With May the 4th having come and gone, I've decided to talk about a topic near and dear to my heart. The Star Wars prequels have many problems and I'm sure you're quite familiar with them, as sadly, over the years, the trilogy has become more and more associated with disappointment by now.

It's been 14 years since the last movie in the prequel trilogy and, even today, people still attack the series of movies in the belief that the prequels tainted the UNDENIABLE GREATNESS that is the original trilogy of movies and they've got every right to think that!

I mean, from a critical standpoint, the original movies are indeed clearly better, which is one of the many reasons why Disney has been suppressing the prequel era, because they want people to focus on the newer universe unfolding, "forget the past" as the most recent movie preaches.

Ask any Star Wars fan and they will have something bad to say about the prequel trilogy, but I honestly think I'm in the 1% category of fans who really thought the prequel movies were great if you evaluate them on their own merits.

Do I think they deserve Oscars? No, not really. They were follow-ups to some of the greatest films of all time. But many people planted the seed of disappointment within them, letting it grow and fester, building these movies up into terrible atrocities that were horrible reflections on the thing they loved. They forgot that there was actually good here. Their anger led to hate, and the hate led to suffering. So this Fight Me Friday, I thought I’d try to find the good in the most maligned part of Star Wars history to help you heal your wounds.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace - Where It All Started


Like all logical discussions, we must start at the beginning with The Phantom Menace. The first Star Wars movie since 1983, expectations couldn’t be higher. It opens with the riveting subject matter of tax negotiations. It’s full of offensive stereotypes from minute one. Natalie Portman’s acting is wooden, Jake Lloyd’s Anakin is obnoxious, and don't even get me started on Jar Jar. So much has been said about why Jar Jar Binks is a blight upon this universe and the next, and actively ruins every scene he’s in.

And yet, despite all of that, the movie does have its redeeming moments. Liam Neeson was an amazing casting choice to play a wise Jedi Master. Ewan McGregor gives a fantastic performance as young Obi-Wan. He has one of the more complete, well-played journeys of anyone in the trilogy. By the third movie, he’s an entirely different person than he is here, and the transition feels natural and is a sign of great storytelling. He’s also clearly overjoyed to be in a Star Wars movie, which makes his Obi-Wan fun to watch. McGregor and Neeson work well together, and you can see the characters’ influence on each other as Master and Apprentice.

The big set pieces are where this movie really shines and lets it show off some of the muscle that the then "modern" film techniques can yield. The pod racing sequence is an early highlight, even if it does drag on a little long. But you can't tell me you don't remember how that race goes down! The stakes are established when the danger of the sport is mentioned and raised with Qui Gon’s bet on Anakin. The action is well-shot and easy to follow. There’s an adversary for Anakin to beat, and most of all, pod racing actually looks cool. (It's no surprise this one scene inspired one of the best racing games on the Nintendo 64.)

Then there’s the big battle at the end. One of the first movies I can remember seeing a believable CGI army of droids. Meanwhile, there’s an awesome Jedi battle happening between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Darth Maul. Maul was a fantastic villain who always deserved more than this one movie. He was terrifying, a formidable fighter, and wielded what is still the coolest lightsaber ever designed. (Who didn't immediately gasp when the second half of that lightsaber was lit?) The fight itself is fun, fierce and Qui Gon’s death hits almost as hard as Obi-Wan’s way back in Episode IV. Not to mention, “Duel of the Fates” is a fantastic piece of music.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones - On Sand and Clones


First point, Jar Jar is almost entirely absent from this movie, so that’s a huge improvement already. Attack of the Clones is most remembered for the introduction of Hayden Christensen. And yeah, he’s not great in this and could have brought more to the movie. Some might argue on the other hand that he plays the angsty teen a bit too well, but in my opinion he does lay it on a little too thick. It does ruin the viewing experience at stages. And then there’s the dialog... Dialog has never been George Lucas’s strong suit (even the original trilogy has some questionable lines), but it’s especially bad here. We all know how much Anakin dislikes sand. "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere" is probably the most laughably terrible line in the entire canon.

