This time, I will do my retrospective on the Prequel Trilogy. Merry Christmas and may the holidays be with you.

DISCLAIMER: This post will contain my opinions of the prequels. I am gonna be fair to the goods and bads on each three films. If you respect my opinion and understand my reasons about my retrospective and current thoughts of the films, I will appreciate it. No pure hate will be done on anyone involved in those films, and will be honest about the people and what I think they should’ve done. This is mainly about retrospective.

To recap from my Original Trilogy posts, I played the games first before seeing the films in full length. Just to remind you, I did see Episode 2 in theatres first, before seeing any other Star Wars films.

In late July 2002, I was in Peru for a trip. One day, I went to the mall in Lima. The mall looked nice, and it was mostly outdoors. The hallway and the eating area are all outdoors. I enjoyed looking around the mall with my family. Later, we said we’re gonna see a movie. I didn’t know at the time that I’m gonna see Star Wars, but when I sit on the seat in theater, I was waiting to see what movie it was. I didn’t even ask, and the fact I have very basic Spanish skills. When I saw Star Wars logo on screen, that’s when I realized we’re watching it. Granted, this is my first time seeing a Star Wars movie in theater, but in the US, it’s The Clone Wars movie, and The Force Awakens as a main film. The entire movie was in spanish, and I didn’t understand much of it. Episode 2 came to Peru in July 2002 instead of May. I thought all the action scenes were interesting. I mainly focused on those scenes. I remember seeing the chase on Zam Wesell, The Kamino battle and negociations, Anakin fighting Tuskin Raiders, and the entire Battle of Geneosis. Also including the rest of the movie. I didn’t realize the romance scenes because I watched it on unfamilar language, and filler dialogue. I would admit that they have a lot of them, but I still liked the action parts as a kid. My most memorable scene was Anakin vs Count Dooku because he cuts Anakin’s arm off. I didn’t notice much of CGI. I was a kid, but as of now, a lot of the CGIs don’t really look terrible. Noticable, but not awful. There are exceptions like Dexter Diner scene and the hallway with Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Mace Windu. I know there’s more, but the CGIs, admittedly, didn’t age well. It’s more like PS3 and X360 graphics than PS2 graphics. PS2 graphics would be like Food Fight or Sharkboy and Lava Girl. As a kid, after seeing it, I had fun seeing it. It’s common that you had fun after seeing a Star Wars movie in theaters, but it was new to me. I remember having Galactic Battlegrounds, and so I tried to recreate the battle arena of Geneosis. I think we had a good time at the mall. I don’t know if any of my family didn’t like it, but I know I did. By the way, I don’t remember hearing people gasping for Yoda grabing his lightsaber.

Fast forward to December, we brought Episode 2 to see it in English. I understand some of them, but still enough to know a lot about the movie. I saw it with my other family members who didn’t came to Peru with us. I remember some dialogues like I HATE THEM!!!. I enjoyed seeing the action scenes again, especially Geneosis. Even as a kid, I knew they had filler dialogues. I still didn’t notice the romance scenes being bad though, at the time. I do think a great scene that everyone mentioned is Anakin’s anger on Tuskin Raiders, and as a kid, I thought it made sense. After seeing it in English, I decide to see the Geneosis segments again few days later. I’d admit, the lightsaber duel looks pretty cool, even now. It was the only Star Wars movie I have at the time, but I mostly play the video games like Star Wars Racer, Galactic Battlegrounds, and Rogue Squadron 3D.

Fast Forward to Late 2007, I already mentioned about me playing Lego Star Wars 2, and seeing the OT. My cousin decides to show us all the movie on the visit. We saw the OT first, and then we saw Episode 2. We didn’t go to Episode 1 yet. When I saw the movie again, I’m like, I remember the movie. I kinda had the same opinion as I has when I was younger, but I know much more about the movie, and I liked Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan and Count Dooku was well casted.

I wouldn’t want to fill my retrospective on Episode 2 more, so I’ll move on to Episode 1 and 3.

