The "Star Wars" Prequels: Not The Worst Raw Material Ever.

(Originally posted on 3-16-2010)

I just finished watching the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy and I have some stuff to say (and not necessarily stuff you'd expect).

For some really good reviews of the prequels, look up Mr. Plinkett's Reviews. Trust me.

But first, let me explain my connection to "Star Wars".

I first saw "Star Wars" (and by that I mean "A New Hope") when I was three or four and too young to have a damn clue what was going on except that it was cool. I think I either watched it at my aunt's house or my grandparents house but either way I'm sure it was my papa's VHS (he's always been super into sci-fi and tech and it makes me sad for him that he was born at the time he was because with all the tech out now, he's so in his element but has a really shitty computer he can bearly work and that's not because he's 82, his computer blows, but I digress). From there I have many memories of second grade and playing "Star Wars" at recess. I was R2-D2. For a second grader, I could draw him really well. We had a Luke, a Han, a Chewbacca, and a Leia and one time we actually did her hair in buns. Good times.

Anyway, when I was eight I saw "Return of the Jedi" because I didn't know there were sequels and I was so excited. I saw it at Charleen's house back before my paternal genes moved to NC. I have no clue why I saw "Jedi" before "Empire." It might have been because they didn't have "Empire" or because my stepmom had this theory that with trilogies the order of quality goes: 3-1-2 (which was kind of true with the prequels). Either way, I tried at least three times to watch "Empire" but situationally, I was always doing something during the movie and never payed much attention to it. I remembered training with Yoda and the "I am your father" scene and the rest was a big blur and what I recall as being an abrupt ending.

Either way, over winter break I watched the three original movies in order and in two days and now I wonder how I could even follow "Jedi" without "Empire." Weird. Either way, there was nothing at all surprising about "Empire" because I had seen enough clips of it over the years to know what was coming, except for that one scene in the beginning when Leia and Han are arguing over whether or not she's hot for him and to prove she isn't, she kisses Luke. I literally shouted out, "GAH!" and my mom was like, "What? What happened?" To which I said, "Something shocking and wrong!"

Anyway, after watching the three originals, I decided I should (re)watch the three prequels because I could remember them even less. I had seen "Phantom Menace" and "Clones" in the theater but had missed "Sith" entirely which is strange because that was the one I really wanted to see because I wanted to see the transition from Anakin to Vader. Either way, I remembered nothing of "Menace" except that Queen Amidala was actually the servant (something my mom called in the theater, shocking the ten-year-old me) and that Jar Jar Binks was annoying. Of "Clones" I remembered a lot of scenes but couldn't remember how any of them went together. Anyway, here's my overall critic of the prequel movies:

The plots were actually sufficiently acceptable; the reason everyone says the movies suck is because of shoddy character development, bad dialogue, weird directorial decisions, and flat acting. There's raw material there but nothing comes of it.

As I said before, I think the order in how much I liked them is roughly 3-1-2. Let me break it down.

"Phantom Menace": The trade route plot which is supposed to be important is pretty hard to follow, let's be honest, but it obviously is an establishing part of what makes the deterioration of the Republic so I just kind of ran with it.
Natalie Portman is lucky Keira Knightly is there to make her performance look better and holy crap, they look alike. How did I never see this before?
The young Anakin kid may be the best actor in this movie which is really sad considering this movie has Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, and Ewan McGregor (who I love) in it. The acting is so flat and yes, they are supposed to be Jedi and public officials but seriously. I could barely describe any of their personalities. I guess I could say Amidala is clever but that's only through actions, not emotions or dialogue.
I don't need to say anything about Jar Jar right? That would be redundant. He's annoyance that is supposed to be comic relief. Fail.
Win? Darth Maul. What an awesome character. He has like, no lines, but he is a walking plot point as he provides hints towards a rise of the Sith. And he looks sick. My neighbor had a Darth Maul figure thingy that would make light saber noises and move when you push a button. Sometimes it would do this spontaneously and scare the shit out of people. Also, my brother and I had Darth Maul's double ended saber. His broke and then he broke mine. *sad*
Oh the plus side (Jar Jar aside), this movie had the least amount of cheesy lines of the three but the dialogue was still flat.

"Attack of the Clones": Shouldn't this be called "Attack of the Droids"? The clones are kind of on the right side in this movie, or at least that's what we're supposed to think.
Anyway, this one was rough to watch. Why? Summary: Anakin and Padme flirt while Obi Wan goes out to find the plot. He came back with Count Dooku, who's kind of cool and gives us the "Venture Bros." phrase of "taking a Count Dooku" but in general this movie is like "Empire" in that it is just a lot of set-up for the third (except obviously "Empire" was way better and had a lot of interesting twists/characters/etc).
The Anakin/Padme part was painful to watch and I remember nearly falling asleep when I watched it in the theater. And I was like 13 too so this kind of thing should have kept me awake. The dialogue between them is bad fanfiction and the acting is horrendous. I guess for Lucas writing love-hate relationships comes easier than love-love ones because Han and Leia was a much more entertaining relationship to watch unfold.
In the end there's the start of the clone wars (which BTW, how fucking convenient that some dude just happened to order all those clones?) and Anakin and Padme marry. Bleck.
It's kind of weird how in both sets of trilogies Palpatine is the mysterious figure behind everything but you don't realize it until the end. Darth Maul and Dooku where really throw away characters when you think of it because Vader is the villain in all the original movies. Maybe that's part of the problem? Maybe if it had been just Dooku or just Maul until he gets offed in the third, there could be more development. I don't know. Everyone's undeveloped.

"Revenge of the Sith": Why do I like this one the best? Because shit gets fucked up really. Simple as that. Still hated Anakin/Padme interactions with their flat acting and vomit-inducing dialogue but it was nice to see the plot finally come together nicely.
Now, as for Anakin's reason for becoming Sith, I was fine with it. My brother hates it and my roommate was depressed by it but I think it was okay. The actual scene where it happens is really bad though. He makes a split second decision and instead of having a slight moment to cope with the heaviness of what he just did, he's instantly like, "awaiting orders, master." It doesn't work to me. I feel like after him practically killing Mace Windu he would still need a bit more convincing on the part of Palpatine that he made the right choice. But, at least it did feel like he was leading up to that point and his motives did make sense to me (of course, bad acting aside). Truly, Darth Vader does care about his family. This is an undeniable fact. He offs Palpatine to save his son and wants his son to join him on many occasions in the original trilogy. It seemed consistent with the character to me. Plus, his power hungry arrogance and political opinions make it all fit together fine. Again, it's acting faults because this bit of character development is one of the few things about the characters that makes sense.
I actually really liked the scenes when the Empire turns on the Jedi and thought they were quiet well done and there was actually one good line of dialogue in this movie said by Padme: "So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause." The movie could have used more of that well-acted, well-written stuff.
Also, no complaints about how Vader gets deformed even if the battle itself is mind numbing about a while or how Luke and Leia were separated. It all made reasonable sense to me.

What it all comes down to is there are some good ideas but the bad ideas are intensely bad and poor dialogue given to good actors (with the exception off Hayden Christiansen who has never really been in anything else so if he has any talent, no one knows) and character that is mostly forsaken for story ruined these movies. The only character with any "development" is Anakin and his development is given no cultivating.

They could have been good!

*sigh*

Side note: Why is there only one female Jedi (a Twi'lek chick, in case you didn't notice) and no female Sith? In a world where they are common as politicians, why not as warriors too?