Ok, Matt, before I get into this I just want you to know that I understand your position and I am not trying to make you 'agree' that the prequels are bad. Not at all. All I am trying to do is point out that the opposite side of the argument, the side that says the prequels were bad, is a valid position and one that is held for good reason. That does not mean your position is any less valid, just that the argument against has merit too.
My issue here is the way you are accusing us who didn't like the prequels of not watching them, not paying attention and just being biased or childish about them. We weren't. We watched them. We paid close attention to them. It is through that careful watching we came to the see them as terrible. I'm going to go through the point you've made in response to me and Zorth and try to explain why we hold our position
No, no they do not. There has never been legitimate reasons for hating it, ever. At least the majority of the reasons the haters repeatedly cite, that is.It's that insanity that drove Lucas to selling his company. The vast majority of the complaints against the prequels are nonsensical and have zero basis in reality.
The Red Letter Media reviews are well put together, well researched and do give a legitimate case for disliking the prequels. Even if we remove our own personal opinions (which obviously dictate how we see the RLM reviews), surely we can agree that they make a genuine attempt to explain in detail, with great reference to the Star Wars franchise as a whole, the reasons why a large number of people didn't like the prequels. Whether you agree with them or not doesn't change that fact that they do give perhaps the most comprehensive detailing of why the films are so disliked.
They were the most dramatic fights in science fiction movie history, period. As I've constantly noticed, what the prequel haters complain about doesn't match up with the actual reality of the movies and almost exactly matches the profile of people just going off repeated opinions of critics who never seen a minute of the films in their life. Those fights were some of the most emotionally driven battles ever put on screen.
When I watched the fights in the prequel trilogy I didn't feel anything. I felt no fear, no excitement, no tension, nothing. I knew Obi-Wan was never going to die, knew Yoda and the Emperor weren't going to die, I knew Anakin wasn't going to die and I knew Qui Gon and Dooku and Greivous would. That's an inherent flaw of prequels in general so it would be unfair to blame the prequel trilogy for that.
However, there are plenty of prequels which manage to still get tension into story. In Resident Evil Zero, for example, we knew Rebecca Chambers would survive the game but we didn't know if Billy Coen would. Whenever the pair are put into a life-threatening situation, there is always the chance Billy might die. That creates some tension which makes you feel something.
In the Star Wars prequels, every new character who was involved in these fights was either a Jedi or a Sith (or in Greivous' case working for the Sith) so we knew that at the end only Obi-Wan, Yoda, the Emperor and Vader would still be alive. Of of the new bad guys and good guys in these fights, we knew they were going to die at some point so their inevitable deaths didn't come as a surprise and we were never on the edge of our seat wondering how they were going to get out of this one because we already knew.
Then there's the fact the fights (particularly Obi-Wan vs. Anakin on Mustafar) go on for so long. Any initial burst of energy and emotion which got the fight going has, for the audience, faded after the 10-15 minutes of these fights. Rather than watching Obi-Wan try to avenge Qui Gon's death we end up watching Ewan McGregor reciting a precisely planned choreography. The fights lose emotional focus because they spend so much time trying to be visually impressive. Now, I will agree there, they were visually impressive, but there was little to no emotional connection to the fight for a lot of us and so we didn't engage with them as parts of the story.
An example RLM give is the duel between Vader and Luke at the climax of Return of the Jedi, in which an infuriated Luke simply starts pummelling Vader with his lightsabre. Luke's physical actions are in tune with his emotional state and we can relate to that. Who hasn't just lashed out in anger, with the express goal of just hurting someone? It's more interesting to watch because we can identify with Luke at that point, we can understand his feelings and the physical action helps tell that part of the story.
I couldn't relate to Yoda pogo-sticking his way around Count Dooku or Obi-Wan riding a giant lizard with a huge smile on his face.
These are legitimate reasons for not liking the fight sequences. You disagree and that's fine. These are just the reasons why I found no drama in the fights and therefore didn't like them.
His role was diminished because of people like you wanted something to hate about it.
'People like me'? That suggest there are pepe who valued Jar Jar's presence in The Phantom Menace. Opinions on whether he's annoying aside, Jar Jar's only story function was to get Qui Gon and Obi-Wan to the Gungan City (or Gunga City or Goonga City, Lucas himself constantly uses three different names in the behind the scenes footage on the DVD so it's anyone's game really). After they got to the city, there was no credible narrative reason for Jar Jar to come with them. And yet he ended up in all three prequels.
