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it is my favorite of the prequels. and the arena battle is classic.
shareIt is better than all the movies you mentioned. The only one of those that comes close is Rogue One....
shareBetter than the DT (disney Trilogy) sure. But underrated? not really it is a very flawed (in its execution not concepts) film and deserving of a lot of criticisms it gets. The issue is the DT (especially TFA) is disgustingly overrated (to an absurd and insulting level).
But for the Lucas era (the real cannon) films, Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are about tied for the worse of the 6. Returns has some flaws sure but it is certainly better than Attack of the clones; I am not even sure how one can make an objective argument that ATOC is better than anything in the OT.
Personally I have a guilty pleasure for Revenge (objectively I can't really make a good argument it is better than ATOC) but I certainly enjoyed it more than the first 2 prequel films.
I love this movie for it's splashy colorful cheesiness, I even love the godawful romance if I'm in a sappy or snarky mood!
That doesn't make it a great movie, not my any means, but it's one I like. And it's objectively much better than "TPM", and although it's not as complex and interesting as the equally flawed "RotS", it's more fun.
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True, the acting is wooden. It’s like Lucas was too enamored by his computer technology than the actual performances or heart of the story. Lucas is a visual genius, but I don’t know what went wrong with the acting in the prequels.
shareIt is underrated and is far better than those horrible Disney films
shareWow, I feel like I'm dreaming. The movie is not underrated at all. It certainly not above its 6.5/10. And I can't believe Hayden Christensen's awful acting didn't make it drop to 4.
shareI'm with you. I think 6.5 seems a bit high.
shareNot nearly as high as TFA (7.9) that is an utter joke; by any reasonable measure it should be below ATOC. ATOC is a bad film but at least kept internal continuity and lore in tact. It didn't piss all over the mythos; destroy the OT characters; and substitute plot and world building with open ended (unanswerable) mystery boxes. 7.9 is an insult to the intellect and just a sign that the irrational hate of the PT was successfully exploited by disney.
shareI was far more entertained by TFA than by AOTC. Let the record show: I'm not brushing over the BIG flaws of The Force Awakens (like the fumbling of the thirty year gap and the mishandling of characters). That said, I'd also say that all three prequels torpedoed the Star Wars lore pretty hard-core.
Attack of the Clones doesn't destroy OT characters? Darth Vader wasn't a whinging, weepy little twerp in this film? Well, I guess he was... But surely they wouldn't take "wars not make one great" Yoda and have him kick-flip his way through a lightsabre fight after leading soldiers into battle. Would they...?
A smug arrogant; 'everyone it keeping me down' type of person is exactly the type that would fall under the influence of a mentor promising more power and control/order that they feel they deserve. In addition to that it made him somewhat similar to Luke's ANH character who was also whiny and this makes the fact that Luke is able to resist when Vader was not all the more impactful in that moment of Vader's redemption and Luke's defiance. I hated the fact that Anakin was whiny too and felt like "it ruined Darth Vader" but when I thought about it more; it actually makes perfect sense and IMO makes the moment of Vader's redemption more profound. But that is just me and I could have read too much into it.
I do agree with Yoda being poorly used. I always agreed with the criticism that both Palpatine and Yoda should have been beyond the physical. But though I think it was stupid it does not 'ruin' the characters the same way turning Han into a deadbeat dad regressed pathetic incompetent smuggler or Leia an ineffective leader that literally fails at every attempt she has in stopping the first order (until the new kids show up and do the job for her) or Luke who was inexplicably absent while the first order rose to power and crushed his new order and then apathetically left the new republic to be destroyed.
TFA might have been entertaining but it was very, very stupid type of entertainment that gave no thought to what it was actually doing. I expect that out of a Transformers film; or a Fast and Furious film; not Star Wars. ATOC may have been 'boring' as a result of its poor execution but the expansion of Lore and world building alone more than makes up for that, in comparison to the thoughtless drivel that was TFA.
While I agree that Anakin is the type of person who would be susceptible to cult indoctrination, there were other types that could have been more effective and transitioned better into Darth Vader. There's no way he went from brat to cyber-knight.
I have never thought the lore/world-building of the prequels was well done. I know a lot of people feel differently, but I think that the prequels only added in the negative there. It always felt slapdash and poorly thought-out. Stuff like "Jedi can't marry" (what?), there only two Sith (...what?), and Obi-Wan and Uncle Owen's Tattooine robes are really Jedi robes (...what!?) It felt like every time something was added, it either confounded continuity and established lore (the robes, Qui-Gon trained Obi-Wan not Yoda), or made it worse (yup: talkin' 'bout midichlorians and virgin births).
