Bingo. Given the choice to watch Episode 1-3 vs Episode 7-8, I'm picking a prequel every time. All the new films have done is made the prequels look better.

I've stated before in this thread how much I enjoyed the Clone Wars. Seen them all & they really fleshed out the prequel era & its characters tremendously. Honestly the cartoons are better than the movies. Looking forward to the 7th season!

Thanks to the new movies & time passing, it's becoming more acceptable to admit that people actually enjoy the prequels. Nothing wrong with that. The thing I actually remember most about Episode 3 was that it was released on my 30th birthday, and that's the day I quit cigarettes for good Last cigarette & last Star Wars movie (or so thought). haha Well at least I haven't had another cigarette!

I try to be diplomatic in these cases as items like the saber fights tend to boil down to individual tastes.

Luke vs Vader in Empire is far better in my opinion since there is so much emotional sub-context going on and tension building.

Lets face it, the problem with prequels is you already know how the story ends. Where is the suspense?

Ankin vs Kenobi was over the top too, that close to lava both would have fried in seconds. It takes away the suspension of disbelief that lets you immerse yourself in a good movie.

Give Lucas his due, the fights were well choreographed.

Opinion: The saber fight with Darth Maul was the only one I can recall in the prequels with any weight to it.

fight scenes were just fluff with no real substance to anything. Like the entire story line. If it was written somewhat well. There could have been plenty of twists, turns, good dialogue, character development, and overall good story, with a little bit of creativity. Regardless if you knew how it would end. Unfortunately, Lucas has spent to many years away from real interaction with people and forgot how the real world works or interacts with one another. Hence why his later writings (anything post 1983) are weak and lack any substance.

Ah, and the sound track for that one! Duel of Fates was phenomenal.

I must disagree. The final battle between Anakin and Obi Wan did have substance. Particularly the dialogue from Obi Wan.

Example:

Obi-Wan Kenobi: You were the Chosen One! It was said you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness!

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: I hate you!

Obi-Wan Kenobi: You were my brother, Anakin; I loved you.

That line in itself is one of my favourites in the entire series of movies. Those lines were delivered with real anguish and sorrow. Pretty powerful scene in my opinion.

That's the problem. The duel between Vader and Ben in ANH has huge weight behind it and it's in a hallway of all places...but it doesn't matter because of the characterization and story that leads up to it. Two heavyweights going at it for the last time. Those doors closing at Luke is fleeing for his life is what made Star Wars great.

As great as the Maul fight was, Lucas had to F$%k it up with all the skyways extravagant sets. For what purpose? Just so we can say "ooohhh...".

You're joking right?

If you’re trying to convince people that the prequels have merit, you’re not doing yourself any favors by reproducing George Lucas’ clunky dialog.

I honestly thought this post HAD to be sarcasm at first...

I'm with you on this, specifically referring to McGregor's performance. He's the highlight of the whole movie. The unbelief of seeing his friend Anakin kill his fellow Jedi, including kids. The scene where Obiwan questions Padme & realizes that Anakin is the father, and sadly says "I'm so sorry". He realizes that he is the only person who can stop Anakin, and though he did all he could, he ultimately failed. That scene by the river of lava conveys all that emotion...the complete frustration & heartbreaking disappointment that he wasn't able to save his pupil & dear friend to the dark side.

When Obiwan is sitting there talking to Luke about his father in ANH, these are the moments he's internally reflecting on. "He was the best star-pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior. And he was a good friend". This is the stuff that is really covered in the Clone Wars cartoon. "Before the dark times, before the Empire" This is him drifting off & reflecting on those final moments by the lava river, all those painful memories of the fall of the republic.

I think Episode 3 did a pretty good covering all this backstory, and McGregor did a great job conveying all that emotion. Which is why I was pretty excited at the thought of a Obiwan spinoff movie with Mcgregor reprising his role. They could have told a pretty good tale of middle aged Owiban protecting 10 year old Luke on Tattooine & facing off against Maul for the last time. Perhaps someday. It was covered on the Rebels cartoon & in the comics, but a movie could really flesh the story out.

I see so many posts referring to the clone wars cartoon. If these movies needed a cartoon to flesh out what should've been in the movies, then that's just another reason they failed.

Not that at all, it’s just the Clone Wars are the best thing to happen with the franchise over the last decade. The Flone Wars expanded the methos of the franchise and connected with the fan base. But for Disney needing to cancel that show to get a show on their own network going I think Clone Wars would have easily been a full seven season show and would have kept delivery stellar story after stellar story.

Much of the Clone Wars simply illustrated the real world impact of beaurocrats, trade conflict, centralized banking, political groups forced together that are not naturally aligned, subterfuge, and all kinds of other concepts that one may see in a conversion of governments.

Contrast this to what we got in the last movies: magic wand waved, we are right back to rebels and empire 2.0 with a supposedly giant galaxy totally subjugated on all planets in 20 minutes...lazy writing.

How do you cover an entire war, with various political factions/diplomacy & thousands of battles taking place on thousands of planets, all while developing hundreds of characters (old & new), cultures & backstories in a two hour movie? Impossible. These TV series excel at telling stories that the movies simply cannot cover in detail. They're meant for hardcore fans, who get a lot of enjoyment out of them.

