He’s still on the hook for the special editions which were a worse crime than any of the prequels
I feel like star wars could have gone more into politics and philosophy, maybe flesh out the main story a bit more (aka not spinoff shows). They could have done so much more but of course story and consistency are clearly secondary to magic space wizards swinging around spicy glow sticks.
George Lucas had a missed opportunity to unintentionally radicalize Star Wars fans against capitalism. Seriously.
Then it would be more like Dune 1984. Far more political. I know you said not including spinoffs, but Andor has everything you mentioned in spades minus space wizards and glowing swords.
I would watch andor but I hear the politics are shallow
They are what they are for the universe they’re in, and they are relevant to the OG trilogy as well as 1/2/3. Star Wars is about politics with a hefty dose of Sword and Planet.
Farm boy’s life is upended by brutally authoritarian political entity so he becomes a rebel. Andor, and Rogue One, are what happens behind the scenes that leads up to the big space battle everyone knows in ANH.
People might call Andor shallow because it directly deals with fascism openly and plainly. Maybe the “shallow” commenters prefer not to be reminded of that or that fascism= bad considering modern events. But characters, set design, acting, directing, and story are excellent. A top-tier series regardless of whether or not someone likes Star Wars.
Might pirate it, I don’t have Disney Plus
Arr, matey.
Fuck.
Has there been a Special Edition made of The Phantom Menace and I’ve just missed it?
The problems leading to Episode 1 were good, just it was handled poorly.
deleted by creator
I’m not apologizing, pointing out that the overall problem would make a good story, Episode 1 is a shoddily done piece of shit with a racist character.
Lol. I feel like not depicting characters that speak broken English would be racist. They represent like 5% of the population.
You must have been seething after watching Inglorious Basterds.
Seething for what reason exactly?
“piece of shit with a racist character”
Lucas never was leftist enough to write a good political driven plot as much as he could a rebel based one. He just had too much liberal in him to do it justice.
too much liberal i see in you, yeeess, the liberal side of the force is strong in you
The man is a billionaire now.
exactly. too liberal
Just because it exists doesn’t mean it makes a great story.
The Phantom Menace is worse than every other Star Wars movie to date.
I think it is on par with Rise of Skywalker
Phantom is much better than that piece of shit. So is the Holiday Special though.
It still doesn’t explain WHY the blockade was happening. The horrible forced love scenes that made no sense. “I’m a senator!” As well as rolling around a hill of flowers. Not to mention the rest of all of the prequels and dealing with medichlorions as a medical fact rather than the mythos of force sensitive beings having measured for power. I still enjoy them, no doubt. But they got issues.
The new trilogy had similar issues. People complain about how bad the middle one was - and it was pretty bad - but at least it was setting things up for a more interesting, more complex plotline, like when the one dude was talking about how the same corporations making weapons for the rebels were also manufacturing for the Empire.
And then JJ Abrams took the reins again and… somehow… emperor palpatine returned.
Except that was all wrong. THE empire had its own dedicated ship manufacturers … for instance, Sienar Systems in its various forms made TIE fighters for the empire and first order. That’s it. They made Imperial ships.
Ruin Johnson just didn’t check lore.
I have a hot take and think that 8 is the second best film of the 9. And that is as a film. How he told the stories and the character development. I also loved how Luke finished off Kylo Ren. But I know no one agrees with me on it. So don’t shoot me.
The blockade was happening because Palpatine and Plagueis arranged it. The trade federation said they wanted a better trade deal, but were really there to avoid being killed by the sith (motivation) and to militarily take over the planet (goal given to them by the sith). They likely also had an expectation that they’d get a better deal, which might have been better prices, reduced tarrifs, setting their own tarrifs, exclusivity/monopoly, or anything that could be used to increase their wealth. The specifics weren’t important to the overall plot, main point was that they were attempting to ecnomically dominate Naboo at first and then were financially backing one side of the clone wars and their main motivation was because the sith would kill them if they didn’t (which was their fate in the end even though they did because they were always just tools).
