I’ve realised what killed the Star Wars Prequels. I just watched Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. With the romance of Star Wars successfully rekindled by The Force Awakens, In wanted to brush up with the Prequel Trilogy. I was a MASSIVE fan of Star Wars as a kid. Into all the canon and mythology. The books, the memorised dialogue, the whole deal. I loved the expansiveness and interconnectedness of the universe Lucas created. Plus, Jedis, Tie Fighters and X-wings are just so damn cool. Then The Phantom Menace happened and killed it for me. I actually watched it a lot when it came out in 1999. Determined to like it, and impressed by Darth Maul, I bought it on VHS and watched it many times with my Star Wars-nerd pals. I watched the other two Prequels on cinema. I remember thinking they were a vast improvement, but then forgetting them very quickly. I hardly remember what happened in which movie anymore. I began to stop caring.
Okay, so three or four years ago, all six movies were re-released on cinema. Ingrid had never seen Star Wars, nor met Greg Russell, so we went together. The Phantom Menace (which I had not watched for a decade) was so diabolically bad the second time around, I couldn’t finish it. Jar Jar and the casting of Anakin. Total butchery. Ingrid thought it was the shittest thing she’d ever seen. I was embarrassed and, like Gump, so let down by how shit it actually was that we vowed never to watch them again.
But, having watched the new one (and really liked it), I wanted to watch the 2nd and 3rd Prequels, brush up, give them another chance and, crucially, work out what it is that fucked the Prequels up so badly. It’s a lot of things… but above all, casting.
There are all the other problems, sure. The CGI is sometimes breathtaking (open-field pitched battles, planetscapes etc) but mostly gratuitous and often just plain bad green screen crap. Where real sets have been used, they have no patina and look sterile. The few real characters/puppets (C3PO in Episode II, for example) stand out starkly against the CGI characters around them, which feel far less warm. The first trilogy happened in real life, with amazing SFX going on around it. The Prequels essentially happen in a Pixar universe, with super-imposed people in it. Then, there’s also physics inconsistencies (Jedi can basically fly when it suits them and fall painfully off ledges when it doesn’t) and continuity errors (keep an eye on their capes as they cut between shots – it’ll slay your OCD), the stilted dialogue and the awful waving-our-hands-left-and-right-like-kids-with-brooms fight choreography. But it’s the CASTING that kills it. Except for Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman trying desperately to act their way out of turds, everyone else is appalling. But especially and most heinously, Anakin. As a 10-year-old kid he’s annoying. As a young Jedi he’s an emotional, whiney, spoilt turd who looks like he’s always one broken highheel away from a full hissy fit. Hayden Christensen is just terrible. That character could have been SO great. This omnipotent, lethal, conflicted Jedi, torn between a deep desire to do good, immense power, and great frustration at having to achieve it within the “rules”. The secret, forbidden love thing, the dead mum thing, the slaughtered Tuscan Raiders, feeling stifled by his father-figure Obi Wan… It’s a GREAT story. The scope of it. The creativity. I dare say it more than does full justice to the original trilogy as a backstory. Everything lines up so well. The creation of the military regime, Palpatine’s rise to power, the origin of the original characters. It’s just butchered by CGI, dialogue, directing, Jar Jar Binks and, especially, that emo naff Hayden Christensen. Such a pity, because the plots (on paper) are great and, in the few places it actually comes together, the movies are quite breathtaking.
https://youtu.be/JAbug3AhYmw