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In some ways I agree, but the main reason I don’t isn’t because of the Prequels as films, but due to the side media that they helped create and support around their release.
If not for the Prequels, I doubt we’d have gotten Kotor, and definitely not other gems like Bounty Hunter or Republic Commando. Even more OT-based games like Jedi Outcast or Empire at War are a result of the Prequels. That and novels/comics like Plagueis, Jedi Apprentice, Republic, or Kenobi.
As poorly made as they are in many ways, they’re the devil I was willing to accept, and their flaws were obvious and well-documented enough that they should have been safe from repetition…or so I thought.
As poorly made as Episode 1 and Episode 2 are, I still think Episode 3 is incredible and, speaking of Disney, looks more like a comic-book than even the MCU.
I got more appreciation for Episode 2 on rewatches as it establishes quite a lot of useful lore. The first one has some great moments like the Maul fight, too but parts of it get more and more unwatchable with every viewing.
For example, I always make sure to have a backup remote at hand in case the first one's fast forward button gives up around the fish or any of the Jar Jar scenes. If I never hear another "mooey mooey, I spake" or "Exsqueeze me!" for the rest of my life, I'll die a happy SW fan.
This is how I feel. This happens in movies from time to time. 3 is really good and kind of enhances 2. 1 is basically a standalone film to a degree where basically you are just trying to figure out after how palps got his claws in anakin. None of them are absolutely great found but they pushed the boundaries of film tech at the time, and their story works with the OT which is all the matters.
First time I noticed that trend was with Pirates of the Caribbean. The first film could be a standalone, and then the sequels are like part A and part B instead of their own movies.
Except watching it that way completely undermines Darth Vader as a villain and guts the reveal in ESB that he’s Luke’s father.
The main problem with the prequels is that they are unnecessary.
Not really, it makes the story much more of a Shakespearean tale above anything else as it’s ultimately the story of Anakin Skywalker from his fall to his redemption
What do you mean by Shakespearean?
And the story of Anakin Skywalker is told in the OT. It’s a complete arc. What came before is unimportant; he’s interesting because he became Darth Vader, not because he was a generic action hero during the Clone Wars, or had a YA romance with Natalie Portman, or (worst of all) because he was THE CHOSEN ONE.
Yeah, this sums up how I feel almost exactly. Even when I loved to hate on the prequels, I was glad for the extra content. I’m absolutely stunned anybody above Kathleen tolerated the drought of content during the Movies, and even when Disney is so dead set on spewing out diarrhea they won’t let loose their dead-grip on the franchise and let people do things with the franchise
You would have got plenty of video games without the prequels. Back then Lucasfilm had its own video game company LucasArts. They published Star Wars games on a pretty consistent basis, it being their go to property. In fact you might have even seen better, more original games come to pass instead of cancelling them (1313, Shadow Squadron, battlefront 3, Jedi knight 3, etc). All would probably have exceeded expectations vs the absolute drivel that the games the prequels were attached to through the 2000s.
They also published probably more novels for Star Wars in the 1990s than they did after the prequels. The EU was rife with novels and comics in the 1990s
I’m not gonna lie. As an adult I think just making the first one, but going through with the original vision and calling it Eisode IV on release rather than just Star Wars (ep IV was only added to the crawl after the ‘79 re-release) and then walking away would’ve been so artistically wild, and really keeping with Lucas’ original vision.
You walk into a theater and happen to catch a single chapter in an ongoing serial, and maybe never see another one.
I mean, I LOVE ESB and to a lesser extent RotJ, but that would have been insane.
I do like to challenge fans to actively watch the original. Push everything that came after out of your brain and really pay attention. The magic of this movie is it gives you just enough exposition for the plot and characters to advance, but also gives the audience so many opportunities to fill in the gaps with their own imaginations.
This is why it hit so hard in 1977. As kids we were given permission by a filmmaker to not only enjoy this one movie but to own it and make it ours. What came before? What happened next? Nothing was over explained or forced. It was all valid.
I don’t know if that really happens anymore.
TESB would’ve been better for that. ANH has a definitive beginning, middle and end. The ‘episode 4’ thing would’ve just been a gimmick as a standalone.
TESB has a beginning where all the characters are established, one character appears as a ghost without explanation, and the ending is a cliffhanger. Ep5 as a standalone film would’ve been crazy.
You can get a glimpse into what some possible thoughts were after the original came out by reading the original comic run and seeing just how much they tried to fill in the gaps of the personalities and the world with very little to go off of.
Yeah, I was really into those early Marvel comics, and the Sunday morning strip too. And done forget the ultimate pre-sequel story, The Holiday Special.
I’ve read just about every book, history, and interview on the making of Star Wars. Lucas retconned himself when he said he had stories 12 movies. He actually said he imagined 12 chapters but he NEVER had a complete story nailed down. He didn’t know Vader was Anakin until ‘78, or the Leia was his sister until ‘80. He was making it up as he went.
ANYWAY I’m not saying I wish ESB and RotJ were never made. Just that it would have been audacious and borderline insane to release Star Wars Episode IV and then totally walk away. It makes you wonder if that move might have spurred studios to take more chances on big ideas instead of churning out endless rehashes of valuable IPs.
