Were the Star Wars Prequels That Bad?

hello there i'm that other george and i've had quite the love-hate relationship with the star wars prequels for a long time now as we shall be exploring in today's analysis i believe the prequels have a lot of flaws which are 100 fine to criticize conversely i believe these films excel in other areas and those elements don't seem to be celebrated as much i personally appreciate the prequels on the concepts alone the original trilogy is perfect but incredibly simplistic in terms of its world building and don't get me wrong it completely works for the stories it's trying to tell but i love the way the prequels really expound this galaxy to introduce so many fantastic planets ship designs creatures all these different types of alien races the expansion on the force all these crazy battlefields and so on they also paved the way for some of my favorite star wars content be it the clone wars adventure comics the clone wars 2d animated shorts the 3d animated clone wars series the classic battlefront 2 game and of course lego star wars the complete saga so yeah there's a lot i have to thank the prequels for and this discussion surrounding whether or not the prequels of good or bad movies has only gotten more interesting with time you see a lot of people including myself felt rather underwhelmed by the conclusion of the sequel trilogy so a lot of people are going back and reevaluating their stance on the prequels so we're going to be heading back in time and reviewing the phantom menace attack of the clones and revenge of the sith to find out if these movies were truly ever that bad so grab a snack get yourself a drink and take a seat because this is going to be quite the adventure this is where the fun begins the year was 1999 and it was an absolutely brilliant year for movies the matrix came out which is an absolute classic the green mile the iron giant toy story 2 fight club the best movie in existence and whoa what's this a new film from that series that didn't start blockbusters but absolutely revolutionized them whoa this is going to be amazing so many people queued up to see this movie and the general consensus right at the time didn't seem to be that the movie left fans feeling heartbroken but it didn't really leave many people feeling extremely happy either episode 1 the phantom menace was good for one weekend truthfully not even that but going to the theater to see the first new star wars movie in 16 years was a huge deal this was an event so we were all buzzing with all the hype we were willing to let it pass after coming out of the theater my friends and i we all looked at each other and said that's pretty good right and as time's gone on especially in the youtube critic space people realize that this film has many flaws so right off the bat i'm just gonna say whilst i like this film a lot in some areas i do around think it's the least interesting of the three prequels and we can endlessly debate whether or not this one's the worst but let's just take a look at the main positives and negatives first the phantom menace opens up with two jedi knights qui-gon jinn and obi-wan kenobi being sent by chancellor palpatine to settle the conflict over a trade dispute and i think both ewan mcgregor and liam neeson carry these roles quite well in this movie since both are just such talented actors but as the characters themselves go obi-wan to me is simply fine in this movie i don't think that other george lucas was trying to put too much of a spotlight on him until the climax of the movie so it's okay qui-gon jinn on the other hand has a lot of screen time in this film unfortunately his character to me just isn't very memorable at all this was a point brought up in the very first plinkett review but aside from describing the character as stoic we don't really get to see too much of his personality the phantom menace is a very plot heavy film and those moments where things begin to calm down would be a great opportunity to find out more about qui-gon as a character but as we all know um that of george lucas felt that it was necessary to give another one of our main characters more screen time we'll get to the positives eventually but we can't continue this review without mentioning the gun gun in the room jar jar binks unfortunately appears 11 minutes into the movie and most people seem to agree that he is the most obnoxious character in this entire franchise [Music] now yes i'm fully aware of the darth jar jar theory the theory that that other george lucas had originally intended for the character to be revealed as the one who's been pulling the strings this whole time and there's a lot of evidence in the prequels that could point towards this theory being true such as jar jar pretending to be this bumbling idiot when in reality he actually has a lot of skill and power but supposedly that of george lucas was put off by the negative reaction to the character and never went through with this reveal now i would absolutely love to believe that this theory exists but unfortunately i do need to go off what's actually in the film and pushing that theory aside the final result of the character being in this film makes him come off as pure comedic relief now i need to emphasize that being a comedic relief character is completely fine i mean c frupio would