The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1999-2005)

Jar Jar is my favorite character too, because he pisses people off for no reason.

That's also why Last Jedi is my favorite movie.

Overblown, for sure, but she was still a fairly pointless character who did a very dumb thing.
It also doesn't help that her primary role in the story was part of the almost universally hated part of the movie.

You wanna be a Sith Lord like IanTheCool.

A- You took what I said out of context.
B- I didn't say she isn't attractive.

When you learn it’s the Phantom Menace’s 20th anniversary

Doomsday Wyldstaar 1godzillafan thebtskink

Okay Neverending you've waited long enough.

Revisiting the prequels was something I was in a way looking more forward to than the other two, vastly superior trilogies. For one, I'd only seen Phantom Menace on multiple occasions because I was 9 when it came out, loved Star Wars, and didn't understand that it was terrible. Attack of the Clones I saw for my 12th birthday and hated it when I saw it. At 12. Keep in mind that next year, 13 year old me saw The Matrix Revolutions and thought it was a 10/10. Revenge of the Sith I remembered being far and away the best of the bunch, but to be honest I didn't remember a lot about Episodes II and III outside of the major plot happenings, so I paid way too close of attention to all three of this absurd movies, rewinding constantly to attempt to unscramble the tedium of one convoluted and nonsensical plot element after another. It was fun, painful, and worth it because now I can talk a whole lot of shit.

The Phantom Menace is probably the film that gets the most hate, and while it's certainly a terrible movie I don't find myself actively pissed off at it like I am Attack of the Clone. Yes, Jar Jar is really fucking annoying. Yes, Jake Lloyd is a terrible actor and the completely wholesome Anakin Skywalker is terribly constructed and makes no sense as to how we go from that to Hayden Christensen in the subsequent films. Yes, there's really no plot to speak of (the Trade Federation is blocking trade ships to Naboo, who fucking cares?) and it's harebrained as fuck. Yes, Qui-Gonn is a terrible Jedi who makes one awful decision after another.

But the movie despite being incredibly stupid is also sometimes sort of fun. Pod racing is a completely worthless subplot, but it is a great piece of diversion. Darth Maul is a horribly underwritten character, but that lightsaber battle is pretty sweet. I think the biggest issue with the film is there's no one to really gravitate towards. The film functions as an ensemble piece but one where all of the characters are bland and make stupid choices constantly. Obi-Wan probably has less dialogue than Jar Jar in this film, and is largely separated from Qui-Gonn which is a horrible decision by George Lucas. For example, why not have them both go to Tatooine and meet Anakin? You could have Anakin be a sweet child but have some elements of anger or trouble that Obi-Wan overlooks and Qui-Gonn resents. This would make more sense why when Qui-Gonn dies, Obi-Wan has no objectors to him training Anakin, which makes the impact of being betrayed by him far more significant. Lucas is a terrible writer, and every chance the film has at being a better one is steered in the opposite direction. I think Phantom Menace is a disappointment mostly because it's a big time waster, made more evident by the subsequent films truncating the most pivotal element of the prequels: Anakin turning to the dark side.

5/10, or maybe a 4?

Attack of the Clones is far and away the most awful Star Wars movie ever, not including that disgraceful Clone Wars animated movie that for some reason found its way into theaters. The movie looks awful, from terrible lighting to even worse CGI. Everything is a green screen, and the sets as a result look really awful. The acting all around is horrible, especially from Christensen, but a lot of the blame has to lie squarely with Lucas. It can't be easy for actors to constantly be in environments that aren't there and find ways to become engaged in the scenes. None of it has held up well. Also Lucas seems to be directing everyone to emote as stoically as possible at all times. There's no joy in this movie whatsoever. All the attempts at jokes fall very flat, and I never bought into Anakin and Obi-Wan's mentor-pupil dynamic at all. None of this is helped by some of the worst dialogue committed to a movie. The love scenes are infamous of course, and with good reason. Anakin and Padme speak in monotone absolutes about their "feelings", but Anakin displaying no ability for subtlety in any moment, flatly projecting his love for Padme at every turn. It's atrocious. Anakin's turn to the dark side is also horribly handled, namely when he kills the Tuskan Raiders on Tatooine. His mother happens to die right when he finds her (how convenient was that, guess she was holding out for just enough time to say goodbye), and then instead of what could have been a cool/brutal scene of him cutting down her captors is abruptly cut short. I understand this is a PG movie, but Lucas really fumbles here on capitalizing one of the very few scenes of intrigue and dramatic weight the film has to offer.

