Nostalgic fanboys just have to admit they're wrong. Sure Jar Jar Binks was overwhelming, but getting important information on how the galaxy came under the Empire's control, how Anakin turned into Vader, Obi Wan and Qui Gon Jinn, young Yoda, Mace Windu, Sith Lords...c'mon, stop being so whiny, the prequels were good and if you want to be nitpicky and a fanboy, admit the "previous" Originals had as much stupid cr*p as the Prequels like Ewoks, Ewoks worshipping 3PO, extremely poor and limited fight scenes, lack of Jedi scenes, etc.
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Right, Obi Wan and Quin Gon were SOOOO bad. Background on how Anakin turned to the Dark Side was such a terrible idea, knowing much more about the important Jedi and Jedi Council was such a poor idea. Geonosian planet droid scene = ewoks worshipping c3PO.
Understand you, I can. Force Awakens was basically a re-make of Ep.IV. Though I understand where they're going, it was much of the same o same o. Prequels, besides Jar Jar which fanboys are so obsessed with, contain a ton of good info on how Ep.IV got to where it was and how Vader became who he was. Fanboys love to nitpick that Anakin was whiny and a drama queen, who cares, look past that to the bigger picture. Prequels were great.
Episode 4
Context is important. It was the 1970s, personal computers didn't even exist yet, and this was an impressive display of special effects. But the story was also pretty good. Interesting characters, if a bit ham-handed (Solo was a real schmuck in this movie.) I loved Alec Guinness (though he later told everyone he hated playing Kenobi and in fact everything about Star Wars). The FIRST time they killed the Death Star, it was kind of cool. Even now I pick up stuff I didn't notice before.
The worst part of this movie? The lightsaber fights. Oh my god, after watching the fighting in Episode 3 and going back and watching this, it was painful. Alec Guinness looks like he's trying to poke Vader with a stick. We've come a long way in swordfighting choreography it would seem. But overall, great movie. 3 stars.
Episode 5
I didn't like this one as much as some other folks did. Reason? I was a teenager and the good guys got their butts handed to them. That of course says not much about the movie itself, which was very well made. The "I'm your father" thing is a cliche now but most people didn't see it coming at the time. The acting is pretty good, Solo is no longer acting like a putz, and we get to meet Yoda. 3 stars.
Episode 6
My personal favorite for a very long time. Luke ends Episode 5 a scared, pathetic kid with his arm cut off (back then we didn't know that this was routine among Jedi!). He starts Episode 6 calm, confident and very powerful. There's a bit too much build-up to the final confrontation, just takes too long to get to what we know is "his destiny". The fight with Vader is amazing, and the ending is great, if a bit cliched. The remake where they added in Vader screaming "NOOOOOOOO" makes me want to punch a small animal. Aside from that, 3.5 stars.
Episode 1
I don't remember a lot about this one, except that yes, Jar Jar Binks is very annoying (even with some of him cut out in the remake). The actor who played Anakin was not very good. Yes, a kid, but there are good kid actors and he was not one of them, IMO. The story was a bit disjointed. And we also have here the first in what becomes a theme in the prequels: lightsaber battles that are amazing right until the very endings, which make no sense. Special irony points for how Maul dies -- "gee, I think I'll just watch this guy jump over me and not try to defend myself" -- given what happens in Episode 3 when Obiwan has the "high ground". 2.5 stars.
Episode 2
Significant improvement over Episode 1, except... the relationship between Padme and Anakin. I normally don't even care about such things but even I squirmed as she looks him up and down and goes "my, you've grown" or whatever. I realize they had a tough problem dealing with their age difference from the first movie, but it was awkward. The "Sound of Music" scenes rolling through flowers were also a bit painful. And I'm sorry, but Hayden Christensen isn't any better an actor than his younger counterpart was.
The fights near the end.. amazing to watch, but again, weird endings. Why does Dooku make Obiwan look like a youngling every time they meet? And all the "oh me, oh my, I have been hurt, I must sit here and moan and groan until it's time for me to dramatically intercede". Once again we have someone get chopped by a lightsaber while he stands there and watches. Huh? Then he gets pushed next to Obiwan who doesn't even seem to react.
I remember watching this and they did a good job of setting up Yoda as being too old and frail to fight with a lightsaber, and then being shocked as he turns into a flying furball of death. But the result is more comical than inspiring, IMO. And then Dooku knocks the big thing over, and the two yahoos Obiwan and Anakin just lie there like dufuses and don't even try to help... or even, I dunno, roll out of the way? Lame. 3 stars.