be considered one and he's a good character but the difference is that the original trilogy wasn't jarring whenever the original movie is transitioned between the more serious moments and moments that play out purely for comedic purposes the two never conflated each other and there are many many films that get this right a film like fargo has an absolutely bizarre but very serious storyline some of the events and decisions made by characters in this film are absolutely absurd and its absurdity sometimes gets played off as slapstick humor however these moments where the story pokes fun at itself doesn't conflate with the tension or important messages and information that the film is trying to express and how about something like kung fu panda where poe the main character in the movie is also the comedic relief character poe is constantly doing the most silly of things and his fellow peers and teacher never hesitate to call him out on it but when the darker sequences in the film play out the tension is back and in fact the jokes in the film actually feed back into the more serious moments since poe at one point is scared to fight any enemies due to the lack of confidence in himself and because people around him that relentlessly make fun of him so accomplishing a film that wants drama and comedy can be done with subtle writing alongside appropriate timing and structure the phantom menace unfortunately does not succeed in this area a lot of the parts with jar jar binks are almost used as transitions between the more important scenes but some of them completely interrupt the scenes right in the middle the worst part for me is the scene where qui-gon jinn is about to express that young anakin skywalker is force sensitive the scene starts off with anakin's mother expressing how the society on tatooine have to fend for themselves the republic's anti-slavery laws the republic doesn't exist out here we must survive on iran excuse me and if that wasn't jarring enough jojo then interrupts the vital conversation about the link between anakin's pod racing skills and anakin's force abilities you must have jedi reflexes if you race parts don't do that again these visual jokes can be fine in isolation but when they interrupt important plot points in the story it completely breaks my immersion jar jar just shouldn't have been at this dinner table how would even jojo aside a lot of the interactions had between characters in this film feel very out of place due to how bad the dialogue is you're a slave i'm a person and my name is anakin i'm sorry and i know bad dialogue is generic to point out in the prequels but it's generic because it's true the scenes on tatooine in particular is where it stands out the most to me every character here feels so static and comes across as like a text-to-speech voice and i feel bad for these actors as well because some of them are very talented that other george lucas is poor at directing these actors but that other george lucas has got the best ideas for the story written down and in his mind but the way those ideas are often presented and translated to us can often lead to them failing this whole act on tatooine is completely lacking character when watto the junk dealer has more charisma than anakin and padme two of the most integral characters in this saga i think something might have gone wrong hey eddie the bar scene from a new hope tells us absolutely everything we need to know about han solo and the society on tatooine when solo has a little disagreement with burrito at the bar he shoots the guy and everyone around him pauses and then continues with their drinks and playing music this scene shows us that han is very cocky and is willing to do just about anything to get back at someone he doesn't like it also shows us that the people on tatooine are only concerned about conflict when it's aimed at them showing how these societies there are just filled with scum and villainy when solo leaves that bar and never returns it feels like that place is just going to continue per usual conversely in the phantom menace if any of our main characters were to leave this place i feel like the whole planet would just be on ports the main evil looking dude who's anakin's number one rival in the pod race sort of has this grudge against jar jar but nothing has ever developed from this except from us just knowing that he's not the good guy so we definitely want anakin to win the race so much more is expounded upon between the simple back and forth that han and greedo have there are only interactions in the phantom menace when there absolutely needs to be nothing seems to flow naturally with that being said i do actually like how the event on tatooine concludes with the pod race it's pretty to the point anakin needs to win the pod race to gather enough money to get an extra component for the ship so that the jedi can leave the planet and honestly i have nothing but compliments for this scene the prequels constantly get bashed for their poor cgi and in a lot of cases i 100 agree the most egregious examples is when you have a character that's just standing in the middle of the set surrounded by pure green or blue screen but when the cgi is not involving any of the characters interacting with the surrounding environment it usually looks pretty good and the padre scene is solid