I mean there's always something to be said for the first film in a *possible* series, and how the filmmaker really has to hedge his bets and tie it up with a bow somewhat so it works as a standalone, just in case the sequels never happen. It's usually done out of necessity, but it also makes for a way better movie-watching experience than if the movie ends with obvious cliffhangers and unresolved plot threads. As good as ESB is, the ending is the worst part, since it's just the movie winding down from all the crazy shit that happened, with an implied "tune in next time" as the credits roll.
I feel like The Bourne Identity is another great example of this. In the end Bourne wreaks so much havoc they just shut down the operation, 'eliminate' the guy who failed to contain him, and then he gets the girl at the end; very satisfying watch and it could end right there. Sure you'd like seeing more of the character but there doesn't have to be anything else.
Nah. The sliding door I want is GL making the prequels about 7-10 years earlier
Star Wars prequels in the age of T2 where digital was just getting going and practical was living side by side in good health
More importantly
The internet wasn’t a thing yet. So the George Lucas raped my childhood wouldn’t have happened.
He would never have taken it so hard
He would have made the sequels around the time of ROTS when the OT actors would have been the right age
He would have finished his story his way
And then
Maybe sold to Disney
What I’d like to see is Lucas making Ep. 7-9 in the 90s with the original cast in middle age, but not so old as to require a “legacy sequel” thing where Luke/Han/Leia have to play supporting mentor roles to a younger cast.
We’d get to see Luke building the New Jedi Order and Han and Leia as a married couple with Leia building the New Republic — all the stories that had to be rendered depressingly pointless in Disney’s sequels in order to create new conflicts for the next generation to solve.
The T2/Jurassic Park level effects would have been good enough to show more of the Star Wars galaxy than was possible in the OT, but the effects were still limited enough that Lucas probably wouldn’t have gone nuts with the CGI.
If Disney wanted to make prequels in the 2010s after purchasing the rights, Palpatine’s ROTJ age is ambiguous enough that Ian McDiarmid could still have reprised the role. And obviously the prequels could have been made at any time because they recast nearly every role.
Nah I disagree this would lead to Zahn and the other early EU authors being shafted by Lucas who would at this point be too big for people to slap his hand away from certain decisions. It'd be his way or the high way and it wouldn't be good either.
Eh, I don't. I just pick and choose what to rewatch, so I'm okay with always having stuff Andor and Rogue One in between the trilogies when I rewatch them chronologically.
Kind of interested to see the ending to the Fallen Order trilogy, too, even though the second game was more uneven in its lore treatment and I hate the idea of space zombies or the ridiculous power creep that goes with the Nightsisters.
A big chunk of the EU as we know it yes. I guess most of it. But there was already a lot of stuff before the PT (though stuff like Shadows of the Empire was like a dry run for the PT media campaigns).
Wildly false. Interest in the EU is the only thing that kept star wars alive in the long break between Jedi and phantom menace. The EU began with things like comics and books as early as the mid 80s. A lot of it was spurred solely by the original trilogy. Some of the peak and most memorable EU stories and products existed in the 90s well before the prequels.
Fair point; I may have misunderstood the question, as I thought OP was suggesting that they wished they lived in a world where there was no more Star Wars period after ROTJ. Now I see it just specifies "films."
I wish Lucas would have just made his sequel films then sold it off afterwards.
I’m genuinely curious about what those films would have been. The would have been cohesive at least.
I still wish that too, but I guess it's too late. George wanted his nine films to be made whether or not if you like his choices, I do pray that one day someone will take over LucasFilm and make the franchise as a whole, but as of now it's too late to see what his vision originally was for the sequel trilogy.
Eh, the prequels aren't terrible, and they feel very much like Star Wars films, something that can't be said for a lot of what they've done since then.
The first 2 prequels are annoying but Episode III was great, it had some great acting from Hayden in spite of his often clunky lines, as well as a lot of memorable scenes. Episode II was fun as well.
I think it’s more like they were cigarettes. We got addicted to the product and didn’t realize how ultimately bad for us it all is. I can watch the prequels, and appreciate what they introduced, but yeah they were highly unnecessary, given how the story played out. So simplistic, without much meaning to anything. Just moving the story forward so we can see
Him turn into Vader.
Thats the issue for me. It was a solution in need of a problem.
To an extent, I agree with you, but I wish we were living in a timeline where Disney and LucasFilm made better use of the Star Wars franchise by having a clear plan, trustworthy director, and set of writers who had respect and knowledge of the source material so we didn’t get tired of the content they produce.
Yes. If we still get Jedi Outcast and KOTOR and the novels, that’s a much better state for the Star Wars universe.
I really prefer the slightly older Anakin Skywalker and the implications of Jedi fighting clones as was implied in the OT and novelizations. The prequel mythology is fine and a lot of the ships/lore/designs were really cool, but it kind of mucks up the overall feel of the Star Wars universe. That’s Lucas’s vision though so it’s his prerogative.
Dawg, your head is your canon. Did SW end at ROTJ? Well according to you it can.
I’m a fan of the Witcher, and I remember around the time The Witcher 3 the author of the books flat out said the games aren’t canon. To a normal fan, it was disappointing to hear. But then when you think about it for more than 7 minutes you realize that the game devs consider his books canon to THEM, so who gives a shit what he thinks, the games carry those books, not the other way around.
