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[Princess Magnificent]

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the fights in the Clone Wars series. They're visually impressive, sure, but they're too...ridiculous. The animators don't have to worry about stuff like gravity, so everyone keeps fighting the same way Yoda fought in Attack of the Clones. Like everyone knows that more epic = more airtime.

Also, they're all inconclusive because all the people in the fight have to make it alive to Revenge of the Sith, and they almost all end with the more evil person in the fight deciding they're tired of the whirly stalemate and just using Force Lightning to win, which always surprises everyone.

 

[sphagnum]

The problem I have with the Old Republic as currently depicted (in BioWare stuff) is that it's supposed to be a thousand years or something before the main timeline but all the tech is pretty much the same. Maybe they've peaked or something but I dunno, we've come a long way in a thousand years so what have the Star Wars guys been doing?

Whenever they get around to the canon version of stuff during the Old Republic, it will be different aesthetically, that I'm sure of. I hope they take inspiration from Tales of the Jedi, which had a good idea about what a "historical" era might look like. KOTOR missed the mark.

 

[Randam]

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the fights in the Clone Wars series. They're visually impressive, sure, but they're too...ridiculous. The animators don't have to worry about stuff like gravity, so everyone keeps fighting the same way Yoda fought in Attack of the Clones. Like everyone knows that more epic = more airtime.

Also, they're all inconclusive because all the people in the fight have to make it alive to Revenge of the Sith, and they almost all end with the more evil person in the fight deciding they're tired of the whirly stalemate and just using Force Lightning to win, which always surprises everyone.

Letting Yoda fight like a bouncing ball, letting him fight at all was one of the worst ideas Lucas had..

 

[Dhruv_hanom]

Letting Yoda fight like a bouncing ball, letting him fight at all was one of the worst ideas Lucas had..

Small green bouncing ball of death!
Like i said before, giving yoda or palpy a lightsaber was a wrong wrong decision. Both of these characters seem to have so much knowledge of the force that lightsaber combat should have been beneath them.

 

[Princess Magnificent]

Yeah, that's why I'm also not a huge fan of Clone Wars's episode where Palpatine dual wields and flips out like a ninja against Darth Maul and Savage Opress.

Christ, that name.

 

[120v]

i always found the movie interesting in its pretense, thinking this little kid will one day be living in an iron lung, blowing up planets. most of these people will be dying horrible deaths. ect

could've done a better job making you care about these characters but i liked the concept "you like your whimsical kiddy space adventure? well fuck you wait til you see little anny's flesh burn off"

 

[Chuckie]

I just re-watched the PT this weekend.

TPM: The podrace and Maul fight are still awesome. Qui Gon is an ok character. Jar-jar is annoying but I can ignore him. I don't really mind kid Anakin. I think he's a cute little fellow although the 'Yippieeee'-s do get annoying.
I saw TPM in theaters when I was 19 and I was ok with it back then.

AotC: This is still a piece of steaming shit. CGI everywhere, that fucking Dexter with his dumb-ass moustache and that godawful droid factory scene.
Only redeeming qualities: Slave One and its seismic charges.
I saw it in theaters with my brother and we were both extremely disappointed. Looked at each other thinking...what the fuck did we just watch?

RotS: It has some cool scenes. I like Order 66 and the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise. The transformation to Vader is still way too fast and totally unbelievable. Also the way they try to link everything to the OT in the end feels kind of forced.
When I saw it in the theaters I remember thinking: Well at least it wasn't as shit as AotC.

 

[curiouscharles]

Also the way they try to link everything to the OT in the end feels kind of forced.
When I saw it in the theaters I remember thinking: Well at least it wasn't as shit as AotC.

ha, i remember thinking to myself after the first 5/10 minutes of TPM [in cinemas, when it came out] "gee, how are they ever going to transition this into the original trilogy, it just feels so... foreign to that universe".

then the end of RotS happened, and i just giggled a lot of sad yet gleeful giggles... the prequels just didn't seem like the same world as the OT to me, like not even close.

 

[Princess Magnificent]

The biggest CLUNK in RotS, for me, was Yoda leaving Kashyyyk.

