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[Fantastapotamus]

Easily Attack of the Clones. What a piece of garbage. Even compare to that garbage trilogy.

Attack of the Clones might be the worst movie ever made, when you consider how much money they had. Catwoman is a better movie than Attack of the Clones.

 

[jdstorm]

For me Phantom Menace is the WindWaker of Star Wars films. The audience went in with expectations of a different film and were disapointed with what they got. Given hindsight Phantom Menace is a mid tier Star Wars film.

AotC makes The Force Awakens look like a competant film

My order
A New Hope > Empire Strikes Back > Revenge of the Sith> The Phantom Menace > Return of the Jedi > The Force Awakens > attack of the clones

 

[brandonh83]

For me Phantom Menace is the WindWaker of Star Wars films. The audience went in with expectations of a different film and were disapointed with what they got. Given hindsight Phantom Menace is a mid tier Star Wars film.

The problem with this analogy is that Wind Waker is good and plenty of fans loved it.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

As a child, I probably would've said Attack of the Clones as the better movie. I was actually really engaged with the whole assassination plot and the building a secret clone army plot since I didn't realize that they actually go nowhere interesting. The scenes of Obi-wan doing his sleuthing from the diner to the archives to Kamino and finally to Geonosis were much more interesting than the Naboo political garble. I didn't care much for the love story but it was fine. And of course, what Star Wars-obsessed kid wouldn't like to see all those crazy lightsabers come out at the end, to include Yoda himself! I liked the 3rd act action of Clones much more than TPM. Since neither really had much of a story going on with the lightsaber fights, I preferred the more fan service-y Yoda vs Dooku than the Obi-wan vs Maul. Never liked Maul.

As an adult, I'm just too dissapointed in both to pick one or the other. Maybe The Phantom Menace is better since it doesn't actively try to ruin Yoda and the Force? Oh wait, mediclohirns...

ROTS is the at least mediocre.

 

[Turin Turambar]

TPM. Attack of the clones at least has the core of what it could be a typical pulp scifi adventure film (in other words, Star Wars), with action, adventure, mystery, drama, romance, comedy, war, etc, even if the execution wasn't as good as desired.

 

[cyberheater]

It is the worst one, because it's terrible screenwriting trying to be a carbon copy of Episode IV.

Yeah. I do agree with this and it's the only thing that disappointed me about the film. It's still so much better then EP 1, 2 and 3.

 

[Steeven]

Last week actually saw both films. The Phantom Menace is a joke, the CGI looks extremely dated and the actors were about as passionless as could be. Cannot be their fault because they've proven themselves in other films. Attack of the Clones was more enjoyable to watch, but was a bad movie nonetheless.

 

[dragonyeuw]

There's not one aspect of AOTC that I can say 'this movie is complete shit, but _____ scene is awesome'. TPM at least has the podrace and saber duels going for it. In all honesty, they should have started the PT at the point AOTC was( A late teen Anakin being trained as a Jedi, Obi-wan established as a Jedi) and given us 3 films showing us Anakin's descent and relationships with Obiwan and Padme. A film was wasted showing him as a 10 year old, which left them 2 movies to cram in too much shit, all against the backdrop of the Clone Wars and shift from the republic to empire.

 

[Real Hero]

Phantom menace has a shitty charm to it to me. All the racist caricatures , the silly dialogue, it is weird in a way I can see what they were going for but its just fails badly. ATOC is just 'ah fuck it here's loads of cgi jedis and storm troopers and yoda fighting fighting dracula' it's insulting how bad and halfhearted it feels.

 

[Branduil]

TPM isn't good but it's still significantly better than the flaming derailed train that is AotC. TPM at least has some setpiece moments that aren't painful, plus the visuals have aged significantly better than AotC's primitive digital print.

 

[Lucumo]

Attack of the Clones, it left me devastated.

 

[CD'S BAR]

Attack of the Clones is worse if only because of that god-awful factory scene. Nevermind the cgi fuckfest that is everything on Kamino and Geonosis.

 

[Atlas157]

AotC was worse. Garbage acting, forced "romance", and overused and poorly aged CGI.