Here’s the thing though: There is still a good movie in here. Yes, the ham-fisted romance plot is nigh unwatchable, but Obi-Wan’s storyline completely redeems this movie. If you only watch his scenes, they tell a pretty compelling space mystery story, punctuated by exciting action beats. Jango Fett is almost as cool as Boba eventually becomes, which is no small feat, and he has a great fight scene with Obi-Wan. The first time you see the clone army is an effectively chilling visual, and we start to get into some fun foreshadowing of what’s to come. Ewan McGregor continues to refine his portrayal of Obi-Wan, finding the character’s sense of wit. Christopher Lee is easily the best part of the movie, and his Count Dooku is an even more formidable villain than Darth Maul was. Plus, we get to see Yoda in a lightsaber duel. You can’t tell me you'd never wondered what that would look like till then. Cut this movie up into half-hour chunks, and it would fit right in with the Clone Wars cartoon that came later. And you know what? That cartoon was the best thing to ever come out of these prequels. In fact, if you ignore all the romance scenes, Attack of the Clones is essentially an above average Clone Wars story arc and I’d watch that all day.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - It All Comes Full Circle


This movie doesn’t need to be redeemed by anything. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a legitimately good movie. That’s helped by the fact that this movie contains everything we wanted to see since The Phantom Menace came out. The rise of the Empire, Anakin turning evil, Luke and Leia being born, and Obi-Wan becoming a hermit. All that, plus maybe the fact that our expectations were incredibly low after Episodes I and II, made Revenge of the Sith a notable upgrade in quality.

Thankfully, Hayden Christensen refined himself over the year or two between movies and became a better actor. His Anakin is still as angsty as ever, but it’s much less obnoxious than in the previous film. It helps that at this point, he has a reason for acting the way he did. He’s still dealing with the guilt over slaughtering a village of sand people, and Palpatine is fully messing with his head at this point (Which they could have shown us more of, but at least we knew it was there.) Anakin’s transformation into Vader feels a little rushed from having all been crammed into this last movie, but it’s still a natural enough transition.

Ewan McGregor continues to be a fantastic Obi-Wan, with this movie allowing him more emotional depth. He takes advantage of it too. When he realises Anakin has truly gone to the dark side, you can feel Obi-Wan break a little inside. Remember in A New Hope when Owen tells Luke that Obi-Wan died around the same time as his father? In this movie, you see that’s actually kind of true in Obi-wan's eyes. Even Natalie Portman gives a much better performance here than she did in either of the previous movies. Nothing against her, she is demonstrably a fine actress. She just wasn’t given the greatest material to work with in the previous films. The worst you can really say about this movie is that the dialog can get super clunky and there are one or two "plot tie ups" that come across as "far too convenient" which has always been one of George Lucas’s weaknesses. Even with that though, it’s still an effective, surprisingly well-paced tragedy.

In Conclusion


The Star Wars prequels have a different structure than the original trilogy and should be viewed differently. While there are elements that rhyme with its older brother, like the way Anakin destroys the droid control ship and Qui Gon’s death, it doesn’t subscribe to the traditional three act structure. Unlike the original trilogy, the prequels are a tragedy. George clearly isn’t as experienced when it comes to writing those, and it shows here. Their biggest problems are pacing and dialog, two signs that what Lucas really needed was an editor. Someone to tell him "no". All writers need that, and with all the fame and success, Lucas sadly lost his somewhere along the line.

The prequels aren’t bad movies, and certainly, aren’t the worst ever made. They just happen to be tied to some of the greatest, and very few films can survive that comparison. Taken on their own, there’s a lot these movies do really well. They’re fun sci-fi adventure films that get increasingly better as you go along. Plus, without them, we wouldn’t have the excellent Clone Wars or Rebels animated series. That alone is reason enough to give the prequels another chance.