At best the lore builds were shallow. Stuff like the '50s diner on Coruscant, for instance, could be a really great setting in a certain world, but it's just dropped in our laps with zero context. The council of enemy aliens that don't do anything, really. Or Darth Maul looking like Satan. Why? To what end?
When done correctly, lore and atmosphere gives a sense of place and provides a sense of vastness and truth to a universe. When done poorly, you get a gladiatorial arena fight because those are "neato".
Why not; is it really so hard to believe a whiny but talented fighter can become far more sinister if pushed over the edge? That is what Vader is. I in retrospect take no real issue with the concept of Anakin in the prequels. The 2 things I do take issue with is Hayden's line deliver was terrible and Jake Llyod (and the portrayal of Anakin in TPM) was far too young.
The 2 sith thing kind of was already started by Empire Strikes back (why was there only 2 dark force users?) As soon as the Emperor is also shown to use force powers like Vader the 'sith' rules were already getting set up. That is more of a 'world builidng' issue from the OT, if you want count the rule of 2 as bad world building (I don't) Qui-gon training Obi-wan was just bad continuity that is not really 'lore' or mythos breaking. Yeah the space jesus stuff was terrible, I fully agree. That is one of the things that was bad even at a concept level.
the 50's diner thing was out of place agreed but again that is fairly trivial. Darth Maul looking like Satan is a silly complaint though; Vader looks like a dark Samurai warrior; that stuff is based on archetypal imagery. I take no real issue with that.
Agree on the gladiatorial arena fight; totally silly and didn't really seem to happen for any real reason. It seems Dooku wanted them to escape but no context is given.
The prequels are rife with issues and deserve almost all the criticism they get; my issue in this topic is just because the prequels were bad doesn't mean TFA should get special exceptions on the things it did wrong. Sure you can say you were entertained by it; but as a Star Wars story it is far worse than any of the prequels. And the issues of TFA are much deeper (fundamental) than all the continuity issues of the 3 prequels combined. Example: Rey pulling Jedi mind trick out of her ass.
I just would have preferred it if Anakin's fall to the dark side was more Faustian bargains or political ambition ala Game of Thrones or House of Cards and less a whiny teenager who's mad at his daddy for not letting him drive the car.
Empire Strikes Back showing that the Emperor was a Force user didn't establish any rules at all. All we know is that there are two Sith lords, Vader and Palpatine, not that there can only ever be two or that these are the only two. That's like saying that Jedi can't get married was established when Obi-Wan didn't mention having a wife.
There are loads of other problems with the half-baked lore-building of the prequels, though. The politics is handled clumsily and most of it is done with hand-waves. It wasn't even close to the kind of machinations that go on in top-notch political thrillers.
I brought up the '50s diner as an example indicative of the totality of the movies. The world-building is what I'm questioning. What world building? What was good about it?
You're right: Darth Maul's look wasn't a problem. I think I brought that up because a lot of people LOVED Darth Maul when the movie came out and a lot of people lament that he was so cool and gone too quickly from the stories, but I can't for the life of me figure out what's so "cool" about him. He doesn't do anything. He has no personality (Vader's entrance into Star Wars brought such gravitas that he was instantly established as a character, but Maul remained a bit of a cypher with almost no personality at all).
Yes, Rey should not have been able to do the Jedi mind trick like that. I agree there.
I wish Anakin's fall would have been more focused on his mistrust of the jedi and obsession with expanding his limits and not so much about trying to 'save the one he loves' which was cheesy. I think that the 'hints' were there but it was not the focus and that was a problem of the execution of the ides.
It doesn't explicitly state it is a rule but if it was not a rule why was Vader and Palpatine not training more dark force users? You would think that Palpatine would be expanding his power as much as possible including finding new force users. There seemed to be a 'desire' to limit the amount of force users; looks like an unspoken 'rule'. I think the idea around the jedi can't get married was to make them more 'monk' like, another archetype.
The jedi order (hierarchy, mentorship rituals, etc) was world building, expansion of force powers but within the limits of the established magic system, the whole idea of a rival jedi faction (sith); the old republic senate and corruption leading to the rise of the empire; the idea of the clone army to fight the separatists movement and The emperor playing both sides to consolidate his power. So much of the extended universe content and video games is based the PT and not the OT; there is a lot of good stuff there in terms of concepts, ideas, overarching story, and main narrative. It got muddled up by bad execution (and one could argue that is a fatal flaw, execution is one of the most important qualities).
