Date: 1/30/18

This topic has made me lose respect here, so I ask you to keep your comments civil. I had a miniature blowup on my Tag chapter when I said that I liked Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and that it was a favorite movie of mine. Today I'm going to talk about the prequels in general, and the merits/flaws of them.

Before I begin, I would like to say that The Last Jedi is my least favorite Star Wars film, on a relative scale. I thought that Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren were good characters, but nothing significant happened, and I feel like as in The Fandom—I mean, The Phantom Menace, the movie's only purpose was to kill off Luke. Kylo Ren didn't change—he just killed Snoke and took his place. It was very frustrating on many other levels as well, and I'll release an in-depth review of it on my book Media Critic at some point if you're interested.

I respect those who dislike the prequels, because a lot of my family does too, and we can all agree that the original trilogy is fantastic. However, I and K.N. (my writing partner for The Primordial Reign) would argue that the prequels are good movies. However, our opinions split on the following key opinions that I hold:

1.) The prequels are deeply flawed movies.

2.) However, people only look at the bad parts of the prequels.

3.) The prequels are not meant to be held on the same level as the original trilogy.

Below are several arguments for the movies being terrible and my rebuttals:

1.) The style is different than the original trilogy. Well, of course, it is! What do you expect from a prequel trilogy about the galaxy before the Empire? This honestly shouldn't come as much of a surprise, because the Republic had a different style than the Empire. Plus, if you look closely, the Empire's ships are actually really similar to the Republic's.

2.) The CGI. I agree with this—the technology was not good enough for the usage of CGI as opposed to props. But once again, this is an example of people looking at the bad parts—the CGI issues are not so terrible that the movies are unwatchable.

3.) The acting is terrible. Maybe later in the movies, I'd agree. But the acting of Return of the Jedi wasn't too good either in the beginning. Acting is not what defines a Star Wars film as good or bad.

4.) Too much politics. Okay, this is a pretty bad argument. How else would Palpatine rise to power—through him and Count Dooku alone or something? As for the trade routes conversation, that was poorly written, but that's another example of people only looking at the bad parts.

5.) The script! It's terrible! Terrible is an overstatement, but I don't think it's perfect.

So what are my reasons for liking the Star Wars prequels?

1.) They tell a sad story of love and deception and betrayal.

2.) The political conflicts were intricately woven throughout.

3.) They don't portray the Jedi as perfect or superhuman.

4.) The action scenes are amazing (particularly the ones on Geonosis and Mustafar).

5.) It brought us Darth Maul, one of the coolest villains next to Darth Vader.

6.) It explains the past of Luke and Leia's mother and (almost) matches up completely with the original trilogy.

7.) It shows us another side of Darth Vader that we'd never seen before.

8.) The designs of the worlds were pretty cool to see.

9.) It shows us that the Jedi are just like the Sith, but in different ways—a Jedi will never feel anger, nor fear, nor love.

10.) And finally, it gave us a Star Wars character to hate:

Also, the name of the computer file is "Easter-goat-racing.jpg".

What are my issues with the prequels personally:

The Phantom Menace: This movie has one glaring problem throughout, and it starts with an "M" and ends in "-aul". Darth Maul was a super cool villain, but I don't understand why he had to die before receiving any sort of backstory at all. Throughout the movie I'm just like, "Um....who is this guy?"

Attack of the Clones: Please, for the desire to see Jar Jar in h-e-double-hockey-sticks, make it clearer as to what's going on! I had to listen extremely carefully to see what's going on in the story. In addition, I was slightly disconnected to Anakin, so when his mother died and he was angry, blaming Obi-Wan for everything, it came across as whiny. Lastly, fix your script so I'm not cringing at lines like this: ANAKIN: But what about Padme? OBI-WAN: She seems to be on top of things.

Revenge of the Sith: As I've only seen this movie once, I don't know what to say about it. If I had to criticize it, the line "You're breaking my heart" is super cliche, but I can't remember a lot about it, so I can't defend or criticize it.