The original trilogy is flawless and the three films are just one of does movie one just need to see, if you haven´t then don´t waste any time and check them out; there is a reason one these three films are classics.
But what about the the prequel trilogy? The films that many say didm´t need to exist? Well it turns out that that backstory was thought by Lucas back when he was working on "The Empire Strikes Back"...
Lucas was reported saying that when wrote the first movie, he had such a wide story in his head that he had to take away many elements from it and knew he needed to make sequels to tell all the story he had in his mind; the main story he wanted to tell was lingering in his mind and knew that it´s scale was larger that we could imagine, that is the power of creativity and it´s encounter with reality that usually hurts the artist inside that is trying to show us that creation; reality prevents that creation to take the shape we see in our minds; but there is no denial Lucas made his creation and his world work his way into our minds.
After loosing a lot of his fortune in a divorce, Lucas said he was taking a break and did not came back working into star wars until much later, but said that he still wanted to see does new prequels made. Lucas began writing episode 1 on november 1st 1994 with his 15 page backstory written back when he did the original trilogy and used it has a tempo into who the characters were and how he was going to see the story unfold and connect with the original series (ep 4, 5 and 6)... His vision for the prequels got almost has much changes has his vision for the original movies, thus he made many re-writes and changes to the story to adapt the changes made, episodes 2 and 3 also got their own changes.
The reason I am saying all this is because I feel is important to understand the perspective of it´s creator before going any further into the details of each prequel, after all, an artist has a perception when he show us his work; many would argue that Lucas is now more of a business man and less of an artist, but regardless his intentions don´t look to me like "evil"... how ever there do is a whole lot of "bad" here.
"The Phantom Manace" was the later added title to episode 1, during production it´s working title was "The Beginning" (just a small detail); this movie is the worst of the prequels without a doubt in my mind, and almost everybody seem to feel the same, although there are some ideas that click and work together with each other is just a very weak movie in general, the characters are very boring the worlds we see are not very interesting or fascinating to be honest and there is not much keeping you through the movie exempt the well choreographed light saber duels and the pod race is pretty intense; but it only manages to because the rest of the movie is so boring that is the only meaning of entertainment you can find, I don´t think many can find this movie very gripping by it´s storyline (which I can nearly remember to be honest). Bottom line, it feels like Lucas squeezed this movie in for the safe of saying "Hey is a new star wars trilogy!", this movie is a skip in my opinion.
"Attack of the Clones" is the second movie in the prequel series, fallowing the big disappointment that was episode 1; there must have been little hope from fans that it actually made much less in box office that "The Phantom Menace" made... to be fair "Attack of the Clones" is a much better movie than it´s predecesor, in general it feels like the story is actually going somewhere, the characters are average (at least you won´t hate them), and the visuals are of course great; the romance between Anakin and Padme is very superficial, is hard to be invested in them when their conversations don´t really carry much humanity or passion, truth is that I don´t think anybody would believe that they are really in love, and that´s a big problem because they are supposed to be the bulk of the story. Thankfully the movie in general is bearable, the Battle of Geonosis is in my opinion very good, although you won´t care for any of the casualties of clones or droids, considering they are both expendable correct? Is an ok movie, check it out if you want something light hearted.
"Revenge of the Sith" is the good one, definitely the best of the whole prequel trilogy and I honestly believe that this is the one film George Lucas wanted to get to, almost like this movie was the one where he put the majority of his thought and effort into actually make it a good movie; all the moments in the movie feel like they carry with it the spirit of the franchise, the opening shows how large the scale of the Clone Wars actually is, almost like in the opening of "A New Hope" we see the opening shows us how small the rebels are and how large the empire is. The characters are actual human beings in this movie, I believe that Anakin and Obi-Wan are really good friends, I believe that Anakin and Padme are in love and I do care about them when they talk about what they are going to do about Padme´s pregnancy, the danger that emperor Palpatine represents for the jedis and the galaxy in general and the final light saber battle between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader... all the scenes felt important. "Revenge of the Sith" really feels like a true well made prequel to the masterful original trilogy that fans were promised, is almost like Lucas had one strike with "The Phantom Menace", one faul with "Attack of the Clones" and suddenly a home run with "Revenge of the Sith". There are awkward moments in this movie like the balcony conversation between Anakin and Padme (What´s up with that? rly...), and some of the dialogues are very dumb, the acting is also stiff; It´s funny how come that so many people blame Hayden Christiansen for being a bad actor, like everybody in this movie was being flawless except him, nobody gave a good performance in this movie. But I am honest when I say "Revenge of the Sith" is a very good, solid movie that embodies the spirit of star wars; is not a great movie and it falls a little behind to the originals but it is a a well done movie...
I am not touching "The Clone Wars" tv series or the early 2003 "Clone Wars" series because they just don´t directly apply to the prequels that we were given has theatrical lunches, but I can say they are good little nuggets for star wars fans, although I can´t really recommend it for casual viewers who are not much into the franchise. There is a lot of expanded universe material in the star wars canon that I could co on forever if I touched it.
Love them or hate them, the prequels are here to stay; and has much has there is a lot of bad in them, at least we can try and understand that Lucas tried to showed us the full extent of his creative making and for that we can at least thank him; the original trilogy will always be the one and only star wars movies to always be remembered and to deserve your revisits time and time again, and the prequels we can say are here for does who want it. Star Wars is a powerful franchise that will go on till the end of time and who knows what the future generations will think of this movies, who knows, maybe they will see the prequels in a different light and maybe accept it has a true part of star wars... but I am certain that it will always live on in the hearts of people.
May the force be with you, always...
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