because it has a good mix of models and little set designs allowing that other george lucas to have complete creative control over what exactly he wants in this scene without it seeming too jarring from the overuse of cgi the action and pov shots work really well in this scene honestly i don't really have anything else to add just given credit where credit's due and i also need to give a lot of credit to the climax of this film after anakin wins the race and goes off with quick on jin to become a jedi knight we see the first encounter with darth maul in which our heroes manage to escape but aren't quite relieved just yet i like darth maul quite a bit actually when compared to the best villain in cinematic history he may seem kind of lame but i find this idea of a ruthless sith lord that supposedly has no political or personal motivations and is instead just purely hungry for that jedi blood to be quite interesting and the final interaction sort of with him going up against obi-wan kenobi and qui-gon jinn as jewel of the fates slowly fades its way in the tension rising between all of our characters and the consequences set pretty damn high it's just executed pretty well the choreography is absolutely great and soon by the way and the longer this fight goes on the seemingly harder it is for the jedi to take him down until eventually qui-gon is abruptly stabbed obi-wan is in distraught to see his master being taken down in front of him but uses his patience and his wisdom to perform a pretty impressive jedi skill to defeat darth maul for the time being and this changes a lot for the story obi-wan now has the responsibility of teaching anakin and the open-ended finale of the phantom menace sets up a lot for both our sequel prequels the year was 2002 and not all hope was lost just yet and honestly it ain't perfect but i personally slightly prefer attack of the clones to the phantom menace the idea of this secret clone army being brought in to join the republic and protect the galaxy is an extremely interesting premise that already has me hooked and attack of the clones is a lot more focused in comparison to episode 1 as well in tpm you're asking yourself who the main character even is we follow qui-gon jin for a lot of it but anakin's kind of the center of it all but then we also got a lot of jar jar episode 2 however establishes pretty early on that we will specifically be following a much more mature anakin skywalker and of course his jedi master obi-wan kenobi the film kicks off with the decoy of the queen of naboo being assassinated this of course raises alarms for a lot of people in the senate as it could very much lead to padme the actual queen of naboo being assassinated as well so it's been decided that anakin and obi-wan shall act as bodyguards to ensure her safety and on their way to meet her for the first time in just over a decade we get to see a bit of chemistry between obi-wan and anakin in the elevator most will describe it as this bro relationship and whilst it's not hugely expounded upon until our third movie i do at least appreciate that the bridge is there once anakin says hello to padme they interact in quite the awkward way my goodness you've grown so have you grown more beautiful i mean christ [Music] don't worry we'll get to the romance but for now all i'll say is it makes me feel uncomfortable so there's obviously still certain bounty hunters on the loose so our next sequence involves padme being targeted with both our heroes rushing in and chasing down the bounty hunter in the middle of coruscant coruscant could cross on now you can't really complain too much about the cgi here because obviously the idea of flying cars driving about in a busy city is currently impossible to replicate in real life but you know despite the awesome concept some of it even for the time does look quite dated and there's ways to create scenes like this to make it look visually more effective you can tell it's going for sort of a very similar theme to the city and blade runner from 1982 but both blade runner films have aged and will age really well because they also knew the concepts they were going for but they weren't about creating that concept in the correct way the long shots that take place in the city in those movies have been purely constructed in a computer from the ground up but the editors and director knew what they were doing in terms of constructing it all adding the very well polished textures and appropriate lighting to give the city the vibe it's trying to convey again i think the concept of croissant is awesome just presented in this mostly visually unappealing way so after the chase sequence they managed to catch the bounty hunter right before she's killed by the boss bounty hunter jango fett but because she was killed with a very unique dart obi-wan takes it upon himself to seek out information and explore around to find out where this type of darts could possibly come from meanwhile anakin goes away with padme to protect her on naboo and that other george lucas structured this film so that we alternate scenes between obi-wan's quest to find jango fett then being told about the clone army and then we cut back to the awkward scenes with padme and anakin on naboo the scenes with obi-wan are mostly pretty good he has finally discovered kamino in which he's looking for