Prequel appreciation thread:

FYI us prequel fans have known all along that our trilogy was the G.O.A.T.

plebbitors and assblasted original trilogy permavirgin gen Xer fans need not apply

Other urls found in this thread:

vice.com/read/camille-paglia-believes-that-revenge-of-the-sith-is-our-generations-greatest-work-of-art
newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-the-seven-star-wars-films-reveal-about-george-lucas
youtube.com/watch?v=Ibkmh72_1pw
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

The prequels weren't perfect but I will always choose George Lucas' bizarre autistic vision over focus-tested cynical Disney products

The prequels were much better written, they had actual characters and story, not a bunch of memes and one-liners that lack any emotion or coherence. Luke is a cliched everyboy "hero" that goes through an absurdly rapid transformation between the fifth and the sixth episodes. Anakin's emotional instability and his exposure as a psychopath are gripping; and his doomed relationship with Padme is touching. In the "original trilogy" Han, Leia, Darth Vader and Obi Wan are complete meme characters, nothing about them is remotely believable or human. And why doesn't anyone care about deaths in those movies? Leia's planet destruction, Luke's stepparents' death, all of the blown up rebels--the list could go on--all the deaths are forgotten moments later.

As for direction, the movies from the "original trilogy" were mostly incoherent, badly edited and full of logical problems. The prequel trilogy is a work of a "vulgar auteur".

I feel neutral about the series overall, and honestly don't care about trolling or contrarianism. Here are my sincere rankings:

1. "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones"
2. "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace"
3. "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith"
4. "Star Wars"
5. "The Empire Strikes Back"
6. "Return of the Jedi"
7.
8. "The Force Awakens"
9. "The Last Jedi"

Episode 7 and 8 aren't even Star Wars movies. They are Marvel flicks masquerading as one.

The prequels are infused with a bold vision of artistic profundity that eclipses the likes of generic sci-fi movies of recent times. The streamlining process that has begun to creep into the production of every slightly sci-fi-y tinged movie has created an amorphous blob of mediocrity and blandness. The prequels deliver a basic premise of good vs. evil but do it so by utilizing characters that are endowed with humanity. Aside from the storytelling aspect the prequels stand strong on all fronts, from writing, cinematography and set pieces that truly immerse you into a fantastic world full of wonder and awe. It is infinitely unfortunate that this behemoth of a film project is marred by the majority of the populace's inability to assess the genius and lack of intelligence. One can only hope that in eons to come, evolution will have worked in ways as to ensure and maximize the distribution of the gene that thrives in the intellectual minority of our time so that future generations and civilizations will be able to grasp the grandeur of the prequels and see behind the masquerading illusion that is reddit.

>nothing about them is remotely believable or human

hurr what is fiction

I never doubted George
People always wrongfully hated the prequels because "muh CGI" even though Episode 1 had more sets and models built for it than any OT Film while ROTS had more physical models built than all the OT combined, or "muh writing" even though only some scenes were bad, while there were some very good ones too and even then the bad ones at least gave us quality memes.
Ironic, people always hated the prequels for the same reasons Star Wars is dying now. People criticised how Padme "died of sadness", but now the Star Wars fandom is dying due to how hard TLJ shit on the original two trilogies, people hated how bland some of the characters were, but now not only the characters, but actors and writers are bland too, people hated the fake politics in them, but now Star Wars is filled with real world politics etc.

It's not surprising that the same people who attack the prequels are always unversed in real film or anything artistic, and that the people who praise the prequels (Zizek, Paglia, Brody, etc) are always literate, educated, and versed in real film.

vice.com/read/camille-paglia-believes-that-revenge-of-the-sith-is-our-generations-greatest-work-of-art
newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-the-seven-star-wars-films-reveal-about-george-lucas
youtube.com/watch?v=Ibkmh72_1pw

The fact that everyone points to Plinkett as the authority on why the prequels are bad speaks volumes. Mike Stoklasa is one of the least artistic people on the planet - he can't process movies outside of the conventions of Hollywood films, his approach to narrative is tempered with the same surface-level requisites listed on tvtropes.

Any complaint that people have about the prequels illustrates a weak grasp on film. How many art films would they claim has 'too much sitting and talking'? They would watch the end of Breaking the Waves and whine about dated CGI. Their sensibilities for 'good dialogue' in what is intentionally pulp comes from bad pulp, ie, the original Star Wars, the only pulp they've ever seen. They would similarly view any homage-driven art film and miss the entire point.

Lucas' only mistake in the prequels was doing something daring, original, artistic and literate, not realizing that the manchildren conditioned by the original SW trilogy to loathe anything cerebral would lash out against his cinematic risks.

this is good stuff, user

Prequels are good now.

>implying user (singular)

The problem with the prequels is that they were too smart. People don't want to see engaging political drama and a beautifully constructed romance. No. People want to see "laser swords xD" and "yoda xDDD". The fact that the characters were well-written and were developed make the drooling retards confused. They should just stick with MCU movies.

>Prequels are good
fixed

are we legion?

