PT A question for the oldtimers - did anyone actually enjoy the prequel trilogy?

Dooku is a great character, just the movie didn't give him enough time, what he should deserve is the opposite. More screen time especially in EP I to show why did he leave the order.

 

Being born in 79 I think I qualify as a older fan and I sure as heck enjoyed every moment of the PT, and I am resentful how some older fans have the attitude that hating the PT makes you more of a fan of the OT, considering the fact that as a child all I did was watch the movies on VHS and played with the figures and thought about Star Wars a good deal of the time I consider myself a HUGE fan of the OT growing up. Do I believe that their is a large segment of fans who were disappointed by the PT?! Of course I do and everyone is entitled to feel so, but do I believe that the resentment that older fans have towards the PT is overly exaggerated, the answer to that is HELL YES! I am sorry I did start a thread month's back on how I feel the media has distorted people's views of the prequels and I still do, and I am resentful how many in the media want everyone to have a consensus opinion on the prequels. I have a great deal of respect for the fans who disliked the PT when they first came out, not the one's who were geek-ed when Darth Maul first came on screen and after watching their deity Plinkett than changing their minds and say they hate him, the one's who thought Yoda with a lightsaber was the coolest thing and than after watching their deity Plinkett said it was the stupidest thing. I can not and will not respect anyone who is so easily swayed by reviews or articles they read online, to me their is no worse type of fan or person for that matter, a person who will turn their back on something because it is no longer considered cool. I still buy PT merchandise, I still have my PT figures, shirts which I wear often, posters, books etc. and if anyone wants to remark on why I still have stuff that is not considered cool I tell them they can go straight to hell! Those of you who have sold off your merchandise on ebay because of the media I feel should not call yourself a "fan" because you are a follower and the worst kind. And now I love how now the media wants to beat into my head that ROTJ was inferior to ESB and ANH and I will never buy that because I feel that was a masterful end to Darth Vader's story. I am also the fan who will defend the acting and dialogue in the prequels and yes I will also defend the much maligned love story and I am pretty sure that noone will get me to change my stance on those issues. I will always say that the characters in the OT are much easier to relate to than those in the PT, the characters in the OT are the underdogs, rebel heroes on the run daring to stand up to a ruthless empire, in the PT our heroes are more arrogant and they are the ruling class and are sheltered so they don't act like the common folk. So those are a few stark differences, once again I don't have a problem with any older fan saying they hate the PT but please tell me why you hated the movies and don't tell me the opinion of others idiots give me YOUR OPINIONS!

 

That seems to be your answer to everything!

I prefer mysteries to spoonfeeding. If a character makes sense then we don't really need to know his inside leg measurement.

I like Dooku but was shocked at how well the story holds together if you remove all his scenes.

 

The movie needs to show enough to let people know the charisma, the greatness of the character. As for Dooku, the movie didn't show good enough, not even his cunning and political skill was shown enough, not to say his conflict with the Jedi Order.

 

One of the new spin-offs should feature Dooku, then - to show off his cunning and political skill - not to mention his disillusionment with the Jedi/Republic. Problem solved.

 

The problem is Lee is too old to perform that much scene, we need someone to play the young Dooku.

 

So where did I say anywhere it should be the same actor? You said there was too little story time for Dooku, so I put in that maybe one of the spin-offs should be made to show those things you (and presumably others) want to see?

 

I was 7 in '77, so I'm in the "I grew up with Star Wars" group.

Anyway, I absolutely loved the prequels. I voted I thought they were great.

The only problems I have with them was that I wished they'd left Jar Jar Binks back in Gunga City in The Phantom Menace, because to me he was just a gag character that was stretched too far. The Podracing scenes that I felt were too pandering to young children weren't enjoyable to me either (but it was over fast enough and not stretched out through the entire movie like Jar Jar Binks). And the Geonosis droid foundries in Attack of the Clones I felt should have been relegated to the deleted scenes on the DVD release and not put up on screen. It wasn't entertaining to me and felt unnecessary. There's a few other things too, but they're minor and are easy to overlook.

Other than those few complaints, and I go back and forth on this, but right now I put all three of them above the Original Trilogy in terms of which I enjoy watching the most. And that's because, to me, the prequels I feel are much larger in scope and scale than the Original Trilogy; I feel that they're "bigger" movies. And I feel that the prequels are more cohesive as a story, a more tighter set of movies. And that's obviously because George Lucas knew that he was making three movies ahead of time and not just making one, hoping it does well, and if so, then making more.