django fett but the people there were actually expecting a jedi to show up because they've been training a clone army to come and join the republic and as stated earlier i find this premise extremely interesting and i'm glad it's here to show how the clone army came about eventually obi-wan is led straight to django and they proceed to have a pretty solid fight scene you can question a lot of the cgi choices but again at least the choreography is still really good and i love that we get to see some of django's abilities used here i like boba fett the sun a lot in the original trilogy and him having more of a mysterious presence in both empire and return of the jedi works pretty well with the plot of both those movies so i fully acknowledge that his character was handled well for his purpose but i personally just wanted to see more from him he has this very intimidating presence but he never really gets let off the chain until his final moment before he gets eaten by a sand monster thing but with django we get to see him use the dual wielding pistols obviously the jet pack the rockets this little string that's apparently called a whip cord thrower and the arm blade thingy so these abilities serve as creating a nice bit of spectacle action for the movie but i also really like that we get to see this useful technology and all these weapons being utilized because it also explains why the clone army are so well advanced obi-wan follows jango who's flying the slave one also known as the objectively best ship in star wars they have a bit of a space battle and both django and boba believe that they have wiped him out with the seismic charge but then obi-wan proceeds to follow them to the planet geonosis but in between all of these interesting parts and solid action we keep cutting back to anakin and padme on naboo and my god is the romance so bad in this movie not a day has gone by when i haven't thought of you and now that i'm with you again i'm in agony the closer i get to you the worse it gets the thought of not being with you i'm haunted by the kiss give me a dick i don't mention that much you do mate oh pardon me for having a girlfriend it takes all of the correct boxes in terms of presenting a relationship in a movie and i should present some examples from la la land and scott pilgrim vs the world two movies in which the central plot revolves around the couple's relationship and to present it well all you simply need to do is show some scenes of the characters getting along in a happy environment and conversely you show some scenes of the characters bickering over something just like most normal relationships in real life but for some reason that other george lucas wrote the dialogue in such a way where it tries to be this extremely metaphorical intense love for each other but in reality it's just cringey as hell whereas scott pilgrim fully embraces that awkwardness that a nerdy couple in their early twenties can have i want you to know i don't care about any of that stuff because i'm in lesbians with you what i really really mean it's very self-aware and clearly understands what it's trying to achieve and in la la land sebastian and emma go on these dates to the cinema to jazz bars and support each other's dreams and aspirations but unfortunately they couldn't always be there for each other and thus leads to the couple arguing but despite being set in this weird colorful dancy world every interaction had between the two characters be it positive or negative has them talking to each other like normal humans which is a bizarre compliment to the film but when you compare it to attack of the clones you understand what i mean by that the romance in attack of the clones just comes across as that other george lucas even not knowing what he was trying to achieve with their relationship or he just failed whatever he was trying to present but that isn't the sort of core of the story and it takes place over three movies this one it's a much more condensed uh love story much more romantic story so that padme's costumes are obviously more sultry in nature [Music] so fortunately anakin's mother is dying okay that sounds terrible on its own what i mean is it's good for the plot because now our characters can actually go off and do something rather than just being creepy around each other all day now this segment is mainly going to be a recap because i don't have a whole lot to say about it but essentially anakin can sense his mother dying so he informs padme that he must leave to go and look for her and padme insists that she wants to go with him so they go there and anakin discovers that his mother was taken by the tuscan raiders and goes out to rescue her only to find out that it's too late so he unleashes his full burning rage onto the tuscan raiders and returns with his mother's body to inform padme about what happened i killed them all they're dead every single one of them and not just the men but the women and the children too they're like animals and i slaughtered them like animals i hate them to be angry is to be human quite possibly my pick for the worst line in this movie like anakin has just admitted to slaughtering men women and children and padme's natural response to that is that he's only human this shouldn't have made it into the final draft of the script but how no one questioned