Were you around in the late 90s-early 2000s? Because let me tell you that the prequels did not spark joy for people then. It was insane the amount of hate leveled at Ep 1-3. Hell kids at Jake Lloyd’s school bullied him so hard he quit acting.
So you never know, 7-9 might spark joy for people in 20 years.
It’s wild how people pretend that the prequels weren’t hated by a bunch of people. Like, the Plinkett Reviews of the prequels were legendary YouTube videos for years before people started ironically memeing the prequels in, like, 2016.
Speaking as someone who actively despised the prequels when they came out, and has only learned to unclench my teeth in anger at their existence after a long process of maturation and philosophical introspection, I can’t wait to see the next generation of people getting furious when the sequels have been out long enough for new young fans to grow up and embrace them the same way the prequels were. It was horrible and difficult for me to go through, so it’s only fair that others should have to witness that process as well.
I know, right? As a huge Star Wars nerd who was in middle school when 1 came out, I didn’t even bother to go see 2 in theaters, and to this day I still haven’t seen 3 all the way through because I have such a bad taste in my mouth.
In fact, the way Lucas shit all over the established lore and canon to produce such a flaming turd turned me off to the entire IP and I didn’t read a Star Wars book or watch a show/movie until I gave Ep 7 a try because my FiL wanted to see it in the theater. That one I actually enjoyed (contrary to popular opinion), and I’ll say that the first season of Mandalorian and Bad Batch was decent, too. I haven’t seen Andor, but I probably will based on everyone’s reviews.
But the last Star Wars work that I still actually like and that I still think stands on its own two feet was Empire Strikes Back.
It did for me. Darth Jar Jar being the true Sith Lord is head cannon to me.
Cool concept. But george lucas wasnt creative enough for that theory. He almost had an nsync segment in episode one because his daughter liked nsync.
I was a kid when the prequels came out. I remember the hate for them, but most of my friends that were my age all loved them, as did I.
I think people tend to like what they grew up with and dislike what comes out when they are older.
You can see this pattern in Pokemon games as well. I grew up with gen 2 and gen 3. When gen 4 came out, it seemed like everyone hated it. Same with gen 5. But now most people act like gen 5 was the last good one.
Back then we didn’t know how bad it could get. The Prequels were bad, but you know what? The Sequels retroactively made the Prequels look like masterpieces.
No, they were still bad. I thought the same as you and watched them again. It all just felt awkward.
Episode 7 is no masterpiece, but it is infinitely more watchable for me than Episode 1. The initial conflict is just confusing as far as motivation, young Anakin and Jar Jar are both obnoxious as hell, and the acting is not great. The Darth Maul fight and the pod race are about the only parts of the movie that I remember fondly.
Have people actually re-evaluated the prequels now? I genuinely thought everyone was just being sarcastic.
At least 1-3 make sense. Anything after the grand finally doesn’t make sense.
Wait 10 years, and people will make memes and change public opinion about the sequels.
I saw the originals as a child, and thus loved them.
I saw the prequels as an adult, and was kinda meh on 1 but loved 2 and 3.
While still an adult, I felt the same way about 7 and 8 as I did about 1.
But 9? I thought there was something wrong with me at first. I literally couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on that! It still hurts my brain to imagine all those people buying off on that script… It must have been an emperor’s new clothes sort of situation. Such a waste of so many things.
The Last Jedi also has a lot of problems, but The Rise of Skywalker is possibly the worst film in the entire franchise. I’m still annoyed about the fact that they had a better script with a genuinely interesting story (Duel of the Fates), and cancelled it for the shitshow that was Rise of Skywalker.
I found 9 enjoyable, but I had no expectations that it would be good or coherent. 8 made sure that there was no chance of that.
For what 9 had to do in a single movie, it did a reasonable job. Kylo had to be redeemed, Rey needed her jedi moment, an actual threat needed to be established, Leia’s death needed acknowledgement, rebels/resistance needed to be more than 20 people on a ship, poe and finn needed some sort of arc, and the good guys had to win.
What was so wrong with the Last Jedi? I see reactions like this a lot but I thought it was far from being the worst star wars I’ve seen, and as a casual watcher of this series it was one of the few of them I actually enjoyed.
Prequels weren’t great, but they were decent. I’d recommend watching them.
There is a lot to live up to being prequels. People going to judge harshly.
7-8 were just plain bad, I enjoy Star Wars stuff a bunch. I like the prequels more than most I feel. I don’t even have one single care to watch the 9th.
I doubt it will change in 10 years.
Memes, sure, but they will be only how bad they suck. People who meme about the prequels usually enjoyed them at least a little.