I also think I enjoyed them because going in I didn't have the prequels written in my head for the past however many number of years. So there was zero chance of me being disappointed with what George Lucas came up with because it didn't match with what my idea of what the prequels should have been.

Anyway, my ranking order (at this moment, today, February 8th, 2013), from favorite to least:

1) Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
2) Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
3) Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
4) Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
5) Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
6) Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

 

My order
EP III=EP VI>EP V > EP I> EP IV > EPII

 

This a "rank the movies" thread now?

 

It's asking old timers if they enjoy the PT, so it follows that people might say how much they enjoy the PT in the context of the saga.

Right now I'd say 5, 4, 3, 6, 2, 1, though I fluctuate between 4 and 5 being my favourite, and between 1 and 2 as my least favourite (and if I'm honest, between 6 and 3 as my middle favourites too).

 

I don't want this to turn into the fourteen thousandth rank teh eppys thread.
If it does, it will join the other 13,990 that aren't open.

 

I was born in 1978 and have been a Star Wars fanatic for as long as I can remember. I am a STAR WARS fan so I am a fan of the OT, PT, Clone Wars, novels etc. I love the universe and the characters. The Empire Strikes Back will always be my favorite movie but Revenge of the Sith is right behind it.

 

Says you. And since you dismiss Lucas' comments out of hand, can I do likewise with your own?

You know, if you read that remark of mine again, you might see that I wasn't talking about "hidden meanings" (I'll talk about them plenty in a minute), but simply the basic geometry of what's implied from point A to point B.

Everyone might join the dots up a little differently, sure, because there's no ultimate "right" or "wrong" way when it comes to even a basic "reading between the lines", as it were, but it doesn't mean the dots aren't there, figuratively speaking, waiting to be joined up.

It's like when you slam the films for offering everything "in black and white" and cite Anakin's "one or two comments about dictators while he was rolling around in fields of flowers" as an example (I could have cut the latter part of that out, but it feels like you intend some significance, or slight, when you say, "while he was rolling around in fields of flowers").

Technically, Anakin only verbally hints at a belief in a dictator one time; he only rolls around in one field, too. It's a little thing, but by working in a small exaggeration here, you take me back to the earlier days of prequel bashing, when a lot of fanboys seemed to have a problem with a future Darth Vader being within 12 parsecs of a field, never mind cavorting in the grass with his soon-to-be wife. Then there's the whole distortion of what Anakin says -- which Padme even takes as him mocking her serious facade -- about his purported belief in a dictatorship: "Well, if it works..."

What, exactly, is the problem with that scene, or the manner in which AOTC depicts Anakin's clear deference for Palpatine? A lot of what drives the Anakin character is rooted in his slave past. In fact, casting Anakin as a slave, on a forgotten desert of a planet -- also the home of his son; and arguably, the most critical planet in SW -- was a stroke of genius on Lucas' part, in my opinion, and one of the firm contributions of the prequel story to the larger saga. The madness of Darth Vader goes back to Anakin's early years: hence the prequel trilogy, y'know, starting with Episode I, not Episode II.

The inner and outer transformations that mark the Anakin character -- that mark all the characters; and between peoples, places, ships, other technology, etc. -- evoke subtlety, in my opinion; or at least suggest that you should seek out the smallest details to understand the inner workings of this grand contraption. To say there's no subtlety here, when Lucas himself had control of every frame, every pixel, and worked endlessly on all three movies, tweaking and refining every detail, tells me that you don't care about investing your own time and energy -- your own imagination -- in this trilogy; and you then turn round and proclaim there's NOTHING of value here to cover your own hebetude. That's pretty ridiculous, IMO.

There are certainly broad strokes and brash happenings in these movies: the "space opera" part. But there's also micro-managing of details, amazing tableaux, clever elisions, montage, subtle riffs and twists, and a compelling tonal architecture: the discursive "side" of this saga to the OT's formulaic. The striking incorporation of Jar Jar in the first episode is the big clue. In Lucas' own words (I know you don't follow those, but I'll say it anyway...), "Jar Jar is the key to all this". He unlocks doors; makes you realize there are doors to be unlocked. Another clue is the addition of midi-chlorians to the mythology of the Force. They diversify the soup of ideas and herald a deeper, richer cosmology: a mythological landscape that now includes the microscopic. Then there are the six mysterious red gates in Episode I's climatic lightsaber duel (where all primary colours are powerfully in play). Hallways. Mirrors. HALLS OF MIRRORS. Lucas uses fabulous, extraordinary symbolism -- signs, signifiers, portals, passages -- to hint at a language of startling complexity. Even the scene wipes were made into a sophisticated artform in the prequels (spend just five minutes with ROTS).