A few wookies stuff him into a launch pod, and he looks at one and says, "Thank you, (meaningful pause), Chewbacca."

That actually threw me out of the movie more than the infamous NO.

 

[AgeEighty]

I don't hate it. It's a just-OK movie that leaves you feeling lukewarm, with a lot of flaws and terrible acting by excellent actors, but it has its moments.

In ways I think it's exactly the opposite of Rogue One. It reached for the stars and fell on its face often, whereas I felt Rogue One did nothing but play it safe, but executed itself more evenly. But I like it better when Star Wars mixes things up than when it just shows me things I've seen before.

The biggest CLUNK in RotS, for me, was Yoda leaving Kashyyyk.

A few wookies stuff him into a launch pod, and he looks at one and says, "Thank you, (meaningful pause), Chewbacca."

That actually threw me out of the movie more than the infamous NO.

That's how I felt about almost all the references in Rogue One. It pauses a beat (sometimes several beats) for you to soak in pretty much every one of them. I could almost feel the director winking at me.

 

[Next]

It's the only one from the original 6 that I enjoyed also. Pod racing and jedis who can actually move help. Plus a menacing villain cool soundtrack and artstyle, it's pretty good.

 

[Kayzaks]

Episode 1 had it's good moments. I really liked the introductory jedi scene fighting the droids, Padme's scenes and Darth Maul.

Even the pod racing was fun to watch, especially as a kid.

That being said, I still think it is the weakest of the current 8 Star Wars movies, but still in my top 20 movies.

 

[AppleSeason]

I rewatched it last year and it did not feel that terrible. Kinda ok. I have far more hate for Attack of the clones and revenge of the shit. Specially "I smoke 40 cigarettes a day" Grievous. After the awesome of seeing him on Clone Wars ( Tartakovsky's one), I was so disappointed to see him like that

 

[Monocle]

Episode 1 had it's good moments. I really liked the introductory jedi scene fighting the droids, Padme's scenes and Darth Maul.

Even the pod racing was fun to watch, especially as a kid.

That being said, I still think it is the weakest of the current 8 Star Wars movies, but still in my top 20 movies.

I don't know, Ep. 2 has so many awful scenes, including the "I hate sand" monologue and the Jedi charge where dozens of them wave their lightsabers around like giant glowsticks, permanently diminishing the power and mystique of that iconic weapon.

Ep. 3 botches every pivotal moment. Major events such as Palpatine's transformation, Anakin's fall, and Obi-Wan winning his duel with Anakin. It turned Palpatine into a bumbling caricature and Obi-Wan into a big dummy who could have used his words to soothe his best friend's mental anguish, but instead baited him into a ridiculous duel with an even more ridiculous conclusion. "It's over, Anakin. I have the high ground!" Please.

They're just really awful movies that take unbelievably fertile soil and dump gaudy trash all over it until it's nothing but a garish disaster zone. They could have been so, so good. It took five seasons of the Clone Wars animated series to wash some of the stench off the characters and aesthetic of the Prequels.

 

[Siegcram]

It's wayyyyyyyy better than Attack of the Clones.

I mean, that's not even a bar that's just a stick on the ground.

 

[GaimeGuy]

Wasn't episode 2 shot on some terrible 640p film that will age much more horribly than 99% of films made of the last 50 years?

 

[Chuckie]

That's how I felt about almost all the references in Rogue One. It pauses a beat (sometimes several beats) for you to soak in pretty much every one of them. I could almost feel the director winking at me.

But those references at least made sense (apart from those two picking a fight)

Yoda with Chewbacca was really really forced. It was unnecessary for them to even meet and it was even more so to mention his name. Everyone and their grandma knew that was Chewy.


Edit: Come to think of it, I agree with you. RO also had unnecessary references which annoyed me. That being said I enjoyed the movie much more so I tend to be more forgiving.

 

[Monocle]

I mean, that's not even a bar that's just a stick on the ground.

So true, lol.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Maybe Vader someday later
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEcjgJSqSRU

Best thing to come out of episode I.

 

[Ushojax]

The crazy thing about the prequels is that the Jedi seem to have no powers of critical thinking. Literally every detail of Palpatine's plot is spelled out to them in Episode 2.