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Episode One is great outside of Jarjar (who isnt that horrible in hindsight. Its mostly the dumb voice and jarring CGI and poor slapstick that makes him particularly bad).
Episode Three is a fun kind of madness.
Episode Two however has to be the worst Star Wars movie out of all of them. It drags on, its boring outside of the most ridiculous scenes in any Star Wars movie, and the plot just sort of goes off on a weird tangent that ultimately amounts to nothing in the end.

I unironically really enjoyed the political aspect of the prequels. It first of made Palpatine so much more of a character, since rather than just being emperor and a warlord, he was not much more sly, charismatic and manipulative. Second off it really delivered a story more than just "here is good guy, here is bad guy, now good guy kills bad guy" but showed how and why good people and institutions turned cruel and evil, while also making surprisingly accurate parallels to pre WWII Germany, whereas most movies just steal their asthetics and portray these sort of governments as unredeemable antagonists

if the prequels were a book they would've been 10/10. All the political scheming and the jedi backstory make sense. They're just not exciting movies.

Well, we certainly are many now

I didn't see this one but i really like the way it looks

am i finally back in the bereinstein universe

The prequels have alot of hidden genius moments if u fags had any ability to understand underlying themes. The Jedi Council-Anakin tension, Mace Windu wanting to summarily execute the Emperor showing the hypocricy of the Jedi,Count Dooku passing on to Qui-Gonn Jinn unorthodox ideas, which in turn imfluenced Obi-Wan which in turned influenced Anakin, Young Anakin's desperate attempts to have some worth (his "My name is Anakin and Im a person answer to Padme is heartbreaking when she is surprised to find out he is a slave),Padme's sexy leather dress. And b4 anyone answers with "I dont like sand"... It was a metaphor for growing up on Tattoine u autistic fucks. Anakin suffered through Tattooine, being born as a slave to a slave mother, while Padme was raised a Queen on Naboo. He was comparing the differences between them. And I have even mention how epic Based Palpatine was. Fuck all of you, im gonna go fap to Padme now

>"The prequels used way too much greenscreen, the OT never did th-"

>Revenge of the Sith's labyrinthine opening shot— of Anakin and Obi-Wan giving chase to Dooku through the space vehicles on the planet of Coruscant—is a mighty and audacious gauntlet-throw, the digital equivalent of the opening shot of Orson Welles’s “Touch of Evil." It wheels and gyrates and zips and pivots with a vertiginous wonder that declares, from the beginning, that Lucas had big visual ideas and was about to realize them with a heroically inventive virtuosity. And the rest of the movie follows through on that self-dare.

>If I had seen ROTS in a theatre upon its release, in 2005, I think that, at the moment when Sheev, sizzling in the blue lightning that Mace Windu reflects back at him, cries out to Anakin, “Power! Unlimited Power!,” I would have leaped out of my seat yelling with excitement. The entire movie is filled with an absolute splendor of the pulp sublime, and that moment is its very apogee. Lucas reaches historic heights in the filming of action: the martial artistry of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s double duel versus Dooku, the gaping maw of outer space and of the airshaft into which the heroic duo drops, Obi-Wan’s light-sabre fight with the four-armed Grievous, and, above all, the apocalyptic inferno of the confrontation of Obi-Wan and Anakin. I watched these sequences over and was repeatedly and unflaggingly amazed by Lucas’s precise, dynamic, wildly imaginative direction.

>The scripted politics of the conflicts have a grand imagination to match. What Lucas brings to the script of the movie is a Shakespearean backroom dialectic of power-maneuvering. The dialogue is just heightened and sententious enough, just sufficiently rhetorical, to convey the grave moment of ideas in conflict and the grand mortal results of that dialectical clash—the making of a villain and the unmaking of a republic.

I don't really get the hate over "I don't like sand". Yeah its a cringy line, but Anakin grew up a slave and then lived with the Star Wars equivelant of religious monks, of course he's not gonna be charisma in person, he just tried to keep the conversation going while desperately trying to relate to Padme's story. At the same time it mirrors Anakin's general experience up to that point, always having to grow up in desert storms, scorching heat and trying his best to clean broken equipment while finally now having found people to relate to, and actually having someone nice in that particular moment.

This. Also, criticism of the 'bad writing' of the prequels seem to take it as given that the OT had flawless writing that wasn't cheesy at all.
>''Only a master of evil, Darth!"
>"That's no moon, that's a battle station!"
>"Now, you will die!"
>"I am your father!"
Come on now
The OT writing wasn't bad, but it's essentially B-movie tier

Yeah Palpatine was 100% the best part of the prequels.
The worst, in my opinion, is how they made the Jedi these weird monks who search out and take children to train, and who have to stay celibate. Like when Obi-Wan tells Luke his father was a Jedi, if having a family as a Jedi made you a failure, that should be a source of shame. And when he tells Luke that Anakin was a great pilot before being a Jedi, that's technically true, but it's jarring to see that a 9-year-old is such an amazing pilot (Force-sensitive or not).
I know the point was supposed to be that the order was too hidebound and whatever, but then there should have been more obvious corruption among Jedi (more secret, or open-secret families, material greed, etc) like the medieval Vatican or the Janissaries, but instead Anakin is the only Jedi we really see acting corrupt when he marries Padme.

