Revisiting Episodes I-III

[The Curmudgeon]

I must be a glutton for punishment or something. Not only did I recently re-watch Star Wars Episode I-III, I actively hunted them down and bought the boxset. Blame Mrs C. Not my idea.

So where they as bad as I remembered? At the time it felt like a personal insult, a slap in the face. They were SO fucking bad. Darth Vader wasn't the ultimate bad-ass in the galaxy, he was a moping, whining little bitch with a stupid haircut. Ewan McGregor's idiotic accent. J** J** B***s.

Well.. turns out they're.. not bad. Some enjoyable moments, some pretty cool fights.. all bunched in with a load of really stupid, infantile shit that almost made it embarrassing to watch. You all remember Jar Jar, do you remember the stereotypical New York style waitress and diner? I didn't. And I still wish I didn't. I forgot how boring and much of a non-event Darth Maul was.

It's still WAY too busy and cartoon like. When you watch the original trilogy, it seems.. for want of a better word, plausible. Obvious fantasy, but still relatable. These new films are full of creatures that look like something out of the Real Ghostbusters. And the CGI is really noticeable in places.

As stand alone sci-fi movies go, they're passable. As prequels to the greatest game changer in cinema, they're still terrible.

Has anyone else ever dared go back?

[trashcanman]

I actually enjoyed them the first time around. Yes, there's a lot of unnecessary childish shit mixed in there, but taken apart from the expectations of the OT, those are some damn entertaining films with a really good story. It's just too bad they didn't do a better job telling it.

[The Curmudgeon]

I think Episode II is arguably worse than the first one, which everyone always rags on. I think EP 2 had SO much needless filler and dumb shit it was borderline unwatchable in places. Cohesive plot or character development? Nah, fuck that, let's waste twenty minutes putting Threepio on a moving conveyor belt like something out of fucking Super Mario. And a jet pack on R2? Well, shit, that sure would have come in handy in later movies.

[trashcanman]

That one is actually my favorite, but that may be largely because of Padme ripping her outfit.






Binks (and the Gungans in general) really sunk Episode 1, and Episode 3 managed to destroy everyone's image of the greatest movie villain of all time with one "NOOOOOOOO!" but Episode 2 was mostly just bad acting and weak writing. It didn't have any one thing that was just terrible, and visually it had a lot of cool shit going on.

[The Curmudgeon]

The "NOOOO" moment is still hilarious. So, so corny. I think Episode II has the best villain in Dooku (even if they kill him in about two minutes in the Ep 3). General Grievous is abysmal, though. Idiotic "obviously evil" name aside, I know there are all kinds of Expanded Universe reasons why, but a coughing, wheezing robot just looks fucking stupid.

I think the problem I have with Episode II is that its supposed to be a love story and there is just no chemistry between the two leads. Anakin is just completely unlikable, and there is barely a moment where you can go "ah, OK, I get why she's in love with this whiny, needy douchebag." And was it ever explained why he aged 15 years and she didn't?

[trashcanman]

Well, Asian women don't age between 15 and 50 so I assume Nabooans (?) are the same. But yeah, those romantic scenes were bad. I can practically see Portman laughing her ass off and shouting "is this guy serious?" at Lucas off-camera during each cut. I'm sure that the outtake footage will surface in some rerelease. Greivous was actually pretty awesome in the original Clone Wars cartoons (not the CG one). His debut was like a horror movie where he was this creepy, unstoppable monster hunting Jedi. He kept his extra arms hidden like a secret weapon that hit them from below when they didn't expect it, which was cool too. His cough was a reference to something that happened there, but having not seen it would probably just seem stupid in the film.