Kriss Kross's Star Wars Blog Bothers Me.

As some one who has Star Wars in his blood (or at least on my skin for life) I ask you to please not try to defend the series. "Jenga Fett" was my first reason to dislike your diatribe that is both four years out of date an unnecessary. Jenga being a great party game (especially when you have a couple beers tucked away) and Jango being the father of Boba. From here I'll just pick apart your blog with my reaction as one of the most die hard Star Wars freaks in the nation.

5) The Action,
The action doesn't matter all that much and yes we got to see quite a bit of it in the Star Wars prequels. But for continuity's sake it was all over the place. You take the one on one light saber fights from Episode 1-3 and look at them in comparison to the light-saber fights in 4-6. They're completely different. There's a reason for this, the main one being the Jedi in 1-3 are trained since birth (or at least since childhood) to battle with light sabers. Meanwhile the only people that handle them in 4-6 are Obi-Wan who's an old man and loses the battle, Darth Vader who is an old man and broken down, and Luke who starts training around 18, and not any one on one type of fighting. This means the two fight styles are completely different. I get the change, but at the same time, while the fights in 1-3 are more energized and insane looking, the fights in 4-6 are always more powerful. You have Obi-Wan meeting his student for the first time in about twenty years and it's like two old gun slingers having a show down. It was powerful and Obi-Wan's death really truly meant something. Then you have Luke's battle with his father in Empire. It's a powerful fight because Luke is trying to save his friends and there's a powerful piece of emotional content at the end of the fight when Luke loses and basically decides to kill himself rather than work with his father, who he HATES. Then you have the fight between Darth Vader and Luke in Return. It's easily the most powerful of all the fights in all the films. Luke isn't just fighting to save his own life, but also to redeem his father and save his soul, what's left of it anyway. Meanwhile Satan incarnate is egging them on to kill each other simply so that he may have a stronger, newer bodyguard at his side. There is emotion behind every single light saber fight in the original trilogy. You can't really say that about the prequels except for the final battle in Episode III, which is so poorly acted that you almost don't care and just want to see the inevitable happen.

If you look at the rest of the war based combat you have a serious ramp up in style that is never matched, but often copied from film to film. Episodes 4 and 1 both have a large space battle at the end with a skywalker taking out some kind of spherical base ship. The difference? Luke isn't an annoying whiny brat like his father was. "This is Podracing!" need I say more?

The middle of episodes 5 and 2 both have a middle battle or chase through asteroids. Han's and Leia are chased through an asteroid field by overwhelming odds (Threepio will tell you that) and some how make it out alive, tracked down by Boba during their final escape. Jango and Boba are chased down by Obi-Wan in a cool, but otherwise meaningless asteroid battle where sound is used beautiful, but it lacks the amazing and emotional score of the asteroid sequences from Empire.

Episodes 6 and 3 both have large space combat, but they're at opposite ends of the films, and while Episode III's space combat looks great, there's nothing on the line during it. You know they're not killing of Anakin or Obi-Wan in this film, much less in the first 10 minutes, and then it's followed up with awkward pacing.

4) The Villains,
Jango Fett does NOT make up for Boba Fett's quick and pointless death. Darth Maul is awesome, but sadly he's completely underplayed. He could have lasted the entire series. He can take on two jedi, but can't escape? Seems unlikely to me. He outmatched both of these Jedi and loses to the worst most anti-climactic death ever.

General Grevious is awesome, but only for 5 minutes on a TV show that came out before the film. The Clone Wars mini-series showed Grevious as an amazing tactician and combatant taking out several Jedi instantly without even trying. Then the big budget movie comes along and he's barely in it, completely useless and has almost no skill. His spinning lightsabers don't even look cool! What happened to holding three sabers? Two in your hands and one in your foot?! They didn't know how to choreograph that with people so they didn't bother! A cartoon with almost no budget should never over shadow a 200 million dollar film.

Count Dooku is well acted, but there's no reason for his character to even exist when it could have been the much cooler and more mysterious Darth Maul. The fact they had to shoot the action around him and use digital face replacements because Christopher Lee was too old for the role bugged me. How is this apprentice a better fighter than Maul when he can't move the way Maul did?

