I Love Star Wars.

[beccatoria]

I hate the prequels.

Actually, that's not entirely true, but I mostly hate them, and I've never really written out why, at least not here. I'm not the only kid who hated the prequels. Hell, I wasn't exactly a kid when I first saw the movies, impoverished as my childhood was by parents who never thought to show them to me until the cinematic

Comments

[beccatoria]

Yeah, I can see that. I mean, I really don't have anything like the hate for The Phantom Menace that many do. When it came out and there was huge backlash, I was...well okay, I thought, it wasn't as good as the originals (and unlike you I really do dislike Jar Jar) but it didn't ruin anything. And the podrace was fun!

I think the best way I can put it is that even though, leaving the cinema after going to see The Phantom Menace, I would have admitted that there were parts of the movie I didn't like, things that made me go "bzuh?" and stuff that was just badly handled, I was buzzing. I was 16, I went with my dad and my 14 year old friend and we spent the entire walk home re-enacting the Qui Gon/Obi Wan/Darth Maul duel (I got to be Darth Maul).

When I left after watching Revenge of the Sith, my overwhelming feeling was relief that at least it was better than the last one.

And I think that's the difference between the two in a nutshell.

I don't know if you've ever seen any of them, but I think another reason I'm still more kindly disposed to TPM is that I have a few fan edits of it that are actually...really good. But I have yet to find fan edits of either of the other prequels that actually affect anything film-saving.

For example this - http://fanedit.org/5140/ - dubs both the Nemoidians and Jar Jar and the rest of the Gungans to very interesting effect. It turns Jar Jar into, well, still more or less the same character but a lot less irritating and more entertaining. And dubbing the Nemoidians allows the entire plot to revolve around the idea that it's not just taxes but the outlawing of slavery that they're protesting and that people are being rounded up in death camps making the whole thing feel a little more urgent. Stuff like the midichlorians and the immaculate conception are cut and there's a lot of nifty editing changes such as making the podrace snappier and putting some of the Original Trilogy score back into big moments. There are some great pieces in John Williams' prequel scores, but in general, I was disappointed we they diverged as much as they did from the originals.

Anyway, it's an interesting alternate take on things.

But I can't watch the movie anymore. I just can't. It hurts too much.

This I empathise with.

Also, I remember leading up to AotC seeing some interview with the actors who played Owen Lars and Beru Whitesun and obviously in hindsight they were just trying to be generous and tease a little information to the viewer, but at the time it made it sound like they had larger roles than they did and I was always a little disappointed that never happened. :( Yay Beru!