Episode 3
This has become one of my favorites of all the movies. For a strange reason, I only just saw this one this year. I missed it in the theater and didn't want to watch it until I was able to find a decent screen to view it on, so I went for years not seeing it. Hey, not like we didn't know what was going to happen. Even so, it was cool to see how it transpires.
Again Christensen lets this down, he tries to act conflicted but most of the time comes off as whiny. He's just not up to the role. Ian McDiarmid is wonderful in this movie (though how anyone couldn't tell just from his voice that he was Sidious is beyond me). The relationship between Padme and Anakin gets even more weird, leading up to the "I love you so much I must become evil to save you but I'm now going to choke you to death" (huh?). The "giving up the will to live" thing was an inexcusable cliche.
Fighting: same pattern, with amazing choreography and weird endings. Once again Obiwan is completely useless against Dooku.. I think I could have done better. That thing at the end where Anakin defeats Dooku though.. what WAS that? He flicks his wrist and takes off both Dooku's hands? Weird. The fight at the end is awesome, but again with the lame ending. "YOU UNDERESTIMATE MY POWER".. "NO I DON'T, HERE WATCH ME CUT OFF 3/4 OF YOUR LIMBS". Bleh.
All that said, watching Anakin transform into Vader is an amazing thing to watch. Episode 3 is powerful because for me it transformed Vader from a simple villain to be hated, into a tragic figure. I finally understood why the movies came out in the order they did. I could not have taken Vader seriously in the OT if I had seen what happens to him in 3. The lines that Obiwan shouts at Anakin after the lava fight are powerful. It changed how I view all the movies, and there was a lot more good than bad. 3.5 stars.
Episode 7
This is the only time in my life that I have gone into a movie excited to love it, and actually started hating it before the first scene even starts. Yep, right in the opening crawl... wait, what? Luke Skywalker, savior of the Jedi, has gone away sulking and allowed the entire galaxy to fall back into exactly what he defeated? As a Luke fanboy I was so **** off. It just got worse from there. Let's see, we have the new villain worshipping Vader's melted helmet, and he has his own, but when he takes it off he looks like a dweeb. We have another cute droid with important information that has to get from point A to point B. The WW2-Germany bad guys are back again. And we have the new protege, but she doesn't even have the decency to suck for a couple of movies, nope, she picked up Jedi Mastery for Dummies and goes from "whatsaber" to kicking dweeb-villain's **** in seemingly five minutes. And then there's ANOTHER death star? This was so cliche they even lampshaded it, remember when Han goes "Death star? We blow those up, don't we?" Yeah, Han, we do. I think I actually laughed. Painful.
For this old fanboy, though, the worst part though was what they did to the old characters. I understand they wanted fresh blood for a fresh generation, but did they have to ruin our memories? Luke comes across as having reverted to frightened kid. Leia and Han are divorced (shock) and every scene with the two of them is like a freshly-divorced couple at the Thanksgiving table. Chewie was the only one of the old characters who was great in this movie... and Han, when he wasn't with Leia. And also, Leia was one of the only two known force-sensitives on the good side at the end of Episode 6. I wanted to see her swinging a light saber around and kicking ****! Instead she's a "general" who spends most of the movie sitting around looking concerned. Oh wait, that was recycled from earlier movies too, except for her rank.
Then there's the completely **** political/faction setup. The Empire is destroyed and there's a new Republic! Great! Except they don't do anything! They just sit around and wait to get destroyed! Nice work, didn't you guys do that in an earlier movie? (Oh right, everything in this movie is recycled.) Then we have the First Order and the Resistance. Uh, if there's a new legitimate republic government, then the First Order should have been the "resistance". And the "Resistance" should have been fighting alongside the government. The whole thing was clumsy and awful.
On the plus side I did like the new characters.. mostly. Kylo Ren should never have taken his mask off; before that he was cool. Finn was.. different. Poe, we didn't see enough of him, maybe because he was too busy unbalancing this game. And Rey, well, pretty cool except for the "Matrix download of lightsaber fighting" and please, let her NOT be Luke's daughter? Please?
The effects were cool. Fun movie to watch.. as long as you tried to just take it as an action flick and pretend the previous 6 movies never happened. But sorry, they did. 1.5 stars. I know, everyone else loved it. I thought it was a major disappointment.
All valid points and I agree with a lot. Overall, I think the good in the prequels, like the originals, heavily outweigh the bad as the back story in 1-3 is amazing with Jedi's, Sith's and Anakin-Vader while the story of Luke and Han and Leia in 4-6 are also unique and compelling.
