How The Star Wars Prequel Movies Could Have Been Good
Look, we were all disappointed with the Star Wars prequel trilogy. It’s been decades since the release of Revenge of the Sith and we still can’t get over the fact that these movies are so substandard. George Lucas had the opportunity to expand the Star Wars universe and deepen the mythology with the three new films, but instead he was satisfied with making cool demo reels for Industrial Light & Magic.
The best thing about the prequel trilogy is the fan reception to the movies. We’ve seen some of the most creative and in-depth pieces of video film criticism that explain why the prequels are terrible and how they could’ve been fixed.
The most notable are from Red Letter Media and Belated Media, but one up-and-coming Star Wars fan is making a plea for what he thinks should’ve changed with the prequels.
The fan calls himself Binary Bastard, and he has made two in-depth videos, one about Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The Attack of the Clones video is long, clocking in at about 30 minutes, and Binary Bastard points out the biggest problem with the prequels, which is that Lucas tells the audience what’s going on, but never shows anything about the characters or story.
Attack of the Clones is the worst of the prequels and has the biggest problems, namely that there’s no clear hero or villain.
Lucas leaves a lot for the audience to assume, such as the characters’ goals and how they will achieve them. These basic and fundamental storytelling tools got lost in the hallways at Lucasfilm during development.
In Binary Bastard’s next video, he explains how Revenge of the Sith could’ve been a better movie if Lucas had changed two scenes: the opera scene with Anakin and Palpatine, and Padme’s death.
In the opera scene, Palpatine establishes that the Force can create life and keep people from dying. Of course, this was a way for the evil Sith Lord to seduce the young Anakin with the promise to save his love’s life.
If Lucas had also included that the Dark Side of the Force could take life away, that would have been a better explanation of why Padme died at the end of the film instead of “losing the will to live.”
It’s unclear if these changes would’ve made the prequels better movies. The storylines would have been fixed, but there’s still a lot of bad dialogue and questionable acting going on.
No amount of re-writes or story changes could’ve fixed Jake Lloyd, Jar-Jar Binks, Midi-Chlorians, or the tragic “NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” at the end of Revenge of the Sith.
The prequels’ problems are much greater than minor patches or story tweaks. These movies needed to be overhauled from the ground up.
Ultimately, all three films ring hollow and stale, and sadly they’re here to stay. Let’s hope J.J. Abrams Episode VII doesn’t turn out to be the next Phantom Menace.