- Palpatine becomes Chancellor, Dooku leaves the Jedi
10 years pass
- Jango Fett escapes to Kamino after trying to kill Padme
- Obi-Wan discovers that a former Jedi erased Kamino from the Jedi archive
- Obi-Wan finds a Republic clone army based on Fett that was ordered 10 years ago (when Palpatine became Chancellor and Dooku left the Jedi)
- Obi-Wan discovers Jango Fett is one of Dooku's henchmen
- Dooku tells Obi-Wan that Darth Sidious controls the senate
- Yoda determines that Dooku has turned to the dark side

Apparently it never occurred to the Jedi that Palpatine could be Darth Sidious, despite Mace Windu saying "the dark side surrounds the chancellor" in ROTS. I get that George was trying to show they are blind and arrogant but it's done in the most ham-fisted way, the characters don't behave like real people.

 

[GaimeGuy]

The crazy thing about the prequels is that the Jedi seem to have no powers of critical thinking. Literally every detail of Palpatine's plot is spelled out to them in Episode 2.

- Palpatine becomes Chancellor, Dooku leaves the Jedi
10 years pass
- Jango Fett escapes to Kamino after trying to kill Padme
- Obi-Wan discovers that a former Jedi erased Kamino from the Jedi archive
- Obi-Wan finds a Republic clone army based on Fett that was ordered 10 years ago (when Palpatine became Chancellor and Dooku left the Jedi)
- Obi-Wan discovers Jango Fett is one of Dooku's henchmen
- Dooku tells Obi-Wan that Darth Sidious controls the senate
- Yoda determines that Dooku has turned to the dark side

Apparently it never occurred to the Jedi that Palpatine could be Darth Sidious, despite Mace Windu saying "the dark side surrounds the chancellor" in ROTS. I get that George was trying to show they are blind and arrogant but it's done in the most ham-fisted way, the characters don't behave like real people.

Yeah, one of Dooku's subordinates was the basis of the republic's clone army, which was built in secret at the time coinciding with palpatine's ascension and dooku leaving the jedi order. And Dooku himself says that his master controls the senate.

I guess the jedi thought Dooku was just trying to deceive them to sew distrust among the jedi and the republic. Even if true, it doesn't explain the existence of the clone army, or the removal of Kamino from the records, or the connection to Fett. It coiuldn't be that Dooku was the mastermind of everything, because there would be no reason for him to arrange for the creation of the clone army to oppose himself.

Only thing that makes sense is that there was either a 3rd party playing both sides, or the chancellor himself was consolidating power as a double agent.

 

[boneyjangles]

Darth Maul was certainly cool I guess, in some of the the costume design was good. I liked them using the lightsabers to cut through doors. I'm not against pod-racing or underwater gungan cities as concepts in the universe either.

Hard to say what it's ranking in the prequels would be, that whole series is generally such scorched earth in my memory, they are all generally terrible.

The biggest thing for me was that I hated the aesthetic of almost every single alien/droid/ship design in the prequels. That designer they used wasn't fit to clean Ralph Mcquarrie's paint brushes. 100% of what he did was gross. Every droid was ugly, every alien was kinda dumb looking, every ship looked like a lame smooth aero shape attached to two jet engines.

Star Wars went from the best world building and design, a cut above most other sci-fi universes, to very cheap and nasty looking garbage.

 

[Fj0823]

The biggest CLUNK in RotS, for me, was Yoda leaving Kashyyyk.

A few wookies stuff him into a launch pod, and he looks at one and says, "Thank you, (meaningful pause), Chewbacca."

That actually threw me out of the movie more than the infamous NO.

Not as bad as Han Solo's entrance in episode 7.

Felt like old TV shows when a guest celebrity just jumps into the scene with a smile and the scene just pauses to let people cheer

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

The crazy thing about the prequels is that the Jedi seem to have no powers of critical thinking. Literally every detail of Palpatine's plot is spelled out to them in Episode 2.

