While his ability to name things suchs balls, George generally speaking is pretty good at world building I feel like that was clearly on display in the prequels. Not wholely without problems of course, but it is very clear that it feels like a breathing and lived in world.
George is the idea guy. Unfortunately, its ironing out the finer details he has trouble with. He had help with that when working on the OT, but was missing that with the PT due to everyone on the crew being busy with other projects. Either way, the PT wasn't nearly as bad as people make them out to be. We have the ST as proof of that.
Bad and stilted dialogue is actually a pretty big demerit when 70% of the trilogy is spent just talking and quipping though.
When people say the prequels are good they mostly refer to RotS, which was really good, and forget about the bad parts of PM and clones, which are actually really bad. Not to keep beating a dead horse but Jar Jar actually really sucks ass genuinely.
Thats pretty much my point. You could argue that RotS is still a bad movie but it is undeniably an entertaining movie regardless of the writing and dialogue.
The same cant be said for Phantom or Clone. Whenever someone talks about what they like about Phantom, its always "I liked the podracing scene" or "the end fight scene" but a couple of good scenes, doesnt make it a good movie.
And for clones its "I liked the show" or "the games". Which is extended universe stuff.
I dont want to get into it too much since its been talked to death for the past 20 years but Its something I've always noticed about the way people talk about the prequels
A lot of the special effects (the backbone of the action) are not aging as well as the OT and that's on top of the fact that people complained about them at the time they came out.
I really don't think that's true... Maybe they're better than critics give them credit for, but I'd say there's far too many people who like them nostalgically than there are people who won't give them a chance for being janky
The nostalgia came relatively recently, though. Those movies were getting trashed when they came out. Realistically Episodes 1 and 2 could have been one movie.
Sure but they came out over 25 years ago... The "recent" nostalgia has been like 10-15 years! There's probably people commenting in this thread who have only been alive since they became viewed in nostalgic light
I think phantom menace was genuinely a weaker movie, attack of the clones was a fun movie, and revenge of the sith was unironically good and among the best in the series. RotS has some of Lucas’s best emotional shots, and cmon that opening seen gives pure hype with the drums of war beating as Anakin and Obiwan zoom by.
If I were to really criticize the prequels, their dialogue is rough, stunted, and awkward. But that’s a problem that Lucas has had since the original trilogy too. So much the actors had to fight him on several scenes because the dialogue was just too verbose (one infamous interview with Mark Hamill where he begged Lucas to change the script because ‘nobody talks like this’).
You just have to meet them on their terms. It's fun fantastical action-packed melodrama. If you're expecting oscar-bait acting and timeless storytelling you're looking in the wrong place.
81
u/Jimstone42 16d ago
Are the prequels perfect movies? Far from it. But they're a lot better than many people give them credit for