I watched the Force Awakens for the second time just 12 hours ago.
It isn't amazing. It is simply chapter one.
There are so many recycled themes and pure rip offs of the other movies that it may as well have been a 'best of Star Wars' compilation.
But the reason why I like it is because I can't wait to see what happens next. I have so many questions and theories that I'm so eagerly anticipating episode eight.
I like Star Wars because it makes me feel like a kid again. This one is no different.
Wasn't really a fan of the prequels even though I technically grew up with those. The back story on both Jango and Boba Fett was probably the most interesting thing for me at least. It was hard not to cringe at a deprived Anakin Skywalker.
As for the Originals, I thought Empire Strikes Back was the best
The lightsaber endings on all movies were pretty bad, not just in the prequels.
On ep. 4 old ben tries to perform a spin and Vader just sits there and watches till he is done with the choreography. And then, while being struck he disappears into thin air. Luke screams a "nooooo", and then he continues with whatever he was doing. If you watched the prequels first, this is the 1st lightsaber fight you see in OT and its really laughable.
On ep. 5 on Luke vs Vader fight most of the lightsaber attacks are aimed towards the air or the surroundings other than Vader or Luke. Also the lightsabers appear to be very heavy in OT, even though they have weightless blades. They became more like baseball bats.
On ep. 6 In the final fight between Luke and Vader, the so scary and strong Vader, most of his time he is backpedaling and lazily swings his lightsaber. And when an opportunity arises to harm Luke, he desides to fall down for no apparent reason so Luke can perform his choreographed baseball bat hits filled with berserk rage (There is no Emotion, there is peace, ****! )
On ep 1, 2, 3 you mentioned them yourself. Every fight finishes with one of the two combatants stands still to see the other perform his choreographed finishing move. With the most ridiculous scene being Palpatine killing the Jedi masters like they are some bad cosplayers that hold lightsabers for the first time in their lives.
I'm a fan of Star Wars universe but i became a fan more because of games like KOTOR, rather than the movies.
Anyway like said before, Jar Jar and Anakin ruined it for me.
Too many stoopid quotes like Jar Jar stepping in dung saying stupid stuff, Anakin his YIPPIEE
Epi 2 was a big lovestory which bored the **** outta me, the factory was stoopid but the Arena fight with the Jedi was sort of fun. Especially Jango getting his head chopped off.
Epi 3 was ok. The CGI battle at the end isn't my cup of tea, like the fight in TFA a lot more. It's raw and more realistic than all the jumping, twirling ballerina stuff in epi 3 with all the lava.
Also because you already know how the prequels will end, the suspension is a lot less. Darth Vader his NOOOOOO and Anakin his "turn" were quite messy imo. Order 66 lasting 3 minutes while being the best part of the movie.. Sidious beating Mace his sidekicks with the most ridiculous blows (I now know why people whine about Rey if you see this).
No the prequels set a bad tone for me eventhough I somewhat liked the story and the fights. All the politics is nice and all but way too much screentime.
Combine that with some bad CGI e.g. Obi Wan and Anakin vs Dooku, spinning Yoda vs Dooku, Mace and his nub jedi's vs Sidious etc.
I liked Obi Wan vs Grievious a bit (also overload on CGI but ok) and I did like the Yoda vs Sidious a little bit (eventho completely CGI sigh).
TFA feels more raw, real and I can relate to it far better than the prequels. I'm 30 years old now, perhaps that explains something. I remember leaving the theatre during epi 1 with an amazing feeling because of the Obi Wan/QGJ vs Maul fight which is imo the best SW fight ever.
It's long, it's intense, it's high paced, a jedi dies and a Sith gets cut in half = win.
- Episode 4: Again, Kenobi allowed himself to be killed.
- Episode 5: Luke does a fairly decent job but he's completely outmatched. Vader doesn't want to kill him. The ending makes sense (well, except for the "jump down thousands of feet and survive" but the movies all do that stuff).
- Episode 6: Luke gets enraged and defeats Vader with sheer power. There's no silliness like jumping over him or whatever.
The prequel choreography is better, but the resolutions of all the important fights make little sense. I thought it was pretty much canon that Vader was a clumsy swordsman because of the suit. The fighting here isn't as good as the prequels but it is much, much improved from 4 and 5. I just watched this again. I'm not sure why he fell to his knees, but there was a reason in general, Luke was simply overpowering him. He had to move around a lot, duck swings and so forth. Again, he's in an awkward armor suit. Armor make you less agile. He was backed into a corner and the result would probably have been about the same.
