 

I must admit, there is an engrossing element of the worlds created in the PT that isn't there in the OT. You really feel encompassed by these worlds as opposed to in the OT where you're just kind of seeing what happens.

 

Well said. It's always been hard for me to explain why I prefer the prequels. To me they are the true essence of Star wars, the most mythological, rich and deep movies.

Personally I have an attachment to these movies that I will never have to the other Star Wars films, mainly because I was an 11 year old boy watching AOTC for the 1st time in theaters getting goosebumps as that Naboo cruiser flew into the clouds of Coruscant to begin the movie and watching the scope as the Clone Wars begun. Then counting down every waking day as I waited for ROTS for 3 years.

I love the time period of the PT much more than the CT. The waning days of the Republic and the Jedi Order. When the galaxy still seemed so big and hopeful yet there was the lingering darkness behind the shadows.

 

This.

 

I would say the saga is the saga is the saga. Even if you are not an EU fan, Star Wars is Episodes I to VI. It's George Lucas's Star Wars. And while I love the OT, the PT speaks to me more. Why? Because we get the machinations of how the Galactic Republic work and obvious tension between the Jedi Council and the corrupt Senate.

But against that backdrop, we have some personal stories as well, primarily Anakin's ultimate fall and Obi-Wan's inner anguish from Qui-Gon's death to his failure with Anakin. The PT is more on a grand scale pitting our heroes against each other on the end. And must I even mention the amazing PT movies novelizations, other books (Jedi Apprentice!), the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars animated series & finally, the CGI Clone Wars.

Yes, the OT has a feeling of finality at the end. But it's the PT that fills in the blanks and set the events into place that culminated in the Galactic Civil War.