3) All the Actor's Except Hayden,
I'd agree that there's a great caliber of actors in the prequel trilogy, but look at the original trilogy and tell me that these no names (Hamill, Fisher and even Ford) didn't deliver much BETTER performances than the actors in the prequel. You can't!

There are plenty of good actors in the prequels but Lucas doesn't know how to direct actors and never has. He was lucky with Star Wars to have such good actors and he chose the right ones and they gave him something great. Meanwhile the prequels are filled with wooden performances from all around. I don't believe for a second that Portman was into the roles at all. I don't believe that McGregor was either. Watch Episode II again and wait for Ewan McGregor's moment with Hayden in the elevator on the way to Natalie Portman's room. It's TERRIBLE. Some of the most cringy acting I've ever seen. Ewan gives an awful fake laugh, Hayden whines the whole time, and neither of them sound like they care. Then Portman doesn't sound like she cares, and then there's that awful chase through the sky when they finally get the shape shifter McGregor tries to sound all authoritative by saying "Jedi business" so they looky loos will leave them alone and he just sounds bored! Samuel L Jackson is WAY too over the top. Fact of the matter is most of the actor's are, or they looked bored

2) The Weaving Into the Original Mythology
I didn't see Midclorians as being woven into anything. I thought it was a lame answer to a question none of us ever had. But I don't see what kind of point you're even trying to make here. More important that weaving the mythologies together (dont' see how they're apart at all) is continuity in story telling.

My biggest gripe is that George Lucas wrote the prequels as if you had already seen the trilogy. Many moments happen that reveal much bigger surprises much later in the series. Take a look at Padme's birthing scene. Why did they show that there were twins? Why did they name them both? This completely removes any surprise or emotion in 5 when Yoda says "No... there is another" and when Luke comes to a realization that Leia is his sister. If these are meant to be the big shocking and emotional moments in the series why would you throw them away when you're writing a prequel? This is just one example of why George Lucas is a terrible writer. His foundations are usually pretty good, but without some one like Lawrence Kasdan helping him out he's just shit.

If you want to talk about transferring from one series to the next this only happens style wise in the last film of the prequels. Only in episode III do things star to sort of look like they did in Episodes 4-6. If you try to visually compare episodes 1 and 2 to the other 4 star Wars films you'd be hard pressed to find many similarities when it comes to ship design and costumes. There are entire species that seemingly disappear between the two series. Stuff like that is not weaving things together very well.

1) Episode III,
It's good. I like it. But like I've show already, there are many moments in it that just stink. Much of it is simply eye candy and there aren't very many truly emotional moments because of the wooden acting from everyone. The performance of Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor is AWFUL. The faces he makes, the twisting he does through the air. It's all awful. I do enjoy the fight between him and Yoda, but why Yoda lost that is beyond me.

Lack of Jar Jar is the reason you enjoyed it? Well that goes to show why the prequels suck. Your defense of episode III is that a character from the other two films isn't in it. There was no reason for Jar Jar to exist at all, but he does. I don't even mind his species... there's no reason he couldn't have been like Chewie or even Captain Tarpals who arrests them when they get to Gunga-City. He could have been kicked out for an awesome reason, but instead it's cuz he's clumsy.

Episode III's editing is also all over the place and it's pacing is way off. Ben Burtt is not a very good editor and doesn't understand pacing very well. This is why many of his Young Indiana Jones series edits are very slow and boring. Moments of dialog end horribly with a strange musical swell that doesn't belong and of course some kind of wipe edit. OH the wipe edit and how it's used entirely too much in Episode III, to a point where it's even distracting. Every edit in the Star Wars series from one scene to another is a wipe! But in Episode III it's like they went WIPE CRAZY!


The Star Wars prequels suck... They're full of flaws that people excuse them for only because they're the Star Wars prequels. They don't feel like Star Wars at all most of the time.









That being said I did this simply as an exercise in my debate skills. I LOVE Star Wars. I still think the prequel trilogy is heavily flawed and I like to see people defend it, but i prefer they do a good job.