I watched all of the movies through R1 recently with my Daughter (age 4.5). She loves all of them. I was talking with a friend who did the same with their child, but skipped 1-3, and refuses to acknowledge their existence. I've never felt like a worse parent than when I realized I subjected my child to 1-3 needlessly...

It had been a while since I saw them, so I guess it was good to go back and take a new look at them. Ep1 is easily the best of the bunch. Is it bad? Yep. But, it does at least have some redeeming qualities. Darth Maul was an awesome character, and the lightsaber duel is the best in any of the prequels without contest (the later duels were ridiculous).

I tried to pay attention to the slower storyline this time through. It's true there's some decent content there in the way the emperor rises to power, but it's delivered in such a way that it feels like a subplot to the teen romance novel playing out in front of you.

Unpopular opinion, but I feel like all of the acting in the prequels is poor, including Obi Wan and Qui Gonn, and ESPECIALLY Padme. I know they've all been very successful in other movies, but all of the lines are delivered very flat. Because these are proven actors, I think the directors have to be to blame for this. I will also say that Hayden Christensen does better than what people give him credit for - he delivers what they wanted him to in a more emotional way than any other character on screen. I don't think he was good, but he looks like Marlon Brandon compared to Portman in some of those scenes. Yuck.

My daughter loved the Ewoks, and while she declares her favorite movie as "all of them", it seemed to me she liked ROTJ best.

Next up is TWA, which I quite like. I will subject her to TLJ, but only the edited version (which I haven't actually finished).

I know everyone in here is mad, but I recommend watching Solo - it was a really fun movie. I'm looking forward to watching it in the home theater. I'm going to buy it. There's a false narrative that Solo was suffering because of fatigue. We know that's not true, it's just that everyone hated TLJ. If the sales for TLJ on disk do poorly, but Solo does well, it would really force them to reevaluate that narrative.

The problem is that Lucas got the time period wrong for the prequels.

They should have found Anakin then he was was a teenager, not a child. Episode One could have been about his training & friendship development with Owiban. The same questions about being "too old for training" could be applied. No lousy child actors or an entire movie of fluff that basically boiled down to just introducing Anakin Skywalker & explaining the workings of the Galactic Republic. Episode 2 could have jumped forward 5 years & dealt with the details of the Clone Wars & Anakin's eventual fall & becoming Darth Vader. Episode 3 could have been about the rise of the Empire & a young Vader coming to master the dark side & hunt down Obiwan & the remaining Jedi Knights.

That 3rd movie was the real meat & potatoes that the fans wanted to see, and sadly never got. Well the new Vader comic has done a good job, but it would have been fantastic to see that play out onscreen.

Alright, you guys talked me in to watching those Clone Wars cartoons.

Netflix has a CW movie too, do I watch that before or after the series?

I took the kids to the drive in to see the Clone Wars movie when it came out.

The movie was ok and the series surprisingly good, caught several 20 minute episodes with them.

Watch them while you can. When the Disney streaming service goes live in late 2019, I'm sure Netflix rights to Clone Wars will revert back to Disney.

The movie is an okay lead in to the series. By the way, the first third of season one of the Clone Wars can be a bit tough to get through. Several episodes like the Plo Koon in outerspace and the Yodi in the home alone jungle feel very childish (like in an old G.I. Joe post scene type of way)...the show hadn't decided what it was going to be yet.

Agree with all of what you say up to Obi Wan and Qui Gonn. I thought Liam Neeson was spectacular. To me, he feels like the one who actually sold what it meant to be a Jedi (other than Luke in ROTJ). He projects what a Jedi really is, especially when he explains it to Annakin. The way he meditates during the battle with Maul was brilliant.

TPM is a halfway decent movie, take out 20 minutes of it and it's actually pretty good.

I've read that George Lucas really wanted to emulate 1930s films in the prequels, so he intentionally wrote and directed to get artificial, stagy performances. Interesting experiment to make with a billion dollar franchise, I guess.

Wow, that would make a lot of sense. If that's what he was going for, then I guess he's an amazing director?

I was merely responding to CaptainNeo who said that the fight scenes had no substance. I think my example has proven that that particular fight scene had substance.

It’s not the words, it’s the delivery and the feeling behind that "clunky" dialogue. Some of my favourite scenes in movies (I.e- Gladiator) have clunky dialogue. They were performed by such an incredible Actor (Russel Crowe) that he can make "clunky dialogue” sound good.

Here's one interview:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/may/16/artsfeatures.starwars

"It's not deliberately camp. I made the film in a 1930s style. It's based on a Saturday matinee serial from the 1930s, so the acting style is very 30s, very theatrical, very old-fashioned. Method acting came in in the 1950s and is very predominant today. I prefer to use the old style. People take it different ways, depending on their sophistication."

I love the last part, like we're idiots if we think he's a shitty director.

Well, it's just that we lack sophistication ...

Perhaps we are misreading it. Maybe he is saying people who lack modern sophistication’s will enjoy his 1930’s style...

