Making fun of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy has almost become as common as breathing. Pop culture worships at the altar of Darth Maul, and curses the name of Jar-Jar Binks. Where George Lucas’ name was once the highest praise amongst the nerd community, but after the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999, it became the vilest of insults.
The Prequel Trilogy was meant to be a story of love and betrayal, but only lead to the betrayal of the fanbase. Or did it?
The Prequels are by no means masterpieces, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t do a few things right. While no amount of Ewan McGregor or Samuel L. Jackson could save them, there were a few things that they did manage to do well. While I would love to enter into a full discourse on the subject, I’m sure that if you are still reading even after I’ve said that the Prequels weren’t that bad, I don’t have your attention for very long, so I will make sure I make good use of it.
One thing that the prequels did great were the lightsaber duels. The Original Trilogy had some pretty good saber duels, but the Prequels did it way better. Where the older films had it set up with simple fights and minimal acrobatics, the duels are still enjoyable to watch. The Phantom Menace completely changed the game by adding faster paced dueling, high energy acrobatics, and better rotoscoping effects on the lightsabers themselves.
In a franchise that pushed the boundaries of special effects back in ’77, these new ones tried to do so again.
And this can be seen again in the environments. Many people have complained about the overuse of CGI in the Prequels, and while there is easily too much, there is a fair bit that was done well. The beautiful city of Theed on Naboo, the tall buildings of Coruscant, the abysmal Hell of Mustafar.
All of these environments were stunning and beautiful, as well as the new alien species that we see. The makeup in the Original Trilogy was phenomenal, but with the help of computers, the designers of the Prequels got to be a lot more creative with far fewer limitations.
In doing so, we were introduced to a far vaster galaxy than we ever thought possible. And, unfortunately, we were also introduced to the Gungans, but I digress.
While many are quick to judge Hayden Christiansen for his horrible acting, I wonder if we should be so quick to judge. Don’t misunderstand, he had some horrible lines and some bad deliveries, but at the same time, can we lay that all at Hayden’s feet? Any actor, no matter how good they are, can quite easily fall victim to a poorly written script and subpar direction.
Even within the Prequels, Hayden did demonstrate an impressive level of acting when he doesn’t have to speak! The scenes on Mustafar when he’s cutting down the Separatist leaders, and after when he’s dueling with Obi-Wan without any dialogue, he cuts an imposing figure, one that can easily be seen and described as Darth Vader!
It is not difficult at all to envision him as one of the greatest threats the galaxy has ever known!
Are the Prequels flawed? Without question. But maybe we can give them just little bit of a break?