The planet was picked because it was Palpatine’s home planet and he was the senator; it was a false flag attack intended to garnish sympathy that he would leverage for more political power.
The OT was also corny. People who pick apart details like this are thinking too hard.
Yes. The entirety of all filmmakers think too hard about their craft…
I mean… yeah?
You are just jealous that you never rolled down a hill of flowers
Hill of sand just ain’t the same
Also, the theme of unforeseen consequences of individualism and elitism have on a person is spot on for Lucas. Yeah, individualism can be good, especially as someone who came from a collectivist culture where conformity is upheld and loathed it, but I have to admit individualism killed community. It’s one reason for the male loneliness epidemic, which is the low key theme of Star War prequels and how Anakin became Darth Vader. This is alongside with toxic masculinity on keeping a stiff upper lip, and not being attached to emotions including love. The blind worshipping of rationality of elites dismisses emotion, even though the latter is just as real as facts. Corruption also drives populism and the yearning for dictators.
George Lucas presented these interesting ideas and themes, but have done so in such an awkward way on the prequels. I think the amazing action scenes are what lifted and saved the prequel series rather than the heavy themes.
Edit: clarity and formatting
If you don’t mind some spoilers for Jedi: Survivor
Tap for spoiler
Cal decides “The Jedi fucked things up, I’m not beholden to their rules” and starts a relationship in that game. It feels nice
Credit where credit is due. I feel such themes will always be awkward because at the end of the day, they are so fundamental to the human experience that you will always upset someone without even trying when you bring them up.
You have people who hate individualism because they grew up neglected even in their own homes and isolated from any sense of community and family.
You have people who hate collectivism because they were pressured since youth to perform or conform to a specific route.
Both extremes are always wrong, but its important to address by reframing the narrative.
That, for me, has always been the strongpoint of fiction and entertainment.
Fair enough. Don’t ask me to forgive him for his dialogue, though
“I wish I could wish away my feelings”
Most egregious line of the prequels imo. So dumb lol. He couldn’t just Google “other words for wish” or something?
“I wish I didn’t have these feelings” “I wish that these feelings could be taken from me”
Idk George just let someone polish your scripts
Desert boy not having a great vocabulary tho
As if lines like “Open the fucking straight you crazy bastards!” are so much better.
And is Melania’s patois really any less grating than Jar Jar’s?
Meesa nevah go on the LoLo Spressa, no sirree sa!
Honestly I can listen to Jar Jar. I can’t listen to her.
Yeah, his dialogue is coarse and rough and gets everywhere
Not unlike his beard
It is kind of crazy that some of the most quotable movies are accused of having bad dialogue.
It’s quotable because the dialogue is so bad
Nothing can possibly beat Road House in that department. Namely “pain don’t hurt” and “I used to fuck guys like you in prison”.
It’s fascinating how they were able to blockade something in 3d space with something that looked a lot like a 2d structure. Must be some Liu Cixin kind of shit going on there.
I don’t think they have the concept of orbits in Star Wars. Damaged ships just happen to fall into planets all the time.
They usually come out of hyperspace just above the planet so they won’t have orbital velocity.
Why not?
The polarity of the Khyber crystals or something.
A lot of sci-fi suffers from space ships hanging in the air in exactly the way that bricks don’t. Trek does it too.
It exists but isn’t really shown for the same reason reasonable battle tactics are a super power in Warhammer 40k, rule of cool.
I totally think Star Wars could’ve pulled off a more political plot – I actually even think it could’ve been just as good for a popcorn flick as the OT and far better for the people who want deep, complex, meaningful lore while enhancing the OT. Palpatine’s plan to instigate a war and play both sides, to me, is the actually perfect Palpatine backstory. Anakin’s backstory in the (very) broad strokes is extremely compelling too, and Obi-Wan was overall fantastic. Problem is that George completely fucked up the writing, Anakin’s character development and his relationship with Padmé, a lot of the acting, etc., and squandered so much of the potential the premise had.