Attack of the Clones had this garbage in it too.

 

[Beren the Empty-Handed]

Last week actually saw both films. The Phantom Menace is a joke, the CGI looks extremely dated and the actors were about as passionless as could be. Cannot be their fault because they've proven themselves in other films. The Clone Wars was more enjoyable to watch, but was a bad movie nonetheless.

Uh, do you mean Attack of the Clones? The Clone Wars is a different movie. Or were you bringing up The Clone Wars as a further comparison?

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

I'd put AOTC as the worst of the two for one simple reason: By the time it was made, Lucas should have known better.

With TPM, George Lucas had been out of the game for a while, so he can be (mostly) excused for giving us a movie starring a cartoon fish-rabbit with a head injury playing against a cardboard cutout of Liam Neeson with cotton balls taped to its face. He can even be forgiven for turning the Force into Space AIDS. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say he can be forgiven for giving us a Darth Vader portrayed as a clueless dipshit kid who shouts "Yippee!" and tries barrel rolls because that's a good trick.

With AOTC, Lucas knew better. He knew he was woefully under-equipped to write a serviceable script, and he knew his direction and use of CG had alienated a lot of Star Wars fans, but instead of handing duties over to someone else, he doubled down:

He (and his co-writer, to be fair) turned Darth Vader from a pants-wetting kid into a moody dipshit teen.

He replaced the cardboard cutout of Liam Neeson with the cardboard cutout of Ewan McGregor.

He decided to honor the fondness many fans had for the mysterious Boba Fett by removing all mystery about the character; instead turning him into a shitty clone of a shitty bounty hunter/assassin who lacks clear motivation and purpose.

He gave us "romantic" scenes with the same pacing, acting, dialog, and direction that one would expect from the pre-fuck part of a porno. If, during the infamous "coarse sand" scene between Darth Idiot and Queen Senator, a pizza delivery guy walked in and asked Padme if she's the one who ordered the large sausage, I don't think anyone would've batted an eye. We had all been brutalized into just accepting that the movie was terrible and that there was nothing we could do about it.

TLDR; Both movies are horrible, but AOTC had the benefit of seeing how poorly TPM was received and squandered its opportunity to course-correct. Which makes it the worst of the two, IMO.

And to quickly address the idea brought up by a couple people that TFA was worse than the prequels because it's a "retread," give me a break. It's better written, better acted, better directed, and better paced than the four Star Wars movies that came before it. That makes it a better movie.

Did it share some story beats with the first Star Wars? Sure, on a surface level. But it had to.

JJ Abrams and Co. weren't hired to reinvent the wheel. They were hired to undo the damage done by the prequels. They had to bring back the old Star Wars feeling while laying the groundwork for a whole new trilogy. Could certain factors have been more fleshed out? Sure. But that's why trilogies exist.

Disney bought the House of Star Wars with the plan to build it into a sprawling mansion. But they had to repair the damage done to the house by Hurricane George. The Abrams Repair Company was brought in to fix the place up. They were rebuilders, not remodelers. If Episode VIII doesn't deviate from the course, I'll understand the frustrations. But with Episode VII, the job was to rehang the drywall on a rickety frame.

All things considered, I'd say they did a pretty fucking impressive job.

 

[Ushojax]

I'd put AOTC as the worst of the two for one simple reason: By the time it was made, Lucas should have known better.

With TPM, George Lucas had been out of the game for a while, so he can be (mostly) excused for giving us a movie starring a cartoon fish-rabbit with a head injury playing against a cardboard cutout of Liam Neeson with cotton balls taped to its face. He can even be forgiven for turning the Force into Space AIDS. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say he can be forgiven for giving us a Darth Vader portrayed as a clueless dipshit kid who shouts "Yippee!" and tries barrel rolls because that's a good trick.

With AOTC, Lucas knew better. He knew he was woefully under-equipped to write a serviceable script, and he knew his direction and use of CG had alienated a lot of Star Wars fans, but instead of handing duties over to someone else, he doubled down:

He (and his co-writer, to be fair) turned Darth Vader from a pants-wetting kid into a moody dipshit teen.