I love giving first time watchers the machete watching order. Watch episode 4 and 5, and then watch 2 and 3 to give Vader some backstory after he reveals that he’s Luke’s dad. Then cap it off with episode 6 as the conclusion for Luke’s and Anakin’s story.
Or I can start with Rogue One. I know one of my friends became a fan after watching Rogue One.
The prequels are bad. The third one started getting it right, but then they were done.
They had good ideas to expand the Star Wars lore, but bad acting and bad writing ruined them.
I actually prefer the sequels, but imo The Mandalorian is the best Star Wars project to date.
but imo The Mandalorian is the best Star Wars project to date.
You spelled Andor wrong.
May I introduce you to Knights of the old republic 1 and 2 and the extened media projects?
The difference is that the prequels are still enjoyable, entertaining films with a lot of good aspects.
The sequels aren’t.
3 is great once order 66 starts at least. first half or so of 3 is pretty boring.
I choose to forget about 2 because it was just a load of nothing.
Are we seriously bringing this nonsense over here to Lemmy as well? The ridiculous binarization of the quality of film & TV has utterly killed media discourse. If everything has to be either “amazing” or “trash fire,” there is just simply nothing to be talked about anymore.
Was the OT amazing? Yes, it was. I can get on board there.
Was the PT amazing? No, it was not. Maybe some of it was good, and most of it better than its reputation, but overall the PT was fine. In fact, overall, most content is fine.
Was the ST a garbage fire? No! It was also fine. Some of it was ok, some of it was actually good. But as a whole, it was fine.
Rogue One? Pretty good! Not mind-blowing, not bad, better than “fine.”
Solo? Very watchable. Not bad, worse than “fine.”
The Mandalorian? Quite good! Occasionally mind-blowing, regularly excellent, always better than “fine.”
Ahsoka? Also pretty good! Better than “fine.”
Most media is just fine, and ALL media exists on a spectrum of quality; and pretending like it has to be either mind-blowing or unwatchable dreck makes the whole conversation fall apart. Being able to admit it, and to admit that there are some good elements and some bad elements, or just some things you didn’t jive with, makes you sound more like an adult.
You skipped Andor. In my very subjective opinion, it’s the best thing in the star wars universe since the OT.
The writing is razor sharp, the themes are serious and heavy (how does radicalization happen? What does living under a fascist empire feel like for the average person? What does it mean to be a rebel? How much are you willing to sacrifice?), and it really explores the very early rebellion.
It’s also a great looking series, with lots of practical sets and effects, and it doesn’t retread any familiar planets so they can do cool things with world building.
I actually left out Andor simply because I haven’t finished it. I started it with somebody else and our schedules have never lined up to watch the rest. I’m about to just do it on my own.
Completely agree. My favorite scene in the show is in the first episode when the second in command dude gets told off by the station commander about how the troopers were off doing some shit they shouldn’t be doing and ended up picking a fight with the wrong person. You get everything you need to know about in that series in like 2 minutes of dialogue. You can see the bureaucracy, the dedication/patriotism, the “grey area” where the bad guys are bad but the good guys are bad too. And most importantly no cute fucking animals. We just get a straight up world building story with real humans that treats the audience like real adults capable of complex thought that can understand the nuance of why conflict arrises.
treats the audience like real adults capable of complex thought
Absolutely! Here’s one of my favorite examples of that (spoilers, obviously):
spoiler
Mon Mothma picks her husband up from some kinda party. We’ve been told repeatedly by this point that she suspects her driver of reporting to the ISB. She accuses her husband of gambling, and makes a big scene about wasting money. Right after that scene, it cuts to the driver reporting to the ISB and the ISB guy saying that this might explain her money trouble.
At no point was there dialogue about Mon Mothma’s plan to mislead the ISB and come up with an explanation they might find believable. We’re just presented with who knows what, the action, and the reaction. There’s no need for a monologue about her plan if you trust the audience to put the pieces together themselves.
I generally agree, but
Was the ST a garbage fire? No! It was also fine. Some of it was ok, some of it was actually good. But as a whole, it was fine.
I’m sorry this objectively is wrong. The ST was the definition of garbage fire. There was nothing fine with it.
the objective definition of garbage fire is literal refuse that is aflame. the sequel trilogies are movies, not quickly-oxidizing litter. the phrase can be used subjectively to describe the percieved quality of something, which is what you’re doing here. if you’re going to pedant at least do it right.
OT was great for it’s time, it’s a little lacking now though but still good.
