crash landing

TPM is my favorite from Prequels for those reasons - Qui Gon Darth Maul

May have been cause I saw it in cinema when I was 12 so goes with the kids film even if I still love it at 30

I tolerate where its not a like or hate

a new hope

I strongly dislike

crash landing

Oh all 3 of the prequels?

a new hope

Yep. There are some saving graces on each, but the general feeling on them for me is strong dislike.

sum1

Crystal Clear

I can't stand TPM. It looks like a cartoon, the acting is stiff all around, and Natalie Portman's accent... What on earth...


And Darth Maul had like zero impact as a villain. Maybe this wouldn't be such a big deal, if only the marketing hadn't promoted him like he was the ultimate Big Bad, but

sum1

The later two Prequels all the more so. AOTC and ROTS have a visual style so bad that even the live action people look like bad CGI and the acting is utterly flat. Dooku is probably Christopher Lee's worst performance and Palpatine gets even worse in the later half of ROTS. Padme is ruined as a character in AOTC and ROTS. And words cannot encompass how bad Hayden's Anakin is.

Crystal Clear

Agreed. This trilogy never strove to be anything greater than average. I think the best thing about it was the striking landscape visuals but it was so OTT on the CGI that it made all the people look ridiculously fake and I couldn't bear how even well-established actors didn't bring their A game acting-wise. It all felt phoned-in.


I hate that Christopher Lee is associated with this (I will always think of him as the accomplished Hammer Horror actor) and I think Ian McDiarmid is the only one who tried to give a complex performance in the prequels, even though his character blows up into a bad guy out of nowhere in ROTS.

I totally agree that Padme has no worth beyond being Anakin's love slave after TPM She sits around rejecting him in AOTC then she spends all of ROTS sitting around, waiting for him.

What I don't understand is how people try to justify Hayden's strange performance in these movies as "Blame George Lucas' direction and scripts! Christensen is good in other things."

....Wait. So, because he's been good in things years after the Prequels, that means he was great in Star Wars?

He had like two expressions throughout the whole thing. Grumpy and pained. Worst of all - when he tried to be seductive, it came off as creepy. Moreover, Anakin's turn to the Dark Side is one of the swiftest and carelessly handled plot devices I've ever seen.

a new hope

I think the prequels had the ability to get outstanding actors like Samuel and Christopher and turn them into caricatures.

sum1

Samuel L Jackson was so awful in the Prequels. It seems to me that Lucas strove to make them as bad as possible. Comments have come out of Lucasfilm such as Rick McCallum (Lucas's right-hand man) saying that they set out to make TPM in a way that nobody who liked the original films or was over 18 would like it, and the comment from Lucas on how he was going to make the AOTC romance so that men or anybody with any cynicism wouldn't like it (big insult to women there, btw).

McDiarmid declines into horrible hamming in the second half of ROTS. It's just grotesque. And his makeup was just awful.

If you want to see Christopher Lee at his best, watch the 1997 BBC Ivanhoe mini-series. He plays a Templar knight leader there, a fanatical bigot, and it's really impressive.

They destroyed her as a character, particularly in her death.

I've seen Hayden in other films and I've found that he's only good at portraying weakness and I've found all his performances (that I've seen, which is many) to be deficent in one way or another. I think his talent is pretty limited and I think Lucas got the worst performance possible out of him, because that's what Lucas was doing with actors then.

Crystal Clear

Samuel L. Jackson was that 1990's actor who was literally in everything. That's the problem with the Star Wars prequels - it became more about the Star Talent than the actual importance of the characters.

Agreed about McDiarmid And the Yoda - Palpatine fight was quite frankly bizarre. So many of the lightsaber duels felt like something in a kid's show.

Padme was treated first and foremost as the love interest. What I loved about Han and Leia's relationship was that it took nothing away from their personalities. They could be snarky and self-sufficient but still love each other without NEEDING each other... Whereas Padme's only reason for being in Star Wars was to serve as Anakin's turn to Darkness.

Anakin's turn to Darkness annoyed the hell out of me. There's no way that Anakin wouldn't have at least tried talking to Obi-Wan about his dreams. They're acting like brothers one minute then in a fight to the death 20 minutes later - poor script-writing.

I felt as if Hayden had no clue how to play Anakin. He played him as stiff and detached, and I suppose in some way it fit with the notion of Jedi as "they shall not know love", but still - it's hard to take much of what he does in these movies seriously.

That scene in ROTS when he's killed Samuel L. Jackson's character, his reaction: "What did I DOOOO?" was so over the top, and then he's all "I will submit myself to you, Master" just seconds later. The acting and the character motivations were a complete mess.

sum1

That fight was a joke. It was like a kids' cartoon. Dreadful scene.

Yeah, the treatment of Padme was very sexist. Plus ROTS pushed the message that love makes you turn evil and kill kids. Ridiculous stuff.

It was very unconvincing.

I'd say it's impossible to take seriously any of what he does in those movies. Particularly dreadful is his delivery of lines such as "You underestimate my POWerr!"

And then Ian hams it up and goes "Goood!"

a new hope

omg that's embarasing even to read, I kinda erased those things from my mind

sum1

Yeah, it was dreadful. And there's always the sand line.

sweet creature

The sand line, omg. :')) That probably wins worst line from the movies lmao.

The only great things about the prequels is that they gave us these amazing honest trailers, have you seen them?