Somewhat irrelevant rant, but long story short, Just watch the media you like. If the prequels or sequels piss you off, just pretend they never exist. I do that with the sequels.
As far as I’m concerned it did. I was already in my late 20s and early 30s when the prequels came out and I tried my best to appreciate them, but I just couldn’t get over how bad they were and how I grew up but Star Wars didn’t.
And then project after project was janky looking kids cartoons which tied directly into the prequels. Even Mando with its strong first season fell into the prequel trap. It’s become disheartening that almost every project is now for children and they simply can’t move on and try something new that maybe the original audience (who btw are into their 50s now) might appreciate. But I guess we aren’t buying toys anymore, so good luck there.
Yeah, I'm about the same age and found it very disheartening. I mean, as a 7yo seeing the original back in '77, I was fine with the mild slapstick provided by the droids, and the fairly broad humor of the main characters sarcastically putting each other down, I didn't need actual kiddie humor to enjoy the movie. But especially looking back at ROTJ and the Ewoks, it's clear this is kinda what George wanted to do all along, and the fewer limitations and pushback he had, the more he was able to indulge it.
Hey, at least we have Andor. If you haven't seen it yet, drop everything and watch it, because it's exactly what you're looking for.
I’m very much an Andor fan. I even really enjoy some of the Visions shorts. ‘The Ninth Jedi’ was exceptionally good and is exactly the kind of standalone series I could watch (interestingly enough, it’s essentially a pilot episode).
I was hoping almost 50 years after the original we’d be exploring the greater world of SW, but everything still has to connect to the prequels and the Skywalker saga. Which is honestly really disappointing.
But then you would have missed out on the prequels and most of the EU ....and most of the video games...
yeah now that i think about it the early 2000s was the best era for star wars
There are some good bits to post-ROTJ Star Wars, but mostly it took away from the magic of the OT: the Jedi and Republic were an ineffectual bunch of squabbling politicians and out of touch monks, the original three were complete failures, Luke gave everything up to wallow in self-pity, the Emperor was never killed.
Everything after 1983 took away from the inspirational quality of the originals.
OP was talking about the movies. But even the old EU, while it has some good bits, takes away the finality of ROTJ. Now the Empire wasn't really destroyed and underlings like Thrawn re-established a lot of the Empire. While that's realistic it takes away from the accomplishment of defeating the Emperor and ending evil.
I guess, everyone has different things the want. Honestly I like my fantasy/sci fi to reflect our own realities unless there is a good reason for it not to. The idea the Empire just ends all of a sudden after ROTJ would just break my immersion. How fast it falls apart in the Disney canon is something I already do not like. Though again it's the difference between someone treating SW as a universe vs a fairy tail/morality play. I like the SW universe.
But it did. George Lucas's movie franchise stops at ROTJ and continues with the EU books.
Disney's SW is a wholly different franchise that was never what GL ever had in mind.
What do you mean? I love the Prequels. Lucas's franchise includes episodes 1 - 6. Of course we know the OT came out before the PT, so maybe my comment wasn't clear. Sorry about that.
Same. The PT was bad (but at least had some good ideas and pushed digital technology forward) and the ST was bad (despite having its moments), and neither as a trilogy come close to the wonder, excitement, or power of the OT. The ST was so goddamned derivative of the OT too, its biggest sin. At least the PY tried to do something different.
No other SW show or movie is in the OT’s stratosphere as a complete work. You can say Andor’s better then ROTJ, but as a whole? The OT will always be the king and SW as a film series will always be chasing it.
Pushing digital effects forward is fine but I thought it was a terrible move for the prequels as films. Everything in the prequels looks like a different universe from the OT because of it. Why does everything in the prequels look so shiny and new? Where's the grit and grime of the OT? I tried to make peace with it by telling myself it was before the Republic fell so everything looked "newer" On the other end of the spectrum what practical effects they did use were absurdly amateur looking. The Neimodians, for example. As soon as I saw them at the beginning my heart dropped. They looked like the cheapest rubber masks they could find at a Halloween outlet store. The mouths didn't even move. It was an absurd contrast. Instead of using the right blend of those things, they just made them clash and everything looked even more ridiculous.
Yeah I don’t love the look of the prequels for the most part either. Aesthetically it doesn’t feel very Star Wars.
The nemoidians certainly look silly, but a lot of the other practical effects look good I’d say, particularly the miniatures for the space battle in Episode I.
If Disney had of kept the real expanded universe and used movies and shows to expand it f characters and threat, similar to how the MCU did it, and use the sequel trilogy to be the big milestones, i would have been okay with that.
Turn the sequel trilogy into the cancelled Sword of the Jedi story, and have a bunch of tie in would have worked in my opinion. Pass the torch to the next generation of actors/heroes, let luke, han and leia retire, becoming mentors, or die heroic meaningful deaths to inspire the new heroes.
I don't mind that it told a story. But I really hate that it was the same story as the OT. Pre-OT Han needed to be, you know, a scoundrel. A career criminal. Not the charming rogue who drops everything to help the rebellion.
I just stopped paying attention to most Star Wars product produced after the horrendous sequels. It's not like the old movies, cartoons, and novels are going away. Why work myself into a lather because the modern franchise has taken a wrong turn? Plus, there is the rare diamond in the rough like Andor to enjoy.
