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Comment by glitchc | Hacker News Reader

> Then the prequels come and it's very obvious he had unlimited budget and creative control, and the result just simply was not even close to good, or at the very least not even close to the magic of the original trilogy. Giving creators unlimited control seems to have great capacity to end very poorly.

I hear this a lot, but the prequel plots had a great deal more politics, intrigue and a bevy of nuanced characters. The originals were pretty black and white in comparison. I think the prequel plots have aged better.

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The prequels are truly awful. Some people (not me) say there's no accounting for taste but liking the prequels is as close as you can get to an objectively wrong opinion about art.

The best thing you can say about the prequels is that they're ambitious. Lucas wasn't content to repeat himself. But the acting, characters, and script are all complete failures.

The first Star Wars movie is indeed an example of "compromised visions are superior". The movie was famously saved in editing by George Lucas' then wife. Lucas didn't even direct the second and third movies, he handed them off to more capable filmmakers.

Thanks for pointing this out! I oft like to quip that george lucas’s successes are often attributed to the people around him that stopped him from his worst impulses.

Sure but at some point in time Lucas also allowed those people to correct him on his mistakes.

Once a movie's defence involves it having "politics" that is a bad sign - even a 3-hour movie isn't really long enough to give politics a treatment that is interesting; the storytelling is too turgid. Game of Thrones seasons 1-3 had politics, intrigue and a bevy of nuanced characters and showcased why something like the Star Wars prequels didn't really work. A good political story needs to be long and gritty and requires an inspired writer with a deep grasp of social dynamics (Lucas fell down here pretty hard - if he had a better grasp of his own limitations he wouldn't have attempted to tell a political story).

And the politics of the prequel was uncomfortably black and white. "There is Good v. Evil and Evil Won At Politics!" is an approach with a frustratingly low-functioning level of emotional intelligence; that just isn't how interesting politics works. Part of what made GoT such a sensation was political storylines were done properly.

> even a 3-hour movie isn't really long enough to give politics a treatment that is interesting; the storytelling is too turgid

I think Oppenheimer did pretty well on that. Better than I would have expected if someone had described it before I had seen it.

Probably the best political movie of all time is Z. It's 2 hours and not very nuanced.

Did you get Mandela Effected here from an alternate universe where the movies described in the "What If the Prequel Trilogy Was Good?" videos actually got made?

Sorry, they just aren't. There are numerous breakdowns going into great detail why the plot is nonsensical and silly. This isn't even addressing the acting, which at times is so horrible it's laugh out loud funny (reportedly lucas only allowed actors to do single takes, although I'm not sure if that's ever been confirmed). From a cinematography standpoint, it's also kind of a mess, especially when you break down the absurd amount of shit he crams into nearly every single shot of the film.

The only reason they have appeared to have aged well is because they filled in a lot of the silliness and nonsense with quality content from other sources such as clone wars (which ended up being good) and comics, etc. to fill in the gaps.

It also helps them age a lot when you compare them to the latest trilogy, which I'm sure I don't even need to elaborate why that is.

For the record I still occasionally watch the prequels now, but when they came out, they were very poorly received and for good reason.

A few generations have grown up with them now, which greatly elevates their status. It's not that unlike the original trilogy in that way. I can think of any number of films that I liked as a child, some hold up better than others, but even the ones that don't, the early impression creates a lasting fondness that is stronger than many of the flaws which more mature first-time viewers might not be able to look past.

I think quite a lot comes from teenage nostalgia from whichever era you are from. The original trilogy is not actually all that good, but some people still talk about it as if those movies are the epitome of moviemaking. I think it has a lot to do with the circumstances that people first saw them in. The prequels are also not fantastic movies, but as the people who saw them in cinemas as children grew up they came to be loved more and more. It's not so much the movies themselves that are liked, but the associated memories.

I wonder if in ~10 years we'll have a new batch of people who like the latest trilogy. First ironically as they get through their edgy teenage phase, then unironically as they grow up further and point out some great scenes from between the (admittedly many) terrible ones.

The very first Star Wars ("A new hope") is fairly basic in plot, but with very good moments and no mistake.

The next two, especially the empire strikes back, are really good in their own right in terms of film-making artistry. They have the right tone, rhythm, imagery, scenography.

The rest, though, is catastrophically bad.

Rogue One is good.

Interesting it doesn't fit into any trilogy.

The best theatrical release since the original trilogy, IMO. I think part of it is because of how much gravity it imparts to the beginning of Episode IV. (And the other part is how objectively bad the prequel and sequel trilogies were.)

Ho, yes, forgot about it! Excellent visuals save some plot gaps.

Andor is also very, very good.

I honestly got bored with Rogue One. All standard plot points, nothing new, plus you know how it ends. I fell asleep midway through. Once you know the ending, the plot needs to have some twists and turns to stay relevant and interesting. One rogue scientist having the detailed design for the entire Death Star is a ludicrous premise. That thing's as big as a planet. Heck, no single scientist could tell you the detailed architecture for CERN or even the ISS for that matter, and those are significantly smaller in scale.

Then there should be many millennials who love the prequels but sadly I know of zero.

I like them, they’re better than most movies and pioneered digital cinematography. The sequels have less going for them due to their inherently contradictory nature from Disney’s mercurial production demands

I seem to have that reaction watching the originals. It's like watching a mix between a western and a soap opera, but set in space. Maybe it's because I watched the prequels first, then the originals.

At least we both agree that the Clone Wars (and associated material) is good.

Oh, all of the stuff on the franchise that is actually that good are series.

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