What if people hadn't minded his character? Not loved it, because that would give a legitimate reason to have him return, but I mean just hadn't been bothered about him. Would he be justified in returned twice when he had no real role to play?
A diminished role gives people less to hate about him because he was in there less. People's reason for hating him all stem from The Phantom Menace when we didn't know anything about him and quickly discovered we hated him. At one point, Jar Jar even breaks the fourth wall by looking directly at the camera and smiling. One of the CG characters looks directly at the camera and a lot of people see that as a direct taunt on the part of Lucas. He knew people disliked an almost completely redundant character but he still kept putting him back in and it can be argued he did it to antagonise his audience.
I can guarantee you with 110% certainty that if the prequels made zero additional references or connections to the original besides the obvious (Obi-Wan, Anakin, Emperor), the prequel haters would have made that into one of their big complaints. They look for something to hate.
How can you guarantee that? People didn't complain just because characters like Jabba or Bobba Fett showed up, people complained because the way the were incorporated was either poor or outright pointless. If Jabba served some purpose then people wouldn't have called it a shoe-horn cameo.
Having Chewbacca present on Kashyyk was perhaps the most disliked of all. Chewy didn't even get involved in the battle, he was up with the commanders just doing nothing. His appearance was redundant and raised questions about Chewy's behaviour in the original trilogy. Fans actually created their own theory to try to justify Chewbacca's presence in Revenge of the Sith, and when the fans have to write your story for you, something has gone wrong somewhere down the line.
People didn't look for things to hate in these movies. Everyone was excited beyond belief when The Phantom Menace was announced. People went to see the films, saw how little sense they made and how poorly they had been filmed and then disliked them. They didn't try to hate them for no reason.
Complaining about camera angles is childish and pointless, and talking scenes make up most movies INCLUDING the originals that are praised so much. Empire was heavy with the talking scenes. It was a character driven story. Also, tax disputes are a common cause of conflict with a government, there had to be some pretext the Emperor had to use to start the Clone Wars and taxes is a very reasonable one, if it weren't discussed, the I can also promise you that would have been a complaint. And there weren't that many long conversations either. It only came up a couple times in the first film in a single sentence each, further proving you haven't really seen the prequels and really paid attention to them.
Complaining about camera techniques is an extremely valid criticism of a movie. Camera angles are used to incredible effect in the hands of a talented director. Take Speilberg's work on Jaws, Kubrick's work on The Shining or Nolan's work on Inception. Some of the most praised aspects of those films are the cinematography and how it was used to create either impressive visual effects or help tell the story. Even the original Star Wars trilogy uses great cinamatography. Abrilliant example is the very first shot in A New Hope. The camera is placed below the Star Destroyer to signify the Empire's power, size and dominance. We are being told part of the story just from where the camera is and how it makes us feel.
And yes, the orignal trilogy is made up of lots of talking scenes but the difference is the characters. In the orignal trilogy those dialogue scenes are used to help us learn more about the characters and develop their relationships as well as move the story forward. The scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo and Leia talk while repairing the Millenium Falcon serves one purpose and that is to develop their romance. It's far more interesting to watch because of they way Leia trys to resist and Han keep pouring on the charm than watching Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman sat on a couch quoting romance novel clichés at one another.
There's usually more going on when they talk in the original trilogy as well. I the prequels there are three types of talking scene: one where people sit down; one where people walk very slowly; one where people talk in the Senate or Jedi Council Chamber (I put these together because both are a circular room with people sit around the edge talking to someone in the centre). All of these talking scenes are filmed from flat angle and often over-the-shoulder. There's no imagination in them, no drama or even anything visually interesting. It's just a bad way to do dialogue scenes and if you watch the original trilogy, dialogue scenes in those films have a lot more going on.
As for the taxes, I wasn't disputing them being a reasonable cause of war, I was just making the point that we didn't really need so much background on the politics. In the original trilogy we could still feel deeply emotionally engaged with the fight against the Empire when all we were ever told was the Empire are bad. Nothing more. The prequels go into unecessary detail to set up the political scenario but then fail to truly explain what's going on. We know someone is being taxed. The film doesn't tell us who or how much or on what. The film also doesn't tell us why only Naboo is affected by these tax issues and talks of a crisis that is apparently killing the natives of Naboo yet we never see Naboo as anything but a lush, affluent paradise.