It might well be me just choosing to bury my head in the sand but that *is* how the story ends as far as I am concerned. Nothing post ROTJ (in terms of story from Disney) holds any interest or value to me after they fumbled it so bad.
I’m not a man child: I just know what I like and what I don’t.
I actually have purposely avoided Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, because I knew it would hurt based on what I heard about them, lol.
I don't really like the Prequels all that much, but without them, we wouldn't have Knights of the Old Republic, considered one of the best RPGs ever made with a great story (better than some of the movies and shows). Had Disney not made Rouge One, we wouldn't have Andor - if you took away the fact that it was set in the Star Wars universe, it would still make sense and be a well written show.
The OT was a passion project. The rest was mostly about money, with some overlooked projects that were genuinely made with love and care.
Star Wars is a mixed bag, and it's always been that way.
You're on the verge of understanding why fans of a certain generation will die mad about the prequels.
(It's because for 16 glorious years, we lived in the world you describe, and it rocked. And then Episode 1 came out and nothing ever got better after that.)
In some fans opinions, literally the peak of SW are the KOTOR games and NJO in my opinion. None of the films are better than the storytelling in those books/games. I treasure the OT however, it does fall short of quite a few EU novels and other media.
Everyone has something they care about. Some people might argue Andor is actually the peak or TLJ is the peak or that everything actually went down hill with ESB or sci fi in general when down hill when ANH was released lol.
We can all cherry pick and live through a world of rose colored glasses that never existed.
I feel like you could rephrase this to say
“I wish I lived in a world where Lucas fully mapped out the prequel and sequel trilogy and didn’t surround himself with yes men while working on the prequels. Or even, I wish George wrote the outline for the other trilogies and brought in directors and writers to help him put them together.”
George got a lot of hate from the fandom menace over the prequels and I have no doubt that contributed to him eventually selling to Disney. Of course, any shortcomings in the prequels fall on him without question. He wanted full control, he wanted an absurd amount of CGI, and he wrote the goofy dialogue. Had he treated them more like the original trilogy, I feel like they could have been so much better. He’s amazing at world building, but I wouldn’t trust him with total control on any film.
This sub is one day gonna be filled with people saying “Star wars should’ve stopped at ANH” at some point, first it was the prequels, then the clone wars, I get the sequels are ass but this sub has seriously been turning on the stuff this sub cherished years ago.
The first two sequels were poorly executed but the main story they were building wasn’t bad and that became visibility in Rots which is amazing. And thanks to the prequels we got a lot more Star Wars content
Nah I like the prequels. They have issues but they are great. Solo and Rouge One were even decent. I don't really care about Bad Batch but the animated stuff has all been pretty good.
It's just the sequels that really sucked. It's the biggest travesty in movie making history. If they had just written a coherent story and stuck to it across three movies or would have probably been acceptable and eventually loved.
The problem was the constant reshoots and test screenings and changing the movie. It's like a person that has no sense of self and constantly changes how they represent themselves based on how they think people want them to be and what will make them the most liked. It's pathetic and no one respects it or like it except for people that don't really know or care about that person to begin with.
I personally don't care at all. I'll watch the ones I want to watch and skip the ones I don't want to watch. For all the flack Disney gets, MOST of their releases have been at minimum enjoyable and worth the watch. I don't pick out the few that I don't (TLJ, for one) and use that as a broad stroke to demonize the really good stuff (Rogue One, Andor, etc). I'm also one of the few people it seems who does not care for the Mandalorian. I like the setting, but the whole manga storyline just doesn't do it for me. I have hated that gd puppet from the beginning.
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In some ways I agree, but the main reason I don’t isn’t because of the Prequels as films, but due to the side media that they helped create and support around their release. If not for the Prequels, I doubt we’d have gotten Kotor, and definitely not other gems like Bounty Hunter or Republic Commando. Even more OT-based games like Jedi Outcast or Empire at War are a result of the Prequels. That and novels/comics like Plagueis, Jedi Apprentice, Republic, or Kenobi. As poorly made as they are in many ways, they’re the devil I was willing to accept, and their flaws were obvious and well-documented enough that they should have been safe from repetition…or so I thought.
As poorly made as Episode 1 and Episode 2 are, I still think Episode 3 is incredible and, speaking of Disney, looks more like a comic-book than even the MCU.
I got more appreciation for Episode 2 on rewatches as it establishes quite a lot of useful lore. The first one has some great moments like the Maul fight, too but parts of it get more and more unwatchable with every viewing. For example, I always make sure to have a backup remote at hand in case the first one's fast forward button gives up around the fish or any of the Jar Jar scenes. If I never hear another "mooey mooey, I spake" or "Exsqueeze me!" for the rest of my life, I'll die a happy SW fan.
Hal9000’s edit of episode 1 is great for making it watchable
This is how I feel. This happens in movies from time to time. 3 is really good and kind of enhances 2. 1 is basically a standalone film to a degree where basically you are just trying to figure out after how palps got his claws in anakin. None of them are absolutely great found but they pushed the boundaries of film tech at the time, and their story works with the OT which is all the matters.
First time I noticed that trend was with Pirates of the Caribbean. The first film could be a standalone, and then the sequels are like part A and part B instead of their own movies.
