Without wishing to get embroiled in what appears to be a fairly vigorous debate, a little bit of unbiased feedback form a "prequel hater".

I didn't like the prequels. I'm not a film critic so I'm not good at explaining why I didn't enjoy them, but I feel as a piece of "entertainment" the onus is of the films to entertain me, not me to justify why I was not entertained. As such I'm not going to bother to read a massive article that tells me why I "should" be entertained by these bad films because allegedly they were all planned out in advance. Even if that's true, that doesn't make them entertaining films. I find it a little presumptive of the OP to suggest I have any kind of duty to read that.

On the other hand, even though I did not enjoy them, I am grateful that they exsist. Without the prequels we probably would not have this wonderful RPG we all love so much. We may well not have the new films coming out, which look pretty good so far (we'll know soon enough). We certainly wouldn't have had the Clone Wars, about 60% boring filler for kids and 40% incredibly good television that makes the whole series worthwhile, totally rehabilitates Anakin as a character and actually makes me care about anything in Star Wars pre-New Hope.

I almost didn't bother to post, since I am, as I have explained, disinterested in this article, but I though it might be helpful to have an idea of the opinions that I suspect a lot of my fellow "haters" that have no interest in this thread share.

As some people have mentioned before, we all have our opinions and that's OK. If you like one movie and not another that's no better or worse than the other way around. But since this is a total nerd thread, I need to be involved somehow.

... I'm not saying it makes the movies better (or worse), and certainly doesn't rescue the movies from the terrible dialog....

Yes, I have to agree on this one, the dialogues in PT are even worse than in OT and even those had SIGIFICANT weaknesses (think of Luke approaching Dagobah!).

See, this is where I think a lot of the hate comes from. Think back to the seventies. We had never seen anything like Star Wars before. Up till that point all the space movies were either Silent Running and Logan's Run (both very good, but slow moving) or cheese like The Green Slime or Barbarella or that years Godzilla flick. Fun, but low budget and cheesy. Star Wars turned the industry The World on it's ear.

Consider 1999. We've had the Matrix and Independence day and T2 and Jurassic Park and Armageddon and hundreds and hundreds of big budget extravaganzas. It's hard to be blown away by special effects when you see photo-realistic dinosaurs and Robert Patrick turning into a silver blob every week. The genie was out of the bottle by that point.

While I'm usually on Desslok's side, It hink, I just have to disagree here. The "hate" (isn't it disdain?) for the PT does not stem from the exaggerated expectations. It stems from the fact that the IDEAs for the PT were cool, but the movies were just VERY BADLY DONE:

1) The script was bad overall.

Scenes didn't make sense or were clearly only included because one or two shots had to be in to show what amazing CGI they had available. The dialogues were often atrocious even compared to the OT up to overly theatrically to the point of pathetic. The whole secrecy thing about the script even made it impossible for great actors like Liam Neeson to give any depth to their characters. List goes on and on.

2) Badly done characters.

Where do I even start? Jar Jar is most obvious, but I find Padme Amidala the most painful: her concept is very good and Natalie Portman is a pretty good actress. But she is forced to be overshadowed by her wardrobe all the time, because ...?... someone wanted to show off their costumes budget or something? Take the lake scene in E II: Padme wants to fight her feelings for Anakin because she knows into what kind of trouble it would get him. She is a resolute woman who has ALWAYS put her duty and everybody else's well-being before her own wishes and then she wears a dress that makes you wonder how it even clings to her body. Something that an Escort would wear to seduce her client (or a mark if she's working a Con)! It makes no sense, is totally out of character and TOTALLY UNNECESSARY!

3) Unnecessary contradictions to the OT.

Well, the medichlorin or whatever they are called is the best example of course. Qui Gon Jin is one of the wisest and most renown Jedi in the Galaxy that "should have been on the Council a long time ago". He could just have felt it and that would have been enough. No, we have to get a blood sample (which is transported to Coruscant immediately, because we suddenly have beaming in Star Wars - Yes, I know that's not exactly how it happened, but their explanation doesn't make sense either) and have him DNA tested for a Bacterial infection with the force. Oh, and Anakin's Father cannot simply be unknown, no, we have to get his mother's word for it that she was bonked by a force angel after a party or something.

