This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Dan Pendleton’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
I've wanted to write my thoughts on the Star Wars prequels on here for some time now but revisiting them is not something I willingly do. However, after being off work ill the past three days, I realised that surely I can't feel any worse than I already do at the moment so I might as well get one of these films out of the way.
I don't like to read other people's reviews of the prequels. To be honest I've heard it all, there's nothing more for me to hear. Besides, I have my own judgements about what the prequels are and what they should have been. There seems to be a general consensus that people must hate the prequels for this reason or for that. Well, not being one to follow convention, I like to think that I hate the prequels for completely different reasons.
I'll start my review by getting the ultimate shocker out of the way first. Out of the three prequels, The Phantom Menace is actually my favourite! I don't know if that's just because it holds the most nostalgic memories with all the excitement building up to its release, or if its just because it causes the least damage to our beloved original trilogy because it is the furthest chronologically away. I also find that the use of CGI is more grounded in this one, whereas Episodes II and III look like Obi-Wan's adventures in Toon Town.
The story isn't brilliant! In fact, a lot of it doesn't make sense. Why are the Trade Federation blockading Naboo? Why are the Sith involved with this? What was their ultimate goal: if the Trade Federation were successful with their invasion, then what? Surely Darth Sidious didn't know how the entire movie was going to pan out? Actually, then again, it is rather predictable! Perhaps all these answers were in the opening crawl but I fell asleep. All I managed to read was “taxation” *yawn* “trade routes” *yawn* “dispute” *politics* “blockade” *yawn* “shipping” *yawn* “congress” *politics* “debates” *yawn*.
We're then introduced to Nute Gunray and Rune Haako, the green, villainous Asian aliens that are in no way racist at all. Ahem.
We then meet our two heroes, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. This is where my first real problem of the prequel trilogy lies. George had them the wrong way round. Obi-Wan should have been the older, more experienced Jedi with Qui-Gon as his apprentice. For starters, Obi-Wan's age would have matched better with Sir Alec Guinness' in A New Hope (bullshit to the popular "the harsh environment on Tatooine aged him quicker" excuse). As much as I like Ewan McGregor's performance as Obi-Wan (more so in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith), Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon isn't too far from what I would imagine Obi-Wan to be too, so they could easily have swapped roles. I also think giving Obi-Wan more apprentices would deepen Anakin's eventual downfall, otherwise it just seems like Obi-Wan was a terrible mentor to his one and only Padawan.
I'm not a big fan of Obi-Wan in Episode I. He's a bit full of himself. I'm surprised George didn't change his name to Obi-Wan Liner: "You were right about one thing, the negotiations were short."
"Oh don't worry, this hasn't been our day for warm welcomes."
Hahaha he's so funny!
Pfft!
Then again, I can accept that Obi-Wan matures and becomes much wiser with age, so it's not the end of the world. And I love what Ewan McGregor does with the character in the later two prequels.
We're then introduced to Jar Jar Binks, the African-American slapstick sidekick (which is, again, not racist!) Ahem.
Here's my next major shocker. I don't dislike Jar Jar.
Now don't get me wrong. I didn't say I liked him. I just don't dislike him. I'm indifferent. He serves a purpose: comic relief for the little ones. Not too dissimilar from C-3PO in the original trilogy (more so in Return of the Jedi, I think). I'm not saying I like his stupidity. I'm not saying I like him standing in "icky icky poo". But that stuff just didn't bother me as much as it seemed to bother everyone else. What bothered me most is that George Lucas clearly had a plan for Jar Jar in his prequel trilogy, and instead of carrying out his plan and redeeming Jar Jar's character with a fitting story arch, he gave in to fan complaints and practically wrote him out of the next two films and made him solely responsible for the fall of the Republic. Poor guy!
I remember being impressed by the CGI as a 13 year old, but watching this back now it hasn't aged very well. There are some scenes where Jar Jar appears to be floating around the scene. It still looks better than anything in the next two films though.
We're not given any opportunity to get to know Queen Amidala, not even when she's parading around as Padmé. She just comes across as a miserable cow. Not one of Natalie Portman's best performances, I'm afraid, and it went down hill from here. To be fair, the problems are with the script. Natalie Portman is a very, very talented actress but not even she could bring life to such emotionless dialogue. Queen Padmé was way too young, it just wasn't believable that she was Queen of an entire planet and also had the confidence to stand up in congress and do whatever she does (I fell asleep in that bit). We don't know enough about her to care, she's not a real person to the audience. We don't know enough about her planet to invest emotion in it because we haven't spent enough time there and experienced how wonderful life is for everyone on Naboo. Had George written Naboo as Alderaan instead, a planet we have heard a lot about but never seen, then we would be able to invest more of our feelings into it and actually care that its trade routes are being blocked. (maybe)
Although I didn't feel like I could invest much emotion into the movie's primary narrative, there were some very impressive visual shots of the droid army invading the planet. Again, I found myself not caring that the CGI was starting to look very out-dated because it still looked better than the next two films. After a quick few action scenes, where I didn't feel any threat for the main protagonists from the rather crappy Battle Droids, we're in a space ship and leaving the planet Naboo to forget about the movie's primary narrative for the remaining hour and a half of the movie.