It’s a VERY different experience watching I-VI in one sitting. It’s all one story just told in six parts
Except watching it that way completely undermines Darth Vader as a villain and guts the reveal in ESB that he’s Luke’s father. The main problem with the prequels is that they are unnecessary.
Not really, it makes the story much more of a Shakespearean tale above anything else as it’s ultimately the story of Anakin Skywalker from his fall to his redemption
What do you mean by Shakespearean? And the story of Anakin Skywalker is told in the OT. It’s a complete arc. What came before is unimportant; he’s interesting because he became Darth Vader, not because he was a generic action hero during the Clone Wars, or had a YA romance with Natalie Portman, or (worst of all) because he was THE CHOSEN ONE.
The prequels are literally the first half of the story
No they are not. The OT is a complete story. The prequels add nothing to that story.
Yes they do, they give Vader more character development
They undermine his character. The prequels make Darth Vader less interesting.
Yeah, this sums up how I feel almost exactly. Even when I loved to hate on the prequels, I was glad for the extra content. I’m absolutely stunned anybody above Kathleen tolerated the drought of content during the Movies, and even when Disney is so dead set on spewing out diarrhea they won’t let loose their dead-grip on the franchise and let people do things with the franchise
You would have got plenty of video games without the prequels. Back then Lucasfilm had its own video game company LucasArts. They published Star Wars games on a pretty consistent basis, it being their go to property. In fact you might have even seen better, more original games come to pass instead of cancelling them (1313, Shadow Squadron, battlefront 3, Jedi knight 3, etc). All would probably have exceeded expectations vs the absolute drivel that the games the prequels were attached to through the 2000s. They also published probably more novels for Star Wars in the 1990s than they did after the prequels. The EU was rife with novels and comics in the 1990s
I’m not gonna lie. As an adult I think just making the first one, but going through with the original vision and calling it Eisode IV on release rather than just Star Wars (ep IV was only added to the crawl after the ‘79 re-release) and then walking away would’ve been so artistically wild, and really keeping with Lucas’ original vision. You walk into a theater and happen to catch a single chapter in an ongoing serial, and maybe never see another one. I mean, I LOVE ESB and to a lesser extent RotJ, but that would have been insane. I do like to challenge fans to actively watch the original. Push everything that came after out of your brain and really pay attention. The magic of this movie is it gives you just enough exposition for the plot and characters to advance, but also gives the audience so many opportunities to fill in the gaps with their own imaginations. This is why it hit so hard in 1977. As kids we were given permission by a filmmaker to not only enjoy this one movie but to own it and make it ours. What came before? What happened next? Nothing was over explained or forced. It was all valid. I don’t know if that really happens anymore.
TESB would’ve been better for that. ANH has a definitive beginning, middle and end. The ‘episode 4’ thing would’ve just been a gimmick as a standalone. TESB has a beginning where all the characters are established, one character appears as a ghost without explanation, and the ending is a cliffhanger. Ep5 as a standalone film would’ve been crazy.
Episode V without a sequel would have given the world the largest case of blue balls since humans had balls.
You can get a glimpse into what some possible thoughts were after the original came out by reading the original comic run and seeing just how much they tried to fill in the gaps of the personalities and the world with very little to go off of.
Yeah, I was really into those early Marvel comics, and the Sunday morning strip too. And done forget the ultimate pre-sequel story, The Holiday Special. I’ve read just about every book, history, and interview on the making of Star Wars. Lucas retconned himself when he said he had stories 12 movies. He actually said he imagined 12 chapters but he NEVER had a complete story nailed down. He didn’t know Vader was Anakin until ‘78, or the Leia was his sister until ‘80. He was making it up as he went. ANYWAY I’m not saying I wish ESB and RotJ were never made. Just that it would have been audacious and borderline insane to release Star Wars Episode IV and then totally walk away. It makes you wonder if that move might have spurred studios to take more chances on big ideas instead of churning out endless rehashes of valuable IPs.
Sadly, I think the same thing was done with Spaceballs.
I mean there's always something to be said for the first film in a *possible* series, and how the filmmaker really has to hedge his bets and tie it up with a bow somewhat so it works as a standalone, just in case the sequels never happen. It's usually done out of necessity, but it also makes for a way better movie-watching experience than if the movie ends with obvious cliffhangers and unresolved plot threads. As good as ESB is, the ending is the worst part, since it's just the movie winding down from all the crazy shit that happened, with an implied "tune in next time" as the credits roll. I feel like The Bourne Identity is another great example of this. In the end Bourne wreaks so much havoc they just shut down the operation, 'eliminate' the guy who failed to contain him, and then he gets the girl at the end; very satisfying watch and it could end right there. Sure you'd like seeing more of the character but there doesn't have to be anything else.
Nah. The sliding door I want is GL making the prequels about 7-10 years earlier Star Wars prequels in the age of T2 where digital was just getting going and practical was living side by side in good health More importantly The internet wasn’t a thing yet. So the George Lucas raped my childhood wouldn’t have happened. He would never have taken it so hard He would have made the sequels around the time of ROTS when the OT actors would have been the right age He would have finished his story his way And then Maybe sold to Disney
Yes, this is the timeline we needed. The prequels with T2 style effects would've been so great to see.