This new wave of prequel apologia, that, imo, was catalyzed by the influx of memes, is pointing at criticisms of the prequels from like 15 years ago while totally ignoring the more nuanced, well-argued, and – I think – damning criticisms of the modern day. It’s basically strawmanning when the criticisms are so old and so dead.
I’ve always defended the prequels. The OT was an existential fight for survival under the oppression of a tyrannical government. The prequels were a grand political thriller that utilized tragedy to set the stage for the OT. Attempting to view them as within the same sub-genre has always been a mistake.
But tracing the plot from:
“trade guild doesn’t want to pay taxes” -> “blockades a peaceful planet” -> “republic sends knight-diplomats to negotiate” -> “they discover a plot to invade, and an attempt is made on their lives” -> “they escape to the planet, warn some people (and rescue captive government” -> “escape, have an engine failure, wind up in the middle of nowhere where they coincidentally encounter the chosen one and free him from his bondage” -> “trade guild forms full-blown separatist union” -> “chosen one grows up in an apprenticeship as the order or knight-diplomats attempt to manage the situation” -> “both sides secretly build an army, and eventually a clash ignites a full-scale war” -> “war culminates in the destruction of the separatists, albeit at the expense of liberty throughout the republic, which is then declared an empire, as the knight-diplomats are treacherously betrayed and destroyed”
It couldn’t have been any better, in my opinion.
Especially when you trace the thread of Palpatine as:
“senator of blockaded nation (secretly orchestrating the blockade)” -> “Ousts sitting chancellor and takes his place” -> “Secretly orchestrates separatist movement building an army” -> “Uses ensuing war to claim emergency powers” -> “Gradually consolidates power throughout the war until he becomes a de facto dictator” -> “Subtly manipulates the chosen one to gain his loyalty and plague him with fears about his loved-one” -> “Use his emotions to turn him to the dark side, reveals himself as a Sith lord, and orchestrates the betrayal and destruction of the Jedi Order” -> “Declares himself emperor” -> “Secretly builds a weapon of mass destruction” -> “Uses it to rule through fear and eventually dissolves the senate.”
Scrutinizing the screenwriting and acting is fair, but I think it misses the point. Monet wasn’t famous for his brush strokes. If you go to an art museum, and examine his paintings under a magnifying glass (you might get yelled at to stand behind the invisible line), you’ll probably wonder why he’s so famous. Back up a few paces, and look at the whole painting, and suddenly you’ll get it.
For me, the prequels aren’t about the acting. They’re about the plot. And I find it expertly crafted.
Idk if you can just ignore the acting in a movie, but I’ll also always defend the prequels to some degree. Yes, George Lucas missed in terms of the tone, but as you said at it’s core there is a compelling story. Unlike the sequels that have some great visuals, but completely fail in terms of story.
I mean they would certainly have been better with better acting, but my point was that if you look at the big picture, it holds up. You just might have to squint a little to blur out some of the finer details…
But yes, I think we can all agree that the sequels were criminally shit. High production costs ≠ good movies…
I agree that the prequels could have been great movies they just got hampered by the fact that George Lucas did not have a co-director who is allowed to tell him no
His first wife saved Star Wars in the editing bay. He was wise to let others direct Empire and Jedi.
Agree with your comment mostly, but I think the prequel apologia is catalyzed by all the kids who watched when they were less than 10 years old becoming adults a decade ago, and remembering them through the rose-tinted lens of nostalgia.
In the prequel heyday Lucasfilm absolutely deluged the world with toys and cross-marketed products, those kids were surrounded by it and of course watched the films, saw the cool parts, and didn’t understand enough to see that the films were very flawed from an adult perspective.
I blame Weird Al, personally. I can’t listen to The Saga Begins without legitimately wanting to watch that movie at least a little.
As a late millennial who was less than 10 when the (first two) prequels came out, and has now been an adult for roughly decade, I still maintain that the prequels are completely okay and I will die on that hill.
