Star Wars Prequel Hate Taken To Absurd Levels?

I think Star Wars prequel bashing has been taken to absurd levels. It has been very fashionable to crap on them. Bandwagon hatred at its finest. I think it is very misguided and taken too far. Basically, the prequels aren't as bad as the Star Wars fanboy would love you to believe. Plot holes? Very easy to fill and explain away...all of them. Haters would have you believe the plots holes are so big and unexplainable you can look down the hole and see China. They claimed they were "for children". Did they forget who the audiences were for the Original Trilogy and the ages thru were when they saw them? That goes right over their heads. They say too much CGI when in reality they'd hate any CGI. To the CGI complaint I say "Get over it!" It's a petty complaint. Same with Jar Jar. Hating him is petty and misguided. People need to get over their hatred of characters like his.

I don't see any valid reason for such a passionate hatred for them. The films are way better than the haters would like you to believe.

Do you think the hate has gotten to absurd levels?

 

I disagree.

 

Buddy Holly was playin for the kids also

 

Actually yes. The Prequels weren't great over all, (and TPM was especially subpar) but if you take them on their own merits without comparing them to the original trilogy, they are pretty servicable, if a little overproduced and dry, trilogy of sci fantasy films, and definitely not as dreadful, as say the Transformers films.

I think the main issue is I think is that The Phantom Menace was SO overhyped in 1999 that everyone's expectations were brought to such a frenzy, and the let down was so huge when it was clear it was not the movie people expected or wanted, that that bad will rubbed off on the other two, fairly and unfairly. They still made a ton of money though and were the top grossing movies of their perspective years (I think), so there was still a repeat business, so SOME people did like them, a lot more than would admit so.

I personally think there are some strong things in the prequels. While Hayden Christensen couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, and Natalie Portman was wasted mostly, Ewan Mcgregor actually did a pretty decent job as ObiWan, especially in Episode III. In fact most of Episode III was pretty good, and I would say ranks ahead of Return of The Jedi in the Star Wars pantheon.

 

I agree with this disagree! I think there is far more hate to come and some of that hate maybe justified!

 

To be honest I avoided the original films til the 'nineties, just wasn't really interested in them at the time. Then if something was really popular, that kept me away, I was contrary like that. I saw them in the mid-'nineties and was "Meh." A friend got me to the theaters to see the new trilogy. I prefer them, they seemed better films to me.

I know this is not a common or popular opinion here!

 

That opinion would carry more weight with me because it's not under the influence of nostalgia.

 

Well you certainly dont speak for me. In my humble opinion, the prequels are VERY very bad indeed, regardless of whether one is a Star Wars 'fanboy' (or girl!), or an admirer of cinema and film-making in general. To air one's disdain doesn't make them a 'hater' (I loathe those petty terms!). They look very pretty (in places, where the CGI and 'let's fill EVERY inch of screen space with stuff happening because we can', doesn't swamp the screen) and are technically well made of course, and George Lucas had THE BEST talent that money could buy across the board, and yet they're very poor films that just do not hold together well (and one shouldn't have to need to read novels, comics and watch CGI animated TV series to fill in the blanks in an attempt to make the films seem better than they were! That's retcon damage control basically!).

The original films didn't take themselves too seriously, they were FUN, a wild ride! They didn't become successful and regarded as classics by accident. A perfect combination of talent across the board, not to mention a cast with REAL chemistry and charisma, with the end result being WAY bigger than the sum of its parts. Everything that's good about Popcorn blockbuster entertainment. The prequels, at least in my opinion, are basically animated computer-game-esque films that try to masquerade as something deeply thought out, but are an utter rancid mess of story-telling. It begins and ends with the scripts, and the scripts for all three desperately needed a polish and revision to ground them. Tonally they're an utter mess too. the biggest crime of all is the handling of Anakin Skywalker. This should have been a real tradgedy to see him turn to the dark side. Instead he's an utter pain in the ass (and rather sinister looking) from the very start of Attack of the Clones. I never took to the character at all. Nobody I knew then, or now, felt the slightest twinge of sympathy for him when Obi-Wan cut off his arm and legs and left him to frazzle. THIS should have been a classic moment of cinema, and Star Wars, where there wasn't a dry eye in the house and we all felt gutted by what happened. Instead my response was, he deserved it, and thank godoness that's over, can I go now please and watch something decent?
Awful films...

