Back when they were first being released, were there prequel defenders?

Back when they were first being released, were there prequel defenders?
Did the average moviegoer like the prequels back then?

I'm asking because I was only two when Episode 1 came out.

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youtube.com/watch?v=x3wPUP4uo30
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youtube.com/watch?v=64-3talVkUA
youtube.com/watch?v=xbsBiyG1mnU&t=174s
twitter.com/AnonBabble

They were always dog shit.

I remember hating the first 2 but my mom cried during the HIGH GROUND scene in theaters so I assumed it was good.

>We're there prequel defenders
No there wasn't a need. Audiences swallowed those films up like they swallow up the ST

I liked them, but my friends pretty much all hated them. I always felt outnumbered on that issue.

>Were are there prequel defenders

Revenge of the Sith came out when I was in middle school. Everyone I talked to in person about the films thought they were worse than the original trilogy, but we still watched all the prequels. I don't think I'll be watching a Star Wars film in theaters ever again after the Last Jedi though.

Not really, the overwhelming opinion was that the films sucked. At least the first two, it wasn't that bad for RotS.

At the time, prequel defenders were in grade school. I honestly never met anyone who defends the prequel that hasn't seen them as a kid. Seems like every prequel defender is someone who can't let go of their childhood nostalgia.

Works both ways, peoples childhood nostalgia made them make mountains out of molehills with Jar-Jar and the fridge scene from Indie when their childhood favorites had ewoks and magic nazis.

>We are

i defended my boner for padme desu

The Nazis in those films weren't magic, the Christian artifacts were.

But real Nazis have meme magic.

iirc prequels didnt really have to be defended
they were entertaining enough

they re edits for dvd bullshit is what people were furious about
much like how they are furious and disgusted with nuWars

As a kid i thought they were all good

Most of the people attacking them were normies not into sci-fi.

Teenage me automatically discarded their opinion

Episode 2 had extremely bad worth of mouth among people I knew at that time.. Everybody skipped on seeing episode 3 in cinema afterwards. I can't remember anything about episode 1 but people still saw episode 2 in cinemas, so I guess they were at least okay with it.

The vast majority liked them, especially millennial generation that grew up on 1997 special edition. Only OT theatrical release niggers were mad because they couldn't relive the same experience they felt when they watched those movies as they first released, since there was nothing else like it and it was mindblowing at the time. Unless prequels would have been just as revolutinary, they would have been disappointed no matter how good the prequels were. The prequel hatred was largely overblown due to them coming out at a time when internet was becoming widely accessible, so every nerd with a negative opinion was now heard around the globe to millions of other people.

>I was only two when Episode 1 came out

the class of 2002 will always remember the prequels!

No, most people were really disappointed. (links related)

Some 20-somethings fans said that kids would have nostalgia for them when they grew up and prefer them. So OP, were they right? Do you have nostalgia for them and/or prefer them.

youtube.com/watch?v=zJlgpozN31s

youtube.com/watch?v=K-Zmuoze65U

youtube.com/watch?v=x3wPUP4uo30

youtube.com/watch?v=Q4TX6x2WLgk

youtube.com/watch?v=KVl_Z0cGKGs

>this is pretty cool but there's some shitty parts

I loved them all, so did al my friends

i like your mom

I don't think they're great, but they're a launching pad for better stories like the Clone Wars.

Sbased

Your mother is a patrician.

It certainly was popular to hate on them but as you can see in the videos, they have no argument.

>Back when they were first being released, were there prequel defenders?
Not really, but keep in mind the Plinkett review wasn't released instantly, it took some years, the prequel hate grew as the movies were released. It wasn't an instant process. Took a few years.TPM introduced doubt and disdain. AOTC absolutely boosted the hate and RotS tamed it a little tiny bit. After Ep III that's when the hate really kicked in higher gear. Prequel defenders always were outnumbered. Probably always will.

