What was wrong with the Star Wars prequels?

[BlaneckW]

They made no sense.
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/

[Buster's Uncle]

Sure.  Mr. Plinkett is a twisted genius, and his reviews are spot on in detail.


The central problem, according to me, though, was this.

Anakin was a hero before he went bad.

Instead, we got a little kid -I have less of a problem with baby Darth LLoyd than most, but he was a bad idea- and a punk so broody and unlikeable the girls don't fancy him.  A young man as good-looking as Mr. Christiansen should have enough geek girls warm for him that it's annoying to this day, but I never heard of a single one.

We didn't need his origins in such fine detail, and given that 100% of everyone knew how it was all turning out, no foreshadowing.  We got hours and hours of foreshadowing of something that needed none.  We saw glimpses of the fun and the Obiwan-Annikin buddy adventure, but it was buried in all the dreary dark foreshadowing we didn't need.



So, what we wanted, needed, and didn't get was 2.5 movies worth of wild adventure-fun starring a heroic Annikin Skywalker, the greatest pilot in the galaxy.  Cast Ewan McGregor as Annikin, an adult and full Jedi when we meet him.  A handsome, charming hero played by a good actor.  Do what Star Wars was originally for - a well-done Flash Gordon adventure with modern production values.  None of this dark crap -until about midway through the third picture, when Ming hits him with the evil ray- FUN!  ADVENTURE!

It would have improved the tragedy of Sith, too, if we'd seen a good man we liked go bad, not Punkakin Skybutthole, who'd just as well had "Gonna Turn Evil" tattooed on his forehead from the first frame of the previous movie on.

...

Take it, Uno!

[Valka]

What was wrong with them? They were boring. To this day I have never managed to complete watch even one of the prequels. I did try - but I literally fell asleep.

And seriously, who calls their husband "Annie"? 

[Buster's Uncle]

And seriously - those two had zero chemistry.  Now, Ms. Portman has proven herself a competent actress many times over, so I expect I know who to blame.  McGregor would have sold it.

[Rusty Edge]

Funny. While I've watched Star Wars and Empire scores of times, I can't remember watching the prequels, except in the theater.

What I remember enjoying most was the Ben-Hur remake. 

I'm okay with starting the story with a boy, in fact I'd rather they made him likeable than injected Jar-Jar into the story. Well, I could have done without the racism entirely.


THIS-"So, what we wanted, needed, and didn't get was 2.5 movies worth of wild adventure-fun starring a heroic Annikin Skywalker, the greatest pilot in the galaxy.  Cast Ewan McGregor as Annikin, an adult and full Jedi when we meet him.  A handsome, charming hero played by a good actor.  Do what Star Wars was originally for - a well-done Flash Gordon adventure with modern production values.  None of this dark crap -until about midway through the third picture, when Ming hits him with the evil ray- FUN!  ADVENTURE!"

[Buster's Uncle]

Also?  Since my suggestion obviates the need for Qui-Gon, and somebody's gotta play Obiwan, we get two more movies' worth of Liam Neeson doing essentially the same thing...

[BlaneckW]

So do we want me to make more absurd threads or are we good?  Since we aren't getting news of BE quickly, I have a criticism of CRPGs and democracy lined up.

[Buster's Uncle]

Go for it.  I found absolutely nothing new/worthwhile about BE yesterday, and I did spend some time looking.

[Vishniac]

Since we aren't getting news of BE quickly, I have a criticism of CRPGs and democracy lined up.

Criticism of democracy...
There is no need to leave this thread to criticize democracy.

I don't know whether it was 'right' or 'wrong' in these prequels but they sure give something to think about.
Revenge of the Sith came in 2003 and everybody was drawing parallels with, well, you know what: "Either you are with us or you're against us!" and the end of democracy by its own mechanisms.
Really? I had another vision.
"That's how dies democracy under a thunder of applause" (or something like that) but which democracy? Which democracy do we see in the prequels, which democracy fighting for?

Let's start with the beginning:
1) in this republic, a corporation can use military power to blockade then invade a member of the (con-)federation and nobody moves. That sure inspires confidence...

2) in the outskirt planets, the official currency is not recognized and maffia law reigns.

3) in the outskirt planets, slavery is...tolerated/legal and the hero is a slave as well as his mother. No surprise the guy has problems: he can wonder every day which guy raped his mother so he can be there...

Continuing with Episode II:
4) The hero has been trained as a Jedi for more than 10 years now: a warrior/diplomat/policeman all at once. A pillar of the republic. Meanwhile, everybody knows that his mother is still a slave in some forsaken planet but they can't find a thousand bucks to buy her freedom. That would make me bitter too...

5) Drug dealers sell their stuff without problem in the cities. Nobody cares.

6) There is no citizenship feeling, no conscription and, in fact, no army. No one cares about the separatism in some systems, they probably don't give a rat's ass about what's happeneing 2 light-years away from their home. No 'federal service', no implication in useless politics, and what really counts is managed by an order of self-proclaimed mystics with quasi-superpowers. There is no civic conscience as in Ancient Rome or Greece or even in some modern democracies.

7) Waging war with an army of reluctant (or unable) citizens would be a disaster. The Republic then decides to use an army of mercenary slaves; you can call them "clones" but they are people, created only to fight and die. Military slaves (yes, Buncle: this time it's right) who have no identity, no rights, nothing. Engineered to fight to death (remember Yang's quote about MMA?). A terrifying vision of society.

And this is "the Old Republic", that dreamed society that we hear about in the original trilogy? It collapsed not because of the Sith but because it had to.

And the parallels with our time is now much more obvious than what people thought in 2003. Because in most countries, including mine, which call themselves democracy, it's now only a name far away from the idea behind it. Bureaucracy, corruption, conflict of interests, elitism, confiscation of power by a few leading to an actual oligarchy/ploutocracy.
Some say democracies are already dead...

[Buster's Uncle]

It's like the fall of the Roman Republic with a capable/formidable Caligula or Heliogabalus in for Augustus.

You make a good point about the crapulence of the Old Republic.   How is it even possible to have a galactic government at all without an enormous standing space police/peacekeeping force?  Not very well thought-out.

[Vishniac]

You make a good point about the crapulence of the Old Republic European Union.   How is it even possible to have a galactic federal government at all without an enormous standing space police/peacekeeping military force?  Not very well thought-out.

I edited your comment to answer your question (even if it was a question which doesn't ask for an actual answer).