Observations of both Criticism & Vindication. AKA, The surprising reappraisal of the Prequel Trilogy+MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU 2025

For this edition for STAR WARS DAY 2025, 

I have a fascinating observation that took me by surprise.

10 years ago in 2015 as of this writing, before THE FORCE AWAKENS was released into cinemas, if you were to ask people what STAR WARS trilogy you’d watch,

They’d always respond:

THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY!!!

That’s because even after almost 15 years, since May 19 1999, 

the sour taste left behind by the prequel trilogy was still fresh in most viewers minds.

Many a criticism levied towards the prequels whether it be the unnecessary Bluescreen Backdrops, aliens being CGI instead of puppets, costumes or prosthetics, and that awful GunGan JAR JAR himself,

And let’s not forget George’s self-admitted WOODEN DIALOGUE.

And until George's 2012 sale to the Mouse House, 

People developed an apathy towards the man himself.

Now fast forward 10 years later, 

the critical failures of THE LAST JEDI & THE RISE OF SKYWALKER have for some reason have caused the prequels to become reappraised by fans for their pre-2012 merits.

As someone who accidentally grew up with the prequels on TV instead of growing up with the original trilogy first, this is very surprising to say the least.

But is it worthy of reappraisal even after all these years?

Let's find out by mentally going back in time to the turn of the Millennium and then travelling forward to 2005.

What were the Criticisms?

Let’s observe via bullet points:

-CG Environments & heavy use of Chroma Key

The issue people had back in the day was the fact that many environments such as Coruscant, Geonosis, etc, were filmed in a Blue Screen/Green Screen soundstage instead of proper sets or actual locations.

The original trilogy did use Chroma Key before but that was mostly for space battles while the rest were either on-location or in Elstree Studios London.

The Prequels relied too much on Blue and Green Screen soundstages for environments and naturally, people were not amused by this because they felt the feel of actors acting within a climate controlled environment doesn't feel like the actors were in the movie.

The reactions to said environments elicited mixed opinions.

For some scenes like Mustafar, it was safer to use Blue Screen due to the extreme heat of the magma from MOUNT ETNA during it's October 25 2002 eruption.

But some scenes like Coruscant........

According to Natalie Portman's expression,

It's debatable. 

But for scenes like Naboo......

that's where problems arise.

Outdoor scenes demand the purity of the Earth's Landscapes.

Not Chroma-Key sheets of blue and green or Giant Fans to fake the wind.

Some might say, Why say that when DAGOBAH from Empire Strikes Back was shot on a soundstage?

But I give DAGOBAH slack because in 1979, while there was Blue-Screen, CGI was limited to wireframes and PDP/11 Mini-Computers.

Plus, there weren't any swampy locations that were considered safe to film.

Plus, If YODA was filmed on location, the swamp would have ruined the puppet that was being used.

-That Stupid GunGan

In an effort to have an alien comic relief in a similar vein to Chewbacca from the original trilogy, George Lucas created an amphibian/humanoid hybrid named JAR JAR BINKS….

"Meesa having a very bad feeling about this".... INDEED!!!

That Stupid GunGan is nothing short of a disaster magnet who is full of unnecessary pratfalls and his stupid dialect.

And to top it off, Jar Jar's accent drew many criticisms that the GUNGAN was a negative stereotype of JAMAICANS. 

He's scowling because He is not amused.

If you thought SCRAPPY-DOO was bad, 

JAR JAR was even worse, maybe even worse than those damn Ewoks from RETURN OF THE JEDI. 

And George knew it to a point in the later prequels, he gave the GUNGAN less screentime and took away a lot of the character's comedy for more serious fair.

And yet, that still didn't mask away viewers dislike of the character.

To quote Luigi from THE SIMPSONS in the 2004 episode CO-DEPENDANT'S DAY:

"It's a-making me so mad, I wanna throw meatballs at the screen."

And knowing about the criticism even during my childhood, 

I now regret having the Dancing Jar Jar toy that my father bought for me years ago but.......

Just interpret this photo as me trying to destroy this toy as if I was Sid Phillips from Toy Story

Or me trying to take the batteries out, 

just so I can get this GunGan to SHUT THE HELL UP!

The problem with JAR JAR was the fact that he's an entirely CGI Character instead of a guy in a costume with heavy prosthetics like CHEWBACCA was and still is.

I don't know how it was planned but the GUNGAN originally was AHMED BEST wearing the costume and having the head of his character during most scenes until the scenes were reshot without him physically being there in favor of him wearing a Motion Capture suit.