PT was bad for it’s time, but with the advent of meming it has become much better. Also Ep 3 is incredible, imo best star wars film.
Rogue one was pretty good, not mind-blowing but very enjoyable.
Haven’t seen solo.
Mandolorian was phenomenal, with only a couple episodes being a little slow.
Ahsoka was also phenomenal, with no complaints at all.
But the only way for the ST to be even “ok” is if you separate from the rest of star wars. It just doesn’t fit.
Rey beats ren when she first picks up a lightsaber, after having no experience even with a sword. This is the same ren that was trained by Luke and then smoke since birth, and should be all accounts be nearly the best duelist current alive.
They immediately turn ren into a joke by having poe be not even the slightest bit intimidated by an extremely powerful darksider who can melt your brain with the force.
Their choreography was so bad they had to edit out a dagger mid fight or Rey would’ve died.
The dice are both real and not real moments apart.
Hyperspace ramming.(is actually a thing, but also simply isn’t feasible)
Episode 8 was so bad I got turned off star wars for like 2 years, and I still won’t watch somehow palpatine returned" the movie
Rey
beats
barely survives a battle with
ren
moments after he’s been shot by a wookiee bowcaster, which we’ve seen throw stormtroopers off their feet with massive gaping holes
when she first picks up a lightsaber, after having no experience even with a sword.
but extensive and demonstrated experience with a staff
This is the same ren that was trained by Luke
partially
and then smoke
who has no demonstrated skill with a lightsaber
since birth, and should be all accounts be nearly the best duelist current alive.
Which is your headcanon. It’s not supported or implied by the film. In fact, the fact that he his lightsaber is falling apart and running ragged would rather imply that he hasn’t focused much on dueling at all. But even if he is a grandmaster—I bet I could do pretty well against Michael Jordan one-on-one if he had a fresh two-inch bullet hole in his abdomen.
They immediately turn ren into a joke by having poe be not even the slightest bit intimidated by an extremely powerful darksider who can melt your brain with the force.
Which is so very unlike Han Solo, who is not even the slightest bit intimidated by Darth Vader’s interrogation of him in Cloud City.
Their choreography was so bad they had to edit out a dagger mid fight or Rey would’ve died.
Which is so very unlike A New Hope, which features a stormtrooper bonking his head on a door in what’s intended to be a serious moment of threat for the heroes.
The dice are both real and not real moments apart.
Which is so very unlike how Imperial troops don’t care about droids in the escape pod but tthen do care about droids in the escape pod moments apart.
Hyperspace ramming.(is actually a thing, but also simply isn’t feasible)
Hyperspace ramming is amazing and I will die on this hill. Have you seen the xkcd what-if about relativistic baseball? Heavy stuff goin fast makes big boom happen. Finn later says that it’s a one-in-a-million shot, so there’s no way that an understaffed organization like the Rebellion would’ve ever wasted people (even droids) or ships on something so unlikely to work before if there was any other option, and the Empire never needed to.
Plus, the Supremacy had been tracking the Resistance through hyperspace, which means it had to have been slightly opaque to hyperspace to receive a signal, increasing the situationality of the Holdo Maneuver.
Episode 8 was so bad I got turned off star wars for like 2 years,
I was so thrilled that they decided to try some new stuff with TLJ that I became an instant Rian Johnson fan. I don’t think it all works perfectly, but so much of it would’ve been amazing if they had just stuck with it for episode 9.
and I still won’t watch somehow palpatine returned" the movie
I agree that it’s the weakest of the sequels. It might be the weakest of the nine, but that’s a toss-up with AOTC, and I’ll need a few more years to be able to make that assessment objectively.
The bottom line for me is, there’s nothing in any of the ST that ruins it for me. The sequel trilogy is probably the weakest of the saga, but it’s still fine and I’m sticking with that assessment.
FUCKING THANK YOU, there was nothing wrong with or continuity-breaking about the Holdo Maneuver, or most of the things in TLJ people love to bitch about (like Leia’s spacewalk which was pretty consistent with IRL zero-g physics and the character’s established force-sensitivity as well as being a breathtaking cinematic moment) are either conflicts with their personal headcanon (people really be getting mad about the fine points of high-dimensional travel in a cheesy movie franchise about mystical space wizards and writing essays about it and shit) or are not any worse than similar issues the OT itself (ESB has some serious issues with wonky timelines for example). The pacing isn’t great in places but nothing is so jarring as to interfere with my willing suspension of disbelief, and the story didn’t feel beat-for-beat the same as basically the rest of the franchise. TLJ was a breath of fresh air, it’s weird to me how divisive it is despite being one of the higher points in the franchise IMO.
