The Star Wars prequels are bad

Thanks for accepting, Jar Jar, and good luck. As I said, I’m going to be arguing that the negatives of the Star Wars prequels outweigh the positives, for reasons that I’ll break down into 4 categories: 1. Effects2. Characters3. Acting4. Writing Let’s get this started! 1. Effects It’s common knowledge that George Lucas had almost total control over the creation of Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III, which he didn’t have over the originals. While the Star Wars movies of the 70s and 80s pulled audiences into its world with wide open sets, creative costumes, and clever camera work, Lucas decided to rely on the technology of computer-generated imagery (CGI), which was still in its infancy. There’s nothing wrong with CGI, when used sparingly. Take the Lord of the Rings movies, which mostly rely on practical effects, and goes for computer generation only when absolutely necessary. They look amazing even now. But the Star Wars prequels? Oh, no. Oooooh nooooooo. Pretty much everything in those movies is computer-generated except the people, and that’s no exaggeration. Maybe it would work if it looked real, but it doesn’t. The effects look like something out of a video game, especially The Phantom Menace. CG naturally looks fake when overused, even today, and for those who say “Well, it looked good for the time”, look at Jurassic Park. It came out six years earlier, looks ten times better, and whenever someone had to interact with a dinosaur up close, guess what they did? Built an actual animatronic dinosaur that actors could react to. Because when Liam Neeson grabs Jar Jar’s tongue, it looks less convincing than Roger Rabbit. 2. Characters George Lucas seems to have forgotten the heart of the original Star Wars trilogy: the characters. A great cast of colorful, unforgettable personalities like Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Yoda, the droids, Darth Vader. And it’s worth mentioning the Star Wars sequels, far better movies than the prequels. Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, Rose, and Kylo Ren are all lovable and unforgettable. But here, in the first two prequels at least, Lucas decides to focus more on galactic trade negotiations than on developing believable characters. The cast of The Phantom Menace is one of the worst I've ever seen. Qui-Gon Jinn is a bland Jedi master with no personality. Padme doesn’t either. Lots of people like to hate on Jar Jar, but at least he actually shows emotion. I hate the human characters more so than the Gungans. Especially Jake Lloyd as young Anakin, who’s a little ball of annoyance. Ewan McGregor, who I know has talent in other roles, is given no personality and nothing to do. He improves in Attack of the Clones, but not by much. But Count Dooku is pointless and not explored enough. The Jedi mostly sit around and do nothing, and even when they have a big battle in Episode II, Yoda is dry and humorless and very computer-generated, absolutely ruining his character from the original Star Wars movies. Anakin is the true main character of the prequel trilogy, and arguably of the whole Star Wars saga. But I think many of the choices made for him are obnoxious and unrealistic. He starts off as a veritable boy genius, building robots and podracers as a prepubescent. He’s said to be “the chosen one”, and is so obvious a Jesus allegory that he was literally born of a virgin. In the second movie, he has an awful romance with Padme, which I’ll get to later when I talk about acting. In the third, he is way too quick to pledge his life to Darth Sidious and the Sith. They were actually making good progress with a slow transition to the Dark Side, but it’s ruined when Anakin immediately flips like a coin - after seeing Palpatine assassinate one of the Jedi leaders with lightning, no less. A good story unfolds naturally and organically, but here, you can detect the heavy hand of a crappy screenwriter. Named George Lucas. 3. Acting As the characters are atrocious, so is the acting. Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, even Samuel L. Jackson - all completely monotone. No one is the least bit invested in what they are saying. And Hayden Christensen? Good heavens, no. These are all talented people, but the prequels have managed to suck the life out of them, and I have a theory as to why. Because everything - the creatures, the environments, some of the characters - is computer generated, the actors have nothing to base their performance on. Nothing to react to. As usual, the blame can be pinned on Lucas not knowing what he was doing. One exception to this rule is the romance between Anakin and Padme. It’s horrific. They have no chemistry, everything they say and do feels unnatural, and the dialogue feels like it was written by a middle schooler who just saw a Shakespeare play. And this wouldn’t be a big issue, except that so much time and attention is dedicated to it, and the entire plot of Anakin turning into Darth Vader literally revolves around his love for this woman, and we as an audience simply can’t believe it. "I don’t like sand", indeed. I’ll give the prequels this, though. There are a couple moments of good acting in Revenge of the Sith. Especially any time Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine is on the screen. He’s amazing. But too little, too late. 4. Writing Even if you stripped away the bad effects and the bad acting, the story of Episodes I and II don’t work on paper. Because when you really think about it, in the grand scheme of things, what does The Phantom Menace add to the story of Star Wars? Almost nothing. Same for Attack of the Clones. In terms of showing the Clone Wars, or the fall of the Jedi, or the rise of the Empire, or Anakin’s transition to the Dark Side - these things being the reason the prequels were even made - we get almost nothing. Only in Episode III do the pieces finally fall into place, and still, it’s done clumsily. The dialogue simply explains too much. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “Show, don’t tell”. The original Star Wars movies demonstrate this at many points, but again, Lucas seems to have forgotten. His characters love to explain what’s going on, including dry political jargon, to the point where the audience loses interest. And in the emotional moments, they say how they’re feeling rather than allowing the feelings to speak for themselves. Perhaps I can explain in greater detail and give some examples in a later round, because I'm running short on characters. And besides, what’s with all the weird stereotypes in these movies? All the Neimoidians seem to be parodies of Japanese people. Watto is clearly some 17th-century caricature of a Jew. All the Gungans speak in some strange Afro-Caribbean dialect. What gives, George Lucas? And even if my opponent doesn’t care about racial issues, there is a logical argument against this. When you see that these are ethnic stereotypes rather than aliens, it completely ruins the immersion. In the original Star Wars, almost all the nonhuman creatures speak a different language, because of course they would. You can relate certain characters to real-world parallels, but it’s more subtle and clever. Rather than the prequels, which are about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face. I won’t deny that there are good aspects of the prequels. There are good things to be found in even the worst of movies. But here, they are completely overshadowed by their faults. And it becomes all the more apparent how terrible they are when compared to the original trilogy, or The Force Awakens, or The Last Jedi. Which are fantastic movies, despite what the haters say. I know plenty of people grew up the prequels, and I welcome their arguments. I don't mean to antagonize anyone. Now I hand the reins over to my opponent.