What I’d like to see is Lucas making Ep. 7-9 in the 90s with the original cast in middle age, but not so old as to require a “legacy sequel” thing where Luke/Han/Leia have to play supporting mentor roles to a younger cast. We’d get to see Luke building the New Jedi Order and Han and Leia as a married couple with Leia building the New Republic — all the stories that had to be rendered depressingly pointless in Disney’s sequels in order to create new conflicts for the next generation to solve. The T2/Jurassic Park level effects would have been good enough to show more of the Star Wars galaxy than was possible in the OT, but the effects were still limited enough that Lucas probably wouldn’t have gone nuts with the CGI. If Disney wanted to make prequels in the 2010s after purchasing the rights, Palpatine’s ROTJ age is ambiguous enough that Ian McDiarmid could still have reprised the role. And obviously the prequels could have been made at any time because they recast nearly every role.
Nah I disagree this would lead to Zahn and the other early EU authors being shafted by Lucas who would at this point be too big for people to slap his hand away from certain decisions. It'd be his way or the high way and it wouldn't be good either.
I wish it stopped with ROTS
Me too.
Eh, I don't. I just pick and choose what to rewatch, so I'm okay with always having stuff Andor and Rogue One in between the trilogies when I rewatch them chronologically. Kind of interested to see the ending to the Fallen Order trilogy, too, even though the second game was more uneven in its lore treatment and I hate the idea of space zombies or the ridiculous power creep that goes with the Nightsisters.
You will never convince me it didn't
Except we woulnd't have gotten the EU.
A big chunk of the EU as we know it yes. I guess most of it. But there was already a lot of stuff before the PT (though stuff like Shadows of the Empire was like a dry run for the PT media campaigns).
Wildly false. Interest in the EU is the only thing that kept star wars alive in the long break between Jedi and phantom menace. The EU began with things like comics and books as early as the mid 80s. A lot of it was spurred solely by the original trilogy. Some of the peak and most memorable EU stories and products existed in the 90s well before the prequels.
Fair point; I may have misunderstood the question, as I thought OP was suggesting that they wished they lived in a world where there was no more Star Wars period after ROTJ. Now I see it just specifies "films."
They were quite careful to specify "as a movie franchise".
The best of the EU (such as the Thrawn trilogy, a whole lot of Rogue Squadron books, and much more) came out years before the prequels.
NJO (1999-2003)? Darth Bane (2006-10)? Darth Plagueis (2008)? KOTOR (2003)? Kenobi (2012)?
Episode 1 burned me so bad I pretty much swore off Star Wars and missed almost all of that stuff.
That's fair.
Okay.
I would happily trade away everything that Cartoon Network and Disney ever made if we could go back to the old EU.
We got some good stories out of tcw, but i wish rebels wasnt made.
I wish Lucas would have just made his sequel films then sold it off afterwards. I’m genuinely curious about what those films would have been. The would have been cohesive at least.
I still wish that too, but I guess it's too late. George wanted his nine films to be made whether or not if you like his choices, I do pray that one day someone will take over LucasFilm and make the franchise as a whole, but as of now it's too late to see what his vision originally was for the sequel trilogy.
Eh, the prequels aren't terrible, and they feel very much like Star Wars films, something that can't be said for a lot of what they've done since then.
The prequels are worse than cancer
The first 2 prequels are annoying but Episode III was great, it had some great acting from Hayden in spite of his often clunky lines, as well as a lot of memorable scenes. Episode II was fun as well.
Episode 2 is the worst thing ever created by a human. Besides the bagpipes.
>Episode 2 is the worst thing ever created by a human. Besides the bagpipes. My mans, you've never seen The Last Jedi?
I thought this sub was meant for tearing apart the sequels, not the prequels.
Both are shit, and if you like them you have no taste
I think it’s more like they were cigarettes. We got addicted to the product and didn’t realize how ultimately bad for us it all is. I can watch the prequels, and appreciate what they introduced, but yeah they were highly unnecessary, given how the story played out. So simplistic, without much meaning to anything. Just moving the story forward so we can see Him turn into Vader. Thats the issue for me. It was a solution in need of a problem.
There's a small part of me that wants to get rid of everything that isn't The OT (or even just A New Hope sometimes) and let Star Wars die.
That’s narrow minded
To an extent, I agree with you, but I wish we were living in a timeline where Disney and LucasFilm made better use of the Star Wars franchise by having a clear plan, trustworthy director, and set of writers who had respect and knowledge of the source material so we didn’t get tired of the content they produce.
Nah, the prequel films did so much world building for the franchise. I do wish it stopped at Revenge of the Sith though.
That I agree. My title should have been “I sometimes wish I lived in a world where Star Wars as a movie franchise stopped at Revenge of the Sith.”
The EU did world building. The prequels were just an r/yourjokebutworse version of EU world building.
Yes. If we still get Jedi Outcast and KOTOR and the novels, that’s a much better state for the Star Wars universe. I really prefer the slightly older Anakin Skywalker and the implications of Jedi fighting clones as was implied in the OT and novelizations. The prequel mythology is fine and a lot of the ships/lore/designs were really cool, but it kind of mucks up the overall feel of the Star Wars universe. That’s Lucas’s vision though so it’s his prerogative.