But that's the point of the dialogue in Star Wars, it's meant to replicate exactly that.

So people look at the prequels and laugh at the lines.
And from that they've taken that criticism and put it into the two sequels.
But the acting in the sequels doesn't work a lot of the time. It either feels to jokey or too real.

>more obvious

why? heavy-handedness attracts dullards. it’s pure kinocore the way it is

shekel for the good goy

The ''CGI bad practical effects good'' meme is a Disney marketing line aimed at 'cinephile' redditors, and they took the bait hook, line and sinker

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Then why portray the institution as obsolete if the rot hasn't set in?

>mfw I like the prequels AND the sequels
>mfw I think every Star Wars movie ever made was good, including the Christmas special
>mfw I have more fun than any of you

Really, because I've felt that way for like 15 years.

>yfw you are a brainlet who enjoys every single movie he sees because you can't understand more than pictures moving on a screen

Shut up you spiny rat!

Then you're the target demographic. Fact is; neither one nor the other is superior per se, it just depends how they're used

>proud to be retarded

this is me as well
feelsgoodman.jpg

Wrong.

Not gonna make an argument or list reasons.

Just wrong.

I think the Jedi showed enough corruption. Their main criteria to who was accepted was a blood test for midi chlorians, they mostly ignored palpatine taking more and more power, they didn't hesitate to serve as Generals at the front of a war and tried to asassinate the chancellor by themselves

>Literally proud of giving Disney money
Know that you are funding shit like "The Force is female" or Forces of Destiny

God that orange creature with goggles is fucking disgusting. Looks like a fucking putrid orange. I just want to put my foot through it. Fuck you, Jew Jew Abrams.

>The absolute state of Disneyshills
Day of the mousetrap soon, get ready faggot

There`s a lot I like about the prequels but there`s so much autistic shit (like making The Force come from Midichlorians or whatever those are called) and lazy decisions (uh Obi Wan needs to get to the next scene but where does he get the information? Oh this random bad CGI monster at a bar tells him so we can move on) that it becomes quite unbearable.

Dexter Jettster wasn't a monster, he was a hard working man.
Show him some repect.

Daily reminder that Lucas had more money than he ever wanted, so he made the films he wanted to make the way he wanted to make:

>If there is a tinge of defensiveness in his sunny tone, it is because the latest instalment of Star Wars will inevitably be hammered for failing to live up to its 20-year-old predecessors. Such was the fate of The Phantom Menace and, although this is a better film, it will be received by many Star Wars purists as laughable. There is one scene in which Anakin Skywalker thrashes camply about in his sleep, crying "No!" at his nightmares. It is such a terrible cliche that one assumes it was put in for parodic value; it certainly had the audience in hysterics when I saw it. Lucas doesn't smile. "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."

This hangs in the air for a few moments. The universe that Lucas created for Star Wars is vastly sophisticated, but the characters are for the most part folksy vehicles for the delivery of quaint moral lessons. This is key to the films' charm - the marriage of futuristic landscapes with old-fashioned values. It renders the dialogue starchy and ludicrous, and there seems no other way to receive it. Harrison Ford famously turned to Lucas after reading his Star Wars part and said, "George, you can type this shit, but you sure can't say it."

>Lucas says he never claimed to be good at writing dialogue. "I've always been a follower of silent movies. I see film as a visual medium with a musical accompaniment, and dialogue is a raft that goes on with it. I create films that way - very visually - and the dialogue's not what's important. I'm one of those people who says, yes, cinema died when they invented sound. The talking-head era of movies is interesting and good, but I'd just like to go to the purer form."

>"The problem is, the theatre aspect of it has sort of taken over, and the institutions that comment on film are very literary. They aren't cinematic; you don't have a lot of cinematic people talking about cinema, because visual people don't use words, they use pictures."

I mean, I understood that there would be people who liked the prequel movies more than the originals, but for real? All three over the original trilogy? Alright you are a strange fellow but at least you get how the new Disney movies suck

(checked)
Wow. This really puts things in perspective.
I feel bad for hating on the prequels. I fell for the RLM meme...

It's pasta
I mean yes it puts things in perspective, but the fact is that dialogue and performances have become important aspects of a film, which is why Lucas' highest-quality output is when he is part of a larger creative team.

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>liked R1 more than TFA
R1 is probably the worst movie in the franchise

It was fine for what it was. At least it didn't ruin existing characters. I have a bad feeling about the upcoming Solo movie though.

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>carefully crafted expanded universe canon

I liked the prequels but Ewan McGregor was miscast. Phantom Menace should have had an older Skywalker, maybe 13-14 (an actual 13-14 not Hollywood 13-14, like Season 2 Gotham age David Mazouz) whop good show an adolescent sexual attraction to Natalie. Oh, and a kid who was a better actor, like the one who had a good audition with Natalie Portman.

>this thread
is there anything worse than prequelfags?