I've always hated the title of the movie, almost as much as I hate the clone storyline itself. It goes nowhere other than that they amass an army of clones. Who cares? It seems like the whole concept was literally only devised for Revenge of the Sith when Palpatine turns all of the clones on the Jedi. It's really dumb. In fact everything in this movie is dumb. The Yoda-Dooku fight is both woefully too short and also too long because it turns out there's nothing compelling about a 2002 CGI Yoda flipping around. Christopher Lee is perhaps the only bright spot in the entire film, but his character also feels half baked and inconsequential. The Jedi are a pretty dim bunch for not being able to figure out who's behind all of this, even with Mace Windu shooting down Padme's claim in the beginning that Dooku was behind her assassination attempt because "he's a Jedi". Uh, he was a Jedi, when's the last time you saw him? He has a fucking black outfit and a red lightsaber and hangs out with the racist Trade Federation guys ("we would never do ANYTHING without the approval of the SENATE"). The Jedi's powers also fluctuate. Sometimes they can sense people's intentions, sometimes they can't. I guess it's whenever the plot is convenient for Lucas to have them do so. Things just happen in this movie, culminating in an awful scene of Anakin and the gang at a Coliseum-style pit. I rewound this movie a lot to see if I was missing something as to why they shuttle around from place to place, but nope it's just horribly explained and even worse, dull. Attack of the Clones is even worse than I remembered, and I can't point to anything that really works. It's dismal on every level.

3/10

Revenge of the Sith is clearly the best of the three, but it's also got a lot of issues with it and I wouldn't call it good. For starters, the movie looks so much better than Attack of the Clones. Not just because the CGI is stronger, but Lucas finally decided to look at the compositions of his shots in terms of lighting and not just green screen effects work. There's better contrast on the faces, the sets feel cleaner and more polished, and the lighting just seems to fit the tone pretty well. This is also probably the only film of the three where the plot actually feels significant. I didn't find myself constantly questioning the motives behind the characters like I did the first two films, well, that's not true. Christensen is again dreadful as Anakin, delivering his lines with a heightened air of monotone and again proclaiming everything on his mind. He alternates poorly between admiration for the law of the Jedi and his disdainful outbursts against Obi-Wan. Why does he resent him so much? He's the only one on Anakin's side and doesn't really undermine all that much.

The pivotal scene of course is when Anakin "kills" Mace Windu, and then instantly regrets it. Christensen mutters "I shouldn't have done that" a whole lot in the movie, but then quickly shakes it off here and immediately pledges his loyalty to Palpatine. All so that he can have this power of resurrecting Padme and prevent her death that he experiences in terribly constructed nightmares. Lucas should have had a scene where Anakin relays his dream to Palpatine, who then uses this as the ultimate selling point to lure Anakin over. It's so convenient that Palpatine brings up this one ability and it happens to be the one Anakin desires most. Revenge of the Sith could have worked on its own merits if the previous two films didn't do such an awful job of developing Anakin and sowing his seeds of dissension, but they didn't and Revenge of the Sith functions as a sort of good idea but flimsy execution movie instead. Anakin's turn to the dark side doesn't feel earned at all, especially considering this was the dopey kid in the first movie that yelled "yippee!" at everything. The climactic lightsaber battle is pretty lame considering they're fighting on the Star Wars equivalent of Mount Doom, and of course the infamous "higher ground" moment is simply awful. And then after cutting Anakin down, Obi-Wan doesn't even try to save him, he just leaves him there. Oh well, I guess it's what he deserved after killing all those...gulp...Younglings.

6/10

Revenge of the Sith fittingly embodies the entire trilogy of being a decent enough idea with no supporting elements to make any of it actually work. Lucas is not a good director or writer, and he consistently undercuts his own ideas by pursuing worse ones. The logic is terrible, the action is bad, and the attempts at humor are even worse. The prequels have received a lot of scorn over the years, and deservedly so. They're watchable and entertaining, but not good. The end.

Phantom Menace really has no bearing at all on the story. Other than them finding Anakin, you're right, the entire events of the film could have been contained in a couple lines of expository dialogue and then we move on.

Also, why the fuck does Ahmed Best have higher billing in the credits than Anthony Daniels, for ALL THREE MOVIES!? He doesn't even speak in Revenge of the Sith.