>Did the average moviegoer like the prequels back then?
Kids liked them. OT fags were divided but mostly disappointed. Normies went to see them in droves but I wouldn't say they liked them. They went for the once in a lifetime event more than for the franchise.
The marketing for the prequels was off the charts. A decade and a half of waiting for the impossible. The OT's and Lucas's fame had gained legendary status too.
People wanted to believe in Lucas back then. For almost 15 years Lucas looked like he could not do any wrong. During this time he literally was a living god walking among ants. Everybody in the industry and in the world had a tremendous love and respect for him and his achievements. Turns out we all thought he was Luke, but he ended up being Vader and became everything he hated. He became the Studio that he spent his entire career running away from. And people, average movie goers saw that too. And this fueled the prequel hate more than people are willing to admit. The absolute disappointing realization that a living god could actually fail.
"How did this happen? We're smarter than this!" indeed

No need to defend kino

I was 10 and I heard a lot of shit about it from my dad. I myself still think AOTC is one of the worst films ever made but don't mind the 1 and 3.

But that first got a lot of shit.

Yeah, everyone liked them. It wasn’t until ten years of internet bitching that the idea that they were bad started to catch on.

Then, once the sequels came out most people 180’d back.

Everyone loved the Episode 3 when it was released.

Here's the high-res version for the next time you make this thread.

She really is a chestlet.

I don't know. I wasn't a part of any Star Wars forum. And although I started to browse Sup Forums around the time the third movie came, if Sup Forums existed I didn't browse it back then.
So everything I know about it is what I felt and what a few others I knew IRL felt about it. Neither of us are hardcore fans. I'd say that we didn't even watch the original trilogy more than 2 times.
I'm a huge fan of John Williams, though, so that was an actual reason to go to the cinema for me.
I despised the first one, I think we all did. Jar-Jar was an abomination (even though revisionism now says that that was the point, for a first viewing he's completely off-putting). I was never crazy about the e-woks neither (excepting when I was a very young kid), but I don't remember them having the spotlight as much; dunno. We all had huge praises for both Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor, though. And I remember the press forcing the meme that Herschlag was an astounding actress (as they did with ScarJo years later); of course, we were kids just out of high school, so our boners agreed.
The second one I think the general consensus between us is that it wasn't as bad, that Yoda against Dooku was fucking awesome, and that the only problem was the guy doing Anakin. I even remember an anime magazine taking jabs at him, saying that some random character had "less charm than Bananakin".
The third one was the divisive one. The others hate it, thought the premise was ridiculous. I honestly went to the cinema with low expectations, so I don't care about many things that everyone bitched about (although Padme almost shitting the twins and dying feels ridiculous to me even now). I did like how Obi Wan's heart kept breaking little by little, and how even in the worst moment, even after Anakin's "jedicide", he didn't want to be forced to kill him. Fortunately Ewan McGregor is such a great actor that the scene had gravity and was emotional; put a lesser actor there and it would feel trite and corny.

I was seven when I saw TPM and I loved it, obviously. I went with my uncle and my mother, and I remember that my mum loathed it and my uncle loved it. Mum thought it was too flashy and smooth and looked too "fake", and my uncle said it was everything he imagined.

I was ten when I saw AotC, again with my uncle. He stopped enjoying it pretty early, around Coruscant, and I liked it all the way up until Yoda's fight with Dooku. At that point, there were two or three grown men in the audience laughing and cheering while he was flipping around everywhere but most of the audience seemed pretty unimpressed.

I saw RotS on a date when I was thirteen (my uncle actually didn't watch it until DVD, he was that disgusted with AotC). I thought it was pretty dumb, but better than the other two. I unironically enjoyed the fuck out of the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel.

Thirteen years on, I've watched each film around ten times. I do enjoy them, but absolutely as a guilty pleasure. They are not good movies.

>10 years old in 1992
underage limey get out

10 years old in 2002. I am 26.
And I'm Australian.