this on set is absolutely beyond me anyway obi-wan is caught while searching for django and he was led to a whole hive of separatists but luckily he sent out a signal for backup so anakin and padme travel right next door to geonosis to give obi-wan a helping hand but they fail now all our main characters are chained up in the arena and have to face one creature each obviously because the actors are interacting with cgi it doesn't look too great but the design of the creatures themselves are kind of awesome and i would apply that across this trilogy so after some pretty good use of combat skills we see samuel jackson slowly walked down into the arena [Music] oh i'm sorry did i break your concentration i didn't mean to do that please continue master windu how pleasant of you to join us [Music] we then see mace windu fall into the pit of the arena with a whole bunch of droids entering and rushing against the jedi reinforcements now i quite like this scene as just pure spectacle action but i won't pretend like there's a lot at stake here because there really isn't at all the droids aren't there as this threat they're there to purely get sliced up and whilst the empire was never really too much of a threat to our main heroes i'd at least like to think that we got enough screen time of them being tactical and smart with their decisions to justify their existence as a threat to the galaxy and the moments where they seemed useless were quite rare by comparison but with the droids even the super battle droids that look pretty menacing any setup to make them seem remotely problematic to our heroes is basically chucked out the window i mean obi-wan himself even acknowledges how useless they were earlier in the film well if droids could think there'd been none of us here would there but there are useful characters in this finale so it's not as if the whole thing is just flashy visuals i did mention django earlier but he has a pretty big role in this battle when going up against mace windu technically he like barbara had a very abrupt death scene but i quite like django send off because of the setup behind it and the future consequences it sets for the franchise bobo witnessing his dad being decapitated by a jedi adds so much more good backstory to his character sure bounty hunters are just there for the credits at the end of their hard work but this scene shows us exactly why he would have such a grudge against the jedi order and would take the opportunity to kill one in a heartbeat after all that the jedi are somehow cornered by the droids but luckily that certain clone army it came in sort of useful after all and here's where the action truly takes place the stakes are mostly pretty low but this scene has some really good shots in it i feel like i'm repeating myself for a lot of this but when the prequels commit to cgi only they look pretty damn great and this was obviously never going to happen but i feel like these films would really benefit if they were just fully animated so yoda is the one leading this attack and i really don't think he should be i think mace windu would be a perfect option in this particular role but in turn that does mess with a lot of the way this finale was structured and it's not even that yoda's character is inconsistent with a general role but it's the presentation of it that's just really jarring i love yoda's speech pattern and delivery in empire strikes back it's goofy and matches the tone of that part of the film really well yes yes but now let's eat food but when you get him directing troops on a battlefield with that same delivery it just sounds bizarre around the survivors a perimeter create concentrate all your fire on the nearest starship droid army is in full retreat well done commander bring the issue feisty one you are what feisty one you are why are you talking like that it was yoda from star wars and now we enter the finale finale finale of this movie i love dooku in this film his body language his striking presence his lightning abilities that reflect his masters and just christopher lee's overall spectacular performance making him aside from palpatine my favorite villain in this trilogy which i'd say is a fairly high bar i think we got a good set of villains in the prequels we see him firstly go up against anakin and obi-wan and he basically wipes the floor with both of them and slices off anakin's arm and then we see like a little dibby yoda slowly work his way into the room and then chose doogoo who's boss now this was a point brought up in the plinkett reviews and again it doesn't go against yoda's character in any way but seeing him flip around trying to clash lightsabers with count dooku is very jarring especially since christopher lee was six foot five it's just another classic example of a fine concept in the script that just doesn't translate to the picture very well the scene ends with dooku escaping and yoda saving obi-wan and anakin and that essentially wraps up attack of the clones it's a film with a lot of bumps along the way but it does establish the clone wars pretty well and leads us nicely into our final sequel prequel the year was 2005 and not all hope was lost just yet or maybe it was i've been introducing these films as if i knew the consensus at the time but i don't know you listening to me back then i was still youngling