He replaced the cardboard cutout of Liam Neeson with the cardboard cutout of Ewan McGregor.

He decided to honor the fondness many fans had for the mysterious Boba Fett by removing all mystery about the character; instead turning him into a shitty clone of a shitty bounty hunter/assassin who lacks clear motivation and purpose.

He gave us "romantic" scenes with the same pacing, acting, dialog, and direction that one would expect from the pre-fuck part of a porno. If, during the infamous "coarse sand" scene between Darth Idiot and Queen Senator, a pizza delivery guy walked in and asked Padme if she's the one who ordered the large sausage, I don't think anyone would've batted an eye. We had all been brutalized into just accepting that the movie was terrible and that there was nothing we could do about it.

TLDR; Both movies are horrible, but AOTC had the benefit of seeing how poorly TPM was received and squandered its opportunity to course-correct. Which makes it the worst of the two, IMO.

And to quickly address the idea brought up by a couple people that TFA was worse than the prequels because it's a "retread," give me a break. It's better written, better acted, better directed, and better paced than the four Star Wars movies that came before it. That makes it a better movie.

Did it share some story beats with the first Star Wars? Sure, on a surface level. But it had to.

JJ Abrams and Co. weren't hired to reinvent the wheel. They were hired to undo the damage done by the prequels. They had to bring back the old Star Wars feeling while laying the groundwork for a whole new trilogy. Could certain factors have been more fleshed out? Sure. But that's why trilogies exist.

Disney bought the House of Star Wars with the plan to build it into a sprawling mansion. But they had to repair the damage done to the house by Hurricane George. The Abrams Repair Company was brought in to fix the place up. They were rebuilders, not remodelers. If Episode VIII doesn't deviate from the course, I'll understand the frustrations. But with Episode VII, the job was to rehang the drywall on a rickety frame.

All things considered, I'd say they did a pretty fucking impressive job.

 

[TheWorthyEdge]

TPM.

I love a lot about Clones, but I dislike a lot of it.

TPM has Jar Jar, and it reminds me of 4 in a way where it's just so boring until the very end. You could say the same about Clones but I felt it had more exciting parts splattered throughout the film.

 

[Fancy Clown]

TPM. Attack of the clones at least has the core of what it could be a typical pulp scifi adventure film (in other words, Star Wars), with action, adventure, mystery, drama, romance, comedy, war, etc, even if the execution wasn't as good as desired.

"wasn't as good as desired" is being generous, but I agree with this. Phantom Menace contained almost none of the elements that even potentially make for a fun Star Wars movie outside of like two scenes. Also the kid who plays Anakin is even worse than Hayden Christensen.

 

[Schlorgan]

I'd put AOTC as the worst of the two for one simple reason: By the time it was made, Lucas should have known better.

With TPM, George Lucas had been out of the game for a while, so he can be (mostly) excused for giving us a movie starring a cartoon fish-rabbit with a head injury playing against a cardboard cutout of Liam Neeson with cotton balls taped to its face. He can even be forgiven for turning the Force into Space AIDS. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say he can be forgiven for giving us a Darth Vader portrayed as a clueless dipshit kid who shouts "Yippee!" and tries barrel rolls because that's a good trick.

With AOTC, Lucas knew better. He knew he was woefully under-equipped to write a serviceable script, and he knew his direction and use of CG had alienated a lot of Star Wars fans, but instead of handing duties over to someone else, he doubled down:

He (and his co-writer, to be fair) turned Darth Vader from a pants-wetting kid into a moody dipshit teen.

He replaced the cardboard cutout of Liam Neeson with the cardboard cutout of Ewan McGregor.

He decided to honor the fondness many fans had for the mysterious Boba Fett by removing all mystery about the character; instead turning him into a shitty clone of a shitty bounty hunter/assassin who lacks clear motivation and purpose.

He gave us "romantic" scenes with the same pacing, acting, dialog, and direction that one would expect from the pre-fuck part of a porno. If, during the infamous "coarse sand" scene between Darth Idiot and Queen Senator, a pizza delivery guy walked in and asked Padme if she's the one who ordered the large sausage, I don't think anyone would've batted an eye. We had all been brutalized into just accepting that the movie was terrible and that there was nothing we could do about it.