- Palpatine becomes Chancellor, Dooku leaves the Jedi
10 years pass
- Jango Fett escapes to Kamino after trying to kill Padme
- Obi-Wan discovers that a former Jedi erased Kamino from the Jedi archive
- Obi-Wan finds a Republic clone army based on Fett that was ordered 10 years ago (when Palpatine became Chancellor and Dooku left the Jedi)
- Obi-Wan discovers Jango Fett is one of Dooku's henchmen
- Dooku tells Obi-Wan that Darth Sidious controls the senate
- Yoda determines that Dooku has turned to the dark side

Apparently it never occurred to the Jedi that Palpatine could be Darth Sidious, despite Mace Windu saying "the dark side surrounds the chancellor" in ROTS. I get that George was trying to show they are blind and arrogant but it's done in the most ham-fisted way, the characters don't behave like real people.

With Clone Wars it kinda hits you over the head with pretty much all the Jedi being too stupid or arrogant to see anything clearly.
Obi-Wan is literally the only person competent all the way through.
I blame Yoda's on being surrounded by it so much it rubs off on him in his old age.

 

[Auto-Reply]

It has a few bits innit that I actually enjoyed, the music at the Maul fight was great even!

That is more than I can say about the other two prequel movies, I enjoyed nothing about them. Every fight scene had stupid shit going on I couldn't get over, every space battle, every conversation etc etc. I don't even remember the music.

 

[DeepDreamer]

Every new Disney instalment vindicates Lucas's story choices (BUT NOT THE ATROCIOUS SCRIPTING!). As cool as Rogue One was, when we got the take-down-the-shields rip off from Empire I was actually bored and yawning. I've seen it all before. For better or worse, at least Lucas did try to do something different with the political element. It should have just been more subtle... for a similar take, see Amazon's The Man in the High Castle and those final brilliant episodes of season 2 and plotting in the Reich.

 

[UnluckyKate]

I will give it credit for it's design work


Honestly, Naboo is my probably favorite planet in all of Star Wars.

last year someone made a thread about the anti cheese cut of ep 1 - 3 and upon viewing in HD, I caught the power line to the queen glowing orbs in her dress :

 

[PdotMichael]

I blame the fact that Lucas introduced the SITH after the original trilogy.

 

[ClosingADoor]

eh, that would have been much more generic and wouldn't have played as well into Obi-Wan and Yoda's fears of Luke going astray in the OT.

It would mirror the death of a mentor figure, like Obi-Wan was for Luke. I'm not a writer, but wasting Darth Maul in one movie seems very strange. The original trilogy had Darth Vader as the villain for three movies. Darth Maul could have been that guy for the prequels. The quick switching from Maul to Dooku to Grievous was just strange.

 

[FyreWulff]

last year someone made a thread about the anti cheese cut of ep 1 - 3 and upon viewing in HD, I caught the power line to the queen glowing orbs in her dress :

it's like poetry, it rhymes

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

last year someone made a thread about the anti cheese cut of ep 1 - 3 and upon viewing in HD, I caught the power line to the queen glowing orbs in her dress :

Always seemed like a weirdly set up shot,
The idea of it is very good, Padme looks good but it always felt off.

 

[Comfort Jones]

People claiming Maul is good in any way beyond having a memorable visual design kinda confuse me. Dude has what, 3 scenes? His motivations and backstory are completely missing, he has zero memorable lines and the fight he's in doesn't have him doing anything particularly unique to his character. He and the two jedi look so weirdly perfectly rehearsed in their movements it's impossible to get much of a read on his "style" of fighting.

He's not a good villain, I don't even think I can call him a real character.

Anyway this movie's visuals have aged like dog shit, the characters fuckin suck and nothing makes sense. But hey like what you like I guess.

 

[soxinthebox]

I think this tends to be the common denominator among people who enjoyed the Prequels.

Do we have anyone here that was older than say...16 when the prequels came out that enjoyed the prequels?

I feel like that's a short list.

I was probably about 12 at the time so I wasn't exactly thinking about it critically

 

[TheDinoman]

I blame the fact that Lucas introduced the SITH after the original trilogy.

Well, technically, the term "Sith Lord" actually came from Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, the novelization of A New Hope.

 

[AgeEighty]

Not as bad as Han Solo's entrance in episode 7.

