Okay, here are a few things I've said in response to a young Star Wars prequel fan who refuses to look at them with a critical eye. I know it's beating a dead cat, but the upcoming aboninations of 3D-converted re-release make it part of the soft boycott I'm sort of doing.
OCCASSIONALLY wooden acting? Compare the work of any cast member to their non SW prequel work. Even Jake Lloyd is more bearable in Jingle All the Way. And I'm sure it's no accident that there isn't any mention of Haley Joel Osment screen testing for Anakin on the DVD documentary.
Minor plot holes with OT - Padme's death in III despite Leia's memory of interacting somewhat with her, as described in VI ? That's minor?
- Here, have something to drink without even sniffing it for poison despite the disturbance you feel in the Force.
- Why would anyone want balance to the Force when there are supposedly two Sith in the Universe and a community of Jedi? That's the right kind of ratio.
- The wisdom of the Jedi is apparently to be humorless, reckless and fearless despite paying lip service to the opposite. A character must REACT with fear to new surroundings so the audience can feel suspense, even if they summon the strength to overcome it.
- In OT, decisions were usually made under fire and in a crunch, on the fly. In the prequels, there is usually no urgency and things are decided or discussed in periods of rest. (Except of course scenes like "rational" Obi Wan jumping through a window instead of pulling the floating robot to himself with the Force, despite saying he "hates when" Anakin jumps from a flying vehicle).
- One point in the Sith review that makes GREAT sense is that it would be common practice for the Jedi to "watch the watcher" or keep an eye on Palpatine or anyone else in power. Knowing that absolurte power corrupts absolutely. They need only look into the heart of anyone they encounter, including Palpatine, and if they are blocked then they know that person is communing with the Dark Side in order to do so.
- I don't care about the rationalizations. "I didn't really come here to free slaves, " is an INFURIATING line coming from "Schindler" but it is also not befitting any Jedi or any protagonist in a heroic adventure. Freeing slaves and disregarding an outlying system's WRONGHEADED tolerance of it would have been a rousing and engaging central premise. And LEAVING Shmi Skywalker to live as a slave and not even check in on her for, what, 10 years?
Fear of Anakin's mother suffering is a REASONABLE fear, and NO relation whatsoever to Fear that we overcome, like prejudice -- which I what I thought Yoda was talking about when I saw the trailer, and what other fans nodded appreciatively over.
The business of "attachment" being forbidden is paradoxial, since a Jedi may be attached to irrelevant rules at the expense of what is worth a hero giving his life to defend.
- Anakin talks about a device he has invented for scanning where slaves have their incendiary devices planted in their skin. THAT should lead to a quite worthy sequence! Is Qui-Gon removing Anakin's explosive when he takes the blood sample? I don't recall WHAT he was doing. Then why not Shmi's explosive next? Why not make a point of covertly ridding all of Anakin's friends of their bombs? Maybe Shmi is off at work when this happens and she has to be among the last, and maybe she crosses a perimeter and Watto sees this and activates his remote.
THAT would have been an ideal circumstance for her to die, right in front of Anakin, and maybe in reflex he mentally swats Watto against a wall like a fly. Might not be apt for a children's film, but certainly okay if Lucas cared to establish a tone that naturally ended with the PG-13 finale of Anakin's legs being chopped off before he burns beside a lava lake.
- The chief accomplishment of Attack of the Clones is they manage to have a battle between armies of robots and Jedi and make it boring. They have also made peace boring, which is quite offensive in a set of stories about war and mostly released during war time.
That's not even the tip of the iceberg. Years from now melchiahdimension-1 you'll watch these prequels and wonder WTF you were thinking.
On close examination of the most basic points, it all falls apart.
George Lucas is all about negotiations and deals and those transactions are a big part of the "story" in the prequels. It doesn't make them more civilized. It makes them false and out of touch with the human spirit.
The fact that Lucas will re-release The Phantom Menace in 3D February 2012 and not stick to the OT just willfull greed and shortsightedness. The prequels are a disgrace.
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