TLDR; Both movies are horrible, but AOTC had the benefit of seeing how poorly TPM was received and squandered its opportunity to course-correct. Which makes it the worst of the two, IMO.

And to quickly address the idea brought up by a couple people that TFA was worse than the prequels because it's a "retread," give me a break. It's better written, better acted, better directed, and better paced than the four Star Wars movies that came before it. That makes it a better movie.

Did it share some story beats with the first Star Wars? Sure, on a surface level. But it had to.

JJ Abrams and Co. weren't hired to reinvent the wheel. They were hired to undo the damage done by the prequels. They had to bring back the old Star Wars feeling while laying the groundwork for a whole new trilogy. Could certain factors have been more fleshed out? Sure. But that's why trilogies exist.

Disney bought the House of Star Wars with the plan to build it into a sprawling mansion. But they had to repair the damage done to the house by Hurricane George. The Abrams Repair Company was brought in to fix the place up. They were rebuilders, not remodelers. If Episode VIII doesn't deviate from the course, I'll understand the frustrations. But with Episode VII, the job was to rehang the drywall on a rickety frame.

All things considered, I'd say they did a pretty fucking impressive job.

That's a great post.

 

[Ushojax]

TPM has Jar Jar, and it reminds me of 4 in a way where it's just so boring until the very end.

 

[badcrumble]

I'd say the damage done by AOTC was far worse than the damage done by TPM. In retrospect, the general plot of Attack of the Clones probably should've been Episode I and there should've been an Episode II taking place actually during the clone wars, but my overall point is that TPM never had to sell extremely important plot points (just establish characters), whereas Attack of the Clones *did* and failed horribly (especially with regard to making the Anakin/Padme romance convincing and compelling).

 

[Erevador]

TPM has Jar Jar, and it reminds me of 4 in a way where it's just so boring until the very end. You could say the same about Clones but I felt it had more exciting parts splattered throughout the film.

Madness. A New Hope is totally enrapturing from the first shot onwards. Obi-wan introducing Luke to the force, Han taking out Greedo, Vader force choking people in a conference room... you didn't enjoy all that?

 

[Retro]

I'd put AOTC as the worst of the two for one simple reason: By the time it was made, Lucas should have known better.

With TPM, George Lucas had been out of the game for a while, so he can be (mostly) excused for giving us a movie starring a cartoon fish-rabbit with a head injury playing against a cardboard cutout of Liam Neeson with cotton balls taped to its face. He can even be forgiven for turning the Force into Space AIDS. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say he can be forgiven for giving us a Darth Vader portrayed as a clueless dipshit kid who shouts "Yippee!" and tries barrel rolls because that's a good trick.

With AOTC, Lucas knew better. He knew he was woefully under-equipped to write a serviceable script, and he knew his direction and use of CG had alienated a lot of Star Wars fans, but instead of handing duties over to someone else, he doubled down:

"I'm not a good writer...It's very, very hard for me. I don't feel I have a natural talent for it...When I sit down I bleed on the page, and it's just awful."
- George Lucas, 1974

He knew. The prequels were pure ego.

 

[345triangle]

i liked attack of the clones better when it came out, but watched them all again before force awakens last year and it's by far the worst of the entire series.

phantom menace is actually the only prequel that feels anything like star wars, in hindsight. sure it has dumb stuff like jar jar, but you can ignore it because there are some legit great moments (duel of the fates etc).

there's no redeeming any part of attack of the clones.

 

[cj_iwakura]

i liked attack of the clones better when it came out, but watched them all again before force awakens last year and it's by far the worst of the entire series.

phantom menace is actually the only prequel that feels anything like star wars, in hindsight. sure it has dumb stuff like jar jar, but you can ignore it because there are some legit great moments (duel of the fates etc).

there's no redeeming any part of attack of the clones.

The world building. The prequel creative team had a great eye for new worlds.

 

[Thorgal]

Phantom menace has duel of the fates.

Phantom menace wins.

 

[Thorgal]

Phantom menace has duel of the fates.

Phantom menace wins.

