When George "It's my story" Lucas embarked upon the Star Wars prequels... Stars Wars fans rejoiced in collective orgasm. For years fans of the original trilogy had speculated about the first three chapters in the Star Wars epic - all of them dying to see the origins of the characters they dearly loved... the fall of Anakin Skywalker, the Clone Wars... all these things.

Perhaps people should have been a bit wary after Return of the Jedi, when apparently darker takes - wherein Han Solo died - were rejected... and Wookies were replaced with Ewoks. Or the somewhat limp wristed ending to The Empire Strikes Back - which had enormous potential for some manner of cliffhanger ending... beyond Han being encased in carbonite... although, in fairness - it remains above and beyond all other Star Wars films by orders of magnitude.

So where did it all go wrong?

In the overall sense… there are several failings.

The most obvious is that – despite twenty years – George Lucas fucked up. He had twenty years to get something that would mesh with the original trilogy and yet, there are several glaring contradictions that are just idiotic. The relationship between Amidala and Anakin, his “fall”, Amidala’s death, Anakin builds C3PO… the list is long.

The second most obvious? The Phantom Menace is pointless. It introduces only ONE character of merit and kills him… Just imagine the original trilogy starting with Luke dosing around and doing nothing much… It’s clear that in his way, Lucas tried to parallel A New Hope… but sadly, he wasn’t quite able to pull it off… because, truth be told – he wasn’t stealing directly from Samurai films.

The third – there is just so little to recommend these films. Star Wars was never exactly winning people over by virtue of its story telling. It was an epic story, played out across a galaxy in turmoil. The Prequels are about a TRADE DISPUTE, not just that but the dialogue is so awful and so utterly unconvincing… people act illogically because that’s what’s required of them. Even the acting is awful… and to be honest the total prevalence of CGI makes the term “special effects” useless.

The Phantom Menace:

Plot wise? As above stated – the film serves no real purpose. Sure, it introduces the characters but… that didn’t require a whole film.. why? Because the only one that has any real depth DIES! Liam Neeson is about the only person in the whole film who acts worth a damn.

There’s no real comparison to a galaxy in turmoil over civil war, compared to… A TRADE DISPUTE!

And Anakin… AS A CHILD! The baddest brother in the galaxy? As a douche bag white kid? As if him being a happy old white guy in Return of the Jedi wasn’t enough of a kick in the teeth. Not to mention he’s Mary Sue’d up… he can build C3PO… he can build a pod… why? WHY?! There’s no reason for these things… well, the pod allows us to have one of the prequel trademarks.

Scenes that feel like video games… that you can’t play! Presumably because many of them go on to be part of games you can play… regardless, it’s not really good to watch. No one really engages with what’s happening because… nothing is happening for them. They’re playing jump around in front of the green canvas… so, almost every one of these scenes – and they all drag on for considerable amounts of time – has people looking rather indifferent to quite dangerous situations. Of course, the quality of acting in the prequels isn’t exactly legendary at the best of times but these scenes serve only to highlight it…

And then of course, while there are the bloated CGI action scenes… we also have the CGI nightmare of Jarjar… it’s hard to tell whether Lucas became so surrounded by yes-men and fanboys that he simply thought that this was genuinely a good idea or whether he’d merely grown so contemptuous he wanted to show the world he could give loyal fans the one fingered salute and still produce a box office smash – or so combination of the two… but regardless, it’s hard to cover any new ground as far as Jarjar hating goes. It’s all been said.

Then of course we have probably the most controversial and stupid aspects of the entire Prequels debacle. The fact the Force is apparently a bunch of teeny tiny little organisms in someone’s blood – telling them what to do… uh, ok… and somehow that relates to their power level… why no one ever thinks to harvest them and inject a bunch… And the fact that said teeny tiny little organisms decided to have a party in Anakin’s mother’s womb and conceive the little douche… the latter may have served some purpose if it wasn’t NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. Like many aspects introduced in the Prequels, it’s never an issue in the original trilogy and hell, after five minutes – it’s not even an issue in the film it was mentioned it.

And of course, we’ve got everyone being motivated by idiocy. The Trade Federation are a fairly ill defined entity but it’s hard to understand why they have an army as the name implies they’re a corporate organisation of some sort… but the reason they decide to occupy a planet – then pretend they didn’t – is never clarified.

Similarly, Amidala’s course of action isn’t exactly logical. She runs off to Coruscant and when she doesn’t INSTANTLY get help, decides to go back to Naboo… ok, that helps thin the ranks of the Gungans but it’s the singular most illogical course of action for a leader to take. Her duty is to try and get the occupation of her planet ended and her best chance of that is with the Republic, not heading back to a warzone… Which doesn’t even BEGIN to cover quite why they take a child along with them.

And of course… Anakin taking out the control ship. Shields in Star Wars now seem to act like… actually, it’s impossible to say really, they seem to just do whatever they’re required to do by the plot. So, while the idiotically dressed Noob pilots fly around bitching about how the shields are too strong for them to penetrate – Anakin manages to FLY INSIDE THE SHIP. You’d think there’d be something to stop someone doing that… especially as the hangar seems to lead right to the reactor bay… it feels a lot like Lucas felt a need to draw parallels between Luke and Anakin… but while there was quite a lot of tension and build up to Luke blowing up the Death Star… this is just a little kid being irritating and managing to blow something up… by accident. Which magically stops the droid army. Talk about a glass jaw.

