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

I'm one of those people who couldn't care less what other people think of a certain movie. None of my friends are SW fans (luckily), but both my nephews are, and my son to a certain extent. At 21 he has lots of other interests, and SW plays a very minor role. As far as I know my nephews like the whole saga, neither just prequels nor just OT, while the older one (almost 13) didn't like TFA. I guess it's young kids who are the most unbiased viewers and can accept movies for what they are, and they can accept change. Oh yes, when ROTS came to cinemas I had a Korean student of about 13 who also was a big SW fan. Of course he grew up with the PT, and later watched the OT. I had given him my OT DVDs to watch. I remember him being a little "shocked" that Obi-Wan had become so old and "ugly" (his English was limited so maybe he didn't mean it like that), which I found pretty funny. Naturally a lot of our "lesson" content, which was conversation practice anyway, revolved around SW, also LOTR! In recent years I have a Chinese student about the same age, maybe a little younger, and he is also a SW fan, as far as I can tell saga plus TCW fan, and he doesn't make any distinction between PT and OT but likes the story as a whole. I think many adult "fans" have a lot to learn from little kids.
The worst kind of fan is the fanatic adult hardcore OT fan that wants things to always be exactly the same as ESB, or to a lesser extent ANH. They don't want anything new at all, just a repetition of the same. They don't want a story to be expanded in any way, they want it retold. In the SW universe they would be the most likely to become Sith

 

I don't know where people are getting this idea that people who were kids when the prequels were released are now starting to turn around and appreciate them. I don't think its that generation who hated them in the first place. At the worst I think that generation was more or less indifferent to them. But I don't hear many of them turning around now and commenting on how they didn't like them before but now are starting to appreciate them a bit more.

I can, however, see that happening with the generation who was already in their 20s and above when the prequels came out. But like I had said before, I don't think it's so much that it's becoming cool to like them. Nowadays I just don't think it's nearly as cool anymore to hate them. Which might make it seem as though there is a growing appreciation for them. But it's probably just the same people who have liked them all along that are now able to express it more openly.

 

Oh yes. The ones who allow their deep nostalgia to blind them to newer elements of a prolonging saga. To each their own though.

I do know a few guys who only like A New Hope & Empire. They're great films but I don't understand how they can just stick with 2 films

 

Well, I guess that is because people who watched the prequels as kids never hated them in the first place. So they didn't have to "turn around".

I wonder if prequel hate is not only a generational but also or mainly a cultural problem. It would be interesting to hear from someone who is from or lived in non-"Western" (or maybe non-English speaking) countries during the PT era, like maybe Latin America, India, Japan, Middle Eastern cultures etc. Was there such a thing as prequel hate in those cultures at all?

 

It seems as if it's more difficult for OT purists to like the PT than it is for PT fans to like the OT.
I saw the OT first when I was really young & then as I grew the PT came out which had me hooked . So the PT made me love the OT even more.
Sith Lord 2015

 

That's pretty much my own experience as well. Being 12 when I first saw ANH when it originally came out, no one can deny I grew up with the OT. I admit I was originally not exactly that impressed when I saw TPM in 1999, though I was nowhere near being a hater. At that point my interest in SW was not that huge anyway. Then the next two PT installments came and I can say that they not only improved my opinion of TPM but also the saga as a whole. In 1999 I somehow felt TPM didn't fit that well into the whole picture, which changed when the Lucas saga was complete in 2005. Then somehow everything made sense and I saw that every single installment has its important place in the whole story.

 

Sith Lord 2015 I see why TPM could be a let down for OT kids. TPM is a movie that slowly sets things up. No wonder GL began with ANH in 1977, he knew people would not be interested unless he started with a bang. Even though I am a different generation , it's great to see how the PT enhances the OT not just for my age group -- but for older as well. Your story is rare as you know!

Also TPM is a unique film, excluded from The saga's core issues (TCW, Galactic War). But like you said, you can see how it fits in the bigger picture

 

There is definitely less weight on the prequels shoulders now because we are getting so much more star wars in all forms of media so the OT is no longer sacred to this high expectation of don't ruin our childhood!.

The OT is now just a middle part of a dozen more movies and that also makes people appreciate what the prequels offered rather than the comparison of the trilogies.

 

I think also with the ST and Anthologies presently being the new wave of Star Wars, people are now categorizing the PT as something separate, almost in the same manner they see Clone Wars and Rebels. All part of the same saga, but separate enough that it can be its own thing, and liked or disliked on its own, rather than being forced to be seen as part of the whole. For a long time prior to the ST and Anthologies, up until only a couple of years ago when it all kicked off at Celebration Anaheim, all we had to go off of was the PT and the OT in terms of the main saga. But now, there's more to choose from, will continue to happen with each passing year.