 

No, not at all. They are without question the greatest movie disappointments of all time. I think "Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones" (I never saw the third) are breathtakingly bad films, the transmutation of an epic story of adventure into mind-numbingly tedious tripe, almost uniformly wooden acting, and cloying condescension.

 

I completely agree with you. Some of the common complaints I hear:

- bad acting. Really? And the acting was superb in the original trilogy??

- bad toilet humour. Again, there wasn't toilet humour in the original?

- boring plot, especially regarding the trade disagreement. In my opinion, they had to explain why the "bad guys were bad guys". There had to have been a back story, and yes, it wasn't overly exciting, but it explained an awful lot. It wasn't as bad as people made it out to be

- midi chlorians. Meh, I really didn't care about this. So what.

- CGI. I would've prefered puppets and models like the original, but really, it didn't bother me that much.

Did I like the prequels better than the originals?? Not at all. But, I still really enjoyed the prequels and watch them often. Keep in mind, "most" of us saw the originals as kids, and you can't argue with nostalgia. When my kids get older and if they see all 6 movies, I wonder if they will have a preference for their favourites?

 

Trade disputes? Senate hearings? Separatist movements?

Yeah, those are the kinds of things a Star Wars fan wants to see....

 

The original trilogy was made with love and enthusiasm, the second trilogy was made with delusions of grandeur and megalomania - and it still stinks to high heaven!

So the answer is, no, every bit of hate was well deserved.

 

So much talent and money produced so much crap.

That's the big shame.

That one shot of Lucas and Rick Whatsisname sitting at the end of the first screening of TPM from the 'Making of' stuff says it all. You can tell they knew they screwed up big time. Anyone with any sense would have just quit right there.

 

I'd say the original films are a bit overrated.

 

Some folks take this stuff way to seriously. Years ago, an Amazon customer review stated that one of the prequels (I don't remember which one) raped his childhood. Geez....

 

I truly hate Jar Jar Binks.

 

There's no room for hate in this world.

 

The biggest disappointment for me was realising that the one person who really didn't understand what people loved about the original films, was/is George Lucas himself. I shall always love the original versions of THX1138, American Graffiti, the original Star Wars films, but I think the man became a victim of his own successes and (industry) power. You need somebody to reign you in a little, and to say, 'no that really sucks', but he had nobody like that for the prequels. They suffered. In my very humble opinion, he's not a very good story teller, but he's a tremendous ideas man, and visualist.

 

I understand where you're coming from Lonnie but I saw Star Wars in 1977 at age 7, nothing could have prepared me for the ride I had with the film. Three years later, The Empire Strikes Back was the first movie I got to see in English (I'm French Canadian) and not only was it a better film all around, but I was also older and could feel it's dark and desperate vibe more. Nothing had been done on that level before, and I had see a lot of Sci-Fi like The Planet Of The Apes films and older stuff like Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Star Wars and Empire had really good stories and some amazing actors. Let's not forget the impact that Industrial Light And Magic's special effects and John Williams' music had on the industry and on movie goers.

 

Like it or not you had to show the demise of the Republic and rise of the Empire. The Original Trilogy hinted at such. Telling that story would have been essential no matter what when it came to making the prequels.

 

True for "Phantom Menace" and "Sith" but not "Clones" - "Spider-Man" was 2002's biggest movie.

Actually, "Clones" only made it to third place for 2002 - "LOTR: Two Towers" did better as well.

Kinda crazy to think that of 6 films, only one wasn't its year's biggest.

It'll be very interesting to see what happens with E7 next year - 2015 looks packed with BIG BIG BIG movies, so E7 easily could end up out of first place...

 

I agree with the OP that the PT gets more bashing than it deserves. No, the movies aren't great, though "Sith" is very good. Still, if these had been movies under a banner other than "Star Wars", they'd have been better received than they were. The anti-PT criticisms have always been out of touch with the quality of the films themselves...

 

Hey, only my mother could get away with calling me Lonnie, and she passed away last week, God bless her, so now no one can!

I don't think that I would have been into the movies had I gone to see them at the time. Even then they were two "space opera" and cheesy for me. I had gone through a lot of science fiction and become a huge Philip K. Dick nut. . . that was the type of movie I wanted to see, but nothing of that nature came til '82 and beyond.

They just don't impress me, but I can see the appeal for many others!

 

To me the biggest problem with the prequels is that they weren't necessary.
Sometimes a backstory should remain unseen. These movies couldn't possibly measure up to expectations, in any case.

 

Did not mean any disrespect. Sorry to hear about your loss.