The scripts are awful, the directing was even worse which led to godawful performances, no chemistry, no believability. The effects were ok, the sets and designs were straight up plagiarized from Dinotopia and then covered up, Lucas refused to acknowledge the EU (despite some great history written, better than anything he came up with) and made up crap like midechlorians and Jango Fett....bleh! So many things wrong with each movie. I wanted to love them. I tried. I can't.
I will admit the EU still has a bunch of material that is dying to be used. The whole KOTOR series and all those things..I am STILL waiting for someone to realize it would be awesome to make a tv series set around those times, etc. Everyone thinks either they have to do things that take place during the clone wars or after them or more or less in a time around the original trilogy, but there are so many other great characters they could bring in from other era's.
Or if you ARE going to do movies about Star Wars that take place more or less around the timeline of the original trilogy..then do things like do the stories where Jacen Solo turns into a Sith Lord, etc. There is some great stuff there. Don't just give us an aging Mark Hamil and Harrison Ford and call it a day.
Say what you will about the prequels, but Ewan McGregor killed it as Obi Wan Kenobi.
[QUOTE=!Pharozonk!;14674]Say what you will about the prequels, but Ewan McGregor killed it as Obi Wan Kenobi.[/QUOTE]
That's why I would love it if they adapted John Jackson Miller's novel [u]Kenobi.[/u]
this is why...
[IMG]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1QTOfq40XDI/SwdKL_Wp6TI/AAAAAAAAFew/USnoTDcostw/s1600/george.jpg[/IMG]
The prequels lack all the heart and soul the original trilogy had.
They had a few cheesy moments and bad acting like others have already described. Plus I wasnt a huge fan of the overuse of CGI instead of tangible props and puppet effects like the earlier films. I will say the films werent a total loss though. Darth Maul was pretty cool.. but killed off way too soon imo.
The Sad thing is Lucas thinks they where better then the original. And thats why I'm scared for these new ones.
[QUOTE=JediMindTrick;14039]The bad actually starts with Return of the Jedi.
The original idea instead of Ewoks was a planet of enslaved Wookies that the rebels would free and who would help. Then Lucas decided to go all cutesy instead with Ewoks. Little moments of humor were fine in the first two movies but they weren't overdone. The Ewoks were over the top and cheesy. Lucas then double downed in Phantom Menace with even more cheese and Jar Jar Binks. It utterly backfired. If not for Phantom I don't think Clones and Sith would be viewed so badly but Phantom drags them down by association. Sadly there is a good movie in Phantom if you take out all the Jar Jar and about half the Anakin parts.[/QUOTE]
I couldn't agree more, the Ewoks were the start of the SW downfall, then going back and adding in Greedo shooting first as well as the dance scene in Jabba's palace were awful decisions, then he followed it up with Jar Jar Binks and Hayden Christensen. However, not all his add ins for the original trilogy were bad, by adding the windows at Bespin instead of the gray walls I think enhanced the scene.
First movie, Jar Jar.
Second movie, a love story with two character who have negative chemistry awkwardly reading bad dialogue.
3rd movie. People liked this, it was almost as funny as the second one though.
[QUOTE=BeastieRunner;14055]I think if Anakin was older (closer to Luke's age), more Clone Wars was shown, and Vader appeared sooner to cause some mayhem ... people would've been happier. Frankly, that's what a lot of expected, myself included.[/QUOTE]
I'd agree with most of this, especially to lessen age gap between Anakin and Padme, which I always found a bit creepy, way it starts in TPM and continues from there. Always nwill have started when he was a child, her a teenager, essentially.
The bond began then, though the relationship only truly in AOTC.
At least, though one now no longer canon, other still canon, we have two Clone Wars animated series to enjoy for that, but, yes, seeing more of that in the films would've been nice, rather than beginning in AOTC, near end in ROTS and then over. Bit of a shame, and could've done with a bit more exploration, though it does lend itself nicely to a weekly format.
Also, how soon do you mean, for Vader? Earlier in the PT, or in ROTS, as it can't necessarily be too early, as Anakin has to be developed beforehand, and learn his motivations for becoming the Sith Lord we know, and the circumstances that led him there?
Terrible script and bad acting. There's so many other problems with the prequels but having those 2 basics fail will kill a movie.
Jar Jar. Well more than Jar Jar. Most of the arc for Anakin was pretty awful.
But there is young Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu and Count Dooku. And the lizard Obi-Wan rides in Episode III. I've happily erased most of this series from the brainpan.
Somewhere in the process George forgot what made Star Wars so much fun. It could be pure entertainment, a fun space opera, a treatise on faith etc.
Oh well.
[QUOTE=Yellow Lantern 15;13626]I was going to ask this question before the old board went down, but I guess I will start here. As it stands the Episode 1,2,3 movies are often dissected by Star Wars fans and movie critics very badly. Many have pointed to their flaws and offered better solutions and complete rewrites.
While I admit that they are not perfect movies and certainly do not measure up to the original trilogy, they are not the worst movies that I have ever seen ( and I have seen plenty of bad movies). So CBR community why do you think the prequels get a lot of hate?[/QUOTE]
I think they get a lot of hate because they're incredibly bad movies. Across the board they're bad. Bad character, uninteresting framing, boring action scenes, terrible writing, crappy pacing; they're bad in almost every way they could be bad. Hell, the prequels were meant to be all about Anakin's fall to the dark side, three movies...[I]three[/I], and the prequels [I]never[/I] get to the point. I don't know, maybe George Lucas thought he was making Tristram Shandy. Oh yeah, and the [I]acting[/I], I didn't even know Hayden Christensen could act until Shattered Glass.
But you're right, they aren't the worst, they aren't Sharknado (although both are depressing in there own ways). Then again, Sharknado isn't the sequel to Jaws.
Well the inconsistencies between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy are obviously part of the reason why.
That being said I've never really hated the prequels, like just about everyone else, I do find them inferior to the original trilogy, but I enjoy them regardless. One of the things I'll give the prequel trilogies is that they had a more interesting political view to them compared to the originals.
I agree with much of what's been said about Jar Jar and bad acting, but would also add that the original trilogy told a complete and coherent story that had a beginning, middle, and end, with characters whose motivations made sense and who you wound up caring about. The prequels, on the other hand, didn't really do this. We're told that Obi Wan and Anakin are friends, but they actually seem to hate each other. Padme falls in love with this whiney murderer, despite the fact that he seems more like a stalker than a suitor. And Episode II makes a big deal out of the mystery of who ordered the creation of the clone army, but then this subplot just disappears entirely-- I'm told that it was resolved in a tie-in novel, but if I'm going to watch a film trilogy, I want to get the whole story in 6 hours plus I'm investing in these films. Especially considering just how much fat could have been trimmed-- a pod race that goes on forever, an endless series of CGI-created spaceships landing, Hayden and Natalie staring at each other vacantly, etc.