I saw Episode 1 last, so I’ll move to Episode 3. My cousin played it. The first several minutes were pretty amazing. We get to see Anakin and Obi-Wan in more action. I thought General Grevious was just a villain. I knew he wasn’t written as good as Count Dooku or Anakin, but his battle with Obi-Wan was satisfied enough to me back then. Even before all the memes, I quickly regonized the dialogues from the movie. The dialogues aren’t as great as Original Trilogy, it was still better than the first two prequels. Seeing Anakin vs Dooku again made me feel like I really waited this long to see a sequel. I know it’s random, but I used to remember enjoying their first duel. I find it interesting that we question ourselves during the movie about what happened. We do that a lot during our childhood. My favorite duel in the movie is Anakin vs Obi-Wan. In my first glance, we do see their acutal connections, and Anakin’s perspective on the Jedis. We used to play with lightsabers to fight. I remembered the birth of Vader’s suit, and even the Nooo. Back then, I thought it was fine, but I get that already it’s not really good. I don’t mind it, and I see it as a meme. I thought my first time seeing Episode 3 was exciting. I liked a lot of parts of the movie, and to an extent, I still do. It’s funny how I think about the connections back then about the events from the prequels. I never felt there was any huge disconnections on continuity. Even to this day and during the backlash on the prequels, I never was against Episode 3. I thought it was tolerable and satisfying, but I’ll discuss this later.

Now let’s go to The Phantom Menace and how I first saw it. My cousin’s next visit brought Episode 1, and we saw it together. To be honest, we over-fun the visit because he brought his lightsaber and PSP with Lego Star Wars 2. I knew about the Pod race because of the video game. We played the movie, and we were having fun in our own terms. Wow, what a memory. We do see Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan slicing off the droids and stuff, and it was a pretty good start for action. I never knew about force speed that they used to escape from droidekas until six years later. Seeing Jar-Jar the first time, I thought he was little funny back then, but I never see him as my favorite thing nor really smart. I notice the political discussions, but in this visit, we somehow just talk over it, saying how the astestics looks cool. Later, we realized Jake Lloyd was playing as Anakin, and it’s because our favorite movies back then was Jingle All The Way. We thought it was cool when we first watched it. Pod Racing was pretty exciting. It reminds me a bit about the video game. Let’s get to the part where Battle of Naboo started. The three of us decides to play Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Darth Maul and take turns, so we saw Duels of the Fate four times! Second one is when we start reenacting the characters. On our second to fourth time, we fast forward whenever it cuts to Jar Jar, Padme, or Anakin. It was very fun! It was. It was our favorite thing from the movie. We thought Darth Maul was a cool character and so as Duels of the Fate soundtrack. Back then, we never thought about Anakin surviving the space battle nor how unhelpful Jar Jar was in the battle because of this. After we saw the movie, we thought it was pretty good. Granted, it was actually not the best film, and even back then, we found the Original Trilogy even better. While we enjoyed all the movies back then, it was pretty fun to enjoy Star Wars. I did play the first Lego Star Wars a month after I got the second game.

Since I went all through the prequel trilogy retrospective, let’s discuss about the flaws and backlash that it went before. I discovered the backlash of it in 2012. I did see the 3D version of the Phantom Menace, which was almost as pointless as Solo, and I started to realize how the movie has problems with pacing and stuff. It wasn’t really 3D, so it wasn’t worth seeing. At first, I thought it was okay or not great. A year later, I do find more backlashes of the prequel trilogy, and some of the things made sense. Episode 1 was pretty monotone and didn’t handle the politics discussions correctly. It has fillers that they could’ve trimmed out. I do see Jake Lloyd become a joke, and I do think he wasn’t well acted, I knew it was the problem with the directing and choices. Jar-Jar was pretty dumb, and at that time, I never thought he’s the worst character that anyone would say outside the fandom. Mine was Iris from Pokemon anime, and I used to proof she was worse than Jar Jar. I never blamed Ahmed Best for playing him. There was medi-chlorians thing, but I never did analysis on it. Episode 2 has the CGI and bad romance. CGI was used in most of the film, but many parts didn’t look too bad. I get the Dexter’s Diner scene and Green Screen with Obi-Wan, Yoda with hover, and Mace Windu, but the rest didn’t seem that bad to be honest. In the last couple of years, I think the written romance made connections between Anakin and Padme really awful. I know the lines and directing made Anakin a cringe of a character, but I never blamed Hayden Christiansen. I thought he was a good actor, but I knew the production handled him poorly. I feel sorry for him for getting the hate. He was never mean or anything. He’s done decent or good on other movies. I think he does a bit better in Episode 3 though.

Episode 3, I honestly never understand how people see this movie as bad as the first two. I thought it did a lot better. I think it’s not up there with the OT, but at least good enough for me to enjoy. I get the flaws of the movie, but I never understand it being really a terrible film. The flaws I can point out are the romance balcony scene, the pacing of Anakin becoming a sith, the Nooo Vader scene, or Padme’s death explanation. I know people find General Grevious a weak villain, but I find him pretty okay. He’s better in Clone Wars 2003 and 2008 one, but he’s really best in the first one. The dialogues are somewhat monotone, but it wasn’t as appearant, and many of them are memeable. Hello There. Your move. I got the High Ground! Not a happy landing. Ewan Mcgregor is my favorite protagonist actor of the trilogy. Obi-Wan seems pretty enjoyable. The CGIs in the film got better, but few places looks fake, but not really bad. Mustafar was a prop if you look at behind the scene stuff. Back to Hayden Christiansen, I thought he was pretty fine in this film and did better than episode 2, and I don’t think the bad acting or directing are enough for him to win Worst Supporting Actor. Ian McDirmid was pretty good. The Yoda vs Emperor, I know many people find it pretty silly and I do understand, I don’t really mind to be honest. I know Episode 3 is not as great as the Original Trilogy films, but I find it pretty satisfying.