We didn't need the political background, but since it is there they could have at least made it coherent by giving us some explanation beyond 'taxes'.
See, this is the problem that I have with the prequel haters, things they complain about in the prequels are things they overwhelmingly praise in the originals and the blatant hypocrisy of it all just absolutely mind boggling. And yet this isn't a problem to them somehow.
The original trilogy and the prequels are nothing alike in almost every aspect, even the things like dialogue scenes. The originals are just better made films and it's because they were more of a co-operative effort, whereas the prequels had one man telling everyone what to do and no one standing up to say 'What if we do this...?'
I don't mean to come across as overly offensive. But I am offended by this clear... assertion of incorrect things with the prequels while making it plainly obvious you haven't really watched it while actually paying attention to it to get ANY of the big details right. Being flat out wrong about the tax conversations for example. Things like that are extremely common in prequel haters. The attitude generally boils down to "they changed it, so it sucks" rather than actually trying to judge it on its own merits. Just look at how this is thread is going. The haters are convinced the new movie will suck. So they'll go into it with that conclusion already decided, and enough of them will pay so little attention they'll leave convinced it is bad and the hate will begin anew. It's really a simple, and common problem. And one easily spotted.
I'm a bit offended that just because I have a different opinion to yours you label me a 'prequel hater' and constantly insult my capacity to watch a movie and understand what's happening.
Like I said at the start, I am not trying to make you change your mind, far from it. I am just trying to explain that there
are two sides to this. The prequels are disliked so widely and so vehemently for very legitimate reasons. You are coming across as very resistant to the idea that people actually dislike emotionless fights, poor camera techniques, poorly written dialogue and characters, an over saturation of redundant visual effects, bad direction and more plot inconsistencies than the Mass Effect 3 ending.
We all watched the same movies and we all paid attention to them. We left with a very different opinion to you. That in no way means you understood the films better or paid more attention and it in no way means we went in wanting to hate them. There are two sides of this coin, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
I have. That's what confirmed they were nonsense.
The RLM reviews use clear examples and reasonable logic to show the flaws in the prequels. It explains these flaws from the perspective of an audience member and avid fan of Star Wars to highlight exactly why people dislike them. They go into detail about why the plots of all three prequels make no sense and are terribly written and use evidence from within the movies themselves to back up their claims.
You may disagree with them, but the points they make are valid ones. Just because you don't share their view doesn't mean their view isn't legitimate.
The battles were focused on characters, not the overall conflict. The original trilogy was the other way around, where the conflict got more attention.
In the prequels the battles were focused entirely on spectacle. If you're going to accuse us of not watching the films, maybe you shouldn't say things which are obviously wrong to everyone, even prequel supporters. I used the example above of Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul compared to Luke vs. Vader and explained how the physical actions of the fights are used to do very different things. Obi-Wan and Darth Maul's fight is centred around how fast they fight, how skilled they are and the whole scene is done to look as cool as possible. Luke and Vader's fight is just Luke hitting Vader repeatedly, using the lightsabre more like a club. This reveals Luke's emotions and he's us relate to the character. To say the focus there is the conflict and not the characters is a baffling position to take.
Another example, Yoda vs. Count Dooku. The fight starts with then both throwing rocks and lightning at each other and then a fast paced lightsabre duel which has a CG Yoda jumping around and bouncing off walls, doing backflips and somersaults and cartwheels around Dooku. The focus is clearly on the visual spectacle of seeing Yoda fight for the first time, not the characters, especially when you consider this is the first time either character has interacted with each other in the film so there's no emotional build up to their battle.
Compare that to Leia chasing Boba Fett at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. There's a sense of urgency in the fact everyone's running around, there's no style to the fight, they just see Stormtroopers and shoot. This is more relatable because Leia doesn't have time for fancy tricks and skill shots, she just needs to get them out of her way. There's the emotional charge of what happens if she doesn't rescue Han? Will he die? With Dooku vs. Yoda we knew Dooku wouldn't kill a single person in the room because they are all in the original trilogy. No tension, no drama.
The fight sequences in the prequels have no concern for character at all except one point, Obi-Wan vs. Anakin on Mustafar but that fight goes on for far too long and the only reason why is so we can have as many visually impressive shots of the two fighting over lava as possible. We know both characters survive the fight so putting them in a perilous situation like that had no function other than to show off what Lucas can get people to render on their computers. So the only example of a prequel fight focusing on character is actually the best example of them not focusing on character at all.