 

[poppabk]

Phantom menace hit the Jedi mystique over the head with a shovel, but it was attack of the clones that put two in its head and buried it out in the desert.

 

[Randam]

Worst one is sith because of the stupid way and reason Annikan turned into Vader.

 

[HolySheep]

Attack of the clones<phantom menace<the force awakens<revenge of the sith<a new hope< return of the jedi<empire strikes back

 

[Gamecocks625]

AoTC by a wide margin. I remember in the theater hating Anakin not because I was torn by him wrestling with some inner demons but rather being so pissed off at how whiny he was. I wanted to punch him in the face. I remember very vividly feeling that.

 

[VeryGooster]

Attack of the Clones.

Even when The Phantom Menace isn't about anything, because it isn't, or anything worth caring about, AOTC is just a stupid, stupid, ugly movie.

 

[Creamium]

After my last rewatch before TFA came out, I could barely make it through Clones while TPM was at least watchable. Then Sith turned out to be worse than I remembered. I always thought of it as the 'least bad' of the 3, but that honour may go to TPM now. Think I'm done rewatching those movies. If I want good prequel era stuff, I'd much rather pick some good Clone Wars eps.

 

[345triangle]

The world building. The prequel creative team had a great eye for new worlds.

yeah i think they lost it on AotC. kamino and geonosis were both pretty dumb, though i'll give you coruscant (though that was kind of handed to them).

 

[Englebert3rd]

Yeah. I do agree with this and it's the only thing that disappointed me about the film. It's still so much better then EP 1, 2 and 3.

I don't see the reason why people say TFA is at the same level of the prequel trilogy. It's like they are wearing the inverse rose tinted glasses. Brown tinted glasses if you will...

 

[leroidys]

Glad to see GAF on the right side of history. TPM is bad no doubt, but it at least kind of feels like a Star Wars movie, has some cool moments, good looking practical effects (outside of the yoda puppet), and some unique designs. The characters suck and the plot is a mess, but I think it has the best chance of being recut into a decent movie of all the prequels.

AoTC on the other hand is one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life in any genre. Going beyond it being a terrible movie by itself, it's also terrible within the context of the Star Wars Universe, with terrible shit like ninja Yoda, making Anakain and Obi Wan unsympathetic characters, totally wasting Dooku and Jango, the nonsensical handling of the clone army, the terrible romance plot... Not only does it stand as a monument to shit by itself, it actively makes the other movies shittier for being related to it.

 

[Surfinn]

I'd put AOTC as the worst of the two for one simple reason: By the time it was made, Lucas should have known better.

With TPM, George Lucas had been out of the game for a while, so he can be (mostly) excused for giving us a movie starring a cartoon fish-rabbit with a head injury playing against a cardboard cutout of Liam Neeson with cotton balls taped to its face. He can even be forgiven for turning the Force into Space AIDS. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say he can be forgiven for giving us a Darth Vader portrayed as a clueless dipshit kid who shouts "Yippee!" and tries barrel rolls because that's a good trick.

With AOTC, Lucas knew better. He knew he was woefully under-equipped to write a serviceable script, and he knew his direction and use of CG had alienated a lot of Star Wars fans, but instead of handing duties over to someone else, he doubled down:

He (and his co-writer, to be fair) turned Darth Vader from a pants-wetting kid into a moody dipshit teen.

He replaced the cardboard cutout of Liam Neeson with the cardboard cutout of Ewan McGregor.

He decided to honor the fondness many fans had for the mysterious Boba Fett by removing all mystery about the character; instead turning him into a shitty clone of a shitty bounty hunter/assassin who lacks clear motivation and purpose.

He gave us "romantic" scenes with the same pacing, acting, dialog, and direction that one would expect from the pre-fuck part of a porno. If, during the infamous "coarse sand" scene between Darth Idiot and Queen Senator, a pizza delivery guy walked in and asked Padme if she's the one who ordered the large sausage, I don't think anyone would've batted an eye. We had all been brutalized into just accepting that the movie was terrible and that there was nothing we could do about it.

TLDR; Both movies are horrible, but AOTC had the benefit of seeing how poorly TPM was received and squandered its opportunity to course-correct. Which makes it the worst of the two, IMO.