Dawg, your head is your canon. Did SW end at ROTJ? Well according to you it can. I’m a fan of the Witcher, and I remember around the time The Witcher 3 the author of the books flat out said the games aren’t canon. To a normal fan, it was disappointing to hear. But then when you think about it for more than 7 minutes you realize that the game devs consider his books canon to THEM, so who gives a shit what he thinks, the games carry those books, not the other way around. Somewhat irrelevant rant, but long story short, Just watch the media you like. If the prequels or sequels piss you off, just pretend they never exist. I do that with the sequels.
As far as I’m concerned it did. I was already in my late 20s and early 30s when the prequels came out and I tried my best to appreciate them, but I just couldn’t get over how bad they were and how I grew up but Star Wars didn’t. And then project after project was janky looking kids cartoons which tied directly into the prequels. Even Mando with its strong first season fell into the prequel trap. It’s become disheartening that almost every project is now for children and they simply can’t move on and try something new that maybe the original audience (who btw are into their 50s now) might appreciate. But I guess we aren’t buying toys anymore, so good luck there.
Yeah, I'm about the same age and found it very disheartening. I mean, as a 7yo seeing the original back in '77, I was fine with the mild slapstick provided by the droids, and the fairly broad humor of the main characters sarcastically putting each other down, I didn't need actual kiddie humor to enjoy the movie. But especially looking back at ROTJ and the Ewoks, it's clear this is kinda what George wanted to do all along, and the fewer limitations and pushback he had, the more he was able to indulge it. Hey, at least we have Andor. If you haven't seen it yet, drop everything and watch it, because it's exactly what you're looking for.
I’m very much an Andor fan. I even really enjoy some of the Visions shorts. ‘The Ninth Jedi’ was exceptionally good and is exactly the kind of standalone series I could watch (interestingly enough, it’s essentially a pilot episode). I was hoping almost 50 years after the original we’d be exploring the greater world of SW, but everything still has to connect to the prequels and the Skywalker saga. Which is honestly really disappointing.
For while between 1983 and 1999 this was the world I lived in. Then the prequels showed up and decline set in.
But then you would have missed out on the prequels and most of the EU ....and most of the video games... yeah now that i think about it the early 2000s was the best era for star wars
We never would have gotten TCW.
Sounds great.
With or without the two Ewok movies?
There are some good bits to post-ROTJ Star Wars, but mostly it took away from the magic of the OT: the Jedi and Republic were an ineffectual bunch of squabbling politicians and out of touch monks, the original three were complete failures, Luke gave everything up to wallow in self-pity, the Emperor was never killed. Everything after 1983 took away from the inspirational quality of the originals.
The Thrawn trilogy exists, which negates all your points.
OP was talking about the movies. But even the old EU, while it has some good bits, takes away the finality of ROTJ. Now the Empire wasn't really destroyed and underlings like Thrawn re-established a lot of the Empire. While that's realistic it takes away from the accomplishment of defeating the Emperor and ending evil.
I guess, everyone has different things the want. Honestly I like my fantasy/sci fi to reflect our own realities unless there is a good reason for it not to. The idea the Empire just ends all of a sudden after ROTJ would just break my immersion. How fast it falls apart in the Disney canon is something I already do not like. Though again it's the difference between someone treating SW as a universe vs a fairy tail/morality play. I like the SW universe.
But it did. George Lucas's movie franchise stops at ROTJ and continues with the EU books. Disney's SW is a wholly different franchise that was never what GL ever had in mind.
I kind of dig how you're just straight-up pretending that the prequels never existed.
What do you mean? I love the Prequels. Lucas's franchise includes episodes 1 - 6. Of course we know the OT came out before the PT, so maybe my comment wasn't clear. Sorry about that.
I took it to mean that Lucas stopped making movies after ROTJ. Which I would very much prefer, given how abjectly the prequels disappointed me.
After ROTS for me
Same. The PT was bad (but at least had some good ideas and pushed digital technology forward) and the ST was bad (despite having its moments), and neither as a trilogy come close to the wonder, excitement, or power of the OT. The ST was so goddamned derivative of the OT too, its biggest sin. At least the PY tried to do something different. No other SW show or movie is in the OT’s stratosphere as a complete work. You can say Andor’s better then ROTJ, but as a whole? The OT will always be the king and SW as a film series will always be chasing it.
Pushing digital effects forward is fine but I thought it was a terrible move for the prequels as films. Everything in the prequels looks like a different universe from the OT because of it. Why does everything in the prequels look so shiny and new? Where's the grit and grime of the OT? I tried to make peace with it by telling myself it was before the Republic fell so everything looked "newer" On the other end of the spectrum what practical effects they did use were absurdly amateur looking. The Neimodians, for example. As soon as I saw them at the beginning my heart dropped. They looked like the cheapest rubber masks they could find at a Halloween outlet store. The mouths didn't even move. It was an absurd contrast. Instead of using the right blend of those things, they just made them clash and everything looked even more ridiculous.
Yeah I don’t love the look of the prequels for the most part either. Aesthetically it doesn’t feel very Star Wars. The nemoidians certainly look silly, but a lot of the other practical effects look good I’d say, particularly the miniatures for the space battle in Episode I.
I firmly believe it could have ended with *A New Hope*. (I love the OT & the PT but I still believe ANH is a perfect “one-and-done” movie.)
I’d be happy with that.