No, I don't think you get what Lucas was up to in these films. Not one bit. It's the way these things tend to go. An experimental artist comes along, shows an audience some radical stuff, and people bleat, "Nothing to see here... move along, move along." All this rock-throwing, though, obscures the tasty stuff in the prequels, and denies discussion at a deeper level. I find that quite sad. Tastes inevitably differ, but when one particular sentiment prevails, it's normally -- if not always -- a bad thing, IMO. But you're entitled to your view, of course.

 

I'm an oldtimer. I first saw ANH in '77. I have previously stated that I had some difficulty in appreciating the Old Trilogy. It took me less than ten years to finally appreciate and love all three films between 77-83. Ironically, I had no trouble with immediately embracing the PT.

It's not that I believe that the PT is better. I think I was able to appreciate the saga as a whole a lot better as an adult than I was as a child. I guess that's why I find the whole comment - "Lucas raped my childhood" a load of crap.

 

Out of curiosity: Did this next generation naturally find fault with elements within Lucas's films, or were they...encouraged by a certain older generation within the family?

 

It is not accurate to say that Star Wars fans are just trying to be "cool" when they say they hate the PT. If you corner any of your friends who claim to be die hard fanatics of Star Wars who also happen to "hate" the PT they will give you a thoughtful response, probably at length, about why they feel that way. While much of what they say may echo what professional reviewers have said about the movie, it doesn't mean that their opinions about those movies are any less heartfelt.

Critics criticize. It is what they do. If George Lucas releases a movie in 1998 that we blindly love in those first few years because it is Star Wars, but ten years later after we've had a good long time to give it some thought and have discovered that we actually hate it, the criticism you are reading about in the media is just a reflection of that.

I'll give you that people are sheep, and they will like or not like a thing when someone who supposedly knows what they are talking about tells them to like or not like that thing... 13 and 14 years later, however after people have had time to really live with the movies in question, watch them 30 times... the critics lose that power over them. There isn't a good review in existence that could have gotten more than $43 million worth of customers to show up for the TPM 3D release in the U.S. There was no "Star Wars flu" work stoppage. There were no people camping out for a month prior to the release anywhere. It was just a big non-event.

In fact, the vast majority of people in the U.S. did not show up to watch a Star Wars movie on the big screen in 2012. Let that sink in. If people paid an average of $10 to get in that means roughly 4 million out of 300 million people in the U.S. showed up. This ratio of people who saw it verses people who did not gets much, much worse when you start talking world wide (excluding countries where it wasn't released,) numbers. This franchise, or at least Episode I, has for some mysterious ( ) reason lost it's ability put butts in the seats. Honestly, don't just start angrily mashing the keyboard with justifications, but really think about this question. Do you honestly think people were making a deliberate statement in choosing to stay away from TPM 3D just because it is the "cool" thing to do, or is it possible that most people just no longer care about that movie?

 

Because we already see it. It's better to use EP II and III rather than 3D EP I for example, and 100m worldwide is not bad, actually quite good for a 3d re-release. It's on the 4th of domestic and 3rd of worldwide in history.

I met many of those who takes the PT as ****, but most of them know nothing beside the movie, I won't call that hardcore fans.

 

Agreed.
I can only go by people I know who enjoyed the original Stawars films but that's it, They didn't buy the books, or go on the message boards etc. They didn't camp out when TPM came out or see it multiple times or anything like that,
The general response was pretty unanimous of what they thought of TPM. To much CGI, and didn't feel it matched with the OT in terms of look/technology and thought it was pretty boring and except for the end.
Clones was even worse (those that bothered to go see it) they all felt it was like watching a computer game.

 

I know I am beating a dead horse here, but isn't there a world of difference between a movie you "like" versus "love", and a movie that either utterly bores you, or which you actively dislike? Isn't there a world of difference between a movie which you enjoy, but which PERHAPS doesn't consistently thrill you, and one you feel was a waste of your time and money? For me, there sure is.