It goes along with my theory that in time SW will be seen similarly to how we view Star Trek. With so many years of production of Star Trek movies and TV shows, people are more or less able to pick and choose what they enjoy. And no one production is ever lambasted as being so poor that it brings down the whole franchise. It's just kind of there. And because of the fact that there is so much material to choose from there's no reason to really focus on the bad stuff and begrudge it so much.

So I think we're already beginning to see that now with SW. Because even for someone like myself who considers himself to be a more than average PT fan, I definitely can see where the criticisms come from. Because watching it myself I can't help but see sometimes that when it's bad, it's bad. But now, hopefully, we're moving away from that for the reasons I stated above.

 

Every popular film these days seem to go through a "cool to hate" period. I think the prequels are finally leaving their.

TFA will be "cool" again someday. I guarantee it.

 

It already is with me. I went through a detractor stage with TFA.

 

A couple of months ago, someone was chatting with me and telling me he had never seen the prequels before. As the conversation went on, he said, "I recommend watching RedLetterMedia's reviews...", and I stopped him right there, hahaha. I made an effort to reindoctrinate his thinking.

 

It might be that people are appreciating more the Prequels more for their originality and Lucas-feel after TFA came out. I think people really didn't know what they had until it was gone (Lucas) and now can see a biiiig difference between his work, and Disney Star Wars. Lucas will take a chance and do something different (even if it risks some fans not liking it) because he wants to keep expanding the universe and it's story. Disney will not dare take such a chance, because it has focus groups and profit margins to think of.

I think people are missing that old magic when SW still had endless possibilities, and hadn't yet been bought by some giant impersonal corporation where SW is now only just one of it's many subsidiary properties.

 

And yet that giant impersonal corporation produced one of the best films (if not the best) in the series: Rogue One.

 

I thought R1 was the seventh best. Enjoyable, but indeed while watching I missed that feeling of endless possibilities, as EECHUUTA put it. So for me, I agree that pre-Disney Lucasfilm felt more "personal" from a creative standpoint, even though they were obviously still a huge corporation then as well. Sometimes trying so hard to be cool results in the opposite. That's what Disney's films kind of feel like to me, so I can totally see why the PT is experiencing something of an enhanced reputation these days among certain fans.

 

Wow. That's...that's, uh, one helluva statement. Can't say I feel the same, but, good on you for enjoying the film and laying out such a preference with brass.

 

Thanks! I actually place it just slightly above ANH and ESB as my favorite film in the series. It has the spirit (and wackiness) of Lucas, with the maturity of a spy film, and the visual splendor of a Malick film. It's the kind of odd duck that blockbuster studios just don't make anymore. I love it to pieces.

 

Would that it 'twer so simple.

Heck, I'm gonna do it anyway.

 

You can always elope!

 

Ya didn't know? Gigo buddy is known to be quite the "Rogue One".


Personally it's hard for me to look at the entirety of the movie in such a way because of the obtuse vision of the movie being replaced from the original director. I never liked that being glossed over...

 

Was considering running off to a tropical island paradise togethe, until I realized she had a really bad experience in that kind of environment...

 

Okay, if that actually happened, I'm actually ashamed that such people call themselves Star Wars fans. This isn't a punk concert, many people payed good money to enjoy the show, could you be mature enough to let them enjoy a universally acclaimed soundtrack, or is that too much to ask?

While there is an element of people being upset that Disney is trying to repress that era, the vast majority it probably the crowd that grew up with the movies getting older. Remember, it was the kids that saw the original Star Wars that elevated the trilogy to a legendary status. Seems like these films are also generational in a way. I won't lie that prequel nostalgia is something that's a part of my enjoyment of the films, but it's the same thing for each generation and the "trilogy" they belong to.

Now as cringy as it might seem, internet culture has had a hand in it as well. To counteract the tired OT purists, prequel memes and references just took off a few years ago. Somehow the mania was only centered around the prequels (mainly Revenge of the Sith). Combine that a bunch of raging fans that also did not enjoy TFA.

 

There's a even enough spread of people resentful of the imagined disrespect towards the PT shown by Disney as well as those claiming that they violate everything the OT is supposed to have achieved to not read it as proof only of a rehabilitation of the PT or a repeal of PT "hate".

I suggest that the continuation of the saga, meaning that IV-VI + I-III is no longer the be all-end all of cinematic Star Wars, has thrown everything up in the air and that it will take a while for attitudes to settle once again.

 

In their own series of movies very possibly (and so far of the two). In Star Wars nowhere near but one that actually followed Lucas' methodology of how to make a new Star Wars movie that TFA did not. Go forward and be progressive and make something not seen already as opposed making something for the express purpose of doing what was done already.