A Lost Opportunity

Rating: 2/10 (24 May 2005)

The Prequel Trilogy is complete. It has been an experience... but not the experience that I had hoped. Now I suppose, my expectations of the new Star Wars movies may have been set a bit too high (but then again weren't all of ours), but after watching the last of the new movies I can say without a doubt that this Prequel Trilogy contains three of the worst movies I have ever seen.
George Lucas had such an opportunity to expand on the mythology of the original trilogy, it's character's, their origin, but also the galaxy of Star Wars. The promise was to see the whole arcing story of Anakin Skywalker. From good, seduced by evil, and returning to the light side of the force. Well we got that, but it was done in such a way that it makes more sense to watch the Original Trilogy then the Prequel Trilogy to fill in the back story. It would almost make more sense to re-cut (again) the Original Trilogy and add in footage from the Prequel Trilogy as flashbacks or montages. It would be a lot more entertaining than watching the new three movies. If these movies had been released without the Star Wars name, they would have tanked, simple as that.
Remember watching the Original Trilogy, and the shock of discovering that Darth Vader was the father of Luke and Leia. Now think of showing all 6 movies to your children, or someone who hasn't seen Star Wars before. They watch the originals and after much begging, you convince them that the final 3 are much better and they should watch them. They finish the 2nd Trilogy, and wonder why there was so much emphasis put on the scene where Darth Vader reveals that he is Luke's father, they already knew that Anakin was Darth Vader and Luke and Leia's father. Then they start asking questions, like why does Leia have memories of her mother (Return of the Jedi, when Leia and Luke talking on Endor), when Padme dies immediately after childbirth (for absolutely NO reason). From my point of view, one of the most important things the Prequel trilogy needed to avoid was redundancy in the plot. Showing us that Luke and Leia are brother and sister makes Luke's revelation that Leia is his sister completely pointless for the audience, just like the reveal that Vader is his father. Also, depending on which version of the Original Trilogy you show them, why does Anakin's ghost look like the young Anakin not the old one (and to everyone who rationalizes it by saying that you see the spirit as the person was when they were part of the light side, Anakin did save Luke and kill the Emperor, returning him to the Light Side). And how does Obi Wan know in A New Hope that Darth Vader is Anakin? As far as he knows by the end of Sith, Anakin died on the volcano world. Is the identity of Vader common knowledge in the Empire?
From what's gone up on the screen, it doesn't seem Lucas put any thought into the fundamentals of what he needed to do in the Prequels. The inevitable conclusion that I reach is that this Trilogy was made to sell more Star Wars toys to a new generation of kids and not to set up an exciting base for the Original Trilogy, one that could stand on it's own. It's a missed opportunity of massive proportions, but fortunately, from what Lucas has been saying, he will never make another Star Wars movie again.