Did I mention that Obi Wan didn't meet Luke's father when he was a pilot during the Clone Wars? He was just a kid and the Clone War - it was just one and it should have been named for the Separatists - wouldn't start for another ten years or something. All of that could easily have been done with more subtlety without contradictions to the OT.

4) Bad filmmaking.

So many scenes just don't touch you. A thousand comparisons are possible, but let's just take beginning of Episodes III and IV. Both times we start with a space battle, but in E III it is the titanic clash of the two biggest fleets in history deciding the outcome of the Clone Wars. Will the Separatists break the Republic or can the Republic finally stop the Separatists? In E IV the skirmish is a minor encounter that is comparable to a police action and it only is important because of it's repercussions later on. And how do the story arcs, the tension building and the music compare? Even today E IV slams you into your chair with tension and apprehension and E III ... is just two dudes flying in their fighters. It leaves you emotionally untouched because it is badly done.

In E II: Anakin on Tatooine hunting the Tusken. When on the speeder bike, the lighting is wrong and once he leans into a left curse when the background shows a right curve. These are things filmmakers have been getting right for ages and they are not diffcult. Why blow millions of dollars on CGI and then get the basics wrong?

In E III Knightfall: The mood is set by the setting sun and the approaching darkness. Smoke rises from the temple and Padme has "bad feelings about" what is happening. And what happens? In one image the sun sets in the East and in another shot - their orientation is clear from earlier parts in the movie - in the West (or the other way around). Again a simple mistake in a million dollar CGI scene.

That being said (typed) I'm not a "prequel hater", I'm just very disappointed. And of course there are a lot of good characters/scenes/things to come out of the PT too, I did like a lot of the ships (important in a space opera), the Gungans (except one of them!), the music (Duel of the Fates!), etc. It's just that they could have been so easily made so much better!

And that is why the theory of the Ring is very nice, but totally besides the point. Yes, it would have been a nice ring with nice references, if it had been professionally done. And not just done with a lot of money. And, by the way, it also doesn't help that he intentionally created a Saga or an Epic and not just a movie sextet. Because it was done badly. The Epic thing let us overlook obvious shortcomings in the OT (hey, it's a fairy tale, not a history lesson or physics lesson or political thriller) but in the PT they just overdid it.

Just my two cents...

Edit: spelling and last paragraph.

Its like reverse money. Money has value, because the government says it does. But just because someone says they aren't garbage, they're still garbage

At this point, I don't think there is much more to say about the prequels. They were a disappointment to a great many people and while not a financial disaster by any means - hell, I did not like them and I saw all three - they failed to live up to both their critical and financial potential. One can analyse them to death and still not change that fact. We will see if Disney and JJ Abrahams manage to do them one better in three weeks' time.

At this point, I don't think there is much more to say about the prequels. They were a disappointment to a great many people and while not a financial disaster by any means - hell, I did not like them and I saw all three - they failed to live up to both their critical and financial potential. One can analyse them to death and still not change that fact. We will see if Disney and JJ Abrahams manage to do them one better in three weeks' time.

It sure looks like they will be better! The characters seem to have a lot more personality, just in the trailers and teasers, than any of the characters in the prequels had in all three movies put together. I don`t hate the prequels, but when you don`t care about the characters in them, it gets boring fast.

At this point, I don't think there is much more to say about the prequels. They were a disappointment to a great many people and while not a financial disaster by any means - hell, I did not like them and I saw all three - they failed to live up to both their critical and financial potential. One can analyse them to death and still not change that fact. We will see if Disney and JJ Abrahams manage to do them one better in three weeks' time.

It sure looks like they will be better! The characters seem to have a lot more personality, just in the trailers and teasers, than any of the characters in the prequels had in all three movies put together. I don`t hate the prequels, but when you don`t care about the characters in them, it gets boring fast.

Hopefully the sequels will be good. But then again, the Phantom Menace trailer looked great too. My solution is just to assume they will be, optimistically, ok. I either will only be slightly disappointed, get what I assumed I'd get or be positively surprised.

Also, i hope people understand the following points:

"I believe they are objectively flawed on a cinematographic point of view"

"That may be right, but i still liked them"

One is not wrong for liking these movies

But one can also believe they are, on an objective point of view, deeply flawed.

