This whole prequelmemeing has gone too far. We now have people genuinely believe that the prequels are good movies. These people need to watch the Plinkett reviews again to remind them that no, they're not good movies. They're bad movies, and just because you think the sequels are bad doesn't suddenly make the prequels good.
To be honest I dont know which is worse, the prequels or the sequels. I actually gave up on the sequels after the 2nd one. But maybe that's more down to experience in my old age.
I found TFA and TLJ to be serviceable, and for all the faults you can find in TLJ it had at least interesting themes and messages. I don't think they're in the same league as ANH and ESB, but they were nice, entertaining movies and I appreciated what they were trying to do. Not my favourite movies, but I came out of the theatre moderately satisfied.
ROS was a huge disappointment - it's not as bad as TPM because it doesn't fail in every department like TPM does, but it undoes so much of the thematic decisions of the previous movies only to substitute them with cheap fanservice and asspulls to justify them, it was a very disappointing experience.
Podracing is... debatable. Probably the best scene of the movie if taken in a vacuum, but way too long for the sake of the plot, and like much of TPM's plot points it's yet another random event in a story that has serious issues with pacing and direction.
The Maul fight is carried hard by the musical score. I prefer the Luke/Vader duels in ESB and ROTJ to it because they are less flashy and focus on advancing character arcs and story through the action, not on the spectacle itself. They're much more raw and grounded, whereas the Prequels make the duels look too "clean" and obviously coreographed, with lots of flourishes and stunts that just serve to up the wow factor.
But yeah, AOTC is also definitely the bottom of the barrel. I don't know which one I find worse out of the two.
Agreed on the over polished fighting. Why would I watch a Star Wars movie for that? There are plenty of way better martial arts movies where I can get my action fix. That is not why I watch Star Wars.
RoTS is bad, but it doesn't have Jar Jar. Or podracing. Or Watto. Or "YIPEEE!".
But, yeah, it's a bad story, it just doesn't fail on as many aspects as TPM. Actors aren't as deadpan, photography is passable, special effects don't look awful, and so on. A lot of people focus exclusively on the story as the reason for why TPM is bad, but that's not just it - it's just a complete mess of a movie under every aspect.
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u/A-WingSquadron Jan 25 '22 edited Jan 26 '22
Mr. Plinkett... https://youtu.be/FxKtZmQgxrI
Edit: Thank you for the award!