Now to think about it, 

the very existence of JAR JAR is actually tragic..... not in-universe but rather in real life.

I heard that because of how hated the GUNGAN was, his actor AHMED BEST

considered taking his own life because he could not stomach the criticism anymore.

Fortunately with help from Seth Green from....

,

the CLONE WARS writing staff,

and THE MANDELORIAN film crew,

he eventually received a brighter future as a different character:

Kelleran Beq.

-The Sloppy writing & George's Regret that he could not bring back Kasdan

Many Star Wars fans of the time period, and even today, criticize the way a majority of the dialogue was written in the prequels with many us seeing it as either having too much technological jargon or just being outright sloppy or confusing at best.

Actually those Criticisms mirrored Mark Hamill's reactions to the written dialogue in A NEW HOPE back when he auditioned for Luke Skywalker in 1975.

To quote Mark Hamill: 

"WHO TALKS LIKE THAT!!??"

Also, to quote Harrison Ford on George's writing skills:

"George, You can type this SHIT, but you sure can't say it.

Move your mouth while you're typing and try to see if you can say it."

And George admitted self-deprecatingly that his own written dialogue was sloppy which is the reason why he hired LAWRENCE KASDAN to polish the dialogue in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK & RETURN OF THE JEDI in the first place....Which in reality was because George was dissatisfied with the way the late LEIGH BRACKETT's screenplay for EMPIRE was written back in the 1978.

Interpret this photo of Lawrence Kasdan as being proud of his 1979-1983 work. 

While at the same time, regretting his choice to turn down working with George Lucas in 1994.

But George was shocked when he could not bring back Lawrence for the prequels.

He repeatedly asked Kasdan to write for the prequels but every single time, Kasdan turned him down, citing creative clashes with both Irvin Kershner & Richard Marquand back in the 1980s.

So on that fateful Sunny November 1 1994, after dropping off his daughter Katie to school that day, the first lines of Dialogue for THE PHANTOM MENACE were typed on George's docked PowerBook Duo Computer.......

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE...... depending on your point of view.

Yeah, the dialogue for the Prequels is mediocre at best but instead of blaming it on George for writing the dialogue, blame it on Kasdan for his overconfidence that George could do it on his own!

Sorry about that. 

I highly respect Lawrence Kasdan but sometimes, you need to reconnect with an old friend and make them accept the job that only they could do justice, especially if one person has great ideas but barely has the writing skills required to make it execute perfectly. 

-Purposely making Anakin's dialogue wooden.

Not a criticism but rather an observation I've picked up from one of my College Instructors during our Online Classes whilst during SOCIAL DISTANCING of 2020.

I think it may have been said by either my Life Drawing or my Color Theory instructors

But what they said about Anakin's dialogue either being sloppy or stilted actually has some meaning to it:

The real reason why HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN'S performance was stilted on purpose was to

NOT ONE-UP the late JAMES EARL JONES.

"Nobody should outperform my performance of Darth Vader!!!!"

Take note of that because after all those years of criticizing Hayden Christensen only for us to later retract said criticism, we now know that it was because JAMES EARL JONES is still King.

-The Heavy Use of CGI

Related to people's complaints of Bluescreen environments, another criticism people had with the prequels early on was the fact that the films made heavy use of CGI instead of practical props like Muppets, animatronics, or guys in costumes or prosthetics.

E.T's species in THE PHANTOM MENACE in response to Spielberg

inserting Yoda in E.T back in 1982.

I mean, the guy wanted technical innovation but considering the nearly 50 years since the originals when CG was limited only to wireframes on PDP11's and controlling cameras with computers and rails, it was a given.

I still see memes related to people lamenting about George investing too much into CGI as early as 1993 instead of sticking with practical effects but that's like trying to blame SGI and Spielberg for their 1993 movie JURRASIC PARK for influencing George into using the tech.

-The use of Politics

People expect STAR WARS to be escapist because since the 1960s, society is just not simple anymore. People loved the original trilogy because it allowed them to mentally escape the cynicality of reality.

especially in the aftermath of the Vietnam War,

Assassination of John F Kennedy

The Hippie/Counter Culture Movement

The fall of the Shah (AKA the Iranian Revolution),

The Oil Crisis of the Late 1970s

The 1979 Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

The Attempted Assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981

etc.

Sure, Politics were used in the Original Trilogy, but it was either kept to the bare minimum or just kept closeted underneath Lawrence Kasdan's wonderfully written screenplay.

So the fact that Politics were heavily used as a plot-device in the Prequels,

people were not amused since it was the very thing they want to escape.