Yeah, I never got the 'love' for Darth Maul. IMO he was nothing more than a mindless brute that had physical prowess and an intimidating look but nothing beyond that. He worked for what he needed to do in TPM and then dies unceremoniously. I hate that they try to not only build him up to something significant (which was unnecessary) and also bringing him back in the Clone wars, which is just dumb.
that is just one complain; there are so many more reasons that I think TFA is far worse than the entirety of the PT.
I think Palpatine wanted absolute power so he was content with no pupils besides Vader. And, sure, Vader wanted to convince Luke to overthrow the Emperor with him, but that always seemed more political to me than religious.
Yeah, and see I didn't like the expansion of the Jedi. I think it was bungled. In the original films (especially the first one) the Jedi are very close to the samurai of Kurosawa's films, with additional magical powers. Empire and Return did a good job of hinting at the depth of the order. But with the prequels we got a very political council who spoke in "wise" voices. We got an ill-conceived prophecy about a conception. We got classes on lightsabre/blast shield stuff like it was a boarding school.
Likewise, I think the corruption and politics were clumsily grafted on, the clone army stuff was gobbledegook, and so forth.
I haven't played the games or read the books. I've heard good things. I know the Clone Wars TV series is supposed to be really good, too.
But, ultimately, yeah, I'd agree with that statement that the whole thing "got muddled up by bad execution". The idea to expand the Jedi lore is great, but if it isn't done well, it's pointless.
I think maybe the reason why I like TFA more than the prequels is because The Force Awakens xeroxed the plot from the first one and then hit the gas. Yeah, it's unoriginal, and I've always complained about the committee-built aspect of the prequels (and in retrospect, I do give the prequels points for trying. Not enough to like them, but they tried). But, ultimately, it's fun and because I can't take it seriously the changes to Star Wars are easier to ignore. I can ignore its gaffs and its false ending (yes, false: Star Wars ends with Return of the Jedi for me) because it's just a popcorn movie.
Yes, it did seem that way; it was clumsy to make it an 'official rule of the sith' in TPM "always 2 there are" was kind of dumb. But I get what they were going for; Sith suffer no rivals, they keep 1 student to 'reinforce' their authority but everyone else is a servant.
Yes, but I think that was the point; the Jedi order became so political instead of 'religious' sumarai warrior like they caused their own destruction. I think I like the idea of religious institutions that play political games become corrupted in their purpose. The Prophecy stuff was bad; but I get the idea of them wanting to 'cement' in Vader's redemption as some kind of destiny. but i don't like it either. Yeah the 5 year olds with lightsabers was an eye sore. And the idea of Jedi stealing kids away from their families at such a young age is messed up to say the least; but I think (once again) this was examples of the jedi becoming too dogmatic which is why Anakin ends up despising them. I just wished they would have focused on that more.
I am mostly familiar with the games and almost all of them are based on the lore established in the prequels. So the world building was solid (but poorly executed in the films)
It wasn't pointless though, the lore was used effectively in other media; just look at KOTOR for example arguably one of the greatest games ever made (mostly based on Prequel lore).
I had a very hard time liking TFA; you really have to turn your brain off to enjoy the spectacle only. It is so copy pasted from ANH but in every way made worse (mystery boxes instead of plots, flashiness over character development, setting up backstories for characters and then having it have no impact on their personalities (wasted potential), insulting the OT characters and legacy, Negating the victory of ROTJ; then other merits: music was boring and uninspired, the frame rate too high for modern cameras, poor pacing (way too fast), bad character dialogue and interactions, and bad acting.
The original idea was for Anakin's fall to be due to his his mistrust of the Jedi and his obsession with power. However, on viewing the first cut of the movie, Lucas felt that Anakin's turn wasn't convincing. So the whole "saving Padme" subplot was added in pickups and shoehorned into the movie as a Hail Mary. I don't think it works. To me, it's 100% obvious it was added in. But it seems to work for a lot of people....
shareThe save padme subplot was not a good idea. They should focused on his growing distrust and then have the emperor their poisoning him more and more. I mean the way it played out in the film Anakin did not need very much convincing before he is killing the children at the academy (which is kind of ridiculous: 'if you butcher children I will help you save your wife' Anakin: 'cool bro, let me get on top of that right away'. Not good at all.
Lucas needed a good editor to reel him in; that dude went of the deep end with some of his ideas and he tried to do way too much but couldn't make it all fit together.
Agreed
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