Old fag here. Even after the initial disappointment of TPM, it took a while for ppl to really turn on it. When AOTC came out and was also terrible, the hate for both 1&2 was finally out in the open, like you could finally admit how shitty they were without shame and with zero hope that ROTS would be good. That’s the only reason it rates slightly higher- zero expectations.

Although I had zero expectations myself, a lot of people went to the cinema expecting to see Anakin become a badass. And left disappointed because he was basically a sad mommy boy who went to the dark side due to sheer idiocy.

>when your mom has better taste than your SW fan uncle

yes there were prequel defenders because I was one.

It was kind of different back then though. In the early '00s the internet was more concerned with franchise x vs franchise y, as opposed to arguing about the merits and failings of franchise instalment x vs franchise instalment y as we do now. So most of the prequel hate came from LotR guys.

God, Padme in this outfit is top tier bonerkino

everyone who was a young kid during that time and said they hated it is lying. everyone loved it. dark maul was the tightest shit. it's only the 30 year old nergins who had to shit on everyone's parade. young kids did not give a shit about the implications of the force being reverse space aids and how it ruined the mythology of the force nor did they give a shit about jar jar

They were hated from the very start. The phantom menace backlash especially was insane.

I think the only thing that's really changed over time is thinking clones is worse than menace, don't think most people felt that way when they first came out.

The LotR guys skirted disaster, the Hobbits are only bad when pitched against the original trilogy, but compared to other contemporaries, they're on a level beyond.

everybody loved them, and this was their fav character. great times!

Seems to be a lot of revisionist history here, I remember everyone loving them and especially loving all the video games and toys they spawned aswell.

Children liked them. They didn't know any better. Uncritical fanboys liked them. Old school fans hated them with a passion.

We stopped watching with Clones. I hadn't liked the sequels, but girlfriends and then wives wanted to see them. In the middle of Clones, my second wife said, "Ok. We don't have to see these any more."

We haven't watched a sequel/prequel/sidequel since. We've been happier that way.

I didn't have a very positive opinion of the prequels and I don't think anyone else really did either; I was in college.

And the prequels being shit didn't help.
Midichlorians.
Trade treaties.
Sand.
Yippee.

Face it, the prequels were shit.

I hope one day you understand their greatness

I understand that they were very large piles of shit. Very large is what you meant by "greatness," yes?

Everyone loved TPM at the time, a lot of people said it was as good/almost as good as Jedi

There was always the hardcore audience who hated "little ani" & Jar Jar, but it wasn't until a few years that everyone jumped the bandwagon & started hating it

AOTC was probably the most "meh" of the prequels, you didn't see much hate for it, but not too much excitement either, i think general audiences found the love story & detective Obi-Wan boring

ROTS was overrated as fuck, people were saying it was better than Empire & im not talking about paid off critics saying that like they do with TLJ, i mean average joes were saying that, hardcore fans liked it at first too, they loved Jar Jar did nothing & of course over all the violence & just how hate filled & dark it was, it was the Star Wars movie the jaded neckbeards always wanted, but then came the nitpicking & ROTS got on the prequel hate bandwagon too, but i still say it's better than ROTJ to this day

No, they were a colossal disappointment. It was only later when the children who watched those movies in theaters grew up and expected the rest of the world to respect their idiotic opinions.

>young natalie

hnnnggg

Reminder that Hayden is unironically a better actor than Daisy Ridley, even if the proof of that is outside of Star Wars.

The Revenge of the Sith wasn't painful to watch and I never hated Jar Jar. Just was disappointed.

I was in high school when TPM came out. Not a single person I knew defended it or AOTC. There were plenty of people who were in the "so bad they're good" camp, and a few who agreed they were mediocre but not terrible. Most were just various levels of disappointed. I don't recall a single person arguing that they were good movies.

>Back when they were first being released, were there prequel defenders?