And to quickly address the idea brought up by a couple people that TFA was worse than the prequels because it's a "retread," give me a break. It's better written, better acted, better directed, and better paced than the four Star Wars movies that came before it. That makes it a better movie.

Did it share some story beats with the first Star Wars? Sure, on a surface level. But it had to.

JJ Abrams and Co. weren't hired to reinvent the wheel. They were hired to undo the damage done by the prequels. They had to bring back the old Star Wars feeling while laying the groundwork for a whole new trilogy. Could certain factors have been more fleshed out? Sure. But that's why trilogies exist.

Disney bought the House of Star Wars with the plan to build it into a sprawling mansion. But they had to repair the damage done to the house by Hurricane George. The Abrams Repair Company was brought in to fix the place up. They were rebuilders, not remodelers. If Episode VIII doesn't deviate from the course, I'll understand the frustrations. But with Episode VII, the job was to rehang the drywall on a rickety frame.

All things considered, I'd say they did a pretty fucking impressive job.

Can you stop making sense? It's making my shallow "TFA is ANH" and "this isn't George's universe" arguments and criticisms look paper thin.

I don't think people realize how damaged good faith had become after the prequels.

Like you said, if the next two films aren't more creative on all fronts then the trilogy will have become a waste of time. Rian Johnson isn't going to do what JJ did with EP7 because he's not trying to accomplish the same goal.

And because.. Well he's an incredibly different writer and director.

 

[Chained Prometheus]

Attack of the Clones is by far the worst film in the Star Wars saga.

Hell, I still remember watching that film in theaters as a kid and realizing for the first time in my life that I was watching a film in a movie theater that I didn't like- which surprised me back then, because even though I didn't watch Phantom Menace anywhere near as often as I did the OT films, I still enjoyed it to some extent as a kid- especially the first time I saw it in theaters.

 

[Surfinn]

Attack of the Clones is by far the worst film in the Star Wars saga.

Hell, I still remember watching that film in theaters as a kid and realizing for the first time in my life that I was watching a film in a movie theater that I didn't like- which surprised me back then, because even though I didn't watch Phantom Menace anywhere near as often as I did the OT films, I still enjoyed it to some extent as a kid- especially the first time I saw it in theaters.

You're lucky. I walked away from TPM premiere as an eleven year old almost in tears. The most stunning entertainment experience of my life.

 

[necrosis]

I'd say the damage done by AOTC was far worse than the damage done by TPM. In retrospect, the general plot of Attack of the Clones probably should've been Episode I and there should've been an Episode II taking place actually during the clone wars, but my overall point is that TPM never had to sell extremely important plot points (just establish characters), whereas Attack of the Clones *did* and failed horribly (especially with regard to making the Anakin/Padme romance convincing and compelling).

this is a really good point, actually

i still think tpm is the lesser of the two films by its own merits (or lack thereof), but i can see where aotc is more detrimental to the series as a whole

 

[bengraven]

Phantom is such a terrible movie on almost every scale. From the boring Naboo parts to the silly child Anakin and the horrible Jar Jar moments.

If you tripled the amount of emo love scenes and diner cars in Clones it would still be 10x the better movie.

Y'all crazy man. And this is coming from someone who watched Phantom three times on opening night and STILL collected all the Pepsi cans and action figures in the months after AND STILL BOUGHT THE COLLECTOR'S EDITION VHS AFTER ALREADY OWNING THE REGULAR VHS.

 

[Greddleok]

Side pick, Revenge of the Sith is the worst of the prequel trilogy.

 

[Chained Prometheus]

You're lucky. I walked away from TPM premiere as an eleven year old almost in tears. The most stunning entertainment experience of my life.

I was six when I went to the TPM premiere. I had fun, but I remember thinking that the film felt "slow." It wasn't the fast-paced adventure that I was used to with the OT films and a lot of the dialogue seemed to go over my head. But I didn't outright dislike the film- plus it had that epic lightsaber duel at the end too.

