Few movies are as divisive as George Lucas’ Star Wars prequel trilogy: The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). In fact, there’s probably not a movie trilogy in history that’s received as much criticism as this one…well, maybe the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
But as the kids who watched the prequels when they were little grow up, we’ve seen them get a bit of a rehabilitation in recent years. And now, The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson — himself someone who directed a Star Wars movie that bitterly divides people has stepped up to defend them.
The main purpose of the prequel trilogy was to give fans a look at how Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) became the iconic villain Darth Vader. A lot of fans didn’t think it was successful at that, but Johnson feels otherwise:
Lucas made a gorgeous 7 hour long movie for children about how entitlement and fear of loss turns good people into fascists, and did it while spearheading nearly every technical sea change in modern filmmaking of the past 30 years.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 29, 2020
Johnson definitely has a point when it comes to Lucas “spearheading nearly every technical sea change in modern filmmaking of the past 30 years.” The prequels feature a lot of CGI sets that, while they may not completely hold up today, laid the groundwork for future movies. And then there are the lightsaber duels, particularly the one with Darth Maul, which I think holds up much better than the ones from the original trilogy.
He also points out that the movies were specifically aimed at children. That point gets raised a lot when talking about the movie’s shortcomings. Talking to StarWars.com last year, George Lucas said that it was the decision to aim the prequels at children that accounted for their rocky reception:
"The films were designed for 12-year-olds. I said that right from the very, very beginning and the very first interviews I did for A New Hope. It’s just that they were so popular with everybody, that everybody forgot that. Then when I came back to do Phantom Menace, it was 20 years later. So if you were 10 years old when you saw A New Hope, you would be 30 years old when you saw Phantom Menace. So you weren’t a kid anymore. I think you were kind of embarrassed, and what you thought was a really fantastic movie for a 12-year-old wasn’t that great for a grownup. I think that was the main cause of the fall of Episodes I, II, and III. Believe me, it took a beating."
It wasn’t only Rian Johnson who had nice things to say about the prequel trilogy. Thousands of other fans had their say, too:
They're better than the original trilogy. Anakin's turn to the dark side was much more interesting than the black-and-white morality of the original trilogy.
— Marko Attila Hoare (@markoah) June 27, 2020
1. Ewan McGregor put every ounce of his heart into it and that's amazing
— Elle Has Cats (and ADHD) (@ellle_em) June 29, 2020
2. The costume designs were awesome
3. as a political allegory it actually holds up
All things considered, I actually enjoyed the prequel trilogy for what it was. It wasn’t perfect, but Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader was very interesting to watch unfold.
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