When I look at the movies I own, I see a collection of movies that, for the most part, are re-watchcable for me. Which means I either loved them, or liked them. They do "something" for me. Are they all "good" movies? That gets trickier. I don't take a whole lot of time trying to wrestle with that, to be honest. I would say that some of the movies are, indeed, great ones, and some are very good ones, and some are good, and some are -- well, whether I call them "guilty pleasures" or some such, they "work for me" on some level for some reason, even if I would never try to argue that they are 'good" on some more grandiose, intellectual, film-studies scale. I own some B-movies, and some that are probably well below being B-movies, which are a lot of fun for me and which I will, indeed rewatch.

Not in my collection? Plenty of movies which are probably considered "good" or "Great" by many, and plenty of movies which simply don't do much for me, whatever their "objective" merits. Kind of leading to what may be a classically "obvious" observation - very few folks buy and rewatch movies they don't like on some level. I don't know of many who buy movies that they think "stink", or that rewatch them, or that spend a lot of time over years discussing them.

Which takes me, finally, to the Prequels. It seems to me, respectfully, that at least some of the Prequels' critics feel that if they don't like the Prequels as much as they think they "should", or if they don't like the Prequels as much as they like the "Classic" trilogy, this means the Prequels "stink". I just can't share this somewhat "all or nothing" outlook. And I would also suggest that it is a bit odd that so many seem to own and rewatch the Prequels, if, indeed, the Prequels "stink". Here again I can only speak for myself, but I only have so much patience for fast-forwarding! Maybe it would be more accurate to say that these people like the Prequels LESS than the Classics, rather than (again) go for this all or nothing outlook?

Shadow

PS _ While the Jedi (and some non-Jedi) would doubtless council that I should waste no energy worrying on such things, I do hope I am lucky enough to stick around to see all the new SW movies on the big screen as well, with an audience of old timers, less old timers, and utterly new-timers. Its part of what makes the SW experience so much fun, the way it brings folks together from across a broad spectrum of ages and situations. While I doubt we'll ever bring everyone together over the Prequels, I think there might be more middle ground than at first appears!

 

Overall I would say yes, I enjoyed the prequel trilogy.

With the exception of The Phantom Menace.

Sorry to those of you who liked it, but it was just boring. I did not like the characterizations of Obi-Wan (not much of a character here), Yoda, Anakin, etc. The side characters of Jar Jar, the Gungans and almost everyone else were just pretty bad. The only character I enjoyed was Darth Maul and he was cut in half at the end. I thought the plot made little sense. I just think the movie was unnecessary and the entire prequel story could have started with AOTC. I remember leaving the theater on opening day thinking, That was it? It was, umm, okay I guess. On repeat viewings I thought I would like it better. Nope. It got worse.

Attack of the Clones

I thought Star Wars was back on track with this movie. Yes, the love story and dialogue in those scenes was dreadful. The opening sequence with the speeder chase could have been done much better. Some realism would have been nice (as opposed to the superhero stunts). The comic relief parts did not work at all (the Threepio scenes). But, I liked it overall and would give it a "B" mainly due to Obi-Wan and the Star Wars feel to the movie. In my opinion, Anakin was just written wrong.

Sith

The best of the prequels. Felt like a more solid, complete film. I wish the space battle in the beginning was not so silly in how it was executed. General Grevious was just a filler character instead of being a memorable SW villain. Anakin's turn could have been done much better. Overall, I enjoyed it though. B plus/A minus.

 

That's one of the reasons I don't object to foreshadowing in Rogue Planet, and in the Jude Watson Jedi Quest books I've read (have only read the first few though). Admittedly Watson could have been said to have overdone it- but I do think that it's not a mistake to see Young Anakin as having the seeds that will grow into Vader.

 

I can honestly say that I did enjoy the prequels, just not as much as the original. I thought that the idea of creating a background story for Anakin Skywalker was a great idea. It was good to see what can drive a good man to evil. I concur with many out there who thought that the worst film in the series was Phantom Menace, but that doesn't mean I found it horrible. I actually liked Jar Jar. But I thought that the movie was too slow in many points and I found the Anakin in that film to be a tad bit too whiney.

 

Anakin in TPM was whiney? When did he whine?

 

Well, in case that wasn't rhetoricle, the kid's voice was a perpetual whine. He was cute, don't get me wrong, but just had a whiney personality. Why can't Mom come, it's cold in space, I wanna help, why can't I train, Qui-Gon said I could...ok, he didn't actually say that, but you basically knew that was what he was thinking when standing before the council. Something about that kid just bothered me. Funny that - 'cause the actual actor himself is now whining that Phantom Menace ruined his life.