Yeah, Anakin was a whiny kid. So was Luke, so that’s another thing they share in common. And his emotional instability set the stage for his turn to the dark side.
Could some things have been done better? Sure. But the prequels were still a really good political thriller/tragedy. Arguably even a masterpiece.
I’ve always loved the third prequel, it’s such a great film, easily best out of all the star wars movies. I know that always makes a lot of people scream, but the whole thing is so perfectly tacky and has so many unnecessary little details visually and plotwise and I just love aaaall of it. It’s absolutely hilarious, a lot better than purposefully made comedies. The acting fits amazingly well with the tone constantly and randomly switching between comedy and tragedy, and almost every single line and scene in there has such meme potential, 10/10.
As a bonus treat it even has visually the best space flight and lightsaber fighting scenes out of all the movies! What’s there not to love? I don’t understand why would anyone ever apologize for liking it lmao
edit// oh, and if I called it “revenge of the sith” nobody would even know which movie I’m talking about, since you have to go through hoops to even link the name to the plot. That’s like the cherry on the cake!
I agree, and i think it’s more than just nostaliga. All the additional media/shows added so much extra context, which makes the movies seem better then they actually are, because it tends to get blended together in people’s minds growing up.
Characters like Anakin or Darth Maul, who are wrtten absolutely terribly in the movies are much more liked because of shows like Clone Wars, which influenced the way people remember the movies additionally to the nostalgia.
Yeah that’s a great point. Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars did an amazing job expanding and legitimizing the plots and characters introduced in the prequels.
I’ve not seen the clone wars, but I found the prequel to be more engaging. Tho I didn’t really watch much star wars growing up. I caught up as an adult.
I’d always thought it was catalyzed by the widespread shitposts which were then seen by kids who’d never watched or been exposed to the prequels before. The kids, in my interpretation, took the tongue-in-cheek love for the prequels and the way the meme community would twist the prequels’ flaws into strengths (under 7 layers of irony) and adopted it as an unironic love for them.
One of the scenes that bothers me the most is where Anakin states that from his perspective, the Jedi are evil, and then gives zero reasons. But it would be trivial to explain himself.
The Jedi are a religious organization that wields great authoritarian political power, often unilaterally, including later as we observed, political assassinations. They’re obsessed with finding people who are chosen at birth and have a policy of rejecting anyone who is too old to be fully indoctrinated.
They’re basically fascists. If you ever eliminated the sith, the next thing you’d want to eliminate are the Jedi.
How much more interesting would it be if they actually presented the Jedi, including their inherent flaws?
That’s arguably true, albeit a rather uncharitable interpretation of canon, but I don’t think Anakin is capable of articulating it at that point.
I mean, that’s a calm and logical argument about the flaws in the Jedi Order.
The trouble is, Anakin has gone full Sith at that point and is running off emotion - “the Jedi are evil because they treated me like shit, they killed my mother, they want to kill my wife and child, and they’re trying to overthrow and execute the one person who ever treated me like a human being”.
As bad as the dialogue in that scene is, it would be worse if Anakin stopped to debate philosophy in the middle of his rage-fueled murder attempt.
In my own personal opinion, there are at least two major things that bring the prequels down:
-
The pacing sucks. They tried to cram too much shit into three movies, and the Episode 1 was kind of a wash for character development because they spend the entire movie simply introducing us to the main characters for the next two films. If they had either spread it out over more films or narrowed their scope a little more, it would have been a much more enjoyable viewing experience.
-
The dialogue is bad. The wooden acting, flat delivery of the lines, and lame slapstick I attribute to George being high off his own supply - both fans and the creative team puffing him up and telling him what a genius he is when what he really needed was someone in the room to step in and write and direct for him when he was clearly having issues with both late into production. Just in general he needed someone to tell him “No” from time to time.
There are probably more things than that, but just taking the prequels in a vacuum and not considering their greater impact on the lore, those are the two most glaring issues with them. Supplemental media spends a lot of time trying to plug plot holes and lore inconsistencies that were created by the prequels.
