{"id":3914,"date":"2013-12-13T00:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T05:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=3914"},"modified":"2013-12-12T20:04:21","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T01:04:21","slug":"star-wars-prequels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/star-wars-prequels\/","title":{"rendered":"The Star Wars Prequels Are Better Than You Think They Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nThe Star Wars prequels<\/a> a<\/span><\/b>re widely regarded as the worst additions to a beloved franchise of all time. Red Letter Media’s <\/span><\/b>feature-length eviscerations of each film<\/span><\/a> are some of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, but I don’t agree with the central argument. I regularly sit down and watch all six movies, and you know what? The prequels are the best part of the experience every time.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Here’s why.
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Episode I : The Phantom Menace<\/a> (1999) | Dir. George Lucas | 136 min.<\/b><\/p>\n

I’ve heard many people say Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) wasn’t a very good Jedi, and therefore, was poorly written. But that’s far too original series-centric a complaint, and a bad disguise for the real one, or ‘he wasn’t how I wanted a Jedi to be’.<\/p>\n

Qui-Gon is a wonderful character precisely because<\/i> he isn’t a good Jedi. The guy acts like a real, practical person, doing all sorts of underhanded things to ensure the outcome he wants. He mind-controls the chief of an indigenous tribal people to get a ship, fixes bets by using the force, attempts to mind-control a droid (before realising it doesn’t work on them and then just killing it), and even taunts the disguised queen of the Naboo with her true identity right to her face. When she finally reveals herself, everyone looks astonished, but the guy can barely keep from laughing right at her. Look at his reaction in that screenshot. He knew. He knew.<\/i><\/p>\n

This even explains what many people call \u2018bad acting\u2019 by both of the Queen characters in the movie. They’re pretending <\/i>to be different people from who they really are, and doing such a bad job that Qui-Gon <\/i>sees right through it. I’m not one to excuse bad acting, but in the context of the story being told, it fits perfectly.<\/p>\n

And remember Jar-Jar? That character nobody liked? Qui-Gon hated him too, at one point even knocking him out with the force just to get him to shut up. When this happens, his apprentice Obi-Wan, a stereotypical Jedi (which is a negative<\/i> quality in the prequels) says \u201cYou overdid it\u201d. He totally didn’t. It was intentional. Qui-Gon Jinn is a loose cannon Jedi who doesn’t play by the rules, and not only does the Jedi Order visibly hate him for it, somehow most of the audience does too. They\u2019re wrong. He\u2019s the man.<\/p>\n

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Episode II: Attack of the Clones<\/a> (2002) | Dir. George Lucas | 142 min.<\/b><\/p>\n

Attack of the Clones’ biggest flaw is that there’s no Qui-Gon running around getting things done. However, that’s also its biggest strength\u2014it highlights just how useless the Jedi are as an organisation, and how much they really needed people like him. Again, people criticise this movie because they think the Jedi are poorly-written, but the entire point of the story is that they’re simply really bad at their jobs.<\/p>\n

Anakin Skywalker has become a childish, power-hungry mess, as a result of being poorly taught by Obi-Wan, who was only ever training him at all out of respect for his own master’s wishes\u2014if you recall from The Phantom Menace, he hated the kid. Does Obi-Wan feel any guilt or personal responsibility over this? No, he blames Anakin, despite being the man who effectively raised him. Obi-Wan, and the rest of the Jedi, see themselves as infallible. The only time a Jedi comes to any sort of awareness of their own idiocy is when Yoda offhandedly mentions that he has noticed an increasing amount of arrogance in the order, among even the most senior members. He’s right, and he’s one of them.<\/p>\n

The closest we get to a Qui-Gon character is Count Dooku, the man who trained him. He’s the movie’s main antagonist\u2014that is, if you believe what the Jedi tell you. In his two main scenes in the film, he makes it clear that he is trying to find and destroy the Sith lord himself, and appears genuinely hurt when Obi-Wan accuses him of just being evil. When told the Jedi he has at gunpoint will never surrender, even if it means their death, he once again looks like he’s about to cry, and apologises for it.<\/p>\n