That said, AotC at least had the neat space-opera-noir thing for part of it where Obi-Wan was playing detective, I can’t think of anything redeeming about Rise of Skywalker.
The moderator of this community literally removed my last comment expressing this exact sentiment hahah. People took their toxicity and brought it here. Star Wars is literally serious business in these people’s eyes.
I member when this meme would’ve been OT vs prequels… Now I’m not bold enough to say we’ll ever see the sequels redeemed and considered at least passable/sparks joy, but I’m also old and realize they weren’t really made for me. Then again the prequels kinda were and I kinda hated them as a kid (aside from 3)…
I watched them recently, they’re worse than I remember for sure. There are still fun things about them. But they’re not particularly good movies. I think the same thing can be said about the sequels
This is 100% spot on. They are all a lot of fun and I’ll watch them again at some point, but they’re not good movies. My bar for Star Wars properties, like for other media, comes in two layers:
- Would this be a good movie/show/game/book if it wasn’t set in the X universe? and
- Is this a good movie/show/game/book when compared to the better properties in the X universe?
IMHO, the first one is the more important question and the thing that Star Wars media constantly fails at. Andor was a fucking masterpiece and would have been an amazing piece of prestige television even absent any Star Wars connection. That’s the case with Rogue One and The Clone Wars, as well. The Prequels and Sequels don’t pass muster on criteria 1 and even a few don’t succeed meeting criteria 2.
with the prequels its mostly just the first one. Darth maul is the only good thing it had and they killed him like right off the bat. make 2 one, the clone wars cartoon as 2 and 3 stays three and it would not be to bad a trilogy.
In my opinion the bad movie is really the second one. You can cut that movie almost completely. There’s like 2-3 scenes of actually trilogi plot relevant stuff in there and so much crap. Even as a kid I absolutely hated ping-pong ball Yoda.
The majority sets up the Clone wars tv-series which is great and where you actually see Anakin develop as a character and towards the dark side, the stuff in AotC is just not it.
The dialogue is worse than any other Star Wars movie without any contest. Pretty much every line that gets memed on is from AotC.
It’s an action movie with some cool fighting for sure, but that has never been the appeal of Star Wars to me. As such it’s to this date the second worst Star Wars movie in my book.
Strongly disagree. Episode One was definitely the worst, but the whole trilogy was basically 6 hours worth of a creator having no idea what made his IP successful in the first place while desperately trying to out merchandise Return of the Jedi. They were toy commercials more than they were movies.
Also hot take: Darth Maul was a worthless character and we need to stop perpetuating the idea that he was somehow badass. He showed up for like 3 scenes, killed one equally useless Jedi, then died with a dumb look on his face because he couldn’t hit a guy jumping directly over his head. Except he didn’t die because Dave Filoni thinks he loves Star Wars while feeling the need to retcon everything about it. Boba Fett had more effective screen time and impact on the story than Maul, and we all know how useless Fett is.
Nostalgia is the only reason anyone looks back fondly on the prequels, and I dread the day nostalgia overtakes the sequels and I have to start biting my tongue on those too for fear of backlash.
You want to get back to what Star Wars originally was? Cut 90% of the budget, heavily criticize every creative decision, and treat the entire production like a goddamned venereal disease. Star Wars was a textbook example of art through adversity and benefited hugely from it. That’s what been lost and no one is talking about it.
see that is the the thing about darth maul. his look and lightsaber were so cool. he had massive potential but then as you say he was in for all of 3 scenes and killed.
People love Maul and Fett for the same reason that Alien didn’t show the xenomorph until like the second half of the movie: people’s imaginations will come up with something better than you can make almost 100% of the time. They pop on screen just long enough to look cool and maybe say one or two lines of dialogue to get the fans going, and then disappear. They’re the character equivalents of those lore-bait games that don’t have an actual story, just hints of stuff for fans to make YouTube videos about.
This is the first time I’ve seen praise for the prequels. Weird.
Nah, man. The prequels were mercilessly assaulted on the internet for a long time. There must be a new generation of fans praising them now, or maybe the newer movies are so bad that they make the prequels seem good in comparison, so everyone’s revised their opinions.
Is the “ugly friend” effect. People are even starting phrasing The Hobbit now after the abomination of Amazon. Also, a good story is a good story despise the “PS2” CGI of the old trio.
Just wait until the next Lord of the Rings thing, then people will be saying that Ring of Power was underappreciated at the time.
Actually I already think that, it’s a solid “okay” but people are acting like it broke into their house and burned their copies of The Lord of the Rings