This was in regard or the Jabba cameo in The Phantom Menace and this quote really explains why I don't appreciate your zealously one-sided view of this matter. Because when it gets down to it, all the things you praise the prequels for, all of the things you identify as positives, well, that's not what I see. I see a different film to you, one that was terrible in every way. But instead of deciding Episode 7 will be bad because of that, instead of slating your opinion about the prequels, instead of accusing you of having not watched the movies at all, I understand that what I saw is not what you saw. I understand and accept that.
Again, my goal here isn't to make you see the prequels the way I do. It is merely to explain why I see them differently to you. You keep saying 'prequel haters' have no valid complaints but they do. They have hundreds of them. You just don't see them. Well here they are. You don't have to agree with them, but they are here and they are valid.
Thanks for posting that. All of this proves how little attention haters actually pay to it. These details are completely wrong.
- The blockade had been going on for months, not a few days.
- The characters were the focus, not the crisis. This complaint is in contradiction with the battle complaint.
- Because they were two Jedi he didn't know. Of no consequence. He was good, but he couldn't know those particular ones would play the roles they did.
- They DID NOT land on the opposite side of the planet. They landed on the same continent, a few hundred kilometers away, pretty standard for invasions. Naboo has a deep underwater network that goes all the way to the core, that's why it's called that. They did not go through the middle of the planet. Just think about it, the water pressure would be too high for life deep down.
- Because they were stupid and their stupidity was made apparent and a frustration to Palpatine. They also didn't tell him they escaped. If you have a problem with characters making stupid mistakes that lets the heroes escape, then you clearly haven't seen many movies, because it's a Hollywood tradition.
-The blockade lasted months and yet the planet doesn't seem to be suffering at all so the blockade has no real effect and how long it has been there isn't important.
-All the characters ever did was talk about the crisis. There was no development of relationships because every conversation centred on the crisis and what could be done to resolve it.
-Just because Palpatine didn't know the Jedi doesn't mean killing them would have hindered his plans. His entire goal was to get word of the crisis to the Senate. Those two Jdi were there to provide the Senate with a report on the situation. Killing them, for any reason, directly hinders his plans by preventing word of the crisis getting to the Senate.
-going through the planet's core does seem to suggest they landed on the other side of the planet. If they landed on the same continent as the Naboo City, why would they eve have to go through the core? Boss Nass makes it very clear that the core is the fastest route and if they were on the same continent, the core would be a completely unecessary detour.
-The last point I have no issue with. It was a stupid decision but that sort of thing does indeed happen all the time in movies so complaining about it here would be unfair.
I have, my opinion stands. They clearly have payed very little attention to the source material.
If there's one thing RLM did it was pay close attention to the source material. To say they didn't isn't even an opinion, it's just wrong. You can disagree with their conclusions all you want but they did pay attention. You can't make a review that is longer than the movie without paying attention to the movie.
They were not all "perfectly legitimate". Declaring that is extremely arrogant. Particularly with all the blatant lack of fact checking and zooming off on opinions based on incorrect facts that are easily corrected by just looking at the source material, which obviously few bother to even try to do.
So to say I didn't like the film because the characters were poorly written isn't legitimate? To say I didn't like the film because the plot has numerous holes and makes no real sense is arrogant? To say I didn't like the film because the action sequences had no tension or drama because of a total lack of focus on character and an overindulgence in redundant visual effects is me having not paid the films any attention?
What's "extremely arrogant" is the assertion that everyone who disagrees with you is wrong about everything, the suggestion that they are not as intelligent as you because they 'didn't understand it' and the belief that any opinion which differs for your own is based on lies.
Again, you have your opinion of these films, fine. Great. I hope you enjoy them. But to say that everyone who disagrees is wrong is an insult and extremely close-minded. There are problems with these films. You didn't see them, fair enough. Others did. It's no good telling us our opinion is wrong when we can back it up with evidence from the films themselves. This is why RLM became so popular. Their reviews took everything we didn't like in the film and articulated it all in a way which clearly expresses all of our frustrations. Just because you disagree doesn't mean those frustrations don't exist and it doesn't mean the people who have them didn't watch the movies.
I don't mean to sound like I am attacking your opinion because that truly is not my intent. My reason for posting this is simply to try to let you see that it is possible to not like the prequels for valid reasons. Saying we didn't watch them or suggesting we didn't get it is childish and insulting and all I ask is that you acknowledge that we are not idiots, we simply didn't like the prequels.