watching the original trilogy on vhs but anyway i don't think it's controversial to state that i think star wars episode 3 revenge of the sith is by far the best in the prequel trilogy and don't get me wrong this film does still share a lot of the same problems that are present within the phantom menace and attack the clones the obvious ones being the occasional poor cgi and clunky dialogue so love is blinded but this film has a lot of really great setups and payoffs character moments and impactful scenes to really make me care about this story so overall is it a perfect film no but with episodes 1 and 2 where my feelings are very divided episode 3 i would not hesitate to say that the positives do outweigh the negatives even just slightly so let's jump into those the film starts off with an awesome space battle this is where the fun begins and honestly i think visually speaking this is probably the best looking scene in the prequels again leave the actors out of it and the scene looks great this one actually works even better than previous battles because of the colours of the planet and all the long shots that take place following obi-wan and anakin ships it gives a good sense of simple direction whilst also having a crazy space battle taking place around anyway obi-wan and danican get aboard the ship and later on they're eventually led to chancellor palpatine the sweet old innocent man that needs saving wink wink nudge nudge and this is where our heroes will battle dooku for the last time again it's becoming more of a checklist at this point but the choreography is as great as ever here when the prequels get it right they get it right unlike the jedi's previous encounter with dooku this time it's only obi-wan that needs that revive doc come on man anakin goes through it with dooku and whilst his anger is still certainly present he wasn't quite as blinded by his arrogance this time and i like this scene because it's almost the complete reverse of the climax and attack of the clones whilst we don't see this in the prequel trilogy specifically i think it's more than fair to assume that anakin gathered a lot more skill and a bit more wisdom during the clone wars so defeating dooku this time round was a lot more within his range usually they say an eye for an eye but in this case it's an arm for two arms so at this point dooku is a prisoner in a very vulnerable position but palpatine he ain't having any of it kill him kill him now do it so anakin thinks about it for a second then chops off his head i think the scene is really good sure you could question why dooku didn't speak up when palpatine ordered the kill because you would have thought that dooku would know that sidious is palpatine right but all round this scene is great at establishing just how conflicted anakin feels in the moment it's a good way of telling the audience just how cutthroat the sith really are i mean even dooku offered obi-wan the opportunity to overthrow palpatine in our previous movie but if i told you that the republic was now under the control of the dark lord of the sith hundreds of senators are now under the influence of a sith lord called darth sidious you must join me who be one and together we will destroy the sin and the scene is also good for giving us a slight hint for what to expect from the chancellor anyway they managed to save the chancellor and have to crash this gigantic ship in the middle of croissant and yeah this is where the movie begins so a lot of this film is setting up what's to come with anakin's turn towards the dark side oh yeah spoiler alert and building up towards that order 66 climax there's a lot of back and forth that anakin has with other characters that we'll get into in just a bit but for now we're going to skip slightly ahead to obi-wan's quest for grievous so with our heroes back and cross on their only main concern now is what grievous will do next since as far as the jedi are aware he is the only separatist military leader out there so obi-wan is sent to the planet utipa to try and stop him and after he's informed about grievous location he has quite the entry [Music] hello there general kenobi so general kenobi slices up the magna guards and then it's time to face the final boss here's a real high class and begin and just like for all these battles i don't really have that much commentary to add grievous has just got such a unique build to him and it's awesome to see him face a jedi my only real complaint is that we didn't get to see enough from him in the clone wars 2d animated shorts we witness him being this ruthless jedi killer who's able to take on multiple of them at the same time because of his skills unique abilities and fast reflexes within the prequels though you still get that same impression but not quite that same standard in fact a lot of my criticisms for these movies simply come down to me wanting more of an exploration into these characters so then the clone army springs out right in the middle of their jewel and fend off all the enemy droids meanwhile obi-wan chases down grievous riding the booger the boat is that booger did i just call that a booger i think that might be a boga um he eventually catches up to him and obviously since kenobi has the advantage of using the force he grabs a blaster and shoots grievous until his heart explodes and my