This wasn't great but nowhere near the ridiculous endings in the prequels. Oh right, I forgot about that! Completely nonsensical. Two of them just stand there like **** even though they are armed. The third was Kit Fisto, he at least took a couple of swings before being cut down. He made them look like they had no idea what they were doing.
Then Mace basically duels him to a stalemate.. Mace was THAT much better than the others? These Jedi Masters couldn't fight cooperatively having outnumbered Sidious 4 to 1? After all the preaching from Kenobi to Anakin about "taking him together"? Obviously the director just wanted Sidious and Mace to be 1 on 1 for story reasons, but he should have not had 4 guys show up just to have 3 get slaughtered like sheep.
Another thing I realized later is inconsistent between the OT and prequels is Kenobi's explanation for Anakin's fall. He blames himself for it in the OT, basically implying that Yoda wanted to train Anakin but Kenobi asked for the task instead. In the prequels, they don't want to train Anakin at all and Kenobi takes on the responsibility. Very different.
And yeah, don't they say in one of the movies that the lightsaber is difficult to control if you aren't experienced with it? Which is why it takes years of training? Except when JJ Abrams gets involved, apparently. I forgot that Finn also uses it, completely untrained. I'm sure we will get some lame retconned rationale for that in a later movie.
During the Clonewars you see more non jedi, non sith wielding lightsabers. Heck I even remember Cad Bane stealing one at a certain point.
Also Finn had training as a Stormtrooper in melee combat (just like the TRAITOR FN trooper we all love).
It's not that hard to swing a lightsaber around and chop away.. Finn could hold it and could swing with it, still got beaten bad by Kylo Ren.
Rey only tried to deflect his blows at first (doing a pretty bad job at it), till the point she let's the force in and guide her throughout the remainder of the fight. This has also been seen in the Clone Wars, that the force is acting on it's own way. Also if there is a Dark Side rising, there will always be someone on the light side rising as well. That's why Rey is the Light Side force user, the force is trying to balance itself out again.
Check clone wars S06 episode 12 and S03 episode 16 & 17: Altar of Mortis
This will elaborate a lot regarding to Rey and her "sudden" Force abilities.
At least Phantom Menace was original material unlike TFA, which was just a half-baked rip-off of Star Wars with all these bogus wannabe characters portraying the original cast poorly with different names.
It's no wonder Lucas stepped down as an advisor after only working with JJ Abrams and Disney for a few months....
Agree 100%. The prequels had it's issues but TFA is by far the worst movie in the whole series. You never really get the feeling that your heroes was in any danger except for the one scene where everyone saw coming. The good guys just had it too easy and the movie in itself is such a joke that they even make fun of it. Why have such a similar concept as a death star with the same freaking vulnerability with the same freaking outcome.
What next? "I am your father Rey" in Episode VIII: First Order Strikes back?
Also someone in the galaxy should start selling video surveillance equipment to the First Order.
What next? "I am your father Rey" in Episode VIII: First Order Strikes back?
Also someone in the galaxy should start selling video surveillance equipment to the First Order. [/quote]
I am your father, Luke to Rey is coming in Ep8. Like the PT and OT, I guess we'll have to wait until Ep.10-12 to understand Ep.7-9.
Ugh ugh sorry here but Star Wars is a total ripoff to begin with; Flash Gordon. Exact same story line, exact same heroes and villians.
Also we didn't have the feeling our heroes were in danger, did we had that with Anakin and Obi Wan?
It was no secret what happened to those two, unless (and this is probably the point we are coming to) you saw the OT AFTER the prequels. But yeah, I didn't think Obi Wan would die by Maul. I didn't think Anakin got killed by Dooku or Obi Wan for that matters. No excitement in the entire prequels (except QGJ dying). Even the podrace with Sebulba, no excitement because Anakin (Gary Sue) would win it anyway.
Just like him flying a spaceship and blowing up the station which made all the droids go offline... mindblowing stuff, well written and original! /end sarcasm
It's all opinion based and I liked TFA because I see it as a great transition movie to episode VIII.
Thing is, this movie was announced as the second coming or something, expectations were too **** high. Nevertheless it was enjoyable and is by far better than the prequels.
thank you for paraphrasing! at least someone gets it. I was a little annoyed by the reuse of OT ideas, but there was a reason for most of it.
Wish we had Cody in the game. That gif reminds of him giving back Obi's lightsaber.