The fight with Darth Maul is actually great – except for the stupid way that Darth Maul is offed. He’s supposed to be a bad ass Sith Lord and he just stands there – looking at Obi Wan, jump up, grab Quigon’s lightsabre and then cut him in half. He still looks surprised when he’s falling in two pieces. Again, it’s just something where someone is an idiot because that’s required.

And then we wrap up with a camera shot that makes it obvious to all but the most mentally retarded of viewers that PALPATINE IS SIDIOUS. That was probably obvious, what with any Star Wars fan worth their salt knowing that it was Emperor Palpatine… but then, that simply makes the manipulations less subtle… He pretty much says “Hey, Amidala – why not impeach the current Supreme Chancellor, then I’ll fix everything by being a bad ass!” Which – by the way – happens in about five minutes.


Attack Of The Clones:

So… for some reason, an immensely inept assassin is trying to kill Amidala… It’s never really explained WHY – presumably the Trade Federation aren’t too keen on her but there’s no real reason for them to hate her that much… and this is something like how many years after the events of Episode 1?

Anyway, the immensely inept assassin detonates a bomb on Amidala’s ship AFTER she lands… You’d think that SPACE would be a good place to detonate a bomb but apparently not. It doesn’t matter anyway as Amidala has pulled her ol’ switcharoo again… So her handmaiden gets toasted… who cares?

Lucas said he wanted this film to be a love story… to say that it was a failure is kind of like saying that Jarjar Binks wasn’t a big hit – and one of the few things to show Lucas actually paid any attention to the criticisms of the first film is that he has a vastly diminished role in this one.

First off, Anakin might now be full grown but he’s basically still the same whiney little douchebag he was before. Not only that, he regularly bitches people out for his own failings, espouses a dictatorship and, let’s not forget – a bit of wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. Yet despite this, the age gap and the fact she met him at an eight year old… Senator Amidala can’t wait to marry the fucker.

The big problem though is… the Separatists. Why do they want to break away from the Republic? Why is the Republic ready to go to war? The reasoning for the war is essentially non-existent because the Separatists are commercial entities – why would they WANT a fight? Wars are expensive to wage. Also, isn’t the Republic democratic? Shouldn’t these people just be petitioning to get out and then be let out? It’s not as if the Republic seems to be a particularly strong entity… they didn’t give a flying fuck when Naboo got invaded, after all.

Also, what’s with Count Doofus? He basically spills his guts to Obiwan about the plan… treachery or manipulation – either way it’s a ham fisted effort. No wonder Palpatine has him sliced and diced. He’s either treacherous or grossly incompetent.

Not to mention the “investigation” into the clone army lasts all of five minutes… they make a big deal out of it. THEN FORGET IT. Whatever happened to their concern about a plot to destroy the Jedi?

And did Amidala suffer brain damage? What kind of fucktard puts Jarjar Binks in charge? Of course, she DID marry a fuckwit like Anakin so, clearly she’s an idiot.

Jango Fett? What’s the real point – beyond giving the fanboys something to think about on long winter nights… It’s pretty pointless and making him a Maori is just… idiotic. He’s introduced, has a fight or two and then gets beheaded… guess you should have had a neck piece in there, ol’ chap.

There’s also an issue with the fight on Geonosis… first of all… even if the Republic ships dropped out of hyperspace right on top of the enemy – they’d have SURELY known to the point they got more of a warning that the enemy merely turning up in the sky – it seems logical to assume there’d be some kind of space battle given all the Federation ships in orbit. Not to mention the idiocy of having a big part of your ship planetside…

Revenge Of The Sith:

Really Attack of the Clones ends where the Prequels should begin and Revenge of the Sith where it should end… Which is to say, the Clone Wars should be what this trilogy covers but it really doesn’t even touch upon it.

Anyone that watched the seminal Clone Wars cartoons will know this begins where it left off… but rubbish. It’s also the explanation for why General Grievous sounds like a French child molesting, asthmatic. He’s supposed to be a bad ass that kills Jedi and was giving the Republic a run for their money… but he just comes across as your average bungling Saturday morning cartoon villain. It’s easier imagining him facing off against Inspector Gadget than a Jedi.

The original trilogy really put some emphasis – and indeed, pretty much everything Obiwan tells Luke about his father is used to make the point – that Anakin Skywalker was a good guy who over a period of time was seduced by the power and lure of the Dark Side and became Darth Vader… This film pretty much takes that idea and tosses it out the window. One minute Anakin is ready to take down the Chancellor when he (AFTER THREE FILMS) works out he’s a Sith lord. Then all of a sudden, he’s cutting off Mace Windu’s hand, swearing allegiance to the Dark Side and rounding up younglings to slaughter. Looks like someone set this Anakin Skywalker from good to evil!