Absolutely. They were in denial

>Did the average moviegoer like the prequels back then?

lmao no

This, star wars canon takes a while to really sink into place

Aside from Christian Hayden and little annie the other acting was fine. It's not the actors fault that their characters are two dimensional.

Like even now I will said that Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver did a good job acting, its just that their characters aren't good. While Finn, Rose, Poe and everyone else they genuinely aren't good actors. Fisher... I don't know what was happening to her maybe she was high or something.

sorry samefag, the prequels sucked dick to anyone who wasn't in diapers.

I was a kid when TPM came out and I wasn't annoyed by Jar Jar, I though AOTC was cool, but in when TRoS came out when I was in middle school I began to notice the difference between prequel and OT.

they were well received for the most part with few nerds whining about stuff, let's not forget that Lucas back then was trying a lot of new stuff with CGI and whatnot so people was actually amazed by it.

i personally liked them back then and still do.

>Back when they were first being released, were there prequel defenders?
Yes
>Did the average moviegoer like the prequels back then?
Box office numbers say yes

Hayden looked like a cunt in the prequels because his character was poorly written. He's been in other movies that clearly don't have this problem.

Daisy Ridley, however, cannot act and the lack of decent dialogue doesn't hide it. Each line she delivers is flat and she looks either blank or confused in every scene. A better actor could at least brood when giving nothing meaningful to say but absent cues she just stops emoting completely.

Unrelated question, how does Christian Haydenson feel about Star Wars now? Does he regret playing anakin like little ani does?

>calls star wars sci-fi

he got the Luke curse, but nigga was proud about it tho

Nah, TPM was very divisive at release. Clones was shit on pretty heavily for some reason. RotS was the only one that was generally agreed on as good.

I remember seeing Episode 2 when I was.. 10? 11? Killed any interest I had in the series till about 2008 when I decided to play KOTOR. God, I will never forget the disappointment I felt after getting out of Episode 2, while all my friends were like "LIGHTSABERS AHHHHH"

A hint of nostalgia, but I definitely don't prefer them.

In 1997 when I was 8 I got to see the Episode IV special edition release in theater, so that is my defining memory of Star Wars.

I saw TPM in theaters when I was 8 and I liked the podracing scene and the Darth Maul fight but thought it had a lot of things that didn't make sense. My friend I saw it with loved it and our moms both hated it. I went to AotC with the same friend when it came out (we were 11-12) and we both thought it was absolute shit, I didn't watch Clones until I was 20 and thought it was the best prequel but still not very good except for Sheev.

You're either lying or too young to remember.

The issue with the Prequels was that Lucas used too much CGI when he should have done more set design. Also, it was as creative as OT.

For instance, Darth Maul was freaking scary to me as a kid, but the battle droids were just pathetic. I hated how Jedi only had two colors for their light sabers (except for Windu) that never made sense to me. ATOC was just lazy. I don't think Lucas put any effort into it. Also, both choices for Anakin, that little kid and Christian Hayden, were very bad. Could George not see that Hayden couldn't act? Natalie Portman was fine, but her character was 2-dimensional. And remember the Clone War cartoon series? Remember that episode which showed Grevious and him fighting the Jedi? That was awesome! So creative in the way which he fought! I loved his voice. So it was super disappointing to watch the way Grevious fought in RoTS. A lot of creativity came out of the side projects that were apart of the movie, but the films themselves lacked in technical detail.


I know these are cartoons, but Lucas was using a lot of CGI so he could have done something like this.

youtube.com/watch?v=xTnpqjJae-g


youtube.com/watch?v=64-3talVkUA


I think that George Lucas came to hate his own creation which was why the prequels were bad and he sold it to Disney.

This is the magnum opus of Star Wars regardless of CGI.

So many manchildren were crying in the theater from this. It was epic.

youtube.com/watch?v=xbsBiyG1mnU&t=174s

I loved them. I remember the theaters were open crazy hours just because of them. I watched episode I for the second time at like 10am it was great, hardly anyone there.