heart exploded as well because i think this sequence is great i just wanted more i want more and i know i shouldn't whilst we see obi-wan's quest to take out grievous we see anakin slowly being manipulated into joining the dark side the dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural and i have both praise and criticism for the way this was well executed so i'll be straight up honest i was never 100 convinced by anakin's turn to the dark side even when i was a youngling there are breadcrumbs leading to his turn most notably the jedi being concerned about training anakin in the phantom menace it's not disrespect master it's the truth from your point of view the boy is dangerous they all sense it why can't you his fate is uncertain he's not dangerous and there was a little passing comment in attack the clones where palpatine compliments anakin i have said it many times you are the most gifted jedi i have ever met thank you your excellency but i still feel like we needed more of a build up because a section of one movie to fully establish this just isn't enough if you ask me they do drop arguably subtle hints throughout the movie for example palpatine offers anakin a role as a personal representative on the jedi council almost foreshadowing a sort of second in command that's a thumbs up from me in the scene directly following we see anakin feeling betrayed by the jedi for not granting him this role obi-wan then claims right after that meeting that anakin's getting too close to the chancellor but from what i gathered out of all of the jedi sure anakin is probably the closest but especially at this point in the movie it really wasn't as if they had a ton of screen time together the jedi then later discussed their concerns with obi-wan backing up anakin by saying he's never felt let down by him before he will not let me down he never has i hope right you are padme talks to anakin about the jedi being wrong when it comes to certain issues palpatine proposes this idea to anakin that the jedi are just as worse as the sith yoda talks to anakin about accepting death from someone you know as fighting against it can be a path to the dark side obviously referring to padme's inevitable death and that's ultimately the biggest turning point for anakin which i never fully got behind i mean padme even says that they should just leave everything behind and go to naboo and judging by anakin's previous actions you would have assumed he would accept that offer but as time goes on he sort of seems power hungry out of nowhere you're a new empire and all these events connect the dots in terms of anakin's hatred slowly consuming him and turning him into lord vader but i still to this day feel like this information needed to be sprinkled across the free movies rather than just hitting us all at the same time because his switch feels too out of left field in fact before palpatine even declares him as his new apprentice anakin even informs mace windu that palpatine is the secret sith showing that there's still some honesty and goods left in him four jedi show up to arrest palpatine and he obviously doesn't take too kindly to that anakin rushes in and claims that he must stand trial but mace thinks that he's too dangerous to be kept alive good bit of repetition from our opening so now palpatine is slowly becoming weaker and anakin can't bear it anymore and chops off mace's arm palpatine then electrocutes him more and he gets chucked out the window get it now anakin's his apprentice and again no plot holes no contradictions not even a particularly bad part of the story i just feel like there should have been a lot more development to get to this point especially since anakin is now 100 evil and goes out and murders a bunch of children you see guys it's like poetry it rhymes and the children too so yeah overall i'm not fully on board with how anakin got from this to this but i can't complain too much because this is where the best bit begins there's now this acceptance amongst the senate that the jedi are evil so now palpatine has complete control to start conquering the galaxy and first he needs to wipe out all the jedi and he does this by contacting each clone commander because now they're fully in here's control he starts out by hologramming commander cody and tells him to execute order 66 and the order 66 sequence is by far my favorite part of the prequels after completing my study of consequences and stories i was able to appreciate the scene on a whole nother level the brilliant but extremely saddening track fades its way in really heightening the emotional greatness of the scene as it displays a montage of different troops planets environments and ships killing off these jedi one by one again it's tragic but it's a brilliant part for the story this journey began with anakin setting out to join all of these people with protecting the galaxy and it's heartbreaking to see this all being stripped away when obi-wan catches wind of this he is in denial that anakin could do such a thing and whilst it pains him a lot he knows what he has to do so padme goes to mustafar to meet anakin because she's scared of what's happening and obi-wan secretly climbs aboard anakin is so enraged when he thinks padme brought everyone here to kill him so he proceeds to strangle her and now it's time for the jewel of