Felt like old TV shows when a guest celebrity just jumps into the scene with a smile and the scene just pauses to let people cheer

Or Vader in Rogue One where there's smoke and everything, like he's coming on stage at a rock concert. They made his intro absurdly theatrical, way more so than in the OT.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

I like it too, the pod race was hype
Darth Maul was an awesome villain and the final battle was pretty good.

its ok.

I never understood why people like the pod racing sequence; it's awful. It's filmed very poorly with little other than left-to-right pans (or vice versa; I don't recall), the race is predictable as fuck (Anakin catches up from being like half a lap down from Sebulba, but has trouble outrunning him when they're together?!) and poor Jake Lloyd just doesn't carry it because the kid can't act (and/or was no doubt given poor direction). People seem to cite it as the film's high point, but I honestly have no idea why.

Well, technically, the term "Sith Lord" actually came from Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, the novelization of A New Hope.

Just like Coruscant was first mentioned in Shadows of the Empire, I believe.

 

[PdotMichael]

Well, technically, the term "Sith Lord" actually came from Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, the novelization of A New Hope.

It just doesn't make sense to introduce a comically evil counterpart of the Jedi, which turn Jedis and Siths into 2d dimensional kind of groups.
The original movies didn't need it and it's quite jarring how everything is about it except the first movies.

 

[Hippopuncher12]

Also, The Phantom Menace is still the best title of any Star Wars movie.

This I would actually agree with. When they announced that title my young self was hype as fuck.....but then the movie actually happened.

 

[Slaythe]

He didn't know that until he came back to talk to her in ep 2, many years after he left. He only found out about that by tracking down Watto. He should have saved her immediately at the end of the first film or before the 2nd movie started.

... Did you read my post at all ?

I said Anakin was told to cut his ties with his mother, never to see her again.

He only went back because he saw her in danger in his dreams.

He couldn't personally do anything.

If Qui Gon couldn't afford the slaves what makes you think other Jedi can/would ?

And as for Padme, she MAY have looked into it, but found out that Shmi had been freed already and was leaving a happy life now.

So your point makes no sense.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Every new Disney instalment vindicates Lucas's story choices (BUT NOT THE ATROCIOUS SCRIPTING!). As cool as Rogue One was, when we got the take-down-the-shields rip off from Empire I was actually bored and yawning. I've seen it all before. For better or worse, at least Lucas did try to do something different with the political element. It should have just been more subtle... for a similar take, see Amazon's The Man in the High Castle and those final brilliant episodes of season 2 and plotting in the Reich.

Oh hey, it's the "At least he tried something different" defence. Can't agree with this at all. He made a boring film with a shallow, clueless attempt at political intrigue and machinations, where most of the characters were contradictory idiots and the way it's filmed is thoroughly amateurish.

People claiming Maul is good in any way beyond having a memorable visual design kinda confuse me. Dude has what, 3 scenes? His motivations and backstory are completely missing, he has zero memorable lines and the fight he's in doesn't have him doing anything particularly unique to his character. He and the two jedi look so weirdly perfectly rehearsed in their movements it's impossible to get much of a read on his "style" of fighting.

He's not a good villain, I don't even think I can call him a real character.

Anyway this movie's visuals have aged like dog shit, the characters fuckin suck and nothing makes sense. But hey like what you like I guess.

Yeah, Maul looked great but there was no substance there at all and as a result I don't think he can even be defined as a 'character'. In fact, Bobba Fett isn't a lot better but I suppose that took on a life of its own after 30-odd years.

 

[Ushojax]

Or Vader in Rogue One where there's smoke and everything, like he's coming on stage at a rock concert. They made his intro absurdly theatrical, way more so than in the OT.

Right, because it's not like Darth Vader had theatrical entrances in other Star Wars movies, like ROTJ where he descends a smoky landing platform to greet a panicked underling in a massive hangar surrounded by a full battalion of stormtroopers. That's totally different. These are camp fantasy movies, they should have theatrical entrances for iconic villains like Vader.

... Did you read my post at all ?

I said Anakin was told to cut his ties with his mother, never to see her again.

He only went back because he saw her in danger in his dreams.

He couldn't personally do anything.

If Qui Gon couldn't afford the slaves what makes you think other Jedi can/would ?

And as for Padme, she MAY have looked into it, but found out that Shmi had been freed already and was leaving a happy life now.