So mocking Richard Nixon, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, etc.........

Not something that people wanted in a SPACE OPERA.

Lampooning the Vietnam War, we could tolerate in Star Wars.

But lampooning the WAR ON IRAQ........ yeah, people were turned off by that.

Sounds like ongoing criticisms eh?

Well, not exactly but compared to before the turn of the millennium, Fan Criticism that's in a similar vein to the THE COMIC BOOK GUY from THE SIMPSONS was limited mostly due to slow dial-up internet speeds and the limitations of the original WEB.

But the Prequels debut around the time people were moving away from Dial-Up to Broadband ethernet and the emergence of the faster and more intuitive WEB 2.0 so George's claims of minority criticisms came at a poor time for him because he didn't take into account how fast the internet was evolving.

Anyway, Pinpoint of Criticisms OVER!!!

A now lets pinpoint the good aspects of said reappraisal:

-Least amount of changes

Even to this day, People still detest the changes George Lucas made to the Original Trilogy and despite his continued apathy at said release for the original prints, people are still demanding that both George Lucas and Disney release the original 70mm theatrical prints of the trilogy on Home Media and Disney+ without all those unnecessary changes.

While the Prequels themselves have had their bouts of changes since their original theatrical releases, the criticisms toward said changes weren't as bad as the Special Edition changes to the original trilogy and actually have made parts of the film better.... from a certain point of view.

I know people prefer PUPPET YODA over the CGI YODA but I've read that people raised a stink over how the Yoda Puppet was created for THE PHANTOM MENACE which did not match his appearance in the Original Trilogy so when the 2011 Blu-Ray came out, the Puppet was replaced with the same CG model introduced in ATTACK OF THE CLONES......

A little anachronistic but at least Yoda doesn't look weird like he did back in 1999......

Doubly so since ROB COLEMAN panicked over his own direction on the Yoda model during production on Attack of the Clones.

So out of respect for ROB COLEMAN, 

I'd still prefer the original 1979 Puppet over any CG recreation

 or Physical Recreation of said puppet from 2017 thank you very much.

-The Pod Racing scene

Admit it. 

One thing that a lot of you fans liked in the film even back in 1999 was the Iconic Pod racing scene from middle of the Second Act of PHANTOM MENACE. 

Ben Burtt took heavy measures to make the scene come to life especially in those DOLBY SURROUND EX equipped Cinemas back in 1999 and to this day, some people have used that scene to calibrate BASS and Treble settings for their sound systems.

And the Pod racing scene was so iconic that it served as the basis for a Popular game released by LucasArts: STAR WARS EPISODE 1 PODRACER.

I know the N64 port of this game is more Iconic

but I just have to use this Box art for the PC version of the game because 

3DFX Voodoo Graphics Cards for the win!!!

-Darth Maul himself

If there's one cool character to pinpoint in the Prequels, that would be DARTH MAUL from THE PHANTOM MENACE.

Say what you will about the movie he appeared in, the Sith Apprentice himself does have some killer tattoos.

But I think what people like about MAUL himself was the fact that he wields a double-bladed lightsaber. 

The moment that MAUL ignite his lightsaber's Plasma blades,

The crowd went wild.

-Memetic Lines

Despite the obviously wooden dialogue,

there are some notable lines that still get memed to this day. 

Examples include Obi-Wan's...

"Hello there..."

Obi-Wan's High Ground Boast.

"IT'S OVER ANAKIN!!! 

I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND!!!!"

The list goes on from here.

Just wanted to use this time to voice my observations instead of recycling the 2024 post I did for that particular STAR WARS day.

Plus, On April 29 2025, 

I recently went to the 20th Anniversary Screening of REVENGE OF THE SITH at Cineplex's International Village location in Vancouver.

I chose this location instead of Metropolis, Marine, or Riverport

because I frequented at this location in my Childhood as early as 2005 so the film's original May 19 2005 release date makes this location all the more fitting.

Though when REVENGE OF THE SITH premiered on May 19 2005,

this theater was originally operated by the U.S based CINEMARK 

under it's original name TINSELTOWN CINEMAS International Village.

until 2010 when the Canadian CINEPLEX ENTERTAINMENT took over the 

12 Screen multiplex Cinema.

And I have an example photo of the interior of the auditorium when I watched the film

Thank the maker this film was projected in one of the larger auditoriums 

in INTERNATIONAL VILLAGE CINEMAS.

Just like with THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP, 

I purposely chose a Tuesday to watch the screening because of Half-Price Tuesdays on ticket prices.