the fates you can question some of the design choices of this they're not obviously going to get actors fighting in a volcano but with that being said there could still be a lot more practical stuff in this but honestly this scene hits too hard for me to really care about the special effects as much plus the amazing choreography is back and probably the best it's ever been and what i really like about this is how it alternates the scenes with yoda and palpatine fighting in the senate still the same music feeding throughout and just more action with huge consequences behind it there's also a lot of very creative attacks between yoda and sidious in the senate room now fortunately yoda does manage to escape and is no longer in any trouble for the rest of his life same can't be said about anakin obi-wan is still in distraught and hasn't quite come to terms with what's happened to him but knows he must defend himself and try to save padme it's over anakin i have the high ground and anakin takes that leap of faith and obi-wan pushes his lightsaber up to slice him and the music abruptly cuts as anakin slowly falls down into lava anakin burns to a crisp is later found and built into the darth vader suit so whilst the galaxy is collapsing around the jedi brutally murdered off and the most evil man in the galaxy taking control one thing was for certain there's always a spark of light waiting to shine somewhere in the galaxy that gives us all something to believe in a new hope the year was 2020 and that other george has been working on his prequels review and is about to form a conclusion on his thoughts so are the prequels that bad well kind of but not really actually it's complicated the thing is is that that other george lucas is an ideas man and he has some brilliant ones which is why the prequels and star wars in general has connected with so many people and is the reason why we're still talking about these films decades later but his writing and filmmaking abilities are still excellent in a lot of places don't get me wrong but sometimes just sometimes especially when it comes to the dialogue cgi and overall presentation they can fail and yeah that of george lucas did direct a new hope but you can tell with that movie that it was a lot more of a team effort behind the scenes with the prequels he was very solo so with that i think the quality of the prequels are very balanced with its negatives and positives and i've never been on board with this idea that the prequels have zero redeeming qualities and i've also never been on board with the idea that they're flawless in the same way that most of the original trilogy is and hopefully by making this video i can show you that the quality of a piece of media is never that black and white and hopefully i've provided enough arguments for and against the quality of these films and hopefully both sides can be enlightened about another points that perhaps they haven't considered before so take this video as a vehicle and go off and have discussions with a whole multitude of different people to gain their perspective on this trilogy and i'm sure 95 percent of you will get some healthy discussions from doing so and as for the other five percent you could probably guess so uncivilized or maybe they should go home and rethink their life or maybe they shouldn't let their feelings get in the way god the prequels are so quotable and have generated so many spectacular memes for that reason hopefully that's something both sides can agree on so well my biggest and hopefully best project to this day i hope that was insightful to some extent just before i let you go i just wanted to say that i do have a patreon account where you can donate credits to help me save up for better equipment and improve the production of this show so huge thank you to josh forts caleb does reviews and kitchen time that's for their support over there if you want to see your name appear alongside theirs in every upload then you can do so by donating as little as a dollar and you also get a whole bunch of other rewards in return if you can't afford to do so or just simply don't want to then no problem whatsoever i mean you've made it this far into the video so you're already doing more than enough to support my work so thank you all i should also let you know that i have no idea when my next review should be out so in the meantime you can follow me on letterboxed where i give little thoughts on the vast majority of films that i see following me over there will be a good way to keep up with my opinions on new films and that's all i really have to say thank you again for watching all of this if you could leave a rating and a comment to show your support or leave feedback then that would be very much appreciated but with that i've been your host that's over george and i shall see you all in the next one goodbye for now [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: That0therGeorge

Views: 16,672

Keywords: video essay, that0thergeorge, thatothergeorge, that other george, review, were the prequels good, were the prequels bad, were the prequels better, actually good, better or worse, star wars prequels, the phantom menace, attack of the clones, revenge of the sith, retrospective

Id: p1gLjRrM7V4

Length: 47min 39sec (2859 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020