A does not preclude B.

Insulting people over what they believe is not all right. The only way someone can be "wrong" is if they try to bring out objective points that cannot be defended. Nobody is wrong for liking the prequel.

But i believe they are wrong for thinking they are competently made movies on a cinematographic point of view.

We can argue that point back and forth, as long as nobody insults the other and dont go back to subjective arguments "well i liked it". Nobody can dispute your tastes. I ADORE Pacific Rim despite its flaws, my gf think its unremarkable. Nobody is wrong about that.

Spraug gets a lot of it right, but there's more.

Star Wars is often described as a kids movie, I never really saw it that way but I suppose it's true for episodes 4-6, but in eps 1-3 (especially episode 1) it just gets rammed down your throat how kid grabbing they tried to be. Comedy relief gugans galore, comedy relief battle droids and Anakin the wonder kid, he fixes anything! builds droids! pod racer ace and flies Starfighters! is there anything Anakin can't do?? uuugh...

The combat the romance, the combat, the romance. Episode 2 is great for this.. it changes gears so often on what's happening.. it's action than sappy love the next instant.. it really kills the flow and the acting just makes it that much worse..

And lets talk about the acting.. is it really the acting? or was it the script? Could we have replaced Hayden Christensen with Mark Hamill and had a better movie? possibly.. I really don't know.. Hayden's acting was fairly weak but there's few few few characters that have a strong presence on screen.. Jango was weak, Mace Windu wasn't anything special, Padme..I dunno she was no analog to Leia she was just a plot device. so the scripts have a lot at fault.

When episodes 1-3 came out I was in high school, I thought most of them where pretty bad but really liked the battle sceens.. but now 10 years later I sit down, turn on something like the arena on Geonosis to see some Cool monster action.. and am immediately bored.. there's barely any dialog the action is poor and the music is bland..

And lastly, when Anakin falls to the dark side... did anyone feel for him? did you have sympathy for the fallen hero? or did you just see a spoiled brat whine his ass off for 2 movies and finally become some horrible monster that taints your view of Vader these days?

Personally theres a good reason why I don't really talk a great deal about star wars itself. Everyone has opinions and if you don't agree, the same opinion will be repeated louder. If in doubt, call their mother a wookie and call it a day.

There are large sections of the prequels which just don't really do it for me, but they were quite passable if you knew which parts to skip, episode 3 especially was entertaining from start to finish. Luka's vision for world building was utterly fantastic and unfaultable, just large sections of ep 1-2 were largely forgettable drivel. Kind of a shame really, since Palps plan of conquest really was quite ingenious.

I went it to episode 1 with very low expectations based on what I had heard. I walked out told me wife, "You know, that wasn't bad".

Episode 2 though, yeesh.

Episode 3, nowhere near as bad as 2.

I don't think the PT are as good as the OT, but it's only Episode 2 I can't watch again. I agree with the knowing which parts of 1 and 3 to skip.

The PT was disappointing to watch and no post analys can ever change that.

Fingers crossed the next 5 movies are actually entertaining and tell a new story. In particular Rogue One sounds like it could be a breath of fresh air.

Fingers crossed the next 5 movies are actually entertaining and tell a new story. In particular Rogue One sounds like it could be a breath of fresh air.

I'm somewhat heartened by hearing about a different franchise in the Disney group, apparently the Jessica Jones series on Netflix explores darker and grittier themes than the normal Marvel fare. I was really enjoying the direction TCW was taking along those lines, I'm hoping they push some of the new SW stuff in the same direction.

Not enough discussion about sand.

Needs more Jar Jar.

We should also get a special edition of the OP

Fingers crossed the next 5 movies are actually entertaining and tell a new story. In particular Rogue One sounds like it could be a breath of fresh air.

I'm somewhat heartened by hearing about a different franchise in the Disney group, apparently the Jessica Jones series on Netflix explores darker and grittier themes than the normal Marvel fare. I was really enjoying the direction TCW was taking along those lines, I'm hoping they push some of the new SW stuff in the same direction.

Jessica Jones was very good. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Disney is not afraid to do dark when it is applicable. And something doesn't need to be dark to be good. I am not a fan of the Clone Wars series but I find Rebels much more enjoyable.