Overall I think they are decent but flawed films. I never thought that the political intrigues were bad, but they could have shown us more and told us less to really drive the point across.
I’ve long said that EpII should have been two films, with the first part being “Episode I” of the saga (basically ignore The Phantom Menace entirely). End with us seeing both the beginning of the Clone Wars and dealing with Anakin having a dark side when he murders the Tuskens. Second part is full-on clone wars, Anakin’s growing relationship with both Padme and Palpatine. It ends with Anakin’s turn to the dark side (“rhyming” with the dark cliff-hanger ending of Empire). Final film is Anakin hunting down and killing Jedi, with Obi-Wan on his tail.
Attack of the Clones crams way too much into its run-time and Revenge of the Sith presents Anakin’s turn to the dark side as something way too sudden. Plus it completely undercuts Obi-Wan’s dialogue in A New Hope about Vader being the one who hunts down and kills the Jedi.
This all being said, having watched the whole thing in “Machete Order” a few times in recent years with my kids, I have to say that Phantom Menace is probably the best prequel film. The use of practical effects is more frequent, the story is a bit tighter, the score is truly phenomenal, and Qui-Gon Jinn is just the best.
-
Like so many other franchises, fanfic has often done a better job than canon. Maybe not fair, as the canon usually happened first, but the start of the prequels could indeed have been better.
Footage of Vance during the negotiations:
Star Wars Kid deserves better than to be compared to the VP
Star Wars Kid was so ahead of his time. Nowadays, that video would just be the first in a series called “can I train to be a Jedi in 30 days using only household objects?”
This made me go look it up out of curiosity, and apparently Star Wars kid is 38, Vance is 41. Close enough.
That’s wild and kind of makes me want to see him do “Star Wars middle age man.”
Dude has to get up for work tomorrow, he doesn’t need the shoulder and back pain just for your entertainment.
Source: similar age, sore shoulder from randomly sleeping on it “odd”
But maybe if somebody would place a nice stick or broom near him he couldn’t resist.
Ha, that’s fair and very considerate of you!
I miss the days when the scariest part about sleep was just nightmares…
he was busy surveying the persian couches in iran.
And it’s like we sent Jar Jar Binks to negotiate for us.
Sigh. An administration both evil and incompetent. I swear, the U.S. has had such bad luck with its recent government you’d think we’d built the nation on an ancient Indian burial ground or something…
Meesa thinks itsa not okee-day!
So send sith lord Binks?
Jar Jar is a fine diplomat in universe. JD is unironically worse than Jar Jar is in canon.
He was supposed to be a sith lord which makes this comparison even funnier
That’s just a fan theory, but I never bought into it. I just don’t find it convincing. Was it ever confirmed?
Lucas chickened out. He’s the only director I know to makes multiple changes to a film post release.
With Jar Jar there’s an interview soon after the first prequel where he heavily implies and says Jar Jar will be important
Implying “Jar Jar will be important” is not the same as declaring him a Sith lord.
He was important, because he nominated Palpatine to be chancellor. He was key to the plot, unbeknownst to himself. That’s because he was silly and gullible, not evil…
It was a skill that Jar Jar had to learn. One of several, in fact. Watching the Clone Wars, he goes from being an incompetent clown to a competent one.
…yeah. About that…
Is JD Vance a secret Sith Lord? Stay tuned to find out!
its pronounced Shitlord
Oh well that’s already well established.
The base idea doesn’t make the writing and direction any less terrible
the blockade was the least offensive thing about TPM.
TPM
(I thought you meant me for a second)
If I enable you in my motherboard, Windows 11 is gonna get installed automatically 😔
That’s a heavy burden to carry
You’re gonna carry that weight…
… A long time
Oooh, that’s why I don’t get this reference. It’s from one of the first three “episodes”.
Hopefully this war will be limited to droids vs clones
Now you have two corner stones of future politics: are clones people? Do droids have personhood and do they have rights?
But how would that kill innocent people?
Wouldn’t the clones be innocent people?