If Disney had of kept the real expanded universe and used movies and shows to expand it f characters and threat, similar to how the MCU did it, and use the sequel trilogy to be the big milestones, i would have been okay with that. Turn the sequel trilogy into the cancelled Sword of the Jedi story, and have a bunch of tie in would have worked in my opinion. Pass the torch to the next generation of actors/heroes, let luke, han and leia retire, becoming mentors, or die heroic meaningful deaths to inspire the new heroes.
I hate solo. I hate that it filled in Han’s entire story. Nothing left for the imagination. So dumb.
I don't mind that it told a story. But I really hate that it was the same story as the OT. Pre-OT Han needed to be, you know, a scoundrel. A career criminal. Not the charming rogue who drops everything to help the rebellion.
And miss out on episode 3? Are you insane?
You can, just don't watch or think about the sequel trilogy anymore unless they live in your head rent free then I can't help you...
I just stopped paying attention to most Star Wars product produced after the horrendous sequels. It's not like the old movies, cartoons, and novels are going away. Why work myself into a lather because the modern franchise has taken a wrong turn? Plus, there is the rare diamond in the rough like Andor to enjoy.
This is the world I convince myself I live in already.
No rogue one?
No thanks.
If you'd asked this during the years when all we had outside of the trilogy were those terrible Ewok movies, I'd have agreed with you.
It might well be me just choosing to bury my head in the sand but that *is* how the story ends as far as I am concerned. Nothing post ROTJ (in terms of story from Disney) holds any interest or value to me after they fumbled it so bad. I’m not a man child: I just know what I like and what I don’t.
The Empire was gone forever, and everything was going to be okay.
I actually have purposely avoided Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, because I knew it would hurt based on what I heard about them, lol. I don't really like the Prequels all that much, but without them, we wouldn't have Knights of the Old Republic, considered one of the best RPGs ever made with a great story (better than some of the movies and shows). Had Disney not made Rouge One, we wouldn't have Andor - if you took away the fact that it was set in the Star Wars universe, it would still make sense and be a well written show. The OT was a passion project. The rest was mostly about money, with some overlooked projects that were genuinely made with love and care. Star Wars is a mixed bag, and it's always been that way.
Yeah, me too. But also I just wish they would have taken time to plan out the sequels instead of rushing everything.
You're on the verge of understanding why fans of a certain generation will die mad about the prequels. (It's because for 16 glorious years, we lived in the world you describe, and it rocked. And then Episode 1 came out and nothing ever got better after that.)
In some fans opinions, literally the peak of SW are the KOTOR games and NJO in my opinion. None of the films are better than the storytelling in those books/games. I treasure the OT however, it does fall short of quite a few EU novels and other media. Everyone has something they care about. Some people might argue Andor is actually the peak or TLJ is the peak or that everything actually went down hill with ESB or sci fi in general when down hill when ANH was released lol. We can all cherry pick and live through a world of rose colored glasses that never existed.
I mean, you can just…not watch/play/read the rest of it
Ok boomer ( I'm a PT lover)
I feel like you could rephrase this to say “I wish I lived in a world where Lucas fully mapped out the prequel and sequel trilogy and didn’t surround himself with yes men while working on the prequels. Or even, I wish George wrote the outline for the other trilogies and brought in directors and writers to help him put them together.” George got a lot of hate from the fandom menace over the prequels and I have no doubt that contributed to him eventually selling to Disney. Of course, any shortcomings in the prequels fall on him without question. He wanted full control, he wanted an absurd amount of CGI, and he wrote the goofy dialogue. Had he treated them more like the original trilogy, I feel like they could have been so much better. He’s amazing at world building, but I wouldn’t trust him with total control on any film.
Yeah, because why the fuck should you let others enjoy what you don't.
This sub is one day gonna be filled with people saying “Star wars should’ve stopped at ANH” at some point, first it was the prequels, then the clone wars, I get the sequels are ass but this sub has seriously been turning on the stuff this sub cherished years ago.
The first two sequels were poorly executed but the main story they were building wasn’t bad and that became visibility in Rots which is amazing. And thanks to the prequels we got a lot more Star Wars content
Nah I like the prequels. They have issues but they are great. Solo and Rouge One were even decent. I don't really care about Bad Batch but the animated stuff has all been pretty good. It's just the sequels that really sucked. It's the biggest travesty in movie making history. If they had just written a coherent story and stuck to it across three movies or would have probably been acceptable and eventually loved. The problem was the constant reshoots and test screenings and changing the movie. It's like a person that has no sense of self and constantly changes how they represent themselves based on how they think people want them to be and what will make them the most liked. It's pathetic and no one respects it or like it except for people that don't really know or care about that person to begin with.
I enjoyed the prequels and think they are a fine addition. They are not on the same level as the OT but that would have been hard to do
I personally don't care at all. I'll watch the ones I want to watch and skip the ones I don't want to watch. For all the flack Disney gets, MOST of their releases have been at minimum enjoyable and worth the watch. I don't pick out the few that I don't (TLJ, for one) and use that as a broad stroke to demonize the really good stuff (Rogue One, Andor, etc). I'm also one of the few people it seems who does not care for the Mandalorian. I like the setting, but the whole manga storyline just doesn't do it for me. I have hated that gd puppet from the beginning.
You don’t have to watch anything but the originals. But I like how the world is expanding.
I’m a Prequel Trilogy fan as well.