So your point makes no sense.

That's all in your head. Qui-Gon tried to mind trick Watto the second he met him and later swindled him with the dice, he was a hustler. If he wanted to free Anakin's mother he could have, he just didn't give a shit, same as Padme. She obviously never looked into it as she didn't say anything about it when they went back to Tatooine.

 

[PanicFreak]

I hated it. I don't know why we had to even know where Aniken came from. It doesn't matter. The fact that the Sith takeover is relegated to the last 20 minutes of the ROTS to show the origin story of Aniken is unforgivable.

 

[JB1981]

Always seemed like a weirdly set up shot,
The idea of it is very good, Padme looks good but it always felt off.

What's "off" about the shot

 

[Slaythe]

That's all in your head. Qui-Gon tried to mind trick Watto the second he met him and later swindled him with the dice, he was a hustler. If he wanted to free Anakin's mother he could have, he just didn't give a shit,

He TRIED to free both and couldn't, so he made the choice to keep Anakin. Hardly see how he could have saved Shmi too without using brute force, which he wouldn't do. That point was made in the movie.

same as Padme. She obviously never looked into it as she didn't say anything about it when they went back to Tatooine.

She has the excuse of being like 14 and having more concerning matters. If she asked an attendant to look into it, I doubt she would insist later on to know how it worked out.

 

[HiredN00bs]

I like Episode 1 too. Sure, the kid's acting is lame, the plot is silly, but it's colorful and varied and novel. Plus the stuff in it that is stupid you enjoy by having a laugh at it. By comparison, Rogue One is drab, and not laughably bad, just...mediocre. I'd prefer to rewatch Episode 1 of the two.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

I hated it. I don't know why we had to even know where Aniken came from. It doesn't matter. The fact that the Sith takeover is relegated to the last 20 minutes of the ROTS to show the origin story of Aniken is unforgivable.

That's the biggest flaw of the prequel trilogy: shit pacing. They wasted a third of their running time showing Darth Vader as an annoying 10 year old which *no-one* wanted to see. Should have introduced him immediately as a powerful but inexperienced trainee Jedi and made his turn to the Dark Side a gradual act of his own will, and then have him take up the mantle of Sith Lord in the second film, so we can show his eradication of the Jedi in the third (as Obi-Wan said to Luke way back when they first met that Vader helped hunt down and destroy the Jedi - but that's not what happens at all. Instead Palpy flicks a switch and like 98% of the Jedi are dead within minutes). Don't waste time on 10 year old Annie, Maul, Dooku or Grievous.

 

[Barrel Cannon]

It's redeemed only because of Darth Jar-Jar... he will return one day!

 

[Sephzilla]

I think there's a case to be made that Phantom Menace is secretly the best of the three prequel trilogy movies, even with Jar Jar. It's the only movie that really has a solid open/close story and also doesn't go completely overboard with CG like the later two movies do.

Also Darth Maul > Count Dooku

 

[MajinSweet4]

He TRIED to free both and couldn't, so he made the choice to keep Anakin. Hardly see how he could have saved Shmi too without using brute force, which he wouldn't do. That point was made in the movie.

So it's okay to manipulate and or cheat someone to get want you want as opposed to doing it physically?

 

[PanicFreak]

That's the biggest flaw of the prequel trilogy: shit pacing. They wasted a third of their running time showing Darth Vader as an annoying 10 year old which *no-one* wanted to see. Should have introduced him immediately as a powerful but inexperienced trainee Jedi and made his turn to the Dark Side a gradual act of his own will, and then have him take up the mantle of Sith Lord in the second film, so we can show his eradication of the Jedi in the third (as Obi-Wan said to Luke way back when they first met that Vader helped hunt down and destroy the Jedi - but that's not what happens at all. Instead Palpy flicks a switch and like 98% of the Jedi are dead within minutes). Don't waste time on 10 year old Annie, Maul, Dooku or Grievous.

Agree completely. I think they should have written Maul as the main bad guy for the (hypothetical) first and second films, have Darth Vader kill him late in the second film or early in the third and the eradication of the Jedi occur throughout an entire (hypothetical) third film.

Also, no Jar Jar.