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Episode III – Revenge of the Sith<\/a> (2005) | Dir. George Lucas | 140 min.<\/b><\/p>\n

In the above image, Mace Windu is yelling \u201cThe oppression of the Sith will never return!\u201d as he is preparing to dice a democratically-elected official with his lightsaber. If the other two movies weren’t blatant enough for you about the ridiculous and essentially morally corrupt nature of the entire Jedi organisation, this image alone hammers it home brilliantly.<\/p>\n

Upon discovering the Chancellor of the Republic is actually a Sith Lord, Windu and a cadre of others immediately try to murder him in his chamber. Does this sound like a peaceful order of enlightened monks to you? The ideology of the Jedi is so closed-minded that, even as they claim to be the protectors of peace and justice, they will happily cut down anyone who they see as ‘the bad guys’ without question\u2014all the while spouting such hypocritical rhetoric as \u201cOnly a Sith deals in absolutes\u201d. If they had attempted to simply arrest him, in public, surrounded by onlookers, the Empire, and the Original Trilogy, would never have happened. Instead, they did exactly what Palpatine needed them to do\u2014attack him in the most underhanded way possible, so that he would then be justified in giving the order to exterminate them.<\/p>\n

Anakin’s final action before officially becoming Darth Vader\u2014cutting off Windu’s hand to stop him from committing what is essentially a military coup\u2014may seem harsh, but it makes sense. The Jedi have gone off the rails. Even Yoda tries to pull a Windu. Isn\u2019t he supposed to be the wisest one?<\/p>\n

What makes Yoda\u2019s failed assassination attempt particularly interesting is how it contrasts with his character in the original series. Yoda has certainly grown wiser from his years of exile, but in Episode VI, it always struck me as bizarre how obsessed he and Obi-Wan’s ghost were with convincing Luke to kill his own father, which didn’t suit their ostensibly \u2018enlightened\u2019 characters. With the context of the prequels, now it makes perfect sense\u2014the Jedi are closed-minded idiots, and even their smartest surviving members are fallible, and have a massive personal stake in the end of the Empire.<\/p>\n

Many have criticized the prophecy applied to Anakin throughout the prequels (of \u2018bringing balance’ to the force) as being nonsensical, but it has a far more interesting meaning than how the Jedi interpret it for themselves (balance through destroying the Sith). Anakin facilitates the destruction of all<\/i> sides of the conflict, and thereby ends it. By killing the emperor and himself\u2014the last remnants of the false Jedi-Sith dichotomy\u2014he finally wipes the board clear. Now that’s what I call balance.<\/p>\n

This is the real reason why I think people didn’t like the prequels\u2014because they had the gall to portray the Jedi not as the infallible order that the Obi-Wan of the original saga said they were, but as a rigid and brittle, self-serving, organised religion. It might be less optimistic to show that being a Jedi isn’t the be-all, end-all solution to the problems of the Universe, but I think I like it better that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"jinn\"
\n

\nThe Star Wars prequels<\/a> a<\/span><\/b>re widely regarded as the worst additions to a beloved franchise of all time. Red Letter Media’s <\/span><\/b>feature-length eviscerations of each film<\/span><\/a> are some of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, but I don’t agree with the central argument. I regularly sit down and watch all six movies, and you know what? The prequels are the best part of the experience every time.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Here’s why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,3268],"tags":[3349,3350,3355,2029,3354,3353,3346,3319,3352,104,185,3344,3345,3348,3347,3351],"class_list":["post-3914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-harrys-essays","tag-attack-of-the-clones","tag-attack-of-the-clones-review","tag-count-dooku","tag-harry-brewis","tag-liam-neeson","tag-qui-gon-jinn","tag-red-letter-media","tag-revenge-of-the-sith","tag-revenge-of-the-sith-review","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm","tag-star-wars-prequels","tag-star-wars-prequels-good","tag-the-phantom-menace","tag-the-phantom-menace-review","tag-the-revenge-of-the-sith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3914"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3923,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions\/3923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}