One of the things that offends me the most about the prequel trilogy, and it's something that was evident in the original trilogy but was hidden more easily through better scripts, is coincidence. I get George Lucas' idea that he wrote it like a poem with lots of rhyming and repetition, but that's a load a bullshit! Oh look, it's fan favourite R2-D2 who just happens to belong to the Queen. Oh look, Darth Vader made C-3PO! Oh look, Anakin Skywalker destroyed the Droid Control Ship and his son will destroy the Death Star. It's just cheap and lazy writing, an excuse to cram in a few fan favourites so he doesn't have to think too hard to create new ones. These “rhymes” appear throughout the prequel trilogy: Anakin losing a hand, force lightening, Chewbacca and Yoda having a bromance. Pfft give me a break!!
With our fan favourite R2-D2 now in tow, we land on Tatooine and meet Anakin (yes, on the very same planet we meet Luke in Episode IV. Hmmm) played by the same kid from Jingle All The Way. Now there's a lot, and I mean a lot of hate for Jake Lloyd. Come on, give the poor kid a break, he was 9 years old! Look at the dialogue he had to contend with: ”Are you an angel?”
”I'm a person and my name is Anakin!”
”Yippeee!”
I don't think any kid actor, nor adult actor for that matter, could have given us the Anakin Skywalker we wanted from that script. Anakin, for starters, is way too young! Padmé must be some kind of paedo-queen if she really started to build affections for him. I don't care how cute he might be when he rocks-up in her apartment in Episode II, it's first impressions that count! They should have made both Anakin and Padmé the same age, about 15/16. This would have allowed a high-school romance to blossom between them from the get go, allowed for more opportunities to explore Anakin's dark troubles, and made it more believable that he can do the things he does. It may also have relieved us from that terrible, terrible love story in the next movie.
Little boy Anakin is owned by greedy, money-loving, slave-owning Watto who has a hooked nose and speaks with a Middle Eastern accent (some might say Jewish accent), but again, that, of course, isn't racist. Ahem.
It is Qui-Gon who discovers Anakin when it should have been Obi-Wan! Obi-Wan is written out of this middle section of the film, left on board the Queen's ship with nothing to do whilst Qui-Gon, a character we don't really know, is left to do all the adventuring. Again, had their roles been reversed like I suggested earlier, then I feel it would have improved the arching of the entire saga as a whole.
As fun as the Pod Race is, its only purpose is to show off new technology. I think there could have been a more creative way of receiving the parts needed without subjecting the audience to a handful of cartoon characters and a little boy who can just about do anything. Did anyone have any doubts that Anakin would win the race? No, me neither! Yes it's fast, it's visual but I just didn't think it fit in a Star Wars movie.
We then free Anakin and have a lovely scene between him and his mother as he says goodbye. Now we've already unveiled Queen Amidala as a paedophile, and now Shmi Skywalker is willing to give her 9 year old boy to a man she's known for less than 24 hours because he say's he's “special”. Hmmm, I bet he is!
We have an exhilarating lightsaber duel between Qui-Gon and Darth Maul before we blast back off into hyperspace. Every time we see Darth Maul we are teased to a little more about his character, and this lightsaber duel is an excellent tease to what is to come. Darth Maul is one of the strongest points to the entire prequel trilogy, it's a shame he was killed off in the first movie so effortlessly. The character had such potential, we didn't know much about him but we were being teased with just enough information to make us crave more.
We then arrive on Coruscant, which all fans had been eager to see for years (given our glimpse in the 1997 Special Editions). The city itself is impressive and there is such potential for intriguing stories and action set pieces to take place. Unfortunately we don't get them. We are treated to a bunch of totally boring politicians discussing tax routes and a massively disappointing Jedi Council discussing midi-chlorians. Yes, there is a council made up of 12 bad-ass Jedi Masters, one of them a young Yoda and another Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson, and it is one of the most boring sequences in the entire movie. ”A ship. A cup. A ship. A speeder.” *snore*
There's some great double-dealing by Palpatine, but other than that, Coruscant serves no further purpose and we might as well have skipped this entire 30 minutes and travelled straight back to Naboo.
Back on Naboo, we have a rather unimpressive Gungan fight; a rather unspectacular space battle; and rather boring shoot-out; and a totally amazing 3-way lightsaber duel! Like I've already stated, it's one of George's biggest mistakes that he killed off Darth Maul so quickly. It's also a shame that Qui-Gon had to go too, just as we were starting to know more about him (plus Liam Neeson is a legend!).
Overall, a totally mixed bag. Some things I liked, some things I really didn't like, some things I couldn't care less about, and some things I think George overlooked. Apologies for the rushed nature of this review [rant] but I've spent enough time overthinking the prequels for one day. Maybe I'll give my thoughts on Attack of the Clones when I can build myself up to watch it.