AoTC, on the other hand, felt absolutely plodding and I was surprised at how little I actually liked the Jedi characters in the film- they just seemed obnoxious to me. As someone who's always ranked Beauty and the Beast as one of my absolute favorite films ever, I've never been against the idea of a film centered on a love story, but Anakin's "romance" with Padme didn't feel right to me even as a kid, though just how "wrong" that relationship was didn't fully become apparent to me until I revisited the film as an adult.

 

[Nerrel]

Say what you will about The Phantom Menace, but at least it had some semblance of pacing and the classic Lucas/Spielberg adventure feel to it. Jar Jar, the midichlorians and all the other things people really hate are generally intrusions into what is otherwise a decent film, and the Phantom Edit proves that the film can be improved if those things are removed. It's not great, but it's a passable film with some big mistakes.

Attack of the Clones is just a complete piece of shit. There's no salvaging it. You can't even blame specific things for its failure in the way you could with TPM because the entire film is terrible in every aspect. The writing is awful, the acting is awful, the directing is awful, the CGI is awful, the characters are awful, the pacing is awful, all of it. It feels like 2 hours and 40 minutes of exposition to set up episode III (all of it being painfully unwatchable), then you don't even get any kind of payoff for it as all of the consequences of these events will be seen in the next film. It's the kind of movie that only a die hard fan, concerned with soaking in every bit of lore regardless of quality, could possibly enjoy.

It really is the worst prequel by far. Everything that people hate about those movies is at it's zenith in AOTC: it has the worst CGI, the least convinving acting, the densest political dialog, and the slowest and dullest pacing. The only good thing I can say about it is that it at least tried to be a little more serious. Why George felt the need to get back on the horse and try to do everything himself again after TPM was so poorly received is beyond me.

Revenge of the Sith is unfortunately very similar, but with the advantage of having some things actually fucking happen every now and then.

 

[Steeven]

Uh, do you mean Attack of the Clones? The Clone Wars is a different movie. Or were you bringing up The Clone Wars as a further comparison?

:lol I never realized these are different. I am not that into Star Wars anyway. Thanks for point it out though. I meant Attack of the Clones of course.

 

[partyphone]

Say what you will about The Phantom Menace, but at least it had some semblance of pacing and the classic Lucas/Spielberg adventure feel to it. Jar Jar, the midichlorians and all the other things people really hate are generally intrusions into what is otherwise a decent film, and the Phantom Edit proves that the film can be improved if those things are removed. It's not great, but it's a passable film with some big mistakes.

i really can't let this slide. the movie has a nonsensical plot that doesn't make any sense and no amount of editing can save it.

 

[platakul]

i really can't let this slide. the movie has a nonsensical plot that doesn't make any sense and no amount of editing can save it.

The fish asians that are voiced by a white guy doing an accent that struggles with liquids (very appropriate) try to conquer a planet populated by lizards with dreadlocks. Aloof white guy and child save the day for the republic who was struggling to make its payments on that spherical senate building because taxation was interrupted by fish asians

 

[inm8num2]

Phantom Menace has flaws but it's watchable and has some good scenes (podrace, Maul duel). Clones is mostly boring and the focal point of the movie (romance) is sterile and thoroughly unconvincing.

Clones has lower highs and lower lows. It's worse than TPM.

 

[NimbusD]

Oh man, I love this thread. When ATOTC came out, it was almost perfect, minus the love story, for teenage boys. They went all in on angst and fighting, so I remember everyone I know thinking it was such a huge improvement over the first and I felt like I was going crazy. It was fucking torture.

At least, for all it's numerous faults, Phantom Menace had some sense of wonder and originality. It fell horribly flat in so many parts but it was more the execution than the ideas behind them. ATOTC was just creatively bankrupt bullshit that really felt like it only cared about what 'cool' things it can do with technology, even when it came down to the horrible love scenes, like the stupid space potato riding thing that people keep posting.

 

[Surfinn]

Oh man, I love this thread. When ATOTC came out, it was almost perfect, minus the love story, for teenage boys.

Not for me. It was just more disappointment (I think I was fifteen) Though I will say everyone in my theater cheered when Yoda pulled out his saber. When he proceeded to spin around like a tornado I knew SW was finally, completely dead.