The things I found wrong in the backlash are few thing. First big one is George Lucas. Well, he got full control to make the trilogy, and did a lot on his own. While I do think some of his decisions are questionable, I never see him as a bad guy. Many people hate him for the prequels and Special Editions. I get it he doesn’t do well on those. It goes out of hand on the hate. Many people hate on him so much that they made a song about him ruining their childhood. If you know the song and the lyrics, you know what I mean. I couldn’t believe they made a song against him. That’s where I found the backlash pretty brutal. The People vs George Lucas, I never seen it, but Mark Hamill did an interview in early 2017, saying how they were hating on him. Yeah, the backlash on George Lucas was pretty brutal especially since he’s a creator who made the greatest franchise. I know not all creators are good people, but he had helped several people in the business. See Pixar and Lucasarts, and guys like Steven Spielberg. He had done decisions that isn’t right, like special editions, but I don’t think he really did anything harmful or insulting. My second thing that I find wrong with the backlash is taking it on actors. Jake Lloyd is a good example. I know you can critize the actors all you want, but don’t see them as they purposely ruin the movies due to their acting or what they were told to act and say. Jake Lloyd got really bullied after Episode 1, and he ended up destroying his memorabilia and later committed DUI, and ends up in Mental Institution later on. Ahmed Best seems like a nice guy. I didn’t know that even a voice actor can still get blamed even if not seen directly in the movie. He tweeted once about his suicide thoughts, but he decides not to. Thankfully, he attended Celebration 2019 in The Phantom Menace panel. Hayden Christiansen, I already mentioned him. Natalie Portman, I get that she’s not really a good actress, but I don’t think she’s that bad of an actress. My third problem with the backlash is going against fans who enjoys the prequels. I met someone who likes Episode 1. He tells me why, and I never went against him for liking it. I never see those movies as really bad movies. I know this is a problem with the fandom since the hate on the prequels went strong in late 2000s (correct me). My former reviewer, Nostalgia critic, made 11 good things about the prequels. While his review was likable, he gives it a sense that people will go rage on him if he defends the prequels or say Hayden Christiansen is well casted. I don’t watch his videos anymore, but that used to be accurate of how the hatedom was.

The backlash declined somewhere in 2016 before Rogue One. I know they aren’t perfect movies, but I can point out some things of what I liked about them. McGregor, McDirmaid, Christopher Lee, and Ray Park were pretty great playing their characters. My favorite protagonist is Obi-Wan. Soundtrack is amazing and it’s really memorable. Lightsaber duels are really enjoyable. Some lines are memorable that they became memes. I know recently, people see this trilogy differently. I don’t think the trilogy are generally a masterpiece, but it does vary by person who finds them enjoyable in any way. I’m just doing my retrospective and what I think about the criticism of the prequel trilogy. I do realize some of them are pretty fair. Episode 3 is enjoyable for me for its lore and story on multiple characters.

I’m gonna include the fan edits. I recommend Hal 9000 fan edit of the prequel trilogy as a way to rewatch with several problems greatly reduced. I find his episode 2 fanedit pretty great. It did make it look like a substantial improvement that makes it watchable than the actual movie by cutting away fillers or bad scenes away as much as it can. Granted, with the cuts, few scenes that are cut can be questionable, like trimming away Qui-Gon’s sense of Anakin or shortning Yoda vs Dooku to only using the force, but the fanedit is worth seeing. It add deleted scenes that made sense. I made a review of it last year, and it’s pretty positive. I haven’t seen his Episode 3 yet, but what I can say is that I would watch his fanedits to rewatch the prequels at the best way possible.

Here’s the question I’m gonna get asked since I post about the criticism. What about the sequel trilogy, especially The Last Jedi? I will cover the sequel trilogy once I see The Rise of Skywalker. It comes out this weekend, but I’m not sure when I could see it. I’ll cover the history about those three movies. I am only covering the main films, not Rogue One or Solo. Once I’m done with the retrospective, I’ll finally post my rank on all the movies made by Lucasfilm production.