I liked them and most kids my age did so as well. Not sure what the consensus was with adults. I'm an adult now and I haven't watched a Star Wars film since anakin turned to the dark side.

Probably won't watch any either cus Star Wars movies are for little kids and capeshit followers.

When the prequels came out, the public opinion of them was this: "well, they're not as good as the original trilogy, and Jar-Jar sucks, and too much Senate, but they're still pretty good, it's still Star Wars." There were people who defended the prequels when people made complaints about Jar-Jar, though.

Personally, I was 16 when The Phantom Menace came out and I hated it. As the years have gone by, though, I've learned to take Star Wars less seriously, and I've stopped hating the prequels. Honestly, they aren't that bad all things considered.

They were awful, but still solid scifi, at the time star trek insurrection came out, and god lord that was a real stinker.

Idk what that is, please explain. I haven’t even watched a single Star Wars movie all the way through. I just feel bad for the guy.

The EU made the prequels more interesting. Like the extended story of Darth Maul.

Hayden got WAY to much shit compared to everyone else. I have to imagine that wieghed on his career heavily

I dunno, I rewatched episodes I and II over Christmas, and holy fuck Hayden is absolutely terrible in episode II. Like, Obi-Wan and to a lesser extent Padme are both emoting and trying to actually deliver lines but he just doesn't give them anything to work with.

Haven't watched III recently so maybe he improves, but I doubt it.

I was 8 when I went to see it at theatre, I loved Star Wars. Some parts in PM were a bit boring though, I really only cared about the fights and the pod racing scene. When I grew older, as I rewatched the series over and over and over again, I came to realize its importance to how Palpatine grew to power. However, I think it would have been done better if the politics and behind the scenes shit was done in books rather than movie. When I watched clone wars I thought it was gonna be a legit battle of geonosis except the whole damn movie. Not some body of lies type crime movie. Same with revenge of the sith, too much talking, not enough fighting and scheming and fighting. I did enjoy Clone Wars though, and Rebels. Made Anakin's fall to the dark side much more interesting.

You can feel the chemistry between them

Everyone was bad in 2. Even Ewan and Hershlag
Plus Anakin got ALL the worst shit. You can't deliver anything on those, especially under the direction of George fucking Lucas

Attack of the clones, not clone wars in that first part

This. All the kids loved them, parents not so much but it was popular to have parties at the movie theater to watch Phantom Menace.

To be honest the talking never bothered me, Like I never knew what was going on, but I was invested. I was a weird kid though, explosions didn't wow me.

This. Hayden's really not at fault that he got terrible lines and the only direction he got was "more intense." He does the best with what he's given. Not saying he's some master actor or anything, though. He's an average actor. But even if he'd been a better actor, he still wouldn't have saved Episode II because, like you said, better actors were also bad in it.

I remember liking Phantom Menace when it came out. First time I really saw a movie with that sort of scope.

TPM was disappointing, but AOTC just sucked. When ROTS came out, I didn't care anymore, so I was pleasantly surprised by it.

>Ywn experience the hype and disappointment of the prequels

no he really isn't lying

I hate when low iq people say this. The give themselves the "its just nostalgia" reason because they don't see the difference between a good and bad story

I mean it's okay to having talking because it builds the story and adds to the lore and plot of what's going on, it was just too much talking in the prequels. I get that they wanted Palpatine and the other separatists explain their characters and what is happening, but they didn't have to go full wookiepedia. Who cares about trade disputes? Make it into a book or something, the originals were about this hidden rebellion against this giant evil empire, and in the prequel it's the big gooberment with a jedi army vs some libertarian confederacy who want to do things their way. I don't think anybody cared about that, at least to me it seemed that way. The prequels definitely could have been done much better.

They should have shown a Jedi making a lightsaber. Also, no CGI Yoda just the puppet please I don't need to see him do a lightsaber fight.

funny, the way you feel about rots is how i felt about tlj