Except, it’s not as if one can ever really say he was good – last film he went and did a pretty good job of killing some kids too! Ok, granted last time it was because he was angry at the death of his mother and this time it was because Palpatine said “Yeah, go kill those little fuckers.” But that’s not exactly a fall, so much as maybe miss stepping because you thought there was an extra stair.

Lucas may be tacitly admitting that he phoned that part in by having Padme reiterate that this is all new and bad… Except it merely highlights the idiocy of all this because Padme knew that Anakin had killed kids and espoused dictatorship… not to mention just generally being petty and spiteful – oh and violating a bunch of Jedi codes by shagging her.

And all that’s FURTHER compounded – and by this point the contrivance is getting to such a level that it seems as if skill has actually be exerted to make it this idiotic and stupid – by the fact the only reason Anakin supposedly signed up with Palpatine was to save Padme… which he kind of tosses out the window when he FORCE CHOKES HER.

Then she LITERALLY dies of a broken heart. It’s almost as if they were taking bets to see how many horrible clichés they could use in the most literal sense for this film… What’s important though, is that this contradicts another established piece of continuity. Leia says she KNEW her mother… that seems a little unlikely if she dies all of 5 seconds after popping her babies out.

Regardless, Anakin and Obiwan have another poe-faced fight over lava – because hey, it’s just liquid rock at a few thousand degrees. It only hurts you if you touch it! For some reason having the high ground is a big deal to people who can jump around with no regard for the laws of physics… But, why doesn’t Obiwan finish off Anakin? It makes no sense. Maybe he doesn’t have the heart to finish Anakin off… but then, that doesn’t really make any sense as leaving him to burn to death with his arms and legs cut off seems infinitely more cruel… in fact, it just plain doesn’t make any sense. There is no logical reason for Obiwan to leave Anakin there. Furthermore, if Obiwan left him for dead in a horrific amount of pain – you’d kind of figure someone that gets ticked off by little things like the escape of the Millennium Falcon, would want to see Obiwan die long and slow.

The wrap up is really little more than an exercise in pushing the piece to where they need to be for the original trilogy to happen… but then, why even BOTHER with that if there’s going to be stuff like killing off Luke & Leia’s mother…

Summation:

In truth, there’s a lot to find fault with in the prequels on almost every level. From continuity with the original trilogy to basic logic to just plain horrible dialogue and acting. Even if one ignores the inherent betrayal of the originals that this amounts to, there’s little to recommend the films beyond the action set pieces.

The battles suffer from being little more than run of the mill CGI fests… these aren’t exactly special these days and there’s nothing to really recommend the Prequels battles beyond anything else. They’ve had more money thrown at them but they’re not particularly interesting and they include such futuristic tactics as “running directly at your enemy while shooting wildly”… no cover for these guys!

And in what way are these robots ANY threat to the Republic? It seems that Anakin and Obiwan could just hack through a million of them and really, the only thing at stake would be time. The only time it seems as if they’re actually capable of killing Jedi is in Episode 2 when they have people totally surrounded by them…

It’s rather sad that the prequels couldn’t even get the details right… yes, the pieces are pushed into place for the original trilogy but there’s just so many things that are unnecessary. Anakin BUILDS 3PO?! Anakin was the virgin birth? Anakin was the Chosen one of some prophecy?

Ok – those things COULD have been ok… but they were just dropped. They were all dead ends. Just loose ends, raised but never resolved. At best they’re just pointless ways to fill screen time – at worst, they’re terrible clangers that make no sense and detract from the overall mythos. Midichlorians being a PRIME example. One could scarcely ruin a mystical energy field more comprehensively than having it be tiny little things in your blood.

The choice to use Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, rather than Wookies was really just the start of Star Wars graduating wholly toward a demographic barely into double digits. The logical conclusion of this path being the new Clone Wars CGI fest but the facile and shallow nature of the Prequels… it’s hardly surprising that Lucas calls them kid’s films… that’s what he made them. Albeit a franchise which includes decapitations, incest, genocide and Jarjar Binks.

For anyone who had even passing interest in the Star Wars franchise before the prequels, it’s easy to see why people feel betrayed… there is something of an inherent danger to prequels. Unless they’re artfully planned, they’ll fail because they’re forced to either fit in between existing continuity or merely ride rough shod all over.

There are easy examples – like C3PO and Anakin – but there are more problematic ones… Most specifically, Anakin and Obiwan… Or possibly just to simplify it? Anakin… Really, didn’t everyone think this was going to be the tale of his fall from grace? It sure should have been.

That might have been a perfect situation… a teenage Anakin joins the Jedi order – his training rushed because of the Clone Wars… he’s reckless but his intentions are well founded… but slowly the power of the Dark Side beckons to him… a series of moral compromises that eventually lead him to fall from grace.

But no, we get a guy who is turned to the dark side essentially by Palpatine saying “Oh, go on – kill some irritating little kids!” Which in a single scene manages to accurately capture the hamfisted conception of the prequels… that or Qui Gonn dropping a clanger about midichlorians.

It all just goes to show, you can throw as much money you want at special effects but it’s all for naught if you haven’t got the writing to back it up, it’s not going to be anything more than a glut of explosions. Hollow cash ins that lessen everything that made the original trilogy good.