I don't know you so I'm strictly surmising that you are a StarWars geek. I don't give a frogs fat ass about serious substance and story line when it comes to Sci Fi fantasy films, its like the people who hate Prometheus because it wasn't faithful to the series who gives a shit its about giant fuckin lizards and I love it. Episode 3 is amazing unless ur looking at through some high powered geek goggles.

He didn't need to develop hundreds of characters. Just the 3 or 4 that the movies centered around. The originals managed to do this and cover am entire war just fine.

Or you’re one of those losers with a taste for “decently scripted dialog” and “compelling characters.”

Good lord.

I appreciate that, top 3 films for me are Lawrence of Arabia, Dr Zhivago and The Godfather but when it comes to Star Wars or Superheros or Zombies who the fuck cares, sometimes I forget who I'm talking to on this site.

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Despite our many differences, our divergent walks through life, and coming from a breadth of life experiences, we may all find unity this holiday season in the fact that The Last Jedi was fucking terrible.

I have no idea how that was even allowed to be released. Disney should have held it back for 6 months, done a shit load of reshoots, and fixed it.

Considering all the commercial tie-ins, there's no way that holding it back for 6 months flies.

They got exactly what Kennedy wanted, why on earth would they delay 6 months?

The movie wasn't made for you, making it better for you or I wasn't an option.

You could be correct. I think there is a very real possibility that this movie was as bad as it was intentionally, although Kennedy may not think it is "bad" so much as "necessary." What better way to crush patriarchy than to destroy the very masculine idols and culture that young boys grow up with? Sometimes you must burn the world so something new may rise in its place. We always knew this new trilogy was going to be about saying farewell to Luke, Leia, and Han...I suspect Kennedy is trying to say "goodbye" to far more than that...

It's getting downright apocalyptic in here!

or, he realized it looked like shit, and decided to come up with some pollywampus explanation on why it came across as shitty and awkward.

I don't think they wanted to reshoot 2 hrs of movie just for the DVD release.

The problem is the damage to the brand. Even Lucas's three prequel films never killed the franchise...there was always the hope that the next one would be better.

TLJ killed it IMO. How do you bounce back from that? It really comes down to that the ideals and basis for the original films doesn't fly anymore, and those making these films have no clue nor do they care about those ideals. They have their own.

The Force Awakens was not a good film in my opinion but it opened the sequel up for a ton of possibilities & hype. Now Star Wars is dead. TLJ made the old heroes of the universe look like senile idiots. When we first see Yoda he's 60% crazy. He's lost his mind which is acceptable because it's when we first meet him. In the prequels, we see Yoda again and realize, oh this dude was a badass back in the day before the shit hit the fan & he exiled himself and went crazy. Luke, Leia, & Han are great characters with charisma and we are drawn to them. In TFA & TLJ, Luke, Leia, & Han are represented as people who have changed too much from their original characters. It's like they got on the galactic health care plan & were prescribe really bad meds... Add in forgettable set pieces & characters ala Snoke, Fantasma, Hux, Maz, Benecio Del Toro, the old guy in TFA who Kylo Ren kills in the beginning.

Never entered their minds there would be damage to the brand, its Star Wars! Poop in a box and slap a Star Wars decal on it and people will wait in line to buy they figured..

Plus, the NEW fans would fill the void left behind by those yucky nerds.

The entire new trilogy just flat out sucks. So Dinsey is telling us that after the rebels blow up the 2nd Death Star and defeat the Empire that 30 years later there's an even bigger and more evil version of the Empire called The First Order? LAME! The First Order sucks and are just a way to reboot the trilogy with the same storyline.

Disney could, and should have, done something original and started Episode 7 off with Luke training a new generation of Jedi. Then a new villain / threat (Snoke) could have been introduced. Show us what became of the galaxy after the rebels won the Battle of Endor. What instead has been created is a boring mess with no direction and a story that seems destined to kill all off all of the original characters.

I hope Episode 9 at this point has Lando coming out of retirement to save Chewie, R2, 3P0, and his old pal Nien Nub from the First Order, Rebels, and Porgs as he knows their the next ones to die after what happened to his other friends.

Have to disagree with ya there. I think Sterns Star Wars is an excellent pin. The premium and LE are loaded with some great toys and features. Both the hyperspace and Death Star toy are two very substantial toys. Combine that with a very deep objective based ruleset that features licensed actor video / audio, tons of clips from the films, plus licensed music and it makes for one hell of a fun pin. Plus it's based off of only the original trilogy, lol

This bothered me less than the whole retread of "A New Hope". But even letting that go, I agree, the story was so lame. The first order happening with zero back story...or how Snoke came about, what made Kylo go bad...so many other questions just left bear in the open. I guess in a way they expected (as the it was mentioned) having a SW label on it will make a billion anyway....(which btw they did). Kind of reminds me of a pinball manufacturer, just slap a theme on a retread design and they'll buy it no questions asked.

PC garbage will kill everything in its path including Star Wars. It certainly didn't do the new Star Trek series any good. What a shame, hopefully this will pass in time. GB's, Oceans 12 etc. crap

I mean the Star Trek tv series not the new fims.